#26 - Husband and Wife as Business Partners

Many businesses are run by husband and wife teams. While that can be a powerful combination for the business, there are unique dynamics and challenges when spouses or other family members work together. In this episode, Robert and Kay Lee Fukui share their experience and insight into how spouses can most successfully work together as business partners.

More specifically, this episode includes:

• Advantages of Family-Run Businesses
• Kay Lee and Robert’s Background
• Importance of Financial Metrics in Running a Business
• Assessing and Determining Job Fit for Family Members  
• Hiring Your Children
• Structuring Accountability Discussions with Your Spouse
• Managing Boundaries Between Work and Home Life
• Avoiding Divorce When Your Children Go To College
• Parallels with the Entrepreneurial Operating System
• Robert and Kay Lee’s Consulting Business

Reach Robert and Kay Lee Fukui at https://marriedentrepreneur.co/ 

Sponsored by SmartBooks. To schedule a free consultation, visit smartbooks.com.

Thanks for listening!

Host Cal Wilder can be reached at:
cal@empoweringhealthybusiness.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/calvinwilder/

Chapters

• 0:39 Advantages of Family-Run Businesses
• 5:14 Kay Lee and Robert’s Background
• 8:35 Importance of Financial Metrics in Running a Business
• 12:42 Assessing and Determining Job Fit for Family Members
• 19:10 Hiring Your Children
• 24:01 Structuring Accountability Discussions with Your Spouse
• 26:09 Managing Boundaries Between Work and Home Life
• 37:00 Avoiding Divorce When Your Children Go To College
• 45:41 Parallels with the Entrepreneurial Operating System
• 47:53 Robert and Kay Lee’s Consulting Business

Transcript

Moderator: 0:00

Welcome to the Empowering Healthy Business podcast, THE podcast for small business owners. Your host, Cal Wilder, has built and sold businesses of his own and he has helped hundreds of other small businesses. Whether it is improving sales, profitability and cash flow; building a sustainable, scalable and saleable business; reducing your stress level, achieving work life balance, or improving physical and emotional fitness, Cal and his guests are here to help you run a healthier business, and in turn, have a healthier life.

Calvin: 0:34

welcome, Robert and Kay Lee.

Robert: 0:35

Oh, thank you for having us, Calvin. Yeah, looking forward to it.

Calvin: 0:39

Yeah, this topic is near and dear to me, as well as a lot of other business owners. and clients that we support in our day job. And I think, from my perspective, family businesses can be great. some of our big public companies started out as family businesses, like Ford Motor Company, Estee Lauder, Cosmetics, Coke Industries, The Conglomerate, Tyson Foods, Mars Candy. I mean, the list goes on and on more infamously. You've got folks like Purdue Pharmaceuticals, these businesses are all very Effective at achieving their business objectives for a very long time is this family businesses. So they figured out, at least from the outside, how to kind of make it work and growing and scaling a business that started out as a as a small family business. I think there's a lot of potential benefit from family members running a business together. You know, there's a level of trust, level of commitment. There's alignment between the employee and the managers with the long term objectives of the owners because the senior executives and the owners are the same people. there's a lot of stability. because the, Businesses and subject to executives, and owners coming and going every few years. and the stock market focused on short term performance at the expense of, long term business success. I think family businesses can care a lot more about leaving a positive legacy to the world than businesses with managers who don't have a lot of skin in the game and they're going to leave for another job. In a few years, right? so I'm not saying that just because spouses work together, maybe extended family, are also in the business that it's necessarily going to have all these positive benefits because families can be dysfunctional too. But I think when family dynamics get managed effectively, they can be very powerful. Business builders, but a lot of obstacles to navigate. I see it with my own business that my wife, Jenny and I started together 15 years ago. I see it with many clients that are managed by spousal teams, and sometimes they employ their children or even their parents in the business. let me, Start out just asking you about, the tandem bicycle illustration. You wrote that book called tandem, which is a great book. near the beginning of it, there's an illustration, Robert, maybe you can explain your hesitancy to ride the tandem bicycle with your wife and how you, explain that analogy.

Robert: 2:56

Yeah, kind of funny story to how we even came up with the title. It was actually my mastermind group I'm a part of. And, you know, we're getting close to finishing up the manuscript, or at least that first draft. I was on the hot seat this one day and I was like, okay, I need a title. And so everybody kind of knows what we're doing, what we do as a consulting and also our book. So they came up, like they start throwing out names and then all of a sudden someone said tandem. And then all of a sudden everybody started chiming in with all these metaphors and all that kind of stuff. I started cracking up because. of this discussion that Kay Lee and I would have about tandem bikes, which made it into the introduction of the book as you're referring to. When Kay Lee, when Kay Lee and I would be at the beach, sometimes we'd see people on a tandem bike every once in a while and she'd say, Oh, let's get on a tandem bike.

Kay Lee: 3:39

Yeah. I'll be all excited. Cause I'd never done it before.

Robert: 3:41

And I was like, no, I don't think that's a good idea.

