Nearly half of Maine businesses are owned by couples. How working with your romantic partner can make life sweet -- or turn it sour

Judy Libby and Steve Brown launched their business by falling in love in 1967. Soon after they started dating, Judy and Steve, who were University of Maine students at the time, began making jewelry together after watching a silversmith's casting demonstration at a craft fair. Today, the Browns are celebrating 40 years of successful marriage and 40 years of owning a successful jewelry business: Brown Goldsmiths in Freeport, which began with annual revenues of around $10,000 and now pulls in about $2 million a year. How did they know they'd work well together at home and at work?

"You can't plan something like this," Judy says on a recent morning in their jewelry shop. "At the core, we have been blessed. Was it fate? We do complement each other. He's more precise. I tend to be more fluid in my design."

Steve puts his hands together, tilts his head and lets his gaze fall on store counters gleaming with silver bands, gold chains and jeweled bracelets. "Best day of my life, I remember, when I saw her in Pat's Pizza," he says. "It's hard to explain such good fortune; it's a mystery in a certain way."

Romantic, certainly, but even this man in love knows turning marriage into money can't be left up to the stars: "Of course, to keep it on the ground level, it does take work," Steve says.

For the thousands of businesses in Maine that are co-owned by spouses or domestic partners, good relationship skills can lead to a lasting commitment and to entrepreneurial success. Romantic partners, after all, often choose one another for complementary strengths and talents, and that yin-yang fit can translate to an efficiently run business. But every poet knows the sweetest roses have their thorns, and upgrading a romantic relationship to include a career can spell death to both. Although statistics charting the success rate of couple-owned businesses are scarce, experts say entrepreneurial couples often fail for the same reasons — unequal commitment to the business, lack of mutual respect, and failure to maintain an active life and strong personal relationships apart from the business. If these missteps sound like the same that might doom a romantic relationship, that's no mistake. When love and money are linked, the rules of engagement at home and in the office become virtually identical.

High stakes

Clearly, for couples like the Browns, a lot is at stake when business and domesticity are one and the same. But the benefits are also great, for the couple involved and for local and national economies. According to Tom Juenemann, director of the Institute for Family-Owned Business at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, as many as 90% of the 40,000 businesses in Maine are family-owned. Of those, about half of the businesses, or roughly 18,000, are owned by couples. Across the country, family-owned businesses produce more than 60% of the country's GDP, according to The Family Business Institute in North Carolina.

So how do Maine couples balance work and romance? The first step to living and working together is to find time alone.

The Browns say that carving individual space outside of the partnership and business is critical. Judy practices aikido, which Steve jokingly says lets Judy target her aggression away from him. Steve is a musician and an avid biker. And both meditate.

"Do some things so you have time to nourish your spirit in whatever way," Judy says, "so you have space before coming together again."

Another working couple, Frank Isganitis and P.J. Walter, who opened the LimeRock Inn in Rockland in 2004, have also learned the value of time apart.

"We spend a crazy amount of time together," Isganitis says. Prior to buying the inn, the men worked corporate jobs in New Jersey and New York, with only weekends reserved for one another. Now they bump into each other at all hours just by turning corners in their Victorian bed and breakfast.

"Over the last three years, we have gotten good about saying I need to take the afternoon off," Isganitis says. On some quiet afternoons, Walter roars off in the convertible, top down, to take photographs of scenes around their B&B. Isganitis finds his escape in local politics and civic engagements (he serves on two town committees).
Deb Neuman, director of the Target Technology Incubator in Orono and host of "Back to Business," a radio talk show for Maine's small business owners, says it is common for couples in business together to get obsessed with work. On top of pursuing outside interests, she also advises couples to plan an occasional night out to refresh conversation unrelated to work.

Chocolatiers Victoria and Charles Hamilton sometimes have to shush each other when they find their off-hour discourse veering back to truffles. The married couple moved to Maine last year to open a gourmet confectionary business in South Portland called Nutmeg Foods. Because the company is busier than expected, the Hamiltons are immersed in work, and must be diligent about releasing themselves from their duties. "There's work time and no-work time," Charles says. "You have to stop talking about work."

