President & Chief Executive Officer of Real Estate Brokerage Howard Hanna Real Estate Services
HELEN HANNA CASEY Helen Hanna Casey details her life as a leading woman in business, from her dedication to her family, agents and employees to producing Broadway plays. She chronicles the process of growing a business and delineates what to do, and what not to do, as the member of a family business and a woman entrepreneur.
NAWRB: What does family mean to you and what is your advice to entrepreneurs thinking of going into business with their families?
that can take over. If I were going into a family business today, I’d be very careful to note what my role was going to be, what the expectations for me were, and what the long-term plan for me was going to be. If I have ownership, what does that mean to me? If the plan is that I’m going to start at one level in the company, how quickly do I rise or not? Do I have to succeed on my own? I think these all need to be defined clearly beforehand. And in many cases, they’re not.
Helen Hanna Casey: Well, in my case, family means everything. I don’t know anything else except family businesses. It’s been an incredible opportunity as a family to grow together, but also to grow as an individual. So family means everything, first of all. In business, I think why so many families struggle—even though People decide they’re going into there are all these courses and a family business with the exbooks for it—is that they fail in pectation that they’ll be a senior some of the key aspects. Those person. That may work in that key elements are integration and family business if everybody is in separation. What I mean is this: agreement, but it may not work in you have to separate yourself many others and you may begin from the business, but you also seeing squabbling between genalways have to be integrated into erations. I’ve always felt that my it. You cannot be outside of your sister and I had a great advantage Helen and Steve with daughter Annie’s family and business talking to others about in the family business, and that is 95-year-old father, Howard W. Hanna, Jr. the inside of your business withbecause we are two women with out your family being involved. It’s not like having a one brother and we have an incredible balance that not job where somebody else is your boss. When you’re in all businesses have. In the real estate industry, most of a business with your family, everything always has to be the second- and third-generation businesses with sisters relayed from the inside with your family in mind. that we know have already been bought out. The next part of it is communication, which is a huge reason I think so many entrepreneurs fail in the second and third generations of family businesses; they don’t communicate their expectations to each other. Either the original owner is so powerful that they can’t give up power, or they’re not developing the people around them to create new entities within that same business model
I think you have to have growth for individuals. If you want money to come in, it is really tough to keep the business the same. One of your goals has to be that you want your company and employees to expand and grow. In our case, it has been to go to other states and enable people to move there. But you can’t just bring four people in to do the job you’ve done yourself. You have to NAWRB MAGAZINE |
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