Family businesses, listen up. Hire an intern. Change the trajectory of your business.

The biggest challenge for us family businesses is driving change. The owners don’t have time for it, the team doesn’t have motivation for it, and new hires don’t want to piss anyone off by taking the initiative. What’s the solve?

What’s worked magically for us at Milagro Universe is hiring a lot of Gen Z interns – paid ones, of course.

With a standard onboarding framework, clear objectives, and a simple buddy program that I picked up at Amazon, we have seen a win-win for the business as well as the interns.

Giving them a very specific experimentational project is the best way to extract value. Remember that one idea that you’ve always had in your mind, but had no time to pursue? This intern can help you get started.

Worst case, you find out it isn’t worth pursuing. Best case, you get started, see the potential, and dedicate resources to take it forward. In fact, you might be able to train the intern well enough for them to lead the project intonthe next phase.

For example, we have always wanted to move to a CRM that helps us better manage our customer pipeline. If it weren’t for two of our interns/fresh hires, we wouldn’t have been able to customize, build, and implement Zoho for our organization. And today, it helps us manage 100% of the deals we manage.

So, don’t wait for the day you have enough time to pursue the crazy ideas. Post an internship online, and get started. It’s cheap, effective, and of course, you might just create a young leader who can take your company to the next level.