Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Building and Running a Strong Family Business with Christine Noh

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Building and Running a Strong Family Business with Christine Noh · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  Whenever you're building a business, it's so important to have the right team with you.
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  And in this case, I think there's an inherent benefit working with your family because
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  there's this underlying relationship based on trust.
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  And you can't get anywhere, you know, whether it's partners, whether it's a family business
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  because it's, you know, multigenerational or husband and wife or or whatnot, having that
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  relationship based on trust is so instrumental because it allows everyone to feel like they
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  have the freedom to really be able to explore and pursue growth.
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  10 ignition.
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  Lift off.
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  Ending small business failure.
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  Welcome to the small biz chat podcast with the number one small business expert, Melinda
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  Emerson.
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  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure.
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  And she'll give you the information you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
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  Now here's your host, the small Biz chat lady herself, Melinda Emerson.
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  Hi, everybody.
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  Welcome to another episode of the small biz chat pie cat.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson, small biz lady, your host, and I'm America's number one small business
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  expert.
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  How many of you run a family business where we're gonna be talking to an entrepreneur who's
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  gonna give us the pros and cons of running a great family business.
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  Now listen.
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  I know you guys have heard the statistics out there.
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  2023 It's supposed to be a doozy for our economy, but that doesn't mean your small
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  business is gonna struggle.
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  We're gonna give you tools and tips today so that you can position your business to be one
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  of the winners out of 2023.
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  And, certainly, if you've been trying to figure out How to better communicate in your family
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  business?
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  We have a great family business owner here today who's gonna talk to us about how she
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  manages as a 2nd generation business owner, but now it's time for me to introduce my next guest
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  Her name is Christie.
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  No.
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  And she is the owner of Noble, a sneaker and street will retailer with locations in New York
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  and New Jersey.
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  We're seeing started her professional career in investment banking at JP Morgan Chase, and she
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  left investment banking to pursue her entrepreneurial passion.
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  In 2013, she opened Noble's flagship location in Newark, New Jersey.
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  And in 2014, she moved her offices to a thirty thousand square foot warehouse to support her e
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  commerce expansion.
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  And in 2020, she opened her newest boutique low patient in Manhattan.
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  For more information, you can go to noble.com.
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  Christine, welcome to the small brush shack pocket.
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  Hi.
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  Thank you for having me.
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  Alright, Christy.
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  You gotta tell me your backstory.
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  How'd you do it
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  from the dust of baking or running the family business?
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  What happened?
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  2 things happened at the exact same time.
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  1, the bottom of the economy fell out, so being in banking was a terrible thing back in 2008.
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  So I I graduated college in 06 and started in corporation ads and thought that that was what
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  I wanted to do.
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  And, you know, my mission in life was to be top of the fold of the Wall Street Journal.
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  Come to find out one of those things where, you know, a lot of people maybe who transition from
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  corporate to other professions, you come to find out that everything is is a shiny as you
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  thought it was gonna be.
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  And kind of like I said, I finished my analyst years and the economy particularly in finance
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  wasn't great.
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  And so it really took that time to think about what my next move was going to be
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  professionally.
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  I knew I wasn't ready to hop right back into school.
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  I had just been out for 2 years.
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  And, you know, my family had started a business in 1982.
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  And I had all of this free dimes suddenly, and I said, let me take a look under your hood and
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  see if there's anything that I've learned in the last 3 years that would be of value.
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  And recognized some opportunities.
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  Sneaker industry back then was not what it is today.
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  It was a tremendous area for growth, and it has grown.
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  Before, you know, sneakers are much more niche.
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  And now pretty much anyone I talk to, if I say I'm in the sneaker business, they want to talk
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  to me about how incredibly challenging it is to get shoes for Their son, daughter, nephew,
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  niece, whomever.
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  And and I really saw an opportunity with what my family had started.
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  With bringing it into the future of retail and really having it be an omnichannel presence and
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  really build on what we've already built within the communities that we live in work at.
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  So did you grow up
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  in the bin?
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  Like, did you kinda you spend your summers working in the family bin?
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  Oh, absolutely.
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  You know, immigrant households, they put you to work kind of as soon as you can walk.
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  I spend, you know, Christmas vacation, summer vacations, holding clothes, bagging things.
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  I I learned how to, you know, I sort of know every role in retail, whether that's stock,
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  cashier, sales, etcetera, And, yep, when I was a baby, I grew up with a pen in the back of our
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  store in the Bronx that we still have to this day.
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  Love it.
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  Love it.
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  Alright.
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  So What would you say, has been the main sort of, like, pro and con of working in a family
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  business?
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  So I think whenever you're building a business, it's so important to have the right team with
• 5:28
  you.
• 5:29
  And in this case, I think there's an inherent benefit of working with your family because
• 5:33
  there is this underlying relationship based on Trump.
