Scott Sletten: [00:00:00] Look at the alternatives. Talk to people that have already done it. What did they like? What did they not like? What do they wish they had done differently? What do they wish they knew before they started the process? No matter what route you choose, there’s risks and there’s returns. No path of you exiting your company is without risk, whether that’s risk of you just not being there, the financial risk of what do you get outta your company, whether you sell it, you transition it to family. 

There’s so many options and every one of ’em has a slightly different path. You’ve got ’em to really decide, I guess, what are things that are most important to you.

Is it most important that you get the most possible money? Is it most important that you have a legacy? And this company is still continuing, you know, 20, 30 years beyond you, is that more important to you? You can decide really what your hotspots are and what’s most important to you.

Stephanie: Welcome to the Family Business Connection, the podcast where we explore the real stories behind multi-generational family businesses [00:01:00] and the people who lead them. I’m your host Stephanie Larscheid, executive Director of Prairie Family Business Association. In today’s episode, we talk with Scott Sletten, second generation leader and CEO of JDS industries.

Headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, JDS Industries is a powerhouse in the awards and personalization industries, but you won’t find their name on the products. With the wholesale model serving over 30,000 retailers and customers in more than 70 countries, JDS Industries is one of those behind the scenes companies that keeps the economy moving.

Scott shares the remarkable story of how he and his father grew the business from a single trophy shop into a multi-location national operation with over 35,000 products and nearly 400 employees, and why after decades at the helm, he chose to transition the company through an [00:02:00] ESOP or employee stock ownership plan.

He opens up about what led him to sell the company to his employees, how he de-risked the process and what it’s meant for company culture and leadership as he steps into a new role. It’s a conversation about legacy, innovation and letting go with purpose, one that’s sure to resonate with other business owners navigating their own transitions.

First, Scott tells us how JDS industries began and how a family name became a national brand.

We’re ready for today’s episode with Scott Sletten of JDS Industries. Welcome, Scott. 

Scott Sletten: Well, thank you. Good to talk to you. 

Stephanie: Yeah, we’re excited to talk family business here. So why don’t you give our listeners an idea of what your business is, the generation you are, who’s involved. 

Scott Sletten: Okay, well name of our company is JDS Industries.

And for the short version, that’s a contraction of we, my parents used to own [00:03:00] JD’s House of Trophies 25 years ago. And so when we decided to move into the wholesale rather than the retail part of our industry, we, uh, changed our name to JDS Industries. It was a little bit of a contraction of JD’s House of Trophies.

And then also my parents’ names were Jane and Darwin and my name is Scott. So JDS industries worked for our three initials as well. So that’s how we came up with the name. And we came up with that name in 1990. So we’ve had that now for 35 years. So we originally a retail trophy store, basically trophies, awards, plaques, corporate awards, things of that nature.

And then my dad and I, we started developing a lot of our own unique products, and then we found a lot of other people thought they were unique as well and wanted to buy them. So we started kind of a wholesale division that started selling and then that started growing nicely. So at some point we decided that, you know what the wholesale’s really where the future is for us.

It would allow us to sell not just locally, but regionally, nationally, and even internationally. So we expanded the business along the wholesale route. And then within a few years of that, my parents decided to sell the retail store ’cause [00:04:00] you really can’t, it’s really difficult to own retail and wholesale both.

You know, running the retail, any regional other retailer didn’t really wanna buy from us. We were competing with them, so it worked good for us to really move in the wholesale direction. When we started the wholesale, so was my dad and I originally, and then my mother was involved in ownership as well at the time. My dad and I kind of ran the wholesale side and my mom ran the retail side for a while.

So my dad and I started developing more products, started kind of expanding the items we were offering. This was also about the time that we started doing some, or anybody did, started doing some international sourcing in that early 1990s when you started hearing about that. So we actually went overseas, made a few trips, and started developing a line of some vendors to actually make some products just for us.

That way they’re more exclusive and things we could offer that nobody else was offering. And that’s kind of how we get started in the wholesale side of the business. 

Stephanie: And from there it started to scale. 

Scott Sletten:Yeah. 

Stephanie: Give us an idea of the scope today. How many employees? 

