A Little Restructuring Goes a Long Way

I’ve long been fascinated with the difference between “equal” and “equitable.” When Tamara and I started the Berry-Brewer Freelance Agency, we did so with certain ideas about how to handle the money that we would hopefully be earning. Our original plan was to share things equally. For us that meant that every payment we received would get split three ways. One-third went to Tamara, one-third went to me, and one-third went to the business.

Of the one-third that went to the business, it got split up between the tax account and the business account. The business account is what we use to buy books, to pay for web site design, to treat ourselves to the occasional “business lunch,” etc. It’s quite exciting to watch that account grow and shrink as we save up for various purchases and then follow through on them. We’ll be telling you about our latest marketing venture very soon . . .

While the above method meant equal shares, it did not mean that things were “equitable.” I did absolutely no work in the month of February, for example (because of the birth of my baby), but I still got one-third of everything that Tamara brought in that month. Right here, I have to give huge amounts of gratitude to her for that, too. We did discuss it several times, and she chose to do it that way, knowing that she would sort of be supporting me through my maternity leave.

Once the baby hit three months, though, she came to me with the idea of making things more equitable. I absolutely agreed with her. We’ve come up with a new formula for splitting our earnings, and it seems to be working great so far. In addition, Tamara doesn’t have to harbor any resentment, and I don’t have to wallow in guilt. Isn’t that nice?

Now we each pay 15% of whatever we earn back to the company, and everything else goes to the person who earned it. This seems like a more professional way to handle the “agency” end of what we’re doing, too.

As with so much of what we do, Tamara and I really do believe that we benefit greatly from having a partnership. Fortunately, we see eye to eye on most topics. If we don’t we’re able to discuss them. We have yet to come to an impasse on any subject, thank our lucky stars.