Podcast Episode 6: How to run your Etsy shop with your spouse (and still like each other)

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Lizzie: Hey everybody! Welcome back to the show today. I am especially excited because I have my husband on with me.

 

Chris: Howdy everybody!

 

Lizzie: We’re from Texas. LOL! So my husband, his name is Chris Smiley and he is my best friend and he is awesome and we also happen to run an Etsy shop together.

 

Chris: Oh, gosh, do we.

 

Lizzie: Well, I’m going to let him tell you a bit about himself because God bless him, he also works a fulltime job. So …

 

Chris: Yeah. So I do actually work a fulltime job. I’m in sales and I work from home. So that is actually very nice to be able to do that. But I do work in this business part-time and part-time usually means 40 hours because she’s working more like 70 hours.

 

Lizzie: He’s lying and also the best part of him working from home from his job is that I can interrupt him in the middle of the day and have him help me with such …

 

Chris: Oh, that doesn’t happen at least two or three times a day.

 

Lizzie: It’s a nice perk of it. He only just started working at home literally at the beginning of the COVID nightmare. So it has been nice. It has been nice. So yeah, he works in sales. So I want to share with you today about what it’s like working with your spouse and still like each other to run an Etsy shop together and I think we do that really well. Do you still like me?

 

Chris: Oh, absolutely. I like you and I love you.

 

Lizzie: You know, we always – I should say that, why I always – because people are like, “Well, don’t you love each other?” A long time ago – and we will get actually more into this later. We were going through like a marriage class and they were talking about how women very easily love their spouses. But they don’t necessarily like them.

 

Chris: Yeah. And for guys, I don’t think that’s a thing. I think – I don’t differentiate between the two. You do. I typically don’t. I say it in jest.

 

Lizzie: Yeah, but you will – if I’m just like I love you, but I have an attitude, you will be like, “Yeah. But do you like me today?”

 

Chris: Oh, well, it’s definitely a framework of getting a read for where you are, absolutely.

 

Lizzie: So that’s why I say that. So I think we do this thing really well and I think it’s a concern and/or an issue for a lot of other people. So I thought it would be really fun today to talk through what it’s like working together. So the first question I have for you is, “Does it bother you that you work for me?”

 

Chris: No, and you’ve heard me say it. I say it to everybody. I’m not in charge. I just work here. It’s not actually a bad thing. I think when you have a good relationship, it doesn’t matter who’s in charge. You know you’re both rowing in the same direction. So …

 

Lizzie: Yeah, and I try not to lord it over you.

 

Chris: Absolutely not. No, you are a very loving –

 

Lizzie: That’s an important, right? Like the way that I – yeah.

 

Chris: No, and I think what’s important is that you both realize and you think that you’re both going in the same direction and when there’s that love and there’s that respect, it’s not a big deal who’s “in charge”. It’s OK, this is my role and that’s your role.

 

Lizzie: Yeah, and I don’t really think of it that way. I mean I take full – like full responsibility for the shop that it is a business. It’s in my name that you help me with. But I really think of it as ours and I’m actually extremely grateful for your help because you already work another job and you don’t have to help me. You choose to. So for those of you who maybe are new to our story, we run a sign business. We sell painted wood signs on Etsy and so Chris, what he – it’s so funny calling you Chris because I call him “hubs”. So we will see how far this gets with me.

 

So Chris actually, he does all the sourcing of the wood. He builds the signs. He gets them totally ready. He basically creates my canvas for me and then I paint all of it and when we do a framed piece, he will frame it for me after I painted it. Then I wrap everything and then his job is boxing.

 

So he builds the boxes and boxes of signs. That was something we added a little bit later because my hands would get so tired from painting. Like initially he just – his job is just building. But then I was having so many problems with my hands hurting from all the painting that he took over boxing for me because he’s a good husband. So do you want to share like a little bit about what you do in the business and what that has been like?

 

Chris: Yeah. So as Lizzie just pointed out, I do actually spend the time most weekends and sometimes during the week actually doing this kind of in the nooks and crannies of our life. You know, I build on the weekends out in the heat, in South Texas heat building signs and – but it’s actually a great time. I love building. I love doing it. It’s very fulfilling to me to get to work with my hands because in sales, I sit at a computer and talk on the phone all day. So it’s nice to actually be out doing something and then the actual boxing and the other administrative tasks.

 

Lizzie: Less fun.

 

Chris: You know, it’s not that it’s not fun. It’s much better now than when we used to make boxes on top of making signs. So I know that that is something that has made our lives so much better. But I actually enjoy it. It’s fun getting to work with you. It’s fun for our daughter to also get to see us working together and what that looks like because I think that most people in idea would love to work with their spouse or at least some would. But it’s how does it play out? What does it look like and how do you figure it out?

 

Lizzie: And I would like to add like around his fulltime job because I think the schedule is an important thing to talk to you guys about. You know for me, I am – I was always at home. I run a couple of website companies as well. So I was a blogger first and then started the Etsy shop. So I was already working from home. My schedule is pretty flexible. Very full but pretty flexible. There’s lots to do but I can kind of mix up when and how.

 

But Chris, because of his job, he usually takes out part of the weekend depending on the time and year and how many orders we have. Half to a full day of the weekend was when he’s building for us and then usually we have a couple of evenings a week where we’re boxing. We really try to batch our work which actually next week’s episode we will talk about that even more, how kind of our process is.

 

But I think that that’s important for you to know and then – and like he said, it is in the nooks and crannies. So occasionally, if I have something I need to rush out, he will during his lunch break pop in and help me maybe frame a sign or something like that.

