Discover Business Partnership 'How To'

With a marketing business partnership, how to get more business becomes easy. Did you know that partnering up with another business could be the best thing you ever did for the future of your company? Small business owners often do not realize the huge opportunity for growing their business and increasing their profits through finding other businesses to partner up with. The road to entrepreneurship does not have to be lonely.

What I am talking about here is finding another small business owner who works in a business field that complements your business. We will give you some examples and tips to make it clearer. It really comes down to understanding how it could benefit your business to work together with others instead of going at it on your own. Remember: no man is an island and that applies to your business too. A business partnership means teaming up with another small business owner so that you can both grow your business influence and create a more dominant market presence. And Bingo, this will result in more revenue for your businesses.

And it is a WIN-WIN situation for both parties involved so you do not need to hard sell your idea to your potential partners. You must however make them see how they will benefit from the partnership as much as you do. That sounds like an achievable task to me, right. So how do you get started looking for these partners right away? First you look for small businesses who have a valuable service in the same market as you but are not directly competitive to you. Think of a hairdresser partnering up with a Spa for instance.

Then you look at ways you can introduce each other to your respective clients and prospects by offering your service and/or products. Let me explain this better with some real examples. - For instance, if you are an HR consultant you could introduce your colleague who is a management consultant. You could agree that the consultant pay you 20% of any business he generates as a result of your introduction. (Sounds like WIN-WIN to me) - A Kitchen remodeling business could recommend a House Painting company and receive 10% when customers buy I hope you can perceive the tremendous benefit setting up a partnership with a fellow small business owner and above all how easy it can be. With a marketing business partnership, how to get more business sounds like an attainable goal now.

You do not need extraordinary networking skills or a complex marketing strategy to make this work. You just need to be open all the time and look for possible partners that can help promote your small business. Who would not want this. Good luck with this and remember you are not out there on your own. There are potential marketing business partners just around the corner.

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4 Signs Your Business Partnership Will Fail

Business partnership are one of the most unique and trying relationships we will ever enter. Some work, but most fail. I did a quick test. I searched Google for "business partner problems" and found about 169 million results. Compared to only 143 million results for what I assumed would be the more common term of "business partner," I think it is clear that many struggle to make these arrangements work. Here are four warning signs that our relationship with our business partner(s) may be headed for failure. Please note that this article assumes that business partnership are in the common form of a Limited Liability Company (LLC).

1. No Operating Agreement - many states do not require an LLC to have an operating agreement, and, therefore, many business owners and entrepreneurs do not understand the importance of this legal document. The operating agreement is the agreement between all of the owners, or members, on how the business will run, who will be in charge, and so much more. Let me share one brief example to portray the need for an operating agreement.

While at a social event recently with my wife, we connected with one of her friends from college. He has started a business and his product is starting to sell and pick up some nice momentum. He spoke for quite some time about how excited he was, how much fun he was having, and his new-found joy in finally pursuing his passion. I asked if anyone else was involved with the business, and he said he had two partners. The entire tone of the conversation changed as he described how his "partnership" had evolved, or perhaps a better description would be disintegrated. It started with three friends getting excited about an idea. They decided to split everything three ways and they failed to put anything into writing (namely, an operating agreement). As time passed the expectations, time commitments, investment, and basically everything else related to these "equal" partners fell completely out of balance. Arguments replaced friendship and greed supplanted a desire to share everything equally. The problem - they never created an operating agreement that defined all of the important legal, financial, management, and time issues for their business. The lack of an operating agreement has sent this budding partnership into a death spiral that will likely end in a painful and expensive divorce.

Please know that I have many more examples like this than I do of successful partnerships. One thing all of the successful partnerships have in common - they have an operating agreement. While certain online resources can help entrepreneurs organize their entities legally, special care and consideration should be paid to the operating agreement. It is very wise to seek appropriate legal counsel as well as have healthy and lengthy discussions with your partners before you finalize this agreement.

2. Partner Pride -This is something that usually shows up when a partnership begins to have struggles and accelerates its demise. Here is one real-world example of partner pride. Two men started a business, each owned about 45%. The remaining 10% went to other key employees. As the business grew and became quite successful, one of the 45% owners took great pride in the success of the company. He began to tell his family and close friends that it was his company and that he was the major contributor to its success. His pride allowed him to minimize his main partner and falsely establish himself as something he was not. When this partnership began to fall apart and his partner extended a very fair offer to buy him out, he refused. Why? In his mind, he could not communicate to all of his family and friends that the business could exist after he left. He was so infatuated with his fictitious position that he could not make reasonable or logical decisions. The matter was finally resolved, but not without great distractions and damage to the business.

