We talked about what to do if things with your employees aren’t working out, but what do you do if things in your partnerships aren’t working out? In today’s minisode, we’re offering tips for maintaining a strong business partnership, but also what to do if it’s time to let that partnership go.
Emily Thompson 0:00
The Being Boss book is officially available for pre order,
Kathleen Shannon 0:04
and you can buy it wherever books are sold.
Emily Thompson 0:07
Let us know that you bought it and we'll send you some goodies. Just go to beingboss.club/book for more details.
Kathleen Shannon 0:17
This minisode of being bosses brought to you by twenty20, where creative entrepreneurs get inspiring photos. If you're looking for authentic images to illustrate all of the hard work you've been putting in lately, twenty20 has millions of real world photos proven to help you tell a more engaging story, whether that's on social media, your blog, or your website. And they're all available under a simple royalty free license. twenty20 is partnering with being boss to support all the creative bosses and is offering new a seven days five photo free trial. That's a seven day access to licensed five photos for free to start your trial. Now go to twenty20.com/beingboss, that's the word 20, then to zero.com slash being boss to get five free photos.
Kathleen Shannon 1:08
Okay, it's gonna sit here with this boss is Emily is holding up our book, which basically anytime we're on video together, or she's doing an Instagram story, the book is being held up more to come
Caitlin Brehm 1:22
works really well when you're trying to be quiet to get audio.
Emily Thompson 1:30
Right, there are some things that I'm good at being quiet is not one of them holding my book up is
Caitlin Brehm 1:37
well on a downer note. We recently talked about what happens if your employee relationship doesn't work out? And how to fire an employee gracefully without burning bridges, hopefully. But what happens if a business partnership doesn't work out? What do you do, then?
Kathleen Shannon 1:57
I don't want to talk about this. But I do want to talk about it. It's one of those things, that's a hard conversation. And we like like anything to be thinking about these things before it gets to like the worst case scenario. So just like any relationship, you want to kind of figure things out from the get go so that if and when things go sour, you know how to handle it. So first and foremost, an operating agreement,
Emily Thompson 2:25
right? I mean, having a conversation with a lawyer about all of those worst case scenarios really sort of set us up so that in the event that something does go wrong with our relationship, one of the things we don't have to worry about is what happens because of it, which just adds another layer of stress, and potential resentment and anxiety. But the idea that we have sort of sorted all of those things out beforehand when we're both like loving each other, and all of those things, I think sets us up to even deal with hardships a little more diplomatically than if we hadn't had that in the first place. So first and foremost, some nice proactive thing you can do is set it up so that you know what happens if something does go sour with an operating agreement.
Kathleen Shannon 3:14
And if you can afford a lawyer to help you navigate that conversation, I still think it's worthwhile downloading a template and going through all those points together. Because I think what that does is it opens up a line of communication, where you're having a hard conversation from the get go. And if you can't have that conversation from the get go even from like a template for an operating agreement. If that's too awkward, it's probably not the right partnership. I wish the people had to have operating agreements before they got married. Like why is that not a thing? Because I feel like it used to be called a dowry.
Emily Thompson 3:53
And now it's called a prenup. And is one of those things that are a little bit frowned upon in some circles.
Kathleen Shannon 3:59
Yeah, totally. I mean, I've never had a prenup. And I've been married twice.
Emily Thompson 4:04
Right.
Kathleen Shannon 4:04
So it's one of those things where I think that you nobody wants to think about what what's going to happen if it doesn't work out. But that's just the reality of things. And I think that that kind of communication it gives you is so awesome and beneficial and amazing. I also think that regular check ins like Emily, you and I are meeting once a week. My sister and I are meeting once a week over at braid creative and we just added on a third partner and so this is all very fresh to me where it really did feel like going into a big time business contract and also kind of a marriage like there's a lot of even as you go through the lawyer process and the operating agreement process there's still a lot of more like touchy feely stuff that goes into it too. Like things like feeling like Okay, can I really trust this person starts to come up and you have to really honor those gut feelings as well.
Emily Thompson 4:57
Yeah, for sure.
Kathleen Shannon 4:59
Yeah, so regular check ins and having these conversations weekly so that anything that's coming up that's starting to bubble up like you can really talk about it before it becomes a deal breaker issue.
Emily Thompson 5:11
Yeah. And then whenever it comes to actually having sort of hard conversations and hard conversations can come up when you're talking about something like fun that you just need to may have a decision or make a decision about. But hard conversations also stem from having conversations about things that are not fun to talk about. So if something has gone wrong, having a conversation about it is mandatory. And I think this becomes easier when you are having those ongoing checkins, when you're used to already talking about everything. having conversations about things that aren't fun to talk about, is significantly easier to do and is important for the process of building a business. Not every decision you make. Not every conversation you have is going to involve happy fun things, like you're going to have to talk about things that aren't fun to talk about.
Kathleen Shannon 6:06
And so whenever you're talking about things that aren't fun to talk about, I think one of the best things you can do in your partnership is to think about it from the other person's point of view. Like even if you're mad, or upset, or your feelings are hurt. Think about it from the other person's point of view. And that might bring you to a point where you're like, Okay, I don't think that was personal. Or it might bring you to like, Oh, I could see why that could come across as unfair or whatever, from that person's point of view.
Emily Thompson 6:35
Yeah, I mean, having empathy in that way is, I think it just makes you a better business owner, period. I mean, whether you're dealing with your clients or customers, or your team, and definitely with your partners, we're tapping into what other people are feeling, or saying or thinking is really important. And I also think that paying attention to the other party's intention is just as important here, where you know, in business, not everything is going to line up specifically with how you view the world or how you want to how you want to move forward in any capacity. And having a partner means that there are going to be times when you may have to concede on a point that you're trying to make. And so all of this to say it's important to think about the other party in this relationship and how it is that they're seeing things. And then beyond that, if you're still struggling with having a hard conversation, and you feel things starting to go a little more sour than they should be. Get some help.