 

But he is working it that way and that has worked out well. But I guess hubby – I knew it was going to happen. We should talk about like how do we manage our time with it. Like because you do have your job. We have a daughter and actually I have stepdaughters. So we don’t see them nearly as often because they’re grown now. But there are these other things we have to balance.

 

Like would you like to talk a little bit about how you manage the time with it and not feel like the business is swallowing you up and like what are some of those boundaries or …?

 

Chris: Sure and there have been times that it did feel like the business is swallowing us up especially when we were not as automated as we are now.

 

Lizzie: Systems!

 

Chris: Yeah. We didn’t have as many of those systems in place. It really did feel like this was every – this filled every single minute that wasn’t engulfed by eating, sleeping or working my other job. Now, for me, it’s really about planning ahead.

 

Lizzie: Yeah.

 

Chris: And you and I often talk during the week about what’s coming up and what you need for your schedule to get – in order to get your orders out, what do you need? So it’s planning ahead, having kind of a plan in place of OK, you need this many particular size signs available. How long do I believe it’s going to take me to build it? Materials do I need to get to actually build those signs and then what does the weather and other factors involved look like? Because you know, you and I both know South Texas, just wait five minutes and the weather can change on you.

 

So having the ability and the knowledge of what’s going to happen that weekend and then also not letting it run our lives completely. You know, we still want to have family life and we still want to have friends and be able to go to the pool or do other things that we enjoy. So it’s just – for me, it’s about planning ahead. It’s I think the biggest piece.

 

Lizzie: And I would even add to that. You know, we use vacation mode on Etsy in a very healthy way. So – and it doesn’t – you know, actually you can go back and listen to podcast episode 3. It’s all about how I use vacation mode and will it hurt your business.

 

We actually use it to tamp back our business. So you know, we got to a point where we got – we didn’t – we love the income but we were working so hard that it was affecting the quality of our life and our family life.

 

So I think it’s OK. Like you know, you’ve got to decide how much income do you want to make. What level of success do you really want? What are you willing to sacrifice for that? In our case, we’ve kind of tamped it back a little bit, you know. We still do have a fulltime Etsy shop. We could have it make more than it does if we wanted to. But we’re in the process right now of I think working a little less and we’re working on the business as opposed to in the business, figuring out ways of like bringing in more help, bringing in more processes and tools that can help us work faster, so that we can maybe go back to full speed again at some point in the future. But it’s not going to swallow us up.

 

So I do think you really need to decide like – in our case, it’s like family comes first and we love our business and we work hard in our business and it does make a great income but there’s just that balance. I actually think – we should talk now about parenting and how that has affected this because you know, we do sort of have to maybe like take turns a little bit with Lorelei our daughter. She’s six but we’ve had this job since she was like three months old.

 

So there were times when she needed a lot more help than she does now. So I mean I would love your thoughts. But like I think we’ve had to do a really good job of having grace for each other and like knowing when the other one needs a rest, knowing when the other one needs to be able to work and not be interrupted.

 

Chris: I agree with that. I would go back to – I think communication is a big piece of it. I also think that having a good relationship outside of the business is vitally important. We can read each other. We listen to each other. You know, how often is it that you look at me and say, “I can tell you need a little time,” and you kind of …

 

Lizzie: That goes the other way a lot more frequently.

 

Chris: Well, I think that what’s important is again you’re always assuming positive of the – and the best of the other person and you realize in order for me to do my part, I need time to go out and build or do the other things to get prepped.

 

And the same thing. For you to get your piece done, especially if you’re trying to do something in the evenings, it means that I need to step up and take time with Lorelei and I need to be ready to be a good dad. Maybe that means sometimes making dinner or that means keeping her occupied, playing with her again, with her schoolwork, doing whatever is necessary so that you can get your piece done as well. It wouldn’t be fair for you to have to work until midnight still, which we’ve done before.

 

Lizzie: Not anymore.

 

Chris: Thank the Lord for that. But that wouldn’t be fair. I mean I get to work a nine-to-five job but at five o’clock, I can shut the computer down and it’s over. For this, it doesn’t work that way, does it?

 

Lizzie: No, it does not.

 

Chris: So again I think that for our relationship and for realizing where we both stand, it goes right back to communication again.

 

Lizzie: And, you know, so much of this is like seasonal and I don’t mean that so much in like the seasons of the year and like Christmas season being busy or whatever. I mean more like life seasons. So like a few years ago, Chris decided to go back to school and he got his master’s in law. So he took a two-year law course and that was a very different season for us for the business. It was very hard because we were still growing it into this like kind of fulltime monster and we had to pay attention to the needs of our family.

 

So, you know, what we ended up doing was we outsourced Chris’ part. We had some people come in and do the building for us and like in a way, that was great because we simply just didn’t have the time for you to be spending building signs. You were still boxing for me. But, you know, there are pros and cons to that. We did take a hit on quality. Nobody takes as much pride in your business as you do. So Chris and I work with like excellence and we want things – I mean I might even be too much of a perfectionist sometimes. I don’t know.

 

And you – and then of course I bring new signs that I’m not happy with. I’m like, “Can you please redo this?” That never happens anymore. But for the first few years it did.

 

Chris: Yeah.

 

Lizzie: So we definitely took a hit on quality, right? Like when we had people help, they were never as good.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: And then the other part was we took a huge hit on revenue because paying for the labor was crazy expensive.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: Which – but like you’ve got to have this balance of like what is worth more right now? Is it having the free time or is it having the revenue, having the money?

 

Chris: And I think part of that too goes back to the idea of what can you pay other people to do.

 

Lizzie: Right.

