Todd and Elizabeth Antonick had been interested by going into enterprise collectively for 15 years. However when the couple’s daughters left for faculty, the pair determined it was lastly time to take that leap. After some analysis revealed the necessity for a dependable native landscaping firm, the Antonick’s selected to put money into a Grounds Guys franchise. Now, they’ll’t think about their small work trip some other approach.
“The plan was all the time to work collectively,” says Todd, who co-owns The Grounds Guys of Virginia Seaside with Elizabeth. “My spouse had given up her profession to be a stay-at-home mother however when the children left for faculty it introduced a possibility for us to work collectively.”
The Grounds Guys of Virginia Seaside
Now two-and-a-half years into the enterprise, the Antonick’s say that they first opened their enterprise at a time when so many have been shutting down due to the pandemic.
“One of many qualifiers of selecting an organization was that it will be a mainstay—one thing individuals would all the time want,” Todd explains. “We realized that landscaping is round no matter what.”
That being stated, Elizabeth says these early days weren’t with out their challenges. Throughout the first eight months of being open, the couple was battling the Covid-19 virus themselves, which changed into “Lengthy Covid” for Elizabeth (which she remains to be battling immediately).
“We had double pneumonia—the entire 9 yards,” she remembers. “However we pushed by and ensured that our crews have been nonetheless employed. It helped that we had laid the muse previous to being an official enterprise. We didn’t soar in with out doing our due diligence.”
Elizabeth says that a part of what makes them profitable as husband-and-wife enterprise homeowners are mutual respect for each other.
“We even have our personal roles that help our totally different strengths,” she provides. “We actually imagine in each other and we all know that having persistence and respect for each other is significant to our success.”
Todd says that you may’t have “two chiefs in the identical space” and stresses that it’s vital that you simply be your “personal chief in your individual space.” He provides that the couple makes use of each other as sounding boards. Elizabeth and Todd every give attention to their very own areas of power.
“The toughest half is eradicating among the emotion from the equation after we’re speaking about enterprise,” Elizabeth says. “We all the time keep in mind that we’re in it collectively and that we finally have the identical objective, even when we now have totally different concepts.”
Holding work and private life separate
Elizabeth says that one other key to success has been retaining their work life and their private life as separate as attainable.
“We make certain to separate work life from residence life,” Elizabeth says. “There’s a change that we now have in place the place we all know that after we stroll out of labor life, we’re switching it off—after which we go into married life. We don’t speak about work at night time, we speak about private stuff. We’ve got discovered there needs to be some separation.”
The couple says that the training alternatives simply maintain coming—however total, proudly owning a enterprise collectively has made them stronger. They each say they now can’t think about having it some other approach.
“Life is brief,” sums up Elizabeth. “That is one thing we actually wished to do collectively.”
Todd agrees.
“This was a possibility for us to work intently collectively on one thing that we each could possibly be obsessed with,” he says. “It’s been very rewarding.”
