Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Selecting a Business Partner
Interviewing potential business partners is a bit like speed dating. You have carefully screened individuals meet you are a certain time in a public place and you will basically set out to discover strengths, weaknesses, and concerns in a minimum amount of time. Everyone will be dressed to kill, carry an impressive portfolio, and overall come across as the one asset that will send your business over the top. If this were true, however, then why do so many businesses fail so early on in their existence? Why is that a successful business set on expansion suddenly fails in many of its endeavors and will be forced to downsize and eventually close down?
The answer is simple: the selection of a business partner was not done properly! It does not take a genius to recognize that by partnering the wrong people in a business the latter will most likely fall; it might take a fortune teller, however, who can accurately point out which of the 10 clean cut, enthusiastic, highly educated, and well spoken individuals will make for a good partnership! Yet even as there are no guarantees there are some common pitfalls to avoid when selecting a business partner.
1. First and foremost is a failure to identify the scope of the partnership. Be clear what you need a partner for. Will she or he be in charge of an expansion or will the individual share responsibilities for day to day business activities? Scope determines skill sets needed!
2. Do not choose a partner who is like you. If you are a math whiz but cannot write your way out of a wet paper bag, you do not need another math whiz, you need a skilled writer! Similarly, if you are an introvert wallflower who hyperventilates at the though of talking to more than five people at a time, you need an extrovert who loves giving speeches and making presentations to rooms filled with eager customers.
3. Beware the gender and age traps. Passing on a candidate because he is younger or older than you is a significant mistake. If you are older, you will need the enthusiasm, vision, and vigor of young. If you are younger, you need the calmness, life experience, and gentle strength of maturity. Gender can present a potential problem if you are known to have a roaming eye. Workplace romances should be avoided for a reason, but if they happen between business partners they can spell disaster in a number of ways!
4. Do not value education more than life experience. While a graduate degree from any Ivy League school is an impressive achievement, all it really tells you that the young person had the ability to make it through a college and find a way to pay the outrageous tuition. It does not mean that she or he has what it takes to be your business partner. Do not discount an individual who may have received a night school education from a community college but has life experience that will bring many desirable qualities to your business.
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