• 5:36
  And you can't get anywhere, you know, whether it's partners, whether it's a family business
• 5:40
  because it's, you know, multi generational or husband and wife or or whatnot.
• 5:45
  Having that relationship based on trust is so instrumental because it allows everyone to feel
• 5:51
  like they have the freedom to really be able to explore and pursue growth.
• 5:56
  What I would say is the biggest con is, you know, in any working relationship and any
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  relationship, conflict is inevitable.
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  And when that con like, happens.
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  It's like the volume got turned up to 100 because there's underlying family dynamics that
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  are involved.
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  There's, you know, whatever is complicated around business and very hard to
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  compartmentalize.
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  And so learning how to do that more effectively, that I would say is one of the
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  biggest challenges.
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  Alright.
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  So tell me about your business specifically.
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  So how many of your family members work in your business?
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  So my mother and my father started the business together in 1982.
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  I got involved in around 2010.
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  And then my younger brother also got involved.
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  And so, literally, my entire immediate family is in the sneaker business.
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  Alright.
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  So do you guys have formal business meetings, or is it, like, over dinner?
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  Yeah.
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  So talking about what's going on.
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  To be honest, it's a little bit of book.
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  Right?
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  And I think the thing about if you are in a family business is it's still a business.
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  And so What you need to do as a business owner, those all ring true.
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  And if you get away from that and everything turns into, informal conversations, sober,
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  dinner, or whatnot, I think you run the risk of letting the business get away from you.
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  But at the same time, I think, you know, especially entrepreneurs, we kind of have our
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  business hat on 247 might be doing something completely different.
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  I might be at on and notice something and wanna have a conversation with with my waiter about,
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  you know, why do you guys do this to or versus do that?
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  And so your business hat is always on.
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  It inevitably spills over into family conversations.
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  So, you know, family dinner, there's some point in dinner where, you know, we'll have a little
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  bit of Shop TalkTalk, and then we'll make a point of saying, alright, time to time to close
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  close this conversation out, and let's keep it, you know, keep Shop Talk off The, agenda for
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  the rest of the
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  Alright.
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  Now who is the enforcer of that?
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  Is it your mom or your dad that does I enough enough business talk?
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  Who says that?
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  I think it's whoever is ready to stop talking about work.
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  So but I think kind of along that note is I think it's important, you know, Again, any
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  relationship, especially if you're in a family business is to be as open and honest with your
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  communication.
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  And so let's say you're did.
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  You're just going out to dinner with your family, and you really don't wanna talk shop.
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  Like, you'll I'll be the first person to say, guys, can we not talk about work today?
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  Like, I just want it, you know, drink a glass of wine.
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  Enjoy this wonderful meal and, you know, see you on Monday when we're ready to be back at.
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  Right?
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  I just think it's important to to level set with, you know, whomever, family, friends,
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  partners.
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  So what about, you know, do
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  you guys have structures in place to handle conflict, though?
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  We do.
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  And and again, I think that goes back to, you know, conflict resolution, remediation, any of
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  that something that you're gonna need at any business organization.
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  And so, again, just because we're family members, that doesn't mean we're exempt from
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  following what our best But what I've done very much is there was a very my parents, they've
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  been working together for decades, and so they had gotten their dynamic dealt, Pat.
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  But once I inserted myself into the equation, getting that dynamic down was a big challenge
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  initially.
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  It was everything from, you know, it's a strange place to find yourself as a parent.
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  I think, you know, taking instruction from your child, you know, the same child that you were
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  changing diabetes is now, you know, giving you business advice.
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  That's take some getting used to.
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  And along those lines, it was really about you know, kind of goal setting in each conversation
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  and meet each meeting, saying, you know, what is the purpose of this conversation?
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  What are we tying achieve and making sure that our communication is open and honest, you know,
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  in some ways, I've been told I'm sometimes too brutally honest And I've leaned into that
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  because I think if we can't solve anything, if we can't get to the root of the issue and if we
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  can't be open and honest and put everything out there, you can't get to the root the issue.
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  This applies.
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  The family is just as much as it does everyone else, but I think families in particular,
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  there's years and years of history and sometimes they, again, you know, especially in
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  immigrant families.
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  A lot that doesn't get said, and that just doesn't work in the business environment.
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  You gotta get it all
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  Now you're in a retail business.
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  You have 5 locations.
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  Is that right?
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  5 physical stores.
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  And then, we also operate a 6 location that is our ecommerce warehouse.
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  So you're
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  in retail.
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  It's a whole hard space to be in.
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  I mean, in the world of Amazon, I mean, running a retail business and having the opportunity to
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  expand.
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  You said you expanded your Manhattan location in 2020.
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  So, like, right as the pandemic was and you guys were opening us to wearing Manhattan.
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  Well, we actually we got through the Christmas 2019 season.
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  And come, you know, January 2nd, we're ready to rip out all the walls and start building out a
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  door.
