MBA2090 Q&A Wednesday: How do I mend a business relationship?

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Hey oh. Welcome to the $100 RBA Show. No fluff, just the good stuff. Every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is Q and A Wednesday. On Q and A Wednesdays, we answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you got a question you want to ask, just go ahead and email me over@omar100mba.net Today's question is from Matt and Matt asks, hey Omar, I got a bit of a tough question to ask you. I was working with a business partner in the past. We grew a pretty amazing YouTube channel together. We had a lot of success together, but we had a falling out. Long story short, we haven't spoken to each other in a few years. In those few years I've had a chance to think about what happened. I have a new project I want to work on and I think my old business partner would make a perfect fit for this project. I'm willing to patch things up, but my question is how do I amend this relationship? We broke our last partnership kind of all of a sudden it was kind of abrupt and I don't like the way things were left. I'd love your advice on how I should try to mend this relationship even if we don't work together in the future. Appreciate the show and any advice you can offer. Matt. Matt, first thing I want to do is I want to congratulate you. I want to actually commend you for having the emotional intelligence, having the maturity to say, hey, I'm to reach my hand out and mend this relationship with somebody I actually worked with for a long time. You had experiences together, you had some wins and you don't take that for granted. Secondly, I think it's very smart of you because in business you'll learn that it's a very small world and there's no reason to burn bridges. It's always good to try, even if you don't see eye to eye or stay together, to end things in a very clean fashion in a way that everybody at the table feels like, okay, that's fair enough. So in today's lesson, I'm going to be offering Matt some advice on how he can approach his ex business partner. 1, 2. Just talk about what happened, mend the relationship so they're on good terms first. That's the first step really is just talking it out and mending the relationship to a point where they're okay with each other and then approaching the subject of working with each other in the future. I'm also going to talk a little bit about what to expect and how to adjust your expectations when it comes to this type of situation. People can surprise you, either good or bad. So you got to be ready for anything. And lastly, I'm going to share some advice when it comes to business partnerships and how to avoid this mistake or this problem in the future. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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So Matt writes in and wants to mend an old business relationship that went sour. An old business partner that they had some really good success in, but it crashed and burned at some point. The first thing I want to say is that this is a lot more common than you think. Human beings are very interesting creatures, okay? People are not going to agree all the time. People are going to have differences of opin. We're emotional despite our best efforts. People take things personally even though it's in a business setting and feelings get hurt, people get upset, people get angry. This is just the reality of working with other human beings. This is actually one of the reasons why some entrepreneurs like to do things themselves. They don't like to grow a team. They want to keep their team small or just themselves be a solopreneur because they don't want to deal with all this drama. And I completely understand that. And that's a choice that some people make that I respect. But that's not always an option for people that want to build something that they can't do alone. So my advice to Matt in this situation is to contact your ex business partner to first focus on mending the relationship, ending things right, you know, making sure you are on good terms, that you're friends again, or at least you have mutual respect and there's a sense of moving on or forgiveness. Don't worry about who is right and wrong. Right now we're just trying to get to a point where you are on speaking terms and everything is cool, so to speak. That's really the most important step here. And it's actually a pretty big step. And you don't want to kind of smash this step with the other step of asking them, hey, do you want to team up again on a new project? That is another step. That's another kind of milestone that we'll get to. There's some trust that needs to be built a little bit beforehand. And in that process, the first step is just, hey, let's make sure that we mend the wound right. We make sure that we're okay with each other. So when it comes to that first step, my advice is try to meet with this person face to face. Okay? Get an appointment, whether it's in person, whether it's on a video call. The point here is that there is a different dynamic when people are looking at each other and are speaking to each other live rather than over a chat or over email. You can quickly amend the situation. You can communicate faster, you can understand how they're feeling faster. You don't have to read between the lines. You don't have to kind of guess what they mean in text or what this emoji means. So there's probably a good chance you have a way to reach out to this person. You have their phone number, you have their email, something. Set up a meeting. And it could be just something as simple as this. Hey, so? And so I wanted to reach out because I'm not really happy the way we left things off. Talk about a shared experience. Like, we had a lot of wins together, we did a lot, we had a lot of success. That means something to me. I value that. I also value the time and effort and you put into working with me. And I want to make things right and I want to make sure that you have a chance to say what you've always probably wanted to say and vice versa. It's okay to just be transparent and honest. You don't have to be apologetic if you don't feel like you're in the