What is one tip for maintaining a successful business partnership with your spouse?
To help business leaders create an effective business partnership with their spouses, we asked couples in business and business professionals for their best tips. From keeping family matters at home to designating business roles, there are several strategies that may help you and your spouse create a prosperous business relationship.
Here are 11 strategies to create a successful business partnership with your spouse:
- Define Work and Family Time
- Secure Your Family’s Future
- Plan Ahead With Tech Tools
- Divide Duties by Strengths
- Communicate With Each Other
- Keep Family Matters at Home
- Designate Business Roles
- Share Your Company Vision
- Invest in Financial Security
- Give Credit Where It’s Due
- Respect Comes First
Define Work and Family Time
My wife and I run our own criminal defense and personal injury law firm in Seattle, and I could not ask for a better, more passionate business partner. With that said, it is very easy to blur the lines between work and home life — especially in a pandemic while we are working from home! I think the key to a successful relationship on all fronts is creating protected time. Having certain hours to tackle business and certain hours for our family is the key to making it work!
Court Will, Will & Will
Secure Your Family’s Future
While it is difficult to think about one’s own mortality, it is important to think about your family and what might happen in the event of death. If you work with your spouse, getting life insurance for both of you is an important risk management tool that provides some financial security for your loved ones or beneficiary in the event of death. Depending on your needs, life insurance can not only cover death expenses but can also replace your lost income so that your family can maintain their quality of life even in your absence.
Brian Greenberg, True Blue Life Insurance
Plan Ahead With Tech Tools
I run and manage two businesses with my partner, and we’ve found that a great way to feel like we’re both pulling our own weight and working towards our strengths is to spend an hour or two at the end of each month planning out tasks that we’ll do for the following month. We organize these tasks in ClickUp, but you could use Asana or similar variations. This has really helped us to feel like we’re both putting in the same effort and helps to avoid any strain in our work relationship.
Kristine Thorndyke, Test Prep Nerds
Divide Duties by Strengths
To have a successful business partnership with your spouse takes patience, respect, and desire to make it work. One way to foster this environment is to know each other’s zone of genius, or natural strengths. If one spouse is better at running a specific function of the business, let them own it. This creates accountability and division of labor in the best way possible. When each partner carries the weight based on skill and passion, a successful partnership is more easily formed.
Jenn Christie, Markitors
Communicate With Each Other
As the co-founder of Allegiance Flag Supply, I have two business partners — my husband Wes and our good friend Max Berry. From the very beginning, we made finding our balance a priority. If we can help it, my husband and I don’t discuss the business without Max. When Wes and I are together, we are a married couple, but we also know how and when to switch gears. This took some practice, but I believe we have since become masters at it. We make sure that the three of us always stay in the loop through communication, whether in person, zoom calls, text messages, or email. However, we don’t believe in “over-communication.” That’s something I would advise. Trusting in your counterpart is essential. “Up-to-date knowledge” helps each of us work as a unit while contributing our unique personal strengths.
Katie Lyon, Allegiance Flag Supply
Keep Family Matters at Home
When working with your spouse, the most important thing you can do is run your business like a corporate entity, not a family business. And don’t bring your bedroom into the boardroom. Never bring your personal issues into work — and always manage two very separate lines of the business, so you avoid stepping on each other’s toes. Your employees should never see you argue about anything that does not affect the business or is rooting in something personal.
Danielle Lindner, Children’s Author and Parenting Coach
Designate Business Roles
Formally establishing the areas of accountability allows my wife and me to work in a more structured way. Knowing other couples that work together, we find it crucial. This is because it is a popular approach among family members to keep things informal and perform tasks based on personal initiative rather than predefined rules. And that’s not a practice suitable for business operations.
Michael Sena, Senacea
Share Your Company Vision
Being in business with your spouse can lead not only to divorce but a business divorce, too. The desire to grow your company can take over your life at home as well as work with pillow talk, dinner table discussions, and even when you are relaxing. The key is to start with a shared vision for the company and your life together. Then when one of you feels overwhelmed with the intensity of work, you can take some strategic time to review and reflect on that vision. Once you’ve had some time to reflect, you’ll have insights about how to help you and your spouse refocus on this shared vision. The key to getting your spouse to recommit and re-focus on the shared vision is to ask questions. So sit quietly and reflect on three to six questions you might ask at the right time.
Katharine Halpin, The Halpin Companies Inc.
Invest in Financial Security
After putting in countless hours at your business with your significant other and providing your family a certain lifestyle, make a plan to provide your loved ones financial security in the event that either of you can no longer work due to health complications. This is why it is important to consider your life insurance options. For example, most people choose between whole vs. term life insurance policies. Depending on your situation, a term life insurance policy is typically less expensive and easier to maintain over time. However, if your situation changes, then you might find that the whole life insurance policy is more valuable to you and your family.
Chris Abrams, Marcan Insurance
Give Credit Where It’s Due
When I first started my law firm, it was a one-man show run with the help of my lovely wife. Between running to the courthouse and trying to meet with clients, my wife was the person who truly drove business in. I always tell everyone she’s the brains behind all of this success. If you want to maintain a successful partnership with your wife, make sure you give credit when it’s due. When you’re successful, most of the time, you tend to forget where you started and the people who helped you succeed. Don’t forget to give your spouse the praise they deserve, because after all, they’re more than just a business partner. They’re your life partner.
Seth Price, Price Benowitz LLP
Respect Comes First
My husband and I started our AC repair and installation company together a couple of years ago. We both came from different educational backgrounds. He understood the mechanics of fixing wires in AC units and systems while I understood the marketing and business-running side of things. If I’m honest, we had so many arguments in those first few months because we were on different pages of what we envisioned the company to be. It took a while for us to come to the understanding that our differences were what made our company succeed. We learned that the best way to maintain our relationship as spouses and as business partners was to agree to disagree on things, to respect each other’s strengths, and to leave work at work.
Natalie Sullivan, Cooler Air Today
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