Dealing with Business Breakups and Failed Partnerships

On today's episode of Business Lunch, we've.

Had plenty of cases where people have come to us and seen us as their savior. And I'll tell you, we're like, you know, no way. I mean, it's, you know, they're vampires and we're throwing garlic and doing everything that we can because we know that if it's up to us to save somebody's business, we're going to fail and they're going to resent us and they're going to hate us.

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Foreign.

Hey, everybody. Roland Frazier and Ryan Deiss here with another episode of the Business Lunch podcast. Ryan, how you doing today?

I am doing really well. It's good to be back. Good to be. Good to be doing this again. I feel like we took a bit of a hiatus. At least I did. I know you've still been recording it, but I was on vacation then you were on vacation and then I forgot one time to just show up. And I completely stood you up.

You just forgot you had the time wrong, that's all.

I mean, yeah, that's true. I was definitely going to be there. Just I was going to be there.

Like an hour late for the time that you thought it was. I mean, and that's basically being on time as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, absolutely on time. But so good to be back. And I. And a lot of stuff has been going on, obviously in the world at large. Maybe we'll get some of that. Maybe we'll save that for the next one. But for us, what I want to talk to you about and get, get your, get your take on is business breakup because we have had. We've endured a couple of business breakups literally in the last, like, week or so. And in one case is we broke up with someone, and in another case, somebody broke up with us. So were business deals that we had. And look, sometimes you do a business deal and it works out great and everybody's happy. Sometimes you do a business deal, it doesn't for a variety of reasons. And so when that happens, you break up. Right. Just like a, I guess a romantic relationship. When things aren't working out, you can go your separate way. So I think it might be good to kind of talk about that maybe, I don't know, without using names to protect the innocent and guilty, but kind of talk in around that. Does that work with you?

I think it's a really good topic because there are partnership people and there are not partnership people. And I think that partnering in business can get you so much farther, so much faster if you have the right partners. And I feel that, I feel that way with, with our partnership. It's, it's very, very good because we went about doing it the right way. And, and then I think that I watch bad partnerships, both in domestic relationships and in business relationships can be an absolute nightmare filled with litigation and continuing problems and all kinds of bad things. So I think the, like, the first thing would be to me, I think if we say, how do you do, how do you do a good breakup in business?

Well, and I think also just to set the stage a little bit, because what we're talking about here are businesses, partnerships that are kind of being broken up. But I do think that a lot of this can apply even in strategic partnerships. Right? Sometimes you do a strategic relationship. So I throw that out there because if you're listening to this and you're, and you're thinking, well, I'm not in a business partnership, I'm not going to get in a partnership. I've got a friend that says the only ship that doesn't sail is a partnership, which I think is cute. I just disagree with it. Yeah, it's clever because we got one sailing just fine. But that being said, everything we're going to talk about, I, I think applies even for strategic relations like strategic partnerships. I mean, that word is used. But even if there's not an equity sharing, there is still a business relationship going there. And sometimes things are going to come to an end. And so how do you make sure that from the beginning things are set up to where, when it does end? And invariably all partnerships will, will come to some kind of end. So how do you make sure things are set up on the front end to where it, there's, there's a path for that, a graceful exit? How do you know if things aren't working out? How do you begin to have the conversation and then ultimately you make the decision and say, you know, okay, that's it. How do you break up with someone and how do you respond if you're the one being broken up with something? All of those would be good general topics for discussion. I am an emotional basket case when it comes to this stuff. You know that. And so I'm probably the worst person to speak on this, so I'll just kind of let you go and I'm gonna, I'm gonna play the role of the listener and try to ask questions. Does that sound good?

I think you should play the role of the emotional basket case because you and I have different approaches to how we do deals and all that kind of stuff. And so it's good for people to get the full spectrum right, even though you're not an emotional basket case. I'll show you some emotional basket cases.

But yeah, that's true.