"We have to catch ourselves," Victoria says.

The Hamiltons, who are both 31, are seasoned chefs who honed their specialties at culinary jobs in Connecticut and New York.

"I am on the sweet side, he's on the savory side," Victoria says. "A little sweet, a little sour. He always makes dinner, and I make dessert."

And so the Hamiltons balance their business partnership.

Beyond the difference in taste buds, Victoria is mostly responsible for experimenting in the kitchen and making the pumpkin seed butter, lavender syrup and other candies. Charles handles sales, packaging, marketing and client relations, chipping in with production when needed.

The Hamiltons also describe how they acclimated to their business partnership one year after getting married. They discovered how each other's character changed in a stressful working environment and in response developed a helpful polarity. Because Victoria tends to be high strung, Charles has learned to exude calmness. "I've been more mellow to manage the status quo," he says. "I'll relax to an extreme."

Splitsville

Janet Roderick, a business counselor with the Maine Small Business Development Center in Fairfield, says couples drafting a business plan for a new venture should first define who will do what. "Look at skills and how to put them together," she says. Separate tasks allow couples to stay out of each other's way and to share the business burdens, leading to greater efficiency. Like the Hamiltons, couples often mold their personalities together as well to create a high-functioning unit.

At the LimeRock Inn, Isganitis and Walter have clearly delegated tasks. Because Isganitis is a morning person, he gets up to make breakfast. Walter cleans the rooms. Isganitis, who once worked in the finance world, is in charge of the books, and Walter, who tends to be more artistic, contributes his photography to the inn's website.

And Neuman points out that couples need to be clear about the division of labor when it comes to household chores. "Ask yourself how you will share business responsibilities and personal ones. Who will mow the lawn, cook, clean, pick up the kids? If that is not discussed, that can create some," Neuman whispers this last word ominously, "tension."

Tension rose so high between Margaret Lyons and her former husband Mark Lembo at their Portland coffee shop that Lyons says customers had front-row seats to their spats.
Now Lyons is the sole proprietor of The Snug, a bar in Portland. And she likes it that way.

"I am not sure of too many things in life, but there is nothing about a [business] partnership," she wants these days. "All that crap about having someone to lean on [and] share the responsibilities with," she laughs, "it's so much easier to run a business by yourself than with another person. It is so much easier not to compromise."

Lyons learned the hard way. After 13 years of marriage, she and Lembo opened Acoustic Coffee in 2003. But incompatible personality differences already present in their relationship — she says he was dreamy and impulsive while she was grounded and practical — intensified after they opened the music venue.

They disagreed about everything: She wanted to shred the lettuce for the sandwiches; he wanted to chop. She didn't believe booking obscure bands from out-of-town would draw a crowd. He did. He wanted to buy a pizza oven. She said, "Who's ever heard of a vegetarian coffee shop that serves pizza?"

A year after opening Acoustic Coffee, Lyons and Lembo divorced. But they managed to keep the coffee shop open for another year before selling it in 2005. "Professionalism and respect can get thrown out the window when you've seen someone dance around in their underwear," Lyons explains.

The Institute for Family-Owned Business at USM helps Maine family members practice conflict resolution, among other skills, to avoid the type of friction that brewed at Lyons' coffee shop. "You can imagine going to work every day with your parents, husband, children — it's fraught with problems," Juenemann says.

Intimacy can sharpen what might otherwise be normal office conflict, causing wounded feelings, a keener sense of betrayal and suffocating emotional claustrophobia. In the worst-case scenario, the stress of working together can topple a relationship, leading to divorce and the end of the business. But there are ways to mitigate a business failure if feelings turn bitter.

Ann Marie Orr, an entrepreneur in Bangor, more than a decade ago started a restoration business with a romantic partner that was "hugely successful," she says. But over time, the two drifted apart and decided to split. Rather than sacrificing their profitable collaboration, Orr and her former partner saved their business by going to couples therapy to learn anger management, a necessary skill when seeing an ex every day.

