Business Trumps Love

Bachelor Brad Womack with Shawntel—in happier times.

Image: Courtesy of ABC

Most people wouldn’t necessarily think that ABC’s real-love-can-bloom-on-reality-TV dating show with passports also known as The Bachelor can teach them a thing or two about business, but Monday the rose-loving show did just that by broaching a hot topic in entrepreneurship and small-business circles: succession planning.

This has been a season of firsts in many ways. Bachelor Brad Womack is a second-time wife-seeker, after his first attempt three years ago ended with him rejecting both women. And this is also the first time that a bachelorette’s business has played such a major role in Womack’s decisionmaking process.

To those who are familiar with the show, this week was the “hometown dates” time, when the Bachelor travels to meet the families of his would-be wives. It’s normally an awkward time as he’s inevitably grilled by dad, judged by mom, and fawned over by the woman in question. But this week, bachelorette Shawntel, 25, decided to break the news to her dad that should Womack propose, she’ll be moving from her hometown of Chico, California, to his residence in Austin. Problem is that Shawntel works as a funeral director (another first) and has been groomed for years by her dad to take over the family business.

As if bringing home a man she met on TV wasn’t strange enough, hitting her family with her future plans made for an excruciating date. Host Chris Harrison blogged that on this “hometown trip of death,” Shawntel showed that she’s “very serious about her job, and she and her family mean a lot to the community in Chico…. The conversation Brad had with Shawntel’s father, who expressed his concern about his daughter leaving the city and thus abandoning the family business, definitely weighed on Brad’s mind the entire week.”

And while the situation may have been ramped up for dramatic appeal, Shawntel’s predicament brings up a very serious question that entrepreneurs and small-business owners must address: What happens to the family business when a key player moves away for love? In some ways, Last season of the show started to address that question in a slightly different way. Bachelor Jake Pavelka was falling hard for Ali Fedotowsky, who was told by her employer Facebook that she has to come back to work or lose her job—love life notwithstanding. She chose her career, but was soon hit by regret and tried to get back on the show. Pavelka didn’t bite, but Ali became the next Bachelorette, eschewing her job in the name of love.

But Shawntel’s quandary hit a little deeper. She wasn’t planning to leave a major corporation that could instantly replace her. She was essentially jeopardizing her father’s business survival. Dad let America know that Shawntel has been such a natural choice to be his successor that he’d already been passing off duties to her. And as she was becoming the public face of the company, the community’s trust in the family business rested relatively squarely on her slim shoulders.

So what’s a woman to do? In the end, Womack made the decision for her, opting to end their romance at this stage and allowing her to stay on with the family business. The “pressure of taking her away hung over the date and probably played a factor in Brad’s final decision,” blogs Harrison. “It made the decision to send her home the right one to make this week.”

For those who aren’t so lucky, a key lesson of this week’s show is that businesses have to be nimble and that having a succession plan is good, but you always need a backup. It’s not difficult to understand why Shawntel’s dad chose to focus on her as the sole candidate for his position: He implicitly trusts her, it’s easier to train one person rather than a few, and she showed a natural affinity for the business. Still, had there been a secondary candidate in line, the decision may not have had to be such an emotional one.

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