Modern era Mom and Pop businesses make it work out

Twice in her life Terri Marx has said “I do” to Robert Marx.

The first time was in 1980 when they exchanged wedding vows.

The second time was in 1987 when he asked his wife to become his partner again, this time as the executive director of his Gladstone dental practice, Robert G. Marx, DDS & Associates.

Launching any business is difficult, and being in business with one’s spouse has its own added challenges. But when communication is clear and each member of the couple brings particular skills and strengths, the combination can be quite successful — and emotionally fulfilling.

On the down side, experts say, burnout is particularly threatening when couples can’t set aside their business long enough to enjoy their family life. Without that balance, they say, a family’s emotional and financial well-being can suffer.

Division of labor and clear outlining of tasks also helps — as does having a plan to hold family finances together should the business falter.

The Marxes and some other area couples interviewed recently — some with professional practices, others in retail or services — told how they are making their businesses succeed.

Robert Marx said he opened his practice in 1984 and has seen it grow from a 1,200-square-foot space in the old Antioch Shopping Center to 5,000 square feet in an office building at North Broadway and Englewood Road. The Marxes will add 200 more square feet in July when they finish an expansion to welcome their daughter, Emily Marx, into the practice.

She will join her father and another dentist, Doug Arjes, along with three hygienists, eight dental assistants and seven administrative staff members.

Robert Marx, 64, credits much of the growth of his practice to the skills of his wife: “She is integral to the practice. She runs the practice and handles all the administrative side; I handle the technical side.”

Her role in the business also allows Robert Marx to help patients as a doctor and not as a salesman, he said. Robert Marx will explain to patients exactly what their oral health needs are. Then, when the question of cost arises, Terri Marx takes over and reviews the costs, insurance and treatment plan for the patient.

“Our different roles complement each other,” she said.

‘Co-preneurial’ couples

It was during the post-World War II era that Mom and Pop shops began flourishing for reasons similar to those cited by the Marxes. Men brought technical skills learned in the military or at college through the GI Bill to the business, and wives brought bookkeeping and clerical skills.

Today, small businesses owned and managed by entrepreneurs who are husband-wife teams have become so popular that the term “co-preneurship” was coined. Such partnerships can be positive experiences that strengthen both the marriage and the business.

“I often liken business partnership to marriage,” said Dodie Jacobi, business consultant and owner of DodieJacobi.com in Kansas City.

Jacobi worked as a wedding consultant for 13 years before she began advising and mentoring small-business owners.

“Turn toward each other,” she said is the best of advice that comes from observing hundreds of wedding ceremonies.

“One minister said the reason he asked couples to face each other while stating their vows was that in times of strife, we’re tempted to turn away from the very person that can help us the most.”

To have and to own

Russell Capps agrees wholeheartedly with that advice. He and Eliza Joy Capps own A Buyer’s Choice Home Inspections business in Leawood.

“My wife is my ultimate business coach,” said Capps, 33. “Her advice is indispensable wisdom — she knows me and my strengths better than anyone else.”

Capps is an American Society of Home Inspectors certified inspector. He began his business in the summer of 2011 after taking classes and passing a national exam.

While he is inspecting houses, Eliza Joy Capps, 29, is at home “doing everything else — scheduling, emailing clients, paying bills, bookkeeping — she’s the one who holds it all together,” he said.

Eliza Joy Capps said she enjoys the flexibility of being able to stay home with their kids and support him in their business at the same time.

“We get to work as a team, and I like seeing him succeed,” she said.

For Jared and Aspen Robb of Olathe, every work day will be “take your child to work” day. The Robbs purchased a Childrens Lighthouse Learning Center franchise and are getting ready for the grand opening on Monday.

The center cares for and educates children from six weeks to 12 years old. Construction on the 11,000-square-foot building began in November of 2013 and has 10 classrooms to accommodate 176 students from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Three of those will be the Robbs’ own children.

“It’s been a dream of ours for seven years for Aspen to have her own center,” Jared Robb, 43, said.

In April, Aspen Robb, 32, quit a full-time job she held for 16 years with a learning care company in the Kansas City area.

“It’s a lot more expensive than you anticipate,’’ Aspen Robb said. “You see a lot of money going out and not much coming in at first.”

Jared Robb still works in broadcast sales from a home office as a “financial safety net,” he said.

Owner and employee

Sometimes financial pressures of business ownership mean one or both of the spouses needs to hold a job that offers health insurance and benefits for the family.

Eric and Nancy Schneider opened Headrush Roasters Coffee & Tea in January of 2013 on North Oak Trafficway in Gladstone. Nancy Schneider, 39, is co-owner but also continues to work full time as a software engineer to keep benefits in place.

She devotes evenings and weekends to coffee shop responsibilities such as updating the social media, dealing with all importers and checking the tea inventory.

She handles all things tea because Nancy Schneider grew up in Yunnan, China, one of the larger tea-producing regions in the world. She met her husband when he was working in China and needed an interpreter in 1997.

