It is possible and even advisable to run a business with your husband or partner. Just like other partners, both wife and husband can become business partners and successfully run a business together. There are many businesses owned and run by couples across all industries.
“Key advantages of running a business with your husband is that it creates a great team, share same goals, enhance efficiency , accountability and enriches the relationship. On the other hand major drawbacks of running a business with your husband is that there are quarrels, poor decision making, poor work-life balance, poor tolerance and money fights.”
However the success of running a business together with your husband lies in the effectiveness of the business relationship between partners. You should definitely try and work together if you can maintain a formal work relationship, are able to communicate effectively, are responsible and accountable, have respect and tolerance for each other and share similar goals for your business.
If your relationship lacks these core virtues ,groundwork and is incapable of learning, the business may suffer as a result and hence you should not run a business with your husband. Some people’s social and work personalities are different, making it hard for them to work with their spouses.
Read: Rules on Effectively Working with your Husband
Top Benefits of Running a Business with Your Husband/Partner
1. It Creates Great Team Work
One of the reasons why you should work with your husband is because of the synergy created by your team. Greatness is found in teams than in individuals. When you are working with your husband in business, you become a team which gives the business a high chance of success.
You are more likely to make a strong team on a business with your husband or boyfriend than with anyone else. Your diversity and support fuels a thriving team that enhances each of your confidence and abilities in work. It also becomes easy because you are each other’s supporter and cheerleader.
Based on the trust you have created in your marriage, you believe in each other abilities and this keeps you both going. You hence can overcome business challenges and claim success when you know you are doing it with your husband.
2. You Share Same Goals
Another key benefit of working with your husband in business is that you share the same goals for the business. While some of your employees may be loyal over time, they retain their interests and goals which may not align with your business goals. But you and your husband are likely to share goals and a future for your business.
Further, you and your husband act as fallback support for each other. At times you may not be in your best work element in which case you can trust your husband to keep your business afloat.This is critical both for its current success as well as sustainability in the future.
3. It Enhances your Business with Efficiency
Having the same goals as a couple benefits your business a great deal through efficiency. You already know each other personality and way of working, whereby each of you finds a way to complement each other and make the business operations efficient.
By sharing the same vision and goals, you will find that work gets easier when working with your husband than with someone else not sharing the same vision as you. Further having aligned interests, goals, and objectives in your business ensures you have similar interests on how your business runs in terms of costs. Two of you can cover a lot, keeping your overhead and costs extremely low.
4. It Enhances Accountability in Your Business
People sharing the same goals and interests are bound to be accountable and responsible to each other. You are more likely to find a responsible and accountable business partner in your husband than in anyone else.
You and your husband both understand the risks and pain points of the business you own and hence both are highly responsible and accountable. This is critical for ensuring responsible decision-making in your business. You will find this to be a crucial area you benefit by working with your husband.
5. It Also Benefits Your Relationship
Another major benefit of working with your husband is that working together will greatly enrich your relationship and marriage. This is because you will spend more time together. You hence bond better, ultimately strengthening your relationship.
While you may argue while working together, the conflicts and the challenges that you overcome together make you good at relating with each other and solving problems in your marriage.
Further working together brings out the best in each of you. You both have different but complementary skills, which helps immensely in making your marriage relationship stronger. It is a good reason you should consider working or running a business with your husband.
Read: How to Get your Husband to Help with House Chores
Drawbacks of Running Business with Husband
1. Quarrels and Disagreements are Common
Conflicts in any form of relationship are inevitable. Business brings out a different side of people and you may realize your husband is not the same person while at work than how he relates with you socially. It is one of the main disadvantages of working with your husband in business.
People adopt a different personality and way of doing things when they are working which may cause many disagreements between you too. Therefore your business relationship is bound to have many quarrels and disagreements over how the business should run especially in the beginning.
With time, however, you may become better at managing the conflicts, which are never absent.
2. Control and Decision Making is Hard
While there are great benefits of working and running a business with your husband, a key drawback is how each wants to retain control and decision-making in the business. It is common when you or your husband wants to control and have the final say in decision making. It is difficult finding a consensus on how things will run in the business.
If you have not set roles, it is very easy for one partner to try to be controlling and tend to make all business decisions. The approach can make the other partner feels invaluable and insignificant in the business. Eventually, it affects commitment, the business, and eventually the marriage.
3. There is no Work-Life Balance
When running a business with your husband, it is very hard finding a balance between business life and marriage life. This is because you are spending all your time with your husband.
There is therefore a high chance you can get tired and irritated at each other for very petty reasons. You start taking the presence of each other for granted and find it hard to enjoy moments together or create memories.
Further, you find that all you talk about together is work even when at home. This may significantly affect your marriage as your relationship lacks the balance between work life and social life.
Read : How to a Get a Perfect Work-life Balance
4. It is Challenging to Separate Work from Personal issues
When working with your husband it is very easy to get work-related stress confused with personal issues. It is also possible for these issues to affect your business and how you work with your husband. It is a common disadvantage of running a business with your husband that working moms experience.
For instance, when you argue at home, there is a chance of this carrying over and transcending to your business. It also affects your business as both of you start making business decisions based on the issues or disagreements you are having as a couple.
5. Hard to Tolerate Work Mistakes
A key drawback of businesses run by couples is low intolerance for mistakes. The major difference between thriving and failing couple’s businesses is how conflicts are managed. Most times, women are incapable of tolerating their husband’s mistakes and too unforgiving, getting into the way of solving the main problems.
How you handle and manage conflicts in business is very important in solving work issues and preventing them in the future. However, you realize that your approach and way of handling business errors and mistakes differ when it is your husband in the wrong. You are either too forgiving or too intolerant which can affect conflict resolution.
6. Unable to Agree on Finances and Ownership
Finances and ownership are other major areas of contention for a couple running a business together. There are a lot of disagreements between couples related to how finances and ownership are decided. Many couples have conflicts over how much each has in terms of ownership stakes, which is a common drawback in most couple run businesses.
Further, you and your husband may not agree on how finances are used and controlled in the business. As such you need a written concrete agreement in place for these sorts of things.
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