Family Affair

Family Businesses Are a Cornerstone of Furniture Retailing—Here Are Ways to Help Keep Them Thriving

January 2010 By Powell Slaughter

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Furniture people say the industry is built on relationships, and maybe one reason is that so many of its companies—vendor and retailer, large and small—are essentially family enterprises.

For every El Dorado Furniture or Art Van, there are thousands of smaller to mid-size stores where family members call the shots, crunch the numbers and make the business go. Families, of course, have two sides—unbreakable bonds of blood and affection, and tensions arising from anything from sibling rivalry to which children are the parents' favorites. While the first forms an inherent strength in a family business, the second can lead to problems that affect bottom lines as well as personal feelings.

"The beauty part is you're in a family business—the tough part is you're in a family business," said Michael Massood, CEO of Fairfield, N.J.-based Thomasville Home Furnishings of New Jersey. Brother Edward Massood is chief operating officer, handling the day-to-day operation of the business, while Michael, a certified public accountant, oversees the financial side.

"When you're in a family business, the first and most important thing is that you have a family," Massood said. "Business issues that affect the family become family issues. ... People get scorched in a family business when they stop communicating.

"I'm a CPA, so I understand the language of business," he added. "Growing up in a family business, we didn't talk sports, we talked business. Sometimes the business trickles into the home, but never in a bad way. The bad things that happen, we tend to keep at the office, but we like to talk about what went right."

Furniture was in Michael and Edward's blood, but not originally in a retail sense—their father and uncle started furniture transport specialist MGM Transport.

"My brother and I had an opportunity to develop furniture stores under the Thomasville brand," Michael Massood said. "Eddie's daughter, Tara, has joined us, and my sister, Mary Massood, is in the business."

Tara Massood, who has worked in every aspect of business, runs Thomasville of New Jersey's human resources department.

"You don't get to the top rungs without climbing the others," Michael Massood said. "The best way to segue into human resources is to feel what they're feeling, and she knows what our people face in their jobs.