If you thought that helping family businesses and business owners succeed meant that it was all about business, I wanted you to know that it really wasn't.

It's just the opposite. It's all about the people, relationships and strategic conversations.

For example, if you're in the life insurance business, before you can make the sale, you need to understand the people issues blocking someone's ability to see the future and move forward.

Your sales skills then can help him or her articulate what's important in a way that will allow you to customize your financial products to shore up the security of the senior generation, ease the concerns of the successor generation, and take care of those pesky credit lines.

There are several million companies out there where two or more generations work together side by side, so the opportunities for coaches who truly understand what makes the business owners tick are endless.

By seeing the whole picture rather than just a one-sided snapshot, your ability to get your clients to uncover what's important in the personal, business and family relationships collectively will make it possible, perhaps for the first time, for the client company to see where it is right now.

I like to use the example of going to Disneyworld:
There's a three-stop process of first knowing where you are right now, then where you are going (where Disneyworld is).

Once you know where you are and then where you're going, you begin to go through the process of sorting through various alternatives in order to come up with the best one for you right then. That is the role of the coach in this situation.

By understanding the big picture and obtaining a consensus of where the individual family members are right now, the coach can help them to articulate where they want the business to go. They can then consider what's possible and move on to creating a plan for the future.

Strategic Conversations is all about team-building strategies using different techniques that people can learn. People can use these techniques in a systematic way to enhance their communications. Since I have been working with people using my workplace conflict resolution and mediation training, I have helped people create processes that they can use themselves. As a coach, you can do the same.

What happens after you have helped solve the conflict for your client?

Here's what I did, and you should try this too: Move into the role of a "Planning Coordinator," which comes into play after the people in any given business have articulated where they want to be, after they have come to grips with the issues that they are facing.

In the case scenario above, I met with family members individually and helped them to communicate and create, then put down on paper their goals. After a great deal of work, these became the family's shared goals, which helped me to have a discussion with them about the perception of a conspiracy that had been running rampant.

And then after we were able to put down what we wanted the future to look like, and when everyone agreed to it, my job was to keep the individuals' secrets but at the same time help them to create a picture of the future with which everyone had agreed.

Then working with local advisors, Bobbie, Ron, Tom, and Billy, we created the documents that would form the framework of their future.

In my case, being from out of town, I then turned it over to the local advisors and at the same time empowered Bobbie and the three boys who were truly committed to the business.

In any given circumstance, one of the boys takes on the role of Planning Coordinator and speaks for all of them. It always seems to work out that way. My goal has been to leave the family in charge of their own destiny, and that's what each true professional should strive for.

Here is a look at the present day status of Smith Brothers Electronics:

Ken has become much more involved, and the stage is being set for when Joe and Bobbie will move to Scottsdale full-time. All of the things that started out with that one Friday afternoon explosion have been turned around.

In the course of events, the company is much more successful, and the people are much more likely to put in the extra effort. The spouses are less likely to complain if someone has to work a weekend even if they had other plans. The workers are much more willing to defer a raise to a time when things are better, or to drive their company car for an extra six months.

Everything has changed now since there's a shared sense of community - the focus on strategic conversations that achieved the "we're all in it together" attitude.

None of this would have occurred without that gigantic blowup, as every family member had been in denial in the hope that someday it would all work out - even though we all know that nothing good ever happens by accident.

I am confident that every person who is reading this story has greater skills and a much wider circle of contacts than I did when I started doing this kind of work, so it's absolutely true that if I can do it, anyone can do it.

I think that what is required for anyone to be successful in working with businesses like this is that they are dedicated to the process that will cause them to continually sharpen their skills.

If you're in the life insurance business, they need to learn coaching skills.

If you're a coach, you need to spend time with other "parallel" professionals, who spend their time working with clients but doing different things, so that the coaches can understand all the options for themselves and their clients.

In 2003, I collaborated on and published, "Doing It Right: Realizing Your Company's Potential." In order for us to reach 500,000 business people with this priceless and life-changing material, I felt the right thing to do was to make it available for free.

The full 300 pages of this interactive text are on our website, and as I said, it's all free for you in order to help you learn what you don't know, or to help you teach, train, or work with your clients and prospects as well.

In conclusion, no matter what your role is in working with family businesses, be it coach, mediator/ conflict resolution consultant, or insurance salesperson, it's more important that you become an expert in the people side of things such as communication and ultimately building stronger relationships than any other training you might think you need.