Spring 2008

Mother Daughter Duos By Mollie Neal

Advantages

For mother-daughter business owners, running a gift shop together offers many advantages. Each woman gets to work with someone she truly loves and trusts. There’s often the added virtue of flexibility they offer each other to meet personal needs, such as a daughter who needs a flexible schedule to care for school-age children, that another partner may be reluctant to accommodate.

According to Jane Hilburt-Davis, a family business consultant and president of Boston-based Key Resources LLC, the key to success for mother-daughter duos is establishing individual roles and responsibilities, outlining goals, keeping family and business issues separate and understanding how to manage conflict, much like any other successful partnership.

Mollie Neal

Neal writes about market trends, demographics and advertising issues for a variety of business and consumer publications. She can be reached at mneal@optonline.net.