How to choose the right business partner? What qualities we must look into as business partners?
Guys you must be knowing by now that I started my company at the age of 22 years and sold it at the age of 30 years.
I am pass out from IIT Madars and did my B Tech in electrical engineering. Just after passing out in 2008, I started my company Zenify.in with my two batchmates from IITM.
I enjoyed my time while running Zenify with my friends and had a lot of learning. As I had two co-founders who were my batch mates looks like the perfect team. But now when I look back and try connecting the dots then there were many benefits and shortcomings if you have your college friends as your business partners.
If you want to keep in touch with me then you can connect me through my professional network on LinkedIn also here is the link:https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjpurohit/. We can discuss how to choose the right business partner.
I am sure if I take you through the benefits and shortcomings of our team, that will give you a very good insight on how to choose the right business partner.
Needless to say, No matter how good a business idea you have. No matter how enormous funds you have. If you don’t have strong business ties,
your company won’t succeed. Toxic business connections can kill an organization quickly. A decent business partner isn’t easy to find. One wrong decision of your partner can kill your dreams in seconds.
If you want to learn more then you can connect me through my Instagram page also: https://www.instagram.com/purohit.sudarshan/. We can discuss how to choose the right business partner.
These were the qualities we had as a team I am sure this will give you a hint on how to choose the right business partner:
- High Trust on business partner character: To run a successful business one must have trust in his business partners. In business, we come across many situations where we don’t know what to be done. Now one of the business partners has to handle it if it is very critical. To handle any task well one must have the right intent and right skill sets. When the business partner is your close friend (like a batchmate) then you don’t have to worry about intent. You can rest assured that he will give his best. Trust is built over time through a series of positive experiences and as he is your batchmate you already had many such experiences in the past. So I think this is a very important characteristic of a good business partner.
- High Integrity: All three of us are very honest and have high moral values. While doing business we had a clear thumb rule that we will never cheat anyone. We kind of maintained that throughout. We were absolutely secure with the fact that we can leave our business in the hands of our partners for a week or a month without major disasters. So the right partner must have high moral values and must be honest. If you want to be a person with high integrity then I have a YouTube Channel also where I post all the videos which help in growing consciousness and you can subscribe it through https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYGdbB_F0qii4Zo_rn-rCyg/videos?view_as=subscriber. We can discuss how to choose the right business partner.
- Strong family bond: We had a very strong family bond. Parents were knowing the other partners and even our wives were good friends. Most of the time we are so involved in a business that our business partners are our only friends and when we are mostly with them it is important that their wives are also friends otherwise they will feel left alone. If you want to learn how to build a strong bond with family members then you can read this: How to build healthy relationship.
- Same vision, goals & energy:
When it comes to your company’s life, the principles that drive and where you want your business to go, both you and your partner must have the same thoughts. This will build the foundation for a healthy corporate culture and discourage you and your partner from cross each other’s paths & actions. We were sharing the same vision, goal, and energy to achieve those goals. If you want to learn about how to keep achievable targets then you can watch a video how to achieve the set targets. - Motivating when the other one is down: To run a successful business, business owners have to face many failures. It becomes very important for one business owner to motivate others in tough times. If all of them are negative then they would not be able to run the company. We were able to do that again and again. Whenever one was down another one was there to encourage. Motivating others is the best attitude one can have. Learn how to motivate others by watching this video.
Now there are some shortcomings when you have your batch mate as your business partner and I am sure it will help you on how to choose the right business partner :
- No clear Leader: In any organization, no one knows which decision to take and which one not to take. Many a time a company is trying something new and there are many paths to reach the result but no one knows which path would be perfect. Now there has to be one leader who has to make a decision and move everyone towards that. Now when all the business partners are batch mates or close friends then taking one decision becomes difficult and no one has the authority to make the decision. Considering one has higher authority than others especially when they are friends becomes difficult. To become the leader we must set high standards for ourselves, kindly go through this post to learn about how to set high standards for yourself.
- No proper skill sets: To run an organization there are many different streams that business partners have to manage. For example, they have to manage HR, technology, finance, sales, marketing, operations, customer service, etc. Now as they are batch mates they are not having those diverse skill sets. When a company grows this becomes a big issue as in who will handle what. Now because of this business partners start building mistrust on each other as they are not able to handle well their departments. If you want to grow your skillsets then you can work on taking some online courses or attending lectures. You can also follow my Facebook page to get the motivation: https://www.facebook.com/pg/betterworldsjp/videos/?ref=page_internal. We can discuss how to choose the right business partner.
Other than these I believe that the right business partner must have a very good learning attitude. To build a successful business all the business partners have to learn a lot of new things as every business demand growth and for growth, one has to learn how to manage growth in their specific departments. If you want to work on growing your learning attitude then you can watch this video: How to develop learning attitude. To develop a good attitude in yourself you can read one famous book by John Maxwell “winning with people” you can buy that book at Winning with people
So to summarize how to choose the right business partner look into the qualities of a good business partner here:
- Good learning attitude: This is one of the most important business partner qualities.
- High trust in character: Without this, there is no partnership at all. So keep this in the list of qualities of a good business partner.
- High trust in skillset: Skilled partners are required when the business scales up. So this is a key characteristic of a good business partner.
- High integrity: You will have a sleepless night if your business partner does not have high integrity. One of the basic business partner qualities.
- Strong family bonding: This is good to have. But many a time it is very much required. So keep this in the list of qualities of a good partner.
- Same vision, goal, and energy: This is one of the most important business partner qualities, without this company lack the pace of growth.
- Motivating other partners: Helpful in tough times. This is one of the characteristics of a good business partner.
- One clear leader among the business partners: Without this, it’s difficult to make a decision. So to answer how to choose the right business partner you must keep this on the top.
If you think I have missed any key business partner qualities then do mention that in a comment, I will add that into the post “how to choose the right business partner”.
After reading how to choose the right business partner I am sure you would want to read about how to overcome the fear of failure: https://sudarshanpurohit.com/overcoming-fear-of-failure/
