A quick, two-minute speech on our three key ideas at the Galliard Family Business Advisor Institute, delivered by Galliard Founder and President Lisë Stewart.
If you’re a member, or considering joining us, this is a quick way to get a good sense of what we’re all about:
Video Transcript:
We train advisors as to how to work more effectively with family-owned businesses and we are very interested in helping to make sure that our advisors can grow their businesses. We want them to be able to grow their market, and part of the reason why this is so important to us is it helps us achieve our mission.
Three things of key importance to us are:
- Collaboration
People who are members of our organization have said over and over again that we are one of the most collaborative organizations in the country. We really encourage people to work together, to refer business to one another, and to try to make sure that our family businesses get access to as much of the help as they possibly need. And we know that that’s a real issue, particularly in small towns and rural areas.
- Continuity
We believe strongly in continuity and that’s a big, loaded word for us. We want continuity in business ownership and leadership from one generation to the next. We also want continuity in terms of our key messages. We have a very strong philosophy of transition with dignity and we’re trying to make sure that all of the advisors who come into our national network understand our philosophy of transition with dignity and understand our philosophy of trying to make sure that we work on behalf of the business to ensure that those jobs survive in the local communities.
Our mission at Galliard is really pretty simple. Our mission is to grow strong, local communities, by focusing on those businesses that are the foundation of those communities. That’s why we focus on the small, family-owned and closely-held business. And that takes us to our last point, which is coverage.
- Coverage
There are millions and millions of small businesses across the country. Depending on which statistics you use, it’s 23-24 million – that’s if you include all those single shops out there – mom and pop businesses that really want to figure out a way to survive, or at least get some return on their investment.
Millions of businesses, and very few of them have really had the access to the type of help that they need, and that’s what we really want to change. We want to do that by creating a national discussion about business transition, and then helping to build those communities as a result of our work.
