In Episode 37 of the Babies and Business Podcast, hosts Avram and Rachel Gonzales delve into the pros and cons of owning a business with your spouse. They share their personal experiences, highlighting benefits such as aligned goals, joint project endeavors, mutual accountability, and the freedom and flexibility it offers. Conversely, they discuss challenges like the difficulty of separating work from home life, scheduling conflicts, the necessity of strong communication, and the risk of one aspect of life overshadowing others. The episode underscores the crucial balance of clear communication and shared objectives in successfully managing a business partnership with a spouse

Pros of Owning a Business with Your Spouse

• United Goals: Shared personal and business objectives strengthen the partnership.

• Collaborative Projects: Working on business projects together enhances their relationship and brings joy.

• Mutual Accountability: They hold each other accountable, which helps them stay focused and achieve their goals.

• Total Freedom and Flexibility: The flexibility to manage schedules and attend to family emergencies without compromising the business.

Challenges of Owning a Business with Your Spouse

• Work-Life Balance Challenges: Difficulty separating work from personal life, leading to potential stress.

• Scheduling Conflicts: Managing multiple schedules can be complex and challenging.

• Communication Needs: Effective communication is crucial to avoid misunderstandings and ensure smooth operations.

• Dominance Risks: Balancing business and home life can be challenging, with risks of one overshadowing the other.

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Episode Transcription

Avram Gonzales: We’re back with the Babies and Business Podcast. It’s Avram and Rachel, just chilling in the garage right now, recording podcasts. We made this little space for me to escape, to, uh, be able to concentrate and do work from home. And, uh, it’s been great. I have little air conditioner out here. Some other things. It was just a little table and a lamp. I haven’t got this little cactus photo. Anyway, we’re really off track here where this is our new podcast studio.

 today we’re talking pros and cons of being in business with your partner. And I think this is a fun conversation because it’s also a little different for us, I think, than any other couple. And then another couple, and then another couple. Everybody has their unique thing that’s going to be great or challenging.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah, for sure

Avram Gonzales: about it but I think today we’ve identified some major things that I think every couple will be able to relate to.

Rachel Gonzales: I do think so.

I think it’s interesting to watch people in business with their spouse. And to see how they talk about them. Some people really talk about each other and they’re like, you know, he does this and it drives me crazy, or she does this and it drives me crazy. There’s all these things and then I just find myself imagining different people being in business and that are not in business.

Avram Gonzales: Oh, yeah.

Rachel Gonzales: And it’s quite comical because what a disaster that would have been.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah.

So we’re going to talk about why we think it’s great to be in business together and then we’re going to talk about what is some of the more challenging things about the dynamic of being in business together and raising a family.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah.

Avram Gonzales: So I think we’ll just start with pros, that’s the fun stuff.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah. It is. Well, the thing that I love most about working with you is that, we are so united in our goals on a personal level that really translates into our business. So we’re united but we’re also able to find common ground in all the different things that we’re doing. So I think that’s a great foundation for working with each other.

Avram Gonzales: Well, think about where we started. You had a business and I had a business. We’re not in business together that was before we had a family started.

Rachel Gonzales: Right.

Avram Gonzales: And so that’s been something that we’ve noticed has been a stark difference from where we started to being where we are now, where we’re just all in is that, that being united, that synergy with our goals.

 Before it was well, Rachel has her goal and her business. How can I support that? I have my goal in my business. How can I support that? And then we had the house and how we are together. That was many goals that we were chasing.

Rachel Gonzales: That was a lot. And I remember the feelings that I had during that time.

I could listen to you about your work and what you were doing but it never really made sense to me. And then probably vice versa for me. And you on my side. So it is hard to really grasp what your partner is going through. If it’s a different business.

Avram Gonzales: If they’re, if they’re, working a job and they’re at a career.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah.

So you, you don’t really have that knowledge and understanding and, and really common ground as far as like about business that you’re doing together. So it’s really cool seeing, like you said, that transition. Working separate and then coming together and seeing how really flawlessly it’s worked. It’s worked so well because we’re so opposite.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah. And I think life is more simple. So I think that’s a huge pro to all this is that being united in our goals. Second thing I know that we were talking about before this was that a it’s fun to have another project to work on together.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah.

Avram Gonzales: So, you know, no
rmally, and it’s ongoing. It’s like the business is a fun project that Rachel and I tackle together.

Like that’s kind of how we see it, the same way that you might build something in the backyard, or, you know, maybe put an event together. To put an event together together. Does that work together together?

At any case, it’s just a fun, other activity that we get to engage in that I think if you have two different businesses or if one person’s in business and the other person’s at home or got another career, you don’t get to have that other fun thing to do together.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah, well, and I, I see two. Like having a baby, having a child having another one on the way. You have conversations that you would not have if you didn’t have kids.

