The Secret Strategy to Building Effective Business Partnerships!

Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. Uh, ooh, I just closed my video here. Today I'm answering a question. Let me find it. No, not that one. Back, back, back, back, back, back, back. Here, from Martis. Alright, so Martis wrote in saying, "Hey Evan, I have a question. Instead of blazing the trail on your own, where do you go about finding business partners, or even better, mastermind partners who are on the same level as you are and will help you to create better ideas and be more productive? It seems like it's the hardest thing in the world to find those types of people." So thanks for the question, Martis. A great question coming from a YouTube viewer. It is tough and Congratulations to you, at least to start, for knowing that you can't do everything on your own and for looking for help. A lot of entrepreneurs are afraid to ask for help, try to do everything themselves, and you're always limited, right? You cannot do everything yourself. You don't have the skill set or the knowledge, and the most successful entrepreneurs are the ones who reach out to get help. And it may not be a business partner or mastermind partner, but they are going out looking for help and recognizing that they don't know everything themselves. So congrats on already making it past that step and recognizing that you do need to go out and find some people to help you out. So you asked about business partners, you asked about mastermind groups. For the business partners, it's like getting married. You know, you have to really, really, really know the person before you jump into business together. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs make the mistake of finding somebody who has a good skill set that matches what they're, you know, not good at. So if you're good at operations or creating a product and you partner up with someone who's really good at sales, it makes sense on paper, right? You have the skills that complement each other. But it doesn't mean you're gonna get along or have the same vision or have the same personality and have the same values, right? Just the things you look for when you're getting married, right? Do we have the same values? Do we want the same thing? Do we have personalities that will work well together or not? And in the first year or so of business, it's easy to get going and get excited because you got the momentum going. You know, you have the energy and excitement that comes with a startup. And so everybody is on the same page. But after that, you start to hit roadblocks and it gets tougher than you ever thought it would be. And you have bills that are due and it becomes really hard. And so that's when partnerships can break apart and come, you know, have a lot of challenges that are associated with them. And so you really want to make sure you do your work before you go out and bring on, you know, partners into your business. I've had some businesses with business partners in the past. And how I've always done it is I've worked with the person in some capacity before, so it's not just, you know, meeting somebody at random or at an event and striking up, you know, a business partnership. We might try something small, some kind of joint venture, some small deal on the side, see how we work together, see if it's a good fit or not, see if I get excited about, you know, the phone call or meeting that's coming up with that person. And, and try to get through some kind of hard point with them, you know, try to go through some kind of struggle, you know, before you get married you want to have gone through some tough times as well and not just experience the good because you want to know you can last together through the hard times. And so the same thing with a business partnership. I would start it off as something small, part-time, on the side, see if you guys work together and then try to expand it out. I've always started businesses with people who I know from some kind of background before. So it wasn't going in cold, it was people I had some kind of relationship with and thought that we, you know, could be able to work together as business partners. On the mastermind group side, that's another great opportunity and we run a couple of mastermind groups here in Toronto for local entrepreneurs who are trying to grow their business. And I think of it as an informal board of advisors. So with a business partner, they own part of your company. With a mastermind group, they don't own part of your company, but you're all just trying to help each other out. And I actually have a worksheet that explains how we recruit members and, you know, the way we run a group that may be helpful for you if you're trying to start a group. But really, you have to make sure, again, you do your homework. And a lot of these groups will just bring in a warm body, you know, anybody because they're interested in signing up. You have to make sure you take them through a process. To make sure they're gonna fit with the group. And it's not just the skill set, and it's not just the size of their business and expertise, but again thinking about their personality and are they of the right mindset or not to be able to fit into the group. So for our groups, we look for people who are beyond the startup stage. We look for people who are wanting to grow business beyond themselves. And there's nothing wrong with people who are startups, there's nothing wrong with people who wanna be a one-person show. It just doesn't fit with our group. You know, if I tried to bring somebody like that into one of our groups, they would say no because it just doesn't fit. So you have to define what each group is about. I meet with everybody over coffee and we see, you know, I learn about their business and I get to know their personality and I see, is this somebody who I would want to hang out with? You know, a lot of people in our groups are kind of like me, same kind of personality, and that's fun. You know, it's fun for me because I want to be around people who I get energy from and who I like hanging around and not people who I don't you don't look forward to seeing every month, right? So I meet with them over coffee, we talk about the group, there's a whole process they have to go through, there's an NDA they have to sign, there's a one-page letter they have to write, there's a trial meeting that they have to have, and so it really helps weed out the people and make sure that when you're bringing somebody in to be officially part of the group, then they are accepted. In terms of how to find the people, a lot of it comes from online, so we set up a website talking about creating the groups, some of our process, and people are searching for all sorts of different keywords and they end up finding us and contacting me. A little bit happens through word of mouth. I think some of our members have come from people who are existing members and they've referred their, their friends and colleagues on. Although a lot of the people who join the groups, it's tough because as an entrepreneur you don't have a lot of other entrepreneurs who you can connect with on a regular basis and ask their feedback on. You know, we may have friends and family and they'd like to listen, but they maybe can't provide support because they don't know, they haven't been through what you're going through. And so if you had a really good support network of entrepreneurs, you probably wouldn't be looking to join a mastermind group. So a lot of the members don't necessarily know other people who would be good fits, and so it's, you know, your role if you're organizing it to to, you know, be the one out recruiting, create a webpage, promote a little bit, and get people interested. You may be able to form some partnerships with other entrepreneur groups or government organizations who are promoting to entrepreneurs, and here's another resource for them to follow up on. Almost every city has some kind of government organization that is trying to help entrepreneurs out, so, you know, let them know that you're trying to create these groups. Maybe they'll even help you out with it. But you have to make sure you do your homework and you think about getting the right people in and the skill sets you need and the personality fits and, you know, do you want to spend the next year with these people or not? Are they gonna help your business or not? So it is definitely, definitely a tough road, but one worth following. And think about it again from either partnership side or for starting a mastermind group to do your work You know, make sure you know what you're looking for in advance. Try something out small to start with and then invite, you know, invite them for a potential further opportunity if it's a business partnership or mastermind group. But keep looking out, keep reaching out. Don't get frustrated by the process and think you're gonna have to do everything yourself, 'cause that's always gonna limit your thinking and how big your business is gonna be able to grow. So thank you for the question. Hopefully that helped. For those of you watching, if you liked the video, please give it a thumbs up below. It always makes me wanna do more videos for you. And if you have a comment about the partnerships or mastermind groups or another question about your business, feel free to leave it in the comment section below. I always read those and I always answer them as quickly as I can. They always make my day when they do come in, so thank you. And I'll see you on the next episode.