The "Never Go Against the Family" podcast features an interview with Jody Schulte, a fifth-generation family member and Marketing Manager of Jefferson Telecom in Iowa. Jody talks about her journey in the family business, challenges of succession, and offers advice to family businesses. The podcast is produced by the University of Northern Iowa Family Business Center.

Transcription

Katie: You're listening to Never Go Against the Family, a podcast by the University of Northern Iowa Family Business Center. In this episode, you'll hear Dan chat with Jody Schulte. She's the marketing manager and 1/5 generation family member of Jefferson telecom in Jefferson, Iowa. Together, they discuss Jodie's experience finding her place in the family business, the pressures of succession, a board trading program and more. Keep listening to hear the conversation.

Dan: Hey, everybody, this is Dan Beeken with the UNI Family Business Center here in Cedar Falls. I'm joined today by Jody Schulte who is a marketing manager for Jefferson telecom, a family owned company, obviously based in Jefferson. And we're coming to you today with another episode of Never Go Against the Family podcast that helps you stay out of trouble with your family and hopefully keep your job with your big family business. So anyway, Jody, I wanted you to maybe introduce yourself first. Give us a little background on your generation because I know that you are a long, long standing family business. I think you're maybe fourth or fifth gen within it. I'm not exactly sure, but, if you could tell us a little bit about that.

Jody: Sure. Sure. Thanks for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to talk this morning. As Dan said, my name is Jody Schulte and I'm the marketing manager for Jefferson Telecom in Jefferson Iowa, which is in Jefferson in central Iowa, about 60 miles northwest of Des Moines. Pretty small community of 4500 people as far as myself. I grew up in the family business and Dan was right. We're actually in the fifth generation. My brother and I are involved in the business and work for the business and fifth generation for the business, grew up working summers a little bit during school. Jefferson would stuff bills, you know, do some of the office work and some special projects. But went off to college, went to Luther College in Decor. I met my husband there and at the time we were, we got married right out of college that summer right after we graduated and I knew we were coming back to Southeast Iowa. My husband had a family business himself that he was planning to take over and run in Southeast Iowa. So at that point in time, I never really thought that there was an opportunity to come back to the family business just based on proximity to where we were living.

Dan: So you never had conversations with your parents then or with aunts or uncles or anybody else. Who was in the company then?

Jody: Dan, I knew that there might be some possibilities to be on the board of directors, in the future. But as far as working for the family business, I just really didn't see how that would work. once my husband came into the picture, you know, it might have looked differently otherwise. But, I really didn't. So I felt fortunate after we moved back to Southeast Iowa had a couple of other positions, when my dad approached me, it was roughly eight years after graduation or so and asked if I would have any interest in working for the family business but doing it remotely, he was kind of ahead of the times on things on, yeah, on that remote, remote work environment. So those that transition to that during COVID. I was years ahead of the game. So, it's been a lot of fun.

Dan: So how did that conversation go with your dad as far as, you know, because I see that happen with other family businesses, you know, the kids want to move away or whatever, they wanna do something, right? What else? Maybe for a while? Like how did you set up parameters? Did you report to your dad? Did you or an uncle or aunt or whatever? Did you talk about how we're gonna make this remote thing work and you gonna pull your weight and, and those kinds of things? Like, did you, was there much conversation about how that was gonna look or feel?

