How to Build a Lasting Partnership That Will Boost Your Business
How do you find the right person or company to help you take your business idea to the next level? | Photo by DISRUPTIVO on Unsplash
Finding a partner or partners for your business might not be so difficult nowadays. Everyone is interested in creating something new, collaborating, and being his or her own boss. However, building a lasting partnership that will boost your business can be hard and overwhelming.
So here are some tips you can follow to build a lasting business partnership that will help you set a good foundation for your company.
Set Clear Expectations
People are different and so are their perspectives. When you partner with another business or person it's important to set clear expectations. You may have different opinions and points of view on the business itself and its development, so sit down to have an honest conversation about all of it.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve known your business partner for a while or if you just met, in case of any trouble you’re both responsible. You both need to be prepared to handle problems and take financial and moral responsibility.
You can have a casual but serious discussion at the beginning of the project where you share your vision on the business development strategy. For example, business partners can expect each other to be open about investment options, business structure, or any issues or opportunities that may appear. It’s a good idea to get a lawyer involved and to put everything in writing.
As far as roles and responsibilities, take a moment to write them down. You want to avoid task overlaps and future misunderstandings or disagreements that can damage your business.
Align Your Long-Term Goals
One key ingredient to a lasting partnership is the alignment of your long-term goals. You can’t have a lasting partnership that will boost your business if you and your partner have different long-term goals.
Of course, they don’t have to have the same long-term goals, but the direction of your business development should be similar. You are both parts of the same company but you also complement one another. You want to make sure you’re aligned in where the company is going and your mission. What do you think it will look like in 5 years? How will you handle large decisions? You want to align your long-term goals and have the hard conversations ahead of time, so you can prepare yourselves for whatever comes ahead but also get that cadence going between you.
Evaluate Your Strengths
It’s important to evaluate the strengths of both of you because you will get to know each other better and understand how each one of you is functioning. Both partners and companies have strengths and weaknesses to bring to the business, and it’s essential to know which they are to encourage the best out of each other and to put them to good business use. Because the best partnership is built with leaders that have complementary strengths.
It’s important to have the same long-term goals, but it’s helpful to have different skill sets. So you can easily share and take responsibility. One of you can be the one who is a strategist and a great planner, and the other one can be the best at implementing the strategy. You should have complementary skills or just a conversation on who wants to be responsible for what in order to be able to move forward successfully.
Make Your Partner a Part of the Team
There are two possible cases when starting a partnership. Some people consider their partner just a partner. They do not share ideas and don’t work together at improving the services they offer. But some people consider their partner an important part of the team. It’s up to you to decide what works best for your company.
If you decide to be idea partners and work together in your day-to-day, you’ll be able to rely on each other and work together as a team. You can prevent future overlaps and misunderstandings, and it's also a great way to prevent conflicts by openly sharing your thoughts and ideas. Conflicts can be damaging to a business and can slow its development, but a business relationship that values open communication without resentment and teamwork can keep the conflicts away.
To make the bond even stronger and more valuable, you should learn and grow together. You should share each other’s knowledge and experience and use it to your business advantage.
Be Transparent
Transparency and honesty go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other. It’s not enough to frankly share your ideas and opinions. It’s important to be transparent about your resources, about what you lack, and what you can offer. And to ask when you need help.
Transparency is about sharing the information the others need to know, details that affect their work. It means that you openly answer every question and you are ready to share details about the business that are available to anyone, but are not stated anywhere.
For example, you need to be transparent about the available business resources. You need to be realistic and clear about the services you can offer.
You want to be transparent with your partner as well. Problems and conflicts may appear, but if you treat each other with honesty, you can overcome all the obstacles. It means that whenever you notice something strange, you go to your business partner and share and discuss it. Honesty means that you will not wait for the perfect moment to share some details, but you will share them immediately. And you need to do this respectfully, towards your partner.
If transparency and honesty are the core values of your partnership, then you’ll be able to learn from your failures and seize opportunities. More importantly, this can only add another sturdy brick to your partnership, which can be lasting and successful.
Setting up your company for success starts with the right discussion with your business partner. | photo via unsplash
Building that Stronger Partnership
But here are some characteristics that help you build a stronger partnership. You can adopt them to strengthen the bond with your partner and build a lasting relationship that empowers the business.
Be Flexible
To build a lasting partnership that will boost your business, you need to be flexible. Of course, there are details and actions you are very fond of and you think that they are essential for your business. But at the same time, you need to give room to your partnership to grow.
Being open to your partner’s ideas creates the base of your partnership and communication. Good ideas are sometimes hard to find and flexibility can improve the development of your business. Being flexible encourages creativity and open communication too.
So how can you show your flexibility? You need to adopt an open-minded mindset that will help you adjust to short-term changes with calm. You can offer to help your business partner when their workload is overloading. When discussing new ideas for your business, be optimistic and positive about their suggestions and ideas. Take into consideration all the alternatives and build the best one together.
By being flexible, you help both your business partnership and partner themselves to grow. By being willing to listen and take into account other ideas, you start building a pleasant working environment and opening your own creativity and leadership.
Build Trust
A lasting partnership can’t be built without trust. How can you build trust in a business partnership? First, being open, honest, and transparent with your partner will help you create a relationship of trust and security. Secondly, you need to keep your promises.
Trust is built over time so don’t try to rush things. Instead, take your time and put all your resources into this business partnership. All of these actions will build trust between you two and this will contribute to a lasting partnership.
Support One Another
For sure there will be hardships to overcome. The road to success is full of obstacles, so you need to be in this together. There might be moments when one of you might feel more unmotivated and discouraged than ever, and these moments are natural and normal.
But to overcome them you need to support one another. You need to be there for one another because building partnerships is a work that never ends.
You’re Ready
It’s easy to choose a partner to start a business with. However, it’s difficult to build a lasting partnership that will boost your business. Improving and developing an idea can seem simple, but you need to invest a lot of resources into this.
Set clear expectations and discuss the future development direction of the business. Evaluate your strengths and your long-term goals and be flexible and open. Great businesses and partnerships are not built overnight, so you need to take your time and invest resources into this team. Learn and grow together.
Author Bio: Tobias Foster is a journalist and editor with more than 5 years' work experience who offers resume writing services. He has big ambitions and he is a gentle and understanding man. Philosophy, marketing, and business are his passion, and he has a wealth of knowledge in that field. He is a master of his craft and loves sharing and discussing his ideas.