Eric Schneider, 49, worked for 25 years in commercial insurance and became a coffee drinker at the age of 30. That first sip led him to become a coffee enthusiast, researcher, roaster and retailer.

“Our hobby became our business,’’ Nancy Schneider said.

Wherever they traveled, they visited coffee shops and plantations, trying to learn all they could about coffee consumption and customs.

Financial pressures can be tough enough in a regular marriage. Being in business together compounds that pressure.

Scott and Shannon Souder are also coping with the financial challenges of running a business by bringing in income from outside jobs.

Shannon Souder, 42, continues to work as a cosmetologist and a pediatric nurse when she’s not assisting her husband, 45, with the business they started together in January of 2013 — the Souder Family Funeral Home in Kansas City, North.

“It’s his dream, and I respect him for what he’s doing,” she said.

Respect is the reason the Souders opened their funeral home, with the motto “Our Family Serving Your Family.”

“We answer our own calls,” he said. “We don’t hand over our business to any employees.”

Scott Souder has worked as a professional mortician since 1995, and he increasingly thought he could do a better job on his own than with a corporate funeral company. Five years ago, he began looking for a property to start his own funeral home.

The Souders found the property not far from where they live in Clay County — a homestead with a plantation built in the 1800s on 7.2 acres.

The struggle for a family owned funeral home is to find a market between cut-rate crematories and large corporations with expensive package plans, Scott Souder said.

Like his wife, he, too, is taking on a part-time job to help meet long-term goals. They realize that getting established will take time, and they are willing to do what it takes to make that happen.

“We’re in this together,” he said. “I gather so much strength just knowing she supports me.”

Sharing a mutual interest

Avery Bratt, a licensed clinical psychologist, persuaded his wife to join him in his practice because he needed someone to talk to.

In 2000, Bratt started using neurofeedback or brainwave biofeedback to help his patients.

“I was getting results and I had mentors but no one here to talk with,” he said.

The training, software and hardware necessary to diagnose and treat patients were new and not widespread. Bratt found himself calling colleagues in other parts of the country to discuss the improvements he was seeing in patients’ mental health from the new technology.

And he was going home at night to share his excitement with his wife, Laura Bratt, who also holds a degree in clinical psychology and had worked with him at a neurological rehabilitation hospital in Florida.

Laura Bratt was inspired by her husband’s enthusiasm and took the neurofeedback training to join him in the practice, AHA Psychological Services in Prairie Village in 2003.

“I wanted to get back into my field of study professionally and I learned so much from him,” Laura said of her husband.

Both see patients every day at the practice. Laura Bratt, 53, treats children and some adults. Avery Bratt, 58, treats adults.

The technology and the results it produces still excite them. So much so that conversations at home often are about business.

“If you really like what you do, it can seep into the rest of your life,” Avery Bratt said.

The Bratts say they are aware their shop talk may be dull to their three children, and they make an effort to talk about other things with them.

Perks and perils

Despite the best of intentions, it can be tempting to talk shop even after you’ve closed up for the day or weekend.

For good reason, husbands and wives are often cautioned against letting their professional life consume their personal relationships with each other and their children.

“Somehow you have to have some way to shut if off, or you become myopic and boring,” said Bill Fialka, marketing communications consultant with William Fialka & Associates in Lee’s Summit.

In more than 25 years of working with couple-owned businesses, Fialka has found that separating the personal life from their business life is one of the hardest things for couples to do.

“You come to work, you’re side by side 24/7, and all of a sudden you have no personal relationship,” he said.

On the other hand, Eric and Cathy Wright of Overland Park find that their business is the perfect fit for the whole family. The Wrights own KC Kona Ice, a mobile gourmet shaved ice franchise they started in 2009.

“We’ve changed the expectations of what kids think of an ice cream truck,” Eric Wright, 44, said. The trucks are covered with colorful characters and have flashing lights and four speakers playing Kona Ice island style music.

Since they started with one truck, they have added an average of a truck a year to their fleet, including a mini-truck for indoor events.

“We make this a family business,” said Cathy Wright, 45.

The Wrights have a 14-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son who help serve the product from the trucks and make recommendations about the business, suggesting age-appropriate giveaways, for example.

Dialing it down

Compatibility, good communication, respect and shared expectations are important to the success of such businesses. And yet, as demanding as these pressures are, the reason most Mom and Pops close the doors is not from a shortage of money, a lack of human resources or not enough hours in the day. “It is the lack of energy from burnout,’’ Jacobi, the business consultant, said.

“There is plenty of energy … to ride the wave of creating a business,” Jacobi said.

But when the business is underway, couples can drain their energy “bank account” by doing what saps their energy rather than what energizes them.

Burnout can be headed off, Jacobi said, by identifying those tasks and eliminating, automating or delegating them. That leaves business owners free to concentrate on their strengths and focus on the reason they became marital and business partners.

Jacobi said couples also needed to set aside a time and a place away from the distractions of both business and family to be together and talk about their big-picture plans.

This story was originally published May 27, 2014 at 1:10 AM with the headline "Modern era Mom and Pop businesses make it work out."