Family firms run the economy
Family businesses are the clear majority of firms in both NZ and Australia and employ a huge share of the workforce. This isn't a niche, it's the backbone of both economies.
Why this matters
Most family businesses don't make the next generation. Yours can.
~75%of NZ businesses are family-owned (~65% of GDP)
70%of Australian businesses are family-owned
30%make it to the second generation*
~23%have a formal plan for the handover
What the public data says
The gap is real, and it's structural.
Most don't make the leap
The widely-cited figures suggest only around a third survive into the second generation, and far fewer to the third. The numbers are debated, but the direction isn't.
Almost no one has a plan
Most owners say keeping it in the family matters, yet only a minority have a formal, documented plan for the handover. Intention high, preparation low. That gap is where businesses get lost.
How few family businesses survive into each generation, the drop-off the work is built to stop. Widely cited and directional, not gospel.
What the research points to
The same root causes, again and again.
Across decades of published family-business research, and my own programme of 37 in-depth studies into transport, trades and service firms, the failures cluster around the same handful of causes.
Founder dependence
Everything runs through one person, the decisions, the key relationships, the standards all live in their head. That caps how big the business can grow, and makes it almost impossible to hand over or sell.
No clear decision rights
Nobody's written down who decides what. So the next gen carries responsibility without authority, and the team keeps routing back to the founder.
Nothing documented
Work lives in memory and workarounds. That's key-person risk, inconsistent quality, and a business that's hard to train into or hand over.
The conversation never happens
The handover is a wish, not a plan. It feels too loaded to raise, so it's deferred, until a health scare or a crisis forces a rushed, costly version of it.
The method, Lead, Run, Grow, is built to take these four apart, in order.
For the founder weighing this up
The business is worth more when it runs without you.
The dependency discount
Owner-dependent businesses typically sell for less than comparable ones that run on systems. Reducing founder dependence isn't about leaving, it's about being worth more and having real choices.
The bottleneck tax
When everything routes through one person, you pay for it daily, rework, slow quotes, dropped balls, holidays nobody can take. Most of that cost is already happening. It's just invisible.
Time back, first
The first month is built to give the operator hours back by clearing the chaos that eats the week, so the work starts paying for itself before any bigger conversation.
I work alongside your accountant and lawyer, valuation, tax and legal advice are theirs to give, not mine.
Sources & further reading
- • PwC Australia, Family Business Survey (prevalence & succession planning)
- • Grant Thornton Australia, Family Business Survey 2023
- • Family Business Association (AU/NZ), sector data
- • The Family Business Consulting Group (FBCG), “survival” statistics & critique
- • Family Business Magazine, “A critical look at survival statistics”
- • The SWWYK research programme, 37 in-depth studies into NZ/AU family service firms (operator pain, trigger events, objections, buyer psychology, failure patterns, segment differences and more), each independently researched, cross-checked and merged
Figures are indicative and drawn from public, third-party sources; survival-rate figures in particular are widely cited but debated. Nothing here is a guarantee of results for any individual business.
Don't become a statistic
The ones that make the leap get clear early.
That's the whole job. If you want your business in that group, let's talk.