Kay Lee: 3:43

Oh, come on. you get so scared about

Robert: 3:46

So I'm like, well, cause She likes to, she likes to see things, you know, observe the surroundings, especially where the beach, you know, whether it's, you know, beach goers, or maybe there's a whale on shore or something like that, or just, just the stuff, right? So I said, I can't put you in a front cause you're going to get distracted. And we'll probably run over to Rollerblader, but if I put you in the back, I mean, I'm not sure if you're going to pedal. So that was the whole joke. And that made the illustration, in the introduction, it's kind of the illustration of even though, you know, tandem bike, you're welded together, you know, you should be able to work well together. But if you've ever tried to ride on a tandem bike, you definitely have to be in sync. Just because you're on the bike together and it's welded together. If I'm leaning into a turn, but she's not, it's going to be harder for me to turn. And if I'm trying to come out of a turn and she's not, you could actually fall because the weight's not transferred. There's a lot of teamwork in a tandem bike that you probably wouldn't think of if you've never ridden one. you think, well, you're, you're, you're welded together, the pedals are going the same time. Right. And so, you know, you know, it should be easy. I think that was a great metaphor for marriage in general, and especially when you're working together in business.

Calvin: 4:57

So before we dive into what you've developed and how you advise and work with married business owners today, maybe take us back a little Into the earlier years of your lives and your experience in business and what got you doing what you do today. Maybe, Kay Lee, you can start with this

Kay Lee: 5:15

Well, mine started as a childhood. I have a third generation entrepreneur family, and my dad works six days a week and wasn't home much. it was really tough and challenging on our family because when you're a child, you just want your dad to be home. I think some of that played into, and then I saw a lot of people as entrepreneurs, their go to was when they weren't doing well put more time and energy into their work. Those were some of the hardships that, I grew up with. And there was plenty of, pluses to don't get me wrong. And so I think when we started our business, we saw that. a lot of the couples we were helping, we didn't want that to happen to them as well.

Calvin: 5:58

Then, Robert, what has your journey been?

Robert: 6:00

So kind of similar. I mean, I didn't grow up in a entrepreneurial household. Actually, my dad was a, was a pastor, but there was the same dynamic because the focus was on the ministry a lot of times, the family took a back seat. When I went to school, the. thing I did. I don't want to go into the ministry. I actually want to go into business. So I actually majored in marketing, cut my teeth in fortune 500 companies, worked for Coca Cola and then big pharma. You mentioned Purdue. I didn't work for them, but had experience in that. And so that, that was, that really helped set the stage of knowing how to do business well. When you're, in a company. In fact, Coca Cola and the two pharmaceutical companies I work for both started within a couple years of each other in 1886, 1887. when you have that kind of longevity, you're doing something well. And they all started, like you said, family business. And then it became multi generational passing it on. They became publicly traded companies, but you, the least lasting that long, you gotta be able to do something well. And one of them is. Efficiency productivity systems and processes, And operating with good margins. And when I started consulting privately held family business, especially the ones we're dealing with, they're doing about less than 10 million a year in revenue. They didn't have a lot of those in place, especially when you're under even 5 million in revenue. And so as they're hiring for marketing help, the first thing I saw, cause you'd appreciate this Cal, the first thing I was actually mentored by a, an aerospace CFO. And so he really. Help me understand, you know, P and L's and balance sheets and all that. He says, this is going to help you in marketing, which I didn't think, what, what are you talking about? And sure enough, as I just started asking my clients, can I see your, your financial statements? And I started looking at their profit and loss statements. The first thing I noticed was like, Oh, you're operating on a really thin margins. With those thin margins, you can't hire out the help that you need to take the load off. they're asking me for marketing help, but then I look in the business and I said, wait a sec, there's more than marketing going on. And then that, that stress you're putting on yourself as also forcing you to work harder, put more hours in because you can't hire out, which is then affecting home. you don't have a marketing issue. You have a productivity and margin issue. that's the first light bulb because most of our clients were married and they started talking about their personal life, as you get to know them. And then you start seeing this work life imbalance that kind of matched our childhood upbringing. And so it's kind of a journey. Oh, there's an issue here that no one's really addressing and it's not just a business issue. It is a family issue. So let's fix this. let's handle both of these issues, marriage and business and let's do both of those well.

Calvin: 8:37

Yeah, I know in your book, you make the point that a lack of understanding of financial metrics and performance indicators is a big contributor to work life. In balance, and so, you know, a lot of small business owners don't have a lot of background and experience with financial management and performance metrics. instead of setting clear measurable goals and getting pricing and cost structure and profit margins aligned where they need to be and. being able to delegate to somebody else who knows clearly what they're aiming for, what metrics they're supposed to hit. we can default to just working harder and trying to get a greater volume of work done, That's what you're saying. And try to make it up with volume. What we don't have in our core business Yeah. In fact, making each sale more profitable, we can just try to sell more deals and fulfill more orders. But that's risky for a number of reasons, including burnout and negative cashflow.

Robert: 9:27

In fact, that was kind of the mantra in our, at Coca Cola, the local branch manager, was always saying volume cures everything. Volume cures everything. Right. It was just, it just pumping out, pumping out. Coke is running on thin margins, That may or may not work, but most of the time, it just forces you to work really hard. And as you say, of ultimate can lead to burnout with that is not just a mental and emotional issue, but will affect you physically. how to do business better. So you don't have that. So you have the energy, not just to do business, but also, be at home.

Calvin: 10:01

I suspect, the different stages in the evolution of a business. You know, things change over time, and that probably impacts the marital relationship a lot as well. Right? At 1st, if you're a pure startup, you're, you're very excited about what you're trying to accomplish. You're got a lot of energy. You're working hard, but you don't mind it. You're motivated by the potential you could achieve. You probably don't have Many if any employees and middle managers yet to worry about. you don't have a lot of business to worry about accounting for and measuring yet. There's probably not formal management and communication systems in place. And so it can be kind of a fun motivating environment, but then the business grows and all of a sudden you've got something that needs some structure and you have to worry about respective skill sets and how do you communicate effectively and, set those goals and objectives. they could see how. What started out as a very positive working relationship between the spouses could, turn in a different direction once all the stresses of trying to manage a scaling business kick in.

