Episode 101 Hiring Family Members and Working with Your Spouse with Ashley Gonzales

What you will learn from this episode: Learn about the benefits and potential pitfalls when hiring family members, as well as how to navigate through the struggles of having a spouse join you in your beauty business. Discover the three most important factors you must do with your marketing to build your brand. Find out a business model that remains resilient even amidst a pandemic and economic crisis. Do you ever wonder what it would be like having a spouse work for you in your beauty business? Or any family member, for that matter? Have you thought of hiring a relative or friend to work with you to grow your business? Is it even a good idea to be partnering with them, or is it a disaster in the making with unseen pitfalls? In this episode, Ashley Gonzales shares how she created a demand for her beauty service eyelash business that led to turning clients away before she realized she needed to hire help. As the pandemic started, and when other businesses began closing, her spouse's barbershop business was one of those affected; with hers continuing to flourish, he decided to learn her business skills. Ashley was skeptical at first, but it proved to be a success in the end. In this episode, she openly talks about the struggles, overcoming challenges, and what changes had to happen in their business and personal relationships. Mrs. Gonzales also discusses creating a solid foundation to progress any business relationship. She shares how they have continued reaping win after win and are becoming a stronger team working to scale their business together. Topics Covered: 03:11 - Her strategy getting fully booked in just a year of starting her business 05:16 - Trial and Error of Hiring staff before finally bringing in her husband to the business 10:36 - Why her marketing strategy worked, and she continued raising prices 12:32 - A business model that is a success even amidst the pandemic 17:05 - Overcoming the challenges of whether to take her husband into the business or not 21:14 - The unexpected best thing that happened as a result of her husband's joining her 25:37 - Dividing tasks and roles and handling conflicts and differences 27:26 - Creating boundaries -- knowing when to put your work or wife and mother hats on 29:11 - Owning the fact that it's their business together and not hers alone 31:49 - Working out on your differences 40:00 - The importance of communication and the need to always go back to the story behind your business 41:40 - What she would tell herself years ago with all the lessons she's learned now 46:06 - Realizing they are stronger together and learning how to work efficiently 49:48 - The Power dynamics of the wife taking the reins and the husband in a supportive role 54:32 - That one thing that gives her joy Key Takeaways: “I just feel like I'm always doing extra to make sure that I'm taking care of people to the best of my ability. I think that maybe that was kind of a strategy that I didn't realize that I had. But I've always kind of done pretty good as far as getting clients.” - Ashley Gonzales "I'm learning now that my' work hat' needs to be on at work. And then my 'wife and mother hat' needs to be on at home." - Ashley Gonzales "Before we'd be busy, I mean, yes, we were together. But we were busy doing our own thing; now, we are literally working with each other 24/7. And I am learning to let go of the fact that this is my business; it's now our business." - Ashley Gonzales "We have completely different love languages; his is quality time, words of affirmation, physical touch, mine are more like acts of service and material gifts; totally opposite spectrums of the love languages. And so what he has to learn and what he's navigating through right now is that, yes, we're working together, but we're not hanging out together. Like work is work, and we need to work, we need to get things done." - Ashley Gonzales "Communicating, like, why you're doing what you're doing, and knowing the story behind your business has been really helpful for us, too. Because it's not just money, we're not just here to make money; we're here to make a difference. My ultimate goal is to make a difference in my community." - Ashley Gonzales "Take off the defense hat. For me, a lot of times, because it's my business, I tend to be defensive when somebody comes from a certain angle. A lot of times, they just don't know how to communicate in a way that's not going to hurt my feelings and not going to feel like it's an attack. If you can take that defense jersey off and just try to be compassionate." - Ashley Gonzales "When you can put compassion in, and really take the time to take yourself out of it; it just creates less hurt for you." - Ashley Gonzales "After 11 years of being together, we have grown stronger together. Because we've realized how much stronger we are together. Like our business has grown so much exponentially since we've worked together. And so we're realizing now that, hey, we actually are a good team, we need to learn how to work more efficiently." - Ashley Gonzales Connect with Ashley Gonzales: Instagram beautylisciouslashes.com Connect with April Meese: aprilmeese.com [email protected] LinkedIn Instagram Facebook    

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