So we talk about husband wife teams I did something last night I alluded to it earlier this morning I put a post out pride like ten eleven o'clock on the west coast and it got about fifty, sixty comments online and I was asking what the challenge is you guys faced as husband wife teams out there so we're going to talk about kind of the evolution of where we are going to read some of your comments were going talk to you guys out here a cz well hear about what you guys what challenges you're facing and how you how you might go about addressing them so of course part of this is establishing rolls understanding who owns what and that was actually hot topic online is that together they couldn't even agree on what role who owned what role so that's kind of interesting because if you can't even figure out who owns what it's just pure chaos right inmates are running the asylum I'd like to say uh no fly zone so areas you just should not be sticking your nose in no matter how much you want to ju...

st shut your mouth move on mind your business and I know I've got to do that a lot taking it personal I know that can be really hard for a lot of us because this is a personal relationship as much as it is a business relationship so how do you separate the two yep. And taking a personal is I think something in the beginning we had to work through justin critiquing your family I had to work here yeah I mean but still everybody out there so work like there's gonna be one dominant personality I think in the business and it's easy for the other person to start taking that stuff personal but it doesn't help the business girls so we found that we were arguing about arguing on that never makes any sense leaving it at work right? So if you are gonna argue which is reality guys you are gonna fight anybody who believes that teller and I don't fight your way really done a great job of creating magic I guess but we do fight I mean we were fighting in the hallway just before we walked on stage she said no way we fight I mean we're like most couples were married we work together it's really hard to leave that stuff at work sometimes what you have tio work really hard at it because you can't let it leak into your home life right? So you've got to find a wayto leave it at work and then balance how do you get to work life balance? I'm so tired of hearing things like the four hour work week or work life balance I want to punch someone in the face every time they say work five pounds because I have none of it and I want all of it wants all of it so they were at odds with each other on how to get what his balance you know, when there's a it's kind of funny because we were just on vacation in hawaii it was after our last tour we ended our last tour stop in hawaii and there's a picture of me sitting on the beach working on my laptop in the sand sitting in the sand towel over his head on his laptop I couldn't see the screen so I need the towel over my head to be a look ridiculous I took pictures I take bribes yes eso anyway you gotta understand for me work life balance if you give me about more than about an hour of doing nothing, I start twitching so I really I'm all about working and start thinking about work and I can't relax where's taylor's the opposite she's wired differently in go back to that union you're the one pulling me back to relax I'm the one pulling you mortar work what will look at that more? Of course we've got to get on the same page with our business and then fight rules we are going to fight that is a given but what are the fight rules? And there are rules yeah exactly and it's hard so let's get going here let's start talking about establishing rolls go ahead get started man all right so you have to figure out who does what so there's a lot of things that go on in a business sales customer service marketing shooting editing you shouldn't be doing both of them together so one person should be designated to each task that's the way to work efficiently and manager business so if two of your editing that's going to get confusing really quick oh did you get this job no, I had this job well you were supposed to do this special edits on this job no that was your job if you have a set role is to who's the editor you're eliminating that much frustration from your business so and what's the point of that like why you know why didn't we start separating roles? Well I'm a tourist so I'm extremely extremely stubborn even though I might not seem like it um and sell of course he's a very educated businessman he knows you know a lot of stuff and he's going to to his ground too so after a couple of world war three fights when it was coming tio you know the website or marketing we finally had to establish rolls so that we could eliminate this fighting and figure out what each of us do best so sound is editing best that's his role I suck it editing I don't even know how to do it so that's an easy we'll take take away step away from editing for a second even if we talk about you know editing in general with your outsourcing or something like that it's about owning the vision because if we sat there together and started trying to analyze in the image what makes sense what doesn't make sense it would never get done it's that simple so if you remember like in two thousand seven when we were first starting we would edit together like I would sit there and watch him and we would go through selective and just edit that so pick this one that one yes and we would fight about like every image like no this one's better clearly and so that we'll just made no sense right so some of you are not in your heads they're laughing I'm sure out there you're feeling the same thing these are the things that make no sense right you know could we ultimately bang our heads together and it's going to be the perfect image sometimes you gotta settle for eighty percent there are times still to this day where she looks at my selection process or or my editing and what I chose to be a signature at it and she questions it and that's totally fine but at the end of the day ultimate lets your call because that's your role I could give my opinion and my opinion is welcome in the relationship both business and personal so we never put that roll down, then we can't voice our opinion as business owners, you have to be able tio talk about the way that you feel the way that you think, but ultimately he has the safe so in that realm in regards to editing because that's, his role, not mine and I don't want anyone out there to think that when I say you need to define your roles, that that means your partner every time your partner has something to say, you go that's my job, right? That's not what we're suggesting it all there's this system it's about who owns it, right? So every company that's run when there's a company there's, not two ceos, right? The ceo isn't down and operations telling them howto put a product in a box somebody's in charge down there. Now, the ceo may have an opinion about how that's done to save money or save time, but ultimately you've got to trust the person who owns the role so and there's feedback back and forth absolutely into that. So a real life example. We hired a new customer service person for all of our brands, and we're teaching them how to rap in package prince well, so eliza's passing this job on to that person, and I have had previously passed on that job to eliza there's a lot getting lost in communication down the line sal was getting frustrated because we were having issues with shipping and just things not getting done right so he wanted to be involved in the process can I pause? Yeah so you're not telling the whole story so uh so hear what she's trying to get you understand is the listeners are studio manager we just hired a customer service rep which states underneath eliza so the way product it's packaged has been fine tuned and I will tell you five years ago I was the one rapping pictures I then transferred that to taylor and I was paid a lot of attention to detail on where the ribbon went where it's sad how it was glued how the edges were folded so I was neurotic about it like most artists are then I hand that task over the tailor that was carried over she she did it perfectly now we've handed over to elissa now listens now delegated that to someone else this task has not been delegated three or four times things are not going out the door right? So just a few weeks ago I was down there and I saw horrified and what I saw on how packages we're going out the door you know what I'm talking about the way their wrapped in the bag and they did not look the way they should look I lost my mind on a lot of people because of it, because I think that's that last delivery, how it looks when you put it in the client's hands, is very, very important. Now, clearly, as ceo of our company, I should not be getting involved in that. But my opinion matter, of course, so well, so, uh, elissa scheduled a meeting so we could review all this packaging together and set everything straight but included selling the meeting. And so this this is as of like, yesterday, this is something that was going on. And so I pushed back on eliza and I said, there's no reason for sale to be involved. Dennis, this this isn't his role. This is my role and there's no reason that we can't figure it out. He's the c e o he's got better things to dio if he has to get involved in packaging, we have a lot a lot bigger issues at hand. What does that? What does that say? Though if I get involved in packaging that's not good. No, no. Step up, step up, step away from it. What does it say? If I get involved in packaging says you don't trust the higher that is exactly what I was looking for. That signals, as the ceo of my company, I cannot trust taylor, I cannot trust eliza, I cannot trust my team to do this, and now you've got your boss sitting in their browbeating you about how a task is being done. And so you have to understand when you're husband and wife team and you're defining roles, if you're butting in on that out of your territory and you're butting in on someone else's job, you are signaling right with the directly or indirectly that you don't trust them. And when you are telling your partner in life that you don't trust them, I don't know how you seeing that end well and not just that once you have staff in the staff, start seeing that it raises a whole other level of issues, you know, not being validated in your role, and so you just don't want that to happen. So I made a list of take sell off of the meeting, and I told her it's, a waste of resource is there's no need for south to be involved in this. I know how to do this. We can figure it out on our own even requested to be involved in this meeting, we had to have a conversation and we said, this is not your role I handed this fine before I'm gonna handle it now. I addressed my issues to you told you told her what I want to see and then I stepped away from him because I have to trust her it's her job to own this so that doesn't mean I'm not gonna have a conversation with her doesn't mean I'm not going to be upset about it doesn't mean she's not gonna hear about it because it is screwed up right there's no debating it so that's the other thing when you're working together if you screw something up freaking own it right? That is the biggest challenge I see even with us is that when we fight where there were fighting because something's wrong, you know, you know what I'm saying? Like it's stupid stuff like why is that on the floor? And now you're talking your spouse writing your spouse is being completely stubborn they go there's nothing on the floor I'm looking right at it on the floor I don't see it right there. Oh somebody else put it there. What, like you're chasing a chicken at this point, right? You ever do that when you're fighting like you don't you're no longer fighting or arguing about the task at hand you're fighting about the fight and that's where I think no matter who you are when you're in a husband wife relationship or you're just in a partnership even in general the biggest challenge is get the ego right, get that chip off your shoulder and just admit, you know what? I screwed up, I dropped that on the floor. Let me get it, okay, obviously I'm being comical here, but you get the point. We're all screwed things up, but if I'm gonna trust her and she's gonna trust me part of that trust is that when you do screw up just admitting it because you'll find taylor can attest to this, I