Partners usually have a general idea of who will do what. If, say, you have a talent for rain-making, you’ll focus on bringing in the business, while your more analytical partner will attend to operations matters. But, often, they don’t explicitly spell out what each individual’s duties will be — and that’s when problems arise.“It gets very messy,” says Kelly Andrew Brown, an Akron, Ohio-based small-business consultant.
He points to a five-employee web-design company as a case in point. About five years ago, the founder decided to bring on a partner with more sales savvy. But, when business didn’t roll in as quickly as he’d hoped, the founder stepped in and started calling on his own prospects—without telling anyone else. Soon, he was arranging for deals on the sly, often agreeing to lower-than-normal terms the partner learned about only later. Eventually, trust between the two eroded and the partnership dissolved.
What you should do: Clearly lay out each person’s roles and responsibilities beforehand. And put in place a meeting and reporting system, so you always know what each other is up to—for example, by holding weekly meetings to discuss key business issues.