When a person works hard to build up a business, they often want to pass it down to their children.

However, the statistics aren’t promising.

Most of the businesses in South Dakota are family-owned. Seventy percent of them would like to keep the business in the family, but only 30 percent of them will pass it on to the next generation.

By the third generation, only 12 percent of the businesses are still around. It drops to three percent by the fourth generation.

One of the problems is that around half of the companies don’t have succession plans in place.

Today, a national expert on the topic was in Sioux Falls.  She gave advice to businesses at the Prairie Family Business Conference.

“We’ve had people fighting on the way to the funeral home and have never talked to each other since. I told them today that people in family businesses lie. The three biggest lies are, ‘Work hard and someday this will all be yours.’ The second is, ‘I’m going to retire.’ The third is, ‘You don’t have to worry about your brothers and sisters. They have their jobs. They’re not interested in the business,'” Family Business Consultant Jolene Brown said.

So how do you survive?  Taking certain steps can make a huge difference.

Brown’s advice for keeping your family businesses in the family on Your Money Matters on KELOLAND News at 10 p.m.