Robert: 10:59

Absolutely. And I think, you know, for those that are kind of in that startup phase, I mean, now's the best time to start putting those things in place and then grow as opposed to trying to fix it later. You know, it's, it's, it's that much harder, right? Cause you've already, especially when you have teams already, and that's what we see is right there. Most business owners, they're good at their craft, but they don't have any real business experience. And so what happens is they just do what they know and because they're running very inefficiently because they don't have the systems and process in place as they're growing, they just keep. Doing the same things. Right. And so you're just multiplying the inefficiencies that you started with. And as the business grows, it just becomes bigger and bigger of a stress. And so, now, when's the right time to create systems or processes now, even if you're solo, now's the right time to do it.

Calvin: 11:50

So, Kay Lee, in the book, you relate, business coaching and management development. To marriage counseling, right? Make the point that many business owners had no real formal training, how to run a business before they started their business. and most people don't do any marriage counseling before they get married. And so they're kind of reactive in both situations. Right? So anything you want to expand upon around that

Kay Lee: 12:12

Well, yeah, we did, two years of marital, pre pre marital counseling before we got married. And so, growing up, in my household, we didn't resolve conflict well at all. our idea of resolving the conflict was us walking out on each other, hanging up the phone, and so we didn't get things resolved. That also plays a role in work, because if you're working together, Even if you're not working together, it comes home with you. if you're not able to make decisions to move forward, then that's just something else you can't talk about. all of a sudden all this stuff gets stuffed under the rug. And it gets higher and higher until one day you just implode. And then, a lot of times when you're married, we marry someone opposite of us, say you want to move forward. And the other one needs a lot more time. They're slower to processing and think about things. it's harder and harder to make decisions to get the business moving forward.

Calvin: 13:06

I know you work with the disk framework. Some looks, I've used a fair amount in the past as well. and so I think, I think in the business context, we think a lot about trying to hire employees and put them in roles suited to their skills experience personality and knowledge. we try to give them clear responsibilities and accountabilities. but I think there may be a gap when family members are working together. There's this whole, you know, what's my actual responsibility? What's my accountability? How do I hold my husband accountable when he's not doing what he's supposed to be doing? So talk to us about this whole idea that just because your family, Owns the business, doesn't solve the problem of making sure that you've got the right job.

Kay Lee: 13:50

Well, I think a lot of times, my wife, or my child, or somebody needs a job, so we'll just throw them in there, whether they're qualified for it or not, or if it's a fit. I know with us, at the beginning, Robert asked me, he's like, honey, do you want to do QuickBooks? And I'm more of the creative type. He's the numbers guy. And I didn't really want to do it, but I thought I could do it. I don't want to tell him no. And I did it. Or at least I tried. He would be like, honey, did you get quick books done? I'd be like, no, I'd put it off, put it off, put it off. And then I would get in and go do it. then he'd come back to me and say, honey, this is wrong. You know, numbers need to be exact. And that would trigger me. And then I'd be like, oh my gosh, aren't you grateful for what I'm doing? I'm really trying. And then it would trigger him. And so we would just be in this hot mess. And it's not my gifting at all, especially in the disc. It's more Robert's gifting, but he didn't want to do it.

Robert: 14:45

Yeah, so that's the

Calvin: 14:46

So how should spouses go about figuring out their division of responsibilities?

Robert: 14:51

You know, as you alluded to those tools are helpful, whereas disk or strength finders, Enneagram, any of those personality and communication tools are very effective to see. What's your go to, right? And so in a disc profile, more of an S and C. C is the very analytical, by the disc profile, I should be the one handling QuickBooks, but I didn't want to do it because I just don't want to do it, right? I didn't want to handle QuickBooks. I like numbers. I can deal with the numbers, but the actual mechanics of putting things in QuickBooks, I really didn't want to be bothered. And she's the I in disc, which is that charismatic, person. that's why told her essentially not in these words, but basically I put her in charge of sales. but I know she doesn't like business type titles. So I just said, go make friends.

Kay Lee: 15:30

I'm like, what?

Robert: 15:33

Cause she's doesn't, meet a stranger, right? And I'm an introvert, C's and S's are more introverted. I'm not that outgoing, even though I was 25 years in pharmaceutical sales. What sort of, that's ironic, you know, it's still, I really have to push myself to do it, but for her, it's very natural and she can make friends on the line at Starbucks and be invited over for dinner by the time we get our coffee. So really understanding your roles, and so those. Either take those assessments or even just having a conversation about here's some of the duties, you know, what would you like to do? what are the things that really drive you, energizes you? we've seen too many times where spouses or family members are not in the right role, then it's very toxic for the business because just like Kay Lee shared, you know, if things aren't doing well or to certain expectations and there becomes conflict in that. A lot of it is just because you're not in the right role. once you're in the right role. we don't have those kinds of arguments because you're doing something you really like and you're good at. taking the time then translates to the team when you have a team even when you have employees, a lot of times you've hired somebody because somebody applied for the position. They may have some skill set in that area. But it may not be their best fit. it's worth it to re evaluate and even re interview all your employees to see where are you in the right fit or not. If not, maybe reposition or change the job description a little to take advantage of their skillset. Once everybody's in the right role, you know, like Jim Collins, right seat, you know, people in the right, people in the right bus, the right seat, then you'll see everything flourish, whether it's a husband and wife team or your team in general.

