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Husband & Wife Teams: Stories from Facebook

What I want to do is go to the online I posted on my facebook page last night and it was freaking awesome like I said, I did it later in the evening and it was just really interesting so I'm not going to read your name I promised you anonymity but what I have to do is just, you know, talk through some of these because I think they're they're valid somebody wrote my husband is a procrastinator s o I'm very frustrated with that, right? So what happens when your business partner? Right? So I'm gonna try and just kind of paraphrase these what happens when your business partner is procrastinating on everything there is guaranteed to be tension between the two of you and that's when you have to have that conversation that you're not carrying your weight, it doesn't matter if it's the husband it doesn't matter if it's the wife you've got to have that conversation but you know where it all starts. I think it starts on sitting down because if you just go to your business partner be like dude, y...

ou're procrastinating, you're not carrying your weight I would say if somebody came to me and said that I would argue with him so well I am carrying my weight I am doing what I said I would do because the problem is there's no clear goals and objectives so the whole conversation has to start at step one and step one is the two of you sitting down together as a team and said and asking each other where do we want to be in twenty fourteen if you say in twenty fourteen you only want five weddings well then you should be marching to the beat of five weddings seniors, families, babies, whatever the goals and objectives are if you say you want to be a forty weddings or whatever your number is from there of any genre you're going after, then the next question is what do we need to do to get there that is going to generate a laundry list of items that's where now you start delegating tasks, roles and responsibilities that's where you can start saying you're not carrying your way so part of this where you're procrastinating I think comes from no clear deliver bols no clear deadlines on dh no goals and objectives so just keep that in mind um this one's interesting, huh? Buster is an mba and I think he could be challenging when it comes to mixing the art and business. So yes, it has been difficult and so talon I both have business degrees I am very strong willed when it comes to business you guys have followed everything we've done all the businesses I mean in the last year and a half, two years we have spawned off four to five brand new businesses all geared towards photographers that's not an accident that's because I see opportunity and I want to go after it I'm an entrepreneur that's what I want to do so sometimes taylor and I have conversations and I do have to just lay down the law and say I don't agree with you this is my realm I own it I've heard you I've heard all your points I just don't agree with you and so if you're in that one's an artist once a business person kind of relationship when it comes to business why are you are as an artist why are you arguing with the business person why are you arguing with your husband or wife? I don't care who it is why you are doing with them there clearly the expert right that would be like your husband or wife who's now a business expert arguing with you about exposure arguing with you about composition right at a certain point you're like dude shut up you don't know anything about composition do what I'm telling you to do and the same thing has happened from a business perspective give respect to that person and their experience to help catch it to that next level I mean do you agree with that yeah absolutely I definitely agree it's it's not easy sometimes because we all have our opinions especially if it's a business you own together you you have a feeling about something and I want express that feeling but that's where those roles come back into play, if you're outside your role ultimately, that other person has to say so. So voice your opinion, make sure you have balance points and you can go back and forth and he can address your points. And you can address his points that he returned. But ultimately, this is his call. That's. His realm that's, his role. We have to respect those rules and stick to him. Yeah, and so this one is interesting. I like this. Uh, my husband helped me last week. And, uh, the tone he used when he spoke, we had to have a conversation. And so this one is used is usually that way. It's usually the female who's, the photographer there directing the group. And then maybe your assistant was your husband or something to that effect. It's little snippy says something smart ass tio. And that starts the whole ball rolling emotion. Let me give you some advice here, and I'm gonna let you talk about a situation we had with your assist. Engage and we love him to death, but you had to set him right, but listen, the photographer whoever's in control, but that's the husband or wife that persons in charge with that group the person who's assisting should never do anything to undermine the authority of the primary photographer I don't care if the primary photographers completely wrong you do nothingto undermine their authority instead what I'd rather see you do is pull that person to the side and say hey, you are their their shirts sticking out hey, you miss this hey this pull to the side never undermine their authority and this is something we do very, very well together so there