Building generational legacies in the lifestyle industry

Successful companies don’t appear overnight. Many of the world’s largest and most successful companies started as family-run operations or venture startups that grew and evolved into household names over decades of nurturing and investment. Along the way, founders trusted the future leadership of their companies to the next generation.

To make that transition work best for businesses, investing consortium The ForeverGreen Group (TFG) specializes in guiding women lifestyle businesses and brands through mergers and acquisitions, providing knowledge, financial solutions and resources to help ready to retire business owners without a successor or means to scale and transform in the UK, Europe, and the United States plan for the next phase in their business’ growth. The Council for Inclusive Capitalism caught up with ForeverGreen’s Founder and CEO Nzinga Graham-Smith to talk about the economic and social impact of their legacy-focused work.

Read a summary of the conversation below, edited lightly for brevity and clarity, or click to listen to the full conversation between Graham-Smith and the Council’s Communications Director Amanda Byrd.

Prior to becoming CEO of The ForeverGreen Group, you launched a shapewear brand, Queen of the Crop. How did your experience in building a brand and company form your understanding of what other women entrepreneurs need to be successful?

I would say the ForeverGreen Group is like the evolution of Queen of the Crop. It was always a focal point for me to build something that had a women’s lifestyle element for women to feel, look, and be their best.I wanted to produce something – shapewear – that was a small investmenta woman can make so that when she gets up and puts on her clothes, she feels beautiful in her own skin. So, my experience with branding was to understand the customer’s identity and get to know them firstly and most importantly.

As for what I feel that women entrepreneurs should learn to be successful, from my experience, I learned very quickly that I had to not feel guilty about running a business as well as raising a family. I have two young girls and at the time they were young babies. Whatever time you give them, I value any time, even if it’s changing their nappy (diaper cloth), even if it’s the school run. I value those times, even if they’re moaning about it and it’s not exciting for them. It’s okay to be unbalanced whilst you’re running a business and being a parent at the same time. I’m talking directly to women and mothers because that’s my experience.

One thing I would advise for anyone starting a business is to understand the value of team. Team is so, so important and delegation. Start with your vision, what exactly you want to do. Before you execute that, find the right people who will work with you, believe in you, to execute that vision.

What really works as well for women entrepreneurs to be successful is to have a mentor, someone who is in the position you want to be someday in your own right. Don’t be afraid to reach out to that person who’s in a senior role. They’d be happy to hear from you. That’s what I’ve done myself.

How would you describe the foundational philosophy behind your work? How does it translate into a business approach?

I’m a female. I’ve been raised by strong women, and I am the mother of two girls aged 8 and 13. They’re asking me questions about what life is going to look like for them when they’re older. They are remarkably aware of what their career is going to look like, what opportunities they will get. They ask me why women aren’t in senior leadership and why they earn less money. They watch the news and hear what’s happening. Although they are ambitious and fearless – as they should be at that age – they’re still thinking, will something stop me from achieving the ambitions I have for myself?

As women balance careers and families, and in the workplace don’t earn as they should or get promoted as they should, the mental health pressure on women today is up to the roof. If we are raising our children in that atmosphere, we must think about what the generation of society looks like if women do not have the support to be their best.

For the ForeverGreen Group, my vision is to build the world’s leading women’s lifestyle business that enables women to feel, look, and be her best and to build her own legacy. The products and services provided by the businesses we work with and those we acquire are part of a lifestyle that enables women to be their best and to have resources and support. And in turn, that causes a ripple effect on our society, on our communities, because we become more creative. That enables a woman to say, ‘You know what? I can start my own business,’ for example. Something is inspiring them to reach higher. That’s who we are and what we represent at the ForeverGreen Group. Meaning, whatever we do (The ForeverGreen Group) will always be prosperous.

As you are helping women create generational legacies, what does it look like in practice to empower entrepreneurs with the solutions they need for their businesses to thrive?

We provide capital investments solutions as well as business advisory, coaching and personal development for the companies we partner with or acquire. We’re very much about partnerships and co-creating with business owners and entrepreneurs to achieve their objectives, whether that’s to sell, transform, or grow their business.

Much of my time is spent in coaching and advising for those business owners who are running small to medium-sized enterprises. Most of them are running on a family-oriented base. It can take time to help them understand how to work with our entity, which has a more senior corporate feel to it, but still with an entrepreneurial method, because we too, including myself, come from running SME businesses. We assure them we understand how to run a small business, as well.