But I think that it starts with having the right people to start with. Like, you can't have a good breakup if you have rushed into a partnership and you either didn't know the people or you didn't have some experience with them before and you didn't clearly define the roles of what everybody was going to do. I think that's really, really critical. And so I think that the good breakup is much, much more difficult if it didn't start with good getting together with a good coupling to start with. And so for us, we had, I'll talk about the, the one that broke up with us first is we had a SaaS company that came out of one of my private consulting clients. And while, while I was at the, at the consult, I was explaining to my client why it would make sense. He, he was like, you know, I'm, I'm kind of capped at this seven figure ish level. And, and he's like, I, I want to, you know, how do I break through that and get to the next place? And I said, well, based on everything that you've told me, it sounds like you're adding a lot of value to some other companies. Have you thought about suggesting partnerships with them? And, and then we identified the two that were the most likely to make sense. And on one of them he said, would you guys be willing to come in as well? And so I said, well, let's work your thing. To me, this is. This is framing the approach of where you're coming from. Because I could have said, oh, that's awesome. I have a chance for us to get part of a SaaS company. But I didn't. I said, look, I'm here for you right now, so first let's get your deal, and then if you guys decide that you want to do a deal with us, then we can talk about it. But right now, let's get that done. And I think that gives you a lot, a lot of relational capital to not be looking out for yourself first. That when somebody's got. When somebody's. Especially if they've hired you. Right. To help them, to not be thinking just about yourself and being opportunistic there. So that was my first thing, and I think that helped.

So maybe the overarching lesson there is like, obviously, don't rush in to a partnership, and just because somebody offers you equity in their company, you need to realize that there's going to come with some other things on the other side. So you might be thinking, like, what's the risk? I mean, I'll just take it. This is great. Slow it down. Like, when the conversation goes there, that's a good signal that we need to slow this down a little bit because it's serious. Right. So we just need to pump the brakes just a little bit.

Yeah. So that was the beginning of that. And then after the deal was put together with those two people, they both came and said, yes, we would still like to do it, and we worked it out. Now, I. I also think it's good to disclose your weaknesses when you're going in to a deal like that, because I have seen that not all of them work out. And so I think it's important for you to be realistic and not over promise and underdeliver. So when we were talking about what we can do, I said, well, I said. They said, do you have any concerns about doing this? And I said, yeah, I have a concern in keeping the expectations of the partnership in line with what I hope we can deliver. But sometimes in the past we have. We have wanted to deliver more, and circumstances have caused us to not be able to. And. And I'll tell them right up front too, say, you know, and in those situations, we generally just give it back. So I want you to understand that we're prepared, in the event that things don't work out, to walk away. And that's really good. And I can certainly refer them to a couple people that Things didn't work out with. And they can talk to them and they'll be like, yeah, they did.

So.

So they just gave the equity back.

Yeah, just gave the equity back. Now it sucks because we've put time into it and they've put time into it, but not everything works. So I think just being realistic going in that that's a possibility and having a potential out in that in the event that it doesn't work and having talked about that is really, really helpful. So then we went into it. We did a written agreement. It clearly laid out the things that we were going to do and it, each of the other two parties were going to do and. And then that was it. The equity was granted and we threw everything into a new co. And that's really important.

I don't, I don't want to blow past that. There was a written agreement. Yes. And this is so. I can't tell you how many times, you know, I, I know you probably more than I am, but so many times I, I've been working with entrepreneurs and they'll have a partnership that doesn't, that isn't going well. And I'm like, well, what did you agree to do? Who, who, who's supposed to be doing once? We never really talked about that. And it is so important, right? I mean, I'm not going to argue for prenups and things like that. When it comes to marriages, there's a lot of emotions around that, so we'll set that aside. But when it comes to business, there absolutely must be a prenup. There must be a, before we partner up on this thing, who is going to do what. Because if there's not that initial point of agreement, there's nothing to refer back to. And it's amazing. Everybody always remembers a different version of the conversation. Only about 100% of every time does somebody remember a different version. Or it's like, yeah, I mean, it was critical to me that you do this. Like, how do you remember you saying that? Right. It always happens, so you gotta write it down.

