My wife Ronnie and I have been working together to build what you see today with BMWK for close to 7 years now. It’s been anything but easy, but every ounce of it has been worth it.

This journey has solidified not just our marriage but our family.

On a daily basis we are forced to lift each other up, cheer for each other and drag each other across the finish line of our goals and dreams. We awake knowing that not only do our careers depend on this work that we do together, but our family does too.

From humble beginnings we’ve been able to build a thriving small business that pours into the lives of our customers and the families of those who work for us.

We’ve been able to walk away from two six-figure positions and most importantly we’ve been able to give our children a firsthand example of what hard work looks like through the blueprint of entrepreneurship.

The questions that we get most often about building a business centers around working with your spouse.

• How do you do it?
• How do you find balance?
• How do you draw the line between work and home?

For our personal story we talk about the three P’s. That story entails how we followed our passion, discovered our purpose and hustled to create a profit.

But besides the three P’s, we’ve found there are four core things that must be in place if you want to build a successful business with your spouse. Look over these four points then let us know where you stand in the comment section.

Couples C.O.C.

The Couples C.O.C. is what we call the Couple’s Code of Conduct between the both of us. Your Couples C.O.C. outlines the proper practices between you and your spouse both in your marriage and in your business. They define the lines that you will not cross, especially in the presence of others. They set a baseline that ensures respect and admiration are upheld in your private and public lives. Your employees will never respect you if you don’t respect each other. Cracks in the foundation of your marriage will also lead to cracks in the foundation of your business. So you need to set rules that protect what you’ve built by allowing cooler heads to prevail at the proper times.

Respect for your strengths… and weaknesses

You both need to be able to determine and respect what you are each strong at. Just as important as finding your strengths is determining your weaknesses and then handing off those duties to someone who is better suited for the job. Ronnie and I are total opposites in the way that we complete each and every task.

What we have to do is lean on each other where we are the strongest while having trust that the other person will perform the job and complete the task, even though they won’t do it how we would have done it. My strength is creativity, her strength is organization and productivity so when we delegate what gets done in the business we lean on our strengths to figure this out.

Vision

For your business to be great you have to have a plan. Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Without a vision your business will perish as well! You have to take the time to develop a vision for where you want to take your business and what the goals are that you hope to achieve.  Set goals for the next 6 months, 1 year, 5 years and 10 years. Then go back and revisit those goals and how you are doing on achieving them on a regular basis. Feel free to adjust as needed. Nothing feels as good as accomplishing goals with your spouse.

Trust

Like respect, if you don’t have trust in your marriage it’s nearly impossible to have it in your business. And if you’re going to be in business with anyone, trust must be in place. Trust comes into place with money, management, duties and more. Can I trust that you are going to do what you say you are going to do even on the most basic level? This is an important question that you and your spouse should be able to answer.

Those are four things that MUST be in place in order to have a successful business where your spouse is your partner. There are other things that will benefit the partnership but these are the core components that will set you up for success.