Calvin: 17:10

How do you advise clients on how to avoid a kind of a culture of entitlement for family members versus meritocracy for everybody else?

Robert: 17:19

Well, the first thing is, we know what they should and should not be doing, right? You got to hire people for fit, not because they're family members, because it's just toxic. usually there's always a family member. We have a recent client that just starting. So we're talking them through that. And. You know, ask him, usually I ask a series of questions because sometimes you can't just tell them what to do. they have to hear it from their own words and mouth. we say, so you have this family member you're complaining about, so how's it working? Right. And they say, not working well. I said, so why'd you hire him? Oh, they need a job. It's right fit. I didn't want to offend their parents, right? Okay. So how long do you want this to go on? If this doesn't change and they don't become more productive, what are you going to have to do? Are you willing to fire them? if you say no, then what is that going to do to the team? What does it do to the culture of the organization and how is it going to impact the business, Because leading down the path of all these, what is, if you don't change this. What's going to happen, right? If you do change it and set boundaries, whether you have the firearm or reposition them or set proper boundaries, then, things will be better. ultimately the culture of the organization is better, the business will be more successful. You know, because we're consultants, sometimes you've got to put the coaching hat on, which means asking good questions and having them talk themselves through that situation so they can see it for themselves, Instead of you just telling them what to do, what needs to be done.

Kay Lee: 18:40

Well, and I want to say, too, if it's one of your Children that you're thinking about, bringing into. Your company and you're concerned about entitlement they can always get a job somewhere else before they come work for you. So they get a little bit of, responsibility and know what it's like out there outside of the business. So eventually they want to come work for you. They've got some experience under their belt.

Calvin: 19:03

I think about that myself. my kids are still relatively young in junior high and who knows if they even want to go into financial accounting. I would be nervous about introducing them as, a new hire because. Everybody else can be looking at them like, is the only reason you got hired because you're my son. I can see how if they have a job somewhere else develop skills and make mistakes on somebody else's time in their first few years of their career, and come with a little more developed skills than straight out of school,that could help, put them down the path of meritocracy

Robert: 19:32

And I think it also

Calvin: 19:33

But it'll be hard for them, right? because everybody's looking at them differently, because they're the son of the owners,

Robert: 19:38

Yeah, it helps the business when they come from different experiences and bring that in because we know several friends that's what happened. Their parents made them, you'd have to work outside first and then come in. And it wasn't just because of the, entitlement issue is also the point. The dad wanted them to learn from other companies and see if there's anything they can bring into our company. Right. So there's, there's also that benefit as well. But, yeah, that's always a challenge, right? You know, being the kid coming into the family business and you know, all the eyes are looking at you or you hired only because you're a family member and all that. But I think when you put your child, your son, In the right position for their fit. they're going to excel and people ultimately will accept that, If they're excelling, those issues go away, but if they're not, and you keep them in that position, then the grumbling and rumors about, Oh, they're only here because they're, the son of the owner, that's when those things really accelerate. But if they're in the right fit and doing well, those things kind of go away.

Calvin: 21:07

Any other questions I've struggled with a little bit is HR policies around employees who date each other, marry each other, or a manager wants to hire a family member My wife, Jenny and I started the business and for the first few years, we're both working in it full time, very actively. my mind tends to jump to conclusions if it's somebody else, I'm thinking, you know, if something goes south with one of them, I'm going to lose two employees instead of one. Or, what if they decided. You know, take everything they've learned here and go start competing against us. Now I got competing against a two person team that knows everything about us is the only reason they want to hire that person because that person needs a job and maybe isn't the best candidate for my company. So I start to draw all these conclusions and my mind jumps to them and I probably don't have the right attitude. about some of these things, I'm curious what your experience has been in businesses where, husband and wives work actively in the business, run the business and how they handle HR policies for all the other employees who may want to date or marry or hire a family member

Robert: 22:12

Yeah. Calvin: A coworker? Well the dating part, that's hard to, Put a squash on. things are going to happen, right? I've come from companies that had those policies, but you just date behind the bush. it's really hard to prevent that kind of stuff. as far as bringing in a spouse or a family member and we've had those situations with our clients, those can be challenging. Right. And I think you have to put down some boundaries. you just have to be able to hold everybody accountable, but, bringing the spouse, I can see how that's challenging. because if you have to reprimand, you know, Some one, one of the spouses, of course, is going to affect the other one. And they're going to want to defend them and that can create some toxicity, right? so, yeah, I, agree with you. it's very hard to want to hire a spouse of an employee because of those issues. those are real issues and they happen. It's not like you're making up in your head. We know when we've seen those kinds of things happen. ultimately it's up to you as a business owner. for us too, that's a challenging one because we know what the ramifications could be and how it affects the team. for sure. So always have to look at how is this hire going to potentially affect the team.

Kay Lee: 23:21

Well, if they're having challenges at home, which hopefully they're not, but if they are, they bring that to work because you're seeing, your spouse every day, they're at work.

Calvin: 23:31

Okay. let's say you've, defined, uh, you know, a job missing or, you know, a set of responsibilities and pretty good detail. You think it's a good fit for the, your spouses, or family members abilities. and they start in the role or they start doing the role. is there anything different that you would recommend as far as accountability discussions for a spouse in the business versus other employees is it a different kind of discussion? I assume it has to be right?