And the interesting thing is when you look into memory and how memories are created, neither of those people might be wrong. They could both be correct because it is literally a different memory experience. You know, our brains signpost what they perceive to be the important memories or bits of a thing and then they fill in, literally creating the everything else in between. And so depending on your experiences in life and business, the fill in stuff can make all the difference. And so that's why as a, that's why attorneys get to stay in business because there's one person that will completely testify the exact opposite of the other. And they could both pass a polygraph and both believe that they were completely true. And the truth is, is that whatever the reality was, we will never know because it's somewhere between and it's the same thing in the business deal. And so I think putting those things down at least signposts the expectations that are critical to each party. So we did that, and then we. We set about working. And so in our business, sometimes even when you believe that you can do everything that you say you're going to do in the agreement, it's. It's not enough. And it might not be enough in that, like, even if you do the things that you say you're going to do, the results are also going to have an impact on whether something moves forward or not, because people aren't going to continue to invest their time if the return isn't enough, and they're not going to feel good about something if the combined result isn't what they want it to be like that caused them to go in in the first place. In our case, I think what happened was. Well, I'll say basically a year went by, and we did some of the things that we said we were going to do. Some circumstances caused some of the things to not need to be done. Some caused things not to be done, but basically it just went way slow. And it was. I think it was last week that. That the other two partners reached out and said, hey, can we have a meeting? And we got on a zoom and talked, and they said, you know, hey, listen, when we got together, you know, we thought this was going to happen and this was going to happen and this was going to happen. And some of the things that they were saying were they were very, very good reasons that they didn't happen. But to me, I just owned it because I felt that we had underperformed, and I felt that our team wasn't able to do things that I said our team could do. And, you know, one of the challenges of you and me and Richard being in partnership is that we depend on other parts of the companies that each of us are responsible for, which each have their own reasons for doing things and not doing things. And so that. That makes it hard sometimes. And so I just, to me, and I. And I think you just own it. And so I just said. They said, you know, how do you feel things have gone? And I said, well, I feel that we've completely underperformed and haven't been able to do a lot of the things that we said we were going to do. And I think that we've kind of done an awful job of trying to do the things that we all hoped would happen. And they were like, oh, wow. Yeah. And I said, so I feel like we should give you back your equity and you guys should go on and, you know, no harm, no foul, Happy to support you in any way that we can going forward. Maybe things will move along and get to a point where we can do this again. And I would love to keep the option of maybe having that happen open, but right now, I don't feel that we're able to deliver at the level that we need to. To make the deal what we all hoped it would be. So I think that's the best thing. And they were like, oh, we really appreciate you saying that. And obviously we agree completely. And, yeah, that that sounds great, and we want to be friends and all that. Like, I think that's important, is that it's the relation. The relationship is important. And you owning your stuff in the relationship is important, too.

Yeah, let's. I want to. I want to. I want to pause on that for just a second because I think. I think this is really, really important. I'm glad that we started with the one where we were essentially the failing partner.

Yep.

Right. Because the reality is, in any. Anytime. Any relationship, any partnership, right. Be it romantic or business, anytime there's a failure, there's always going to be some of it owned by both parties. Almost always. I would say, certainly in business is almost always going to be. But in general, there might be one group that owns more of it than the other. Here's what I'll say. And it doesn't matter, right? It doesn't matter. And if you want to have a good reputation in business, if you can point in, if you can say, yeah, I didn't do this. I didn't do this piece of it. Go ahead and own. Just own all of it. Just go ahead and take ownership of all of it. And what you're going to find invariably is the other party, they're going to reciprocate and they're going to say, you know, yeah, no, we didn't do this as well. And once it's clear that, like, there's no more posturing, there's no more, I need to build up all of my walls so that I can make sure it's like, nope, I'm going to own this. Here you go. You can, you know, you can have this piece back. I'm not going to fight you on it. That's how you maintain the relationship. That's how you maintain your reputation. It's also just honest. And so I say that for a couple of reasons. One, it's the right thing to do. But two, it's important for you to hear this when you feel like you're the wronged party, because in this case, we were the wronger. Yep. Right. There were definitely some things that they. They could have done. There were almost certainly some, you know, misalignment of expectations and assumptions. Right. Because even if you write stuff out, you're never going to catch it all. But the thing that I want everybody to hear is we're pretty good at this stuff and we still screwed up. We could have done better. And here's what's important. We didn't mean to. It's not like we went into this with militia. Like we believed we could do everything. So if you are the person who is getting wronged, quote, unquote, in a deal, just know that it happens. And there's a good chance that they didn't mean to do it. And maybe they're a little bit embarrassed, and so they're getting a bit emotional in this. And if you don't, if you pull back on the emotional scale just a little bit, and if you just own the fault, you're going to see them come and meet you halfway. And if they don't, then thank God you got out of that relationship when you did. And so I'm glad we started with this one so that people can hear, even us. We're not perfect, but we're pretty dang good at this stuff. We screwed up. We fell short of the expectations, and this was primarily our fault. And so we have to own that. So if you're the person who is, you know, you haven't lived up to your end, just know you're a really good company and maybe own it. And if you're on the other side of the table and you're kind of getting a little bit screwed and you feel like you are, just go and talk to them. Have a mature, adult conversation. Try not to make it overly emotional and try not to make it like they intended to screw you over. They probably didn't. They probably just believed with everything they had that they could get it done and they just fell short. And it happens.

