So I Married an Entrepreneur.

Grace or Luck?    Whatever you call it, admit it.   (Especially in business.) Admit it. We have all had moments when something wonderful happened and we thought, “This is amazing!   I didn’t see that coming.” The fact is, sometimes out of nowhere we are blessed.   I am convinced that those who are successful in business and have their heads on straight always remind themselves that luck played a role in their success.   My charming, but sometimes-hard-headed type A wife, even admits to it.   (Which in my eyes makes her even more charming.)    That's a bank wrapper.  It wraps cash.  This will make sense in a minute...keep reading.    As an example, let me tell you the true story of the time when we were hurting financially (I mean really. Hurting.) and we found $20,000 in the wall of the house I had recently moved into. Yup.   We found $20,000 in a wall. I stretch the truth here a bit,...

Our business had been burglarized.   Basically, everything that we had built as the operational foundation of our business, our vital forms created for work flow, and our previous six years of client work, walked out the door with the criminals.   We had two things left: our admin computer with our QuickBooks and checking account (guess there was no interest in an old PC), and our team.   This is what happens when a business has no culture. All we had left: An Old PC and our Team. The next four months or so saw the entire team work late hours reassembling projects, rebuilding forms, reaching out to clients and doing just about anything to keep the business going.   They were nothing short of 100%.   The culture of respect and loyalty paid off for us…for all of us.   Our team dug deep to deliver outstanding work, and to build back up everything we had lost.   We kept our word and never missed a payroll, not an entirely easy feat. My ...

  One late October night in 2010, thieves broke into our business and stole almost everything that was the heartbeat of our business.   Our computers, cameras and other production gear, and most important- our server and archive storage.      I had nightmares that looked like this for months. Much to my regret, I had earlier determined that our growing business could not afford off-site storage of our video work, or an alarm system. (Yes, I may be cute, but I can be pretty dumb at times.) It was like starting over...but worse.  When we came in the next morning everything from our custom business forms to five years of client’s work was gone. It was like starting over again after a long struggle to grow, except this time we had we weren’t starting from scratch in our garage.   This time we had contractual obligations to fulfill to our clients, our landlord and vendors. And this time we had a staff for 11 full time employees. The ...

According to the latest information I could find on the internet there are 11.6 million women owned businesses in the US- a 54% growth in the last 15 years. With the total number of overall businesses increasing by 9% during that time…it makes the growth in women owned businesses significant in comparison.   They generate $1.7 Trillion in sales and women owned businesses employ 9 million people. (Way to go, ladies.) Can't win without them in business, either. You can tell from the stats, that almost all businesses owned by women are small businesses.   Of course, the definition of ‘small’ here, may not completely agree with yours.   ‘Small’ business in governmental statistics is any business that employees 1 to 500 people.   500 People!   That’s like a small, hungry army that you have to pay every week.   Yikes.   But the facts show small, women owned businesses are an economic engine in the economy and labor force. My first advic...

When people find out that my wife and I work together at the business we own, we get a lot of: “Wow…I could never work with my spouse.” To be honest, I am not as involved in the day to day of the business as I use to be.   But the first seven to eight years?   There was a LOT of together time.   And it didn’t always go well.   We had much to learn about business, ourselves and how to forge a functional relationship.   One of my particular challenges was that, well, my wife tends to be a Type A person. What the heck is a Type A?  Let’s get into that a bit before moving on.   What the heck is a Type A??   My favorite source of info, Wikipedia, explains it this way:   The theory describes Type A individuals as outgoing, ambitious, rigidly organized , highly status -conscious, sensitive, impatient, anxious, proactive, and concerned with time management . People with Type A personalities are often high-achieving " workaholics ". Th...

That’s the famous line from A League of Their Own- “There’s no crying in baseball!” (Screenplay by Lowell Ganz and Marc ‘Babloo’ Mandel…I would kill for a cool middle nickname like that).   What makes the line so great is that while Tom Hanks is shouting it at one of the female ball players, she’s blubbering away right in front of him. I was brought up with the mantra that men and boys don’t cry. Ever. When the family dog died?   Not a tear. When I got the snot beat out of me by the mean kid down the street?   Zip. So, it took me by surprise that for my lovely, Type-A wife, there was, indeed, crying in business. I was even more shocked that at times, earlier on in the business, as we encountered extremely difficult times I found myself walking to the parking lot outside the business, weeping. If this has been you, Ms. Entrepreneur, don't feel alone.   The Emotional Toll When we started the business, we were pretty ...

A child of the 1950s and ‘60s, I grew up with a fundamental attitude that men were superior.   It only made sense to me.   Men where the heroes of the movies and TV shows I watched. Men were stronger; especially my dad, who as a powerfully built carpenter was like Hercules to me. Men ran the government, they reported the news, they fought in wars, they brought home the bacon…I mean…just look how amazing men were!   And I was blessed to be one of them.   My sister will probably even tell you I was smug about it. So, when I went off to college and got serious about making something out of myself, I didn’t really consider women to be my competition, or even my equal, really.    I grew up with stuff like this.  Really. Just pick one. They are all crazy.  My guess is a lot of my peers felt the same way.   We joked about our status as men.   We kidded each other about it (“Don’t be a pussy”).   In an...

B usiness conferences have been a part of my life in the working world.   Seems that every year I find myself attending either a large national or regional conference.   Up until recently they were always male-centric. The men in the suits at the podium spoke to men in the suits in the auditorium.   There were some women mixed in there, but they behaved like the men expected them to.   They used ‘he’ as the pronoun when speaking in generalities.   It was like they were pseudo-men dressed up as women. I didn’t realize this was the case until the company my wife and I own became a women certified business (which is not an easy certification to achieve) and we started attending women owned business conferences.   I remember my first one…the annual national conference of WBENC, the largest certifier of women businesses in the U.S.  I was in for a lot of differences. The ratios were entirely flipped: a few men were mixed in with more t...

I fell in love with a no-fooling, died-in-the-wool, nothing-is-going-to-stop-me woman entrepreneur.   We married without me fully understanding what the consequences of being married to a type A, workaholic, emerging business woman were.   Frankly, these traits didn’t fully manifest until after we formed our union.  That's my wife, Kelly.  Cute and smart. Our adventures in business over the years, and our affiliation with other women business owners has affected my view of the difference in the sexes and made me consider the limitations regarding attitudes we all are taught or learned as societal norms.   Before getting into our particular experiences and my take on our life together, I think a story bares repeating here, for context on some foundational beliefs of the roles of men and women.   So, let’s go back to the story of the first American to receive a patent. Why start here?   You’ll see. In 1715 i...