Making Partnerships Work
This information is taken in part from the book: BEYOND the NUMBERS: 5 Key Factors that Impact an Entrepreneur’s Success.
In the last post, I introduced Factor #1 – Know your Entrepreneurial Personality. Your aptitudes (skills) and attitudes (behavior) are key to determining whether you would be better off as a sole owner (I refer to as The Lone Stranger) or partnering with other owners (The Painless Partner), even family members (The Family Gatherer).
https://thewritetouchinc.com/2018/09/14/entrepreneurs-partner-or-go-it-alone/
In this writing, I’m focusing on non-family partnerships. The theme: don’t assume it will work – make sure.
Most of us think we would be good partners, based solely on some experience or skill we possess. We may even acknowledge our weaknesses, concluding we simply need to find someone to handle the part of the business we’re not good at or prefer not to do. But that only deals with aptitudes.
If you’re taking on the role of The Painless Partner, attitude can have as big or bigger impact than aptitude. I’m talking about more than just positive, unwavering optimism (although that’s needed, too). You’ll want to examine underlying personality traits and values, those characteristics that form attitude and determine behavior. When tough decisions need to be made about the direction of the business or about a relationship with a client or outside business partner (vendor, distributor, bank, etc.), you need good core values like loyalty and trust.
The ability to support a decision based on agreed responsibilities and not on how one feels about the decision, or outcome of that decision, requires strong, like-minded individuals working together. Specifically, partners who understand things can sometimes go wrong, seek corrective actions, and never attack the process or other person. Lets look at how to select and succeed as The Painless Partner.
- Get aligned on values. Spend significant time talking about family upbringing, life experiences, philosophy, even attitudes about politics and religion. Yup, even those two “taboo” topics. What relationships do you each have with significant other/spouse, family, and friends? If you don’t get reasonable alignment (at least are able to amicably discuss differences) or other relationships are unstable, no need to go much further. Agree to be friends but not partners.
- Learn strengths and weaknesses. What are you each good at and, more importantly, what do you each like to do? It’s not a strength if you’re good at something but dislike doing it. This is not just about what they are, but how strengths will be applied and weaknesses overcome.
- Decide on ownership shares. These will normally be based on contributed capital (including proprietary assets), but could also be a combination of money and “sweat equity.” If this isn’t easy to talk about and resolve, you should look for a different partner.
- Assign responsibilities. If you made it to this point, you’re likely on track for a positive and successful partnership. Deciding who will be responsible for various functions should be relatively easy, based on steps one and two.
- Establish your core value and decision-making process. I’ll explore these topics more in future posts. Just know you need to agree on one or two unshakeable, uncompromisable values. Then you must have a process for making tough decisions that includes supporting the final decision regardless of unanimity and absent second-guessing, even if the outcome falls short of expectations.
If you’re curious as to how you measure up as a sole proprietor versus The Painless Partner role, download a fun, easy Entrepreneur Personality Evaluation at https://larrybrummond.com/Tools.
See you next time.
Larry Brummond, The Write Touch Inc.