Owning a business, sharing a passion and working together towards a common goal with your spouse or life partner can be wonderful. There is no reason couples cannot beat the odds in mixing professionalism and love to create an exceptional business. Arash and Roselle share tips for success to ensure the joy remains intact as business partners:
1. Just like marriages, business partnerships should have contracts and written plans too. Write a contract that will describe each of your roles and responsibilities. You would want to write down what you want to do individually and collectively, and what will happen if one of you chooses not to work together anymore. There should be a clear written communication and business plans of what will happen in any case. Ensure to always revisit and compare your actual and projected performance.
2. There are a lot of roles that need to be filled in a business: A financial expert, sales and/or marketing person, bookkeeper, administrator, etc. You have to ensure that you identify which of you will do a specific role and understand its importance to your business. Lastly, it’s important to keep your relationship professional. If you fail to do so, your emotions will get in the way when it comes time to make difficult decisions within the business.
2. Just like how you manage a relationship, good communication practice is also vital to the success of a business. Learning to respect boundaries, avoid going to bed without fixing the problem and listening to each other attentively are the ways how you manage a relationship and a business too. Remember that ending up tip-toeing around each other will erode both your professional and personal relationship.Ultimately, failing to have good communication will cause a lot of unnecessary conflict.
3. Work hard, play hard. While it’s important to talk about your business every now and then, you also do not want every discussion you have to be about work. Do not let the business burn you out and ensure work-life balance. This is one common problem of busy entrepreneurs.
4. In a relationship, you should let there be spaces between each other. Same as running a business. Make time for yourself, step back and feed your soul. Working together can be great but in remaining grounded on your own, you can be more effective working together as a team.
5. Celebrate your small wins. Just how you show appreciation to your employees, show appreciation to your partner too for the little things throughout the day and be grateful for what they have done. This respect is essential for your relationship and business to thrive. Celebrating the small things together will make the workplace a lot more positive for both your relationship and your business too.
As you try to be successful with the mixture of business and love, you will go through a learning curve which makes it imperative for both of you to be on the same page from the start of the journey.
