29. Living AND Working with your Partner

Hi everyone, this is the weekly Build Your Salon podcast with me, Phil Jackson. I'm here with the tools you need to generate the profits you deserve so that you can lead a fuller life. Welcome, and today we're talking about working and living with the same person. How we're going to run our businesses and our relationships successfully when your partner at home is also your partner in the business. This is quite a common feature of our industry, and if you get it wrong, it can have dire consequences, not only on the business front, but can end a relationship as well. I've lived and worked with the same person for about 20 years now, so I know a little bit about this, guys, and for the last 15 years we've had our salon together as well. Now, there are some amazing benefits from working and living with your partner. It's beautiful to think that when you're having a really, really rough day, when everything seems to be going against you, there's someone in the salon with you who is always on your side. That feels fantastic, but there are a lot of downsides as well. You've got to be really careful. I will admit that I've had one advantage which you may not have. The advantage I've had is we've always worked together. So very early on in our relationship, we started working and living together. So we haven't had that period of adjustment where someone's come into a business which is already running or where you've had a relationship for a long time not working together and then started working together. So we have that advantage, I'll grant you. First up, you've got to start with the end in mind. I was coaching one very unfortunate salon owner whose business was on her knees and the reason for that was she'd gone into business with her husband. She thought they were going to be working together forever. In his mind he had a different goal and actually that arrangement in his mind was only going to be for two or three years while he was searching for a more lucrative job. So start with the end in mind. Are you going to be selling the business at some stage? Is the idea that one partner leaves the business? What happens if you split up? You need to have these difficult conversations before you embark on working together. Sometimes they are hard conversations. It doesn't matter how many bottles of wine it takes. You have to get agreement in the end. Which takes us on to point number two. You have to agree on the big stuff.

You have to be pushing your business in the same direction. You will destroy your relationship and your business if you are pulling in different directions. Now I don't mean that you have to agree on absolutely every element of the business. That's not what I'm saying and it's unrealistic. But if you agree on the big stuff. If you agree on the strategy for the business. If you agree on the long term goals. When you have arguments. And there will be arguments. But when you have those arguments. All you are arguing about is how you are going to get there. You have agreed on the destination. You are only arguing about the slightly different routes that you want to take. Point number three. Is you need to be crystal clear on your roles in the business. Not only for your own sanity. But also if you are not clear on the roles. There is a real waste of resource. Because you end up duplicating. You end up with two people doing something that one person could do a lot more effectively. This is particularly important if you have staff. They need to know who it is that they go to when they want holiday approved. Who it is that they go to with a training request. Who is in charge of the ordering. Otherwise they are very confused and they end up not communicating effectively with a member of the management team at all. Point number four. Is you have to manage or be managed. So in every element of your business. Someone needs to be in charge. If you are not willing to be in charge. Then you are going to have to hand over control to the other person. And not interfere. So for example. My partner in the business. Doesn't particularly enjoy the kind of staff management side. He is pretty good with the paperwork side. Pretty good with dealing with the supplier relationships. But when it comes to coaching. When it comes to appraisals. When it comes to nurturing talent and bringing people on. It just bores him. He doesn't enjoy it. Which makes him not very good at it. So if he is not willing to take part in that. He is going to have to be treated as a member of staff in that area of the business. So he has an appraisal every year. Where I do an appraisal for him. He has targets that I set with him. And I coach him towards those targets. You have to either manage. Or be managed. There are times when you have to literally toss a coin. To figure out who is going to be in charge of an area of your business. And this happens with personal relationships in the salon as well. For example. We had a guy working for us for quite a number of years. And over years. You know what it's like. You start to get close. You start to hang out outside work as well. We had to have a discussion between the two of us.

And decide who was going to be this guy's friend. And who was going to be this guy's manager. Because we knew there were going to be times when we'd have to have difficult conversations. So you have to be that clear about your roles. And you have to manage. Or be managed. And finally. Say what's on your mind. And you say what's on your mind when it occurs to you. It is impossible to put artificial boundaries into your home and work relationship. The number of times we've gone on holiday and decided we're not going to talk about work for a whole week. And then two days into the holiday we have to go out and buy a notebook and a pencil and start making notes. You can't put those artificial boundaries in place. It's like me saying to you right now. Do not think of an elephant. The first thing that happens is you start thinking about elephants. And it's exactly the same if you put these artificial constraints. What you do is put undue pressure on your relationship. So if you need to get something off your chest. If you need to talk about it. It doesn't matter where you are. You could be having the most romantic meal in the world. But you have to just get it off your chest. Get it out there. Then you can put work behind you. And start focusing on your personal relationship instead. I hope that's been useful to you. If it has, please don't forget to subscribe. I put content out like this every single Monday. And I would hate you to miss out on what I'm sharing with you. If you've got a successful work and personal relationship with somebody, put it in the comments below. Or share it over on the Build Your Salon Facebook page. Until then, I'll see you next week. Hey everyone, it's Phil again. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you did, please subscribe and be sure to tell your friends. For more help and information on running your salon and your life, head over to buildyoursalon.com. I'll see you there.