could be furious if she just looks at me and goes, I screwed it up, I own this, we're done there's actually, no more arguing going on, but when you're working with your spouse and they won't acknowledge that, start making excuses like, well, it wasn't my fault, you know, it's easy to make excuses. No one wants to be wrong, especially not me uh so it's easy to just, you know, run around in circles and not admit to the issue when you know it really? If it is my fault, you know it is my fault it's my responsibility, this packaging it is my fault. I did not oversee it properly to make sure was being executed as we passed it down, so this is my job I apologized, I said, I'll fix it then it's done there's no fight and you don't even have to fight if you can come to agreement that way and just acknowledge your roles and own your rolls you don't have to fight but again I don't want anybody out there to believe that this isn't something to this day we still struggle with yeah, we catch ourselves doing this all the time is just making excuses for things we're doing wrong and not wanting to admit ourselves that we've done something wrong it's just I think that's human nature we're all like that, right? It's very difficult to just be like, yeah, I screwed this up and so you've gotta work hard, right? Not just those of you were at home, but I got come listen to sally's down you're wrong that's not what I'm saying we're all wrong, but if you really want to work well together, you've got to be able to accept that responsibility you both had jobs right? And then you you quit to do photography full time that's correct, you were still working? No, I quit for both twins. Oh, you quit first. Yes, so sal and I were just dating at that time we weren't even engaged and we were like in grade school, I think e and so I was working and I was going to school full time and we were shooting on the weekends, and it got so busy, south said, you have to quit your job, but we're not even engaged it's kind of big step there, so I resisted for a long time, but ultimately we decided was best for me to quit. I focused on the studio full time, and then it got to the point where sal wanted to quit, too, so he was still shooting on the weekends working for microsoft, but he ended up quitting, and then we were both full time. Did you see just a huge impact after you had quit? Just how you both were able to focus it that moment eyes the scariest moment that's where you're at right now, right now, what you've got to realise is that your time and everybody out there who's, working a part time job or one spouse is working and the other one's in the business full time is that once you quit that your job, believe it or not, my job and microsoft was a safety net, right? Because I had that income coming in, I was still working hard, but still the end of the day I had that income from microsoft, so I was like, anything goes wrong, I always got this income, right, I'm saying the minute I quit that job suddenly the only thing we were eating is what I could go catch right and so that becomes very very important that once you quit you get really really focused really quickly because you have no choice but to taylor's point that is when the business just exploded because we had no choice but to focus and then there were bumps along the way but we wouldn't be where we were today trying to we talked about this kind of day one trying to just kind of little by little little by little they will never be a right point right here is always your business especially you guys your businesses under you it's their right it's time to move on if this is the future for you two it's time to move on and something you guys have to accept if you're starting your studio and your part time right now you want to take it to full time know that the first two years will be hell on earth I've just accepted no it's gonna be it's gonna happen and be prepared for it sound warned me at a time he's like okay we're gonna do this full time but I want you know the first two years were gonna be a grind we're gonna be working twenty four hours a day seven days a week it's not going to stop because we have to get this business off the ground this is what we're gonna be doing all the time and I was like oh yeah ok but then it happened enough like freaking out because I am not the personality type that khun go go go I need my downtime and so even though I said I was ready I really was ready so please that was actually a big point of contention for us is that I am a communicator so I'm like are you sure about this? Yeah, I'm sure if you have a spouse right? You know what I'm talking about she's like yeah, I'm sure we can do this let's do this thing I'm like do you understand what you're getting yourself into? How totally this is gonna be awesome okay, we're gonna be working seven days a week twenty four hours yeah let's do it and then that starts happening and she's like I don't want to do this this is crazy what you go from uh him getting home from work in like four or five o'clock and then we go play tennis and we cooked dinner at home together and we go see movies and that was our life what we worked at microsoft and then once we started our studio we had no personal time, there were no date nights, there was no more tennis, there was nowhere any personal time together which I mentally was not prepared for I didn't I expect that to happen even though cell warned me so just be prepared it's going to be hard on your relationship so you have to stick together and be ready for that time you're not gonna have a lot of personal time so whatever time we do have together whether it's just grabbing a cup of coffee in the morning make the most of it agreed so let's talk about what our roles are so for us sometimes there's gonna be shared rolls okay where you're both you're both doing things sometimes is gonna be roles that are part of I own right exclusively and then there's rolls and just because I own it exclusively doesn't mean she's not she doesn't have any weigh in on it and vice versa okay if she owns the role it just means she's making the decisions but she should still be listening to my seat family own futures for that role so like my one of my rules is customer service that means I own improving customer service I own the future of customer service I own a evaluating what we're doing right what we're doing wrong what can we do for improvement whether some new things you want incorporate that's all me I have to own that from beginning to end that's correct and so those rules are shooting for me all the marketing you're seeing that happens from a social media which is not even listed on here that's me so when you're seeing post on my facebook side post on my block that's all me and that's very, very important because that's my voice, we're talking about this at dinner last night for me, could I hand off our social media? Could I hand off all that stuff to elissa or to you? Of course I could, but I control the vision in the marketing, and so social media is part of your marketing. I make sure I'm heavily involved in that, and look, we're traveling in earlier this week, I was traveling, but yet there was a facebook and twitter post going on monday, tuesday, wednesday of this week and maybe even thursday those were all automated. And so what I do is I have a tool called hoot suite I don't know if you've looked into that there's something called tweetdeck, but what I like about hoot suite it's, a joke o t s u I t what I like about that tool is it allows me to schedule and push it to all social media, so I don't have to just oh, log on to twitter post log in to facebook post I can actually post schedule it for certain times a day, certain days of the week and then control what's going to each one of those medium so that's very important for me with our travel schedule, but that's my job, I own that, uh, postproduction, I own the look and feel of our images. So when she sits down in the preview room, she wants a hard drive with all the images on it. She doesn't want to do anything she's not been getting skin softening, running anything, renaming images when she sits down, she expects to have all those images sitting there waiting for her, and rightfully so because that's my job, my job is to make sure she has it, so I've never really asking her hey, can you do me a favor and do this? It's my job? I need to make time to do my job so that I can make her job easier that's the other part of when we're talking about team and this wouldn't matter if we were husband and wife, team or any other kind of team. My job is the quarterback is to do what I need to do to make her job easier if I'm slacking on my job has made her job easier, she's not pulling more weight to me and no team will survive if one of your team members is consistently pulling more weight than the other it just won't survive you can do it for a short period of time right uh taylor had an injury she heard her toe she hurt her back of course I'm going to pick up the slack for her and the rest of the team should but in general the team has to pull their own weight in fact sharing real dirty laundry taylor's burned out right so here we are real life we've been on a grind for five or six years she's burned out in the last three months my opinion she's gotten lazy okay and she heard all about it we're having a real talk right way are so just just like three weeks ago I pulled tailor to the side I said hey man f y I you're not pulling your weight dude she was this close to losing it on it but she checked herself right and this is after years of working together she stepped action she didn't get defensive she said she heard what I was saying I said we've got a team of people that have been working hard for a year now I said you're starting to check out I said because you're tired I get it I said but we're not done yet I said we've got to keep pushing we got the new building we've got word wedding season I cannot lose you mentally to the business right now right? And that was it she didn't talk to me. She didn't acknowledge me. Uh, she wasn't mad, but she wasn't happy, right? And she just kind of went off on took a deep breath and later that day she came back to me and she said, you know what? You're right I have checked out I'm back and that's what I expect not only for my partner in life, I expect that from my partner in business to hear what I'm saying or if she didn't agree with me should enough to agree with me if she didn't agree with me, I would have expected her to come back to me and say, all right, I want to hear what you're saying, but tell me where you think I'm failing that would have been okay response to if she just put a wall up and started telling me she's not what am I gonna do? Right has a husband, wife, team we're gonna you're just gonna you're just gonna you're gonna fight with each other I'm just going to school and I can't talk to my partner so you guys seen chomping at the bit? I wanna hear what you have to say about that, okay, good cause I wanted to tell you guys, um this is very much a two way street, so everything south said is absolutely true what happened last year is we did two tours, we shot fifty weddings, uh, eighty seniors, and we had no downtime and I told sal like, I can't do this, man, I'm fine, like my personality is I have to have downtime so sal can go, go, go, and he could never stop, I'm more of, like a hippie personality, I have to have, like, nature around me have to have relaxation time, like just down time yet who's robert time and I didn't have that last year, so what happened for me that that doesn't mean I am a weaker person, it's just my personality type. So what happened is my body started shutting down, and I've had a lot of health issues this year because of it. And so when I was checked out, like, sound was saying it's because I told him, just like, I need this downtime this spring, january through april that's, our slow time, I said, I need this time just recoup and get myself healthy again, and so I was at home every day in my pajamas. I worked, but I wasn't working like I wass I wasn't pulling my weight for the team, and so, you know, I I got my down time that I needed, but busy time came and I didn't get back up again and so that's, what south talking about is I needed that push to get back into the game, but now sound knows, because I've communicated with him and from experience that we can't push ourselves like that anymore. At least you can't push me like that anymore. So it's very much a team environment, and as a team he may be able to do it, but I can't, so we're not going to do it right? That makes sense. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, thank you for being so open. By the way, both of you that's, it's really helpful to say often very much appreciate it. So I'm gonna ask you to continue to do that. So if it is the different personality types so him, it doesn't work the opposite. Do you want him to take six weeks off and not work and go on a relaxing howard never happened ways? No, but actually you're you're spot on. In the beginning, the biggest friction was she was trying to change me and make me like her, and I was trying to change her and make her more like me and that's not reality, we can't change. The people we're with the people you have married, the people you're in business with, right? Even if it's just a general partnership, the people that you've gone into business with, you're stuck with them, those are the people you're in business with, so I guess I'm stuck with you so you get all sorts of crap online for that, all right, but on a serious note, these are the people we're in business with, so if I try and change her right, I decided to marry her, so if I tried to change her that's not gonna work she's never going tio moulded at the way I am to go nonstop all the time, but by the same token, I'm never gonna be able to just sit there idly and do nothing, and it wasn't until probably about a year and a half ago that she accepted me for who I am, which is understanding that if I'm not moving right forward, I'm dying well, it was part of the personality test, so even though we took eight years ago, we retook it this year so that we could really get in touch with each person now, especially now that we have more team members and figure out howto work best with each other and this person these personality profiles, they give you so much insight, like it told me about sal that uh, he has to be going all the time or he feels like he's not living up to his life potential, and so I want to spend it on that. I wonder if anybody hears like, that are out there is like that. It even said this in the personality test. If I am not checking something off daily that I have accomplished, I actually feel like a loser in life, and so is you guys, and I see a couple of hands going up, but it's only half the people on the other hand, I'm not like, you know, I don't want check off crap and I'd be happy, but out there, if you're like that, that was part of my personality time, and it wasn't until you realize that that was my personality, that she stopped trying to make me slow down you have to stand that's who you are is a person there's nothing wrong with that that's how he's genetically made up who am I to try and change genetics? I have to work with that and just like sallis all things that things about me like I'm an emotional person, I have to be around nature and have slow time, and I, you know, the way I communicate the way he receives communication, it really helped us figure out each other's personalities and how to work with those personalities and communicate with those personalities that was really a game changer for us yeah into taylor's point like that january through march april time period when she slowed down there was no resentment on my end that I was working harder than she was in that time frame I didn't care I knew she needed it and as a partner that's what I needed to give her the reason she got that nudge was because that time was over it was game time now and I need her to get back on the field back in the game on that's why I gave her that nut so you've got it you've got to be able to give and take with each other but thank god she stopped trying to get me to travel for six weeks and do nothing and we did that like two years ago we were in italy for four weeks I was going crazy wasn't good right that's good going about you sitting out on the beach reading emails yeah yeah that's exactly right so I'll share that picture with you we never go to beaches because cell does not like to not do anything so whenever we vacation this is part of the given get instead of going to a beach we go to a place with history like europe or someplace where there's stuff to do and go see and so we can't you're actually making these on like a five year old where you have me on a leash running around you're just a diva alright just play playing there yes play with the airplanes no it's all good s so anyway, here the rules that we've got broken down I'm shooting marketing postproduction our business strategies where we're taking the business in the future I own that that does not mean taylor is not part of futures that just means I own controlling all that. Our business strategy is right. What are we doing now? What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong? What are we gonna change in the future? Those are all things that are I'm tasked with an I own taylor she's also a shooter, right? So here is a situation where we both share those tasks. However taylor only photographs weddings tell engagement sessions taylor wants nothing to do with kids or with high school seniors that's totally fine, so those fall into my realm so if I'm slammed there's no way I'm gonna look at her and be like, hey, do me a favor, take that senior chute because that's not fair that's my job, I own it just like I don't expect her to come back and say, hey, I want you to start taking care of scheduling and so anyone who knows me well enough to be involved in our life for friends are asking to get a drink or dinner you know, I am not the person to ask me I literally have no idea what I'm doing twenty minutes from now he gets in trouble if he tries to schedule anything could be like, yeah, let's get together that day and then I'll come back and he'll tell me and I'm like we can't we're like we're not even in the country that's real life, right? So I do get in trouble because if you ask me, hey, can we do this? I'll be like, yeah, sure, that sounds great, but ultimately she is the one who controls the counter she owns scheduling this is very, very important, yeah, I just have a question of what you guys have suggest when all of the tasks and rolls that you guys do what you guys look very balanced on your list, what if they're totally ninety ten or even eighty twenty that's problematic, right? So you have to it's not like we sat down made this list and we made it in a bubble this list was put together with us sitting down, and so as we started doing it, there actually were things that were starting to look really, really lopsided on my plate, and I'm like, nah, man, I'm like, I need your help here, here and here and so she stepped up and she's like, okay, well, then I'll own this because you've gotta understand together we're team together, right? So even though my name's on the door and salvador some kind of a harvey, but at the end of the day savage person kind of times, he wouldn't exist without the team, so we need that team there, and if you have a problem with one of your teammates who could be your spouse eyes not carrying their weight, you've gotta have that conversation, and it doesn't have to be a conversation where you're like arm wrestling each other about it. It's just a conversation where you're being honest and going, hey, I feel like I'm carrying most of the way to this team. I need your help, and when you start, if you're saying that to someone, I need your help and they're not willing to help you it's a whole set of other problems there, right? Thes rules don't stop it business. We actually have this list for personal stuff, too, because if you are in a relationship where you're working together there, I mean, you still have a house, you probably still have kids you've got other stuff that he needs to get done and if you're both working full time on your business those rules needed to be divided as well so we know like I own laundry and cleaning or whatever and you own fixing up stuff whatever it is those rules continue through our personal life that's absolutely true like there's no chance I'm going to pick up dry cleaning that's not gonna happen s o taylor owns that but something we enjoy doing together grocery shopping okay, so it's the most well, those little times that you have together from some random thing I mean he shot me he is not exciting everyone makes fun of me but I love grocery shopping together I just love it it makes me feel special so I make sure I make nothing but the best for you anywhere you want to go grocery shopping I take me absolutely but it is it's one of those things that makes her happy she enjoys grocery shopping together it's time together so we make sure we do it together, right? If there was something else she enjoyed doing together, I got to make sure I'm paying attention to our with that I can honestly say I would never have thought I'd be on creative live talking about grocery shopping with my wife maybe that's a new course write out a grocery shop grocery shop efficiently okay. Um so those are rolls you've gotta work with them uh let me keep going. I know I have questions online what about our no fly zones and so these are important because they keep each one of us in our own roles and we alluded to this just a minute ago but I don't want to step on her toes in her area and sales is one place I'm constantly getting myself in trouble. I step into the sales room and I throw a wrench into everything because when there's a client there I will normally come in hijack the conversation and she's telling me you need to leave the room and thinker in this studio is a lock on the door you could lock the door that's why you will tell me that in front of a client? Okay it's time for you to go right and I don't get offended because it's funny because I'm typically hijacking the entire conversation the climate say what do you think of this picture that we picked our last client? Which one was your favorite? She her she knows immediately what's about to happen they will almost always have picked one I didn't want them to pick you have clients like that right? You know what you want them to have but they pick something completely different and I just you know I have no poker face when it comes to that I'm like I like it like it could be better, and she she just knows what's about to happen, and so we'll lose twenty minutes in there. When she gets frustrated, she comes upstairs, she starts yelling at me. Why did I tell you? Stay out of the fricking room, but I can't help it, so but that is my no fly zone, and it allows you to focus on what you do best should only sign attacks to each other that you're not good at that doesn't make any sense, because if you know they're not good at it lets you say editing, for example, why would you sign that to someone and knowing that you're probably gonna argue about it, right? Because they're never gonna be able to do it the way you want it done, they will never meet that level of expectation you have so don't set your partner up for failure set your partner up for success, give them a task you know they can, and you have to be honest about what you are and are not good at like sal used to own customer service when we started out. I love you, but he's an italian and he's got this, you know, he just gets offended if people start talking about his images and he has no filter is in the new yorker, so it just starts flying off the cuff. Did you make it seem like I beat our client? You're just very opinionated, eso quickly we realized he has to stay out of that he's too close to it. So if people are talking about, you know, at us, they don't like or a picture they don't like, you would get a funded like, well, I'm giving you options like, you can't talk to that too, to a client like that, so I would call it more annoyed. It's showed so quickly realized he does not need to have that in his roles. That needs to be my rule. I'm southern, I'm you know, more quiet. I'm customer service experience, so I took that over quickly. That was perfect. Sales is a huge, huge part of your money like that you make so much money you can upscale and something that if I mean no offense, but if you have somebody that makes a client feel like, oh, like I did something wrong, then they will scatter and b I had to accept that I wasn't doing it well enough, right? I was getting it done. I understand all the principles behind sales. I mean, I've got tons of experience, but at the