Scott Sletten: Well, right now we have just under 400 employees.

We have operations nationwide, so we have 13 warehouses. [00:05:00] So we’re primarily a sales, marketing, and catalog driven company. So basically we sell a tremendous amount of products. Right now we sell over 35,000 different products. What I like to tell people is we’re a wholesale company that makes the economy work but you don’t really know exists.

Because if you would ever look up where to buy a trophy, an award corporate, you know, glass crystal, anything like that, you wouldn’t ever find us. You would find our customers if you ever looked it up or Googled it or whatever. So we go through a whole network of retailers. We have over 30,000 retailers throughout the United States, and we actually sell to 70 countries as well around the world.

What they do is we provide the background inventory and make these products available. As you can imagine, a retailer would never have the ability to stock 5, 10, 20,000 products. So we do that stocking and then we provide them with a lot of marketing tools that allow them to offer a broad scope of products.

And then we have the background inventory. So they simply go on our website, order things as they take orders, and kind of makes the whole system work. 

Stephanie: I know at Prairie Family Business Association, we’ve been a [00:06:00] customer of one or several of your retailers, so indirectly we have certainly benefited from JDS industries, but not under that name, just as you described.

Scott Sletten: Yeah, for sure. It’s been a lot of fun. We’ve, you know, grown our company a lot over years, so yeah, we just under 400 employees, so we have 13 facilities nationwide. As I mentioned, they range in size from our smallest warehouse now is 50 to 60,000 square feet, and our headquarters here in Sioux Falls is about 320,000 square feet.

So have about, I think it’s between 1.3 and 1.4 million square feet primarily of warehouse space nationwide right now. 

Stephanie: Wow. Impressive. And you brought your third generation on board several years ago. And so, 

Scott Sletten: Uh, yeah, my son works for us. He, um, came outta high school and then, uh, did some college and has worked for us ever since.

And he works more in our signing division. So our company has broadened a lot. We’ve diversified into many different product groups, and so he specializes more the signage side of our industry. So that would be windows, walls, floors, the, uh, vinyl you would put on windows, for instance, to peel off banners, yard signs you put, [00:07:00] you know, in front of your signs for election.

All kinds of different things that we consider signage, car wraps, all kinds of different things that go to a little bit different industry. 

Stephanie: Very interesting, the diversifying that you’ve done over the years. So here you are, you’re sitting at third generation, a business that has grown by leaps and bounds since you entered the business as second generation.

And not too long ago, your transition came to a pivotal point. So talk about that transition and what led you there. 

Scott Sletten: One of the things that makes you reflect a little bit is getting a little older. And I came to a point about two, three years ago where I was getting close to turning 60, and so I’ve been doing this for 35 years.

My father was involved with me. We really built the company together, which was a lot of fun. I like to tell people my dad and I were more partners and we were father and son a lot of times. ’cause I mean, he was very good at, you know, working with people and all these things, but he was never really much into the computers and all that kind of stuff and he didn’t go through college or as I went through an undergraduate, I went through and got my MBA, so I was more classically trained [00:08:00] in business, so we kind of tag teamed it and we were as much partners as anything. When we built the business, it was a lot of fun. About 15 years ago, he decided it was time for him to retire, so he did that. Then I took over fully running the company. That’s been about 15 years ago now.

So I’ve been president and CEO for a long time. We’ve continued to grow and add products, but I decided it was time for me to start slowing down, or at least trying to look at what that glide path looked like. Looking at 60, I’m like, okay, you know, if I want to be done with this by the time I’m in mid sixties or later, what does that look like?

What are the options? So I started researching and one of the most obvious first places I did was I talked to some other companies or owners who had gone through a transition and you know, what did you look at? How did you decide to do this? I first looked at just outright selling the company. That seemed like one of the easiest things to do, so I looked into that.

Certainly some pluses you could actually walk away, so to speak. You get a decent price hopefully. You walk away from your company and within, you know, a year or two of consultation, maybe you’re done. That’s great. But then you really look at the risk factor. We’ve all heard those [00:09:00] stories where venture capital company comes in, buys you, and you never know, obviously, you can’t control what happens to your company after that happens. 