Yeah, it does. And I think that's. That's important. I think it's also easy to say when you're not. But you've got to not be desperate for performance of the other person when you go into a partnership like that. Because if you are, it will be hard for you to separate emotion from logic. And you might feel.

Unpack when you say desperate for. What do you mean by that? Unpack that a little bit more.

If you are like, this has to work for me to be able to pay myself and feed my family, or this is like my, my Hail Mary last shot or anything like that. The partnerships can't be for salvation. It's gotta be for.

It's gotta be a good to great.

It's gotta be.

Yeah.

Augmentation. Exactly. Not augmentation, not salvation. That's a, That's a quote, right? It. It really is. And if you're, if you're looking for this relationship to save you, then you're really setting yourself up for disappointment and your relationship up for failure. So be careful if you are, and that's important.

If you're desperate, you're like, I'm gonna.

Do whatever I'm gonna do. But if you are, be well aware that it's not likely to be what you're hoping it's going to be.

And yeah, try to recognize your own brokenness in that relationship. And I'll tell you, if you're on the. And this happens to us a lot of times where people will willingly give. And this was not, this was not the case with this company that, that we're referencing here. They're great company. They're gonna. They were doing great before us, they're gonna do great after. But we've had plenty of cases where people have come to us and seen us as their savior. And I'll tell you, we're like, you know, no way. I mean, it's, you know, they're vampires and we're throwing garlic and doing everything that we can because we know that if, if it's up to us to save somebody's business, we're gonna fail and they're going to resent us and they're going to hate us and they're going to make demands because they have no other choice. And so we never want to do those deals. Never.

Also, I have, I have seen as recently as a week or so ago in a different deal that if, if somebody needs money and there. And this didn't have anything to do with the one we were talking about on the breakup, but on a different deal, if somebody needs money, they will find a way to justify and rationalize taking it from you. And One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone in a inadvertently or advertently makes me an involuntary creditor to them by taking my money. I really, really hate that.

Right.

It's, it's so incredibly unfair.

And so what do you mean by that? Can you give me an example without.

Violating example from last week? So, so in a different, in a different deal we had a partnership that involved acquisition of a few companies in a roll up. And the thing about a roll up is you're taking several companies and putting them under one holding company. And so you generally don't change a whole lot in a company that's working fine. And so in that deal there were two people who in two different companies had set up the stripe accounts, which is the merchant account. And so what they had been accustomed to doing was whenever they needed personal funds, they would change the account that the stripe deposited into from the company account to their account until they got what they needed and then change it back. So can you imagine what they might have done when they needed some money?

That is so that is, that is, that, that is borderline theft. If you have a business partner, it is incredibly bad business. Like if you're just doing it yourself. Do not do that. All right? Do not do that. We talk about this and you know, the seven level masterclass and all kinds of things like pay yourself a salary, your business account and your personal account are separate. Do not treat your business as your personal piggy bank kind of thing. You know, wow.