Kathleen Shannon 7:41
Yeah, so this is something I experienced personally, and I haven't talked about it publicly at all. But my sister and I were navigating a really tricky conversation and a really tricky issue in our business. And I didn't really feel like I was equipped, like, I knew I had the feelings that I had like gut feelings, but I couldn't quite articulate my point of view. And that's a problem. Like whenever you can't articulate where you're coming from, or you really cannot see where the other person is coming from, it's really a good idea to get some help. So we actually hired a really good friend who does some, like professional coaching and mediation, to come in and help us communicate. So what it did is it helped us wine and keep our shit together. Like we weren't about to fight and cry like sisters in front of help like this, like it kind of brought us back up into this business role. But also, this professional that we hired knew that we were sisters and understood that that played into a lot of our dynamic because again, our business is personal. And we can't always separate the personal from the professional. So what happened whenever we had mediation is the very first thing we did was prioritize our goal, which was to keep our sisterhood and friendship intact. Like that's number one. And I even think, you know, Emily, if you and I not being sisters, even though you very much feel like most of the time. And you know, if we had a place a point in which we were having to go to mediation, that would probably be my number one goal, too, is like to maintain a friendship and to not get to a place where it feels like the last three years of what we created was wasted because we couldn't figure out a problem. You know what I mean? Like the relationship is first and foremost, like we are people and human beings with beating hearts. Let's put that first.
Emily Thompson 9:31
Right. Absolutely. And I feel like if more people went at even business partnerships with that in mind, things would go much better world over. But I also want to point out here something that you said and follow it up with the idea that the idea that as business partners, you both want the same thing. You know, if you went into this having clear conversations about the goals and the outcomes and all of these things, you both want the same thing. You just need to find the way there But if you ever find yourself in a place where you don't want the same things anymore, that's when it's time to like call it quits. But until you're there get help to figure it out.
Kathleen Shannon 10:09
Yeah. And I would say even if you don't know what you want, so whenever we were chatting with our friend and coach that we had hired to help us mediate this issue we were having, it was really cool to say like, okay, in an ideal scenario, what do we want this thing to look like that we're struggling with? And so we were able to really set some shared goals from where we were at, even from a place of struggle. So what do we both want? And how can we get on the same side? Like, I always think of it as if we're playing a game? How can we be on the same team? Like, let's stop scrimmaging? Yeah, I'm gonna do some sports analogies, this is probably the worst,
Emily Thompson 10:49
butcher them up, I can't wait.
Kathleen Shannon 10:50
But you know, like, whenever you're in playing high school sports or whatever, and you're playing against your teammates in a scrimmage, there is this, like sense of love, but also this sense of competition. And I feel like that can kind of happen in business to where you almost start to get competitive with your business partner. And I think that this is where things like blame start to come up and pointing fingers and, and this happens in partnerships, like outside of business, too, right? And so you have to remember, wait, we're playing on the same team, we have the shared goal of making a million dollars or publishing a book, or, you know, whatever it is, like, we have to do this together. So getting on the same team, as are Yeah, on the same side is huge. So yeah, mediation or even therapy, I've heard of a lot of people going to therapy together to work something out. But if it doesn't work out, like if you know that you need to break up, and you know that that's what you want, like you went out of the business or someone wants out of the business, you're gonna have to take practical steps to make that happen.
Emily Thompson 11:52
Right, I think first, it just goes back to that operating agreement. What were the decisions that you made around how a partnership will be dissolved? If and when that ever happened? So first thing, look at your operating agreement?
Kathleen Shannon 12:06
And then decide how you want to be in the breakup? Do you want to be angry? Do you want to be amicable Do you want to be friendly, it was really up to you to decide how it is that you want to be and you cannot control how the other person is being and don't even try. But what you are responsible for is your own attitude and behavior.
Emily Thompson 12:25
Amen to that. And I think this is also the kind of situation where you should probably just have a lawyer, especially if there are assets involved that need to be divided in some way, having a third party there to help it all just go down legally and without scrapping, or whatever it may be, is really important for ending a relationship like this, with everyone being as pleased as possible with the results.
Kathleen Shannon 12:53
And just don't go into business partnerships lightly. Like, yeah, just imagine the best case scenario, which is like everyone's making millions of dollars. And then imagine the worst case scenario after you've made that millions of dollars. Like that's kind of how you need to go into it.
Emily Thompson 13:11
All right, excuse me. While I pause this here and let you in on the exciting news. The being boss book is about to hit the shelves of a bookstore near you, Kathleen and I have taken years of conversations between ourselves and those we've had with experts and industry leaders here on the being boss podcast, and have distilled them down into what we found, makes you boss into a book that you can read, hold in your hands and share with a friend.
Kathleen Shannon 13:37
And we'd be lying if we didn't admit that we have a big dream with this book. We wanted to be a best seller. We want every creative in the world to cultivate the confidence it takes to take control of their work and make money doing what they love so they can live life on their own terms. That's what our book is here to do. And we need your help to make it happen.
Emily Thompson 13:56
If you want to dive into the core of what it means to be boss and support us while you do it. It's time for you to preorder the book. And once you do that, let us know you bought it and we'll send you some goodies. Just go to being boss club slash book for links to purchase and for more information on how to claim your swag that's being bought clubs slash book. Now let's get back at it.
Kathleen Shannon 14:22
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Emily Thompson 14:36
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