Part of our investment is in individuals within the business who require personal or leadership training to take the business to the next level. I’ve looked at many businesses, for example, where there is an administrator – a woman – in that business and I can quickly see that without her, that business would not succeed as well. She’s doing what a manager or even a CEO would do in that business, but she does not have a title that reflects that fact. We look at that. We look at how we can train them, build confidence. There’s a lot of lack-thinking of their abilities. I bring that out of them to say, “Of course you can, and you have the support to be able to do it.”

I love to go to networking events, as well. I’d like to go to more events, connect with individuals out thereand learn how they can be part of our network that we’re building, because again, partnerships are so instrumental, especially for creativity.

TFG invests up to £100 million in companies in beauty, wellness, and fashion industries. As you are looking at those companies, what are the criteria you look for when you’re investing?

First of all, the entrepreneur, the business owner has to be someone that we can co-create with and work with, whether it’s through the acquisition or through the growth of the business. We understand that these businesses are their baby. We want to put that baby through university and help it graduate.

We target businesses turning over revenue between £1-50m and that have an EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) between 10 and 40%. We like best strong legacy companies that have been trading for more than a decade that have come to a point where the business owner would like to retire or is ready to sell and does not have a successor. We will buy or grow their company within four to twelve weeks at a premium beyond what a bank or investor will pay for that business or invest in that business.

And we provide them with the best entrepreneurs and industry experts within their industry through TFG and our partners. We are selective about who we work with, just a few per year. We want to give each business undivided attention and the best value we can offer. We work within the hair and beauty, health and wellness, and fashion industries across all levels of operation including manufacturing, distribution, or wholesale and retail.

There’s been a lot of speculation about the potential economic impacts of a large “Boomer” population that is nearing retirement. Based on your experience, is this a newly-trending challenge or something that has always been a challenge but seeing new attention?

I think this has been a challenge for a while for them. Some owners have had to close businesses with a lot of potential because they could not find the support to continue, which is really sad to hear. Economic headwinds are playing a role. Financial institutions are not willing to invest or support businesses going to the next level. The values of businesses are dropping dramatically. Business owners who want to retire are in a hard place. And that’s why we work in a different way. We are not aggressive. We understand the predicament they’re in and that’s why we give them the best option and value for their business. Small and medium enterprises are the lifeblood of any country. They hire the most, but they get less support. To close means loss of jobs and negative ripple-effect economically and social disruption.

Our opportunities are growing and it’s exciting because this is what we really love doing, enabling owners to have the next years of their life to be very fulfilling for them rather than struggling.

Are there unique challenges for those entrepreneurs in the industries you specialize in that make what you do different?

The challenge will be getting the right team or employees there. The way that society has changed in three years, that should have been three decades, if that makes sense. How quickly things have changed! Technology is rapidly changing how we work,it’s taking up human labor and capital and expertise. However, that does not mean that the skill set of individuals is not important. So, the training aspect has to be there. That’s the challenge we face. The training required to redevelop skills is great because businesses have been doing things the same way for a long time.

I’ve seen businesses who have been going for about 30 years and they’re still doing things manually right now. But they’re turning over great amounts of money. [Adopting new technology] could relieve a lot of pressure from them to focus on other areas of growth in the businessand give them free time, as well. I would say the skill set is very important.

Obviously being more creative, especially when access to capital is more restricted at the moment. And I say the creative part is to focus less on competition and more on collaboration. There may be a business out there doing something you both can come together and build something absolutely phenomenal. It’s a mindset thing, because when you’re doing work habitually, and you know change is coming, you’re trying to fight that. If you don’t embrace change, you’ll be in a more challenging situation than before.

This is the most phenomenal time for business owners to bring up that creative drive within them. And every entrepreneur, every business owner had that drive within them when they started their business. We’ve got to let them have that mindset again, to give them that extra push to bring out those creative juices within them again, to start the business, going on, moving it forward. I feel the problems will come if businesses are not being creative, not upskilling and reskilling, and not thinking about partnership and co creating. Thinking about those things is key right now.

What does business at its best look like for you?

Business at its best is having a fantastic team to work with. A team that is ambitious, enthusiastic, dedicated to the mission and vision of that business is important. And havinga leader that is driving that and keeping that enthusiasm and camaraderie in the business to support the team collectively to work well and having fun with it.

As I said, if it’s very difficult and it’s become monotonous again, think of creative ways. “Why” did you start this? There was something that fired you in that belly that was exciting. It hasn’t gone. You’ve just allowed the habitual nature of it to make you feel that way. So, make it fun. Fantastic team, great leadership makes a business really exciting for me. And successful.