Ep #1: Why the Name Change?

Hello and welcome to The Family Business Leader Podcast, this is episode one.

Welcome to The Family Business Leader Podcast. A podcast for multigenerational family business leaders who want to become the leader they were meant to be. If you’re ready to learn how to develop your own authentic leadership style, successfully lead your family business and create your own lasting legacy while still honoring theirs this is the podcast for you. I’m your host, Ellie Frey Zagel, family business leadership coach and third-generation family business leader. Let’s get to it.

Hello my friends, my chosen family, my family business leaders, how are you today? Today I want to talk about why I changed the name of my podcast from Successful Generations to The Family Business Leader Podcast. Now, don’t worry, my company is still called Successful Generations. But I changed the name because I really wanted to focus on my clients. And my clients are all family business leaders, existing or upcoming. And I love this rising generation of family business leaders.

I am a family rising generation of a family business, although I’ve been working in the leadership for a while now. And my friends around me are also rising generations and my clients are too. So I really wanted to focus on those family business leaders, and I’ll define them in a second, who are working in the family business, or the family foundation, or on the family council. And really identifying as a leader, meaning they are in some form or fashion leading their family or others.

So I also changed the name to The Family Business Leader Podcast because Successful Generations was a bit confusing. Unless you were in the know you may as you’re searching podcasts, you may fly right on by Successful Generations because it’s a little bit confusing. I’m not exactly sure, if you see the words ‘successful generations’ you may not immediately identify as somebody who should listen to the podcast. And The Family Business Leader Podcast hopefully is very clear on who we are serving.

So how I define family business leaders, and I use family business and family enterprise fairly interchangeably. So if you’re thinking I no longer have a family business, there was a liquidity event and now I work with my family around the foundation, boardroom table, or on the family council, or in the family office, this is still the podcast for you. If you work with your family, join us. That is who I’m speaking with.

My clients tend to be in their 20s, their 30s, their 40s, early 50s, they’re either working in the family business as a President, CEO but it’s been a recent transition. Or they’re about to succeed the previous generation I would say within the next 10 years or so. The last demographic that I coach is one that has a family office attached to them. So they are thinking I have all of this, I have wealth around me, I have assets available. I can do anything that I want. I’m not exactly sure what.

And so in the work that we’ll do in this podcast we will talk about confidence, finding your own identity, authenticity, these are topics that will come up as a through thread throughout May of our episodes. So if you are in the family enterprise, if you have a family office, if you’re asking yourself the questions, how can I be a better leader, what is my purpose, this is definitely the podcast for you.

Another reason that I changed the name of the podcast is because in Successful Generations I created the podcast to really share the words and wisdom of other experts. And the reason that I was doing is because I was speaking to many of the rising generation, the next generation of family business and they’re like, “Ellie, you have access to so many resources that I just don’t have access to”, which may surprise some of you and may not others. And I’m like, “You’re right, I do have all of this amazing, amazing access to resources.”

So the Successful Generations podcast I created it to share the expertise of others. And the reason that I did that is because I was talking to the rising generation around me and they were saying, “Ellie, you have such amazing resources around you. You know all of these people in the family business space that we just don’t know.”

And because I was a family business center director and I have been working personally in this field since I was 15 years old, professionally for over 10 years I do have a lot of resources throughout the United States, if not the world, that are experts in family business in some form or fashion. And so I wanted to bring those experts into kind of one container and then share them with my audience. And I think that’s what I did. I have almost 100 episodes sharing expertise in the family business space with experts from around the world.

And I love the work that I’ve done in Successful Generations. The Family Business Leader Podcast, I occasionally bring in people to interview. But really what I wanted to do is focus on the family business leaders and the coaching that I’m doing currently with family business leaders. So instead of positioning others as experts, I am starting to position myself as the expert. So you’ll hear a lot of solo episodes from me. I will talk about the real life coaching I’m doing with my current clients. I will be sharing some of my own thought leadership.

And so we’ll really be able to get a lot of the expertise that I’m sharing on a daily basis with my current clients, my current groups. So, on that same note I’ve just launched my second, The Family Business Leader Mastermind. And so I have a mastermind that I’m promoting, that’s basically the same name as this podcast. So I really wanted my branding to kind of flow and be aligned. So The Family Business Leader Podcast, if you’re really interested in the work that we’re doing here, please come and check out The Family Business Leader Mastermind.

And the mastermind I’ll talk about on another podcast episode. But really, it’s basically a group of other family business leaders grappling with some of the similar things that you’re grappling with. So it’s a kind of a peer group, plus group coaching, plus sounding board. It’s amazing. I wholly believe, fully 1,000% that peer-to-peer groups is where it’s at. I’m in multiple peer groups. I love the peer-to-peer group learning. I have grown enormously from it. I’ve seen others grow.

And again, we’ll talk about this, The Family Business Leader Mastermind in another episode. Another reason that I changed the name is just more aligned with my work as a family business coach. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I am a family business coach. I only focus on family business leaders as I’ve defined already for you and I love the work that I do. I don’t consult. I don’t work with people who are not in the family business space. I really focus all of my attention and energy laser focusing on family business.

And how I’ve defined it is family business, family enterprise, so those are interfamily philanthropy, family wealth, family office and family council, this is the space I work in. And this is where I want to be. I want to be known, I want this company to be known, Successful Generations, as the place to go if you want coaching as a family business leader. So I think that this name really aligns more with what I’m trying to do with the company, Successful Generations.

So here is the plan, I – I shouldn’t say I anymore. I have hired a team. We are producing weekly episodes and they’re going to be under 30 minutes. That is my goal. You can still listen to the old episodes, the old Successful Generations episodes. Those are not going to anywhere. You just can kind of scroll your feed. But I hired Digital Freedom Productions to edit my podcasts. So all I have to do is record. And this means that it’ll take less time to produce an episode.

It used to take me two to three, sometimes four hours depending on the length of the episode to record and edit each episode. I did this for two years. And then it would take maybe even longer with show notes and the marketing. So the result of hiring a company is I’ll have a better-quality product, better editing, better sound and greater consistency, meaning I’m going to go back to weekly episodes my friends.

So why you should listen and I’ve already hinted at this but you should listen if you are a family business leader, whether existing or upcoming, this is a space that I share real coaching. My clients are grappling with real things, real issues, real overwhelm, real stress, real confusion and questions. We share it all anecdotally of course. So if you’re leading in your family enterprise or want to lead in your family enterprise, you are the successor or want to be the successor this is the podcast for you.

Alright my friends, I cannot wait to get started and share with you all the upcoming episodes in The Family Business Leader Podcast, until next week.

Well, there you have it. Thank you so much for listening to The Family Business Leader Podcast. If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to share it with someone who needs it. If you’d like more information about family business leadership development, please visit successfulgenerations.com. I can’t wait to connect with you again next week, until then.