And if you need money, then talk to your partner about it. But, but so unfortunately that happened to the tune of a couple hundred thousand dollars and it ended up causing the thing to fall apart. So, you know, so this is, this is the not all deals work out special business lunch. But it turned out, as many things do, to be a blessing because it was able to morph into something that I think will be significantly bigger. But it also could completely break you if that was the only thing you had. It's a lesson learned in internal controls. From an accounting standpoint, you shouldn't have one party be able to do all of that. And it is another in monitoring to be sure that like the second that you see something not going the way you think, dig deeper. And it is also a re learning of the lesson I've learned so many times that, that people who are desperate financially will find a way to do whatever they need to get the money because that's the most important thing to them usually. And, and so in this case they needed the money. They Didn't. They were, by the way, surprised when they got called out. It was, you know. Oh, but I mean, that's the way Vi's done it. You know, it's like. Yeah, but you didn't have partners before. Yeah, yeah, but we needed it. So, you know, I mean, it wasn't. It didn't register somehow that that was maybe inappropriate, but. But obviously from a legal standpoint, it could be devastating to you if you're that person too, by the way, because if you had a partner that was nasty, you could get. I mean, that's. That's pretty straight out embezzlement. Right. So you've got to be careful.

That is. That is the word.

Yeah. You got to be careful with that on. On both sides. So. So that's. That's what I mean by the desperate. Like, be careful, because desperate people find a way to rationalize anything, and particularly when it comes to money, They'll. They'll definitely figure it out. But, you know, every. Every door that shuts opens generally better doors. So that's. That's okay, too. So.

So let me. Let me recap what happened on the. On where we got broken up with. Is that all right?

Yeah, where we got broken up with. Basically, we entered into a deal. It was a deal that came from somebody that we knew who was a private client, who was referred by somebody that we knew who's an important relationship to us. And so tiptoeing into that, being sure that we documented it well with expectations was important, and I'm very happy.

Did everything right. Then they do them ahead of time, or they go into the agreement and.

Say, so out of these 32 things. And there was like, 32 things, you know, it looks like you guys did 25 of them, but seven of them that were important enough for us to say, it seems that you've fallen short. And then complete ownership. Absolutely agree 100%. Tell me what you would like to do, you know, and then giving them the equity back is, to me, always the correct answer there, because, number one, it's fair. But number two, why would you want to hang on to the equity in a business where somebody was resentful because they felt like you didn't deliver? I'd rather, even if I had delivered 100%, just give it back and move on. Because.

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There's plenty of deals out there. And. And then that was it. And so then the breakup. The result of that was they have their equity back and we have a good relationship. And they are still eager to do things not only with that deal, but with other deals. And they will tell, I guarantee you, 10 times as many people that. That. That will potentially become deals for us as, you know, as they would have otherwise, because we did the right thing. Oh, yeah, man, those guys. So they become another testimonial for us as to, hey, when things don't work out, these guys are fair.

And so that is the playbook. If you entered into a business partnership and maybe you're feeling guilty because you know you're not holding up your end of the bargain. Right. Go and have the conversation ahead of time and say, hey, let's have a conversation now. For us, we just absolutely gave it all back to them. It was early enough in the deal. We weren't so vested. Sometimes you want to go and just say, hey, perhaps we should renegotiate. That's another thing I know we've done in the past where we've said, you know, we're not doing everything we said we would do. I know that we, you know, we're supposed to have 50%. Maybe we should only have 25 or 30%. Right. And so we've gone back and have actually negotiated against our own position. Either way, do the right thing. I mean, I guess as simple as that is, if you know that you're not doing it, go have the conversation ahead of time. Because if you wait for it to get bad, that's when there's no. There's no coming back. The relationship is dead. Good chance that you land in litigation. And definitely there's no opportunity in the future. This door is still wide open. Yeah. Still good friends with these folks. Wish them nothing but the best. Like you said, we may very well go back and do that deal again and win. And if we do, we'll know a lot more. We'll be a lot clearer on what we can do. The terms may very well be different, but they'll be more appropriate. And so that's kind of the playbook we got broken up with because we didn't do our part. That's how we handled it. Hopefully people learn some good stuff from that.

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Let's shift gears into the one where it was kind of the inverse, right. And funny enough happened within a matter of days of one another. It's like that, that time of year, I guess. And so in this case, we were the ones who were feeling like the other party maybe weren't doing. And so now you were on the, you know, we were kind of on that end where we're wondering, so kind of give the context, walk through how that happened.

Yeah, so, so what we do, one of one of our Playbooks is when we have projects that cannot be handled inside of an existing company. And so we have several companies and they kind of have their defined list of the types of things that are their avatar and the types of products or services that they'll offer. And so if one comes along that is not really a fit for that, whether it's an acquisition or an idea that one of us has or anything like that, then one of the things that we can do is partner outside the business. Because the business, you got to be careful. You can idea the company to death with all of the wonderful things you want to do. At the same time, ideas can die if you say, well, we're going to get to that and you find it gets pushed off for four quarters or the team is already stretched thin or whatever. So we identified a third party who we'd known for years and years and years.