end of the day when it came to the right person for the right job, it wasn't it wasn't me, it was her, and I had to let go of that role, and it was the best thing I've ever done, right? It just made sense for her to be there. And so that doesn't mean I have no say in what goes on on and on in our sales room, right? So I keep coming back to this just because that's your role because I could see all these husband wife teams now going. Nope, south that it's my role stat of the room that you have to understand that the other half of your business, your other partner is going to have some opinions about how the salesman was running. For example, one time we were this was one we were working out of our house. I realize that a client presentation went on and taylor was playing jay z music for a very like a high school senior and it's, like, you know, it's like the explicit versions of his curse words going on, I'm like that meeting was over, my dude, you've got to use common sense like that's, not the music we should be playing on it hit her right? But that was me weighing in on a process that I really had nothing to do with it. So my no fly zone sales, customer service scheduling I only make problems when I'm in there tailors no fly zone editing and so that's the one place we keep her out of. In fact, when she has light room and she likes to start editing pictures for clients, makes me crazy when I see her doing it on the flying this feeling like I don't remove pimples that can do that, I was like, oh, my god, it's wrong! Yeah, yeah skins don't skin tone, no match looks great, so but we've gotta honor there's no fly zones. Uh, what about taking it personal? This is something I really struggled with. Um, I just wasn't able to get in the business mindset of whenever sal was critiquing images or whatever we were doing, I took everything personal and of course, that caused problems and both our personal and business relationship. Suddenly we couldn't talk about anything because I would take it personal in a fight would ensue, so there's such a thing as healthy, critiquing talk about how you critically images yes, so in the beginning and we talked about this with your set with second shooter's in the beginning, after every event are bring taylor back in, and I would start pointing out the mistake she was making, and it would frustrate her to hear me critiquing our work. Now, let's, be honest, I wasn't you know how it is when you're working with your other half becomes very, very personal, and you could almost caught the tension with a knife before a single word has ever said. And so I would pull her into the room and I would say to her, okay, look at this image, tell me what's, wrong with it and that's how I start off the conversation and I still do it to this day because I want to know if she sees what's wrong with the image, because if she doesn't see what's wrong with the image, then I'll go into the critique, and in the beginning she couldn't see it. I would say here, okay, tell me, what's wrong with this image. Well, you tell me what's wrong with you? Nothing wrong with it to me. The client loves him. Why would there be something wrong? Why is there always got to be something wrong with the image? Right that would now the conversation why don't you tell me this was the best one why don't you tell me about what I did right sound familiar rachel rachel your face is red right now from uh from right and let me tell you why it's not the conversation's not about what's right because when you're committed to continuous improvement you the nature of the conversation is about talking about what you did wrong so the time for atta boys is when you get in the end zone the time for out of boys is not when you're in the middle of crisis management so I'm not I'm more likely to spend more time talking about what's wrong then I am talking about what's right and fat part of what's helped our business grow so quickly is that when we do something right we celebrate we go out to dinner together we go out to dinner we party maybe we buy something nice for each other a gift but then it is back to the grind twenty four hours later right? We're not celebrating for a month about what we did right? So what ends up happening is the very nature of continuous improvement is you're going to spend a lot of time focusing on what you're not doing right and that's gonna if you don't take that criticism the right way that can start having a confidence building a confidence issue and so in the beginning we would fight about that so much and then we had to have a meeting talk to each other where I said to her, look, I'm not yelling at you, I'm not cursing at you, I'm not saying anything derogatory to you I'm trying to help you make your image is better I need you to stop making it so personal, right? It was at that point time you said you were honest, you said I will try so she was very, very honest about that and over time it got to that point and now we're at a point time even to this day I will pull over and I'll be like what's wrong with this image the horizons crooked what's wrong with this image the people are in the wrong spot, the images off balance so she gets it now because we're all committed to continuous improvement and the same thing happens back towards me. I just I just photographed a high school senior on my team gave me a whole bunch of crap my editing team because the high school senior I had him doing an action shot on I photographed it at one one hundredth of a second and so part of that scene was blurry right? Because he's doing an action scene on dh he's blurry in the scene and so my team are about right my team got to me and they're like what's wrong with this picture right and I had so much fun when we get to do that they love me but you have to be able to take that that criticism not right I didn't make any excuses like while I was trying to get some motion in the image because it's an action shot he was a soccer player I wanted some impact as he was kicking the ball but unfortunately by doing that and not getting one that I knew I could use is a master shot now all those images are soft from the action right? So I've got accept that that critique both ways but that becomes healthy critiquing so let's I want to talk to you guys for a second here because this is something we've talked about over dinner and in the past what are the challenges you to face around this and one of the challenges you face working the other rachel it's exactly it I mean it is learning to not take it personal don't get emotional about it and even last thing we were talking about it and instantly I just was like telling me what I need to do and like what's wrong with what I do help me like I need help I don't know rachel you're just all smiles and giggles all the time so I find it hard to believe that when you're yelling at tyler and they're like russia got tio lose their mind really benches like okay, tyler, I'm gonna great. Rachel, you remember with barry's ready? Tto kill barrie when she doesn't mistaking for. So what were you getting all worked up about? What did he say? Um because I work full time and we have children and the business I want to come home unwind, relax and I don't want something thrown in my face like oh, by the way, we have a session tonight are oh, by the way, like in the tomorrow we have to get off early so that we can have this or it's just me feeling like he doesn't like it some don't look at time, you know, just that we don't know how to balance things, we don't have a schedule, we don't I feel like he's attacking me when it comes to being critiqued again I'm like, well, you just tell me what's wrong with it instead of me trying to look for what's wrong with it on pause there for a second because I think that's very important what you just said, why do you want him to tell you what's wrong with it? Worse you looking for it? Because I feel frankly dumb for not knowing I feel like because because it I don't know all the technical stuff like I've been, I've been reading the book by uh, picture practice picture perfect photographer been reading that and listen, it's okay? Helping a lot, but it's still like, I still have to work and I get too anxious during a shooting got tio let's come back to this though, right? So you're trying you're trying to get better in china improved, but when he asked you hey, tell me what's wrong with this image you're you're feeling you feel like you feel stupid. Well, you feel stupid according to you on that's what's making you feel attacked, right? But can I give you insight on to why I would? Because if I were working with you, I would ask you the same thing and that's why I asked our I believe and maybe this changes everything for you. Or maybe it changes nothing. I believe that if I ask you what's wrong with it, it forces you to look at your image closer and when you start looking at your image closer and you figure it out and you solve it that's gonna make you a better photographer when you're in the field and you're getting all anxious, right? And that's, why he's probably asking you that way because you're absolutely right he'd be much easier from they just go hey man, f y I this horizon run lines crooked exactly you would go? I know this and I and I try to accept it but I just try to sit back and breathe and just say okay, I will try to be this but and I am very acceptance like I okay, I was wrong are like I do get mad easily like I'm easy to accept it but I think it's just hard for me too they got a team I'm gonna assume that he's right he's not talking down here he's not cursing at you he's not yelling at you but it's just the very nature off the question that gets the hair upon our neck right? And you're probably like everyone else out there there's probably like a giant amen and going on the internet right now so what I what I want I'm hoping you hear what I'm saying to you because I can tell you just like he's telling you the reason he's asking that is because he wants you if you solve the problem, you become a better photographer and I think once you see your work starting to improve that that'll change your mindset because I'm telling you it's like identical what would happen and I know exactly what you're talking about, but once my work started improving and I saw that and then someone into could cheek me again suddenly I was like a sponge like ok, yeah this is wrong. Oh, my god, that was horrible! And I start picking apart my own images because I'm excited to do better. I'm trying to catch up with him. I gotta be sammy and that's how you have to start looking at but you know tyler to you as well. You've got to start because I'm speaking to you from my perspective on what I went through with taylor what I started doing that helped me get her to that point was I started showing her what she did, right? Right. So I would start bringing our images. This is gold. Dude, this is amazing. I love what you did here. I love these leading lines. Great job lets the walls down here like on so good like sunkist. So happy like hugging. Yeah, I know, I know, but it helps balance out the negatives lights south saying or yeah, south sometimes would pull up his own images and critique them in front of me and so not shame wedding from the same wedding I'm like okay, all right, so it's ok, he does stuff wrong. I do stuff wrong, it's that's probably true too. So that was helpful as well as I was showing her what she did wrong in orderto get her to just see that it is an educational exercise because I do it for myself. I'm my own worst critic as a photographer I'm going through it like man did I screw that up? I cut her arm off I cut at the joint I blew out the sky I still have those issues today we all make the same mistakes as for tiger's, not every image that comes off our cameras is gold. No one out there is s o the reality is bye critiquing her that way it got her now to be a little more competitive. So it's actually funny now you went way can talk about this and it's a real world scenario back in the day you were very defensive uh insecure about your work in your portfolio today. Fast forward to today, dude she's sending the screen shots in the back of her cameron she's like what now? And so it's very competitive. Like when she has a wedding on a saturday and I have a wedding on a saturday. I mean her trying to one up each other during the entire day. And I love that right that's the fun part of being part of a husband wife team because, dude, if she's killing