Brad Denham, a founding partner in Arizona Family Florist in Phoenix, remembers attending his first Society of American Florists convention and marveling at the long history of businesses around him. Before long, he and his wife were on track to have a multigenerational business, too … or so they thought. Like many industry members, they soon realized the next generation had other plans.
“In our case, my son and daughter had not expressed an interest in running the business or were not prepared to take over the management,” he writes in Floral Management. “Adding to the complexity, my wife and I realized that one of our greatest barriers to developing a successful leadership succession plan was our ability to let go of control and management. Although we have always had managers outside of the family, we had never truly ceded major responsibilities to them.”
That changed this year, when the company hired an outside manager. Read more about what Denham learned from the experience and how he thinks the hire has helped his company grow.