And yeah, again, going back to like step one, make sure that you're not doing, entering a business partnership with somebody who you're effectively on a first date with. Like, just like you don't propose marriage on a first date. Don't jump into a business partnership with somebody you literally just met. So that's always like kind of the first step. Somebody that we knew had been mastermind groups with for what, over a decade. I mean this, this is not, not somebody, you know, who we just met.

Yeah. And a known performer, somebody that, that has a reputation for getting stuff done and somebody that had complementary skills to, to us, they had the skills that, that we needed to do this. And so that was important to us. And it was, it was kind of fun too because, you know, eating our own dog food here, we, we did not start with a partnership here, even though we had that knowledge. And this is what I would say, because if you're saying, well, Ryan, how could I ever do anything with anybody if I can't do things with people that I've not got a relationship with? Will you tippy toe in? So what we did with this person was we basically had the opportunity to do a couple of strategic. They weren't even, it was kind of like a joint venture on a part of a income thing on one of our other companies. And we did that and it went well. And we had done that for about six or eight months and it was going well. And so when this came along, you know, you always like to throw opportunities to the people who you're already doing something with. And so there's like, okay, well this seems like it's going to work. And so we said, okay, here's the deal. Here's what each person's responsibilities are. Here are the deal points. Does that sound good? Yes, that sounds good. And then we, we set off to do it. And what was interesting was it was there was like not things weren't happening fast enough. And there's always.

By the way, that sounds similar to the critique that we received. You see this happen a lot, right? Assumptions around speed. A lot of times I think that's it.

And it's even internally we have that Right. So I think that it's important to have conversations about speed and milestones. And then it gets tricky because, like, in this case, we had parts of our team that were supposed to do things, and the complaint from our partner was, well, your people are causing me to not be able to move forward because I can't get return phone calls and I can't get this thing done or these things have to be done first. And I still don't have those things. And then what you never know is, right. You know, who's telling what is, you know, then our people are like, well, I gave that stuff five times, and, you know, now I'm being asked for it again. And you don't ever know. So if you're trying to sleuth that out, you're probably going to be very disappointed. So I just assume that there are failures on both sides. And then it's like, are we getting what we want out of this or not? And so it was kind of slow kicking off. And then we did kick it off, and it was kicked off to our list through a thing that I delivered. And it did really, really great. And actually about eight times our expectation that it did, and our expectations were not high. And then we were like, okay, this is great. So this gives us funding to take some money off the table through distributions and also funds the things that we need for a media budget and these other things with this, which is really.

Important just to pause on that for a little bit. We did a joint venture together, and it was that joint venture that essentially funded what became this new company. Right. I think that's interesting. We took separate assets and put them in something new. Right. So that it could be taken back. That's an important kind of structuring thing. You mentioned this before with the previous deal again, where we got broken up with a new entity was created where we were contributing our. Our. You know, what we said we were going to do. They were contributing assets and things to this new company. So that if it was going to go, like, if it. If there was going to be the breakup, like, that was essentially the structure around the prenup. Right. So now it's just. Here's where everything, you know, goes back to where it was before. So I think that's. That. That's an important thing here. But it was the strategic partnership, the launch, the test thing, that. That was the triggering event. Okay.

It worked.

Now let's use this to form this new entity, and let's. Let's use this to fund kind of the Initial kickstart.

Yeah. And in both of these situations where we got broken up with and where we broke up, the important thing is the intellectual property was licensed to the new entity, not transferred ownership in. So it's very important, I think, because you don't want an. I mean, honestly, throughout the whole time, you ideally want to continue to control your intellectual property. Whoever creates the actual intellectual property should continue to own that. And then the entity that's going to do whatever it's going to do has the ability to use that as long as everything is going well. And if you ultimately sell, then whoever buys it might say that IP needs to be transferred in. But I would be careful transferring your IP ownership into an entity until you're real, real, real sure that things are going the way you want to go.

