Should You Get A Business Partner?

If You NEED To Find A  Business Partner, You Shouldn’t Get One

Let’s assume you’ve got the entrepreneur bug in some way or another. This probably isn’t the site for you if you haven’t.

If you have, then you might have encountered the, “Let’s be partners” guy. If you haven’t encountered this guy yet but stick with the entrepreneur stuff, you will.

The “Let’s be partners,” guy is the guy (or girl) who always seems to have an idea for you to use your business skills on. They are almost unreservedly bad news, and you’ll recognise them by the variation on this phrase:

“I’ll give you my idea, and you put it into action… and we’ll share the profits.”

Let me say before I do anything else: you can work with partners. Absolutely. I won’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and say, “Never get a partner,” because it works for some folks and you can use people’s skills and stuff to your advantage and share the profits. That’s great.

Here’s what I will say though: Don’t get a business partner without thoroughly vetting them and making sure there are clear terms and conditions regarding your partnership. In other words, there’s an agreed upon – and hopefully equal – set of “I’ll do this, you do that” conditions which mean you’re not getting screwed in some way.

How to pick a business partner is a complex subject that depends on countless factors. I won’t discuss it today because I’m not an expert and this is just a blog post, but here’s a rule I strongly suggest.

If you need a partner, don’t get one.  Instead, learn the skills, do it yourself and then you can pick a business partner only if and when it is right for you.

I learned this in my freelance work. I’ll tell you the story.

How to Spot a Bad Business Partner

I had one guy who said, “I’d like to hire you to build me a niche website.”

Okay.

“I’ll supply you the idea for the site and buy the domain. You do the planning, writing and research and I’ll pay you.”

Now, this guy was offering to pay me, and I am a freelance writer – but if you’ve got a keen eye, you’ll have seen this is a variation on “my idea, your hard work.”

I pressed on the details knowing this wasn’t going to end up happening in all likelihood.

He wanted to pay well below the “market” (I’m talking Fiverr/Upwork,) rate because it was an “ongoing partnership.”

He wanted me to ghost write all the work… so it’d be under his name.

Finally, he wanted me to accept the flat fee with no royalties, commissions or otherwise.

… So it wasn’t really a partnership. It was just a job. A rubbish one at that.

Now, that’s not the real issue of this piece.

Should You Get A Business Partner?

The real issue is that once upon a time I needed money and worked for hire without royalties, guarantees or equal say in the matter. But like I said… if you need a partner, you shouldn’t have one.

I learned how to build niche websites. I learned to do the keyword research. And I learned to craft affiliate articles that sell.

This guy who came to me and said, “You do all the hard work and I’ll just supply an idea and take the profits,” was banking on the fact that I’d need him as much as he needed me.

I didn’t… and that’s my point.

If I wanted to partner with someone to build niche sites, then I’d pick them. I’d say, “Hey… You’re a great web design guy,” or “You write great articles,” or whatever… I wouldn’t wait for someone to come along and bless me with their idea in exchange for 90% of the profits.

I don’t need that.

Here’s the final kicker… I probably won’t work with anyone who does either.

If you want to come to me and hire me, then that’ great. You can pay the rate I set and I’ll be professional and get your work done to a higher standard and quicker than anyone else.

If you expect me to partner with you… then you have to offer a lot more than, “Here is a cool idea.”

Most guys who are successful at business have a million ideas and a million and one things to do. Turning up at their doorstep and saying, “Hey… here’s my idea, want to do some more work so I can get rich?” is never going to cut it.

Final Thoughts

Getting a business partnership right is an incredibly complex thing. It requires people to be on the same wavelength, to have similar goals and work rates, and finally there needs to be clear communication of duties.

Most likely, there needs to be a specific legal set up.

Again, that’s outside the scope of this post. But if you get remotely competent at business stuff and make a name for yourself, there will be people who want to piggyback off your skills, capital or reputation. This is almost always bad news for you, because those things are your resources.

Ideas are common and cheap. You don’t need to partner with a creative person and you shouldn’t. If you feel like you need to partner with someone, you absolutely don’t. What you need to do is build up your skills and knowledge so that you can do whatever it is yourself. Or… build your budget so that you can hire someone.

Before you partner with anyone, you have to make sure you’re doing it from a position of power. That means being able to choose to do the project with or without outside help.

On the other hand, if you want to partner with someone, you have to put your best foot forward and say what it is you’re going to provide in return for the partnership. Having a good idea isn’t enough, and it’s certainly not going to get someone who knows what they’re doing to drop everything in order to do the hard work for you.