Are you in Business with your partner?
Due to covid there are more couples in business together, working from home and going into business together than ever before.
Couples may have been brought together in business due to one or both of them losing their jobs during covid or the lockdown itself allowed individuals time for self-reflection and time for realising and chasing new goals.
While going into business together sounds exciting and may seem like the perfect solution, often times if you haven’t really worked out the finer details, going into business together can cause real conflict in your relationship.
Assuming you have a business plan in place and you’ve done your due diligence, here are my tips for creating a harmonious and flourishing business life with your significant other
Talk to your accountant
Before you start, talk to your accountant about making sure your business is viable and structured correctly.
Have a written agreement in place
Agreements can be of the official kind, being set up by a lawyer or simply a written agreement between yourselves. Either way you’ll need this to cover such things as:
- Who will make the final decisions?
- Who is responsible for what?
- How many hours will you work?
- How much will you pay yourselves?
- What happens if someone wants to leave?
Work out your roles
Work out your roles from the outset.
Firstly, make a list of what those roles are and what tasks they entail.
What experience do you bring to the role? List your previous experience, the roles you were assigned and the tasks that you carried out.
What were you good at? Be honest with yourself and each other, you may have been undertaking a role for years that you weren’t very good at. Consider also what you enjoyed, sometimes you can be really good at something, but not particulary like it.
What you are doing here is working out your strengths and weaknesses?
If you don’t know start with a test, there are plenty online tests to choose from
Work and home life boundaries
Do you really want to spend all of your social time talking about work?
Often though as couples even when we are not in business together it’s natural to discuss work, the challenges we may be facing or a win, when we are outside of the office.
When you work together you may be so busy that while you may discuss issues or events as they happen, you don’t really get the time to discuss your thoughts on something that may have happened that day for example. In this case set time aside to talk through issues or celebrate wins but be mindful of the balance. Perhaps agree to not talk shop after a certain time at night or on weekends.
Are you both fully committed?
Being is business together and creating a successful business takes real commitment and dedication. Are you equally committed to making this business work and are you heading in the same direction? Reflect on where the business is going. Are you happy, comfortable in your role and eachother’s commitment?
Work out your business values
If you’ve been a relationship for a while, you probably have similar values in life, but what about in business? Do your values align?
Consider these questions together
How do you believe a business should run/operate?
How will you treat clients and service them?
What’s the feel of your business and how do you want to brand your business according to this?
Have your own space
If you are working at home together I’d highly recommend that you take turns working at a co working space or a coffee shop for a few hours or days (even better) a week.
I hope these tips have been helpful