The best way I have seen to keep pride out of a partnership is to regularly review the contributions of all involved as well as discuss how each partner can improve. If done correctly, this serves to keep everyone grounded and grateful for each other.

3. Compensation and equity are confused -Let me be as straight-forward as I can with this topic. Too often I see entrepreneurs, founders, and business owners that confuse equity and pay/compensation. These two items must be separated in order to set your partnership up for success. A few years ago I was introduced to a business with 50/50 partners. 12 months earlier one of the partners had become permanently disabled and unable to further participate in the business. The partner remaining in the business was frustrated that the other partner put zero time into the business yet was still getting 50% of everything the remaining partner generated. This partnership was about to fall apart until we set a fair and reasonable wage for the partner still working in the business. The other partner's wage was reduced to zero since he was not working in the business although he was still entitles to 50% of the profits. Problem solved.

Ownership does not mean you should receive a wage or guaranteed payment. Ownership means you participate in profits after all expenses are paid, including the wages of those working in the business. In the spirit of understanding the difference between equity and pay, each partner's compensation should be reviewed at least annually. In this scenario, it would not be uncommon for one partner to receive a higher salary than another, especially if there is a difference in the amount of time put into the business.

4. Beginning without the end in mind -perhaps all of these points lead to this one - the need to contemplate every way the partnership will need to end or be dissolved. Here is just a brief list of the different life events that could impact a partnership: death, disability, lack of interest, relocation, new opportunities, family changes, and more. How will each of these situations be handled by the partnership? An operating agreement and potentially a buy/sell agreement should contemplate these events.

In addition, beginning with the end in mind implies that a partnership will have planned exits as well. Selling a business can be very rewarding, and a partnership needs to look down the road to how each of the partners will exit. For example, one partnership I work with consists of three partners under forty and the fourth partner is almost 65. The younger three want to stay in the business for a long time while the older partner is hoping to exit the business and retire in a few years. Orchestrating this partner's exit while not hurting the business from a cash flow and leadership perspective take thought, consideration, and planning.

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Approach Possible Small Business Opportunities

Anyone blessed with an entrepreneurial spirit today is certainly alive at the right time. The amount of small business opportunities available has ballooned since the rise of the online marketplace. Still, for every success story there is a tale of failure, so it is essential to do your homework before venturing into business on your own.

Ideally, you will be able to start a business close to your heart. There are a few questions you ought to ask yourself before making any decisions. First of all, consider your most basic impulses. What are the first thoughts which pop into your head when you wake up every morning? You want to isolate what drives you before everything else affects your focus. Next, assess how far you are willing to go. Would you feel comfortable diving into your ideal field without holding back? The answer will tell you how to handle your business. If you are thinking of your investment as strictly money, it might not be a bad thing, as you will be open to adapting.

As for a business which you consider the realization of a personal dream, there are many advantages. You will most likely remain enthused by the focus of your business as long as you run it. Furthermore, you won't have trouble explaining concepts to anyone interested. The expertise you have in the field will come easily. Still, it may be hard to be flexible. Perfectionists are notorious for their inability to compromise. While this may be a useful characteristic for a specialist in a company, the customer service side is completely different. People skills are essential to the success of any small business, so make a clearheaded assessment of yourself and adjust accordingly.

In terms of a business opened for strictly financial reasons, investing in a franchise may be a good fit. Instead of designing the structure and focus of your business, the model is delivered whole to you, with its strengths and weaknesses already well known. If business comes easy to you, you'll probably get the operation going without too many headaches. The challenges will come from other directions, such as becoming an expert in the product itself. With fast food restaurant franchises, for example, if you are inexperienced in the kitchen, you will have much to learn.

If you are planning to try out a small business opportunity, always have a Plan B ready to set into motion if you struggle. Have some saving set aside which you will never touch - no matter what happens - so you can get back on your feet once again.

Small business opportunities pop up all over the place. You may find an opportunity online which sounds great, or simply see the need for a new business in your community.

Don't become discouraged if your first project does not succeed. For every successful business person, there are a number of failures to take into account.

No matter what happens, the joy of starting a small business comes back to independence. You begin and end the day as the master of your own domain.

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