it for her client and I'm killing it from my client, everybody wins, right? Everybody wins so that's, good that's, really good stuff, internet we definitely are starting to have questions come in about this, so go ahead and keep throwing him in there. I want to start out with deb three who says these air great suggestions on helping a mate improve, but what if the one needing to improve is the man? How do I teach him and spare his male ego? The conversation is the same to me. I would not change a damn thing if the female, if taylor was working with me because it's not a male female thing, I think it's a personality thing, definitely male's we want to be the breadwinners and all the things that go with men versus women, but at the end of the day, it's also a personality thing, right? How many men out there are are a little bit more introverted in their personality male artist, they tend to be a little bit more introverted, so the conversation would be any different. I've been around plenty of women where type a personality and just dominate rule the roost, that same challenge would be there. You have to talk to your partner don't make this a guy girl thing it's about how you're dealing and interacting with your partner understand your partner, understand what motivates them, understand how to get the response you want, I would love for her to be able look, I come from an italian family okay grew up in new york everybody's yelling at each other all the time and it's all in good love, right? So you get the very first time true story very first time taylor met my family me and my mother we used to own a real estate company together oh, and me and my mother were just screaming at each other about something with the business and my mother is like your stupid I'm like no, you're stupid and she's a she she's yelling at me and I'm screaming at her and she's like, well, I'm tired tell us in there and my mom's like one tired I'm going to bed I'm like okay, mom love you give her a big hug big kids she went upstairs to alison and she's like, is everything okay? She's like, are we going to stay here tonight? Right? And I'm in my mother's house unlike what you talking about everything's finally how you know italian families interact it's all in good love, but you know I've gotta understand her, her family, her background on she also has to understand me, my family, my background as well, so I think ultimately you should be friends mean, you married my best friend, so we're best friends, so whenever we're sitting down talking business stuff get heated, but if you treat that person like you would a girlfriend your best girlfriend you're not gonna be disrespectful you're not going to swear it then you're not gonna yell, stay friends and treat each other like friends and that's what we trying to throw their entire lives is, uh be good friends to each other and I think that will keep your relationship respectful and keep you from getting offended or, you know, if he says something that upsets you, you flying off the handle, you wouldn't do that with the girlfriend he'd be like, hey, that really hurts my feelings can do the same thing with your spouse interesting coming from, uh, cage aikman photography who says, I think it's harder to receive criticism from a husband or wife because we have this stigma that were supposed to love that they're supposed to love us unconditionally and that they should tell us white lies so that we always feel awesome it's hard to appear weak and vulnerable or dumb in front of someone who we love and admire so much that is the crux of what we're talking about right here is that you've gotta have a little bit thicker skin I cannot let her critique of something I'm doing in the business suddenly attack my manhood and mean I'm no longer a good husband I'm no longer a good father whatever it is you're you're feeling it's got nothing to do they do with that, right it's like right here, it's all for the better of the business that's the mindset you have to have like that we're doing this for each other. He is critiquing this for me, for us, for our family, for future if you come at it from that mindset like all the pain, all the critiquing, the painful stuff we're going through is for the better the business, then you're working together, you're not working against each other anymore. There's two ways to take the critique you can take the critique is it's like me trying to control you dominate you keep you down, right? Which is what? That's when the emotional part kicks in or you can take the critique as whoa, hold on, we're in this together, we're trying to grow our business together, and once you start understanding that, suddenly the critique takes on a whole new meaning on dh that's where you've gotta get right so it's, not an attack on who you are as a person, and you had to get through that, right? So again, we're being completely raw with you and letting you understand that we went through this the first two to three years of our business. And it was until we got past that that our business was able to just kind of grow and flourish and we trusted each other implicitly throughout the business so let's keep going here again gotta be objective have thicker skin but hold each other accountable that is what teammates do leaving it at work this is where the problems begin, right? You have a fight at work, you take it home and now you're not talking to each other now your laundry he's not getting done now, you know, it's just a mess, right? All that passive aggressive behavior, we cannot be passive aggressive with our business partners and our spouse right on dh that's where I see challenges coming in when you take your problems home from work that to me starts becoming passive aggressive behavior. Now, with all this being said, I want to once again make sure I'm being clear just because you have a problem or fight or argument doesn't green light, disrespectful behavior and I think we have a slide here talking about just being respectful is that right? I can't remember so there you've got to be respectful to one another that is paramount, okay? Actually, if you're business partners, yeah, and I did I've got a bunch of comments here from the internet, so we're going to talk about those in a bunch of more around being disrespectful I think one woman wrote my husband said it was a woman and she was saying my husband said says something to me while I'm on the middle of a shoot and I want to punch him in his face that was what she said so I hope she doesn't knock him out um but so we've got to leave it at work there's gonna be problems every business has problems if you're working in corporate job you're telling me there's never heated meeting at corporate okay, so don't bring that home with you don't take the fight home you've got to find a way I know it's hard to shelve that so that you guys can still function together were now the business is coming in between your marriage and you don't want that to happen the business the business is there because of your matter drive it's because you work together that this partnership has been created and each one feeds the other so you can't be good at business together but then suck it a personal relationship with each other that would never happen usually it's tied together so this is actually a great opportunity the better you become a business together that more than likely means you're becoming better communication better resolving issues that's going to carry over into your marriage and vice versa the more you work in the more you nurture your marriage and your skills in a relationship so your skills as a communicator as a listener as an empath isar the more you work on that stuff, the better it's going to be for your relationship and both personal and business. So take this opportunity to take only your business the next level but your relationships the next level you know, we I'm a communicator so when something's bother bothering me here's what I'm not I can't be that fake person if I don't like you, I can't be around you I can't talk to you smile in your face in the walkway she's not my nature where is I'm just saying down south a little bit. Well, well, they smile it everything everyone's happy yeah, but bless your heart if you ever get told bless your heart you have just been told off of somebody down south so what happens with taylor? Nice if there's a problem, I'm more than likely to go hey f y I this is bothering me, man, you just did something you said something it's bothering me? I want you to address it. I don't want to go to bed mad, okay, I want it I want to make sure we get this out on the table talk about it her personality's completely different I'm an introvert she should. I didn't even realize this, but when we were first got together that she was mad at me for, like, five days and didn't talk to me for five days, and I really didn't know what was going on, and I was we were just dating just together on and so I had no idea what was going on, so I had to force her to have the conversation with me when something was bothering her. This doesn't make sense to be mad at each other for something stupid for five days. And so just the right just three days ago, she was pasted me about something I did, but I didn't really do it right. I said something she misinterpreted what I said and she came up to me she's like I want that you know, something you said bothered me. Well, tell me what it is. She told me what it wass and while I said it, it was misinterpreted. It wasn't what I meant. And so by her coming to me right out of the gate, going to your partner going your spouse ling no. Hey, here's, something you did? I felt disrespected when you said this this could be on a wedding day. All right, say something, get it on the table, resolve it. Move on by adopting this, we went from fighting five days a week to fighting, maybe once a week now and now we don't even fight about personal issues anymore. The only time we ever fight is about business stuff and I think that's great for a relationship to go from one point where you're butting heads all day long and now, you know, we're best friends. We spend twenty four hours a day together seven days a week and we wouldn't have it any other way and it's just taking our relationship to a whole new level being ableto only fight once a week about business stuff now were much more open with each other and it just took us to the next level. Yeah, absolutely. How did this slide get in here? Well, let me let me talk about part of this personality test. This was really helpful in understanding how to fight with cell, how to communicate with south part of his personality is tears actually discussed him this I mean, this is bird's the word this is verbatim from the personality test that's not interpreted tears discussed this type of personality and I was like, oh my god, it's like, I'm an emotional person, so you know, I had to step back for a minute and I thought well it's not doing any good he doesn't understand why I'm crying he can't relate to it so oh stop crying so I did I just stopped crying because it doesn't do anything for him and he doesn't understand it and so that so from my personality type I can't process tears anybody else like guys out there I'm not emotional so I want to have them just don't process and it's like what is happening I'm afraid of breaking new what? Why stop eso when she starts getting like emotional like that I'm like just you cannot compute I'm very logical thinking we're leaking exactly um I'm very logical so when that starts happening to me there's no problem in the world that can't be solved right? You just step back what's the problem how do we solve it? What are our options? Boom let's go right and she's like you don't love me I do love you but what's the problem I understand so this is what she's returned referring to and it helped that she understood where I was coming from and how to deal with me it's too many a lot so much laughter what what what do you guys finding in your relationship your businesses did you talk to me? What do you are you are you the products and the relationship? Well, I only cry when I laugh yeah, so um but yeah it's the same thing when when we talk over something I find myself incapable of figuring out what's wrong whenever she's crying right tends to be this emotional thing not only makes it worse first girls right cause you're like what does that mean? Nothing todo my feelings not matter and it just spirals out of