A look inside TCG

Many of you know Amy and I as business partners, colleagues and the women behind The Cadence Group (and this blog!). What you may or may not know is that Amy and I are also friends.

Last week, a friend of mine wrote and asked for my advice on starting a business partnership.  Most importantly, she wanted to know about a business partnership between friends.

The Cadence Group is a joint ownership between Amy and I and she wanted to know how it was going. A 50/50% joint partnership is not easy, but after I wrote the letter below, I thought it might be an interesting look inside TCG and how we work:

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Hi!

The NUMBER ONE thing that can help you and your partner is open and honest communication. The good, the bad and the ugly. Also, open access to all accounting (this helps!). You really have to have the same long-term goals in mind for your business or it will never work.

For example, Amy and I got together recently to work out our partnership papers and our Business Plan. The partnership papers were actually the easy part. We spent three straight days at her dining room table putting together our business plan. Trust me, it wasn't easy. But the ground rules for our friendship also apply in our partnership - don't pull any punches, be honest, and talk it out. We push back on each other all the time regarding all manner of things. But because we started out with a business plan, it's also "easier" for us because we can also remind the other person to go back to our business plan and see if something makes sense.

Our goals from day one have been aligned in how we want to build our business, how long we want to own our business and our core commitments to customer service, free advice and helping people figure out what makes the most sense for their publishing program - even if it means they don't hire us. If our goals were different, I could get pissed that we "give away" 5-6 hours of consulting time a week. But I'm not because that's part of who we are and who WE want to be.

My suggestion would be to sit down separately and outline the following (this worked for us last year when we started down this path).

Personal 5 year plan (top 5 goals)
Professional 5 year plan (top 5 goals)
The business itself - where do you want it to be in 5 years (top 5 goals)
How do you want to extricate yourself from the business (sell, close, etc.) when you're ready to retire
5 Strengths and weaknesses I bring to the business and the duties related to those
5 Strengths and weaknesses my partner brings to the business and the duties related to those

This is something you should spend some time working on individually and then plan to spend several hours going through together. They won't match up perfectly, but if they're completely different, it might not make sense for you to be in business together.

Business can ruin a relationship but Amy and I have always had an open and honest friendship and been willing to have the difficult conversations with each other which makes us work well together. To be honest, we spent the first 6 months kind of walking on eggshells together but our business - and our friendship - has been better for us getting over the honeymoon stage and being ourselves and working together.

If the plan is solid and if both parties are committed to the same vision, it can work.