are times by the way I am the worst assistant in the world when I have to help taylor on photo shoots I'm absolutely horrible at it I know this about myself and I accepted but we were on a photo shoot in new orleans and there were things I felt like she was not doing right she was missing bigger shots and rather than undermine your authority in front of the client I just walked up to her while I was handing her lens. I just whispered in here I said, hey, f y I you're missing this and I just I let it be and she accepted that feedback because I never undermined her authority if I'd undermine your authority in front of the client, I think all how would've broken on and she would've but most importantly forget that we would fight about it she would have listened and then we would have missed the very thing I'm trying to get her to see and understand and so that becomes very, very important so I want to talk about that in a in a personal atmosphere so tone to me is something I'm really sensitive about probably just because of the way I was brought up you know, men are like gentlemen and say yes, ma'am and thank you and all this stuff and that's not real life sometimes and so a tone was huge to me oh, that would get the hair upon the back of my neck and it was a lot of fighting for for a couple of years and so we figured it out and I had to communicate with sal why that got the hair my neck so I had to sit him down and tell him okay, when you say this it makes this reaction in me it makes me feel this way you're like when I say this, this is what I'm here, right? This is what I'm hearing this is what I'm feeling like what rachel was saying where when when he's critiquing she's like I feel done exactly I know exactly what you mean whenever you use this tone or talk to me this way it makes me feel this way and so that helped him and understand okay, this is why she's reacting this way is because she feels like I'm talking down to her like she's, stupid or whatever, and he can now tell me, well, that's, not how I mean it at all. This is what I'm trying to do, and so it's about coming together and agreeing on the right communication have at that time whether it's, you know the tone or the language or whatever green all right, here's, another one not having a tiebreaker in important discussions, what do you do when your husband and wife team and the one partner's adamant about one thing the other partners adamant about another thing? How do you decide, right? Both adamant. You're both not listening to each other more than likely. How do you break that tie? The coin? Yeah, flip a coin. No, that'd be a horrible way to run your business, so I think the solution here is getting to clear roles and responsibilities if you don't have roles and responsibilities. That to me is the tiebreaker, so we can go back and forth on business strategy on what we want to do from a marketing campaign perspective. I'm going to hear her. You have to listen, you can't just say no it's not your job I'm gonna do what I want to do that wouldn't be a good partner good business both sow will listen to me and be like I hear what you're saying I don't agree I have to go this direction and I have to step back and let go and there have been times where I'm like I agree that makes total sense you need a great argument because she's not having a personal argument with me just because I feel this way that's not what I want to hear she has to have a logical conversation give me a reason why we should not or should do this and if not here but if you don't have roles and responsibilities set up that is the ultimate tiebreaker there could only be one person in charge of marketing there can only be one person in charge of editing if you have multiple people in charge of that that's where all this conflict comes into play right? So here we go. I remember several years ago we were out on an anniversary dinner and an innocent question of where do you want to travel next turned into business and how it all depends on what our wedding season is like and when we can find a window of free time long enough to go overseas wait, we just talked about this, so there is no time where if this is your baby, so the only analogy I can give give this person is understanding that if you decide to have a business together and it doesn't matter if it's photography would be any business, this becomes your baby and understanding that you would never go to dinner and not talk about your child, you would never go to dinner and not talk about your family, your pet, right? Something like that. These you have to understand this is that thing and it's gonna be very difficult to just not talk about it a tall. So I don't I don't know how to give you better advice, except to just let you know that after seven years of doing this, we've never been able to turn it all. Also in the subject, it sounds like that person might be mad that they have to schedule vacation around weddings, that that's kind of directing the personal life, but that's the case, I mean, that happens with us. We plan our vacations in our lives around when we have weddings, book that's just the nature of the beast. You can't afford to go on trips if you don't shoot these wedding, so shoot the weddings ah, and just because adrian, uh, is adrian outlaw, he's always commenting on the show, he wrote a pretty funny comments, so I don't know if his I guess his wife said, are we going to do everything sounds way and, uh, he said, when you go from six, six hundred dollar wedding to a six thousand dollar wedding, I think so so good for