Avram Gonzales: That’s right.

Working together we have conversations that we would not have if we weren’t working together. We’re constantly looking at our systems and our processes and things that fall apart or like maybe onboarding this client or that client and seeing how that worked and troubleshooting things, because maybe it wasn’t as smooth as possible. How to set those expectations properly for our clients so that they do not feel like they were over promised to an under-delivered. Those kinds of things, you know, so I also like that as far as part of. And that other thing to work together with on.

Avram Gonzales: entrepreneurs just love fixing stuff.

It was fun to fix stuff and change stuff together.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah, and just improve it. And the improving is so cool, but you know, I also find the other one other thing that I just love that we have for each other is the accountability. That. We. We know what we want to accomplish in our business or personally, whatever that thing is that we’re accountable for. And then it’s not like this nagging accountability.

It’s not like. It’s not irritating. It’s it’s helpful.

Avram Gonzales: Oh, absolutely.

Rachel Gonzales: It helps us get things done.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah. Well, like we’ve discussed in other podcasts, you know, clear goal setting and things like that bring everybody onto the same page. It’s easy and easy framework to work from. And we’re heading in the same direction. I do so much better knowing that you’re crushing it in your role at the same time. The fact that because we work together, we are fully aware of the things that are troubling each other or holding us up in the business. That level of awareness and that accountability it just, we get help from each other faster. I’m better for it because I can be more scatterbrained.

Rachel Gonzales: Yes.

Avram Gonzales: And my brain moves, moves in a different way and so you help keep me on track. Right. And then I’m able to turn around to the same thing.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah.

Avram Gonzales: If we were doing different things like, well, before, I didn’t know what you were struggling within your business.

Rachel Gonzales: Right. And you can feel very alone when you’re separate.

Avram Gonzales: That’s right.

Rachel Gonzales: Even though you may come home and share something with your spouse. You can still feel very alone because it’s just not the same. I also love the fact that with kind of how we keep each other accountable to is sometimes you have to ask the question, is this really important?

Avram Gonzales: Right.

Rachel Gonzales: Because if it’s put on the list of things to do and, or even on the calendar and it just continually doesn’t get done we have to revisit it and ask. Is this, one important? Is this a priority? Is this truly helping us get in the direction or go in the direction that we want to. And if not, then scrap it cause it’s leaching energy from the person that that task belongs to.

Avram Gonzales: Oh man. I would run wild with wild ideas when it was just me. You know, and that wasn’t serving my, my best interest in where I wanted to go but it’s what I had was just, just being with with me. Last thing we wanted to touch on with the pro side of this is I mean, you probably knew it was coming, total freedom. So we’ve had some big family stuff come up recently.

And the going to lightly, you know, people passing and just a lot of stress on the family. Um, some changes in the business and changes the house and all these changes. But with the big life events, it’s been really nice that we can completely redesign the schedule for that week in case of emergency.

Rachel Gonzales: Right.

Avram Gonzales: You know, I had cousins come into town this week for an event and I hadn’t seen them in over 15 years. You know, so I had to cancel rearrange and provide for three different meetings that day I found out like five days before, but we were able to completely revamp that schedule for the day and not worry about it, not sweat it.

Rachel Gonzales: Right. We don’t love that.

Avram Gonzales: We don’t love

Rachel Gonzales: convenient for us.

Avram Gonzales: No, no.

Rachel Gonzales: But it was nice that we were able to afford you that time to connect with those people that you haven’t seen in years.

Avram Gonzales: And that’s a huge benefit of being in business together with your spouse, because you know, you just had that flexibility. I mean, imagine if, one of us had a job and a boss that said, well, no, you can’t go.

Rachel Gonzales: Exactly. Well, and I mean, thinking about the day that we had yesterday, allowing you to go off to this event and me, you know, I’m here with Lincoln. We had the nanny come over in the morning and then I had him in the afternoon. But it was me saying me being willing to take that load because that’s what you do for your spouse.

That’s what you do with the person that you’re with um, is saying, yes, this, this is important to you. You’re going to regret not going to this. We can m
eet the sacrifice, whatever that looks like. It’s nothing. Yeah, and that feels really good. Yeah, it feels really great because I think that also builds into your relationship when you can see that someone needs something and you can be that the provider of that thing that they need. It’s not that you need to set aside your goals and things like that.

That’s not what we’re talking about but, the freedom to do that has been really, really nice.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah. So as a quick recap here on our pros, being united in your goals that we put that first for a reason.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah, because I think it really does support everything else.

Avram Gonzales: Number two was another fun thing to work on together. Number three was the accountability that you get to have with each other.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah.

