Avoiding the Money Fight –
How to Talk to Your Partner About Money
The money fight. It is all too common. You the entrepreneur would like to invest in your business and your partner just doesn’t understand. He wonders why you want to spend more in your business when you aren’t bringing enough money in.
Deep inside, you wonder if he is right. I mean shouldn’t you earn money first before you spend it again? Now you start to doubt yourself and your capabilities.
Or perhaps you know he is wrong – and you go ahead and invest in the training that you know you need. But you lie about the amount. Or you don’t even mention it to him at all. Now, even though you’ve done the right thing, you feel a bit icky about it all.
And the worst part? Now you can’t share your successes and failures with him openly. And you feel a heavy pressure to make your business successful immediately, so you can reveal everything with a happy ending and prove that you are worthy!
Oh, there’s so much here to delve into. But that would take me pages. Instead, I’d like to give you some suggestions on how to handle the money conversation with your partner. That way you can stop avoiding, fibbing, and fighting – and focus your energy on growing your business.
1. Present your investment option with the benefits and with a plan to make a return on investment.
So if you’d like to hire an online business manager for $500 a month.
You might say, “I’d like to hire Susan to help me plan out my next launch. I’m going to need to borrow money from the family account for the first 3 months. So that will be $1,500. Within three months, I’ll have enough time to get 2 new clients at $300 a month. So by month 4, I’ll be able to pay for Susan out of my own money. She will free up 4 hours a week for me to be able to learn how to network. The more I get out there, the more people I’ll meet and the more clients I can sign.”
2. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to perform quickly. Many of my clients will make promises like – yeah, I’ll pay it all back in a month. They so want the approval of their partners that they’ll say anything to get a Yes. Then, they end up putting so much pressure on themselves that it feels awful.
Realize that you are in a service business. That means there is a period where you are building up relationships and that takes time. No one does this overnight. Don’t make promises that are impossible to keep.
3. Agree to make money meetings to evaluate your progress. Perhaps you both sit down once a month and evaluate all the household finances. You can report in on how your business is doing at that time.
Here’s the important part – in between the money meetings, your partner is not allowed to nag you about money or how your business is doing. He can be constructive, but will not make comments that add pressure. It is important that you both make this agreement and honor it.
4. You may need to agree to disagree. Sometimes it is impossible for your partner to understand why you would spend more money on your business. This is especially true if your partner isn’t an entrepreneur. You could talk until you are blue in the face and it just won’t help.
In this scenario, I suggest you agree to disagree for a certain period of time. For example, you’ll invest the money in your business even though he doesn’t quite understand why. And you’ll make an agreement that you aren’t going to argue or comment about it for six months. In six months time you are going to do everything in your power to grow your business. Then the two of you will sit down on an appointed date and have another discussion about it.
That way you get what you want, and he still has a say in it. I’ve had dozens of clients try this approach and it works great. You’ll be surprised about how his opinion changes once he sees you put the work into it.
5. Lead by example. I found that the number one thing that made those I love come around to support me was results. My success began to speak for itself. So when you are making decisions about how to invest in your business – pick the investments that will take you closer to getting great results.
It’s not always easy to be patient with those that you love – but sometimes the best thing to do is just wait it out and show them how committed you truly are.
Image credit: Online for Love