control but if you understand that it doesn't compute with them, he just doesn't understand it crying it suddenly it's like, well, there's nothing to cry about doesn't change anything and so it really helped us when fighting to come to a resolution quicker because I knew I couldn't cry not that I couldn't cry of course I can cry but it's not going to help the issue no and something sal figured about my personality of course I'm the total opposite I am one hundred percent emotional I do not deal in logic I go by my god by the way I feel inside and so that is really ah hard point for us to overcome I'm empathetic sympathetic so I'm all about feelings and feeling good and I do not handle stress I'm an introvert so I internalize dress so usually when I keep stress in my body starts breaking down like I broke my tailbone I drop well no I want I want to talk about that taylor not handling stress we recently had a huge wedding that we were part off and it was her wedding. She was primary shooter, I was video and she was under a lot of stress. She was really nervous about the event on this was very important for me to start understanding that she does not. I handle stress, so instead of getting mad at her because she can't handle stress, I understand that's my role that when she's under a certain amount of stress, I got to step it up and carry that for her in the middle of this wedding, she walked up to me and she said, take over, she don't have to say another word. I knew exactly what was happening to her. I knew she was she was freaking out, and I didn't I didn't I didn't break out and make eye contact with her. I didn't look like, what are you talking about? Right? So the clients looking at me, asking what's, going on, I knew internally she was panicking because there was this big group, no one was really listening. She wasn't getting the images she needed, but what put her under the stress was the time constraint we were running out of time and she couldn't get the group to do what they needed, and she just walked by I mean she's like take over and I did and you stepped up I knew what was happening with her as my partner as my teammate and I started photographing the wedding and then when we got in the car and went to the next next location that's when I asked I'm like, dude what's going on what happened on she's like I just I didn't I lost confidence for a minute I need you to step in and take over and that's very important that when you're working with your team even though we're season for tarver's, she had a moment of panic I'm just gonna talk to her and I had to help her get through that moment and that's what I think teammates but it's being committed toe learning about relationships from learning about each other and how each other functions that's goingto that's going to take it to the next level that's going to help your relationship work and personal so stay committed toe learning about that person about relationships and how to be the best a friend that you khun b and that will help just everything yeah let's keep going with leaving it to work don't make business problems personal problems this was something taylor definitely struggled with husband wife teams you're probably struggling with that and it's that crossover it's a spiral so you've gotta be able to accept and I'm not going to sit here and why I and say, yeah, yeah, we just got it right out of the gate. It was something we worked on for a long time is understanding and calling each other out that you're still you're still pissed about something that happened at work don't bring that home like sal critique my images and maybe he said that's, just a bad shot and then we're at home at dinner and I'm being rude to him or whatever and he's like what's your problem like? Well, you said my shot sucked he's like, well, that's not how it happened, I'd be like, can I have two salty? But I couldn't get sult yourself. Well, what what I did that's out usually goes down it's about leaving that stuff at work just realised that's work stuff and don't take it personal again. Yeah, you guys worked from home in the beginning like you did sessions in your house or sometimes sometimes so how do you differentiate like us? We have a studio right next to our house and we come in and, like it's constant in the biz like business talking. I know I'm sure you guys do now because you're so busy with everything, but in the beginning, how do you like your seven o'clock? We're not talking about business or is it gonna happen gonna happen? Teo business together yeah, if you if you want to be seven o'clock we're no longer talking about business go work for someone else but you are in business together is their life this this business is your baby you've got kids now this is your next kid on that's the reality can you imagine if I said to you okay, come seven o'clock stop talking about your kids it never happened right? Sounds ridiculous. This is what's gonna happen so I'm not going to stand up here and tell you that we're able to go home and say seven o'clock morbid snus talk but we are we will talk about I think it's on the next slide balance and how to get there and what is balanced we will talk about it so just understand that though, because that becomes something you should understand we'll go to dinner and we're talking about business, right? We come, we come off of this, we're in the other room right in the green room or in the kitchen. We're not talking about he's in san francisco. Beautiful. We're talking about what's going on at home with the business like so where even we're gonna be in paris we're probably gonna be talking about business, so you've got understand this is your baby but that doesn't mean we don't have work life balance where we try and do things together, that romantic dinner date night, things like that so it becomes very important but here's a key if you want to learn how to leave it at home and not take it out on each other, here it is, man don't focus on being right or wrong that is the bottom line if somebody has to be right and it becomes a pissing contest, you will always be wrong, okay? It cannot be that way and so I don't care if you're the guy I don't care for the girl you got to check yourself you gotta check your ego it's not no one's keeping a tally on who's, right? Who's wrong. How many times that is not what a partnership eyes all about. So you've got to leave that at the door you will never get anywhere with it balance what is about so like I told you the first two years be prepared to grind it out. There will be no balance. There still is no balance, but we know what balance means now. So the best thing I can the best advice I can give you is sit down and have a conversation about what is balances balance having one day a week off, is it having two days a week off what do you want life to look like? You have to play now, okay? I want to work this many hours. I want to go on this many vacations. I want to have this many date nights and so we had to actually write this all out. Otherwise your business just takes over your entire life. So not only have we written it out, we have to keep coming back to it because I'm a I found myself making promises to her about work life balance that I couldn't keep right. She wanted one day a week. That was a date night. She wanted ah, certain amount of hours per week work. I just couldn't keep those promises. And she was getting angry at me because I wasn't keeping my promises and that's where we had to have this meeting of the minds where it's just like, look, you're forcing me to promise you something. You're setting me up for failure, right? So I'm the workaholic there's, no doubt about it, but she wanted personal time and she should. We should have personal time. We should nurture our marriage, but I couldn't give it to her in this structured box that's where you know you hear taylor now saying you've got it when you run a business like this, you've got to take the time when and where you can get it and sometimes that can be a simple as grabbing a cup of coffee in the morning and it's seasonal right? So you can't have, you know, a week off to just be relax at home during the summer it's shooting season. Now you take the time where you can get it, we try and do that was the meaning of the minds we have taylor wanted this kind of I wanted truly best you want true balance, which would be I'm off every saturday or sunday or I'm off two days a week and we're doing, you know, we're going on date night every friday and that sounds great in theory, but when you realize that the nature of our business is we earn all of our income in the may through october time frame, there is no work life balance during that time frame that is grinding it out, being hungry, making as much money as we can make, then that gives us the luxury of being able to come november or december I mean, in the month of december, yeah, I guess we're working, we're checking e mail, but we're not really doing much of anything we're around the house uh, you know, hanging out our pjs all day that's the luxury of grinding it out eight months of the year so it's not a balanced during the seasons but it's a balanced through the year but even during busy season we had to come to an agreement because I said I can't go you know all this time without personal time I want to have a marriage even though we're busy my marriage doesn't stop whenever we get busy so we had to come to an agreement that at least once a month we have a date night it's on the calendar it does not get moves nothing happens it's like scheduling a day of photo shoot it's date date, date night, whatever and we took we took turns every other month one of us would plan the date night so it's just about making sure you have some kind of personal time together to nurture that relationship even though you might be busy and that would be and that would have been fair to her if I made her plan every date night, right? So again, no matter what balance your relationship is is whether the guy does it or the girl does it running the business you can't if you're a team once again, you cannot suddenly task the guy or the girl with hey, you want to you want to be on a date night with me, you do it all right that's not reality that's just you're giving me more work to do, but if we're in this together and we're team together, that means you're gonna own part of this I'm gonna own part of this and that becomes more of a team and then no resentment gets build with bill topping all that's going on um what about getting on the same page? You've got to make sure you agree so you know, jules some we talked about when it comes to balance is being agreement and I'm sure a lot of you out there because I saw it on facebook is how do you even come into agreement on the roles and responsibilities within the business? You've got to sit down and the first thing you have to come to agreement on is you guys even want to do this together if you don't want to work together and you don't want to do this together there's nothing else to talk about there's no point in assigning roles to each other to a partner who doesn't want to be there and you've got to listen to your partner don't force your husband or wife to join the business with you if they don't really want to be there with you that that defeats the entire purpose I could not force her to be part of the business I needed her, but if she wasn't passionate about it I would have had to let her go from the business that go do your own thing, get your job. We're kicking off, but I would have had to write. I mean, that would've been the only way we would have survived. I mean, so you can't make somebody do something they don't love every single day, right? When you're outlining what you want life to look like. Yeah, to make it realistic. Outline what it's going to take to make life look that way. So if you wanna have, like, one of one thing we do every years we take three weeks of vacation and one slow season starts to kind of celebrate the end of the busy season, we take three weeks. I'm going a huge trip. Well, if we want that to happen, we have to make a certain amount of money or we can't afford to go on that trip. So each year we outlined. Okay, how much time do we went off? How many vacations did you want to take? How much play money do we wanna have? Okay, this is how much we need to make to get to that point. That means this many shoots this many weddings, and so it keeps you realistic that way, you're not