Avram Gonzales: And the last one that we just talked about was the freedom and flexibility aspect. So all these, we felt like were huge pros for being in business together with your spouse, with your partner. Let’s talk about some of the cons, like, I think everybody will be able to relate to these four. I don’t think it’s just specific to any one, couple.

Rachel Gonzales: No.

Avram Gonzales: I think the big one. The sort of elephant in the room and the one that people talk about and bring up a lot is bringing work home with you.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah.

Avram Gonzales: And one or both people having a hard time turning off the business side.

Rachel Gonzales: Well, it can be very frustrating. It’s very frustrating here.

You are trying to have a meal with them or have some family time and business comes in or they’re grumpy or, you know, whatever that looks like. Whatever they’re bringing back. Um, yeah, it’s super frustrating. And it’s something that this whole, all the cons that we talked about were more that we see as being a con, working with each other is something that I find we just need to be aware of so that it doesn’t take over. And that we can provide the ability to still thrive.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah.

Well, we, we know that as a baseline, you can pretty much have some rules for the road.

Most days you can handle the ambiguity and things that get thrown at you. Right. But there are days when the emotions run so high for one, or both people that it really impacts home. And I think that’s why we added to the list because sometimes you cannot avoid that spillover.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah, for sure. Especially if it’s something that feels urgent, that someone is wanting to place on you and make it feel urgent in your business. Um, And that it’s very difficult to not bring that home or have a conversation about it or for it to derail a day, or you do something like that.

Avram Gonzales: The people side of it. It’s always tough.

Yeah, exactly. So it can be very difficult. Yeah, it was in the team members, right team members. And there’s just stuff with your team is not just clients, customers. It’s everything.

Rachel Gonzales: Absolutely. And then, and I think it’s, then that just kind of bleeds over into other things like scheduling when you are working with your spouse and you have a personal life. And you have all these different things going

Avram Gonzales: baby kids at home.

Rachel Gonzales: So many different schedules that you’re actually juggling. It is important that you find a way to juggle it and talk about it and have parameters around what is, and is not acceptable, I guess, or doesn’t does not work.

Avram Gonzales: While we’re pretty good at it and we’ve still run into. I mean, at least once or twice a month.

It’s the. Oh, you put one on that oh, man. Okay, well, that’s going to be a tougher day or or whatever. That’s not what I had planned.

Rachel Gonzales: Like someone looks independently of the other person on the schedule and they’re like, oh, visit this time is available. Then you schedule something. The other person had a totally different plan in their head for that day.

Avram Gonzales: And that’s, that’s just another interesting dynamic of being all in, because again, if, if one person was doing something different.. A different business or a different career or whatever.

Rachel Gonzales: Right.

Avram Gonzales: It doesn’t matter the same way they’re working their businesses their day. Yeah. Right versus our day.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah. Yep.

Avram Gonzales: It’s an interesting dynamic. Yeah.

Rachel Gonzales: It’s very difficult. Can be very difficult, but as long as I find, as far as scheduling goes, the communication is so important.

Avram Gonzales: We have that on three and number three here.

Rachel Gonzales: That’s what we want to talk about next is that communication, no matter what it is, It’s so important to talk about it. If something is not working for you, bring it up. Don’t let it foster.

Avram Gonzales: Another thing on communication thatI think we haven’t talked about on our podcast is, and of course, I won’t remember how to cite this, but I read this thing about, a safety precaution they run in Japan with the subway trains. So there’s a specific process that the subway, I think it’s the Japan subway, that the the guys there down next to the trains will run that people think sounds silly. And it, what it is is they will, they will call out verbally the things that they’re checking and the things that they’re looking for before the doors close. And people like, well, why don’t you just look and you don’t have to say anything about it.

You could just raise the alarm if there was something wrong. But they found that the number of accidents, they had were cut simply in half because they were calling things to attention and calling things out proactively.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah, sure.

Avram Gonzales: And I think about that with sports when I was growing up playing volleyball, if you’re the one that’s going for the ball, you’re the one that’s saying I got it. I got it. You have to say. Otherwise, everybody ends up standing there and the ball just goes, boom. But between two people, three people, I thought you had it.

Rachel Gonzales: Sure.

Avram Gonzales: Well, nobody proactively said I’ve got it.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah.

Avram Gonzales: And that’s kind of what I think about this as well it’s like, yeah, you do have to address things as they come up. We’ve shared a lot about that on this podcast on the other end of this, it’s like the proactive communication.

Oh, I thought I told you that.

Rachel Gonzales: Right.

Avram Gonzales: Man, how much has that happen, especially when you’re not getting sleep.

