strategies so business partner who may also be love partner doesnt go sour.

[motivated 5555]

I wonder how to prevent a business partnership that could also be a love relationship from getting in trouble.
If people dont know each other for decades, yet hope to make both love and building welath, perhaps a new business work, i wonder what sort of strategies could prevent stess building up and deal with it really well when it did.
When i ran a business in the past i would write feedback but look at it a few days later and only relate the most important point to staff, sandwiched amongst alot of positive feedback.

I know someone who did marry fast, go into business fast and even though both were loving people it was just too much too soon perhaps and they ended up going separate ways and few years later.

Yet others go into second marriages and do invest together and it goes fine including some on these boards.

part is personality, people who can take feedback make changes be flexible
rather than people who are easily argumentative, defensive, controlling,

part is time out , which when people dont live together 24/7 they can recoverfrom stress building up sooner than if they work and live together too soon

part is as i wrote already, noting down feedback but not necesarily telling it immediately as what stresses a person immediately may be seen differently a day or two later.

I had someone help me during the recent frantic flood that i didnt know very well. He worked his guts out helping me, but did do a couple of things that at such a frantic stressful time were stressful for me, but the next day those things totally didnt bother me and i was just overawed by his incredible assistance. If i would have told him thigns that had stressed me at the time, he would have felt hurt, unappreciated in light of all he had done to help and it would have just been hurtful, and yet people who work together need to be able to give feedback and make changes without taking offense easily.

We were taught in my uni course, that feedback is just a way of learning so we actually would ask for it, and an effort was made to learn and not take offence.

I know legally also an exit strategy needs to be worked out before going into anything with anyone.

what other precautions strategies would u suggest before going into something that could be both a love and business relationship and we want both to be happy and long lasting.

Thanks.

 

[Aaron Sice]

 

[LPP]

Hi Motivated,

Are you thinking of starting a business together or general investing together?

I work full time with my (soon to be husband), working together works exceptionally well for us, however we have had a lot of help to get working together right.

I am happy to share what we have learnt and implemented so our working and personal life is successful.

Still very much in love

 

[JoshyBoi]

When i ran a business in the past i would write feedback but look at it a few days later and only relate the most important point to staff, sandwiched amongst alot of positive feedback.

Can't really contribute, but just wanted to say great approach!

Sometimes things feel/seem a lot bigger then they are and by doing this you are avoiding unecessarily putting people offside.

 

[motivated 5555]

Mixing business and love

Yes llp please email or send me info as I"d b very interested thanks

 

[Ausprop]

going into business with someone that you fancy just because you hope you'll end up together sounds like a really bad idea. You mentioned floods and I wonder if you are just emotionally in turmoil - perhaps take some time out?

 

[Strannik]

never mix business and friendship/love

 

[random]

I know couples do work together everyday. And some do it well you can see that but personally I've often wondered with most , just whats left between them after a few yrs of it , or when they get home at night.

Just mo but , a bit too much togetherness after a few yrs for most . To me it'd be nicer being able come home and ask how was your day , hear about it , keep some individuality between you.

Cheers

 

[BlueRidgeHomes]

If it makes sense for both of you financially (as individuals) and emotionally then go for it. Very soon after my my partner Carl and I got involved in a personal relationship I became his client: he built five houses and did one reno for me. No problems - we did everything at standard client rates with proper contracts in place. Now two years on I've taken long term unpaid leave from my job and working in the business with him and .... there's a baby on the way. We are in our mid 30's so have had a few years round the traps to get our heads screwed on and feet on the ground. Couldn't be happier!

 

[The Y-man]

what other precautions strategies would u suggest before going into something that could be both a love and business relationship and we want both to be happy and long lasting.

Document and agree on the roles and responsibilities of each partner in the business - i.e. create a PD for each.

It helps if the area of expertise is very different between the partners - eg one salesperson and one accountant. The less "overlap" there is, generally the less potential for "I thought you were going to do it" type situaitons.

The Y-man

 

[Perp]

My parents both worked together for most of their working lives and it worked well. Sometimes they felt they needed a bit more separation, and Dad would go and do some contract work, or Mum would start a small business which was "just hers". (Though I recognise that many businesses wouldn't allow this flexibility.) The key is communication, and as you've identified, feeling free to offer feedback in a considerate manner, and also be able to receive it without taking offence.

They were always pleased (well, sometimes only "OK" ) when the other identified a problem, because it meant they could address it rather than allowing it to fester, and the fact that they could raise and address it meant that their relationship was still healthy.

So it can definitely work. I would, however, be cautious about doing it with somebody with whom I hadn't defined my relationship yet, because there's ample potential (in fact a likelihood) that if you do go into a relationship, it won't last, and then that affects the business as well as you personally. But if you sit down and talk about all the possibilities, and make a contract agreeing on an exit strategy for each possibility, then you'll ensure both parties are protected, whilst simultaneously making the necessity of an exit strategy less likely. Going through such a delicate negotiation in a relatively new relationship is likely to make you decide to abandon the idea to go into business together, or reinforce that you have very similar values and that it may work.

Good luck.

 

[Piston Broke]

What Perp said.

 

[Piston Broke]

Last edited by The Y-man; Today at 11:13 AM. Reason: not required

Actually it was a damned good point:

Just because it does not work out for YOU, does not mean it will not work out for others.

 

[Strannik]

lol, here we go again

as i said, got nothing to do with me, been around since JC

if you run business as partners with separate money and shares - either the relationship or the business or both will go south sooner or later.

if you run it as a family when the family owns it and there are no distinct shares - totally different story and is not what the OP was asking

i'm not even going to start on family having separate finances from each other...

 

[LPP]

Others have already given great advice, especially those who have had the experience or seen close relatives work it successfully.

I will say that my partner and I LOVE working together, however, we had some helpo to navigate the waters in the initial stages because we do have different personalities, skills and it was extremely important that we became aware of that.

Two things that helped a great deal was 2 online profiling tests " Kolbe" and "strengthfinder".
It isolotaes your top 5 strenghts, explains why they are needed in the business, how other people can "percieve" your strengths and where we woud be best focussing our enegery within the business.

It helped us to stay out of eachothers way and to allow the other to take owenrship of their own part of the buisness.

Even though we work together, we are very separate, it is no different for us than working with a normal work mate because we respect each others skills and stay out areas that we are not "in charge of". It doesnt mean that we do not have a picture of what is happening as we are still a team and are reliant on eachother to complete their parts of their job.

We have plenty to talk about outside of work hours, love organising date nights and weekend day trips. I have my own interests out side of the business and vice versa so we do get to "miss eachother" as well.

We also try not to discuss work outside of office hours - for the most part we honor that as a rule. It is easy for us, but we have done a lot of personal development which helps us a lot in our relationship. I understand that working with your spouse would not work for everyone.

At the end of the day, follow your dreams, if working together supports a greater vision for your life then that is a great (IMO the only reason) you should do it.

If it doesnt work, find a way to make it work, if you cant, just stop and change direction.

 

[RumpledElf]

We're together basically 24/7, have been for about 5 years now, together for about 6 now (in April). It works for the most part. We do our own different things on similar projects or side-by side on different ones, the only time its a problem is when we're both trying to edit the same file at the same time

We need a marketing person though. We're both relatively quiet, retiring geeks (him far more so than me, to the point of social phobia), and are both quite prone to being distracted from the main task. But we're aware of that at least.