There’s good success stories, but there’s an awful lot of horror stories where they come in, they change the culture, destroy it, and then what happens to your employees, your customers, your vendors? We are kind of unique in our small awards industry especially we’re kind of an 800 pound of gorilla, so in the wholesale of the awards side, so trophies, plaques, corporate awards, that kind of thing, we are the largest operator in the world, headquartered right here in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Almost every one of our vendors, we are their biggest customer in the world.

We have many vendors around the world where we could be 70 to 80% of their entire business, giving an idea. So our operations are absolutely critical, and we are truly partners with a lot of these vendors. So it wasn’t just me that was risking what would happen to the company, but I’m risking a lot of other people’s livelihoods as well if a venture capital company was to buy us and it didn’t go well and went belly up in three to five years, which [00:10:00] does happen. 

Boy, there’s a lot of people that would’ve hurt. So I was taking a look at different options and you know, I got to the point where I had contacted with a venture capital company and a banker and a kinda looked into this.

So I was keeping my senior team, my leadership team involved in this whole process and letting them know what I’m looking at. So I didn’t want ’em to blindside ’em with this. So we started looking at this and for a while they listened. And then, you know, as I was going down the road a little bit, and then at some point they came to me and said, you know what? We really have a passion for what we do, just like you do. We’ve helped you build this. We’d really like to have a stake in the future of this company. If there’s any way we can do that. 

And you know, there’s some venture capital companies where maybe the manage management team has incentives or can take a portion of it, but then they came up with, is there any way you could consider an ESOP where all your employees would benefit?

And, and I said, well, I’m not opposed to the idea, but I also want to understand it better. How does an ESOP work? All those kind of things. And then does it also do some things I need, which is mean obviously get some return from the [00:11:00] company, be able to finish off my career in a reasonable period of time, but also not be overly taking on a lot of extra risk by going down a certain road.

So we started exploring. So what I did is I put a 90 day hold on selling the company and told my employees, I said, let’s explore these options. So we started doing some research and then we also went and visited. I chose three different companies to visit that I knew within this region had converted to ESOP in the last many years.

So I chose one who had recently converted in the last year. So they were really good about telling us. Okay, how’d the process go? Who’d you talk to? What steps did you go through and, and are you happy with the result once you got through it? I talked to another company who had one active for six to seven years, so they had been under the ESOP for quite a few years.

Had a better feel for how did it go? Did it help you with employee retention? I mean, all these questions you naturally have. Then I talked to a third company. That had to, had one for about 15 years. So they were to that point where they had pretty much paid off. The owners, they’ve [00:12:00] been very successful with what they’ve done, they paid off. The owners come out the other side and were still successful. Then all these steps as well. 

I involved all my senior management teams, so when we had these meetings to talk to these companies, all 10 of us went to every one of these meetings if they, they’re all available. So we all learned an awful lot going down this road. That’s for sure. 

Stephanie: At that point, it was probably just your senior management team clue in and your family?

Scott Sletten: Correct. Yeah, my senior management team and then my immediate family. And when we started this process, I did involve my kids and let them know that, you know, what I was looking at doing, so it wouldn’t be a complete shock for them, especially my son who works for me.

They knew what I was working on as well, and that this wasn’t a short term thing, that this was gonna take some time and, and it ended up being about close to a two year window, year and a half to two years sometime I started the process to the time we finalized what we were doing. And the ESOP too in my mind, what we did was a little bit unique, but in my mind, an ESOP was something you did. It takes a long period of time. The owner gets very small amount of capital out upfront and you take a lot of risk going forward ’cause basically you turn your [00:13:00] company over to your employees to run kind of, you stay actively involved, but then you no longer own the company really.

The ESOP does. So in a traditional ESOP that’s kinda the road you go down. It’s a lot of risk for the owner and you know, basically your money’s still riding on the company, but yet your employees are running it. That’s pretty risky if you’re still in a pretty important cog on that wheel and a bit scary.

And that’s one of the things I had, you know, as a challenge for my team, is how can I de-risk an ESOP transaction where I could get maybe a little bit more of the value out of, upfront. And then, you know, I’m willing to carry back a good portion of it. And then I’m also remaining CEO for a number of years to make sure we’re successful.

