Been There...Done That
We are no longer partners, and our friendship was hugely strained by being in business together.
WRONG! Your friendship was strained by your lack of business skills. Your business failed because of your lack of planning.
If you are going to have a partner in the tree business, you have to have very similar values and philosophies. The person in question has gone on to to make good money in trees but in my opinion is too careless with others safety, property, etc, one those people who could crush a fence and blame it on the home owner, he'd rather fix a roof than lower a branch.
Nope! Partners need to bring different values to the business. If I can drive a truck, I don't need another truck driver, I need someone to load it or to schedule it etc.
It almost came to blows several times. All that said I still love the guy, and will say he taught me most of what I know about sales.
Here is a key value! He taught YOU about sales, seems like maybe you needed to teach him about safety.
The Number One Problem with Partners is that they don't take business seriously. I didn't, You didn't and just about everyone here that had a partnership didn't.
If you want a successful Partnership
1) You both or all (partners can be more than two people) sit down and write out what Values you bring to the business.
2) Then you divide up the tasks:
If I am good at sales, then I am in charge of sales. If you are a good leader, then you are in charge of the crews. If he is good with numbers, then he is in charge of bookkeeping.
3)Next you outline responsibilities for each position, not the person. People change. There are promotions, life changes etc that require us to keep evolving. Maybe I was a great bookkeeper, but I can't stand being in an office so I want a new position. So tasks go with a position only.
4) You outline your goals and make a business plan. Making money is not a goal, it is a result of executing the business plan.
5) You hire an attorney and draw up a partnership agreement and create a business venture.
6) Stick to the plan and keep it evolving just like a person.
Think of it as starting a family. You need two people to execute that.
1) You find someone and agree to spend the rest of your life with them
(talking to your friend in a bar and saying let do business together)
2) You enter into a marriage contract. (You enter into a business contract)
3) You have a baby (your business is born)
4) You spend the next 16-21 years raising the baby to be a man/woman (You spend the next 16-21 years cultivating a business and helping it grow)
5) The baby becomes an adult and makes its own living (Your business matures and is ready for expansion,sale or acquisition)
6) You retire and your kids take care of you
(Your business now can move along without your help and supports you.)
There are very few successful businesses that happened without partners. However, partners are the biggest reason businesses fail. Either because you didn't have one or because you picked the wrong one or you simple didn't plan.
I had a successful excavating company. I owned the backhoe, truck and trailer. My partner owned the excavator, skid steer and numerous plumbing tools. I held a Class A CD. He held a Master Plumbers License. Together we could do it all. I was great at bidding and sales, he was great at getting it done. We prospered in the good times, but we didn't plan for the bad times. As soon as there was a slow down and money got tight we were both trying to pull from the same piggy bank. We looked at the business as our income instead of our child. We closed it up and went our separate ways. Oh yeah, we were family of sorts. My g/f's sisters husband. So it not only had an effect on business, but family and relationships as well.
It took many years for us to become friends again, but we still can't work together yet. Worse part is that we are both struggling without each other.
So partnerships work, but you have to work at them.
You both planned on making money on the job, how did you plan on sharing the expenses? In this situation, you would have simple added the saw repair to the expenses and lost some or all of the profit. You would have both learned and moved on. But neither of you looked at the expenses as a shared cost of doing business. In my partnership, my partners expense was much greater than mine. If something was damaged or needed repair, it came out of the Business expenses. In essence, our business was leasing the equipment from us personally. This also allowed us to rent equipment if it was in the best interest of the business.
