5 Ways To Get Support From Your Husband

When you start working from home, getting support from your spouse is very important. Unfortunately, not all spouses are willing to give you the support you need. When I first started my small business, my wife was not very supportive for various reasons. Fortunately, I learned several tricks that helped me get the support I needed to make my dreams a success, and now I will share them with you.

Here are five ways to get support from your husband (or spouse) for your at-home business.

1. What Is The Future Potential

Your husband may not understand that you have an actual business. Making jewelry, writing, taking pictures, talking to people, those are hobbies, not actual work. Sure you may get some pocket change from it, but this is fun stuff.

In this case, you need to sit down and explain what exactly you do, what the potential payoff is the market strategy and the number of customers you have or will have.

Pretend you’re going to the bank for a loan, have everything laid out, don’t undersell yourself but don’t oversell either. Keep it realistic. When you show your husband that you are treating this like a business, and you have a good plan, that can be enough to get at least some support for your business.

2. Show Me The Money

This is related to the first method. If your business is not producing money or is only making a few dollars a month, you will not be able to convince your husband it’s an actual business. This is a big problem for writers and artists who need to build up a portfolio and can be a problem for other people as well.

So you need to make money.

Yes, it would be easier to make money if your husband gave you the support, but life is not fair. When you make a sale, if it’s for a small amount, don’t go running and say, “see I got paid!” I did this a few times with my wife when I started writing, and the $10 or $20 I made didn’t seem impressive. Instead, build up the money, until it reaches a decent amount, how much is up to you. Then go and say you just made this much money! You don’t have to say it took you a month or two to do it, just lay it down on the table and say your business made it.

When there is money to be made, most husbands will become a lot happier about helping out.

3. Show Your Work

When you work-at-home, there is a belief that you spend all day in your underwear relaxing. To help prove you don’t do this, make a schedule of your day. This will not only help you stay on task, but you can show it to your husband, friends, and family, letting them see what you actually do.

If you back this up by showing the work you accomplished that day, it’s a lot harder for your husband to believe you spent the entire day relaxing. Even better, you can ask your husband if he would like to help you out a little and point to exactly where you need the help.

Remember men work best with a schedule, so give us one, and we’re a lot happier about helping.

4. Have an Emergency

Most men like to be the hero. Give us a job that only we can do, and we’ll do it for the praise and to make us look good.

Give us an emergency.

Even if you can fix the problem if it involves something your husband is used to and knows how to fix, get him to do it. Then when he’s done it thank him with a big smile, he’ll feel awesome, and the next time you need help, even if it’s something not as fun like chores, he will be more likely to do it again, because being the hero is fun.

Related Content: How to Include Your Family in Your Work-at-Home Business

5. Bribes and Incentives

You’ve tried everything else, and your husband still refuses to help out. There is one last thing you can do that should work and doesn’t involve a fight.

Bribery.

You need the dishes washed one night as you work on a huge project, offer to cook your husbands’ favorite meal the next day. You need the kids out of the house for the afternoon so you can talk to a client, prepare a really nice lunch and help pack everything up for your husband and kids to have an all-day fishing trip. He ran an important errand for you, that night gives him a relaxing back massage, or as soon as you’re both free go watch the newest buddy action movie that he loves and you hate.

If you do this a few times, he’ll start helping out without being asked, and only occasional rewards.

Conclusion.

With most guys, at least one of these should work. It may take a bit of time for him to get into the swing of things, but once we know that something is important and are given a clear idea of how we can help most men will help.

Just remember we are helping, we’re not working for you. If we start feeling like unpaid labor, or that we’re being taken for granted the help will stop. But with regular thank you’s, pleasant smiles, and an occasional reward, that shouldn’t be a big problem.

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Dan Clarke is a motivational and productivity coach who helps small businesses and people who work from home find a proper work-life balance. You can find out more about him at his website Get Motivated, Get Happy. (www.lets-get-happy.com)