And then over time, as the company slowly pays me down, so to speak, then I can slowly transition more and more ownership and day-to-day responsibilities, which we’ve already transitioned a fair amount, you know, over time. 

Stephanie: You’ve done a lot of good work leading up to this transaction and the announcement of it.

Scott Sletten: I certainly learned an awful lot. I, I read a lot more legal documents and spreadsheets than [00:14:00] I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, but I learned an awful lot about the process and it was really, really interesting and it was fun to learn about. And so early on I started researching this and started what kind of companies did this?

We had a few companies come in and present their version of an ESOP, and I always thought ESOPs, you know, they’re very government controlled ’cause it’s really a retirement fund is what it really is, you’re turning your company into. And so I assume they were pretty regulated, which they are. But there was a number of different ways you can do it.

You can do a portion of your company ESOP, or what we chose to do is what? A was a hundred percent ESOP. So I really literally sold my entire company to my employees. That’s what route we chose. But there are different methods and different percentages you can go and what you can do. And then one big difference that we ended up doing, which again de-risked it for me, is we did a version that actually allowed some outside investors to invest in the deal.

Very much like a venture capital would come and, company and buy you, but maybe somebody else bought 30% of it. They didn’t run it, but they just put a financial investment. That’s kind of what we [00:15:00] did with an ESOP. So it was a unique version of it that I had never heard of, and there was a company, actually the owner of it lives here in Sioux Falls that kind of put us onto it and some lawyers recommended talking to him and, and it ended up being a really, really good way for us to go down this path.

Stephanie: And I know with the way that you’ve gone and structured this deal, the success of the company is still on your shoulders to carry forward, but a lot of that risk has been taken off. Did you go out and find the investors yourself? Or did, were those presented to you from advisors? How’d that process work?

Scott Sletten: So the company we worked with doing this, the way they put it is they had a number of clients that have been so happy with what they’ve done and what they’ve done for them. They were very large companies. This company specializes in companies with a company value of a hundred million or more. They’ve done some companies that are over two, $3 billion, giving an idea, very sizable.

So what they did is a couple of these owners, once they cashed out, they were so happy that they established an investment fund for the guy that runs this company to actually invest in new deals, to [00:16:00] actually encourage more people to go down the road and just like they did, to de-risk it a little bit.

But they would also put money in and actually make some money on companies that if hopefully this was very successful for others. So it was kind of a hybrid kind of deal that I never knew existed before I got into this. 

Stephanie: Which is wonderful. Great way to structure it. Talk about the moment that you notified your employees, that you got ’em all together and said, Hey, this is what’s happening.

Scott Sletten: Well, it was a long time in coming. It was a hard secret to keep. As I said, we probably worked on this for a solid 18 months or something. So all these meetings, as you’d imagine, it’s a lot like selling your company. You’ve got people that come for meetings and you might imagine bankers, insurance people, legal people.

Some meetings you do offsite, but there’s times you gotta take people for tours. One thing we also did is I owned all of our real estate here in Sioux Falls at our headquarters, but not the warehouses outside Sioux Falls. So we had people walking through the buildings, we were looking at investors. We ended up doing a sale lease back on our headquarters, which is another thing that provided [00:17:00] some equity into the company liquidity so that it allowed to pay me down a little bit more upfront. But we had people walking through the buildings that looked and invest in this. So we had lots and lots of people walking through the building. So a lot of employees knew something was up, but they didn’t know what we were doing. But we also acquired another company at about the same time.

So once we announced that, which was, so probably three, four months before we announced that we were doing the ESOP a little bit, but so that kind of settled people’s minds, oh, this is why the people were coming in, or they’re looking at it. But we kept the circle pretty small of the people that were involved in it, you know, it’s ESOPs could be pretty confusing.

A lot of people don’t know a lot about them, so to let just a little bit of information out we thought would be more confusing than anything. So we finalized our deal last September, so September of 2024. And then we did a big reveal in a, in a meeting with all of our employees in January of 2025. So we rented a facility and we shut down our entire company, moved all of our employees over there.