marching towards a goal that really you can never meet so it keeps us on the same page so whenever sal says ok, you're ready for the next two years it's gonna be a grind now instead of doing that we outline okay? We're going to do this many shoots that means monday through wednesday three shoots a day nine days a week our nineties a month whatever it is so we'd get granular stare in nine days so we get really granular so that we fully understand what it's gonna take to get where we want to get and we're on the same page uh and that goes for your team as well and so when she's talking about like, hey, what do you want next year to look like that's something we talked to our team about as well because they have to make that happen? I understand if you're just starting out that's not something you're thinking about, but it's also the beat we talked to our team team about okay if we hit these metrics and a year we're going on a trip, we're going to rent a house we're going to go to kabo so that because my team doesn't work forty hours a week there's no way my team is working fifty, sixty, seventy hours a week with us and so if I want my team toe work that much in a salary position, what are they working for? Okay and I've got to give them something to beat to march to to reward them for all that hard work so not only should you be doing in your personal relationship I should be doing it with your business as well and then ultimately you've got to figure out what it's gonna take to keep you happy what's the point of being a photographer first of all I think we have the best jobs in the world we're the luckiest people in the world every day we're in business to make people happy right? Rarely are you taking pictures of an unhappy moment it's always a great moment we're celebrating a moment that is an amazing job that we have and to think people pay us money and good money for it that's just icing on the cake right? How many of us would still be photographers if we weren't making money because a lot of you are not making money you still do it because you're passionate about it you love what you're doing well that's going to keep you happy what it's gonna take to keep making you happy what do you what do you need to do and so if your husband on my team and your miserable together I don't understand why you're doing it right you've gotta figure something out I'll let you go with this fight rules so I think every relationship that should have this it doesn't matter if you're if you work together or not. So even my mom and my dad, they had fight rules and actually posted it on the refrigerator just so that they would know. And so just come to agreement on this. You have to agree on what's. What respect means? What does that look like? What's. Okay, what's not okay. So these are just some of salan eyes, fight rules, no name calling, no manipulation. Apologize when you're wrong. Uh, don't go to bed angry. Sal always has to get on me for that. Because I keep trying to internalize things. Be objective. I know that's. Something I struggle with and it's okay to take time off to cool off if you need it. So just make sure that that person knows. Okay, I need to take five minutes and just absorb this or take a deep breath or whatever and be okay with that. No, that you know they're bettering the relationship for not exploding. Then if they need time to cool off, don't involve others. So do not bring your personal problems to work. Your assistance. Whoever you work with should not know that there's. Anything wrong? If there is anything wrong at home, that should only be be between the two of you. And then of course on positive because it's probably a lot of these people struggle is you're fighting minutes before you walk into an event, a wedding or on a photo shoot fighting that cannot happen that haas to stay internalized in fact, when we were growing our business and we had other photographers working for us for studio see so we had started kind of a sub brand studio see with other photographers working for us under that brand but of course everyone still knew it was a salvador sink off photography company uh we sent out a husband wife team on a wedding on when the client came in to look at their pictures, we ask him so how is your experience with these photographers? And their feedback to us was well, you know, we like the pictures, but they were fighting all day, right? So they were bickering all day and then trying to be like, those people who you don't know what's going on right now funding on your right that's when you're not fooling anybody, right? I mean, that stuff's going on, you're not fooling anybody, so you've got up, man, you've got to leave that stuff at the minute and again be honest, we fight, we've had fights walking out the door going to a wedding, but man, the minute we get there it's over well, I don't hear a word she doesn't want to hear a word from me I don't want snide remarks when I'm asking you for my lens you know, like you do can you do me a favor? Can you get me that lines get it yourself right? I don't want to hear any of that we're working together everybody's got their rules and responsibilities and that takes discipline to be able to check yourself there but man, if your spouse or your business partner is doing that to you after that event, you better light them up, man, because that's not okay for that to leak out into your business but if your business partner doesn't agree that that's not ok you're in business with the wrong person so you've gotta understand that those things are not okay really quick if I could jump in this seems like something that's kind of discipline toe like stop yourself like okay, you know what? We're on the job now it's timeto work seems like it would be easier for someone with the taipei so taylor a someone who is more emotional it probably feels that a little bit more strongly and you know internalizes a little bit more how do you find the discipline to leave it behind you focus on the job it's not easy but I take that time tio hold onto it and I think about what we're fighting about and I put together what it what am I mad about? What happened? What really happened? Does this warrant the response that I get it that I want to give and so just giving time to think about what happened? Actually, when we come back to resolve the issue it's like you were right, I was wrong because you had time to think about it, so it it actually works to my advantage because I am emotional, and I do need time to cool off sometimes before I, you know, say something I'll regret, and so I use that time to just reflect and okay, let's think about this now that we have time, and so it actually eliminates the fight where there could have been a fight, and I don't think it only applies to somebody who's a little bit more introverted. I mean, maybe I'm a hothead, right? So I mean that's in my blood, and so we I have to check myself a cz well, when things happen not to lose my mind and just explode to make sure I try to understand what's going on before I respond this way, I don't get myself in trouble and say something that ultimately all right, if you don't like being wrong, then stop being wrong. Okay, so if I lose my mind and I start cursing at people and yelling at people well then I'm ultimately at some point I have to come back and be like I should never have done that because of the fight rules five rules air saying no name calling all right so if I just start berating her and calling her names I can't come back around like well, I called your names it was your fault, right? That's not that's not really a partnership that's not really a marriage and so if I don't want to be wrong and I end up apologizing I've got to take a deep breath step away and not do something that I'm ultimately gonna end up apologizing for so I think it goes both ways right there's people out there just super aggressive lose their minds and have to apologize for but you know and just take a deep breath sometimes and it'll go much better thank you yeah all right then of course when it's all said and done you've got to remain respectful free with each other guys they're friends you should be friends so treat each other like you would a friend yeah so how you guys doing man you guys tyler uh rachel told me you were laid out online what what what are some other challenges you guys air facing? It sounds like the critique was was a big one yeah, I mostly just think that the thing that's going to help us the most is having an outline and a balance of you do this these air your tasks and for us getting to that point of like it's hard for me to even talk about what that what that means because I don't know what I'm good at I don't know what I could really do because I work full time like the only time I can do business marketing stuff is like okay after work I'll go drive to this venue like it's just one of those things of finding what are the responsible but I think that this will be something that will be amazing for us is just sitting down call me and going over respectfully what? But in the spirit of that rachel, you're what you're saying when you go hey, I'm working full time I don't know how much I'm gonna be able to do well that is what you're doing, you're working full time and so that's part of what you're doing where you're writing down your list and you're like, hey, I'm bringing health benefits in the table I'm keeping this job, so that is something you are doing, tyler you have to give her that that you know, acknowledgement and I'm not saying he does or doesn't, but you have to understand that when you're signing rolls from a photography perspective, tyler it maybe back loaded on you, you may feel like you're carrying one hundred percent of the business at times and that might actually be true. But the other part of this conversation is what's the number that we can get you two of weddings or event so that you can quit your job and then you could start taking some of that stuff off times played because once you take it off his plate, the business explodes because now you give him more free time to focus on the marketing and stuff like that. And I know that's the goal, right? Just from talking, you guys that's the ultimate goal for you so that's good. So just getting to that point that that's great, what else? What? What? Really quick, actually along those same lines still fifty five photography was saying, how did you balance your roles in the first two years? For example, if photography was slow and marketing was high when that tipped the scale, if sal was in charge of both, for instance, so how do you split it up when, like it's unevenly balanced on one and the other one just isn't is busy at the time. Well, any right, it was unbalanced in the beginning, but that's actually when we started to outsource so editing was on south plate, he would be up till two a m editing and you know, I'm not doing anything till two a m I might be answering emails, but nothing that has to get done like that she felt like I was neglecting her because I'm in the room working and then I'd have to have this conversation with her and be like, dude, I'm paying if I don't edit pictures, we can't pay bills like if I don't have the pictures, you can't go shopping or you want to go grocery shopping together. Well, I got a picture right s o it was it's, his vicious circle, but what I didn't do was give her the editing and when we come back, we're gonna talk about insourcing verse outsourcing but that is part of what ended up happening because this still fifty fives right there's going to be part of the year where one of the partners has gotten a lot of capacity and taylor, we will come up to me from time to time and saying, what can I take off your plate? Elissa who's my studio manager she'll come up to me and say, what can I take off your plate? I have capacity sometimes it's just nothing, but you want to know what it makes me feel good that even though I'm in the trenches drowning my team is at least saying, if you need anything, I'm here, even though there's, nothing they can do, right. But if they don't come to me and they don't offer me any help, I become resentful, right? I've become angry, and that builds inside me. I'm doing all the damn work, who left the dishes out, right, and then you kick your dog that's, no, that's, not what you want to have happen. He loved animals, not, uh, so, anyway, so those are the kind of things you want. You want to be sure you're communicating with each other.

