How to Have a Healthy Business Partnership

If your business is a partnership, it can be a great thing or not depending on the type of relationship you have with the other person. If you have a positive relationship with your partner, it can make your business stronger than it would be if you were running your business alone. If the relationship is sour, it can tear your business apart. Today we are going to discuss the traits that make up a healthy business partnership so that you can have a thriving company.

Communication

One of the key factors to having a positive relationship is having communication. The concept of communication is simple but often times people struggle to have good communication. If you and your partner have different communication styles, it will be hard to be on the same page when making business decisions together.

When communicating with your partner, remember to have conversations about what goals, expectations, and processes are going to be. Have these kinds of conversations regularly and schedule them in if you need to into your business calendars so that you make it a point to get it done. Make sure to listen to each other and speak openly about any issues and concerns. Communication goes a long way.

Compliments

Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. If possible, you need to have a partner that complements your strength and makes up for your weaknesses. It is important that you understand where you excel and where you need help in.

To do this, you need to write down a list of your strengths and weaknesses. It would be ideal that you share this list with someone who has worked with you in the past before and have them tell you their honest thoughts about it. Next, you need to have your partner do the same thing and then cross reference the two lists and see where you can help each other out in. Look for places where you both lack skills and hire someone to the team than is strong in that skill to help make up for it.

Trust

Another important trait to have when running a business with a partner is trust. You cannot have a healthy relationship without trust. Trust is also tricky similarly to communication, but it is not impossible. Trust is easy to lose and hard to earn so do your homework when looking for maximum trust in someone. Require information such as background checks and personal references. Talk to some people who have worked with your potential business partner and ask some tough questions.

Start slow and try one project together before diving into a full-on partnership. Make sure that you both have a chance to pull out of the partnership if things did not end up working out as they should have. Also, do not forget to create a professionally written contract to make it easy to have trust in a situation.

Compatible Working Styles

Your business is about the work you and your partner will be doing together. It is important that both of your working styles are compatible and mesh together nicely or else it will be hard to collaborate and work together. This does not mean that working styles that are not compatible will never work together, but there might be some compromises that will be necessary to make.

Find Someone That Challenges You

Your business partner should also be someone who will challenge you to do better every single day. To be honest, on some days you will feel uninspired, unmotivated, and just wiped out. A benefit about having a business partner on these tough days is that they should be able to challenge and inspire you to get back up on those tough days.

Having a business partner that challenges you can result in trying different approaches, a creative way of thinking, and a business that is strong. If you do not have anyone who is challenging your way of thinking, you will not realize that your way is not always going to be the best way.

Open Mindedness

Another quality that is great for a business partner to have is the ability to keep an open mind. Collaborating with someone who is not receptive to different ideas or perspectives can be hard. It can prevent your business from reaching its full potential. Having a successful business partnership includes here each partner is willing to learn from the other and assume a supportive role when necessary.

Negotiation

There is a lot of negotiation that occurs when you run a business. There might be times where you will not see eye-to-eye with your partner, but this is where the willingness to negotiate a plan becomes critical.

Many people think negotiation which means compromise and should instead center on working together cooperatively and move forward. Partners do need to be able to work together effectively and harmoniously but it does not mean they should have to agree with everything.

Measurable Results

Partnerships can create great outcomes but requires commitment. Measuring the value of the relationships ensures that there will be success in the partnership. The following metrics should be considered:

• Financial KPIs can be used to determine the monetary value of the partnership.
• Strategic KPIs are important to determine customer satisfaction, engagement and more.

The Bottom Line

Every partnership is unique, but all partnerships should include the traits above to ensure success. Both parties need to have good communication, be accessible, and have measurable results. These traits are crucial in optimizing your partnership agreements.