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  And, you know, nobody thought that come marched funny, it's funny that the whole world would
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  shut down, and we find ourselves in a very different place.
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  But I, you know, we leaned into what we were gonna do regardless of whether or COVID was
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  happening or not happening.
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  It was part of our our development as a business.
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  And so we, you know, finished that roll out, brought to market, no branded merch, which is
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  our our new business venture and did all these things.
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  I think the challenge of retail is that everyone learning what retail looks like in
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  this new world that we now live in with social accessibility with digital But what we've also
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  seen from, honestly, COVID is that, you know, it's convenient when things are online, but you
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  feel this tremendous sense of disconnect from the world around you.
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  And folks who are, you know, In the sneaker and shoot wear space, that's in an entire community
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  in and of itself, and being able to really build with your customers with the community
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  around you, that's something where if you are a retailer who's able to do that, I think then
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  that there is a future for you.
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  But if you obviously are you know, not taking care of your customers, treating it like, I
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  don't care if I sell this widget to this person or that person.
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  The Amazons of the world will come and box you out very quickly.
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  I completely get it.
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  I I applaud you because retail is is tough.
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  It's really, really tough right now.
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  And when we come Absolutely.
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  We're gonna talk about what happens if a if a conflict in your business follows you home.
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  Christie, tell me about You know, was it hard to switch over from being just a traditional
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  storefront to becoming an ecommerce retailer, especially, during the pandemic, was that
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  largely when you guys made that transition?
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  We had started that transition earlier.
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  I think any transition, you know, Azure expanding the lions avenues of your business.
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  It's always a challenge.
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  And, you know, my parents are now in their late sixties, early seventies, obviously, you know,
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  e commerce is very new and foreign to them.
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  I I don't think they do a lot of online shopping.
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  I'm still in the situation where I do most of it for that.
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  So, you know, we've got to ship to addresses on Amazon, but, you know, they understood how how
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  invaluable it was to grow in this channel of distribution.
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  And, you know, the wonderful thing was, you know, that the trust was there for me to take
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  us there.
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  The horrible part of it was the responsibility is on me to take us there.
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  And, obviously, I wanna make sure I do a great job at that.
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  And so, you know, Anything in business, it's really about making sure that you are having
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  the right conversations with the right people.
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  My background is not in ecommerce.
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  I made sure that I I educated myself so that I could make the right decisions for the
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  business.
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  There's avenues of this business that are, you know, new, new for me, you know, in my
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  background, as I mentioned earlier, is I started in banking.
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  I didn't have employees.
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  I was, you know, the lowest man on the totem pole when I started at JP.
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  And suddenly, to find myself in a situation where I'm managing folks, it was I had to learn
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  how to do that very quickly.
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  And I leaned on folks with strong human resources, strong management backgrounds to
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  help me learn what our best practice is.
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  And so, you know, Yeah.
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  Adapting to technology or any change it is a super challenging, but you gotta make sure that
• 14:07
  you're leaning on industry expert.
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  To to get the information you need to make the right decisions for your business.
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  Alright.
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  So you you're young in business, but what is the best business advice you've ever been
• 14:20
  given.
• 14:21
  So, Gavin, it's, piggybacking up on what we were just talking about.
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  It's saying your network is your network.
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  I heard that.
• 14:27
  That stuck with me.
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  And I think it's so important to make sure that, you know, we all know what we know, but
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  there's We don't know what we don't know.
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  And as an entrepreneur, you've got to put in that leg work and seek persons out, seek the
• 14:43
  that information out, Aaron's.
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  Yeah.
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  I never forgot that, and I try to make sure I'm doing that every day.
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  I love it.
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  I love it.
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  Thank you so much, Christy.
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  No She's the owner of noble.com, which is a sneaker and streetwear company based in New
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  York and New Jersey.
• 15:00
  The mission of small fish chat is to end small business failure, and that is what we are about
• 15:06
  here today.
• 15:08
  Hopefully, you're watching on my small business lady YouTube channel.
• 15:11
  And I hope you subscribe and share it.
• 15:14
  Tell other people.
• 15:15
  Also, if you're watching all my small Busletti Facebook page, please like my page and leave us
• 15:20
  a comment if you have a topic that you want us to discuss on the Scoobyteshop podcast Let us
• 15:26
  know.
• 15:27
  I love to give the people what they want.
• 15:29
  I'm Melinda Emerson's small biz lady.
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  America's number one small business expert, and I will leave you with this last thought.
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  You never lose in business.
• 15:37
  Either you win or you learn.
• 15:39
  God bless everybody.
• 15:41
  Thanks for listening to the small Biz chat pod cast with Melinda Emerson.
• 15:46
  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday for more
• 15:51
  fantastic information and interviews.
• 15:54
  You can find more sources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
• 15:58
  website succeed as your own boss.com.
• 16:02
  Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.