wrong and all that kind of stuff. Don't get into what's right or wrong or who made a mistake or whatever. Right now your job is just to get them on a call, get them on a coffee meeting, something. That's what you're trying to do here. That's the goal here. That's the call to action, is like, hey, let's meet up. And that's how you wrap up. I'd love to just have a personal chat and catch up with you. What do you say? And if they're cool with it, you can do a video call or in person thing. The point here is that you need to make that first step with just the intention. Your goal here is not to clear the air and explain what happened and say your piece. No, your point of the short email is just, I need a meeting. I need to just set up the next step to just meet with them and then that way we can hash it out. Now this is going to be a running theme throughout this whole process where every step of the way you just have one intention. I'm trying to do this one thing here so that I can move on to the next step. And right now, the whole intention here is just to get the meeting. Hopefully they respond and they are down. And if they are not down with the meeting, if they're like, hey, no thanks, or they don't respond at all, don't push it. Right now the ball is in their core. You've done your piece, they might come around in a week, they might come around in a month, they might come around in a year. But the point here is that you're not going to gain anything by nagging them or sending them another email saying, I knew they were not going to reply or whatever. You're just not going to solve anything by doing that. Ball's in their core. Done deal. But hopefully they do reply and you do have that meeting. Now let's move on to the meeting stage. When you're going to be speaking to this person. This is somebody you know well. You worked with them every day. You've had success with them. I'm sure you had happy moments and some tough moments, and that's okay. And I want to remind you that in this meeting, remember that relationship? Remember those days? Because sometimes we go into these things, it feels awkward. We don't know each other that much. No, you do. You really actually do. You actually know them more than you think. It's not awkward. You're just picking up where you left off. So what is your intention with this meeting? Your intention of this meeting is just to make sure that by the end of the meeting that you can shake hands, that you are on good terms. And that's really what you're trying to do here, is just let them walk away from this meeting feeling like, I'm glad that happened. I'm cool with this person now. Let bygones be bygones. And now they're leaving with a better opinion of you. They're leaving with a feeling of, I'm glad that we had this talk. It's a positive feeling. Then you can build upon that later on, like I mentioned. So your intention here is just to have a resolution with each other and you part ways in a friendly manner. Okay? Now a couple tips here. This might get emotional. It might get heated because you might talk about what happened and who said what and what that made you feel and all that kind of stuff. Anytime you feel the temperature rising in the conversation, remember your goal. Your goal is to leave this meeting and you guys are cool with each other. Okay? Next, I'm going to tell you something that you may not agree with, but it's just the truth. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what happened. It doesn't matter what was said. It doesn't matter the way you felt at the time. It doesn't matter what the repercussions were. That's all in the past. You can't change what happened. You can't change the way it made you feel back then. You can't change any of the ramifications that happen from that conversation. It's over. Okay? You're not going to feel any better by shouting and yelling and kind of claiming how much it was hurtful, okay? Just know that that happened you got to kind of just move on. And that's the intention of this meeting. So somebody in this conversation has to be a sounding board. And I'm electing you to be the sounding board so they might voice how they felt. And. And you're just going to be the sounding board and say, yep, I get it. Totally. And the best you could do is just say, that's not my intention. I was really just trying to do what's best for us in the company. But that's neither here nor there. And remind them you called this meeting because you respect them, because you actually want to end things properly or you want to kind of have your relationship mended and always go back to that. I want things to be cool between us. I want to make sure that we're good. I want to make sure that we don't leave things the way they were again. There's a chance that this won't go the way you want it, but you want to make sure that it doesn't go the way you want it because of them, not because of you. That you did all the right things, you stayed cool, you stayed on point in your intention and it could happen. And if that's the case, that's okay. You've tried. You can't convince people by force. You got to just do things and try your best. Okay? Hopefully things work out and you shake hands and things are cool with each other. And maybe a hug, whatever. The point here is that you part ways in a better situation than you were before you met. Now, if you want to work with them in the future, my advice is let some time pass. And if you're leaving each other and everything is good with each other, that means you still can communicate with each other. Comment on their posts on social, give them a message once in a while and say, hey, hope everything's all right. You can wish them a happy birthday. You can wish them a congrats if something happens in their life. The point here is that just be a friend. Just be in touch so they don't forget about you. So they don't feel like that first meeting was just, you know, kind of a formality for you. You actually care and want to, you know, continue to have a good relationship with them. So just be a friend, okay? You'll know when things are cool again like before, and everything is fine. And they're possibly open to the idea of working with each other.