Robert: 24:00

It might sound different for some couples that are working together, but it's actually not when you put it in a business context. accountability is accountability, right? Whether it's an employee or your business partner, we all have our roles. We know what we want to achieve. One of the things we just can't make it personal. That's always the challenge, right? how do you hold your spouse accountable without it blowing up? Hey, you didn't do QuickBooks, right? How do we have that conversation without it blowing up? one of the things that we do as husband and wife is we have a weekly meeting every Monday at three 30. We, Go over calendars for both personal and business stuff that's our check-in for the week. how do we start the week? What things are coming up in the calendar? What business items need to be taken care of? What things didn't get taken care of last week? You know, if it didn't get taken care of, why? And do you need more support? how can we help? So one of the things is to kind of prevent. Having to hold your spouse accountable, meaning, Oh, they didn't do it. And then you have to like have this conversation, but if you're always checking in on a regular basis and finding out if you have a problem finishing the work, why, and if we need to either outsource the work or. Maybe you have too much on your plate and we can table it for a little bit or just have that discussion of why this isn't getting done. And what can we do to help? because a lot of times we just make some assumptions and say this hasn't been done. Why? And having those regular check ins also prevents things getting, not addressed. If things aren't addressed for a long period of time, then when you finally do address it, it becomes a big issue as opposed to handling it when it's a small issue.

Kay Lee: 25:31

Check in with your spouse cause you never know what's going on with them. Maybe they're just having a hard day or a hard week or, it could be a lot of different things.

Calvin: 25:40

Let's talk about bringing work home, or if we work from home these days, where the boundaries are between work and family and home and what your experience and advice is around how to successfully, Not be talking work all the time at home

Robert: 25:56

I'd say try and find a good transition, place because for us, when we're done working for the day, we take the dog out. it's nice getting some exercise. I'll ask, how was his day? what happened? And that's just a nice way to unwind and talk about a little bit of work, but then transition into family time Yeah. the transition is important. And then we have some ground rules, no cell phone at the dinner table. my cell phone just stays in the office. our office is also at home and I just keep the phone in the office. you know, weekends. I've been on Saturdays. I don't do any electronics period. In general, I don't check social media and all that kind of stuff.you have to put in these boundaries so that you're not always thinking about work even at the dinner table, if one of us starts to bring up a work topic, we say, can this wait? Does this need to be discussed now? Or can this wait to the next business day? can we hold it for a weekly meeting? And just put it in the agenda, part of the reason why, we're always talking about work is because, when we have an idea, we don't have a place to park it. So we just talk about it now, if you have a place to park it, then it'll be okay. then we'll know, okay, this will be a topic we will address because it's either tomorrow or whatever, whatever we've agreed to, and that's what we're going to do.

Calvin: 27:11

When you have a standing weekly meeting on Monday afternoons, you can always

Robert: 27:15

If it can't wait a week, let's say it's a week to the next Monday. If it can't wait a week, then the next business day we'll start at, nine o'clock or whatever. But we always say, okay, we don't just like kick it to the curb, but we actually put time and place of when we're going to talk about it. You know, is it going to be the meeting or tomorrow? Whatever. Um, and then we just have to hold each other accountable. Hey, you know, you're talking about work, you know, let's wait. And then we have, uh, sometimes we just had a discussion because it affects us too. Sometimes, you know, what do we talk about? Because a lot of times it's the same stuff. And so good friends of ours came up with these, conversation starters for couples they're just a little like little cards, right? And just pull it out of the deck and it pulls a question. And so, you know, there's stuff out there to keep it fun and different So you have to find

Calvin: 27:59

A particular product geared for this particular purpose?

Robert: 28:02

What's the name of that cart? It's Rob

Kay Lee: 28:05

Joanna Teagan. We'll have

Robert: 28:06

I'll have to give it, send it to you. You can put in the show notes, but they have like three different cards. I don't see it.

Kay Lee: 28:11

Well, and I just wanted to add to, yeah, those are great conversation starters. we also have a Google sheet. So if there's something on our mind, I can write it down or put it in my journal, so I don't have to remember it. sometimes I'll come to Robert with all these things as they pop up ideas in my head. If I have a place where I can park it, as you were saying, honey, then I don't have to think about it anymore. I can write it down till our next meeting. Most of the time.

Calvin: 28:34

I feel like the dynamic between my wife and I in some ways is similar and that I'm very introverted and my wife is not 100 percent extrovert, but definitely more than me. so, you know, I'll come home from work, so to speak, or come upstairs from work. and so ask me how my day was right. And Robert, you had to figure out a strategy because that would, that was not a good conversation for both of you for, a while until you figured out a strategy, can you talk a little bit about why that wasn't working so well and what tactics you both employed?

Robert: 29:06

That started from my pharmaceutical days. I was on sales calls with physicians all day. I'm an introvert. you're spending all day talking and listening to people. the last thing I want to do is recap the day when I come home, but that's the first thing that Kay Lee asks. When I didn't want to answer, I just gave really short answers. It would upset her because she wants to know. we came up to an agreement before, you know, working together. So I would come home, I would take the dog for a walk by myself. Around the block, give myself half an hour to decompress and transition. when I get back, we can talk about it. that's how it worked for me. It might be different for you, but sometimes you need that transition before talking to your wife about the day. That's what worked for us. So you just have to find what that is for you, but something around that will help.

