In this week’s episode of Balance: The Journey of Entrepreneurial Couples, Tanya Simon interviews Lel and Khai.

Lel and Khai started the Party Kit Company in September 2014 with three party themes, since then their range has grown to include over twenty different types of party kits and decorative kits. Their motto is to have less stress and more fun

In this week’s episode of Balance: The Journey of Entrepreneurial Couples, Tanya Simon interviews Mickey Swortzel.

Mickey is the co-founder and operations director for the New Eagle family of businesses. She brings a background in Finance, Human Resources and Marketing in both startups and corporate environments.She has been featured in various national publications including, Inc Magazine, CEO Nation, Women in Biz, Dynamic Business Women and the Product Startup Podcast. She is a sought after resource in the areas of human resources, corporate culture, small business growth and product development.

After beginning her career in the banking industry, she moved to healthcare management and finally tech start up. Her passion is empowering people to provide excellent service to global customers while managing these activities to provide strong financials and a growth opportunities to the benefit both the employees and customers of New Eagle.

Main Questions Asked:

• How did you guys meet each other?
• How did it feel to build a company, sell it, and then get laid off?
• What lessons did you take into your second venture?
• How did you manage your different roles?
• What are your top three tips for making it work?
• Where do you see yourselves in five to ten years?

Key Lessons Learned:

Gaining Experience

• As many entrepreneurs do, past work experience leads to a moment where you believe you can do things better. It’s easier to make the leap of faith into a business before you have a family.
• As your company grows, oftentimes your partner will organically take on more responsibilities.
• Starting your second business can sometimes be harder than the first time.
• Once you work with your partner, it’s very hard to go back to traditional work.
• Being an entrepreneur can allow you to control your lifestyle more effectively since you’re the boss.

Challenges

• Economic conditions are inescapable.
• Business ownership is hard, even when things are going well.
• Taking a break requires discipline.

Tips and Advice

• Respect each others opinions.
• Hire for leadership when it comes to your team.
• Don’t be afraid to work when you need to, and be off when you need to. Experiment to find the work/life balance that makes sense for your lifestyle.
• It can help having a peer group where you can share your experiences with outside of work.
• Carve out your particular roles and responsibilities.
• A good partnership needs a visionary and an implementer.

Links to Resources Mentioned

http://www.neweagle.net

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mickeyswortzel/

In this week’s episode of Balance: The Journey of Entrepreneurial Couples, Tanya Simon interviews Linda Reed-Enever & Clive Enever. Linda is the Principal Director at ThoughtSpot PR and Founder of Media Connections and Business Business Business.

Clive is the Business Mentor, he coaches and mentors entrepreneurs so that they can take their business to where they want it to be.

Together, they founded the successful Facebook networking group Business, business, business.

In this week’s episode of Balance: The Journey of Entrepreneurial Couples, Tanya Simon interviews Karla Jobling. Karla Jobling is the Operations Director for BeecherMadden.

Karla is focused on growing BeecherMadden internationally and ensuring delivery of Effective Recruitment through the client focused and graduate talent attraction team.

Prior to BeecherMadden, Karla worked as an in-house recruiter for a retail and FMCG business. She also recruited for over 3 years into the resilience and security sector for a niche London based recruitment firm.

Main Questions Asked:

• How did you guys meet each other?
• How long has it taken to get where you are now?
• How has having children changed things and how do you manage your roles to make everything work?
• Is it all worth it?
• Where do you see yourselves in five to ten years?

Key Lessons Learned:

Gaining Experience

• Getting experience in other fields and businesses can be very valuable prior to going into business together.
• When you go into business together, you may not have much time for each other.
• You don’t always have to agree with each other.

Challenges

• In the beginning you won’t have much time or money to go out together, growing and scaling with a team will help but it takes time.
• Children add a little pressure to an already full schedule and require a shift in priorities.
• Communication is always a challenge, trust and respect are very important.
• Taking time off for children is already difficult, it’s especially hard when you’re in business with your partner. Stay in touch however you can.