So, yeah, that may only happen like at the liquidity event or something like that. And what's important is you structured it when you were on both sides of the table that way. Yes. I want people to understand that both when we were getting into a deal and another party was contributing the ip, you structured it that way and in the inverse when it was rip. So this is not one of these things. Like, this is just the right way to do it for all parties, no matter what side of the deal you're on. Yeah.

If you're, if you're a fair person. Yes. That is, that is how you're going to do it. So, so anyway, that's, that's what we did. And, and then we did another. We created some, some videos together and, and started some marketing also in the fulfillment. I created all of the program for the fulfillment and then there were some bits of it that the, that the other person contributed. So what ultimately happened was that that what my, I think what my hope and what our hope was was that we were going to take care of the IP and they were going to take care of primary of marketing really, and driving business and sales. And we have, we have a ridiculously amazing salesperson who runs three or four of our companies. And, and she, she did fantastic. And, and, and there were some, there were some cool things that we learned from our partner and some cool things our partner learned for us and we worked together. Then we did our second thing a few months later. So that was, I think, month one, we did the, or maybe month two, we did the first thing and it went really, really well. And then we were like, oh, this did well. So let's do this to another one of our lists now. All the time, what we wanted to happen was for sales to come from media, from paid media. And, and we created some assets and things to make that happen. But, but again, for whatever reasons our people's fault or circumstances or whatever, it didn't come to pass. So then in I think it was month three, we said, hey, well, let's promote this, it did well to this company's list that we've got. Let's promote it this other company's list we've got. And it did really, really well again. And distributions were made and funding was done and that was good. And then more time goes by. And in month five, we did another one, another launch to a different list through a friend of ours and that did well. And so now we're three big chunks of cash performance in five months in ads just started really running in month five. And again, it was what it was. So for whatever reason, it wasn't happening. And so I just reached out actually and said, you know, hey, it just, we've haven't really had any meaningful sales to media. And so I know that's what we were both wanting. And it seems like we have had meaningful sales in, you know, to our list and things like that. I think that it's just not working out. Let's, let's just say that we gave it a good run and, and go forward and I'll pay you on all of the payment plans and everything on sales up to the date of, of us saying, you know, it's not going to go forward anymore. And, and then, you know, you continue to, to show up and fulfill on the things you want and let's see if we can do something else. I'm still happy to do the thing we were doing before, by the way, even with this new company, because that seemed to be working. And, and, and to their credit, they responded and said, yeah, that sounds great. Just tell me, I'm happy to do this stuff and tell me what you want to do. No problem. Right? It was really, really great. So they did exactly what we did, which is great.

I think it's just important for people to hear that because when things aren't going well in either party, you could tell, tell your, you know, tell yourself this story about how awful it's going to be to have the conversation in both of these cases. And this doesn't always happen the very first time there was a conversation about the business partnership, hey, maybe we should break this thing up. It was broken up. Both parties agreed, yeah, we should part ways. That doesn't always happen sometimes, like, no let's try this. Can we do a different way? And you renegotiate, but sometimes the other person knows it. So just having a, you know, again, just an honest business like conversation is enough to reset and other parties relieved, like, yeah, you know what, let's just go our separate ways. Not always the case. Sometimes people get cranky, sometimes there's a renegotiation. But if you're in one of these things on either way and it isn't working out, talk about it, have the conversation.

Yeah, because things aren't going to always work out and that's okay. Like if you're not trying and failing, then you're not trying enough. And you're definitely leaving a lot on the table. And I feel highly confident that we will do business with both of these people again. Both the people that broke up with us and the people we broke up with. And they're good people and there's no, there's no bad taste, you know, at least, you know, I'm hoping on their end as well, you know, that's what they say. But you never know for sure. But, but there definitely isn't with us because we realize that the only way you ever really find out is to try. And then if everybody is going to be cool about it, then you do. The sooner you have that conversation though, the better because what you don't want is to continue on. Resent, resent, resent, resent. And then that builds and then there's some sort of blow up or you aren't able to bring your best self to the table when you do have the conversation because you can't separate some of the emotional disappointment or resentment, fullness or whatever. But, but yeah, I think that's it. I think it's just like any adult relationship in any part of your life, you own being responsible for being a good communicator and you set boundaries and you define what the relationship is going to be like. And then you deliver or don't deliver. You acknowledge your ability to deliver or not deliver. You own what's wrong by you. You realize that there's absolutely no situation where you're 100% in the right. And then I think you offer in business, I think you offer, hey, it didn't work out, you take it back. And then if they want to come back with something different later like we did and said, well wait, we still would like to do the stuff that we were doing before that was working just fine, then let that party offer that and then kind of go from there and that keeps those doors open. And I mean, I've had several of those come back around. I know we've seen that a few times. And so I think that's certainly something that's been working for us.