And so we had this big to-do, I guess, where the investors were there, [00:18:00] and myself and Mike May, who’s my COO and now president of the company. So we talked to the employees and kind of debuted what we were planning, and then the people that are gonna be running the ESOP, et cetera, kinda explained to the employees what an ESOP, what it’s gonna be all about. But it was really a lot of fun for me. 

Somewhat emotional, as you might imagine. ’cause in the ESOP, you’re not giving your company to your employees, but you’re doing it selling it to ’em. And a lot like selling a company though, the company that guides you through it has to, just like a venture company would, what is your EBITDA worth?

What is your multiple of EBITDA? So they go through all the same steps that you wouldn’t selling a company. You have to find bankers willing to back the concept. You’ve gotta find, so you go through a lot of the exact same steps you’d go through. So it was really interesting. So yeah, it was a big thing and a lot of my employees wanted to just, you know, almost looked dumbfounded when we announced it, because again, I think a lot of people have heard the word ESOPs, but don’t really know what it means.

So one of the things I said, I was up a stage is I decided to sell my company and I kinda let that sink in and people were going, oh no, oh no. And, and I said, you know, [00:19:00] look to your left, look to your right. You’re now looking at all the new owners. So it was a, pretty emotional, a lot of fun and people are clapping and, but I don’t think they really understood what that means.

You know, the average employee being told they now own part of the company would like, what, what does that mean? I didn’t pay anything for this. And does that mean I’m gonna be stuffed picking on my paychecks to pay for the company? Or, but yeah, that’s, it’s truly a retirement plan. They don’t pay anything for it.

All they do to earn it really is continue to be employed. And then the amount that it ends up being worth is all subject to how well the company does, and obviously paying down the debt and all those things. 

Stephanie: That’s incredible. What an experience that you were able to have on that day, letting ’em know. So here we’re having this conversation, you know, we’re about in nine months post deal transaction, six months out from telling your employees, what’s the culture like today?

Scott Sletten: Excellent. People love it. We’ve done a lot of, I call it branding around the, around the company. We’ve got signs up that say 100% employee owned. We’ve changed some of our [00:20:00] logos and things. We make sure it’s in a lot of our ads. We certainly use it in HR. Hopefully that’s a benefit for us to have more people wanna work for us ’cause they’re gonna get a piece of the pie, so to speak, longer term.

So we hope it’s gonna have a lot of benefits. A lot of the companies we talked to when we looked at an ESOP said it, don’t think that’s gonna be, you know. Everything to everybody. If you’re 25 years old or told you’re part of an ESOP, but you can’t extract any value till you’re 65 or older, it’s a little less appealing to somebody who maybe is looking at that, you know, another 10 or 15 years, their horizon.

And that’s a little more relevant to them talking about retirement. But honestly, the younger you are to get into something like this, if you stay. The more can be valued for you, more value you can have. It’s a lot like a 401k, the younger you are, the start saving money the more’s gonna be worth for you 30, 40 years from now when you truly need it.

But hopefully it encourages people to stay with our company. It’ll help and employ retention. It’ll tell a great story. You know, when we try to make sure we drive home that ownership, we’re, we’re doing some internal seminars, things [00:21:00] like that to let people know more about it. We had the companies, our trustees and things, talk to our employees, do some seminars, give them more details.

Coming up here in August, now we have our first annual employee or shareholder meeting, if you wanna call it that. What they’ll do, so once a year we have a big meeting where everybody gets a readout of what they’re call ’em, shares in the company are worth. So this is the first time that they’ll get a statement in their hands that says, okay, based on your salary level, time you’ve been with the company, et cetera, this is what your value is worth this year.

And then every year, once a year, we’ll get an update on what that value is. And obviously that’s all predicated on how well the company does. 

Stephanie: When you talk about thriving for generations and the business continuing on for the next 50 or a hundred years and what a player you are in the world market, it’s incredible what you’ve created, Scott, and what you’re leaving to the employees, the vendors, the customers, just like you talked about, that was so important in deciding how you’re gonna [00:22:00] transition this business and you’re happy today. 

Talk about how you feel about it and your family. 

