BONUS 277: 9 Critical Reasons to Partner

Welcome to the 10-Minute Entrepreneur Podcast, intended to equip and encourage business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs. Taught by active business owner, best-selling author, and teacher, Sean Castrina. All right, Sean Castrina with the 10-Minute Entrepreneur Podcast, a teaching edition, which I personally love because I love teaching. This is called the nine critical reasons why you partner.

I'm going to share with you nine things that if somebody can bring this to the table, it's a good potential partner. The most important thing in partnering, and I love partnering, and it's the one thing that I've probably done better than any single thing in business that has helped me the most because I'm completely aware of my inadequacies. And I know that, you know, me plus one other person is probably a good formula for success. I call it one plus one equals done in my world.

Okay, I love partnering and I've shared that message. But I want to share with you nine reasons. These are nine components of why I would partner with somebody. And I've used many of these, but they may help you.

The first thing is I partner and you may want to partner with somebody because they have time you do not have. Example, let's say you can't quite quit your full-time job, which I don't recommend anyway. I think starting with somebody who can carry the lion's share of the time, the burden there, that's a good partnership. And I've always partnered with people because they have time that I don't have.

It allows, you know, I could not do it. Simply, I could not get the business off the ground because I do not have the time. At this point in my life, I'm involved in so many different things. This is a critical component on why I partner.

because I don't have the time to give any one of these businesses that much of my undivided. So time's number one. Number two is this person can fill a critical role. I mean, maybe it's being the CEO.

They have great leadership. They have pre-existing experience with this. Maybe it's the CFO, chief financial officer. Okay, I don't know how big the startup is or if somebody gave you venture capital, They may ask you to bring on somebody like this.

Somebody who's going to handle marketing. Somebody who might handle your manufacturing. Okay, they're a programmer. But they're going to have a critical role within this company.

It's normally something that you pay big money for. And or if you lost this person your company kind of is majorly affected They just a critical component They an MVP Okay so this would be worth bringing them on as a partner Number three is they bring capital to the table. Early on, I had to bring people on for this reason. And it got expensive.

I had to buy them out for, you know, a good bit of money. But I look back and I know without their capital, I could have never started the business. And what does that mean? Well, zero times zero is always zero.

So it was worth it to me. So they brought capital to the table. Number four is they bring industry experience. I've partnered with people because they know the industry better than I do.

When I started my construction company and I don't know, I didn't know the difference between, you know, geez, two screwdrivers. I don't think I do anymore. Anyway, I'm just very good. I'm very organized.

I'm good at branding, but I had to bring in people with industry experience. Now I have tons of industry experience. I have, you know, I'm fortunate to have an engineer on staff. I have a designer on staff.

I have a kitchen designer on staff. Okay. I have somebody with 25 years of construction experience within my office and I can just keep going. I got one after another.

I had a person who just in our painting and staining division worked for Sherwin Williams for 20 years. That's just in one of my companies. In my other company, I'm partnered with a person who's worked with Fortune 500 companies within the digital marketing space. I partner with people.

I just formed another partnership in the last two weeks, but I'll share with you on which one I partner with them for. Next, you may need to partner with somebody for licensing. There's a lot of businesses that require certain licensing. I know within construction, you have to have a licensing.

And I know regarding like if you're going to have a bar, you need to have an alcohol license and maybe you need somebody who has that. I don't know, but I know like within my business, you had to have a licensing. Now, this is where I was smart. I went and got a class A contractor's license with a builder's designation.

I still don't know how I passed that test. It was the hardest test I've ever taken in my life. Why? Because I've never done any of it.

So it was totally book knowledge. It was not personal knowledge of mine, but I had to pass it. Why? Because I did not want to be dependent.

So you may have to, because it would take you too long to get this off the ground. I did not want to be dependent. So I got the licensing myself, but other people do partner for licensing. Next is you have a friendship with the understanding that the two of you will work harder together than you would by yourself.

