For financial planner Jason Edmonds, the toughest part about working with his father, Steve, comes at this time of year.

“Buying a Father’s Day card is pretty tough,” said Edmonds, who works alongside his dad at Lawrence’s Robert W. Baird & Co. “Everything I read seems kind of shallow because we know each other so well because we’re together every day.

Al and Bart Yost are a father-son duo who spends much more than just Father's Day together. The two have worked together for the past 15 years at Rumsey-Yost Funeral Home.

“I tell people all the time that the best thing that’s happened to me from this job isn’t anything that involves the business, but rather that I got to know my father so well.”

And he knows other father-son business partnerships may not be as easy.

“I would say there is unquestionably extra pressure for a son to please his father,” Edmonds said. “It’s more than it would be with a normal boss. For some people that extra pressure might not be good, but for me, it’s the type of pressure that gets me up in the morning when business maybe wouldn’t otherwise.”

An extra risk

Jan M’Caelin, interim director of the KU Small Business Development Center, said she has seen several father-son business partnerships not work out so well.

She said businesses that involved fathers and their children were taking an extra risk that non-family businesses did not have to worry about. If a non-family business ends badly, you have lost a business partner. If a family business ends badly, you may have seriously damaged the father-child relationship.

“I’ve seen situations where families have been torn apart by the negative aspects of a family business splitting,” M’Caelin said. “Grandchildren are no longer seeing grandpa anymore, and everybody in the family gets caught in the middle.

“That is one of the major downsides and something everyone needs to consider. You have to consider what if it doesn’t work. That’s why up-front planning is so important.”

M’Caelin suggests that any father and child looking to go into business together draw up a formal document explaining how the business will work and what role each person will play.

“Too often families think they don’t need that, but once you get into business and start seeing dollar signs associated with that business, money does have a way of changing any relationship,” M’Caelin said.

Jason Edmonds, who has been a partner with his father for about four years, agrees it’s important to reach agreements about how the business will work.

But he and his father don’t have any legal document that has guided them. Instead, he said, they have simply vowed never to let the business come between the family.

“We both realized early on that (family problems) would be far too high of a price to pay,” Edmonds said. “But I actually think we make better decisions because we do know that what’s at stake is even larger than the business itself.”

Other challenges

Al and Bart Yost at Rumsey-Yost Funeral Home have been “officially” working together for the past 15 years, when Bart joined his father as a funeral director.

Bart Yost, though, began helping his father with funerals at the age of 14 and has been around the business all his life. Both said one of the challenges they deal with involved bridging the generation gap.

“I’m more conservative than Bart and sometimes that can create a problem,” Al Yost said. “Our business has changed a lot over the years, and I’m still old school, but you just work through those type of things and realize times change.”

Bart Yost suggested one idea to avoid father-son debates.

“I think one of the things I would do differently is go someplace else to work and then come back and join the business,” Bart Yost said. “I think it would be helpful to have a different perspective on the same type of business.

“Plus, with me I was just always here. I was always working here and there was never really a starting point for me, and that would have probably been helpful.”

For Steve Edmonds, branch manager with Robert W. Baird & Co., finding a way to separate business and family matters is one of the biggest challenges the partnership creates.

“I think the challenge is not to be business all the time,” Steve Edmonds said. “Not talking business at Thanksgiving dinner is important.

“The other challenge is that we both have our highs and lows at the same time. When the stock market is up we’re both feeling pretty good, and when it is down we’re both not feeling so good. But the pros really outweigh the cons.”

The benefits

Al Yost said he realized some of the best benefits of his father-son partnership when he was on the golf course.

“I am able to slip out of here and play golf a little bit,” Yost said. “It’s nice because I don’t worry about this place at all when I’m gone because I know Bart is here and he can handle anything that comes up.”

M’Caelin agreed the natural level of trust that existed in a father-child business was a benefit.

“Trust is a major issue in any business because you are sometimes taking a high level of risk,” M’Caelin said. “Obviously the family ties means you know the person real well, much more so than someone coming in from the outside.”

M’Caelin said there also could be some financial advantages to a father-child partnership, especially for the child.

“A lot of times a son or a daughter may want to start a business but doesn’t have the finances, but dad may,” M’Caelin said. “If the son or daughter can get into business without having to borrow money, that is a huge plus for the business. It really helps the success rate.

“The main thing in that situation is everyone understands the terms of the agreement and how the money will be paid back.”

Both Jason Edmonds and Bart Yost said they have also profited from the experience their fathers offered. Stephen Edmonds has been in the financial planning business for 33 years, and Al Yost has been in the funeral business for more than 50.

“It gives a person a great headstart,” Jason Edmonds said. “I basically am getting a 30-year headstart on my business, and that is a great advantage for me. That’s hard to put a price on.”

The fathers said they also were benefiting in a way that was tough to measure.

“It’s a great satisfaction to have Bart here,” Al Yost said. “I have a great passion for this work and it makes you feel good to see your son have that same passion. It’s really a dream I’ve had all my life.”