Home Business Working Couples – How to Make it Work w/ Each Other & Your Family!

Transcript

Ann:                      Hey guys, it’s Ann and David Feinstein. I hope you’re having a great day. Uh, we’re certainly having a great day here. Would love to have you all check in with us. It’s kind of cool having you with me tonight on this live event. Uh, for the most part, David and David Feinstein, David, usually the behind the scenes guy and tonight we were talking a lot actually about this whole business of working together, you know, are having a home based business and working together. Hi Natalie. Hi John. My Peter, uh, and you know, the kinds of things that we’ve gone through working together. We’ve been married now for 34 years. Guys, it’s exciting to have a chance for if the two of us to be together on a live. It’s usually me in front of the camera. And David behind the camera tonight were together. Ah, and so tonight we really wanted to talk about this whole idea of being working a working couple and that may mean that you’re both doing the business together or a business together.

Ann:                      In our case, it’s a home based business and network marketing business or it may mean that one of you is the active person. Hey Jeff, good to see you. A high referral. Hi. Are you good to see you. It also may mean that one of you is active in the business and the other one is the supportive person in the business. So we’re going to kind of talk about both sides of that. But to start I thought it would be fun just to kind of give you a little idea as to, you know, our backgrounds and as I mentioned, we’ve been together now Mary for 34 years and 30 of those years have been together in a home business. Um, it didn’t start out that way as a matter of fact. Uh, I was a teacher in my earliest part of my profession and David,

David:                   business manager representing a lot of American and British celebrities and having a wonderful, wonderful business, very successful at the business.

Ann:                      And we met because I got into corporate consulting in Manhattan and as a matter of fact, my boss was a client of David’s from. So that’s how we met and it was interesting because back then I’m watching David and I had so much respect for the fact that he owned his own business, you know, but with that came

David:                   13 staff employees, major overhead office expenses. But again, a successful business

Ann:                      looking at that and saying, you know, I want my own business. I want to be able to get out of that trap of the 60 to eighty hours working. And I was working at that time and the Manhattan in Manhattan where we met, uh, in a 40 story office building, feeling like a prisoner. And I said to David, I said, we had this beautiful house out in New Jersey, uh, with the grass and the trees and the things that I really loved. And he came to love as. He got to know our family and we had this beautiful home out there. But we get out there only on the weekends. And it was about, you know, coming out there on the weekends, taking a deep breath, decompressing and running back into Manhattan. And I said to him, there’s gotta be a business, a way for me to be able to segway into having my own business.

Ann:                      At that time there were slim pickens, and so it’s kind of interesting because I took a course. I was really into the whole spirit of learning entrepreneurship and beginning to really understand, you know, what it took for David to have his own business. And so I took a week long course that was an opportunity to spend a week with a millionaire. And during that week I was learning about mindset and vision and having big shoulders in order to be able to create the kind of a inner strength and power posture in order to be able to create something. And it was during that week that I was actually introduced to network marketing. Now I came home like an electric a blender. I was so excited and I came home and I was telling David, I said, I found the business model that I want. I can continue my career. I can do this on a part time basis. I can build it. And I looked at him right in the eye and I said, honey, this will be our retirement now, this was 30 years ago, this will be our retirement. And I loved what he said to me because in that moment and seeing how excited I was, he was so supportive. And what did you say?

Ann:                      Go make money. You know, he said, go out there and do it and be successful and I’ll be your greatest cheerleader. So one of the lessons that we learned as we got working, we’d be on working together and I hope these lessons that we’re going to talk about tonight can be beneficial for you whether you’re working together in your business, you know, both of you running it together. Hi, good to see you. Hi Angela. Good to see you. And Hernandez. Good to see you. Or if you’re doing this, where one of you is the person that’s the lead in the business. And the other one is the support factor. And frankly that’s how it started for us. As I always said, David was the most amazing person to work with. He was a. He really saw this as my business initially, but he was so supportive and it came down to, even during our previous professional life, I always went with him to all the great music festivals and the music entertainment evenings that his clients had.