adrian eso no anonymity for him, but that was a good comment last thing you know, married couples really need to work well, having good family work, life balance and so there's truth to that, right? So if you've got kids or something like that, you have got to work hard at having that work, life balance and all I can tell you, we obviously don't have kids that's, why we're able to work eighteen plus hours a day, but if you've got kids, you've got a whole other challenge that you're trying to balance, but if you're setting sitting down and planning out, okay, this is what we want to make. This is what it's going to take to make that there should be no surprises us tow, how much you're having to work a certain day, or if you're coming down to it and you are working that time and you realize it's taking a lot more work than you thought it would have another sit down is this really what we want to do? Do we want to change our goals but figured that out and just talk to each other about it if you're running into the same issue where you know we don't have time for the kids or you're never with the kids I'm always with the kids sit down and plan it out and figure it out right? Last one where do I start? I bought my wife a really nice camera because she loved taking pictures this was about eight years ago since then photography is going into more than a hobby she's done several weddings and seniors and does a great job after graduating from bag boy to second shooter I've grown in skill and I am developing a style of my own I believe she's offended and maybe giving up the craft because she thinks I'm better than her not the case how do I fix this problem and so those are the challenges we all face right? So I brought taylor into this she'll never be better than me, so I've just learned that but no. So you know, I could see this being a problem for people, right? Because if you're competitive it all uh you start you could shut down if you don't handle the competition the right way so I don't it doesn't bother me there's wedding she comes back from and she just nailed the shot I don't go into a shell and I'm like, oh, I'm horrible I sock on and it's the same thing right when I come back from a job and I get great work it motivates her to do better and I think if you have your spouse and they're getting intimidated by that no matter who it is or your business partner you've got to help them understand that don't crumble to the competition step up to it force yourself to get better are you about to tell me you're better than tyler? You should be proud of them exactly right and well, any time I tell her has an amazing shot like I'm just like oh my gosh that's awesome I'm so proud of you when I have an amazing shot it's like no like he's giving me gold I'm just think yeah like I feel so good but that should be something where it's a positive time tyler's teaching you how to be the photographer correct so I think jules, you're maybe in a little bit different position t have this conversation right? Jeff was at one point what primary or he still is still waiting for the most part but your work is you won an award you wanted w p p ay award you're coming up going what rachel says is I want him to be proud of me and I can keep phil's intimidated a little bit and um not offended but um that's what I'm looking for um standoffish no uh threatened threatened so he feels threatened by you think not how he makes you he makes you feel that he feels threatened so he you feel without putting words in about that you're not getting he's not celebrating your success right which he needs to write. So as partners I when she comes back with a good because I would think jeff in your situation is quite similar to myself in taylor on the primary when she comes back and gets a great image, I don't cut it down I celebrated I think it's amazing, you know we use her images in our portfolio I'm not like, hey, I'm only putting my work up here because it's my name, so I'm using her hard work in celebrating that as well. I'll post it to facebook it's kind of funny because I'll post images to facebook sometimes and all of a sudden everybody's like, oh that's an awesome shots house our great job there's salvar each other and I'll go right out there and be like, sorry guys is a tailor shop right andi I'll tag her attacker in it because there's nothing wrong with her having her own identity, I can't be threatened by her I have to celebrate her because from as an artist I've created that right eye. She came up under me, I mentored her, I showed her how to do it. And now she's taking what I've taught her and going and doing her own thing and it's for the better of the business keep that mindset like, wow, now we have two awesome shooters. Now we can break apart on weddings, and we're making twice as much still doing the same amount of work. So that's frigging awesome. Well, guys, I hope everyone's learned a little bit of that from that segment. I mean, it's uh, you know, hopefully you brought your spouse in on this or watch the re watch or something with them, but we're not at each other's throats right now, I'm sure there's a lot of see see what you see what she said, but you know, it's all good, you've gotta learn to laugh and love each other on just celebrate your differences right and understand that there will be differences with you. There are going to be ups and downs in the business you are going to fight but fight fair on dh learn how to understand at least that your you should be working together for one common cause and that's growing your business.