 

Chris: And what will you get, the quality you want to give your customers and what are the things you need to keep in-house? Building the signs in theory was this should be something that anybody who has tools should be able to do and we have built processes to make it better. But yeah, especially during school, that was rough and I think it was harder for me in that period of balancing school and then fixing someone else’s …

 

Lizzie: Yes.

 

Chris: … things that they did that just weren’t up to our standard.

 

Lizzie: Yes.

 

Chris: To a point of almost having to sometimes rebuild completely.

 

Lizzie: That did happen.

 

Chris: And again they did their best. I don’t fault them for what they did.

 

Lizzie: No. We were so grateful.

 

Chris: It was more of just OK, this is really fulfill what we want to ship out because it was our name. It was your face, our name that were on these things and you have to stand behind that because people are going to remember you, not Joe who built it or whatever – whoever that painted it. I don’t care about that. It’s I bought this from Lizzie.

 

Lizzie: Well, and the thing is, is that for me, I’m really not as anal as I might sound. It’s that I have a photograph of what this piece is going to look like and the person bought it because they saw the photograph and they wanted that. I just want to make sure that what I sent out looks as close to that as it possibly can. Like reclaimed wood has some variations so you’re going to have that most – people who buy it expect that and love it. But that’s all it is, is I want to make sure that the customer – I’m really big on customer service and honoring my customer. I’m very grateful for my customers and so I take the best care that I can. But it’s so interesting what you were saying about figuring out what you can outsource because what we learned after a very hard – I think it was a very hard lesson was that I can’t outsource the painting.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: Because – oh, I just banged my hand. Because – it’s like real life here. Because when it comes to that level of detail, I was spending so much time correcting signs. Like I really appreciated the women who helped me out and that were – they – all different skillsets. We had many, many people over the years. But I ended up just not doing it anymore. It’s part of the reasons why I have to tamp back on the painting now. My hands can’t handle it. We couldn’t get the quality. We just couldn’t – and/or we could. But I was having to spend as much time getting the sign – like taking it from where the painter left it off to where it needed to be for me to ship it. But I could have painted it myself in that amount of time.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: It’s part of figuring it out. So I want to kind of tweak now into – I think it’s like – it’s the most important part of this entire conversation is about working with your spouse and still liking each other.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: At the end of it. Yeah. I think that’s the most valuable thing. Like we can talk to so many – and obviously if you guys love this episode, let us know and we will do more. We can get into more detail. It’s actually so fun for me to have him on here with me.

 

Chris: Yeah, it actually is fun being here and getting to talk about the business and …

 

Lizzie: We will do more.

 

Chris: OK, absolutely.

 

Lizzie: We will do more. So the guys, let us know, yeah, what the specifics are, but I think if we – like the best thing we can give you is why we can do this and have a great relationship. So this kind of goes back into our past a little bit and I think that that’s going to be helpful for you. So how long have we been married?

 

Chris: We’ve been married since 2007, so 14 and a half years.

 

Lizzie: OK. So, yeah, usually the woman knows the anniversary stuff better. But in our case, like my brain is in so many different places that he’s the one who remembers and I try not to be a total jerk. OK. So [0:17:35] [Indiscernible] but about three years into our marriage, we reached a place of like desperate brokenness, like …

 

Chris: Also known as hell.

 

Lizzie: Yeah. It was really – yeah, our marriage was so broken. There was so much pain. We honestly believed it was hopeless. Like I really thought we were getting divorced. I didn’t know any other way around it. I didn’t think we could fix it. I didn’t think we could ever be happy again and thank God some of the right people came around as of that time and took our hands and we actually – at that point is when we became Christians. We did have a dramatic conversion at that point and so our faith and God and our church was just huge in helping us get past it.

 

Chris: Absolutely.

 

Lizzie: But what I really want to tell you guys is that you want to get your stuff worked out before you go into business together. Like honestly, before you do anything in life with your spouse, you need to get your stuff worked out.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: Because the reason we’re so good today is because we built our business on a solid marriage and we took a good 10 years to build that marriage. I’m not saying it takes that long. I’m telling you, we came from utter brokenness, like so much pain. We not only had to like get our stuff together from – with baggage we brought into the marriage.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: We had to get our stuff together from the pain we caused each other.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: Yeah. So it ended up that there was this amazing ministry called Restoring Relationships and it is a spectacular ministry. We worked with the founder Dominic Herbst who’s a Christian psychologist and he helped us heal. We went through his online journey and this work and healing and it helped us go back to before we even came into our marriage together and the pain that we brought into it, from our childhood, from previous relationships because the thing is, is the way that our psyches, our mind, our emotions are built are like the way a snowball is. You start with a tiny little snowball and you roll it and roll it and roll it and eventually it’s this enormous snowball.

 

That’s the way that pain builds in our lives. So when we’re having a problem in our marriage today, we can go ahead and try and fix that problem. But the reality is that it started way back in a tiny little snowball and if you just try to fix what’s on the surface today with a Band-Aid, you only got a short-term fix.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: Because you got that stuff all the way back there.

 

Chris: Uh-huh. Well, and I think that a lot of people may hear our story and say, “Gosh, ten years. How am I going to do that?” You have to make a decision every day to believe, to trust, to work on your marriage and just like you would with your business or anything else. Don’t let the idea of “Gosh, we’re not there. We will never be there,” get in the way. Don’t let perfection get in the way.

 

Lizzie: Well, we started working together four years into that journey. We didn’t wait 10 years. It has just been, well, 11 years now. But yeah, I don’t want people to feel – like you can start – you just need to make sure that you’re not starting on utter brokenness.

