5 ways to improve your family business relationship
5 ways to improve your business relationship with your sibling
We are twin sisters who have built Twinning Store together. We keep hearing from our followers that a lot of you that you are in business together or hope to be so one day. And many of you have asked what advice we have on working together. Having done it for so long (even before Twinning Store), we sat down to discuss.
Like all other business partnerships, there will be good and bad days and we continuously have to work on it, but here are our top 5 advice to smoother sailing.
Twin #1's advice:
1. Don't assume just because your twins you have the same business personality
For a long time, one of us was frustrated with the other, because of the different ways of being organized. Twin #1 prefers a borderline OCD structure, while Twin #2 prefers an organized mess. After hours of battles, we decided to let go of our frustrations, put pen to paper and write down processes that we both can follow. Ever since we have been able to work together while still maintaining our own preferred ways.
2. Divide tasks based on interest
The day we accepted that we have slightly business personalities, we also discovered that our strength lays in fulfilling each other. We wrote our interests down and divided up tasks accordingly. Whereas, one twin likes the initial design phase more than the production side, and so on. With that divide, we are able to work with more motivation and better results.
3. Force breaks without any business discussion allowed
The brain AND your relationship need a break every once in a while. So make sure to spend time together without discussing business. Find it hard to discuss something else than business matters? Do something completely different: go on a hike, go horseback riding, swim in the ocean, take a cooking class - anything that forces you to focus on the adventure at hand.
Twin #2's advice (the better advice according to herself)
4. Trust your twinstinct
The brilliance of being twins in business is that you are not relying on just one gut instinct but two. Use that to your advantage. We don't make decisions if we aren't both on board and it has saved us many headaches.
5. Learn to forgive quickly
If you are lucky, you will love what you are doing and will want to work way outside regular business hours. That intensity may sometimes end up in some discussions (ahem arguments) about how things could have been done in different ways.
This is normal, you are both working on growing your "baby" and you may look at some things differently. However, the quicker you learn to give each other the benefit of the doubt and remember that you are working towards the same goal the better (for you and everyone around you). Take some time to cool down and then talk about it.
Are you in business with your twin? What advice do you have?
Twinning Store is a store that sells clothing and accessories for twins. We have quickly grown worldwide and have shipped to over 25 countries in over 5 continents.
Twinning Store was established by twin sisters K & E in Los Angeles in July 2017. (P.S. We have also made a collection for twin dad and twin mom). Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
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