"We had to go into the causes for that anger," Orr says. "We did get to the roots of the problems." And they learned to keep any lingering jealousy, anger and disappointment away from work, she says.

My lover, my colleague

Roderick, the business counselor, says couples can avoid pitfalls by supplementing their business plan with a private contract, one they don't share with lenders. The contract should spell out roles and responsibilities, as well as a contingency plan to deal with decision stalemates, she says. This could include identifying a third party to help with disagreements or giving one partner the authority to say, "It's going to be done my way." The contract should also be clear about the fate of the business if the couple splits.

Although home and work are different worlds for most people, these lines are blurred for couples in business together. Slipping into chronic bickering — a faux-pas in offices but something family members regularly engage in — can be the downfall of a domestic and professional partnership. Yet successful couples say they adhere to the same rules for social harmony in both home and business. "If you learn to control yourself in a business situation, you can bring that home," Steve Brown says. "Why would I not be as civil to my beloved?"

During arguments, B&B owners Isganitis and Walter say they never resort to personal attacks. "It's not productive or useful," Isganitis says. And Walter adds that the two know one another well enough now, after being together for seven years, that they generally agree who has expertise in what area and when this expertise trumps, say, a moment of idiosyncratic inspiration (like building a fountain in the yard — Walter's idea).

Candice and Dan Heydon, who have run the Oyster Creek Mushroom Company together in Damariscotta since 1995, say that when sales of mushrooms are down and money is tight, stress increases. But they don't let that interfere with their civility. "It's not Dan's fault that our website has 500 hits and only one order. It's not Dan's fault if I go picking and come back with five pounds. We're doing everything we can. We're together in this," Candice says.

Scott and Michelle Vicnaire, who have been married 27 years and have owned Regal Printing & Graphics in Brewer and Ellsworth since 1988, say they learned to compromise. "You have to pick your battles," Scott says. "If you think this [idea] would be good, but it is not so important to you, you let it go by. When you know something is right, you have to stand up for your view."

A young couple in their mid-twenties, Abe and Heather Furth, also adapted to the pressure of running their restaurant, Woodman's Bar & Grill in Orono, without succumbing to impatience and irritability.

Heather says in the early days Abe would demand her help in a tone that made Heather bristle. "His old way of doing it was, 'Argh! I need help now!'" she says, mimicking his rough voice. "And now he does it nicely, 'Will you help me now?' When you're busy it's hard to be polite and not do mean talking. We've tried to eliminate mean talking. It's all about tone."

Bittersweet success

Finally, a thriving business can be a couple's worst nightmare.
"If a business is very successful, that can be very threatening to families," Roderick says. "Because it is taking up more time now."

The Vicnaires, who have grown Regal Press & Graphics to roughly $500,000 in annual revenue, say the stress is greater now that the business is humming along. "We have two other [employees] counting on us," Scott says. "When you are in your 20s, it is easier to venture out and fall flat on your face. The further along you are, the harder it is. But you are also more established and that is less likely to happen."

Roderick also warns that couples can disagree over the definition of success, which can cause a tug-of-war over business decisions. One half of the couple might be conservative about investing in the business, while the other wants to plow ahead. For some, success is financial, but for others it might be defined by the number of people served or how much the business is able to donate to charity. "If you don't have common goals and common definitions of success, you could each be trying to take the business in a different direction," she says.

Yet if a couple can weather the triumphs and the failures, the hard work and the agonizing decisions, and all the while enjoy the experience, their relationship can become all the more robust.

Charles Hamilton admits that while the number of sleepless nights for him has increased since starting Nutmeg Foods last January, he's also never been happier. "There's no reason to do anything if it's no fun," he says. "That's why we left corporate America."

Michelle Vicnaire says, "[Our marriage] has grown nothing but stronger," after working at Regal Printing for almost 20 years with husband Scott.

And after dealing with difficult colleagues at other jobs, Candice Heydon says her favorite coworker is her husband of 19 years. "I'd rather be with Dan," she says. Dan, too, used to work under stress at his cable company job, dealing with long hours and demanding employers. He says his job now is far less taxing.

"I love my boss," he explains.