August 17, 2021
HOW DID WE KNOW TO GO INTO BUSINESS WITH EACH OTHER?
In this episode, we’re dedicating it to tackling that beast of a topic – business partners – specifically starting a business with a close friend or partner. Honestly, when we FIRST started our little photography workshop we had NO clue what we were doing and the places this company would grow to. It was honestly a divine working of the Lord that put us together. However, we still originally started The Heart Workshop which led to now becoming The Heart University very naively. We made a lot of mistakes along the way, but we also did a LOT of things right. And today we’re chatting about it ALL.
Our top 5 recommendations to consider when going into business with a friend or partner. We’re covering things we believe are absolute MUSTS, things we didn’t do at first but learned along the way, and things we did right from the very beginning.
Running a company with a partner by your side is one of the best things in the world, but it takes a LOT of freaking hard work.
Here’s what we’ve learned over the years, figured out ourselves, almost messed up on, or did well from the beginning. Going into business with a business partner is NO joke and it’s MUCH more involved than most people assume or think about when haphazardly doing it because it’s “fun.”
A lot of people don’t realize what a business can turn into. With business partnerships, it can get messy and dicey if you don’t do it the right way or fix your mistakes as you go along.
It’s a lot easier if you are the only CEO. Having two people who are different human beings is a whole other world and mind field to navigate. We are going to talk about the five recommendations to have before going into business with someone else.
Everything from your worldview to your character values, to your faith or religion if that is applicable. Everything because this is one of the foundational pieces, will determine your approach to sales, marketing, your decision making in the business, your hires. EVERYTHING comes down to your core values. Your values when it comes to taking time off. Everything almost comes down to core values and this is where there can be a ton of friction when it comes to partnerships.
At the end of the day, we still have disagreements, that doesn’t mean we have fights. We have moments but both of us can take a step back and think about what is each other’s ultimate goal. Even if we don’t align on this decision we know that our values still align and our hearts are good. Our goal is always the same destination.
If you’re going into business with somebody and you have different visions or pictures of where the business is going, that is going to be hard. You need to be on the same page. For example, if one person wants to keep the business small but the other wants to expand to a huge monster corporation there will be friction and one person will win out eventually. Both of those end goals can’t happen.
Life goals don’t have to be the same at the same time but expectations need to be set and established. The same vision for the company is necessary. Even within this knowing those goals and expectations of what your roles are within the company.
We didn’t do this until about a year and a half in. It wasn’t detrimental but that’s ONLY because our partnership was a Holy Spirit thing. We are super unique in that we align so well and have that same foundation we talked about above. We knew we could trust each other and our characters.
Just because we’re BFFs doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have had a legal contract in place for eventual things that establish what will happen.
Most business partnerships end up falling apart. Even if that business partnership is still there, having the legal contract for situations that may come up, such as if one of us dies. What happens to the other person’s share? What if we decide to mutually end the company, how do we do that? Decision making, who does it come down to? Who hires employees? If we do have a disagreement and one of us whats to leave, who buys them out, what does that look like?
It requires open conversation, which is so helpful when going into a business relationship. Then you can communicate and see where you both are at on a lot of different things or maybe not and need to discuss.
This is something we did not do.
We both read Traction and Rcketful by Gino Wickman. Rocket Fuel is specifically for the CEO of the business/company. It breaks down the two roles of a visionary and an integrator and says every successful major company should have two people at the helm of the company.
Visionary- is typically the CEO, the one who is the entrepreneur, vision caster, the face of the company. Dreamer comes up with ideas.
Integrator- is the yin to the yang, it’s the COO, handles operations. The nitty-gritty, the meetings, the stuff that the visionary doesn’t want to handle.
They work so well together and they truly do create traction within your company when they are working hand in hand. When you are starting a partnership, it’s helpful to understand if one of you falls in line with one and the other person the other. Divide up responsibilities sooner versus later rather than having you both work on every single thing together.
Putting effort and focus into maintaining the friendship, not JUST business partnership, is one thing we have almost messed up with. We talk daily, but it is always about business and on a Zoom call. We forgot to nurture the relationship and not just the business partnership. Now we are focusing on setting aside time as just friends.
If you have any goals for longevity as a business, ask yourself, do you want to be married to this person for the rest of the life of the business? That’s what it is. You have to work on messing up and saying sorry. Relationship conflict resolution. You have to communicate your feelings, you can’t harbor stuff in your heart. You have to learn to trust the other person, if it is ever distributed that will bubble over eventually and affect your business.
You have to be willing to have hard conversations. With your ego out the window. If someone hurts you, tell them, that goes for all relationships.
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WASSUP FRIENDS. We’re Evie + Lindsey, co-founders of this wild partayyy called The Heart University. Our goal is to empower entrepreneurs to kick freaking BUTT in their businesses, dive down into the heart of their why and how, and serve you with all possible tools you’ll need to up-level your business game and CRUSH those goals of yours.
Whether you’re coming to an in-person workshop, joining our online course, or soaking up all the strategies via this blog or our podcast, we’re STOKED you’re here + can’t wait to see you out there kicking butt.
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