Class Materials

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Model Release.docx

Model Release.pdf

SCP Wedding Contract.pdf

SCP Wedding Copyright Release.doc

SCP Wedding Copyright Release.pdf

Initial Booking Email Templates and Call Scripts.pdf

Initial Booking Workflow.pdf

SCP 2013 Pricing Guide.pdf

Top 10 Objections for Sales.pdf

Mastering Business Fundamentals Keynote.pdf

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Sal Cincotta

Sal is an award winning photographer, author, and wppi platform speaker.Sal is one of the most sought after business consultants in our industry, helping studios and photographers take their businesses to the next level.In 2007, gross sales were less than

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topics covered in this class

Business Fundamentals

Ratings and Reviews

user-55a907

How is this just $99? I would of definitely payed at least twice as much!!! Half way though the course and this information is more than what the price is worth. Thank You sal, We love your great energy and amazing information.

a Creativelive Student

My husband and I truly enjoyed this informative course. We love the way Sal is straight to the point about things and how to handle difficult situations. Taylor was awesome and helped me to embrace who I am and make it work for me. We can't wait for another class by Sal and Taylor. Josh and Lory

2,000+ classes ranging from fundamentals to advanced techniques.

Husband and Wife Teams

Husband and Wife Teams

Lesson Info

31. Husband and Wife Teams

Lessons

Class Introduction

Establishing Goals

Establishing Goals: Advice for Beginners

Establishing Goals: Advice for Intermediates

Establishing Goals: Advice for Established Businesses

Specialist vs. Generalist

Pricing & Packaging

Shooting to Sell: Big Prints, Albums & Products

Pricing: The Digital Negative Controversy

The Evolution of SCP's Pricing

Student Q&A

Defining Your Style: Consistency is Key

Defining Your Style: Advice for Newbies

Defining Your Style: Advice for Intermediate Studios

Defining Your Style: Advice for Established Studios

Next Level: Medium Format

Branding

Next Level Products

Marketing: The Other Half of Your Style

Marketing for the Newbie Studio

Marketing for the Intermediate Studio

Marketing for the Established Studio

Networking: Who, What, When, Where and Why

Customer Service

Best Practices: Seniors & Families

Best Practices: Babies, Glamour, Engagement & Wedding

Best Practices: Backing Up and Equipment

Best Practices: Sales

Best Practices: Post Production

Training Plan