 

Chris: Absolutely, yeah. You wouldn’t try to add a trial to that kind of relationship.

 

Lizzie: You shouldn’t.

 

Chris: You shouldn’t try to add a business that is a lot of work for not a lot of reward upfront. If you’re dealing with – it’s kind of like the idea of if you’re hungry, you need to take care of that need before you try to take care of other needs. I know we did the same thing with this.

 

[Music]

 

Lizzie: This podcast is brought to you by Restoring Relationships. So Restoring Relationships is a ministry that helps people find healing in their most precious relationships.

 

As we grow up, we have all kinds of traumas, heartbreaks and identity-forming moments that take place and they affect who we become and how we cope with life.

 

Now one of the biggest mistakes adults make when they’re trying to work through relational issues is they only focus on the problems today. But psychologists have known for years that we can’t completely resolve our current problems without first addressing the roots of them, back early on when the first childhood wound took place.

 

Chris: You know, that’s right and since Lizzie and I work together in various businesses in addition to being married to each other, we needed to work through our baggage that we brought to our relationship from the past before we could have a healthy marriage, let alone be able to have an effective working relationship together.

 

Lizzie: So true. In fact early on in our marriage, we hit such a painful season that we were sure we were headed for divorce. It very much felt hopeless and impossible to recover from.

 

But then we were guided to Restoring Relationships and also the founder Dominic Herbst who’s a Christian psychologist and this program played an enormous role in helping our marriage to heal and ultimately become the most amazing, healthy and connected relationship.

 

Chris: This is so true, Lizzie. It’s an excellent program. The primary tool is a video series and PDF journal that can be accessed online in the comfort, in the privacy of your own home. You can go through the lessons at your own pace and I recommend faster is better. If you need any additional professional help, Dominic and his team are always there and available for hired sessions as well.

 

Lizzie: We recommend it with all of our hearts. We’ve seen countless friends, colleagues, even strangers who read my blog experience real breakthrough in their most precious relationships.

 

If you know you could use some help in dealing with past hurts or you have a relationship that’s in a lot of turmoil today, you should check this out. You can see more about our personal story and get access to the Restoring Relationships’ online journey at myrrjourney.com. That’s “my,” R as in Romeo, R as in Romeo, “journey” dot com and it’s also linked in the show notes.

 

Chris: You know, we hope that you will experience as much life-changing breakthrough and healing as we have.

 

Lizzie: Absolutely. You deserve it.

 

[Music]

 

Lizzie: OK. So I would say to successfully run a business together, you have to have a healthy relationship first. I think like really respectful communication needs to be there. I don’t yell at you.

 

Chris: No.

 

Lizzie: Usually, no, I don’t yell at you.

 

Chris: I can’t remember the last time you yelled at me.

 

Lizzie: I don’t talk to you with attitude.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: I try to be super respectful. I treat you like a partner.

 

Chris: And you’re very appreciative of everything.

 

Lizzie: That is so important. I think most men, if you’ve ever heard of the five love languages, most men – but women too – like everyone likes to be told “Thank You.” Everyone likes to be told “I’m sorry.”

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: Everyone likes to be told, “I appreciate you. I love you.” Like I mean there are very few people who are just like, “Shut up,” you know.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: And if they are, they probably have – they really need Restoring Relationships. Like, you know, you – you have to be super appreciative. So like even though he benefits financially from this, like he’s doing it because he chooses to. I am constantly telling him, “Thank you so much,” and I mean it. I don’t just say it. Like I really mean it. It’s a sacrifice of his time.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: And then I think a really big thing that we’ve learned is like when there is any kind of a problem, you have to assume positive intent.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: You’re like the king of that. So you should talk about that.

 

Chris: You know, and I think that’s something we’ve mentioned before and I will say it again that in any relationship, your marriage, your relationship with friends, with your kids, business, you have to assume the best of the other person. They’re not out to get you. They’re not trying to get your goat or, you know, poke you in the eye about something. If you assume positive intent, even if they’re doing something wrong, you will still assume they’re doing this because of some of the reason that just they’re out to get me and I think that’s very important in our business, in our marriage, in how we raise Lorelei is that we always assume the best of the other one. So to assume positive intent is a very important tool that has helped us through a lot of this.

 

Lizzie: I think this has been so fun. Is there anything else that we haven’t hit on yet that you think would be really helpful? Like as people are considering working with their spouses or practical or relational?

 

Chris: I think – and just focusing on the relational, you do have to be willing to set yourself aside at times and that’s hard for people. I think that it’s important to – if you’re going to be in this partnership, you would go into a partnership with a friend or with someone that has another knowledge base that you don’t with a mentality of they’re bringing something to the table that I don’t have and I bring something to the table they don’t have.

 

You need to do the same thing with your marriage and you need to do the same thing with – if you’re going to go in business with your spouse and that you’re not going to be the best at the same thing and that’s the beauty of it.

 

Lizzie: I love that. I even have that on my list. That’s so good. Look at you like winding us up here with a homerun.

 

Chris: Hey, you know, I will be here all week.

 

Lizzie: All right. Thank you so much for coming on.

 

Chris: I’m glad I got to come. Thanks for inviting me.

 

Lizzie: I love you.

 

Chris: I love you too.

 

Lizzie: Bye guys. Have a great one.

 

Chris: Bye.

Lizzie: Hey everybody! Welcome back to the show today. I am especially excited because I have my husband on with me.

 

Chris: Howdy everybody!

 

Lizzie: We’re from Texas. LOL! So my husband, his name is Chris Smiley and he is my best friend and he is awesome and we also happen to run an Etsy shop together.

