Choose Your Business Partners & Colleagues Wisely

It’s important, no matter who you’re partnering with, from a business standpoint, from an employee standpoint, from a VA standpoint. Whoever you choose as your business partners and colleagues have to have the skills that you lack, if you want to be able to accomplish the things that you need to get done.

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David: Hi. Welcome back. In today’s episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist and I discuss the topic of choosing business partners wisely. Welcome back, Kevin.

Kevin: It’s good to be here. David. I’m excited to talk about this because this is always an interesting topic.

David: Yeah. When we think of business partners, we tend to think of people that we’re actually going into business with. But there’s really sort of a wider group of people that could potentially fit the bill here. So I think it’s important to cover that as well.

Kevin: The first one you spoke of, the actual business partner, business partner. I mean that can test a friendship. It can test a relationship, it tests all kinds of stuff. So in your experience, just from that side of things. What are the biggest mistakes that business people, entrepreneurs make when choosing a business partner?

David: Well, I’ve made them over the years. My very first business partner was a guy that I worked with in another business. We decided we were going to start our own things. And so we just started out renting the same office space and splitting the rent on that sort of thing.

Then we got involved in projects that required both of us working together. It didn’t work out well. I started from the standpoint of we got along well, we interacted well. But neither of us took the time to consider our strengths and what each of us would bring to the table.

A lot of times when people start working with friends or family, they think, “well, I know this person really well. I trust them.” That’s a good start.

But unless you have similar visions for what the business is going to be, how you’re going to get there, and who’s going to do what, you can really end up with a lot of problems if that part of it doesn’t work out.

Kevin: Yeah. it can go downhill fast. It can definitely go downhill fast. So, in any business partnership, you know, you talked about the fact that there’s varying types of them. What qualities do you feel matter most in a potential partner and which maybe are overrated?

David: Well, I would say, starting out, you need to look at: Are our core values basically aligned? Do we sort of view the world in a similar way? Are we viewing business in a similar way? Do we view the relationship with our potential customers and clients in a similar way? Because if there’s a disconnect there, then you’re going to have problems starting with the very first decision.

So I think that compatibility is very important. Making sure that everybody wants to go in the same direction, right? If you’re in a rowboat, you want to make sure everybody’s pulling in the same direction. That’s extremely important.

If you have complementary goals, essentially that’s going to be a very important aspect of it.

I think also, what is the expertise? What are you good at? What are they good at? If it’s exactly the same things, you need to make sure it covers everything that has to be covered in a business.

So, if I’m really good at generating ideas and you’re really good at implementing those ideas, then that’s going to work out well.

If we’re both great at generating ideas, but neither of us are great at implementation, we’re going to struggle with that. And so you want to look at complementary skills.

I think that is probably one of the most important aspects of it. You’ve got the same vision, but you have complementary skills. So that one or more of you are not doing things they hate, right?

If you have to engage in a skill that you don’t like, or if your business partner does, then it’s not a good recipe. But if one of you is really good at idea generation, another one’s good at implementation. Another one’s good at the financial aspect. Another one’s good at the marketing aspect. Somebody’s good at sales.

If you’ve got all those departments covered by people who are good at those things, and who like doing them, then you have a much better likelihood of success.

Kevin: Are there any qualities, do you think people put too much emphasis on that they don’t really need to? That might be overrated.

David: That’s a tough one. Like when I think of what they put emphasis on, I mean, it might just be the initial shared vision, the idea that they want to go into business together.

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

David: That’s kind of the easy part. You know, we talked about ideas in the last podcast, and I’ve said for a really long time now that million dollar ideas are a dime a dozen in effect.

Because unless you’re able to take the necessary actions and build the appropriate infrastructure, those ideas are never going to come into fruition.

So when you’re establishing business partnerships, and again, whether it’s having a business partner, whether it’s a joint venture kind of thing, whether you’re hiring somebody to be a virtual assistant, I mean that’s essentially a type of partnership.

You want to make sure that the person and the people that you’re interacting with have the necessary skills to be able to allow you to achieve the vision that you’ve set out, both for yourself and for them.