Calvin: 29:51

I find I can sometimes get aggravated if it's like middle of the day and I'm thinking about the business and what work I need to do and I run into Jenny and she's got some questions about the kids or the house or vacation And I'm like, I'm in work mode and she wants to talk about personal stuff and I get aggravated. a lot of this comes down to, organizing your day to day activities and routines. So that you can kind of accommodate the personality needs of, each of you, and not require one spouse to just fully adapt to the needs of the other spouse. I think if she knew what the expectations was, like when there's a time that you gave just to her to talk about whatever she needed to talk about, I think she would probably be great. She's just like, things are popping up. And if you don't, have a specific time and date, you're going to talk about things.

Kay Lee: 30:45

She just brings it up whenever, because she's not sure when that opportunity is going to come.

Robert: 30:50

You have to have a touch point, right? So we have that first thing in the morning for us. so we have the weekly meeting is the big meeting, but then every day you have to have a touch point. Without those touch points, then of course she's going to, whatever's on her mind, she wants to talk about because when else am I going to talk to Kel, About this. And so as soon as I see you, you're like raw meat. And so, and, and so even though, even though you had those, dates or time set aside already, it doesn't mean that she won't say something during the day. So what we do, is like, hey, can it wait for later this afternoon, or, say, Hey, give me an hour and we can talk about it. as long as you give her a time and place to talk we know we will talk about this. I just can't talk about it now because I have too much on my mind, right? And it's not gonna go well if we try to have this conversation when I'm thinking about work. And the flip side could happen to if if you were to bring up something for her and she's thinking about the kids and what I gotta do She could be aggravated too, right? And so it works both ways. And so I think being able to honor each other's moment, it's like, this probably isn't a good moment to talk about it because it won't go well, but here's when we can talk about it. And if you're okay with it, that's when we'll do it. So come to agreement on when we talk about it and honor that. And then it'll go much smoother.

Calvin: 32:05

Are there other kind of day to day tactics that you've seen, couples employ successfully to prevent, silly little things from becoming big blow ups due to, ineffective communication?

Kay Lee: 32:17

Oh, it comes to mind for me. And I'm, I'm, I've done this numerous times to Robert, unfortunately, is I'll come in cause I need to talk about something and he's in the middle of writing content, which takes a lot of focus and a lot of time, and it's totally the wrong time for me to even be bringing up stuff. So when I can think about it, I'll be like, honey, it's now a good time. I wanted to talk to you about something and he'll say, yes. Or no, How about in an hour or so? And then we can have the conversation because if I interrupt him, he's in the middle of something focused He's not in the right place and things could get a little heated

Robert: 32:51

Permission is crucial that way You already know ahead of time if it's a good time or not and also sometimes there's Particular hot topics that, you know, you or your wife want to talk about, want to bring up and definitely you don't want to bring it up when you're in the middle of something. If it's a potential hot topic, something that, you know, you think might trigger your wife, what can and I do is we kind of basically preface it by saying, honey, I have something I want to talk to you about, but guard your heart. So basically it means this might potentially trigger you. And so what that does for me, it's a signal. I close my eyes take a couple deep breaths and just prepare myself to listen. Have a conversation. Don't react. Don't jump to conclusions. Like let's have a conversation. and as opposed to I can potentially just react right away, right? Get real defensive because it's a, it's a topic that's a hot issue. even warning your spouse that this is a potential hot issue, to prepare you I don't want to offend you. This doesn't mean anything bad. I love you, but we do have to talk about this, I want to have a, I want to try and have a most productive conversation as possible.

Kay Lee: 33:55

Cause there's nothing worse than I catch him off guard and then he's like, what? And we get reactive, myself included.

Calvin: 34:02

Something I've seen that I screwed up repeatedly in my life here is, you know, we, as humans have a tendency to make up stories in our minds to explain why somebody else did or didn't do something or why they did it wrong. and we're a little slow sometimes to seek to understand why they did it the way they did and give somebody the benefit of the doubt. We sometimes jump to assuming, bad intentions or incompetence I feel like with an unaffiliated employee, you catch yourself. you hire good people. They generally do good work. You give them the benefit of the doubt. If something looks off, you try to understand why. I feel like sometimes with spouses or family members, you feel like you know them so well, you can just know why they did it. you don't go through that same exercise of seeking to understand what actually happened, right?

Robert: 34:51

That's because we have all that emotional baggage, And relational baggage. And it happens to us too. You just make assumptions. And so a lot of times we just have to call a timeout. Somebody just has to call time out and say, Hey, what's going on here? what did you do? Why did you do it? And then seek to understand. So it happens to the best of us. and I think we call it the cycle of insanity. Because when you start to assume and make an accusation, your wife will get defensive and that'll get triggering to her, get defensive and throw something at you, triggers you and you go back and forth, Saying basically the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. if we recognize that, one of us has to call a timeout and then I'll ask, or one of us will ask each other, what do you need from me? So at this moment, we're having an argument, a conflict, what do you need from me? And it's usually only one of two things. It's, I just need you to listen and empathize. But we need to fix this, a solution. usually the reason why we have this conflict is because we're both on the wrong page. One of us, you know, one, our wife, Kay Lee wants me to listen to empathize and I'm trying to give a solution, fix the problem or defend myself And that's, we're just missing it. Right? so once we understand what the other, my spouse, needs, then we can have a productive conversation and usually resolves itself in, a matter of moments. And so that's one of the key things. So, you know, what do you need for me?

Calvin: 36:10

Yeah, I feel like you can, uh, a conflict can easily escalate between spouses, whereas, you know, employees and manager employee relationships outside of the family, people kind of know they need to keep Emotions in check in communication and check at home or spouses. Not so much.