Ann:                      And you always came with me to all the corporate things that I was doing. So, uh, the, the, the respect, they exactly I was even way before. So, you know, the idea of being able to do this together and finding a business that we could do together. Hey Barry, good to see you. The fact is, is that as time went on, um, you realize that, you know, one of us was leading this business. It was me. And so it was really cool about it, is that David was the total support person. Now what is the support person to the support person is the one that is, you know, cheering you on, giving you a lot of encouragement, you know, giving you the sense that you can do this. Uh, in our case, David was also setting up rooms for us at the time, whether it was our home for home meetings or whether it was hotel issues at the time, doing all the logistics for the, for us, for our team, for whatever was necessary.

Ann:                      And the thing that really, really clinched it. And this is a lesson for everyone if you’re going to do this business together. Uh, hi Ben. Good to see you if you’re gonna do this together. The first thing that we did when we really looked at this was we sat down and talked about a vision. We talked about what it was that we wanted to do together and we talked about how we could achieve this if we were putting our efforts together, whether I was running it full time and he was supportive because we ran into some, you know, interesting conflict. Remember we were spending all of our weekends out at this house in New Jersey and it was during that time that, you know, we’d go out, we’d ride our horses, we would relax together. We had the whole weekend together and if I’m working 60, eighty hours a week during the week and I want to build this business, I want to get out of that trap. There had to be some sacrifice. So guys, the lesson there is what are you willing to sacrifice? For me, I was willing to sacrifice some of the time that I was riding horses with David. David on the other hand wasn’t so thrilled about that in the beginning, but it was the sitting down and talking together that got him to understand how important this was. Communication as a skill.

Ann:                      It’s essential and I think that was one of the beautiful things because we sat down and I remember saying to him, the people that, you know, I was learning from and being mentored by. We’re saying sit down and put a vision board together. And so I walked in on a Saturday. I had all these magazines. I had a couple of pairs of scissors. I had a big piece of construction paper and magazines and I threw them all over the table and I said, David, we’re going to make a vision board. And we’re going to put on this vision board everything that we want in our life. OK, everything related to having our own business, being able to spend more time out here in the farm, being with the horses, traveling the kind of lifestyle that we want, you know, we knew that we could have different trips and promotions that we could work towards.

Ann:                      And a car programs, home programs. I mean there was the sky was right at the limits. OK. The Sky was the limit. So we remember his face when we sat down together and we made them making this vision board and he’s cutting out things and he keeps looking at me like, um, because we had never done this before. He had never done this. I’ve never done this. But it was fun. So the, the craziest thing is, is that we had this vision board up in our refrigerator, in the house in New Jersey. And when it came to a point in our business where we were, we had built something substantial. We had an international teams in different countries. We were doing a lot of traveling. We had so much fun. You know, going from one place to the other, he would do some countries. I was doing other countries. We decided to sell the house and to come back into Manhattan and used Manhattan as our base for being able to go internationally, all the travel and so forth. And so we’re packing up the house and I take the vision board off the refrigerator and I’m looking at it and I said to him, you’re just look at this for a minute again. And he looked at it and what did you say? Everything. Everything. Everything. With the exception of one thing.

Ann:                      The first car was where you had put up there. We wanted a black car. We ended up with a white Mercedes, but I know that sounds crazy and today, you know, we’re not talking about hypes and things like that. We’re talking about the fact that we had a common vision and I think that’s where you can get sidetracked if you end up having a conflict is to sit down and to communicate and to talk it through. I mean, we made a vow to each other that we would never go to bed mad, OK, that we’d talk it out and go to bed with an understanding and a kiss goodnight. So the mutual respect part, you’re going to hear as a, as an important component to having a healthy marriage in a healthy business relationship, even if you’re not doing the same thing together. So we now have, I think it’s really about respecting the other person in what they’re doing and wanting to be their support regardless of whether you’re involved in that person’s business.