 

Chris: Oh, gosh, do we.

 

Lizzie: Well, I’m going to let him tell you a bit about himself because God bless him, he also works a fulltime job. So …

 

Chris: Yeah. So I do actually work a fulltime job. I’m in sales and I work from home. So that is actually very nice to be able to do that. But I do work in this business part-time and part-time usually means 40 hours because she’s working more like 70 hours.

 

Lizzie: He’s lying and also the best part of him working from home from his job is that I can interrupt him in the middle of the day and have him help me with such …

 

 

Chris: Oh, that doesn’t happen at least two or three times a day.

 

Lizzie: It’s a nice perk of it. He only just started working at home literally at the beginning of the COVID nightmare. So it has been nice. It has been nice. So yeah, he works in sales. So I want to share with you today about what it’s like working with your spouse and still like each other to run an Etsy shop together and I think we do that really well. Do you still like me?

 

Chris: Oh, absolutely. I like you and I love you.

 

Lizzie: You know, we always – I should say that, why I always – because people are like, “Well, don’t you love each other?” A long time ago – and we will get actually more into this later. We were going through like a marriage class and they were talking about how women very easily love their spouses. But they don’t necessarily like them.

 

Chris: Yeah. And for guys, I don’t think that’s a thing. I think – I don’t differentiate between the two. You do. I typically don’t. I say it in jest.

 

Lizzie: Yeah, but you will – if I’m just like I love you, but I have an attitude, you will be like, “Yeah. But do you like me today?”

 

Chris: Oh, well, it’s definitely a framework of getting a read for where you are, absolutely.

 

Lizzie: So that’s why I say that. So I think we do this thing really well and I think it’s a concern and/or an issue for a lot of other people. So I thought it would be really fun today to talk through what it’s like working together. So the first question I have for you is, “Does it bother you that you work for me?”

 

Chris: No, and you’ve heard me say it. I say it to everybody. I’m not in charge. I just work here. It’s not actually a bad thing. I think when you have a good relationship, it doesn’t matter who’s in charge. You know you’re both rowing in the same direction. So …

 

Lizzie: Yeah, and I try not to lord it over you.

 

Chris: Absolutely not. No, you are a very loving –

 

Lizzie: That’s an important, right? Like the way that I – yeah.

 

Chris: No, and I think what’s important is that you both realize and you think that you’re both going in the same direction and when there’s that love and there’s that respect, it’s not a big deal who’s “in charge”. It’s OK, this is my role and that’s your role.

 

Lizzie: Yeah, and I don’t really think of it that way. I mean I take full – like full responsibility for the shop that it is a business. It’s in my name that you help me with. But I really think of it as ours and I’m actually extremely grateful for your help because you already work another job and you don’t have to help me. You choose to. So for those of you who maybe are new to our story, we run a sign business. We sell painted wood signs on Etsy and so Chris, what he – it’s so funny calling you Chris because I call him “hubs”. So we will see how far this gets with me.

 

So Chris actually, he does all the sourcing of the wood. He builds the signs. He gets them totally ready. He basically creates my canvas for me and then I paint all of it and when we do a framed piece, he will frame it for me after I painted it. Then I wrap everything and then his job is boxing.

 

So he builds the boxes and boxes of signs. That was something we added a little bit later because my hands would get so tired from painting. Like initially he just – his job is just building. But then I was having so many problems with my hands hurting from all the painting that he took over boxing for me because he’s a good husband. So do you want to share like a little bit about what you do in the business and what that has been like?

 

Chris: Yeah. So as Lizzie just pointed out, I do actually spend the time most weekends and sometimes during the week actually doing this kind of in the nooks and crannies of our life. You know, I build on the weekends out in the heat, in South Texas heat building signs and – but it’s actually a great time. I love building. I love doing it. It’s very fulfilling to me to get to work with my hands because in sales, I sit at a computer and talk on the phone all day. So it’s nice to actually be out doing something and then the actual boxing and the other administrative tasks.

 

Lizzie: Less fun.

 

Chris: You know, it’s not that it’s not fun. It’s much better now than when we used to make boxes on top of making signs. So I know that that is something that has made our lives so much better. But I actually enjoy it. It’s fun getting to work with you. It’s fun for our daughter to also get to see us working together and what that looks like because I think that most people in idea would love to work with their spouse or at least some would. But it’s how does it play out? What does it look like and how do you figure it out?

 

Lizzie: And I would like to add like around his fulltime job because I think the schedule is an important thing to talk to you guys about. You know for me, I am – I was always at home. I run a couple of website companies as well. So I was a blogger first and then started the Etsy shop. So I was already working from home. My schedule is pretty flexible. Very full but pretty flexible. There’s lots to do but I can kind of mix up when and how.

 

But Chris, because of his job, he usually takes out part of the weekend depending on the time and year and how many orders we have. Half to a full day of the weekend was when he’s building for us and then usually we have a couple of evenings a week where we’re boxing. We really try to batch our work which actually next week’s episode we will talk about that even more, how kind of our process is.

 

But I think that that’s important for you to know and then – and like he said, it is in the nooks and crannies. So occasionally, if I have something I need to rush out, he will during his lunch break pop in and help me maybe frame a sign or something like that.

 

But he is working it that way and that has worked out well. But I guess hubby – I knew it was going to happen. We should talk about like how do we manage our time with it. Like because you do have your job. We have a daughter and actually I have stepdaughters. So we don’t see them nearly as often because they’re grown now. But there are these other things we have to balance.

 

Like would you like to talk a little bit about how you manage the time with it and not feel like the business is swallowing you up and like what are some of those boundaries or …?

