Tips for Having a Successfully Owned Business with Your Spouse

Do you own a business with your spouse and have the great desire to make it successful together? To help understand some challenges a married couple may face when owning their own business and for tips on having a successfully owned business with your spouse, I have interviewed America's Momentum Co ach Brent O'Bannon.

Tell me a little bit about yourself.
"Imagine the wisdom you learn from interacting heart to heart in more than 27,000 couples coaching sessions. That's what I've done since getting my masters degree in counseling psychology 18 years ago and later getting certified as a life coach . I'm America's momentum coach for couples in business. My wife has worked with me in various roles such as billing specialist, office manager, book keeper, and of course confidante and sounding board for all of those years. We jokingly say we are happily married to the boss. We love the freedom to set our own schedule, spend time with family, entertain friends and pursue travel adventures. Creating a successful marriage, family, and business is a thrill."

What are some challenges a married couple may face when owning their own business?
"Expecting your spouse to have the same strengths and work style will kill your marriage and business. It took us a while to understand, appreciate, and capitalize on each others personalities, strengths, and work style. Another challenge is blurring the boundaries between work and home. We had to set rules and guidelines when it is okay and not okay to have shop talk, money talk, and strategic planning. I'm more driven and passionate about the business growth than my wife. She helps me slow down, stay connected to family, and enjoy the journey of life. The third major challenge of couples in business is making quality time for courageous communication. Couples who have good marriages can form communication collusion. That means they both avoid important topics because they don't want to rock the boat or hurt each others feelings. This can stifle productivity in the business and increase emotional distance in the love relationship."

What are some tips for having a successfully owned business with your spouse?
"First go through a formal process of discovering each others strengths. There are various assessments and tools to take you deeper into naming your strengths then designing your business and work roles around each others strengths. If you go deep into understanding strengths you will see how under using or over using a strength will hinder or derail your business and marriage. Second is make time for sugar time. This is one of our strengths that have helped us create momentum for a happy captivating marriage relationship. Just like we focus on maximizing the business we focus on maximizing our marriage. After 27 years together we have learned sometimes the hard way to keep growing together, play together, and make time to sweeten the marriage daily with sugar time.

Third is to realize there are different models of working with your spouse and you have the freedom to create the strategic model that works best for your stage of life . The terms I created are the propreneur couple, the partnerpreneur couple, and the powerpreneur couple. Each model has its unique advantages and disadvantages. Getting clear is crucial to business and marriage success."

What type of professional help is available for a couple that is having a difficult time in having a successfully owned business?
"If couples in business want to assess their business, love relationship, and lifestyle they can email me at brent@brentobannon.com and I will email them my Couples in Business Momentum Calculator complimentary. Also available are home study do it yourself audio program on Discovering Your Strengths Tele-Boot Camp.Other couples in business or family owned businesses who are stuck, in crisis, or wanting to create fast momentum can invest in a coaching package."

Thank you Brent for doing the interview on tips for having a successfully owned business with your spouse. For more information on Brent O'Bannon or his work you can check out his website on www.brentobannon.com .

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