Ann:                      Exactly. And I think that, you know, making that an important part of your structure and how you work your business together is really, really, really important. So guys, if that makes sense to you, you give me a one because I’ll tell you that, you know, this whole idea of creating a common vision, having goals, having a direction that you’re going to work something together. You know, there’s so many beautiful things in our profession where there are, uh, you know, incremental rank advancements because people are being able to earn more money. So that was an interesting thing between us because David saw that I was serious about this and the more I showed him how serious and was going after what I had, the more he was, you know, so proud. So excited and so supportive. So the important thing is that there are, you can look at this with your spouse, with your family if you have children and come up with a common goal.

Ann:                      Maybe there’s an upcoming trip, OK, a promotion trip that you can use for a family adventure. Maybe there is a car program, OK, as we had in our company and continue to have maybe there is a home program or a travel fund or just the rank advancements, OK, that will increase the business. But by making it a goal and working it together, OK, it’s a significant aspect. And for any kind of business that you have a and you’re working it together or working from home, you have to set those parameters so that both of you know exactly what it is and where you’re going. And it’s. Peggy is saying here, dream boards for vision our magic. They absolutely are. It made the biggest difference for us and I know it makes the biggest difference for those of you that are listening. The second thing was when day they decided, OK, we came to a point in our business where the it was really successful.

Ann:                      It was really successful and he started to see how much more freedom I had. Um, I was spending time overseas by this point. We had a home in Israel and he was able to come for short times at a period of time because he couldn’t leave his business back in New York. He would come and short times I’d be staying and using it as a jump off board for a various international travel that I was doing. And I remember you looking at this and saying, honey, I want to sell my practice and join you full time in the business. Totally by shock. If I can tell you my mouth dropped open without dropping any names. I just thought of all those entertainers and I thought to myself, I have just brought in the business manager for x, Y, and Z and I, and I was so excited because the fact that he saw this professionally as something that he wanted to do, but that’s set up another set of interest in, you know, dynamics between us because David had always owned his own business and now he’s coming into my business and I had actually was running and he’s also got rid of his office.

Ann:                      So there he was, had a penthouse office in the same building that we lived in, and Hatton. Now he’s down in the same apartment with me and we’re [inaudible] OK. So, uh, I said to someone how exciting it is to work together. We know what it is exciting to work together until to be together and to plan together and to drive this thing together. But it took some sitting down and make adjustments, making some adjustments and looking at who is good at what. Because again, it was a little bit of a conflict there, you know, was he was coming into something that, you know, he wasn’t necessarily his experience, you know, in a full time basis. So we sat down and we started looking at where is it that we can support each other, what are our strengths, what are each of our strengths, what are each of our weaknesses, you know, who is good at, you know, the initial conversation with people.

Ann:                      And that could be whatever your business is like. It could be who’s, who’s great at invitations a WHO’s good at follow-up, who’s good at training, who’s good at, uh, the presentations, you know, who’s good at that, who feel comfortable, who’s feeling uncomfortable with that? And we, we sat down and we had a very realistic and true conversation talking over who could do what, who, whose role would be what. And it was out of that, that whole concept that we came up with a really great working business plan that worked for us. So not only were we looking at, you know, who’s good at attracting the customers and potential new business partners who’s good at talking to people initially. He’s a Schmoozer of the universe. I mean, he can talk to anyone. He’s really, really good at that. Who’s great on the phone, who’s great at inviting people, who’s great at presenting, who’s great at training, following up a new technologies.

Ann:                      I have to admit David is the Wiz when it comes to new technologies who is good at finances, um, having been a business manager, he was handling the financial aspect of our lives, which he is really, really good at home management. OK. As our lives. Who continued to, you know, to evolve? Um, well, early on 30 years ago you found out I was not a great cook. So living in Manhattan was really easy, you know, to either go out to eat or to order in. Now we’re living in Pennsylvania and it’s not necessarily or New Jersey and then Pennsylvania. Somebody had a cook and David dusted off home recipe books and realized a do or die. It’s either he’s going to cook or were. We’re going to be eating the puppy food and the other room and, and he’s really good at it. So the idea was who’s good at the home management, who’s, if you’ve got kids at home who’s good at managing the children, you know, and I’ve seen many, many fathers in our profession who are so excited to have the time now to be with their kids that they’re the ones that are running to all the school events.

