Working with your Spouse!
“I think when you work together, sometimes you end up exceeding your own expectations” - Dr. Shannon Chapman
Working with your space can be difficult but also very rewarding. Working with your spouse during a pandemic adds another twist. Starting a business with your spouse DURING a pandemic can be a recipe for disaster or the foundation of sometimes spectacular. We opened the doors to our brand new state-of-the-art Dental Office, Toothsome Dental, in January 2021. It looks like over a year of planning. We’ve learned a great deal about each other during this experience. Some good, some bad. After combining our ideas and bank accounts we wanted to ensure we had specific goals for our business. What do we want to accomplish? What experience do we want our staff and patients to have? What is our long-term plan for the business? Checking off priorities intentionally has allowed us to avoid costly pitfalls, headaches, and arguments. For some, the idea of working with their spouse is equally exciting and daunting, but often if you share a dream you might find yourself building a life as well as a brand together. Growing, creating, and forging a new path together is already the crux of your relationship. However, having a strategy, plans for conflict resolution, and ideas to manage to day to day stresses of being a boss and a couple is important for ensuring happiness at the end of the day. After six years of marriage and four years working for the same company, stepping out as business owners felt natural. We aren't perfect, nor do we pretend to be, but we have implemented a few tweaks to safeguard our union and our expanding dental practice.
With each lesson, our partnership, as well as marriage, has grown stronger. We know there will be challenges along the way but we have developed 5 Key strategies to prevent our business relationship from harming our marriage.
5 Tips For Couples Working Together
Define your Roles
We learned very early on that if more than one person is responsible for something, NO ONE is responsible. We figured out that you need to clearly define roles for your business. If you don’t do this you will quickly become frustrated with each other because either nothing gets accomplished or you end up working on the same things without knowing it. Of the two I think the latter is more frustrating because it’s wasted time and when you are in business time is money. “You need to know who is doing what, and when are they suppose to be doing it by”
We both bring unique skills to the table, outside of clinical ability. By defining the roles that each of us has in the practice, we can work more efficiently and rely on each other to meet certain deadlines. By dividing and conquering administrative responsibilities, we can maximize productivity, reduce redundancies, and ensure that any time spent together is constructive.
Schedule days to TURN OFF
It may sound stupid, but you need to schedule time away from the business. We have made a rule that no business will be conducted past 5pm Monday - Thursday. We work ON THE BUSINESS during our Admin days which are Fridays. A great book about working In your business vs On your business is The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It. This book was great at preparing us for the challenges of making the transition from employees to business owners. Fires will definitely come up which will cause you to break your rule but that’s business. The important thing is that you have a schedule for when you TURN OFF. For us, this means scheduling date nights or catching up with our friends. Ideally you want to schedule date nights/meet ups with OTHER people. This will force you to not talk about business stuff. When its just you two on a date, its really easy for business talk to creep in.
Pouring every waking hour into the growth of our business is easy to do. However, it isn't healthy for work-life balance. Deliberately making time to focus on our personal life is key. At the end of the day, we want to provide superior service to our patients, have a happy and focused team, and be a successful pillar in our community. We also want to make sure that we're keeping a pulse on our marriage because it is the foundation that everything else is built upon. Investing time in personal happiness and making time for our marriage is always our primary goal.
Have a Business Mediator
Hiring an experienced office manager has been priceless. Handing off the stresses of insurance verification, initial patient questions, and a myriad of other administrative duties has freed up time for other tasks. Knowing that you can't, and don't have to, do it all is another hard lesson some of us have to learn in business. Trusting that your team truly has your best interest at heart and they believe in your dream as much as you do is an incredible feeling. If everyone is invested in the success of your business you're already winning!
Another positive thing about having a “Business Mediator” is that you can task them to adhere to deadlines. This means that they can be the one to follow up on items which need to be completed. Nothing is more annoying than your spouse constantly asking you if you are finished with that project or task. Your business mediator will make it easier to stay on track with deadlines because you will no longer feel bad about repeatedly asking your spouse for updates.
Always Assume The Best Intentions
Keeping a scorecard of mistakes in business and relationships can be a recipe for disaster. Assuming that each of us makes decisions for the business with the purest intentions and learning to forgive, correct, and move forward prevents hurt feelings. Knowing that your partner will support your decisions and we will both pivot if things don't go according to plan is huge! Learning this lesson has prevented resentment, fear of offering ideas, and improved communication as business owners and within our marriage.
Have Fun
At the end of the day, you are growing something incredibly special together. Don’t lose sight of that. Embrace the celebrate the little wins along the way.