 

Chris: Sure and there have been times that it did feel like the business is swallowing us up especially when we were not as automated as we are now.

 

Lizzie: Systems!

 

Chris: Yeah. We didn’t have as many of those systems in place. It really did feel like this was every – this filled every single minute that wasn’t engulfed by eating, sleeping or working my other job. Now, for me, it’s really about planning ahead.

 

Lizzie: Yeah.

 

Chris: And you and I often talk during the week about what’s coming up and what you need for your schedule to get – in order to get your orders out, what do you need? So it’s planning ahead, having kind of a plan in place of OK, you need this many particular size signs available. How long do I believe it’s going to take me to build it? Materials do I need to get to actually build those signs and then what does the weather and other factors involved look like? Because you know, you and I both know South Texas, just wait five minutes and the weather can change on you.

 

So having the ability and the knowledge of what’s going to happen that weekend and then also not letting it run our lives completely. You know, we still want to have family life and we still want to have friends and be able to go to the pool or do other things that we enjoy. So it’s just – for me, it’s about planning ahead. It’s I think the biggest piece.

 

Lizzie: And I would even add to that. You know, we use vacation mode on Etsy in a very healthy way. So – and it doesn’t – you know, actually you can go back and listen to podcast episode 3. It’s all about how I use vacation mode and will it hurt your business.

 

We actually use it to tamp back our business. So you know, we got to a point where we got – we didn’t – we love the income but we were working so hard that it was affecting the quality of our life and our family life.

 

So I think it’s OK. Like you know, you’ve got to decide how much income do you want to make. What level of success do you really want? What are you willing to sacrifice for that? In our case, we’ve kind of tamped it back a little bit, you know. We still do have a fulltime Etsy shop. We could have it make more than it does if we wanted to. But we’re in the process right now of I think working a little less and we’re working on the business as opposed to in the business, figuring out ways of like bringing in more help, bringing in more processes and tools that can help us work faster, so that we can maybe go back to full speed again at some point in the future. But it’s not going to swallow us up.

 

So I do think you really need to decide like – in our case, it’s like family comes first and we love our business and we work hard in our business and it does make a great income but there’s just that balance. I actually think – we should talk now about parenting and how that has affected this because you know, we do sort of have to maybe like take turns a little bit with Lorelei our daughter. She’s six but we’ve had this job since she was like three months old.

 

So there were times when she needed a lot more help than she does now. So I mean I would love your thoughts. But like I think we’ve had to do a really good job of having grace for each other and like knowing when the other one needs a rest, knowing when the other one needs to be able to work and not be interrupted.

 

Chris: I agree with that. I would go back to – I think communication is a big piece of it. I also think that having a good relationship outside of the business is vitally important. We can read each other. We listen to each other. You know, how often is it that you look at me and say, “I can tell you need a little time,” and you kind of …

 

Lizzie: That goes the other way a lot more frequently.

 

Chris: Well, I think that what’s important is again you’re always assuming positive of the – and the best of the other person and you realize in order for me to do my part, I need time to go out and build or do the other things to get prepped.

 

And the same thing. For you to get your piece done, especially if you’re trying to do something in the evenings, it means that I need to step up and take time with Lorelei and I need to be ready to be a good dad. Maybe that means sometimes making dinner or that means keeping her occupied, playing with her again, with her schoolwork, doing whatever is necessary so that you can get your piece done as well. It wouldn’t be fair for you to have to work until midnight still, which we’ve done before.

 

Lizzie: Not anymore.

 

Chris: Thank the Lord for that. But that wouldn’t be fair. I mean I get to work a nine-to-five job but at five o’clock, I can shut the computer down and it’s over. For this, it doesn’t work that way, does it?

 

Lizzie: No, it does not.

 

Chris: So again I think that for our relationship and for realizing where we both stand, it goes right back to communication again.

 

Lizzie: And, you know, so much of this is like seasonal and I don’t mean that so much in like the seasons of the year and like Christmas season being busy or whatever. I mean more like life seasons. So like a few years ago, Chris decided to go back to school and he got his master’s in law. So he took a two-year law course and that was a very different season for us for the business. It was very hard because we were still growing it into this like kind of fulltime monster and we had to pay attention to the needs of our family.

 

So, you know, what we ended up doing was we outsourced Chris’ part. We had some people come in and do the building for us and like in a way, that was great because we simply just didn’t have the time for you to be spending building signs. You were still boxing for me. But, you know, there are pros and cons to that. We did take a hit on quality. Nobody takes as much pride in your business as you do. So Chris and I work with like excellence and we want things – I mean I might even be too much of a perfectionist sometimes. I don’t know.

 

And you – and then of course I bring new signs that I’m not happy with. I’m like, “Can you please redo this?” That never happens anymore. But for the first few years it did.

 

Chris: Yeah.

 

Lizzie: So we definitely took a hit on quality, right? Like when we had people help, they were never as good.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: And then the other part was we took a huge hit on revenue because paying for the labor was crazy expensive.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: Which – but like you’ve got to have this balance of like what is worth more right now? Is it having the free time or is it having the revenue, having the money?

 

Chris: And I think part of that too goes back to the idea of what can you pay other people to do.

 

Lizzie: Right.

 

Chris: And what will you get, the quality you want to give your customers and what are the things you need to keep in-house? Building the signs in theory was this should be something that anybody who has tools should be able to do and we have built processes to make it better. But yeah, especially during school, that was rough and I think it was harder for me in that period of balancing school and then fixing someone else’s …

 

Lizzie: Yes.

 

Chris: … things that they did that just weren’t up to our standard.