Ann:                      They’re the ones that are running to all the parent. Teacher meetings are the ones that are organizing the events with the kids. So, you know, it’s, again, it’s, it’s coming up with what works best for you and your family. But it’s a, it’s an agreement. OK, in terms of. And it may switch around to. That’s another thing guys, this is fluid. You know, some days it’s, David does something. Other days I’m doing something because of what comes up in our lives. You know, this is a lifestyle business that we’re involved in. It’s, uh, it’s our professional business is the fact that we can choose our to create our days as we choose to. And sometimes he’s on the road, sometimes I’m on the road, so you know, things do change,

David:                   but you know, I also want to add to tonight during the time that we were doing traveling, doing a lot of traveling, I’d be going to a number of countries and meeting with team members and new prospects and everything else. That’s not something that I ever did before. I meet with clients, prospects, prospective clients, meeting with a team member. It’s not stuff that I was doing it on the early days. You were doing all that. So now here I am traveling into foreign countries that maybe I hadn’t been to before. Meeting people from learning new cultures, new cultures and starting to do presentations with people. I know I’m not a person who loves going on stage, but you put me in front of the situation and if I’m your partner I’m going to stand up and do it.

Ann:                      Well, I appreciate that because when you really come together on this, it’s a matter of, you know, you just have to grow into what is necessary to move your business forward. And today, you know, there’s traditional ways of building the business. There’s so many new technologies now online, digitally. I mean we didn’t have facebook, we didn’t have twitter, OK. And we sure didn’t have snapchat and all those chit chats that are out there today. So it was a learning curve in that arena as well. And so sometimes somebody has to take the lead on that and learning the new technologies, a websites postings, you know, some really great stuff, you know, that have come about. And because he made it so exciting and so interesting, it made it more exciting and interesting for me. So this is where, again, you find your strengths and your ways in which you can support the other person.

Ann:                      And I have to say this guy’s, you know, it’s really about showing the, showing up in the world with respect. And I think that’s a big message that’s so necessary today. You know, we have so many of the different things that are arriving in a rising in our culture. Certainly in the last couple of months we’ve seen, you know, the meat to a evolution and revolution that’s going on. And the respect that we need to give each other, uh, in the last day. It’s been a horrific situation here on the east coast of the United States with what’s happened in that in, down, in Florida, in the school. And I believe that comes from the home environment where it starts, the respect that we give each other, how we show up into the world, what we expect in terms of not only our relationship, but also what we expect with how I’m, he expects me to be treated in a certain way and I expect him to be treated in a certain way.

Ann:                      So I will tell you guys that get rid of this spam call here. I will tell you that with the current events that are going on today, I think it’s even more important that we raise OK, this wonderful spirit of respect that we raise. OK, this wonderful attitude of support, OK, to create a home environment. And we teach that to not only our families but the teams and our communities. And we can strengthen things as a result of how we show up in the world. And the last thing I want to mention, and I’ll turn it over if you have any questions or you want to ask us anything or be open for that as well. And that is so vitally important that, uh, in our home and in our relationship, we choose not to have the same bad day. That’s a rule here in this house.

Ann:                      So it’s not a competition, you know, who has the worst day and who had the, the, you know, this went on and that went on. And if you think that’s bad and let me tell you about how this went. Doesn’t happen like that for us. OK? This is about listening. If I have a bad day, I can make it a bad day. I mean, I, I can take it to an art form, but always there to support me and cheer me and bring me up. And the same thing. What happens is, is as Pega saying, we’re loving more respect when he’s having a bad day, which doesn’t happen that often, honestly, I’m there to be his greatest supporter and to be the emotional person that raises the energy in the home. They love like, and that’s 100 percent the truth. So guys, I hope this was helpful.

Ann:                      I think in today, in the spirit of where we are today in the world, I want to send you off there with just a a great sense of appreciation for the friendships that we have a great appreciation for the respect that this profession has for great people and the incredible opportunities that come out of this opportunity to create a whole new economy for families, but also the fact that what this has done for our relationship and our marriage is so priceless and giving us both at this time of our lives, which started back 30 years ago, giving the this opportunity in our lives to live our life together.

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