So there you go. That's how you deal with a business breakup. Anything else that you want to add kind of in closing?

Roland? No, I like having the business breakup special because I think that if you're not doing partnerships, joint ventures, strategic alliances, then you are missing out on a lot. And if you are doing them, but you're missing some of the things we talked about today, then you might be setting yourself up for some pain that you could avoid later by taking some of those actions now. And if you're in one that isn't working out, then don't stay there. Just understand that everything doesn't work and figure out what's the fair best way with you erring on the side of being more fair than less to move on. And you'll be happier, but you'll also get to the next deal that much faster and you'll keep a relationship that might lead to many successful referrals of other deals in the future. And so I think that that could be very helpful to everybody.

Yeah. If the reason that you're not doing business partnerships is because you're afraid that they might go wrong. What we've given you is a couple of examples of business partnerships and business relationships that did go, quote, unquote, wrong. But everybody's just fine, even afterwards. So, you know, this is all a part of the game. And as long as you're playing it with, you know, with honesty, and as long as, you know, when it comes time to split a nickel, so to speak, if you're going to make sure the other side gets three three cents and you get two, then you're gonna. You're gonna be just fine in business and probably in life as well. So. Yeah, I agree. I like the business breakup special very well.

If you guys enjoyed this, there is a whole lot more of it with much less business breaking up and more business growth and scale. On all of our other episodes, which I would recommend you listen to and if you would like to continue to be notified so you don't miss out on any of this stuff, be sure you hit the subscribe button and subscribe to us. And if you want to learn more about all the things we do. Ryan, is it scalable.com that they should go to?

No, it's Scalable Co. Scalable Co is the site where you can find out everything that we're doing to help you grow your business without sacrificing your soul.

What if they sent it to scalable.com.

That is definitely an IT consulting website and I'm sure they can help you with all kinds of things that have nothing to do with what we're talking about here.

That is not us. So co if you want to know what we're doing and we will see you guys on the next Business Lunch. Thank you so much for listening. You've been listening to Business Lunch with Roland Fraser. If you're enjoying the show, let us know by subscribing and leaving a review. And for more information go to businesslunchpodcast.com thank you for listening. Ever wondered how some people build real wealth through acquisitions while others just sit on the sidelines? Well, I'm here to tell you it's not about luck. It's about having the right system, the right deals and the right guidance. And that's exactly what we give you in the EPIC Deal Fast Track. If you've been thinking about buying a business, but you keep getting stuck, whether it's finding the right deal, structuring the financing, or negotiating with sellers, you are not alone. Too many people waste months, even years just thinking about acquiring a business while the real opportunities pass them by. The EPIC Deal Fast Track is not another course. It's actually an implementation program and it's designed to get you from the idea to the acquisition in just 16 weeks or less. We work with you one on one to help you find, fund and close your first or next deal. And once you do, we're going to plug you into our elite EPIC board community so that you can keep scaling through acquisitions. We install three powerful systems in your business. The first is the Deal Flow Engine so you always have high quality off market deals coming to you. Number two, we give you our offer and funding system so that you can structure offers that get accepted and fund them creatively many times with no money out of your own pocket. And number three, our closing and integration system so that you don't just buy a business, you actually successfully run and scale it once you have acquired it. Plus you'll have direct one on one support from an EPIC Deal Advisor every step of the way. And that's people that have actually come up through the system and done these deals themselves. That's the only way to become an EPIC Deal Advisor. And if you're serious about acquiring a business this year, don't just sit on the sidelines, just text I'm in to 334-458-9034 and we'll get you in. So text I'm in. 233-4458. 9034 will get you in. No fluff, no wasted time. Just real deal making from people that are actually out there doing deals right now. I'll see you there.