Forming a thriving partnership can be challenging when one is running a business with a spouse or life partner. There are many ups and downs in both a business and a romantic relationship. And if you’re unable to manage them effectively, it might affect your company and marriage. In today’s podcast, Elma & Dov Levy from The Eldov Group LLC and Stephen Halasnik from Financing Solutions discuss ‘building and growing a successful business with your partner”.
Summary
Building and Growing a Successful Business with Your Life Partner
Building a successful business can be quite a rollercoaster, and it might even become trickier when you start the company with your spouse. However, like every business partnership, setting up a company with your spouse can be the best decision of your life if you follow the best business strategies and guidelines.
To run a successful business with your life partner, you must understand who you are, your tolerance level, and how strong your relationship is. Plus, you should be able to develop business relationships and networking skills and know how to manage risk strategically to scale the business.
When you and your spouse share the same business ideas and are passionate about them, you will build a successful and profitable company. After all, there are about 24.2 million family businesses currently operating in the United States, employing 62% of the workforce. This piece helps guide you on how to manage marriage and business simultaneously.
What Are the Tips for Running a Successful Business with Your Life Partner?
If you are considering starting a company with your spouse, below are the ways to build a thriving and sustainable business together:
Identify Each Other’s Strengths and Weaknesses
When starting a new business, you will have a lot on your plate as you are expected to perform numerous roles to get your business off the ground. And as partners in business, it’s pertinent to share the responsibilities based on each person’s ability to get things done effectively. To do this, you must, first and foremost, identify your various skills so that you can allocate tasks in that light.
When duties are assigned to each with respect to the individual’s capacity, it reduces friction and paves the way for rapid growth and development. For instance, the corporate governance of the company should be entrusted to the person that has what it takes to pilot the affairs of the business, while marketing and branding activities should be done by the person best suited for it. However, you can seek external hands for the areas of the business you both cannot handle.
Ensure You Share The Same Business Goal with Your Spouse
Before venturing into a partnership with your spouse, you must first identify whether your goals, dreams, and vision align. If you have contrary views about life and business, running a successful partnership will be pretty difficult.
However, if you must build a company together, you must sit down and discuss what you want for your business and find common ground to reconcile your divergent perspectives. You need to be on the same page to get your business rolling. This is also important in making policies for the company, as it will reduce the chance of a single person dominating the decision-making process of the business.
You should agree on where you want your business to get to and the strategies to reach the objective. This will help prevent friction and allow you to work harmoniously to achieve your goals. 
Acknowledge And Respect Each Other’s Input
For you to build a successful business as a couple, you must learn how to appreciate each other efforts no matter the level. You should be able to help each other improve through mutual respect and encouragement. Instead of you to pick at your spouse for every little mistake they make in the business, you should rather encourage and correct them with love.
If your spouse feels that their efforts are undervalued and less appreciated, they might become demoralized, and it could spell doom not only for your business but also your marriage.
Ensure You have a Healthy Relationship
Before you consider entering into a partnership with your life partner, you must already have an existing cordial relationship. If you can’t keep each other happy as life partners, you will hardly get along in making decisions that will affect your company’s bottom line.
The demands of running a successful business are daunting, and if your relationship is not solid, it might not withstand the stress inherent in growing a company.
Maintain a Work-Life Balance
Striking an equilibrium between your family and work life is essential to building a successful business. A good work-life balance ensures that you don’t risk burnout or getting stressed, and it gives a complete sense of well-being. Moreover, it will allow you to get things done in your professional life while not neglecting your personal life.
Creating a healthy schedule will help you balance your business and family life. There should be time to unwind and make time for yourself and your loved ones. In addition, you should also go on vacation and engage in hobbies or activities that make you happy. Taking some time out will help both of you have refreshed minds and enables you to bring in renewed, transformative energy and idea to bear on your business.
Celebrate Your Achievements
Celebrating your wins, no matter how little, motivate you to do more. Whenever you both attain a new height in your business, you should get together as a couple and celebrate it. Celebrating every win helps to grow a successful business and personal relationship as a couple.
If you’re still considering whether it’s possible to build a successful business with your life partner, the answer is yes if you can follow the above tips.
Learn More About Our Guests
Dov and Elma Levy are first-generation life partners as well as business partners.
They came to the US from different parts of the world, Israel and The Netherlands, and built a life and a very successful business together. The business grew from a start-up in their attic to a mature multi-million-dollar enterprise. The first business transaction, in May 2019, resulted in a change of control to an international PE firm, and with the final transaction, in October 2021, the company became part of a large consulting firm.
Elma and Dov have been married for 40 years and have 2 adult children and 2 grandchildren. They are often asked about the challenges of working together as life partners and what their ‘secret’ is to make it work.
Learn About Financing Solutions
Financing Solutions provides an easy-to-setup unsecured small business line of credit to small businesses. The small business financing product is a great cash backup plan that costs nothing to set up, nothing until used, and is inexpensive when needed. Financing Solutions is rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and 5 stars by the BBB/Google Reviews.
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