It's just friendship. My son has a friend who he's in business with, and they just got great chemistry. And of course, they know that two of them can get more done. They know if they can divide and conquer But friendship was the catalyst I have a business relationship that friendship oriented I have a real estate partnership that somebody I known for my entire life.

Okay. And friendship was the catalyst for it. If they are valuable to you and it's more fun and you just know it's going to be better. Hey, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

I have changed my opinion over the years. Next, they have a network. They can connect you to people that you could never meet yourself. And I've partnered with people for networking.

They have contacts, they have connections, they have relationships with critical people that you just simply do not have and you desperately need for this business to succeed. Okay. That's huge network. Next, they have opposite qualities of you.

If you're passive, you need an aggressor. A lion needs a lamb and a lamb needs a lion. Okay. If you're passive, you need somebody who's the aggressor.

And if you're super aggressive, it's not a bad idea to have somebody who's the opposite of you. I'm a little bit too aggressive. So I have business partners that are more calmer and that's good. I need that.

In my first business partner, he was a definite good counterbalance to me. I remember I fired somebody and I'm young in my mid-20s and he says to me after the person's gone, he goes, you know, if you continue to fire people like that, you know we're going to be fist fighting every Friday in the parking lot with somebody. He goes, you just need to let me know so I can come, you know, basically be ready. And his whole point was you got to tame it down.

You got to be a better way to do it. And I've given stories on how he would fire people and they'd apologize for being horrible. Because he was good at it. He was the lamb and I was the lion.

There were times when I needed to be the lion and it worked. No question. But there's times when I needed a softer version and having a partner. okay so they have the opposite qualities of you all right so that's that's that's good okay nothing wrong with that all right next is speed is increased because you have two people sometimes the the to-do list and sometimes this falls under the friendship factor but but they stand alone because you can have a partnership just because somebody's your friend you just have great chemistry, you want to do it together.

It's just, Hey, you know, I'm with my buddy and, and, and I've had that And that was so much fun that I think that valid but I also partnered because the to list was so big that I needed the speed of two people I needed to divide and conquer There was just too many things that were necessary to get done. So that's speed. So speed is a critical reason why you would partner because you're racing this to the marketplace. You're racing this.

You're trying to get a proof of concept. Okay. So again, let me share with you nine critical reasons why you would partner with somebody. All right.

Time, time that you do not have. They fill a critical role. You do not, you know, that you need somebody to fill and you don't have somebody for like a CFO, CEO, marketing, something of that nature. They have capital you don't have.

They have industry experience. they have a licensing that you obviously can't go into business without it. They're your friend. You're a friend.

It's the understanding of the two of you you think can do more than one of you. Network, someone has connections, contacts that you do not have. They have the opposite qualities of you. I share with you the lion and the lamb and the lamb and the lion.

Speed. They have, you know, the power of two people, the speed of being able to get something done. And then there's a bonus one. If you see this on TV a lot, the power of somebody's influence.

If you look at Shaq, he has a little piece of Papa John's. Why? Because he's an influencer. So influencers can partner.

I have to believe Brett Favre has a piece of that. what's that sports thing that he has? Copper fit. So it's not uncommon for people that have a massive audience, massive credibility to be given a piece of a company.

It's not 50-50 all the time, but you can't afford to pay them to fill the role to be your spokesman. So you partner with them, you give them a piece of the partnership. That's something to consider. And that would be the 10th critical reason.

I don't know why I forgot that. So again, this is all the critical roles and why you would partner with somebody for any of these different things. And they're all valid. They all help.

And the biggest thing you have to remember, without this person, you could not get to success as fast and you couldn't go as far without this person. So all 10 of these things provide that. And that's why I partner in business, because I've always said 50% of a lot is better than 100% of a little. Again, Sean Castrini with the 10 Minute Entrepreneur Podcast, talking about the critical reasons why you partner in business.