Robert: 36:29

For sure.

Calvin: 36:30

So, I want to outline a scenario that I 1st introduced to at a business conference several years ago and get your perspective on it. this is kind of the pattern that I've followed with, Jenny and our family and a lot of other business owners follow where husband and wife start a business together. They get it off the ground, grow it for a few years, but they're still a relative young and haven't had kids yet. And then you said they wanna have kids and then somebody's gotta spend a lot of time taking care of the kids. And the majority of the time that ends up being the wife who does that. although some husbands do it a majority of the time, it's the wife. And then there's this progression where the wife becomes less and less active in the business, maybe mostly inactive in the business. The husband becomes, you know, the face of the business gets the credit for the business's growth. People forget the contributions that the wife made in the early years. The recent hires never knew what the wife contributed in the early years. and the wife is early. Her purpose shifts to raising the kids and the husband's purpose is still focused on building the business. His focus should be maybe on the kids too, but you know, he may default to focus on the business and assume his wife is Taking care of the kids. and then the kids get to colleagues and by then, you know, the husband and wife have gone down different paths in life. and maybe the wife starts to resent the husband a little bit because he's getting all the credit while she did all this hard, great, valuable work raising the kids. But everybody else views the husband is the man, so to speak, for, you know, running and building the business. And she was doing a great job raising the kids, which is great. Critically important too. but they end up being on completely different pages, a lot of baggage and they end up getting divorced when the kids go to college. So I said to myself, I got to avoid that happening because, I'm, full time in the business. Jenny is very part time, many weeks, no time except for some conversations I bring home so what's your perspective on this situation and how do you prevent it? Spouses who start businesses together from getting divorced when the kids go to college.

Kay Lee: 38:40

What comes to mind for me is our weekly meetings, we give each other a word of affirmation and tell them something we're thankful and grateful for them. And I think that goes a long ways. And even when, you might be the face of the business, your wife is still helping you. If she comes home, you probably run things by her some couples pray together. So she's praying for the spouse. for example, Dave Ramsey, he says, his wife doesn't work in the business. Whenever he's hiring, he takes the person he thinks he wants to hire, or the candidates, to dinner, and his wife with him. And she's very discerning, so she picks the person he's going to hire, because he says he's not good at that. So I think the wife helps out a lot more. in ways people don't see, And I think too, as a spouse, giving your wife that credit, because she is helping you with the kids. She's raising the kids so that you can have the business because you can't do it all by yourself, raise the family. I mean, I guess you could, but it would be hard to raise the family and have the business. So you're able to have the business because she's supporting you.

Robert: 39:48

Yeah, and this is a pretty, unfortunately, relatively common scenario, right? Once the kids are out of the house, then the parents divorce because they're just staying together for the kids. the scenario you talked about, with starting the business together and then, going your own different ways, that's really the crux of why they ultimately get divorced they've lost connection with each other. It's not just about the recognition of the business, You've lost connection as husband and wife because she's her job is raising the kids. Your job is running the business. And when you're in your lane, so to speak, you know, we don't, we just, just the couples in general, as we age and we got all these different responsibilities, we just lose that connection. And a lot of it comes to what we were talking about. If we had those daily points of connection. Those weekly meetings, staying on the same page. So we know what's going on with the business. What's going on with the kids. How can we support each other in these moments? And also as Kelly says, those words of affirmation. I don't know if you're like me, Cal, but I have a hard time giving praise to Kay Lee because that's not how I was raised, my dad praised me. He just. told me what I had to do or what I did wrong, right? So that's the environment I grew up in. And so therefore that's, I'm not used to giving it cause I didn't really receive it. So those daily points of connection and weekly meetings, that's the first thing we do is give each other words of affirmation. if I don't have that, I may go the whole day without it. think about it as husband and wife, how many times do we really affirm our spouse? One's usually better than the other, but there's the one that's not. you gotta put in those points, hold yourself accountable to really make a point to give them affirmation and praise and how can I support you and having those daily and weekly points of just connection to make sure we're not drifting apart. Because that's usually the crux of it at the end of the day the kids are gone. Now we're empty nesters. And now I don't know how to relate to you because we haven't related with each other all this time. The thing that kept us together was the kids, right? All the activities and the business and all that. So we got to kind of peel those things apart and then start with how do we make sure we stay connected as husband and wife, regardless of how busy life can get. When you do that well over the course of the years, that won't be an issue.

Kay Lee: 42:07

Well, and I think you also need to be intentional about date night, do some vacations, even if it's just one night, There's things that you can do at different points in the kids, ages just to get away. It's nice just to get away the two of you and reconnect and, there's different forms to do that. I know like, my girlfriend's had small kids and they're like, Oh, we just can't, When I able to go on a date night, so she would feed them, put them to bed early. And then her and her husband would sit down and have dinner together at the house. there's all different ways to be creative. You could spend the day together, take a day off or a weekend. you know, the kids are at daycare at school or, you know, get a babysitter for a couple hours.

Calvin: 42:51

Great.Is there anything else you want to mention before we wrap up this episode.

