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/