How to Balance Marriage, Running an HVAC Company with a Spouse

Running an HVAC business already has enough challenges, whether it be a workforce shortage or keeping up with all of the ever-evolving regulations, but throwing a spouse into the mix is a whole other ballgame.

While it may be difficult, it can be done — just ask Justin and Kristen Deese. Not only have these two run several successful ventures together, they also co-authored a book on the matter, When Your Business Partner is Your Spouse.

Justin has simultaneously built three flourishing in-home service companies in multiple states, is a certified E-Myth Business Coach, and is an expert at helping fellow business owners structure and manage their companies for maximum profitability. Kristin is a business coach, CBC, and also the brains behind a plumbing, HVAC, and remediation company.

While these two seemingly have it all together, they admitted it wasn’t always that way — it took a lot of clear communication and a herculean effort to make sure the line between business and marriage didn’t get blurred.

In this case, the name of the game is boundaries and, to be successful, the Deeses laid out several key areas where they are particularly important.

Personal Relationships and Leaving Work at Work

Starting a new business already comes with its own set of unique challenges, and many of those are compounded when a new business partner is also a spouse. In this delicate situation, it’s best to lay out some guidelines and expectations from the get-go.

When preparing to have these potentially difficult conversations, remember to be clear and direct, taking care to explain the reasons these boundaries should be in place.

After a long day at the office, work is the last thing some people want to think about once they get home and kick their shoes off. But for others, they may think the dinner table is a perfectly viable venue to host a discussion on how to improve sales revenue.

“When we’re running a business, especially a business with a spouse, it can take over everything — everything, every hour, has to do with the business all the time,” Kristen said. “I know, for me, that was a hugely sensitive topic — especially when the kids were young.”

As a mom, business owner, and wife married to her business partner, she was starting to feel there was just zero separation. After work, it shifted to homework, dinner, baths, sports, you name it — but Justin would still be in business mode.

“First of all, it was important for me to be present with my kids for those about three hours a day (outside of the business) — they were in daycare all day or in school, and I just wanted to hang out with them,” Kristen said. “Second of all, my brain does not function like (Justin’s) does — I don’t have that energy level, and I need to be able to shut it down and do things with my hands that will allow my brain to turn off for a while, and that’s just not how he operates.”

SET TIME BOUNDARIES: When running a business with a spouse, Kristen Deese recommends carving out time where no business-related talk is allowed. (Staff photo)

As it started reaching an inflection point, Kristen said they sat down with their business coach and set time boundaries.

“From 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., and most weekends, we were not talking about business. And, when he came home, we were doing family stuff,” Kristen said. “It was that three hours a day that I needed.”

But for Justin, he joked that by the time 5 a.m. hit, it was back to “idea time.” Given Kristen said she’s not much of a morning person, they also decided Justin should channel that fresh energy toward their other business partner.

After a while of having these types of practices in place, the two said they can now foresee when a stressful or argumentative situation is brewing outside of work, and know how to avoid it.

Another thing the two stressed was to find some sort of a self-care hobby or practice that can be done at the end of the day to relieve any lingering stress.

Friends, Family, and Employees

For those who have children wanting to join the family business, like the Deese children did, finding the appropriate managerial style can be tricky.

As a mom, Kristen said the situation just kind of hurt her heart, but “there are times when either more lenient or more strict with family members that we employ because we feel like we can be more strict because we are family and they can’t get rid of us, or we’re more lenient because we still have to have dinner every night and don’t want it to be awkward.”

Kristen said that’s why people in this situation need to lay out these boundaries, what communication needs to look like, what home life needs to look like, and how to draw a line between the two.

“Have all of those conversations up front when it’s not in the heat of the moment,” she said.

“During the summer he would work, and I was way harder on him and, honestly, my partner kind of called me out on it a little bit,” Justin said. “My expectation (of my son) was just higher. Period.”

To alleviate this type of strain, Justin suggests putting a layer of management between parent and offspring.

“And then stay out of the way,” Justin added.

Young employees need bosses, even stern bosses at that, but sometimes it’s best if that’s not mom or dad.

“We encouraged our kids to work somewhere when they were looking for those first jobs because we wanted them to have the opportunity to see what else is out there,” Kristen said.

Outside of family, there is also the matter of employing friends, or becoming friends with employees. While work doesn’t always have to feel like work, it’s also not wise to create an environment where the lines between being a boss and being an after-work buddy get blurred. When this happens, an employee may feel they should be getting special treatment.

In small businesses where there is constant contact and communication between boss and employee, it is not unusual for a friendship to form, but it can pose some boundary issues. One business owned by a friend of the Deeses ran into this predicament — after taking over an established company, they wanted to get to know their new employees. To do so, they hosted a lot of outside-of-work barbeques at their house. This went on for months, and it got to the point where everyone was hanging out all of the time. But once they did that, Kristen said they were starting to blur an important line.

“This is tough, especially when you’re a smaller company,” Justin added. “You want that camaraderie, but this phrase in mind — friendly, not friends.”

It can be a challenge and some may even be able to pull it off, but the Justin just recommend avoiding that situation.

“You may understand that there’s a line and, when you hit the threshold and have to do the thing where you say ‘now you’re an employee and not a friend,’ most people do not have the ability to flip that switch,” Justin said.

“The employees will have a hard time when you have to draw that line and basically reinstate that boundary,” Kristen added. “And the boss will have a hard time laying down that boundary because they know that they’re going to hang out with that person later that evening or over the weekend and they don’t want it to be awkward. It’s not a ‘don’t ever do it,’ it’s just to use extreme caution.”

There’s also the issue of hiring someone the owner is already friends with, because that can also end in heartbreak for all involved.

Justin said he had to once fire someone he’d been friends with since he was a kid because that person was not upholding the standards or values they had set for their company.

“We’ve since kind of reconciled a bit, but that’s been 10 years ago and it’s still weird, there’s still that tension over what happened,” Justin said. “At the time, he needed a job, I needed a right-hand man, and I trusted him and brought him in. It was tough — I thought I was really good with that boundary and more times than not, so was he until we were just there.”

So, again, Justin said to remember “friendly, not friends.”