Staying Sane While Freelancing With a Loved One
Posted February 5, 2010 in Business, Freelance Stories 17 Comments »
Two years ago, I was the full-time web guy at a conservative insurance company. My wife could see my frustrations there and encouraged me to quit and pursue a freelance career. She suggested that we could use her income as our base if things got really tight, financially. I’ve never been happier.
However, during the last two years, I’ve seen her deal with the same frustrations in her current work situation that I experienced two years ago. I realized our situations were reversed, and since she rescued me from my previous work situation and offered me a better career and better life, it was time for me to do the same for her. I encouraged her to quit and help me in my business. It’s only been about a month, but it’s been a month filled with lots of lessons on how to deal as a freelancing couple. So how did we get through our first month without divorce?
Tips and Tricks for Freelancers Working Together
Here are some tips and tricks that I learned that can help make freelancing with your loved one a bit easier:
- Go in with a game plan. This one seems obvious, but you don’t want your loved one to ask you what they should be helping with and not have an answer for them. Will your significant other be helping in billable work, marketing, social networking, invoicing, writing proposals, answering the phone, or a combination of all of the above? In our case, I decided my wife would be best at handling marketing and job-hunting. Using Mason’s excellent article, I got her set up with the ultimate job-hunting board and she dutifully hunts down leads for me. In addition, she answers the phone, tracks down clients for testimonials, and goes through my site with a fine-toothed comb looking for errors or other suggestions. After all, we web guys are so busy with client stuff we rarely have time for our own sites, and with her help I have a little more free time and a little more direction on what needs to change and improve on my site. No matter what tasks your spouse is handling, make sure they are comfortable doing them.
- Deal with the workspace situation. The great part about working from home is that any room can be an office. However, my wife and I definitely have different ideas as to our ideal office space. For me, it’s folk music and a proper desk in an isolated part of the house. For her, it’s old episodes of Law and Order and working on the couch in the living room. Your spouse needs to work where they’re comfortable, the same as you do. If that means working in the same room, great. For us, separate rooms on separate levels of the house works better.
- Don’t be afraid to give direction. In a marriage, you constantly compromise. In a working relationship, someone has to take charge, manage projects and tell the other what needs to get done. Don’t be afraid to ask your spouse to help with something.
- Say “thank you” a lot. Every employee needs to feel appreciated. Saying “thank you” is great marriage advice, but it works equally well for a coworking relationship. Your spouse has to feel like an important, valuable part of the business.
- Communication is key. Hey, another one that is good for marriage and business! Give your spouse guidance and encourage open communication. Since my wife and I work in totally different areas of the house, we both stay logged into Skype and send messages, files and share our screens for different questions and issues that pop up during the work day. It’s a situation that works very well for us, but obviously if you’re working in the same room instant messages may be overkill.
- Ease them in. Your spouse doesn’t need to be overwhelmed by the whole process in their first week or month. After all, between the initial contact, proposal, contract, scope of work, discovery questionnaires, negotiations, revisions and consultations, it’s a lot to take in… and that’s before the billable work starts! In our case, I am a web developer and my lovely wife knows next to nothing about PHP, mySQL, SEO, CSS, XHTML and many other acronyms. Learning all those will come in time, and there is no need to baptize by fire.
- Ask for more. Raise those rates! There’s never been a better time to increase your normal rates a little in an effort to cover your spouse’s paycheck. In the last few months as we were gearing up to be a single-income household, I started increasing my rates. Most seasoned professionals will tell you that higher rates don’t usually mean fewer clients. Even with my higher rates, I still got as much work as I was getting before. It did make me regret not raising them a long time ago though!
- Watch those billable hours. If your spouse can’t actually work billable hours for you, then their job needs to be to free you up so you have more billable hours in a day. In our case, my wife can’t design or develop sites, but she can handle all the non-billable stuff that pops up every day. This includes hunting down leads, answering the phone, scheduling meetings, writing proposals, writing blog posts for our site, and more.
So How’s It Working Out?
One month down, and things are great! My wife is more content living the freelance lifestyle, and I’m happy to have some extra time in my day to do things I didn’t used to have time for. My personal sites, which were neglected for months due to a very busy schedule, have gotten some much-needed attention. My clients are impressed that I am more responsive to their inquiries and requests. I’m prouder of the work I’ve done lately since I have more time to do it.
The best thing to come out of the experience so far is a major client that my wife contacted while perusing Twitter, and the best part is that my wife and I get to be excited together about what we’ve accomplished.
How About You?
I know we’ve still got a lot to learn about working as a freelancing couple, and I would love to hear your experiences, good and bad, about freelancing with your loved one. Have you made it work?
About the author: Tim Wasson a freelance website design and developer based in Peoria, Illinois. He serves clients large and small through his company, TJ Dub Web Design. You can see his personal site at timwasson.com, or follow him on twitter @timwasson.
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17 Comments
Tom | Build That List
February 5th, 2010 at 8:42 amWith my wife being pregnant, she has been quite sick and unable to work. So she has been helping me with my work. You point about saying ‘thankyou’ is so important!
I think we do not say that word enough in our days, and we would have much more team productivity if we did.
Salma Jafri
February 5th, 2010 at 8:44 amHaha, ok, first off I’m loving the picture that went with this write-up. As part of a freelancing married couple (happily married for 7 years now) I can so relate to it :)
There is no easy way to say this: when we first started freelancing together about a year ago, it seemed like a romantic notion–working side by side, sharing notes and quips. *dream bubble bust* The reality is that I like to work alone, cannot tolerate anyone talking while I’m writing, and like to work in long stretches. My husband, on the other hand, wants to play loud music while he’s working (he’s an audio/video producer), works in 10-min stretches and is constantly trying to chat me up :) So how have we stayed sane and still married through this?