 

Lizzie: Yes.

 

Chris: To a point of almost having to sometimes rebuild completely.

 

Lizzie: That did happen.

 

Chris: And again they did their best. I don’t fault them for what they did.

 

Lizzie: No. We were so grateful.

 

Chris: It was more of just OK, this is really fulfill what we want to ship out because it was our name. It was your face, our name that were on these things and you have to stand behind that because people are going to remember you, not Joe who built it or whatever – whoever that painted it. I don’t care about that. It’s I bought this from Lizzie.

 

Lizzie: Well, and the thing is, is that for me, I’m really not as anal as I might sound. It’s that I have a photograph of what this piece is going to look like and the person bought it because they saw the photograph and they wanted that. I just want to make sure that what I sent out looks as close to that as it possibly can. Like reclaimed wood has some variations so you’re going to have that most – people who buy it expect that and love it. But that’s all it is, is I want to make sure that the customer – I’m really big on customer service and honoring my customer. I’m very grateful for my customers and so I take the best care that I can. But it’s so interesting what you were saying about figuring out what you can outsource because what we learned after a very hard – I think it was a very hard lesson was that I can’t outsource the painting.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: Because – oh, I just banged my hand. Because – it’s like real life here. Because when it comes to that level of detail, I was spending so much time correcting signs. Like I really appreciated the women who helped me out and that were – they – all different skillsets. We had many, many people over the years. But I ended up just not doing it anymore. It’s part of the reasons why I have to tamp back on the painting now. My hands can’t handle it. We couldn’t get the quality. We just couldn’t – and/or we could. But I was having to spend as much time getting the sign – like taking it from where the painter left it off to where it needed to be for me to ship it. But I could have painted it myself in that amount of time.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: It’s part of figuring it out. So I want to kind of tweak now into – I think it’s like – it’s the most important part of this entire conversation is about working with your spouse and still liking each other.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: At the end of it. Yeah. I think that’s the most valuable thing. Like we can talk to so many – and obviously if you guys love this episode, let us know and we will do more. We can get into more detail. It’s actually so fun for me to have him on here with me.

 

Chris: Yeah, it actually is fun being here and getting to talk about the business and …

 

Lizzie: We will do more.

 

Chris: OK, absolutely.

 

Lizzie: We will do more. So the guys, let us know, yeah, what the specifics are, but I think if we – like the best thing we can give you is why we can do this and have a great relationship. So this kind of goes back into our past a little bit and I think that that’s going to be helpful for you. So how long have we been married?

 

Chris: We’ve been married since 2007, so 14 and a half years.

 

Lizzie: OK. So, yeah, usually the woman knows the anniversary stuff better. But in our case, like my brain is in so many different places that he’s the one who remembers and I try not to be a total jerk. OK. So [0:17:35] [Indiscernible] but about three years into our marriage, we reached a place of like desperate brokenness, like …

 

Chris: Also known as hell.

 

Lizzie: Yeah. It was really – yeah, our marriage was so broken. There was so much pain. We honestly believed it was hopeless. Like I really thought we were getting divorced. I didn’t know any other way around it. I didn’t think we could fix it. I didn’t think we could ever be happy again and thank God some of the right people came around as of that time and took our hands and we actually – at that point is when we became Christians. We did have a dramatic conversion at that point and so our faith and God and our church was just huge in helping us get past it.

 

Chris: Absolutely.

 

Lizzie: But what I really want to tell you guys is that you want to get your stuff worked out before you go into business together. Like honestly, before you do anything in life with your spouse, you need to get your stuff worked out.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: Because the reason we’re so good today is because we built our business on a solid marriage and we took a good 10 years to build that marriage. I’m not saying it takes that long. I’m telling you, we came from utter brokenness, like so much pain. We not only had to like get our stuff together from – with baggage we brought into the marriage.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: We had to get our stuff together from the pain we caused each other.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: Yeah. So it ended up that there was this amazing ministry called Restoring Relationships and it is a spectacular ministry. We worked with the founder Dominic Herbst who’s a Christian psychologist and he helped us heal. We went through his online journey and this work and healing and it helped us go back to before we even came into our marriage together and the pain that we brought into it, from our childhood, from previous relationships because the thing is, is the way that our psyches, our mind, our emotions are built are like the way a snowball is. You start with a tiny little snowball and you roll it and roll it and roll it and eventually it’s this enormous snowball.

 

That’s the way that pain builds in our lives. So when we’re having a problem in our marriage today, we can go ahead and try and fix that problem. But the reality is that it started way back in a tiny little snowball and if you just try to fix what’s on the surface today with a Band-Aid, you only got a short-term fix.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: Because you got that stuff all the way back there.

 

Chris: Uh-huh. Well, and I think that a lot of people may hear our story and say, “Gosh, ten years. How am I going to do that?” You have to make a decision every day to believe, to trust, to work on your marriage and just like you would with your business or anything else. Don’t let the idea of “Gosh, we’re not there. We will never be there,” get in the way. Don’t let perfection get in the way.

 

Lizzie: Well, we started working together four years into that journey. We didn’t wait 10 years. It has just been, well, 11 years now. But yeah, I don’t want people to feel – like you can start – you just need to make sure that you’re not starting on utter brokenness.

 

Chris: Absolutely, yeah. You wouldn’t try to add a trial to that kind of relationship.

 

Lizzie: You shouldn’t.

 

Chris: You shouldn’t try to add a business that is a lot of work for not a lot of reward upfront. If you’re dealing with – it’s kind of like the idea of if you’re hungry, you need to take care of that need before you try to take care of other needs. I know we did the same thing with this.