Scott Sletten: I’m happy about it. I was happy when we, when we finally got to reveal, and it’s an awful big secret to keep for a long time.

And again, all the work we put into it and doing anything with your company is a big risk. How is it gonna run? Is it gonna be as successful, you know, what’s gonna change? Obviously some of the biggest changes for, to me at our side as a company, we have a, you know, a lot of employees all over the country, so none of their jobs change.

And then that was part of the beauty of an ESOP was that it provides more consistency going forward. All the same people run the company. They do virtually the same things. I was previously president and CEO. So what I’ve done now is I’ve stepped up to just CEO. Just CEO! And my, uh, former COO was now president of the company, but my entire senior team is still my same senior team.

We didn’t bring in any additional people, outside people, so really the employees didn’t notice any change in how we operated other than they’d see me a little bit less the office. I purposely working a little bit more remotely [00:23:00] so that I’m not there all the time. So people come to me with every question, like maybe they used to kind of, you know, making sure that goes through the senior team more as it should.

It’s thus far, we’re about six months into it now, and it’s working very, very well. I can focus more on the strategic side of things. Like right now we do a tremendous amount importing, so all the things going on with tariffs, et cetera, that’s really where I should be spending a lot of my time, whether it be vendor relations, working on some new products with my team that works on that. I go overseas at times and work with vendors. This allows me to spend more time doing that and not worry as much about that hour to hour making a deal with a certain customer or quoting a special price on this job. And so I’ve kind of removed myself from some of that day-to-day, hour to hour stuff.

I’m still available for if they want to ask questions that simply email me, text me, call me, whatever like they always would. But I’m trying to stay outta that little day-to-day stuff a little bit more so my team can do that. 

Stephanie: That’s great. A little bit of, you know, out of sight then let’s go to the person that we can see every day.

I’m get those questions and them. 

Scott Sletten: I’ve always been kind of a type-A workaholic, so [00:24:00] I’m one of those people that you can email at 6:00 AM or 11:00 PM and you’re probably gonna get an answer in the first 15 minutes, and that’s seven days a week, not just five is. As it’s true with many business owners, I guess.

Stephanie: I hope, I hope that that transition evolves too, Scott, for, for you and your family’s sake.

Scott Sletten: Yeah, that’s, that’s part of the biggest challenge for me. I’ve been doing this for so long that it’s, it’s hard to step away and hard not to be watching it. So my wife and I are trying to do a lot more travel now, and so I always have my laptop. So every morning I’ll be on my computer a couple hours looking through what happened the previous day and that kind of stuff.

And then throughout the rest of the day, depending on what we’re doing, obviously I’ll be watching from my phone watching emails, so I’m always kind of checking for messages and such. And over time, the more and more things I move on to other people within my group, I’m involved in less and less of the email chains and situations and there’s just, oh, so over time that transition should kind of be natural.

So it doesn’t feel like any big change. Like for instance, selling to venture capital company, they could have brought in new people, got rid of a bunch of our top people. I mean, you would be a radical change. Whereas an ESOP, [00:25:00] there’s a lot less change early on. So it, you know, should be much more of a smooth transition from our employees.

Again, customers, vendors, everything. Exactly, get a lot of confidence in the future and just knowing that I’m still involved in a company, I’ll still be guiding, making the same decisions. And most of my senior team, it worked out well for us ’cause the majority of my senior team’s been with me 10 years or more.

So they’re all very, very versed in what we do. They knew what we do, why we do, and how I would’ve done it. All those kind of things. So provided a lot of you, smooth transition for us. 

Stephanie: I believe I have our records accurate that JDS Industries has been a part of Prairie Family Business Association since the very early days.

And so that’d be going on 34 years, which is wonderful. Early days. 

Scott Sletten: Pretty early days. Yeah, I was, I was not one of the very first people, but I think I started getting involved with the group that became South Dakota Family Business Counsel probably when I was in my mid twenties. So at this point we’re probably talking 35. Yeah, 35 plus years ago. Maybe close to 40. 

