Eyre Bus, Tour & Travel offers chartered buses, tour packages and a full-service travel agency.

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One of the unique things about a family business is how closely it can be tied to the family’s identity. Unlike other executives who can walk away from a poorly performing company and move on relatively easily, the family business operator knows that his or her name is inextricably linked to that company. The owners and operators of Eyre Bus, Tour & Travel understand that and make it the impetus to provide the best service they can, according to Vice President Matt Eyre, a third-generation executive. The company has been providing transportation and travel services throughout the Northeast for more than 60 years.

“The bottom line is a sense of pride and commitment because the company has our name on the buses,” he says. “So you want to be proud of the name and you want people to speak well of your business, and in this business your reputation is what brings in the business.”

His father agrees. “I think the fact that [in a] family business, because it is family and because it’s got your name on it, you want to go beyond the call of duty in your customer service and also the way you treat employees,” Ronald Eyre says. “We try to create a family work environment here. Even though we have a hundred employees, we try to involve them in special events.”

Being a family owned company means that employees share in the family atmosphere, Ronald Eyre says, and that pays dividends back to the company in the form of loyalty. “We just hired a new receptionist,” he says. “She’s been here two weeks, and she comes into my office Friday and says to me, ‘Ron, in all of the places I have worked, I have never worked in a place where all of the employees are nice, they speak to you, and if I have any question at all, no matter what their job is, if they can help me, they will.’ The mentality of ‘It’s not my job’ does not exist here.”

Getting Over It
Disagreements aren’t a problem for the Eyre family, as Ronald Eyre says they know when to put the business first. “When we are in the office environment, we really aren’t connected at the hip as a family,” he says. “Usually, it’s been rare that there have been [arguments].”

“It comes down also to maturity, and we try to be running a business [first],” Matt Eyre says. “At work we do work, and at home we do home. Work is work, and work comes first.” Being able to “just get over it” goes a long way in helping to keep family disputes from spilling over into the office, he says.

In The Right Roles
Another situation unique to the world of family business is the challenge of finding the right roles for family members within the business. Ronald Eyre says some families are more concerned with getting all of the family members involved than getting the right family members involved.

“They have to want to participate, they have to show interest and commitment and they have to be able to perform in their job,” he says. “If you don’t have the drive, you don’t have the ambition or the passion, then it’s not going to make it. If you’re constantly discouraged and you don’t have the passion, it won’t survive.”

Once families determine which members of the family have the ambition to be successful in the business, they should pay close attention to their personal strengths.

In Eyre Bus, Tour & Travel’s case, Matt Eyre’s brother Kevin had experience in athletics, so he was placed in charge of generating business in the professional sports and college sports market. Because the company experiences slowdowns in the late summer and late winter, Matt Eyre says, Kevin Eyre’s sports experience brings in year-round business from touring teams.

Proper Planning
Ronald Eyre says he remembers what he had to endure when he took over the business from his parents, and says proper estate planning is the key to ensuring a successful transition from one generation to the next. In many cases, he says, it is failure in this one area that prevents a family business from staying in family control, not the health of the company itself.

“To succeed in a family business, you must do the proper estate and financial planning so that it can progress to the next generation,” he says.