Jody: No, there definitely was. our dad's always been pretty clear with us too. He's always been a big person on educating himself and especially when it comes to family business. So, for many, many years he's been reading, trying to figure out succession for the business. I think there's also a lot of pressure more so too as you get further down the line in different generations. And as you all know, not too many companies make it to the 4th 5th generation. So he wanted to see the business succeed in trying to figure out how to do it. So he worked on that for many, many years. But as far as myself was concerned, he had always said, you know, if somebody wanted to work in the family business, he needed to work outside of the business first, which I feel is very smart and a lot of family businesses have some sort of requirement where, you know, you need to work a couple of years outside of the business or, or something of that sort. Yeah. So he had always encouraged us, we needed to work outside of the business first to get a different perspective. And I think it helps to build respect too with the staff. So, in my scenario where, you know, I was not going to live in Jefferson. I just started out on my career path and really didn't think too much about it, but our oldest who's now 18 at the time, I was working a lot. My husband was working a lot for his business too and our youngest was kind of growing up with a babysitter and not a parent there as much as we would have liked. And I think he saw that. and basically sat down with me, I remember the phone conversation when he called me and said, you know, would you ever consider working for Jefferson Telecom? And, at that time I was pretty open and said, you know, I guess I'd really not thought about it much at that point in time because I didn't know that the opportunity existed, but they were contracting with someone to do marketing work, that actually used to work for the business and moved to Des Moines and started his own marketing firm. And he, my father basically said, you know, there's no reason why you couldn't do this for us instead. and do it from your home. He also knew that I really enjoyed it. I was the HR director of our hospital in Southeast Iowa and he knew I enjoyed that piece of it a lot. but we're a small company, you know, we only have 15 employees. So hiring, you know, we might get a new, new hire every couple of years. It just doesn't happen very often, but I would be able to dabble in that a little bit too. But, it was a conversation. I remember kind of writing out expectations, the job description and getting that approved and what my expectations would be of my position since I was not there physically in the office. what that would look like. And, I remember we both kind of signed on the dotted line on what was expected and, and went from there, well, there was a lot of Pre Thought that went into it for sure and for sure because of that.

Dan: Do you feel like it's helped you and him and everyone else from, you know, managing this remote thing and, and, you know, there's been some, I don't want to even say stumbling blocks but, communication's been key from day one, especially when somebody is working remotely.

Jody: It's very important. I remember early on developing kind of a marketing campaign and I just assumed all the staff were aware of what the campaign was, but I had not communicated it to anyone because I wasn't there, in finding those tools to increase communication between myself and the staff too so that everybody is on the same page and aware of what's going on has been been really important.

Dan: And did it help you too with employees? nonfamily employees, especially that you had worked somewhere else and, and had some other experience. Do you think?

Jody: I think it definitely does, it helps to build that respect. It's not just a given that. Oh, well, you know, Jody got this project or this was handed to, to Jody, you know, I, I had some of that outside expertise and, and could bring a different perspective. So I think it is really important to get this.

Dan: Ok, I  agree. And I, I know before we started, you mentioned you have a senior in high school this year. Are there thoughts in his or her mind or are there conversations if, if you and your husband are both part of family businesses? I think that's obviously kind of a cool dynamic to begin with. But you know, are there conversations you're having with your kids about what, what would be expected of them or what a path for them?

Jody: Yeah, that's a good question and it's really not something I've thought too much about it actually just came up last week though, Dan, with some of our other fifth generation, we're starting to form kind of a task force to discuss whether we're at a stage to develop a family council or we're having some conversations on a family, a assembly kind of a one time of event, you know, once a year every other year to bring some of that sixth generation spouses into the picture and, and that question was asked of me because I'm the oldest of the fifth generation and, and our daughter, who is would be sixth generation just to the question was asked of me, would she even have interests, you know, have you had those discussions? And to this point, we really haven't. We have two girls and we want them to kind of forge their own path in the future too. But yet, you know, there might be opportunities for them to be involved. Just not sure what their direction will be, but yet we don't want it to be anything forced upon them at all. So that's probably why we haven't had much of the discussion at this point.

Dan: I mean, I think about how you mentioned your experience, it's a delicate thing there with you don't want them to have to feel any kind of obligation, burden et cetera. But at the same time, you know, you want them to also feel welcome or know that there could be opportunity now, granted smaller companies have fewer opportunities maybe. But, you know, at least there could be something. So I, I get that, I think that is for sure.

Jody: And, and one thing just to share too, that is our fourth generation. So in some respects, it's almost like we're more of a third generation company because, until that point, our family was very small and now it started to kind of spider out and there's more, more people involved as our generations, we've gotten down to the fifth generation, but our fourth generation did a lot of work and I would suggest this to other family businesses, you know, 25 years ago, did a lot of work on developing on how we're gonna bring the next generation into the picture into the. So 25 years ago, they put together a plan and some documents in one piece with a board and training program for our board of directors. And you had to be of a certain age and it had to be done with college was the way ours was set up. But it was basically an opportunity to go to board meetings once you qualify, you would not have a vote, obviously, but you would get to see how the board ran conversations that were had to ask questions. And it was extremely valuable for us. I'm sure telecoms like a lot of different businesses. There's a lot to learn just dealing with all of our service lines. The amount of acronyms that there are in the business is ridiculous. But the board and training program was extremely valuable to bring along the next generation.