Stephanie: Yeah, and that community, 

Scott Sletten: it was originally Sioux Falls businesses and a few people around us, and then it was, I think [00:26:00] at the very beginning, a group called Sons of Bosses, I think is how it all started. And then it became Sioux Falls Family Business Council. And then it ended up being a regional and more statewide and yeah, something we did ourselves, a bunch of group of us had originally, so we would meet at each other’s businesses, we’d do tours and talk about our businesses and just, it was really a way for the next generation to talk to each other and, okay, what are you going through? How are you doing? 

And right now you do some of that with some of your legacy groups and some of your affinity groups and such, so that’s wonderful.

Stephanie: Exactly. Yeah. So briefly as we close out, talk about what that community’s meant to you through Prairie Family Business Association, and maybe even more specifically the Affinity Peer Group that you’ve been involved in. 

Scott Sletten: Yeah, we’ve been a big benefit of the Family Business Council. I kind of still watch what they do.

I love reading the newsletters and reading the stories. I’m kind of a lover of business. I consider myself a bit of a closet economist. I love reading about economics and businesses, and it’s just always excited me. So it’s fun to hear about stories of other businesses and how they’ve done, how well they’ve done, and how they’ve done it.

I just find business stories fascinating, [00:27:00] so it’s a lot of fun for me. And then, yeah, so we’ve donated too to the group for many years and passing the torch and trying to do what we can to help the future of family business in this region. And, and I know anymore there’s people all around the country that are part of the, what’s is the South Dakota Family Business Council.

So it’s great that other people have seen the value as well and, and what the group offers and hopefully that can continue. 

Stephanie: Certainly what Prairie Family Business Association offers is unique and accessible. And family businesses all over the country have certainly benefited and just like today from your story, there’s a nugget or two or three that they’re gonna take and and run with as they decide what the transition in the future of their business looks like the next 50,100 years.

That’s what we’re here to help educate and inform and create a community around. As we close out, what advice would you give to other leading generations who are working on, on the future of their business, maybe they’re in their fifties or sixties, what advice would you give them? 

Scott Sletten: Look at the alternatives.

Talk to people that have already done it. What did they like? What did they not like? What do they [00:28:00] wish they had done differently? What do they wish they knew before they started the process? No matter what route you choose, there’s risks and there’s returns. No path of you exiting your company is without risk.

Whether that’s risk of you just not being there, the financial risk of what do you get outta your company, whether you sell it, you transition it to family. There’s so many options and every one of ’em has a slightly different path. You’ve gotta really decide, I guess, what are things are most important to you?

Is it most important that you get the most possible money? Is it most important that you have a legacy? And this company is still continuing, you know, 20, 30 years beyond you, is that more important to you? You gotta decide really what your hotspots are and what’s most important to you. I think. 

Stephanie: You know, as you mentioned, it takes time and, and so don’t delay starting the process.

It’s gonna take years to execute and figure out the right step and some curves in the path along the way. So don’t delay in starting the process and talking to advisors and other families getting involved with Prairie Family Business Association. The more you learn, the better [00:29:00] off you’ll be. As we like to say, there’s not a one size fits all in family business. 

There’s options A to Z and beyond, and you have to figure out what’s right for you, your business, your family, and you’ve certainly done that, Scott. So thank you so much for sharing your story. 

Scott Sletten: Okay. Nice to talk to you, Stephanie. 

Stephanie: Thank you. Well, what a great episode with Scott Sletten of JDS Industries, second generation, a lot to learn on ESOPs and transition and the right path for you.

So thank you so much for joining us today, Scott. 

Scott Sletten: Okay. I enjoyed it. Thanks.

Stephanie: That was Scott Sletten, second generation CEO of JDS industries, and a thoughtful leader in what it means to transition a business with vision and care. From exploring traditional sales to embracing an employee owned model, Scott’s story shows that legacy can take many forms and sometimes the most meaningful path forward is the one that benefits everyone who helped build the company.[00:30:00] 

If Scott’s story inspired you to start thinking about your own leadership transition or succession plan, we invite you to explore our resources and community@fambus.org. That’s F-A-M-B-U-S.org. There you’ll find tools, events, and stories from other business leaders walking a similar journey. And don’t forget to follow us on social media to hear more real stories from family business leaders like Scott.