Robert: 42:56

Yeah, I think, you know, we talk about work life balance, staying connected, you know, making sure we have date nights and all that. And there's always that question of like, well, I got to build this business, I got to run this business. And how do I do that? Right. Well, and so we look at, there's only two basic things that starts and grows a business. It's time and money, right? It's your set, what equity or the money you put in or earn. we get so focused on building business instead of figuring out how to work smarter, not harder. And those two things, when you look at your time and money, it's where are you spending your time as the business owner and even your team? Am I spending my time in the most productive way? Or am I caught up in busy work? the invoicing, the administrative work, those are things that need to be done, but should it be done by me? if you're solo, the first hires, probably that first virtual assistant takes a lot of administrative duties off your plate, gives you an extra five to 10 hours a week. To help you get more sales develop more content or do some more research and development, or what are the things that will build the business? They'll be productive, instead of getting bogged down day to day. And then the money thing is margins. making higher profit margins as opposed to just working on volume. When you're able to identify areas in your products or service, they can increase price. Become more efficient to reduce your costs. Now you're going to get bigger margins and you won't have to work on volume as much and it won't stress you as much. those are just two basic things covered in the book tandem, the married entrepreneurs guide for greater work life balance. But that's the aspect on the business side in the book that we cover. It's just how to be more productive. And so, and we actually even have a specific landing page just for your audience is marriedentrepreneur.co/ehb, you know, empowering healthy business. So marriedentrepreneur.co/ehb, and you can access the book and there's a free download for work life balance as well. Boundaries and connecting with husband and wife is important. And then also about how to be more productive and efficient in your business. So you're not spending all this time in it.

Calvin: 44:57

Yeah, we can talk a lot of hours about ways to do that. Can you remind me did you cover or mention the entrepreneurial operating system EOS in your

Robert: 45:06

No, we don't cover that. there's a lot of slimmer is what we do with that. Yeah, cuz I was For sure.

Calvin: 45:12

As I was reading your book, I saw a lot of parallels with the EOS system, basically, applying the EOS to the marital relationship, not just business planning, You start in EOS, with a long term vision for the business. Well, what's the long term vision for the marriage and the family over decades? what are we working toward? how is the family, how is the business there to support the marriage? Right. In the relationship, not the other way around, and then making sure that the values are clear that are going to drive decisions as difficult decisions come up, you have your defined family values that drive how you go about making the decisions and living right. How much more income do we really need and want? how do we prioritize our spending and saving decisions? Are we going to have kids? If so, how are we going to raise them? What are our thoughts on retirement? how much money do we need? Where are we going to live? Like you said earlier, it's kind of being intentional with the family relationship. Just like we are all trained and told to be more intentional about our businesses. And then having SO standard operating procedures, SOPs for, you know, ground rules for phones at the table, or when work is, or isn't allowed to be discussed outside normal business hours, or, you know, how to have. Difficult conversations when you've got different personality styles and, having a, they have what they call a same page meeting, between the founder and the chief operating officer, every couple of weeks or a month you talk a lot about, being on the same page and how to do that. So I see a lot of parallels between EOS and a lot of the concepts in your book. Absolutely. You know, you've got a lot of resources. And assessments and checklists on your website. You've got a podcast. You've got multiple websites. how would you recommend listeners engage with you and your content? Where should they start?

Robert: 47:03

Yeah. Just go to marriedentrepreneur.co/ehb even though there's specific landing page, but you're in our, basically you're in our website. So once you're there, you can access the podcasts and courses And even, Schedule a complimentary discovery call with us. So yeah, that's the best place to go is just go to that landing page. marriedentrepreneur.co/ehb

Calvin: 47:21

We haven't talked much about your consulting business, can you give me a quick rundown on, What your focus is, the kinds of clients that you help, how you engage with them and, what your objectives are when you engage with the client.

Robert: 47:36

Yeah. most of our clients are, about 40 and under have young kids. They're starting out their husband and wife teams. they're starting to feel the stress of working together and trying to raise a family and how to do it all well. Right. And so that's what we tackle. the first thing we do is help you set a vision. What's the long term vision? how do you take the vision of your best life is 10, 20, 30 years from now, but start to execute that in some small way, even in the present. travel and places to live. even the travel piece, right? You may not have the budget to do elaborate European vacations, but you can take a weekender or staycation How do you practice The things you want to do long term in the future, but even doing it now so that you can enjoy the journey, enjoy life now. And then, of course, the conflict resolution and boundaries piece. the business side is, you know, what we talked about, how do you, you know, how do you be more productive with your time and money? the performance piece is how do you make sure you have measurable, some KPIs. So, you know, what's going wrong. So, you know, what the fix, right. Instead of just trying to throw darts, blindfolded, which is what a lot of business owners will do. They'll just try to fix this, try to fix that without really having metrics to guide decisions. And even the financials, they don't check the financials regularly enough, or, have their books set up properly. There's definitely a difference between cost of goods and operating expenses, but we've seen too many businesses where everything's buried in operating expenses. so you don't even know your gross margins. Right. And so, having those key metrics put in place so that you know what's wrong. So you know the fix, right. Then it's a more targeted approach to become more efficient with your time and money in the business.

Calvin: 49:14

Right. Well, I really appreciate you spending the time with us. I think this is such an incredibly important and valuable topic for so many business owners. So I really appreciate the insights that you've shared and your willingness to take the time. we can get any links that you want into the show notes. we just want to thank you.

Robert: 49:33

All right. Thanks, Cal. Thanks for your, Obviously, there are personal questions that we could help answer, so hope that helps.

Calvin: 51:03

Reference show notes and find other episodes on EmpoweringHealthyBusiness.com. If you would like to have a one-on-one discussion with me, or possibly engage SmartBooks to help with your business, you can reach me at Cal@EmpoweringHealthyBusiness.com or message me on LinkedIn where I am easy to find. Until next time, this is Empowering Healthy Business, the podcast for small business owners, signing off.