Christo: Hi there, marketers! In today‘s tip, I want to answer a common question that we get which is, “how on earth do you guys survive as a couple in business?” We hear this a lot and if you are in spouse-type relationship, I don‘t just mean business partners, but actually having your family life in the business. So you‘re together full time. Franziska and I, being husband and wife team and business partners across the board, we get this question a lot. How on earth do we survive? How do we not, you know, kind of bash heads every single day? Well, a little bit of that happens because that‘s what is expected across the board with everyone, but the reality is, it works extremely well for us. We‘ve been in business, very intimately in business together for nine years now. It works very well. People ask us all the time, how on earth do you guys cope with this? How do you not just go home and you know still talk about business at midnight? Well, first of all, we love what we do, which definitely helps. So we‘re passionate about it. We might be out in the surf talking about business. But there are four things, I have boiled it down to over the years after being asked this question about five thousand times. I‘ve gotten pretty good with the response.

First thing is no ego. What are, let‘s say tend to happen a lot in business is that we help, if there‘s a couple kind of relationship. People can tend to want their solution to be the one that‘s actions. So if you have an idea, maybe look in at your partner and go and okay is their idea better? Maybe it is. I‘ll get myself out of the way, so often times it‘s kind of a bit comes to a clash because people think their ideas are better or want things their way. So remove the ego.

Point number two is different roles in the business. So if you‘re trying to do the same thing as each other, well of course you‘re going to be walking on each other‘s, stepping on each other‘s toes. So have different roles so you‘re doing different things. Of course, we like to bounce ideas off one another. So you can still bounce ideas but have very different roles. It‘s like running your own business in that area of the business and you know, your wife or husband might be running, it‘s like their running a separate business, in a different area of the business where you complement each other.

Number three is recognizing that you‘re going to wear your work hats sometimes. So have a conversation upfront before you even get too far in your business or if you‘re already well in trillion to business together, in a spouse-type relationship. Have a conversation where sometimes you‘re going to have your work hat on so you‘re going to be focused and recognizing if I have a massive pile of things to and if Franziska came and said to me, “hey do you want to go out to dinner tonight?” and I‘m like, oh I‘m really short with her, it‘s understanding that, hey look, I‘ going to have the work hat on and sometimes you are, too. So if I come to you, it‘s not that I‘m not interested in dinner or it‘s all being short with you personally, it‘s just that I‘ve got a lot to do here and the same goes, if she‘s buried in work, to understand if I come. But to some extent, the way I can look at this as well is if you come along going, hey how about we do this and you‘re distracting someone from what they were doing, you‘re almost in some way saying what I‘m doing right now is more important than what you are doing. So just keep that in mind. That‘s the one that I like to keep in mind.

Then always keep in your mind is the fourth point is you‘re always working towards the same goal. So if something‘s going here and I have to be quiet to let you work over there or respect each other‘s space or so on or zip what I‘ve got something to talk about. We‘re working towards the same goal. So if it‘s an idea, that your idea might be better than mine or mine‘s better than yours, you know, no ego, different roles, sometimes you got the work hat on and recognizing that across the board. Everything we‘re doing is to which of the same goal, so let‘s make this thing thrive, let‘s make it work, let‘s work together or how can I help you in certain ways? And so on.

So there are the four tips that I wanted to share today. If you are in a kind of couple, couples in business, I guess, type situation. If you got any tips as well around this, feel free to share, comment, like or share with any of your friends who you know would benefit from this video as well. If you see a couple in business that are knocking heads, hopefully they can take something from this and to improve the way things are for them. Thanks and bye for now.