{"id":2582,"date":"2023-10-11T16:26:45","date_gmt":"2023-10-11T16:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/bob-bo-wills-of-clock-shadow-creamery-share-3-keys-to-a-successful-family-business\/"},"modified":"2023-10-11T16:26:45","modified_gmt":"2023-10-11T16:26:45","slug":"bob-bo-wills-of-clock-shadow-creamery-share-3-keys-to-a-successful-family-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/bob-bo-wills-of-clock-shadow-creamery-share-3-keys-to-a-successful-family-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob & Bo Wills of Clock Shadow Creamery Share 3 Keys to a Successful Family Business"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Editor\u2019s note: The cheese business is filled with family run creameries and dairies. Family businesses come with many challenges as well as advantages. In honor of Father\u2019s Day we spoke with father and son at Clock Shadow Creamery to learn some of the ways they make it work.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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Milwaukee-based Cedar Grove Cheese<\/a> Inc. opened in 1878, near Milwaukee. Today the company produces organic, specialty cheeses, and cheese curds, free of rBGH and GMOs. Bob Wills and his wife, Beth Nachreiner, bought the company from his father-in-law, Ferdie. But Bob says transitioning ownership from Ferdie to the couple, had some significant challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"Clock

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Clock Shadow Creamery shop photo credit Clock Shadow<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fortunately, he sees a different work dynamic with his son, Bo, at the family\u2019s spinoff business, Clock Shadow Creamery<\/a>. Founded in 2012, the company\u2019s second location opened just over 10 years ago. And Bob believes one of his greatest business assets is working with Bo, who is current business manager for Clock Shadow Creamery. \u201cI am giving Bo a huge amount of leeway,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m finding that balance regarding how to hand-off responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI joined the company about seven years ago, in 2015,\u201d Bo says. \u201cI jumped in as a sales manager, which coincided with the current person leaving. Before that I had worked in most every position at Cedar Grove Cheese, including doing grounds maintenance.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Clock

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Clock Shadow Creamery cheese curds photo credit Clock Shadow Creamery<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Clock Shadow Creamery mostly focuses on fresh cheese production and especially cheese curds. Most customers are wholesale, but the company also provides curds to several retailers. In addition, they craft some hard cheeses and spreadable cheese. \u201cWe primarily focus on fresh production, but we do work with a farmer who ages the cheese himself without taking up space in our plant,\u201d Bob says.<\/p>\n

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\"Bob

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Bob and Bo Wills photo credit Clock Shadow Creamery<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Define Professional Roles<\/strong> <\/h2>\n

Bob and Bo have a satisfying, and sustainable work relationship. \u201cI treat Bo as a professional and I think we\u2019ve gotten pretty good at that,\u201d Bob says. \u201c[We try] not to fall into father and son mode when we\u2019re working. [But] it\u2019s really nice to have someone whose motivation is unquestionable. And we can have easy conversations, with good communication.\u201d<\/p>\n

Father and son also make sure that other employees know Bo\u2019s not getting preferential treatment and they may still freely express any concerns. \u201c[Their opinions] will be considered in a normal professional way,\u201d Bob says.<\/p>\n

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\"Clock

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Clock Shadow cheesemaking credit Clock Shadow Creamery<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Respect Each Other<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Bo appreciates feeling that he doesn\u2019t need to worry about \u2018overreaching,\u2019 in the business. \u201cI can easily get questions answered for anything I might need,\u201d he says. \u201cI look at Dad as my boss when I\u2019m at work. Bob is a very good resource, as far as the cheese industry goes. Even if we weren\u2019t related, I would like to work with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bob agrees the cheese industry requires a lot of specific knowledge, which often exists among family-owned cheese businesses. \u201cWe\u2019re always looking for people to work with us,\u201d he says. \u201cAll the family-run cheese companies are very supportive of each other and of passing knowledge on to the next generation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think \u2015 like many industries \u2015 there\u2019s a lot of consolidation going on and increasingly large costs of doing business. It seems that it will become increasingly hard to pass a business on to the next generation with larger companies running many of them now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Keep Work at Work<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Bo appreciates being able to see and talk to his dad more frequently than if they didn\u2019t work together. Bob feels the same way. \u201cBo has a younger brother who\u2019s off in New York, and a sister [elsewhere] in Wisconsin, so it\u2019s nice to have an excuse to keep in touch with one of our kids,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

But Bo and Bob are also extremely careful about having work-related conversations outside of the business. \u201cWhen we\u2019re with other family members we have to be careful about keeping work conversations compartmentalized,\u201d Bob says.<\/p>\n

Bo agrees. \u201cFamily might be interested in big-picture stuff, but there\u2019s no reason to talk about work at Christmas dinner. I most likely want to stick with the family business, but I don\u2019t see my siblings doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: The cheese business is filled with family run creameries and dairies. Family businesses come with many challenges as well as advantages. In honor of Father\u2019s Day we spoke with father and son at Clock Shadow Creamery to learn some of the ways they make it work.\u00a0 \u00a0 Milwaukee-based Cedar Grove Cheese Inc. opened … Okumaya devam et “Bob & Bo Wills of Clock Shadow Creamery Share 3 Keys to a Successful Family Business”<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1271,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[395],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-milk-and-diary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}