A Good Business Partner is Worth Their Weight in Gold

As an entrepreneur of any kind you will find yourself extremely busy a majority of the time. So wouldn’t it be nice to have someone there to help you with all of your business’s work and have someone who you can bounce ideas off of and get feedback? Having a solid business partner can be one of the most valuable tools or assets your business will ever get.

When first starting any new business venture, you need to decide if you want to go into it alone or to take on a business partner. This is a crucial decision that will impact the future of your business. If you decide to go in alone, it doesn’t mean you can’t hire people to be there to take some of the workload, but as a hired position they will only have so much invested in the business’s success. If you decide to take on a partner, then here are a few things to look for in a business partner:

• Shared Goals – This is a crucial part of any partnership. Do you and your business partner have the same goals and aspirations for the company? Do you both see it achieving the same thing and heading in the same direction? You need to make sure you both want the same things and agree on how to get there the same way. A like-minded partnership is the only kind of partnership that will last.
• Complimentary Skill Sets – Although not totally necessary, it is preferred that you and your partner have complimentary skill sets. If you have programming skills and your partner has business management skills, then you have complimentary skill sets. By letting yourself handle the sites operation and programming while your partner handles the business interactions and transactions you can achieve more together than you could alone.
• Share & Trust – It’s important in your partnership that you are able to share both the good times and the rough. You should share profits and expenses with your partner and that should never be an issue. Trust is also another big factor in partnerships. You have to trust your partner with your business. If you are constantly watching over his shoulder to make sure he does what he’s suppose to it won’t work. It’s assumed that you both are doing everything possible to contribute to the success of the business. You have to have trust in that fact.
• Don’t Hire Family/Friends – It’s a general rule that’s I’ve read in several different articles. Hiring family or friends complicates the business relationship. Although I personally encourage you to build a friendship with your business partner, starting off with a friend or family member as your partner complicates the partnership from the get go. If you need to change or even end the partnership you need to keep the flexibility to do so.

In my personal experience, I’ve found having a reliable business partner to invaluable. In many respects I suppose this article is a bit skewed towards telling you to take on a partner because of how easily I was able to find mine. In truth, I’ve never even met my business partner face-to-face (a bit of an oddity), but we’ve talked on the phone and chat daily via instant messaging software and it works. We’ve been able to grow our business from year to year and have always got along. And as we’ve grown, so has our friendship and it’s a relationship I now value.

The point of the whole article is to at least consider taking on someone as a partner for your next business venture. You might find that it makes things just a bit easier and even a bit more fun as your business grows alongside a friendship.

So, has anyone here ever had a business partner?

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