That everybody’s on board and everybody’s understanding it. So I think just the idea of getting into business or partnering up with someone without thinking through a lot of those things is probably the biggest mistake that people make up front.

Kevin: You think that sometimes too, that people might think they need a partner when really they just need to hire talent?

David: I think in a lot of cases that is very true. And sometimes that boils down to whether or not they have the capital to be able to do it. And if you don’t have the money to be able to hire someone, then proposing a partnership, it’s like, okay, we’re, in this together. We need to build it together. And sometimes that can work and sometimes it can’t.

You also have to determine if you have the personality for that sort of thing. Because after my first experience with a business partner, I swore I’m like, “never again. I’m never going to have a business partner again.”

But eventually I did, and I’m really glad I did because it worked out so much better.

Because when you have the right business partner, when you’ve got the right combination of human resource assets in your business, people really, I mean that sounds so technical and clinical.

When you’ve got the right people in your business, everything flows a lot more smoothly. So, if you’ve had a bad experience with a business partnership, don’t necessarily rule it out, because if you’re able to do it right, you can leverage yourself, you can leverage your business, and you can create results that you would never be able to create on your own.

Kevin: Are there red flags that you would recommend people consider that might, or that should I should say, tell them, “don’t partner with this person.”

David: I would say communication is number one, two, and three.

Kevin: Yeah. That’s nuts.

David: You’re…

Kevin: Drives me nuts. Yeah.

David: Yeah. The ability to communicate effectively and openly and answer direct questions and just be willing to have conversations.

Kevin: Yeah. Just to respond sometimes, right? Just being someone…

David: Exactly.

Kevin: That actually communicates, period.

David: Yeah. Right, because if someone is not willing to communicate with you, then it’s very difficult to make things work extremely well.

Depending on the nature of the business relationship, it’s just helpful when you’re involved with people who respect you enough to reply back and interact and answer questions or whatever.

And people get busy, you know? So I’m not saying, well, you know, everybody has to be responsive to you immediately. That’s not realistic. But as long as people are willing to remain in touch with you, they’re willing to remain open about any challenges they’re having with communication, that type of thing, that’s different.

But when people are unwilling to communicate on levels where it’s really important, that’s where it starts to become a little dicey.

Kevin: How important is alignment on things like money, work ethic, company vision, when considering a partner,

David: Well, yeah, money’s big, right? Because if one of the business partners is thinking Elon Musk and another one of them is thinking on a much lower plane, that’s going to be a pretty big disconnect.

As far as work ethic is concerned, that is another big one because if one person is really putting in a lot of effort and another one is not, that starts to feel a little frustrating after a while.

Kevin: That’s what happened to me.

David: But also… Yeah, it’s happened to a lot of people. I think the reason it tends to happen sometimes is that some of us are really just wired to do a lot more things and some are just wired to focus on the things that need to be done and get really good at doing those.

I think it’s important to understand that if someone is not doing everything that you are doing, it doesn’t mean that they’re wrong or that they’re not a good fit for you. If they’re getting the things done that need to get done, then that’s the most important thing.

In the early stages of my business, I mean, I just worked all the time. I would just get up early and I’d stay and I’d work late and I did all these things.

Part of that was just a reflection of my lack of structure, right? My inability to focus long enough during the day to get those things done. So, in the early stages of my business, I could look at something like that and say, well, I’m doing a whole lot more work, but am I? Or am I just burning a lot more hours?

So I think we also have to be honest with ourselves about our strengths and our weaknesses and what we’re actually doing versus what we might think we’re doing.

But yeah, I think work ethic is big in the sense that everybody has to be committed to doing the things that they’re responsible for doing.

And if they’re not, then conversations need to be had.

Kevin: Absolutely. And then of course David, some people are just lazy. I mean, come on, let’s be honest.

David: Yes.

Kevin: Some people are just lazy.

David: That’s true.

Kevin: You gotta avoid those.

David: Yeah. And if you identify that that is an ongoing issue, then obviously you have to make the necessary changes.

And again, when we’re talking about partnerships, it doesn’t necessarily mean a business partner. Because hopefully you don’t get into a business relationship where your business partner is just lazy and doesn’t want to do anything. Right?