Tips and Advice

• Have separate roles that are well defined but be flexible with some of the other roles in the business.
• You should have a minimum understanding of all the roles involved.
• Work towards your strengths and what works best for the both of you.

Links to Resources Mentioned

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlajobling

http://karlajobling.brandyourself.com/

In this week’s episode of Balance: The Journey of Entrepreneurial Couples, Tanya Simon interviews Jackie and Steve Bayly. They own Properties4You, they provide services such as financial strategy development, debt reduction and consolidation, and cash flow maximization. They have over 25 years of experience as an investment team and also directed the start up development and profitable sale of Go Loans.

Main Questions Asked:

• How did you guys meet each other?
• Why did you make the decision to go into business together?
• When did you decide that you had to really make a change?
• What has been one of your biggest challenges together?
• What are your thoughts on work life balance?
• What are your three biggest tips for the listeners?

Key Lessons Learned:

Gaining Experience

• Working for someone else can give you perspective on what you want to do and what you don’t want to do.
• You have to believe in yourself to make the leap to self employed.
• Personal development and investing in courses can help you grow in more than just your business. It’s important to become more aware of yourself and understanding what works for you and what doesn’t.

Challenges

• As your relationship and family changes, you may have to modify your roles in the business.
• Building a business is different from just running a business, you need to figure out each other’s responsibilities in order to succeed in business as well as a family.
• You have to trust yourself and your significant other that you can achieve your goals. Your business will only grow as much as you do.
• You take on a lot of different roles in the early days of the business, you should outsource the tasks you’re not as skilled at as soon as possible.

Tips and Advice

• Establish your separate roles in the business and then get out of each other’s way.
• Figure out what your highest values are and operate within them.
• Rely on people who have expertise in areas that you don’t.
• Take time for yourself to celebrate and plan for the future.
• Take personal development seriously and take courses together. Strive to grow mentally and well as grow up.
• Pass on your knowledge and wisdom to your kids, include them in your business life and be open to sharing your experiences with them.

Life versus Business

• Set boundaries on your schedule. Commit to work when you’re working, and life when you’re at home.
• Being self employed means that you are never truly able to separate your business and your family life.

Links to Resources Mentioned

http://properties4u.com.au/home/

Jackie on LinkedIn

Steve on LinkedIn

In this week’s episode of Balance: The Journey of Entrepreneurial Couples, Tanya Simon interviews Lisa and Truman Warner. They are the owners of 1-300-GET-TINT, founded in 2008 with a simple passion for all things automotive. Their company has been nominated for several awards including The Trust Business Award.

Main Questions Asked:

• How did you guys meet each other?
• How long has it taken to get to where you are in business?
• Have you connected with other groups for support?
• What are your thoughts on work life balance?
• How long has it taken for you to get to this point in your business?
• What are your three biggest tips for the listeners?

Key Lessons Learned:

Gaining Experience

• Work experience is a good way to develop an idea for a business. You can figure out what works and better ways to do something.
• Be careful who you bring into your business.
• Personal development is the best way to build a great business, you are often the bottleneck preventing your own success.

Challenges

• It can take a long time to get to a point where you are able to work on your business instead of in your business. You have to be patient.
• Working with your partner is an idea that is very polarizing, many people can’t imagine running a business with their partner.
• Running a business can be very difficult, you need to have support for the inevitable challenges you’re going to face.
• When working with a staff, establishing a system of communication so that the employees know what to do in most situations. Establish your separate roles early on.

Tips and Advice

• Find other people who have similar goals and ideas for support.
• You can test drive running a business together, take on a smaller role at the beginning and see how it goes.
• Try to get to a point where you can work on your business instead of just in your business.
• Look for people with integrity when you’re hiring, virtually everything else can be taught on the job.
• Keep the lines of communication open between each other.
• Take time for each other, go out on date nights every once in awhile.
• Take ownership of what happens, you are responsible for your actions and results.

