Keep it in the family.

[zebrahat]

I once had an exchange about this with a network marketer who put out the old warm bucket line of "if you knew there was a pot of gold buried in your family's back yard, would you put a stranger to work to help dig it up, or would you give your relative the opportunity to get rich with you?"

My reply was (and is), well, it does make sense to put it that way, IF the treasure is just 2 or 3 feet down. But what if it's really there, but it's 20-30 feet down? What if it's 200 feet down? Uncle Joey may 'go along with the gag' and give you a hand the first or second 10 feet, but will he stick around when things get really deep and dirty?

Blood may be thicker than water, but vision is thicker than blood. You ultimately need somebody with both the skill and the same tenacity as you to dig the 200 feet---and most friends or family have neither. So it's better overall to get an arms length relationship going with somebody disconnected from you, who can therefore be counted on to focus on the job until completion. The roles are clearer and cleaner that way, and less likely to end with you coming up empty.

 

[shylesson]

Me and my wife are partners in bh. I earn the money & she spends it.

Sounds like me and my gf, BUT I put my foot down this past week and was like 'help me!!!!!!!!!' [I mean...she has no job....and sits and plays spades and myspace poker all day smoking a blunt!!!....I think she SHOULD help lol].....BUT....Omg it's been hell lol. She is so clueless to the net that I spend twice as much time completing a task I could have completed faster doing myself and faster still outsourcing to a foreigner [someone not relative to me]... so yeh...it can work for some...but for others...just let your chick be a pretty face and a good la...yeh you know...[I did manage to give her a nice checklist to help me setup blogs with though...a very very very very detailed list seems to help....lol]

 

[tonlilaz]

my husband and i work together....somethings i'm better at, other things he's better at....my son's to little to do any work yet

 

[albaniax]

Tell your wifes to ewhore, I bet they can do it much better then you

 

[scoots250]

Tell your wifes to ewhore, I bet they can do it much better then you

LOL.............hmm just given me amn idea

 

[mehjoe]

Ive outsourced some laborious tasks to my brother and its worked out really well. Slightly more expensive than an online outsourcer yet I have direct contact with him, can check he knows how to do things easily and i know he wont screw me over.

 

[panthr]

I wouldn't know where to begin with mine. Can you say duh-huh?

 

[clmarketer]

It has worked good within our family. Hubby has worked as my partner off and on for the past 15 years. Sometimes he takes a job outside the home. Three of our five children have worked full time with me in the past. One child said no way, she'd prefer to make her own way in the world. The youngest is 15 and works part-time with us. Two of our kids now have their own full time IM businesses. Looking back I wouldn't change anything we've done.
However I can't say the same about working with friends. I've only had one friend that was an employee that it worked out good. Trying to be business partners with friends didn't work out nearly as well.

 

[workingwhileworking]

I know from experience that the problem with getting your family to work FOR you is the fact that they will ALWAYS treat you like you need them. Not matter HOW much you pay them.

And by family, I mean siblings, aunts, uncles, parents and the like.

Now, it may be different with your own family, meaning your spouse/SO and kids. You tend to garner more respect fom them. I don't know, I don't have them.

 

[invisibleme]

Yeah its a positive and good time to bond, teach and share. And mentoring own kids and watch them grow is definitely much more satisfying

 

[skankle]

I am a total newb. and I will eventually build a successful online business. I own an offline company also. My kids, ages 17,15,11 saw what I was doing the other day (building websites) and asked what I was doing.
I explained that I was in the early stages of building an online business. I told them a little about the various ways to make money online AND I told them that if they spent as much time doing internet marketing as they do playing fucking video games they would all be making some serious cash in a few years.
Furthermore it is dam fun and challenging. Any dope head can get good playing HALO but to get your Website on top the SERPS in a competitive niche takes skillz. They started drilling me with questions and I ended up taking about 2 hours explaining some of the methods to SEO. From black hat to white I went over briefly about 20 backlink building methods.
And my youngest son say "Its like levels in my Wizards game" I said "exactly".

Now they are trying to figure out niches and are definitely interested in playing this new game. My boys are really competitive, I hope I didn't create a monster. .........hmmm the link farms they build will certainly come in handy hehe