We've mentioned several times on our blog and our social media channels that we truly love working together. It's the best thing in the world to run your business with someone completely you trust and in addition to it just being a really fun way to operate, there are some additional benefits to having a partnership that we wanted to share:
1. When big life stuff happens, you have someone to lean on. Jenna and I are both going through some pretty big changes in our personal lives with a major one being building new houses and moving. Jenna's house was completed last week and she and Brian have had a long list of projects to tackle in addition to moving all of their belongings. I know my sister is tight on time, exhausted and has a lot filling up her priority list right now. Even though I know she'd make time for PBC work, I have happily been taking on a little more work and more of the administrative duties of running our business lately so that she doesn't feel overwhelmed andI know she will do the same for me when it's my turn to move.
2. You can split the work and the pressure to get ALL THE THINGS done. Jenna and I take turns blogging each week, we split social media and responding to inquiries via Thumbtack (the app we use to quote new clients) and we divide up tasks like reaching out to advertisers, managing our Quickbooks software and responding to new inquiries.
3. You'll receive the best constructive criticism from your partner. In all stages of business, you're sure to receive some sort of criticism from those around you but it can be difficult to determine the intent behind that criticism. Is that person truly trying to help? Or are they jealous/envious/angry with what you're doing and that's what's really fueling their response? When you have a partner, hopefully they are equally as invested in growing your business as you are and if so, you can be fairly certain that their criticism is coming from a place of respect and a true desire for improvement. Jenna and I always send each other our work before sending it to the client because we truly want to put the best pieces in front of our clients.
4. You're not only working with your ideas, skill set and perspective. It's not uncommon for one of us to read an email and get an immediate idea of what the client wants. We always have a discussion about every project and often times, the other has a completely different idea of what the client is actually asking for. Having this dual perspective has been immensely helpful to us in being able to ask our clients the right questions and get to the core of what they are really envisioning. And, our complimentary skill sets allow us to deliver that vision for each of our projects.
5. You have a shared goal and if you're slacking, you know who is going to be on you for it. We keep a Trello board and run through all of our projects together at least every other day. We are constantly asking each other, "Did you reply back to Sarah?", "Did you follow up with Sam?", "Did you remember to sent Sally's project to print?" Neither of us want to fall behind on our work but with all we have going on, especially right now, it's really beneficial to have another person keeping track of our shared to-do list.
Doing this whole business-starting thing together has been such an incredible learning experience. We've always known how to be good sisters to each other learning to be a productive business partners has been a rewarding lesson that we're really happy to learn.
If you're struggling in your business and feeling overworked, uninspired or that you're just not having much fun, we would encourage you to think of the people in your life. You might find that your perfect business partner is hiding among your friends and family and he or she may just be the light you and your business needs. I know Jenna is definitely that light for me!
Photo by We, The Light Photography
Happy business-building!
Becca