We resolved a conflict and looked at each other and said, “should we turn that into a blog?”
I can’t imagine this is a common post-fight statement for most married couples.
But then again, I can’t imagine most married couples have a business centered around helping engaged couples prepare for marriage.
My wife, Britt, and I started Love Your First Year in 2019. We got married young and were one of the first couples in our friend group to get married. As time went on, our friends would ask us how we prepared for marriage and how we dealt with certain situations as newlyweds.
We decided to answer these questions and post them on Instagram… We figured if our friends had these questions, so did other couples.
Fast forward to 2024 and our business has grown to over 35,000 followers on Instagram, we launched a successful online premarital course and several premium resources, and our website has been visited by over 150,000 people in the last 12 months.
But having your life and marriage on display makes for some unique challenges when running a business.
Here are four things we’ve learned (some the easy way and some the hard way), when it comes to building a brand with your spouse.
Tip #1: Separate Work Time from Personal Time
Candidly, this is pretty challenging for us… simply because we talk about marriage. The line gets fuzzy.
But when we’re talking about an idea for a product, or which blog we want to write next, or anything else about the business, we try to define when we’re talking about “work” and when we’re not.
Here are a few things we do to make this easier:
- Schedule time to talk about the business. That could be as informal as, “hey, after dinner, do you wanna talk about our blog content?” or as formal as, “Next Friday, let’s meet to discuss Q2.”
- Shutdown work talk when it’s not appropriate. Again, not always easy for us, but we will occasionally say things like, “hey, let’s talk about that another time.”
- Don’t take rules so seriously. If we’re watching a movie and we both feel compelled to chat about the business, we throw out the rules and talk. See tip #3.
Tip #2: Define Roles & Task Owners
We don’t run a traditional business where there’s a marketing function, a finance function, etc. A lot of our tasks and roles (like content creation) tend to overlap… I’m assuming this is true about your business as well.
But as best as possible, it’s important to clearly define roles and task owners between you and your spouse.
As an example, I (Kyler) take care of our website, content strategy, and email marketing. My wife handles social media, content execution, and customer service. We both run in our own lanes, asking for help when necessary, but understanding that both of us have our own roles to handle.
Here are a few questions you might ask each other:
- Who will handle business finances like paying bills, etc?
- Who will define our business strategy?
- Who will lead business execution?
- Who leads our marketing efforts?
- Who leads our sales efforts?
- Do we need clear job titles?
Spend time getting aligned on these roles so you don’t step on each other’s toes later on.
Tip #3: Own Your Biggest Strength
While it’s important to separate work time and personal time (tip #1) and it’s important to define roles (#2), at the end of the day, you have a super power that other businesses don’t have…
Your marriage.
OWN this!
Imagine having a business partner you get to live with, spend hours and hours and hours with, and know each other inside and out.
When you’re married, this is reality.
Sure, you need some boundaries, but you also need to realize you have advantages that other businesses don’t have.
For us…
- We take advantage of long road trips to plan and dream and strategize
- We jump into work mode at weird times and days… whenever the inspiration strikes (eg, I’m writing this on a Saturday at 6pm)
- We throw out content ideas all the time.
- We pause business convos when we can tell the other person is tired or drained.
Figure out what this means for your business and you’ll be 10 steps ahead.
Tip #4: Keep Jesus at the Center
Ultimately, for us, every other tip I’ve shared will fall short if we aren’t keeping Jesus at the center of our marriage and our business.
There have been multiple times where we’ve…
- Launched an offer
- Posted a blog
- Tried a new marketing tactic
And they’ve always fallen short because we decided to do things on our own instead of allowing God to shape and mold what we’re trying to do.
Similarly, if we try to get outside of God’s plan for our marriage, our relationship suffers, communication is harder, and conflicts arise.
Ecclesiastes 4:12 says, “…a cord of three strands is not easily broken.”
Friend, if you’re reading this and you and your spouse haven’t given your lives to Jesus, your cord is already broken. You’re trying to build a marriage and a business on a shaky foundation.
Romans 10:9 says, “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
More than a successful marriage or a growing business, that’s what I hope for you today.
And if you’re reading this and you follow Jesus already, I would encourage you to recommit your marriage and your business to Him today. Re-read the verse from Ecclesiastes again. You might have even heard that at your wedding. It’s wisdom for marriage, but it’s also wisdom for your business.
Conclusion
Building a brand with your spouse is incredibly fulfilling… and a ton of work. If you give it a go, implement these tips to learn from what we’ve done well and what we’ve done not so well. We’d also love to hang out with you on Instagram at @loveyourfirstyear or on our website loveyourfirstyear.com.
