How To Build A Lasting Business Partnership In 5 Steps

#1. Unclear Goals and Values

#2. Unclear Exit Strategy

#3. Communication Challenges

#4. Personality Clash

#5. Emotional Conflicts

#6. Loss of Autonomy

#7. Taxation

#8. Liabilities

#9. Poor/Unequal Input or Performance

#Communicate Properly

Business, like life, comes with its challenges. As a partner, you must bear in mind that every other partner faces their fair share of this so the best thing you can do is to report all challenges, issues, or setbacks quickly - in the best possible manner. Remember to be polite and straightforward no matter who you are speaking to. 

Prompt reporting smoothens the communication process within your business team - not to mention that it aids in building trust and mitigating conflict among partners. Moreover, a big part of communicating is asking for opinions from your business partners. You must do this politely and ensure that you are all sharing and exchanging constructive feedback in the process. 

#Manage Your Emotions

It is not usual for people to be visceral - acting or reacting out of sheer emotions. However, in most cases, this does not help a business function as it should. Business partners, therefore, have to think and act rationally even if they would have done otherwise in their ventures. 

Recognizing your emotions is an important first step to managing them. A helpful guide is outlined in this Skills You Need article along with actions like talking it out, distracting yourself before returning to the issue, and accepting all the emotions you feel. 

The other aspect of managing your emotions as a business partner involves taking an open-minded approach to allow yourself to embrace change and evolution. Your emotions could make it difficult for this to happen, however, you need to carefully consider if it is not time to move on. 

Finally, you might find it easier to manage your emotions by just thinking of the impact of a decision on your business partners. 

#Follow Partnership Agreements

Partnership agreements spell out the terms for engagement and membership within a partnership. It details the requirement for becoming a partner member, the procedure for carrying out activities as well as reporting issues, and a detailed conflict resolution or redress process.

Knowing this, and having consented to it, business partners are obligated to respect and follow the terms and conditions exactly as outlined. They must inform partners of their opinions and decisions to avoid creating impromptu situations. Also, they must maintain a professional relationship and be law-abiding at all times.

It is okay to employ the services of a legal professional if you need help with interpreting partnership agreements or other documents.

#Evaluate Input and Performance

If you intend to be the best partner there is, you will need to be consistent about making quality and sufficient input. This goes without saying that you’d have to measure your performance over set periods. There are several ways to measure input and performance. Some of the most common are: 

1. Checking Expectations Against Deliverables

No serious calculation is required here. Only a numerical measure of your expected results against your actual result. Let’s say, for example, that you are expected to invite a minimum of one partner to the team every year. You would simply have to count the number of partners you brought on at the end of the year to evaluate your performance.

2. Measure Return-On-Investment (ROI)

Businesses and return on investments are like saying five and six. The ROI metric is used largely to estimate the efficiency of an investment option. This involves decisions to understand the potential rewards of proposed products or services or the values that specific potential partners may hold. 

The mathematical formula for assessing ROI is as follows:

ROI = Investment Outcome - Investment Input  x 100%

3. Investment Outcome

A final word on evaluating input and performance is knowing what is required of you in the first place. Ask as many questions as necessary to determine what your deliverables are. Trust us when we say that doing so will save you a lot of time and effort. 

#Learn As Much As Possible

They say learning never ends and they are right. Besides, if you truly want to stand out as an impeccable business partner, you need to learn as much as you possibly can. 

You can start your learning journey by curating a list of topics you are unfamiliar with. Examples are whole subjects such as taxation or specifics like an inquiry on how taxes should be filed. Up next will be finding the right sources for your read. This should be relatively easy given the widespread availability of digital tools and resources. 

Learning as much as you can empowers you to better understand your role and responsibilities as well as become more fitted to handle them both.