What to look for in a business partner

In the GoodOaks network there’s a real mix of ownership models fairly evenly split between individual owners and business partnerships. Partnerships can include husbands and wives, friends, siblings, ex-colleagues, families.

There isn’t one right way to start up a homecare business, but if you’re considering going into business with a partner, here’s some common themes about what makes a partnership really work:

• Communication – Clear expectations about investment levels of time/energy/capital, as well as remuneration, and a shared, communicated vision for the business is all key. Things will go wrong, so having strong communication with your partner is key to navigate choppy waters.
• Complimentary skill sets – In the best partnerships, each partner brings something different to the table that the other is less strong on, and respects the others’ strengths. This can help partnerships become greater than the sum of their parts.
• Comfortable power dynamics – You don’t necessarily need 50/50 or 33/33/33 splits, but each partner needs to be happy with their role and understand who’s making decisions, and how decisions are made.
• Clear roles – The best partnerships have distinct roles that play to their respective strengths, interests and availability. Both partners doing a bit of everything is inefficient, risks duplication of effort, or diffusion of responsibility (i.e. “I thought you were going to do that!”)

Partners share risk, workload, and ultimately, reward. Being in a 50:50 partnership means you need to be twice as profitable as a single owner’s business to give you the same returns. But it might be easier to get to that point.

If you’re thinking about tapping someone up to join your business as a partner, one way to think about it is “how much would it cost to employ this profile of person?” This can be a good starting point when thinking about the cost-benefit analysis of entering a partnership.

For a confidential, no pressure chat, here’s the link: www.calendly.com/benashton/discoverycall

Yours,

Ben