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So the last step in this whole situation is approaching them and saying, hey, I'd like to work with you again. You can't not talk about the elephant in the room. And that's what happened in the past. So when you approach them, say, I'd like to work with each other. This is what I want to work with you on. How can we make this a win win and make sure that we don't have a falling out again? Our relationship is more important than any project. Let's make sure that our relationship is the priority here. And we start out with respectful conversation on what would be a win for you, what would be a win for me, and how we want to work together again. They might say, no thanks, I don't want to work with you. They might just have their plate full. They might have something going on in their personal life. They could just be like, you know what, I don't want to go through that again, or I don't want to go through that experiment again. And that's fine. Okay? That's their liberty. And if that happens, don't push it. Just say, hey, still friends, still will support you no matter what. We'll be in touch. Let me know if I can support your work in any way because they might come around later on. If they do, say yes. My advice is that there's probably a good chance the reason why you had a falling out is a lack of clear communication. There was a misalignment of expectations. Somewhere along the lines, you thought one thing, they thought another. And then it came to a head. It was like, well, what's going on here? Why aren't you doing this? Well, why aren't you doing that? And that's what happens often. Don't have that pent up. Communicate often, even on a daily basis, just for 20 minutes. Have a meeting, talk what your expectations are. Don't be afraid to ask for what you want in this situation and vice versa. Communication is very important in relationships. Otherwise, things fester, things start to build up, people have resentment, and we're back to where we started. Matt, I hope my advice in today's Q and A Wednesday helped you with your question with your situation. I'd love for you to email me and let me know how all goes. And for those of you who are listening, hopefully you take on this advice if you're ever in this situation. I'm telling you, if you do business with people enough, this is going to happen. We're human beings. It's just natural. So keep this in mind. And of course, if you got a question you want to ask, just go ahead and email me over at omar00mba.net and I'll make sure to answer it right here on Q and A Wednesday. That wraps up today's question. Make sure you hit subscribe, hit follow on your favorite podcast app and leave us a rating and review. We'd love to hear what you think of the show. It's the best thing you could do to support the show. You want to go the extra mile? Why not share the show on social media right now? Tell your friends, hey, check out the $100 show. Thank you in advance for that. It means a ton of Before I go, I want to leave you with this. The hardest part of business is people. Really, it is. Is managing people, is working with people, is meeting expectations, is making sure everybody's on the same page. Don't beat yourself up if you're not so good at this right now or maybe you had a few bad experiences. It's going to happen. We are human beings. We are dynamic creatures. It's just going to happen. So just learn from the experiences and move on and try to become better at this. And sometimes you can do everything right and you'll still have friction because again, we're people. Okay? People are going to react in different ways and act in different ways. Okay? So your goal is just to learn from your experiences and build upon them every time you work with somebody new. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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