Dan: That's really cool. I'm glad that you're mentioning that I feel like that can be a great takeaway from our conversation here, you know. So you're, they're young but they're not super young. Right. Right. And they're they're getting exposed to some of the financial performance of the business, maybe some of the, the, the challenges, the issues facing you, the opportunities, the evaluation, those opportunities and just being in listen only mode to some extent, but, but with the opportunity, opportunity to ask questions, I, I think, I think more families need to do that. They need to be getting their kids exposed earlier. I'm sure that was extremely helpful for you then to kind of have that sense. Right.

Jody: It definitely was because I was one of the, the 1st 5th generation to get to sit at the table with the other fourth generation and, and even just learning from all of the fourth generation and their years of experience and that legacy there, they've been in the trenches, you know, two of them in the fourth generation, I actually worked in the business too similar to my brother and I, the others did not. But, it, it was very, very valuable, would have been lost or it would have been, you know, you wouldn't have been exposed to it right in the meaningful in the moment type of way that it probably was during those board meetings and things like that. And we got to go to strategic planning sessions and, and listen and, and provide feedback, they definitely let us provide feedback on the future of the business and sit in and, and participate in those conversations also.

Dan: That's really cool. And so is your board? I'm assuming it's an all family board at this point or, or not?

Jody: Well, so I work for Jefferson telecom and that is a family business. And then we also have another telecom business headquartered in Northwest Iowa with the service area in Iowa and Nebraska. It's called El Systems. So for West Systems too, that's family members on, on that board. In Jefferson, we do have an outside advisor on our board. We brought him on about five years ago. It's a smaller board in Jefferson, but I would definitely recommend getting outside advice. Yeah. Yeah, having an outside advisor is huge. It's very important to have someone without that vested interest in the company that owns it. He does have telecom experience which is helpful, but yet he's kind of on a different angle as far as the telecom experience is concerned. So he does bring that different perspective and challenges us and, and I think helps to kind of keep us in check. So I definitely encourage outside advisors and the board of directors. I think they can bring a tremendous amount of value to the board as long as they're not friends. I do see family companies that do that from time to time where they'll bring, you know, their buddy or their good friend on the board to kind of gain another vote in their favor. But it really does not bring any value to you if that's all you're looking to gain, that's a great point too, you know, outside and independent, that kind of a thing.

Dan: I think this is really great. You shared some great things. I hope that other families can pull from this Jody as far as, you know, being thoughtful and proactive with how you bring the next generation into the business, how you get them exposed to different situations and things. And this, obviously this board of directors, we could talk about that forever, but I'm not gonna make you do that, but appreciate your willingness to kind of share some of the I would say, pioneering, maybe things that your father and, and his generation put forth and, and, and brought into the company from a governance perspective that I'm assuming continues to kind of pay dividends for you guys now, right? So any other thoughts or, or things that you might want to pass on before we wrap up? Otherwise, I just want to thank you so much for being a part of this today.

Jody: I was glad to be asked, so happy to share the fifth generation.

Dan: You're kind of a one percenter from that standpoint, I would say. So that's maybe less than 1%.

Jody: Probably it's a pretty small percentage. So I was very fortunate.

Dan: Very, very cool. Congratulations to you guys. Thank you. And so again, my guest has been Jody Schulte, the marketing director for Jefferson Telecom, which is her family business, 1/5 generation family company based in Jefferson, Iowa. And you've been listening to the Never Go Against the Family podcast here with the UNI Family Business Center.

Katie: Thanks for listening to this episode of Never Go Against The Family, a podcast produced by the University of Northern Iowa Family Business Center. You can find more information about the center membership and upcoming events at https://unifamilybusinesscenter.com. As Vito Corleone advises, never go against the family.