Life versus Business

• Having a staff you can rely on allows you to step away and actually live your life.
• Your work and life won’t always be balanced at all times, one side will become a higher priority at certain times which is fine.
• You should be able to make compromises in business and your personal lives, negotiation is an important skill to work on.

Links to Resources Mentioned

http://www.trublutint.com.au/

meetup.com

Lisa & Daniel Baxter Owners of Your Hot Property is www.yourhotproperty.com.au 

My husband Daniel and I run the business together. His mother Lorri is also a co-founder and our Licensee, however she has moved to more of a consultancy role to free up her time.

Daniel and I live in Manly, NSW. We previously worked for the NSW Police as radio dispatcher for approximately 13 years and that's where we met. We have been together for just over 10 years, married for 4.5 yrs (got married in Las Vegas). No children.

We have been operating the business for just on 4 years now.

What Uber has done to Taxi drivers and Air BnB have done to hotels/resorts - we want to do to real estate agents. It's a market that is ripe for disruption as consumers no longer see the value in what they're offering, especially as everyone now has access to the exact same information that they use.

We are a National Company and to date we have helped our clients sell over 263 million dollars worth of property and we have saved our clients a combined total of over 6.2 million dollars in agent commission. Our mission is to get that to 20 million by 2020.

In the next 5 years we would love to have the business under management so we can solely focus on just growing it. We love being able to help people save money and always looking for the opportunity to branch and create other businesses that will enable us to do the same.

We love travelling, so ideally the business model that suits us is online and without any time zone restrictions. To be able to run our company in another country is definitely a big goal for us.

In this week’s episode of Balance: The Journey of Entrepreneurial Couples, Tanya Simon interviews Tristan Wise and Tony Welsh. Tristan and Tony are the owners of a very successful plumbing business, as well as parents to 3 gorgeous children.

My partner Rossario and I are from the Northern and Western suburbs of Melbourne and we run a small service-based business together. We are quite young and have been in a relationship for 6 years and in business together for 3 years. We think we've uncovered the secret sauce to make it all work in alignment!

From experience, we could recommend that couples should do business together, but it really depends on a range of factors.

We are a true power couple because we hold each other accountable, we are determined, we aren't afraid to take risks and we just won't quit!

Whether completing goals in business, fitness and health or even self development, we are in it together. Having a work-life balance is challenging, but the path to success was never meant to be easy.

We in the business of taking away the hassles that Aussie mums and dads face every year.

We enable mums and dads to stress-less and spend more time with their family, enjoying the more important things while we take care of finding them the perfect car or selling their car for them (all from start to finish).

We found it really frustrating that Aussies had to buy and sell a car the same way they would have 40 years ago. You either do it yourself or go to a car dealer/wholesaler. But there's no one looking out for the little guys!!! The busy hard working parents or the parents that can't just put their bubs in the backseat whilst taking someone for a test drive.

Our network say that Rossario and I live quadruple lives! We juggle full-time work, the CarsRus Australia business, family, friends, our entrepreneur life - which includes a 2 year program that requires us to travel to Sydney every 2 months AND last but not least, each o ther!

Whilst people often say that we are complete opposites, we like to refer to ourselves as "complimentary" and I'd love to share with you WHY

Andrew & Angela Smith Owners of Lifestyle Tradie Group and Dr Drip Plumbing Episode 1: How To Build An Award Winning Business with your spouse

Award winning couple, Andy & Ange Smith, are together known as the #1 Authority on ‘Trade Business’ transformation. They are passionate change leaders having helped thousands of trade business owners earn more money, gain back time and basically get their life back through their education business Lifestyle Tradie Group Pty Ltd.

They should know a thing or two having been awarded #1 Trade Business in Australia 2015 for their plumbing business, Dr.DRiP Pty Ltd. A business they continue to own and operate based in Sydney Australia.

This down-to-earth, approachable Aussie couple are sought after international speakers who are shaking up the trade industry with their philosophy to "re-model your business to live the life you deserve!".