 

[Music]

 

Lizzie: This podcast is brought to you by Restoring Relationships. So Restoring Relationships is a ministry that helps people find healing in their most precious relationships.

 

As we grow up, we have all kinds of traumas, heartbreaks and identity-forming moments that take place and they affect who we become and how we cope with life.

 

Now one of the biggest mistakes adults make when they’re trying to work through relational issues is they only focus on the problems today. But psychologists have known for years that we can’t completely resolve our current problems without first addressing the roots of them, back early on when the first childhood wound took place.

 

Chris: You know, that’s right and since Lizzie and I work together in various businesses in addition to being married to each other, we needed to work through our baggage that we brought to our relationship from the past before we could have a healthy marriage, let alone be able to have an effective working relationship together.

 

Lizzie: So true. In fact early on in our marriage, we hit such a painful season that we were sure we were headed for divorce. It very much felt hopeless and impossible to recover from.

 

But then we were guided to Restoring Relationships and also the founder Dominic Herbst who’s a Christian psychologist and this program played an enormous role in helping our marriage to heal and ultimately become the most amazing, healthy and connected relationship.

 

Chris: This is so true, Lizzie. It’s an excellent program. The primary tool is a video series and PDF journal that can be accessed online in the comfort, in the privacy of your own home. You can go through the lessons at your own pace and I recommend faster is better. If you need any additional professional help, Dominic and his team are always there and available for hired sessions as well.

 

Lizzie: We recommend it with all of our hearts. We’ve seen countless friends, colleagues, even strangers who read my blog experience real breakthrough in their most precious relationships.

 

If you know you could use some help in dealing with past hurts or you have a relationship that’s in a lot of turmoil today, you should check this out. You can see more about our personal story and get access to the Restoring Relationships’ online journey at myrrjourney.com. That’s “my,” R as in Romeo, R as in Romeo, “journey” dot com and it’s also linked in the show notes.

 

Chris: You know, we hope that you will experience as much life-changing breakthrough and healing as we have.

 

Lizzie: Absolutely. You deserve it.

 

[Music]

 

Lizzie: OK. So I would say to successfully run a business together, you have to have a healthy relationship first. I think like really respectful communication needs to be there. I don’t yell at you.

 

Chris: No.

 

Lizzie: Usually, no, I don’t yell at you.

 

Chris: I can’t remember the last time you yelled at me.

 

Lizzie: I don’t talk to you with attitude.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: I try to be super respectful. I treat you like a partner.

 

Chris: And you’re very appreciative of everything.

 

Lizzie: That is so important. I think most men, if you’ve ever heard of the five love languages, most men – but women too – like everyone likes to be told “Thank You.” Everyone likes to be told “I’m sorry.”

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: Everyone likes to be told, “I appreciate you. I love you.” Like I mean there are very few people who are just like, “Shut up,” you know.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: And if they are, they probably have – they really need Restoring Relationships. Like, you know, you – you have to be super appreciative. So like even though he benefits financially from this, like he’s doing it because he chooses to. I am constantly telling him, “Thank you so much,” and I mean it. I don’t just say it. Like I really mean it. It’s a sacrifice of his time.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: And then I think a really big thing that we’ve learned is like when there is any kind of a problem, you have to assume positive intent.

 

Chris: Right.

 

Lizzie: You’re like the king of that. So you should talk about that.

 

Chris: You know, and I think that’s something we’ve mentioned before and I will say it again that in any relationship, your marriage, your relationship with friends, with your kids, business, you have to assume the best of the other person. They’re not out to get you. They’re not trying to get your goat or, you know, poke you in the eye about something. If you assume positive intent, even if they’re doing something wrong, you will still assume they’re doing this because of some of the reason that just they’re out to get me and I think that’s very important in our business, in our marriage, in how we raise Lorelei is that we always assume the best of the other one. So to assume positive intent is a very important tool that has helped us through a lot of this.

 

Lizzie: I think this has been so fun. Is there anything else that we haven’t hit on yet that you think would be really helpful? Like as people are considering working with their spouses or practical or relational?

 

Chris: I think – and just focusing on the relational, you do have to be willing to set yourself aside at times and that’s hard for people. I think that it’s important to – if you’re going to be in this partnership, you would go into a partnership with a friend or with someone that has another knowledge base that you don’t with a mentality of they’re bringing something to the table that I don’t have and I bring something to the table they don’t have.

 

You need to do the same thing with your marriage and you need to do the same thing with – if you’re going to go in business with your spouse and that you’re not going to be the best at the same thing and that’s the beauty of it.

 

Lizzie: I love that. I even have that on my list. That’s so good. Look at you like winding us up here with a homerun.

 

Chris: Hey, you know, I will be here all week.

 

Lizzie: All right. Thank you so much for coming on.

 

Chris: I’m glad I got to come. Thanks for inviting me.

 

Lizzie: I love you.

 

Chris: I love you too.

 

Lizzie: Bye guys. Have a great one.

 

Chris: Bye.

 

EPISODE DETAILS

Find out how we run our Etsy shop as a successful husband and wife business (and still like each other at the end of the day.)

 **“How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy” is not affiliated with or endorsed by Etsy.com.

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Stuff I mentioned:

The Restoring Relationships Ministry: www.MyRRJourney.com

(The Online Journey is the tool we recommend!)

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Looking for more resources?

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HOW TO SELL YOUR STUFF SHOWNOTES: 

https://www.howtosellyourstuff.com/blog/successful-husband-and-wife-business 

Today’s Sponsor is “Restoring Relationships.” Hear our story and begin your own journey at www.MyRRJourney.com