Rachel Gonzales: Right. Well, and I also think it’s just, it’s also important to remember. And we’ve talked about this in the podcast is blame the process, not the person. That if something breaks down in communication, like the scheduling, maybe something over-scheduled or where it shouldn’t be, or maybe there’s, you know other issues, whatever that looks like, then if you can make sure that you bringing to attention. And your, um, You don’t shy away from talking about it you’re going to be just fine. But making sure that, like you said, with being proactive, it’s so importantto just see it through. Just talk.

Avram Gonzales: Well, it’s like, yo
u know, I could put, uh, a thing on the calendar for Lincoln on a Friday afternoon, on a Monday and be like, well, Uh, clearly she’ll see it.

Rachel Gonzales: Right.

Avram Gonzales: Or I could put it on the calendar and then say I put a thing on the calendar.

Rachel Gonzales: Correct?

Avram Gonzales: There’s a big difference.

Rachel Gonzales: Right?

Avram Gonzales: Yeah. This last one here is interesting.  Another con here that sometimes the business can dominate the health and the home. And that the home can end up dominating the business.

Rachel Gonzales: Right.

Avram Gonzales: So I think what we meant when we first jotted this one down was that in those times of high stress, high emotion maybe some history or some dynamics between you and your partner one thing could spill over to the other.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah.

Avram Gonzales: So there’s a reason that it’s, you know, happy wife, happy life. Right. If mama ain’t happy, usually the house ain’t happy. All right, moms are the heart of the home. And so what happens then? If mom’s not happy, your mom is really struggling and not getting the support that she needs, well then how has hubby gonna gonna crush in the business? Now he’s preoccupied worried about man. How can I get her support?

She’s been struggling. What’s going on, trying to figure that out. Well, all the energy is going back to the house. Well, guess what? Somebody’s going through the motions and the business, and the house is on fire.

Rachel Gonzales: Right.

Avram Gonzales: And that’s just something I think that has this ebb and flow.

Rachel Gonzales: Right.

Avram Gonzales: You end up having to manage the best that you can.

Rachel Gonzales: Well, yeah. You know, people talk about balance and. I’ve also seen that, you know, what is balanced?

Avram Gonzales: Sure.

Rachel Gonzales: And why, why worry about balance? Because there’s really never going to be a balance of even, you know, you think of a teeter-totter.

Avram Gonzales: Yes.

Rachel Gonzales: Across, you know. But really in reality, life is very much a teeter-totter one’s up and one’s down,vice versa. And it could be the business. It could be the personal life. It could be husband and wife. It could be you’re struggling and I’m not.

Avram Gonzales: Right.

Rachel Gonzales: I’m struggling, you’re not right. All sorts of different things. When you come together and like we said earlier in this podcast, that when your goals are the same you can have those open conversations. And you can make sure that if one is dominating the other. That you’re still supporting the other, regardless of which is getting most of your focus.

And still stay on track.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah. I mean, you, you will still juggle the balls but you can’t, you cannot drop them.

Rachel Gonzales: Right. Right.

Avram Gonzales: You cannot drop them.

Rachel Gonzales: On and being aware so working together, we’re aware of all of those balls. There’s the family, there’s the personal, and there’s the kids, there’s all these things. And then just having that high communication. And having these things in mind. That was listed as cons. Um, that we can just make sure that they don’t overwhelm us and they don’t take them. The majority of our energy really.

Avram Gonzales: I like what you share about the teeter-totter.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah.

Avram Gonzales: When you zoom in that, the teeter-totter is always down one way lower than the other.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah.

Avram Gonzales: But I think overall, what you strive for is when you zoom out far enough that it looks like it’s kind of even. I think that’s what we’re shooting for, right. Because you have all these little seasons and at one day can be so different than the other.

Rachel Gonzales: Right, and with, the teeter-totter it’s so easy to just take it to the next side or the next time even aloud and it’s really just being aware, being conscious I think and your goals can make everything so so so clear. Are we marching towards them, or are we marching away from them. Is this going to help us get there or is this not? And using that as our guide post.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah. Bring it back to balance. So quick recap on the cons here. It’s easy to bring business home and let it affect everything. Uh, Scheduling so much more difficult than other setups. Communication, we put it here in the cons because it’s just the frequently the thing that you can blame that, that didn’t go, it broke down somehow. Right. And that, one side can dominate the other, if you’re not too careful. So. I appreciate your tuning in for our pros and cons. We’d, we’d love to hear. Your thoughts if you’re in business with your spouse with your partner. Do we miss some?

Let us know on social media, you can find us @babiesandbizpod. We’re also working on those five star reviews on Apple Podcasts. We’d appreciate your help going on there, clicking that five star and taking just two minutes, just two minutes, please, just take two minutes. And write something nice about the podcast that you found valuable.

It helps other viewers when they’re looking into discover new podcasts. Uh, understanding what they’re getting into when they click play. So with that, we appreciate you for listening in we’ll catch you on the next one.

Rachel Gonzales: Bye for now.