Bridget Young and Joni Kimmel The saying that two heads are better than one is often true to business ownership—successful partnerships can often enhance and grow a business better than a solo enterprise. Many local women are taking that idea to heart, teaming up with family members, friends or colleagues to share their business ideas and strengths.

Joni Kimmel and Bridget Young have known each other since attending North Kitsap High School and initially went onto separate career paths. Several years ago, they became reacquainted and for the past two years, they have been working as a team at Windermere West Sound in Poulsbo. They split their commissions 50/50 and usually go to appointments together. They market themselves as a team and say their customers “get two agents for the price of one.”

Kimmel started in the real estate industry 13 years ago after getting tired of the commute to Seattle — the same reason that brought Young to the field a few years later. They find the job challenging but very gratifying, and say that being strong communicators is helping them succeed during the slow time in the real estate market.

“You have to have a genuine desire to see things through,” Young said. “You have to be able to shoot from the hip but also be compassionate, have honesty and integrity.”

A Company of Friends The team says 95 percent of their business comes from referrals, which speaks to the quality of their work. They say in some way, their job is like counseling: Many customers are anxious about selling a home, and they need to coach their clients to have realistic expectations. They also offer staging and professional photography services to their clients.

Working as partners allows them to give better service to their customers as well as to bring different perspectives to the job. But to be a good team, Kimmel said they need to share the same values about customer service and the same work ethic. “We’re accountable to each other,” she said.

Melanie Dormaier, Margie Kluth and Judy Rowson met through a group of women who did crafts together. They started selling their crafts as “A Company of Friends” at craft shows, and more than five years later took the plunge to open a shop. All stay-at-home moms whose children were getting older, they decided the timing was right for them to dedicate their time to a store.

Originally on Perry Avenue in Bremerton, for the past three years they’ve been located in Old Town Silverdale, selling an eclectic mix of home décor, gifts and knick-knacks. They rotate their duties of finances, marketing and so, but do the buying together. “That’s what makes the shop eclectic, we have such different tastes,” Rowson said.

That is also what helps them work well together — they say they appreciate those differences. “We’re committed to the shop and have a good relationship,” Dormaier said. “And we’ve always gelled.”

Two Crazy Cousins The three women’s families help out with the shop occasionally, and each co-owner makes time for other things. Each only works in the store two days a week. “We have a life outside the store, we’ve decided that’s important,” Rowson said.

Trying to anticipate what customers want is the biggest challenge for the business, and they all enjoy listening to their customers’ stories.

“The friendship and knowing we have the support of the other two people is the best part for me,” Kluth said. “…I’m a practical homebody, and it also helps me to know we help people out with reasonable prices.”

Rebeccah Guthrie decided almost on the spur of the moment she wanted to become a bookstore owner. She bought Port Orchard’s Bell Book & Candle five years ago just as the shop was ready to close doors, along with the second independent bookstore in the area. She called up her friend, Fran Cunningham, on an early morning, to see if she would become a financial partner.

“She was asleep so she said yes,” Guthrie said.

The two women had known each other for 26 years. “We’ve been through a lot of stuff together, and the bookstore’s been the easiest thing,” she said.

The bookstore was renamed to Bethel Avenue Book Co. Neither woman had worked in retail before and Cunningham said she didn’t even know how to run a register. “We taught ourselves everything we needed to know in under six weeks and in four years we’ve refined what we needed to know,” Guthrie said.

Bethel Avenue Book Co. moved two years ago to the High Point Shopping Center down the street. It has a considerably expanded children’s section with a kids’ play area, and nonbook-type items have been added to the selection. Only about 70 percent of the store’s merchandise includes books, with the rest consisting of high-end games, soaps, purses, furnishings — even rocking horses and trains have been sold there.

Guthrie, who works full-time and handles the daily operations, said the bookstore may close in three years, when their lease expires. “When Third Place Books opens , we wouldn’t need to be here. They serve the community very well as an independent bookstore, and we would have achieved our goal of having a bookstore in town,” she said.

Karen Brown only had to turn as far as her sister, Jan Adams, to find a partner in business. Known as the Potting Sisters, the Kingston women have been in business together for six years. Brown is the creative side of the team, using her interior design background to create plant containers. Adams, who is not afraid to get her hands dirty either, helps with the installatin as well as taking care of the accounting and marketing ends of the business.

“Gardening was always our hobby, our release of tension,” Brown said.

Brown creates containers by special order, and once a year or so holds an open house at her home with ready-made containers. This spring, she hopes to add online sales on their Web site .

Some customers have their own containers and the Potting Sisters shop for their own as well, trying to buy locally. “We hand-pick our plants for the container, and we use quality plants,” Brown said.

She said the demand for their service has grown, especially as people become more interested in sustainable gardening. She said the first two years, she learned a lot about which plants work in containers, and she tries out new plants in a pot for a year to see how they’ll do. “It’s a great excuse to buy new plants,” she said.

Brown said going into business together worked out because it was the right time in their careers — plus, “it works well because we do different aspects of it.”

Becky Olson and Darcy Long also kept their new business in the family. The two cousins, who grew up on the Key Peninsula and are fourth-generation residents, opened up an antique gift shop off Key Peninsula Highway last fall. The said the name, “2 Crazy Cousins,” fits them well, if one asks their family members.

“We were both collectors of stuff and we love yard sales,” Olson explained the mutual decision to open a shop.

The two cousins had lived in California for a while, but came back to the Key Peninsula recently to be closer to their extended family. They’ve discussed the idea for a while, and when a location became available close to home, they took the chance.

“People are commenting we needed something like this out here,” Long said.

The two women said starting up during a down economy was challenging but having reasonable prices is an advantage. They’ve also received support from family and friends.

The shop offers local products and new humorous cards in addition to vintage items — and the shopkeepers say they can’t wait for the estate sale season to start again so they can do some shopping.

“We are getting good response from the people coming in,” Olson said. “It makes us feel good.”