His Business Is Helping Families With Their Business

After 15 years at Bank of Hawaiʻi, Mike Miyahira launched Business Strategies to help family-owned companies tackle their toughest challenges, from succession planning to deciding who gets ownership stakes.

Family businesses have superpowers that other businesses often lack: They can harness the passions, varied skills and strong connections of family members working together to build and grow their own companies.

But even when you share blood and affection, disagreements can arise over strategies, policies and responsibilities – especially when more than one generation is involved. Advisor Mike Miyahira has been helping small businesses navigate those triumphs and trials for 23 years.

“It can be very challenging, and I wouldn’t say that I’m successful all the time,” Miyahira says. “I just like to see the businesses that I’m helping do well and if I can help them transition from one generation to the next and be stronger than when I was first introduced to them, then I think I’ve done my job.”

BEGINNINGS: Miyahira had a first career at Bank of Hawaiʻi, working with companies and entrepreneurs for 15 years before starting his own advising firm, Business Strategies, which is Hilo-based and supports companies statewide.

He says he chose this second career because he enjoys advising entrepreneurs and because he saw a need for advisors in the business community.

CHALLENGES: Family businesses face the same challenges as other businesses: containing costs, attracting customers and finding good employees. Miyahira helps them meet those challenges, but he also helps them deal with their unique situations. For instance, the patriarch and matriarch of a family often face sticky situations like deciding:

• How to distribute ownership shares among multiple children;
• Whether family members are competent in their roles or are only there because they are family;
• Which family member should be the next chief executive of the firm, or even if that role should go to someone outside the family;
• Whether to sell the business or pass it on.

OPEN COMMUNICATION: These can be hard decisions, so Miyahira fosters open and honest communication among family members and sometimes gives advice that’s difficult to hear.

“One of the challenges that family businesses have is that if you’re the parent and you have two or three kids, if you look at estate planning, what do you do with your interest in the family business?” he says.

“Do you give a little to everyone or do you give your interest to the one that’s most aligned or most capable of managing their interest in the family business?

To avoid favoritism, most families give a piece of it to everybody. You start off with the founder and by [the] fourth generation you might have over 60 or 80 owners. It’s like creating an elephant.”

BEST PART OF THE JOB: Miyahira says he gets the most satisfaction when his clients’ businesses flourish; when they overcome significant challenges and achieve major milestones; and when the next generation successfully takes the reins, ensuring the business’s longevity. In essence, if the business is stronger after Miyahira steps in than it was before, he’s done his job.

“That to me is very rewarding – to see them do well,” he says. “When they [the next generation] step up and assume responsibility, that’s a very defining moment in the life of a company. That’s really what we work towards.”

WHAT’S THE WHY?: “I think there needs to be several owner policies and I think one of them is agreeing upon a mission – What’s the primary purpose of the business? – and then revisiting that question periodically, especially as each generation is brought on board,” Miyahira says.

“Periodically updating strategic planning is a big ingredient to get everybody on the same page.”