Family Business Advisor

FAMILY BUSINESS ADVISOR
Don Schwerzler
Top Family Business Expert

Family business advisor Don Schwerzler has been studying and advising family businesses since 1967 - more than 40 years!

"My work as a family business advisor has enabled me to be closely involved with many hundreds of family businesses, large and small, and across all industry lines," says Schwerzler.

"Over the years, the most important lesson I have learned is that every family business is unique and complex, in its own way," notes Schwerzler. "Boiler plate consulting approaches simply do not work."

In the early 80's Don Schwerzler founded the Family Business Institute, the very first multi-disciplined resource for family-owned businesses.

The thinking behind the creation of the Family Business Institute, was to innovate a service delivery program for family businesses - one that produces coordinated and synchronized solutions to family business issues.

As a family business advisior, Schwerzler found that far too many family businesses suffer what he refers to as "sequential solutions" when getting advice from the professional service providers that serve the family's business.

For instance, when a family business is operating in a crisis mode - problems in the business or problems in the family - the CPA may offer one approach based on their accounting expertise, the lawyer suggests a another approach based on their legal experience, the business consultant another approach based on their business opertions expertise and the financial planner yet another approach based on their expertise in financial planning. What the family business winds up with is "analysis paralysis"!

As a family business advisor, I could see that what was missing was a methodology for "quarterbacking" the strategic resources represented by the professional service providers", says Schwerzler.

The Family Business Institute developed a "triage" process for identifying the issues and then for prioritizing the remedial solutions.

To better serve the community of family businesses, Family Business Experts was developed to be an on-line resource for family businesses. Today it is the highest ranked, full-service family business resource on the Internet.

The web site offers tips and success strategies for family-owned businesses. One popular resource on the web site is the Family Business Help Desk.