But even if it’s a situation…

Kevin: Uh, well, it happens. Trust me.

David: It does happen. It does happen. But even with employees or with virtual assistants or whatever, that type of thing can happen. And when it does, you really need to be able to make sure that you’re going after it and addressing that before it becomes an ongoing pattern.

The other problem is that when you have people who are in your organization who are not doing a good job, it impacts the morale of others.

When we had our retail mail order catalog business, we would hire seasonally and we would bring in a lot of customer service reps over the holiday season.

And sometimes we would bring somebody in whose attitude was just poison. And we knew that we had to get that person out of there as soon as humanly possible, because if we didn’t, it was going to impact the rest of the team.

So you have to be really vigilant about that.

Kevin: Mm-hmm. you mentioned before about complimentary skills versus identical skills. Is that just a conversation? Like, how do you determine that in any business relationship, any partnership?

What is the best way to determine where your skillset is versus somebody else’s and how they can all work together?

David: I think sort of starting with the left brain, right brain kind of thing, more creative versus more structured. Those types of things are a good place to start. Because if you have two creatives and you don’t have anybody who’s structured, you’re going to have problems.

If you have people who are just really structured, but they don’t have as much of the creative ability, I think that’s potentially an issue.

The skill sets are important. If someone is willing and able to get on the phone and make phone calls, if that’s required of the business, you want to make sure that they’re able to do that.

One of the things in our Total Market Domination course, one of the things that we focus on in our work with clients is to say, if there are things that you absolutely hate doing, we want to make sure that those are not required of you as you’re doing this job.

So if there are people who don’t like making phone calls, then what are the other methods of contact we can use that they are more comfortable with, that they can then use to get the same job done?

So I don’t require that our clients love cold calling because not everybody does. And I certainly don’t.

Kevin: Do not.

David: But there are some people who are wired to be able to do it. And if they are, that’s great. But if they’re not, there need to be other methods of contact that are acceptable to them.

For some, it could be social media, it could be email, it could be direct mailings. There are lots of different ways to initiate contact with a prospect or clients.

Because then if you follow up with a phone call, it’s not the first thing.

If you send something in the mail to someone and then you call them a few days later and say, “Hey, did you get the thing I sent you?” That’s a totally different experience than calling and identifying yourself and telling them you’re there to sell them something, or whatever.

Totally different experience.

So I think it’s important, no matter who you’re partnering with, from a business standpoint, from an employee standpoint, from a VA standpoint, whoever you’re partnering with has to have the skills that you are lacking, if you want to be able to accomplish the things that you need to get done.

Kevin: With a partnership agreement. It’s important. It’s something that people should do, not everybody does. But assuming people do it, are there certain protections that you feel every agreement needs to have in order to avoid any future conflict?

David: Yeah, I don’t want to get too much into the legal stuff. I would definitely prefer to leave that to the legal experts. But I think that just having the conversation with whoever you’re working with, having the discussion about what you’re trying to do together.

If there’s a lot of friction, even just agreeing on what’s going to be in the agreement, that could potentially be a red flag.

But asking those questions, having those conversations, and then getting legal help to put together what that’s going to look like.

I also learned, a long time ago, that if you’re going to do some sort of partnership arrangement, it’s probably better not to have a 50 50.

I mean, you can have a 51 49, so it’s very close, but somebody ultimately needs to be responsible for making the final decisions.

So I think that’s very helpful. And if there is a point where everybody differs on what needs to happen, you know who has the final say in it. So I think that’s probably pretty key regardless of the setup.

Kevin: That’s a really good point. Really good point that people probably don’t think about. All right, great episode. Thanks everybody for joining us. David, how can people find out more?

David: Just go to TopSecrets.com/shift. Pick up a copy of our free PDF report. We’ll help you to create a shift in your business that will allow you to go from where you are to where you’re looking to be.

So if you’re at the point where you’re looking to establish and create the relationships you need inside your business to be able to take it to the next level, request a copy of the free report, TopSecrets.com/shift.

Then if you’d like to have a conversation, you’re welcome to schedule one with us.

Kevin: Thanks David. Appreciate your time.

David: Okay. Thank you, Kevin.