1. We try and take on as many projects to work on together as we can, such as e-learning and training courses which leverage both our skills. I do the research and writing parts; he does the video and audio parts. That way we’re both excited about the same projects and share helpful tips with each about it–client benefits too since they get a highly cohesive team that communicates well with each other :)
2. We have certain times where we work alone and certain times where we work together. (Someone’s gotta take care of the baby, so we alternate doing that in the daytime, and work together at night after our child’s bedtime).
These work-arounds have given us much peace of mind which would have otherwise been impossible, given the circumstances.
Marcelo Soares
February 5th, 2010 at 9:22 amAlthough we work side by side, I and my wife have mostly different clients. So, we can always leave in the middle of the afternoon to have a coffee and vent about difficulties in our respective projects, eventual clients from hell (which we help each other to notice & avoid) and so on.
We do work together in some cases, and it’s always interesting. We have high exigence levels in different aspects, because we have different levels of expertise and different personal traits (lucky us!). So when we work together, each one checks what the other does in the terms of their own expertise.
This is something that would raise attrition if it was the rule for every job. But it’s refreshing the way it is.
Jordan Walker
February 5th, 2010 at 11:12 amI can relate to this article, just yesterday my wife and I were at each others neck about dealing with a very hard client. She is an academic and is use to the political aspects and negotiations, while I am a programmer and do not put up without a fight.
The best thing for us, is to stop, walk away, and then come back once we are both calmed down. I really could not image working with her. I think it would make our time spent together more about work than being with each other.
just my 2 cents.
Callum Chapman
February 5th, 2010 at 12:08 pmGreat article. I freelance, own a blog, and write for many others blogs, all at the age of 18 (19 later this month, though!). I am earning a very comfortable living from it, and hate knowing my fiancée (not living together yet…) is having to get up and obey orders at work. She’s a trainee accountant and spends half of her time scanning or shredding old files – I don’t really know what that has to do with accountancy!
Anyway, if all is still going very well in a couple of years time I plan on asking her to come work with me, so it’s great to know you can make it work! :) Thanks!
Amber Weinberg
February 5th, 2010 at 12:09 pmI haven’t yet been able to convince mine to freelance full-time, but he does a lot of my programmer jobs at night after work and on the weekends. For us, we work together great, although it kinda stinks working at the same time right now, because the way the desks are situated, our chairs hit each other so we have to work on our computers sideways and it’s uncomfortable…good excuse to rennovate the office I say ;)
Lexi Rodrigo
February 5th, 2010 at 12:35 pmWhat an awesome story, Tim. I am so inspired because I also dream of having my spouse working at home, either with me or on his own home-based business.
I’m certainly bookmarking this post for future reference… when the time comes!
Tim Wasson
February 5th, 2010 at 2:37 pmSalma- Good to know the coworking with a spouse can be a long-term solution as that it doesn’t always lead to divorce!
Marcelo – That would be our ideal situation, with my wife having her own clients but until that happens, we’re working with what we got. Thanks for your input!
Amber – Keep trying to convince him to quit his normal job. Doesn’t he wake up everyday jealous of you and your job?
Paul King
February 6th, 2010 at 12:53 pmGreat article. I run a software company 1DayLater with my brother. But have also worked freelance in the past. My other half is a great writer (she studied journalism) – a skill that I’d be the first to admit I fail miserably at. There have now been a couple of times now when I’ve needed a press release written or something similar and I’ve considered asking her for help.
But after reading your points I’m thinking that I’d have trouble seperating work and relationship. Although I have a lot of respect and admiration for you for managing to do this with your wife! It must take a lot of time and work to keep you both on track.
Paul – http://1daylater.com – Activity tracking for freelancers.
Kei
February 6th, 2010 at 1:21 pmThis is a great post!
Like Salma, the idea of being able to spend time together while working really attracted me and my boyfriend. During my short breaks, we cuddle and chat an I find myself refreshed when I go back to my computer.
We make it a point to work outside the house once a week. We plan the day ahead – eat out, work at a cafe, then have dinner and some shopping or movie after.
We have been freelancing together for a year now, and it has been one of the best experience we’ve had.
Katie Male
February 7th, 2010 at 11:41 pmThis is a great artical! Me and my partner have been togeter for five years. I am a graphic designer and illustraor and he is a web developer. We have been working together for just six months in the same appartment!! To add the pressure on even more we decided to pack up and leave the UK six months ago too and move to Thailand! So we are still trying to adjust to a new work life and new culture and language.
I can say that this is a great artical for people who are in the same stituation!
We both love what we do, but I am not going to say it is easy, in fact it’s far from it. However I have learnt so much, we have gone through hell and back, but we are still together and each month is getting better!
There’s nothing like a good challenge!!!
Rick
February 11th, 2010 at 12:35 pm“For her, it’s old episodes of Law and Order and working on the couch in the living room.”
That’s my wife almost exactly.
We both work from home in an apartment that’s quite small, but we’re dealing with it relatively well.
Eduardo
February 17th, 2010 at 8:48 amExcellent post. It’s hard juggling relationships with a full-time commitment. I’ve decided from now on once the time passes a certain point not to look at the computer.
Hard to juggle these days since clients can contact you through so many different ways and everything is urgent.
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