3 Essential Boundaries for Mom Entrepreneurs and Their Husbands

In the beginning, we thought it was going to be a breeze when our spouse, joined working full-time in our business. If anyone could do it, we could! We already had a healthy relationship built on trust and respect. We communicated well. We both strongly believed in what we were doing. We understood the need to help each other with the children, keeping the house, and with the business. We planned to allow for fluctuations in income to keep stresses over money to a minimum. Yet we still wasn’t prepared.

For anyone considering working with your spouse, here are 3 Essential Boundaries for Entrepreneurial Couples to help to ease your transition:

1. Clarify expectations for work/home.

Nothing can prepare you for the blurring of boundaries and turf that occur as you transition into working together. When you join together with your spouse, most likely, both of you have experienced success throughout your careers, and have developed your own working style. Suddenly you have a whole new dynamic in your relationship with your spouse you must learn to work through. We always knew that we had different gifts and talents: Sometime our spouse is very techie and he/she loves to write, and we are a people person who is an administrative whiz. Even though we should have probably seen it coming, I was still surprised at the difference in our work styles. I multi-task all day long, and our spouse prefers to work on one project at a time. Just like being newlyweds all over again, we had to put some effort into getting to know each other on a whole new level to be able to work well together.

2. Schedule time for love.

Most entrepreneurial couples complain they have less time together than before. It is possible to work beside your spouse in the same office all day long and barely speak on a personal level. How difficult is it to turn off your cell phone and talk a walk with your love? It is imperative to make it a point to schedule time for your relationship so that the business does not overtake it. W should plan ahead to sneak away for lunch or to take a break at a Cafe or any favorite's place. We have found if we don’t take the time to schedule in these lunch or coffee dates, then they are less likely to happen as we work to meet deadlines or get a project done. We haven’t yet been able to master scheduling “regular dates”, but its next on our list of priorities in order to help keep our close relationship.

3. Schedule time for yourself.

It can be a shock when you suddenly have so much time with your spouse. In your previous life, they left at 7 AM and came home at 6 PM, and then you discussed your day during dinner. Now you spend most (if not all) of the day with them, and during dinner, there is nothing new to discuss. Where is the time for you?

We certainly have a long way to go as an Entrepreneurial Couple, but we have made it through our entrepreneurial “honeymoon” period. Each day, we work together to reach our goals and dreams. We understand when we help each other we will reach our dreams sooner, so we help each other wherever its needed! That how it should be......don't we?.

Stop the Stupid Stuff' In Your Business

We are living in a world of change. Shift happens! Competition comes from all over the world, which means that many American/global businesses are in trouble.

Many decisions are being made that are contrary to both good business sense and building customer loyalty.

Most organizations' marketing is usually an exercise in figuring out what to do to get current or potential customers to spend more dollars/incomes with them.

I'm suggesting that instead of thinking about what to do, figure out what to stop doing. In other words, stop doing the "stupid stuff."

Not doing the stupid stuff means finding out what prevents customers from spending money with you and making sure that, that action or reaction never happens again.

Here's an example of what I call "stupid stuff." Some airlines now want to charge customers who want to speak to a live agent.

That's stupid stuff in two ways. First, they've chosen to penalize customers who want to continue getting what they've always gotten - one-on-one attention. Worse, they've done it by saying they will charge more for this previously standard level of service. How many customers will they lose because of this decision? I know of at least one.

There are more subtle, but no less damaging, stupid things businesses need to stop doing.

Take, for example, the new Wheaties boxes. General Mills recently introduced Wheaties boxes with photos of the U.S. Olympic gold medalists. One was missing: Paul Hamm. Why?

This was General Mills' response to my inquiry:

"Selecting a Wheaties Champion has never been an easy task, especially when we have witnessed so many outstanding performances by so many championship athletes. But it simply isn't possible to honor every champion on the Wheaties box."

So they leave off the first U.S. man to win the Olympics all-around gymnastics championship in one of the sport's greatest comebacks? His return from a disastrous fall to a near-perfect high-bar routine won near-universal praise and, for most of us, defined the word "champion."

But there was controversy. As most of you know, a South Korean gymnast claimed that a scoring error cost him the gold and appealed to the Court of Arbitration for sport. The court recently ruled that Hamm can keep the gold medal.

Even though the medal was disputed, it was not because of anything Hamm did or did not do. Still, General Mills decided to do the "safe" thing. But by being safe and leaving out Hamm, Wheaties is alienating the millions of customers who see him not as controversial, but as a hero, and losing customers in the process. Now that's "stupid stuff."

So start stopping! Stop saying "No" and start using the word "Yes." Stop charging for services that most of us think are free.

Find out what exasperates, discourages, hassles or confuses your customers and stop it.