A Few Tips for Dealing With Business Partners

If you want your business to be successful, you inevitably have to think about pulling in a business partner.  Most likely you don't have all of the skills you need to get things up and running quickly.  Even if you do, there's usually way too much work for just one person to handle.  Before you start teaming up with other people, there are a few things you should keep in the back of your mind.  Sometimes you may overlook these if you're new to starting or running a business, but try to address them early on.  Otherwise, you may find it increasingly difficult to do so once your dreams begin to take off.

1. Do you need this person as your partner? Make sure they bring something unique to the table.  When it comes time to pay them back for their services, you want to make sure it was worth it.

2. Be upfront about the roles you need each member of the team to play.  This will ensure everyone has clear direction and avoid overlapping work effort down the road.  The last thing you need is a bunch of wandering entrepreneurial minds.

3. Keep them in the here and now.  It's easy for people to become distracted about getting rich and making it big 5 years from now, but make sure they stay on the current tasks at hand.  There's too much work to be done right now for them to worry about what the future has in store.

4. Don't waste people's time, it’s a valuable commodity.  Start your meetings on time, don't have meetings about meetings, and don't get sidetracked with one-off conversations while everyone else is still in the meeting.  There's nothing worse than wasting 15 minutes of everyone's time when two people are chit-chatting about something irrelevant to everyone else.

5. Determine how individuals will be compensated for their hard work and keep it on record.  This could be in the form of shares in the company, c-level positions or upfront cash.  You don't want to keep people in the dark about where their future will be when things take off.  Knowing what you are comfortable giving up in return for work is also an important part of the process.  If you feel like the compensation request is not within reason then walk away.

6. Establish a task list for each individual.  Meet frequently to discuss the progress of those tasks and if changes need to be made to the overall strategy.  This is an easy way to ensure progress is being made.