Help the Next Generation of Drain Cleaners Find Success

An important part of business ownership is making sure someone is prepared to carry on your legacy

The older generation has to be willing to pass the baton and let it go. If you have a business you’ve spent all your life building, do you want it to stop because you get sick or die?

When people say to me, “I can’t find anyone to employ,” I tell them to realize there are many who want to be part of this industry — but most of the time, your family should be the first option. Passing the baton is about the legacy.

Having someone there to take over when your candle blows out and you’re unable to continue the business is so important. The goal is to keep that legacy alive.

You have to always be open to suggestions. You can still remain part of the business by sitting on the board of directors or being a consultant. Deciding to let go of control is a major decision and one not easy to accept. Like the saying goes: If you’re rowing a boat with one oar, you’ll go in circles. We all need help.

Change is inevitable. If you can’t change gears, you limit your options for success. Other business owners come to me all the time asking for advice when they are worried about losing their business or if they want their business to grow. Bring some fresh ideas to the table by teaching the business to the next generation.

The person you learned the business from made mistakes, and you have, too. So understand that the person who will catch that baton and take over your business is also going to make mistakes. But with your help, they will make fewer mistakes. So if someone in your family is interested, let them be part of the business. If you keep pushing them off, they will end up doing something else or working for someone else.

I also see many women who are shut out of the family business. You have to let them get informed. You can’t say she’s a part of the business if she doesn’t know your plan, the vendors or the business. At what point do you let her in? You have to be open, communicate about the business and let others help you.

Bad things happen to good people. Going out of business can happen as fast as blowing out a candle. If something happens to you, and if your wife, husband, partner, children or whoever would take over for you doesn’t know everything about your business, you are setting them up to fail.

On the other side, if you are the one left on the edges of the business, you need to connect, communicate and let that person know how important it is to feed you the information to keep the business moving in case of emergency. If they are resistant, you may need to bring in a third party to help mediate the situation.

Beginnings

At age 6, I started working with my grandfather Arthur Williams, one of Philadelphia’s first African American master plumbers. I would ride along and help him clean fittings or fetch parts. He taught me what everything was — fittings, the names of things — so later on I would be able to get things from the truck because I knew what they were. It was all about showing me the process.

I watched everything he did carefully, and he finally let me take a try with a pipe wrench. I was hooked. I also ended up learning other important things, like putting something under my knees so I wouldn’t get arthritis. My last memory of working with my grandfather was him sitting next to me on a stool because he couldn’t kneel down anymore. I had become my grandfather’s hands, because he’d given me all that knowledge.

I feel lucky to have received so much one-on-one training. My education continued at technical school. My grandfather used to pick me up in his van, wearing his railroad hat and bib overalls. He would do a job, and if he knew the customer couldn’t pay for it, he’d just say to pay him when they could. He would not leave a customer’s house if there still was a problem. It wasn’t about the money; it was about loving what he did. And that rubbed off on me.

What my grandfather did for me was pass the baton, and I want other business owners to do the same. There’s no reason to work all your life just to have no one take it over.



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