Working at Home?? with your Spouse??? How??

Looking for practical advice for spouses who are considering becoming co-entrepreneurs or who already are? Look no further! Here are 3 tips to being successful as you work with your spouse.

1. Find a specific time to talk about business and be sure it is not during tv show/football game or when your spouse is working on his/her hobby. It’s imperative to your business success that you & your spouse talk about business and solve your problems. Just be careful when you decide to bring up those problems. If your spouse is settling into a sporting event on TV, that is probably not a good time. Neither is it a good time, if your spouse is working on scrapbooks or stamping.

2. Sending email sounds silly when your spouse is less than 8 feet away from you in the same room, but it does provide a written record to remind both of you. It also helps prevents future arguments. When you email something to your spouse, you usually spend a little more time thinking about what you write.

3. If your business is in your home, use a separate room for the office so you can close the door at dinner time and enjoy your family! Eating dinner together at the table is very important to us because it keeps the communication lines open with our kids. We try to discuss issues our kids are interested in (like Barry Bonds or a local event when we are eating dinner. We try to save business ideas to other times of the day. Have regular office hours, but be flexible during your busy season.

If you haven’t filled out our survey about working with your spouse, please take 3-5 minutes and do this. We will be interviewing spouses who work together and want to cover your concerns and needs.
Here’s the link: http://budurl.com/fesurvey

I’ll keep you posted when I get some interviews with spouses who work together.

Kerry