9 Surprising Ways Why Talking with Friends and Family about Business Won’t Make You Rich
It’s no wonder that the psychology of the human mind needs validation and understanding to sooth the negative emotion that comes from not feeling validated or understood. Especially when it comes to mixing business with family and friends.
Before I begin, picture this..
It’s after midnight. You’ve traveled 8 long hours with 2 kids in the back seat. You feel relieved when finally arriving at the hotel you’ve had booked for over 2 weeks now. With your confirmation in hand, you approach the front desk, but the clerk says, “I’m sorry, we are unable to accommodate you. The hotel is sold out. In fact, the entire city is sold out because of this huge event going on.”
Your heart sinks. You can feel the heat of frustration in your ears getting hotter as the clerk treats you like that of a fly as she shoos you off to the third-party company that made the booking in the first place. The rep there offers no resolution to your current need, either and can only process a refund. After going around in circles with the rep, the rep’s supervisor, and the supervisor’s supervisor, you are now on your own. In the middle of the night. With no place to stay.
We’ve all faced something like this.
Regardless of the situation – if only the rep would’ve validated and understood the dilemma by replying, “I can understand how frustrating this is. I would feel the same way. I am here to help you figure out a resolution to this very difficult situation.”
By the way. Those reps? They have customer service training in empathy to some degree. And if they can’t get it right – where does that leave the rest of us when expressing empathy towards others.
It’s no wonder we feel like Negative Nelly’s a lot of times.
Mixing Business with Family and Friends..
Now let’s consider mixing business with the friends and family that have no empathy training.
What does doing business or discussing business with friends and family mean to the psychology of our brain when it comes to business ventures?
Do we or do we not confide our excitement to those around us about how our goals, visions, and dreams will catapult us into successful business entrepreneurs?
The sad truth: You should never discuss, mix, do, or go into business with friends and/or family.
If you are reading this, I’m guessing you are constantly thinking about what kinds of businesses you can start that will make money. And lots of it.
People like us – we’ve all been there hoping and dreaming how “that career” will someday be profitable. So lucrative that it could even fund that dream of traveling AND doing what we love at the same time. That dream turns us into eagerly approaching our friends and family assuming they, too, will be excited.
Never Do Business With Family or Friends:
I’ll give you nine reasons why you should never do or talk business with friends or family.
1.) They won’t think it’s exciting.
You are aware that you have the ingredients to make this idea or venture succeed yet everyone else will shake their heads
2.) They will judge.
They will give reason after reason about why it won’t work.
3.) They don’t share the same passion.
How will sharing goals and visions with family and friends reap your same excitement when they don’t share the same goals and visions? Better yet, they don’t understand anything about your business. You have your visions, and they have theirs. It is what it is.
4.) They create Spat-Like behavior.
Sharing ideas with someone who offers no support causes arguments and judgement from those around you.
5.) They will never be your ideal customers.
Before discussing business with friends or family, ask yourself: Would they be ideal customers? I mean, you wouldn’t go to a hardware store to buy bread, would you?
6.) They unintentionally make you fail.
Aside from poor money management, friends and family members play a dominant role in the 80% of businesses that utterly fail or never even begin due to the Negative Nelly’s of our lives.
7.) They will cause a relationship risk.
Why risk a friend or family relationship with business discussions that will end in arguments and judgement?
8.) They’ll have stupid expectations.
There is this story about how a family wanted to travel to places around the country in their RV while working online. The Uncle Joe’s and friends of the family all made bets “expecting” they wouldn’t make it past a week or two. Guess what? They are still going strong after two years. Working online and site-seeing around the country in their RV. So long Uncle Joe and friends!
9.) They’ll make you lose money.
There’s an old saying that goes, “Money is the root of all evil.” I don’t believe that money is evil, per se. But I do believe that if your ideas are constantly being shot down by others, the excitement you had in the beginning of these discussions will turn into lost hope and lost dreams equaling lost money.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that families can’t be supportive. But the remedy to the Negative Nelly’s when discussing business is simple. Don’t do business with family. Don’t do business with friends. Don’t talk to friends and family about business. Period. Discuss your visions with like-minded people. For me, it’s the community of like-minded individuals through Wealthy Affiliate.
Do you have something to say about “why you shouldn’t talk to family or friends about business”? Maybe Something to add? If you so, please take the time and leave your comment at the bottom of this post. I would love to hear your opinions! I’m pretty sure this post might have sparked a little flame in some of you. Thanks for reading guy’s, and good luck with your success!
If you enjoyed this article that was “all about” never mixing business with family and friend’s, please don’t limit yourself. Feel free to learn “all about” something different. A Post that could be beneficial to you, and your future success online, like:
The Importance Of Passive Income
The Best Ways To Choose A Niche
Amazon Affiliate Program Review
Or Maybe One Of My Helpful “All About” Post, Like:
“All About” Boosting Your Google Ranking
“All About” Google Search Console
“All About” Taking Online Surveys
“All About” Lead Capture Pages
And Much More…
I agree wholeheartedly! That’s why I’ve learned to advise people against telling their friends or family until they’ve reached a certain level of success. Whether that be their first few sales/customers, etc… Nothing is more frustrating when you know that you know deep down that an opportunity/product/service is perfect for someone, possibly life changing for them, and they quit because someone in their inner circle shot them down. Most of the time it’s because their friends and family don’t want to see them hurt or lose money, but more often times than not their opinion does just what they were trying to save their friend or family member from- it hurts them. It crushes dreams, shuts down someone’s confidence, etc…
Thanks for that beautiful addition C Wolfe! I don’t think I could’ve closed it out better. Had to read your comment twice, lol. Take care and good luck to your success as well..
I agree that many people close to us will say itwon’t work, or your better off going to college instead of creating an online business.
I feel many people see affiliate marketing as a scam (since there are so many out there) — that when we tell them there are legitimate ways make money online, they don’t want to hear it.
With that said I think when they see you making money and succeeding, they can be very good partners in supporting you.
Right, gotta lead by example right, if nothing else. Thanks for commenting and sharing your input.