Howdy partner
Another topic some of you asked me to cover was partnering – whether you should or not, and how you pick a partner.
This is something on which I’ve gradually adjusted my thinking over the years. My own corporate insecurities often made me fear involving others in what I was doing. Partly I worried about being slowed down, partly having to compromise my ideas. Partly, I (stupidly) felt that I was weaker in some way if I didn’t do everything myself.
Luckily I realised the error of my ways before I started my own business.
Otherwise you get stuck doing bits and pieces. And if you crave impact, that becomes a problem.
Over the past few weeks I started working on a brief for a client I really like. It needs some skills I don’t have. So if I want the work, I have to partner with a couple of designers. I really like and trust these guys and have worked with them for years. Plus I genuinely feel good about sharing business. But all my insecure feelings surge – what if they don’t do what I want, what if they don’t deliver on time, what if their quality has deteriorated?
What if they make me look bad?
My paranoia exposes the underlying fear many of us have about working with other people: loss of control. Including over what – and, sometimes more importantly, how - you collectively deliver.
I gave a workshop with a guy I hardly knew last year. He was half my age, a serial entrepreneur and talked a language I didn’t really understand. We met on LinkedIn, started a conversation that led to him coaching me about Familiarize – and we realised we had something complementary to offer new founders. But as the workshop approached, I admit I worried – I knew some of the attendees (who were paying to come), what would they think?
Of course they loved him and his wisdom, which was way beyond his years. And maybe I even looked cooler than I deserved being connected to him.
And I guess that’s the point.
But it also opens up opportunities. I never would have done that workshop without him pushing me. And the association I built with him opened up other avenues I’d have otherwise missed.
But it can go wrong.
I know of people running businesses who regularly pick up the pieces when a partner lets them down. I know people whose reputation has been (possibly irrevocably) scarred because of an unfortunate association. And I know even more people dancing around a business partner because they don’t offer anything distinctive from one another – so they duplicate and dilute.
To be honest, it’s not a world away from working in a team in your old corporate job.
Preventing bad choices
Without time pressure, you’d always pick partners who shared your values, ethics, and quality standards. The challenge is when you’re up against it. So, assuming that’s more likely, here are some tips:
Look for complementary partners – partly to diversify during the lean times and partly to create some efficiency and division of labour so you’re not stepping on top of one other.
If you’re rushed into a new relationship, it’s still important to set some ground rules – pragmatic ones. In quieter times (or with the benefit of hindsight) you may have a few of these to hand “This is how I like to work”. Humour and humility are useful tools in your armoury. Heavens to Murgatroyd, you may be the cause of the problem.
Speak to associates of your new partner. But rather than request that (which sounds like “I’d like some references before we continue”), offer your new partner a chance to hear from someone you’ve worked with. It’s then hard for the partner not to reciprocate.
Review your partners regularly. Don’t be afraid to ‘retire’ partners who stop meeting your needs or become too much of a faff. But to ensure you’re not left in the lurch you need to invest time in sourcing new partners. Keep your eyes open even when you don’t think you need to.
Be kind. Your potential partner is likely to have just as many reservations and anxieties as you. They may have even heard about your reputation.
Ultimately, you need a bit of a frame to assess partners. Not unlike one you may have used in your corporate days for evaluating strategic alliances.
Some simple criteria that reflect who you are, how you work, what you need from others – rationally and emotionally - and of course what they offer to you (and to your clients).
You may tolerate some “unfortunate idiosyncrasies” if your partner brings in new business for both of you, for instance.
It’s fascinating to me that only four months into this startup experience so many of us are already feeling the need of a partner network to extend our offer and to help us scale.
The best advice I can offer is build your partner network before you actually need it – or before you’re forced to compromise.
Thanks for reading, hope it helped! If you know someone who’s starting again after escaping corporate life, please share the link. And check out my Instagram where each day I post useful tips, book and article reviews and data that build on this week’s blog.