169: Growing Your Design Business With Your Spouse with Ben and Jenny Slingerland Joining me on the podcast today are Jenny and Ben Slingerland of Black Ink Interiors. Jenny and Ben are clients of mine who have had tremendous growth over the last year. Today they are going to share their story of how they began working together in the company, how their business has morphed over the years, and how they each have their area of specialty that makes it all work.

Topics Mentioned: * Husband and wife team * Business growth * Scaling * Visionary and Integrator

Key Thoughts: * The idea of being in total control of your, your life, lifestyle, schedule. That's probably the biggest motivating factor. We control our destiny, and we can control our lives and how we schedule things and that's a big motivating factor. Ben Slingerland (14:28)

• I think before you were to make a jump into a situation of working with your spouse, it would literally be asking yourself if other than the six hours you're sleeping at night, can you stand to be with that person every day and to get feedback when needed? Jenny Slingerland (21:28)
• Everybody knows there's got to be somebody driving hard in front, and somebody standing there manipulating behind the scenes and making everything work. That is the beauty of what two of you have created together. Michele Williams (23:22)
• Some of the things that I teach around financials and hiring are lessons that if learned, it's not just an investment or the ROI within that first year, it's the ROI of every single year after that, where you now know that you have the knowledge, you have the skill set, you have the tools to do something. It is now a return on investment year over year over year over year, because you've learned that idea or that skill. Michele Williams (27:05)
• You gave us tools to help us look at things differently to see the key performance indicators, to break things down in a way, to analyze the financials in a different way, so that we could take insights from them, and then also to look beyond just a year right. Ben Slingerland (30:16)

Contact Michele: * Email: Team@ScarletThreadConsulting.com * Facebook: Scarlet Thread Consulting * Instagram: @ScarletThreadATL * Website: ScarletThreadConsulting.com * LinkedIn: Michele Williams

Contact Ben and Jenny: * Website: www.blackinkinteriors.com * Instagram: @black.ink.interiors * Facebook: BlackInkInteriorsAZ * Pinterest: Black Ink Interior * Twitter: Black Ink Interiors * LinkedIn: Black Ink Interiors * Houzz: Black Ink Interiors * Email: orders@blackinkinteriors.com

References and Resources: * AIM Masterclass - Watch now * E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber * Traction by Gino Wickman