partnerships

Back in the days when I worked in state government, I always viewed summer with a mixed sense of anticipation and dread. Summer was the season of interns, the season when the floodgates would open and spill forth dozens of cattle-call applicants in their late teens and early twenties. Although these positions were unpaid, it was management’s vision of a win/win scenario: the interns would get work experience to put on their resumes and the rest of us would get a cadre of malleable minions to do the filing, open mail, stock supplies, and run errands.

While now and again we’d delight in finding a true gem who had the skill sets, initiative, and leadership qualities that could one day translate to a full-time job with us, the majority of them were clearly not the sharpest knives in the drawer. Among them:

The one who threw out any mail that personally didn’t look interesting to her. (She asked me why we never got fashion magazines or People.)
The one who filed all the travel claims under “S” for “someone who took a trip.”
The one who took over an hour to deliver a file to an office located on the same floor. (If we had traced his footprints, they would have looked like Billy’s from a Family Circus)

As the saying goes, good help is hard to find. Bad help (which is worse than no help at all) can take years off your life, cause costly mistakes and jeopardize your reputation. While government agencies and nonprofits have no problem doing shout-outs for extra pairs of hands, a lot of sole proprietors I’ve known over the years are not as willing to admit they’re getting overwhelmed. A part of it, I think, is that they want to maintain the image they’re completely in control (albeit exhausted to the point of collapse). They’re also cognizant of the reality that in the length of time it takes to train a helper how to do something – or correct how the helper did it totally wrong – they could easily have just done it themselves.

Whether you’re looking to go the intern route for short-term projects or planning to one day expand your small business and put out the call for prospective employees, it’s critical to have a clear sense of what you want, how much supervision you want/need to provide, and what the participants can potentially gain from the experience of working with you. The more “ownership” they feel they have in the process and the outcome, the more pride they’ll take in paying attention and doing their assignments well.

These same elements apply to situations where you’re subcontracting with local vendors to provide services (i.e., catering) or outsourcing product-oriented tasks (i.e., assembling goods) to an off-site team an ocean away and with whom you have no physical interaction or quality control mechanism. While you may have the highest trust that everyone is doing what they’re supposed to, the bride whose flowers aren’t delivered on time or the client who receives 500 logo key chains with the company name misspelled isn’t going to mad at your helpers; they’re going to be mad at you for allowing that mistake to happen in the first place.

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Here’s the lineup of my guest contributors this month:

Take the Sting Out of Stress When Moving Offices – by Zachary Rook

And, Or, But – How to Handle Objections – by Julie Garland McLellan

How To Design a Marketable Signature System – by Ling Wong

Using Lists to Draw Web Traffic and Media Attention – by Mickie Kennedy

You’ve probably heard the expression “creatures of habit.” As psychologists explain it, human beings are unique, complex and known to incorporate a wide breadth of rituals into their daily routines. These rituals – whether silly or serious – not only enable them to imbue their lives with a tidy sense of structure but also give others a sense of predictability on how they’ll react in habitual situations such as making breakfast, getting dressed, or cleaning the kitchen.

They’ve observed, for instance, that Janice always keeps the milk and cream on the right side of the refrigerator’s top shelf and the orange juice on the left side of the door. They’ve noticed that Jeremy always aligns the shoes in his closet with the toes pointing north. They’ve asked Lily why she folds her cotton dishtowel into a square and places it within the framed grout lines of the tile counter and she consistently responds, “It’s just the way I’ve always done it and I think it saves time in the long run on grout cleaning.”

There are good habits and there are bad habits. There are habits that have been ingrained since childhood (i.e., eat everything on your plate), habits influenced by parents (i.e., there is only one “correct” way to hang toilet paper), and habits we develop on our own as a matter of convenience (i.e., if I put out my clothes the night before, it will save time getting ready for work).

The longer a habit has been part of one’s personality, the harder it is to break. Likewise, the passage of time may even have rendered it impossible to remember why or how it started in the first place. If those long-term behaviors aren’t healthy or helpful, it tends to make relationships with people that are impulsive and spontaneous all the more challenging. I’m sure you’ve known individuals who waited until their forties – or even later – to finally get married and co-mingle their possessions. Unless there’s an “esprit de compromise,” things could get ugly the first time a partner suggests even the simplest nudge to the everyday routine or existing décor.

The same scenario can unfold when the owner of a one-person business decides to share office space with a fellow professional. Even if they’re not forming a partnership and are only looking at this as a convenient way to save on rent, share a receptionist, and have a kindred spirit to chat with on a slow day, they both need to consider whether they’re too settled into their respective comfort zones to really make it work.

Authors encounter similar challenges whenever someone says, “Hey, why don’t we write a book together?” Clearly they’re channeling their inner Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland and assuming that if the right kids just get together and go find a spiffy barn, the show will be a smash success. Sure it sounds like a great idea at the start, not to mention twice the fun and half the labor. When a pairing of kindred spirits exceeds their scribatious expectations, both parties can’t wait to work together again.

For the flip-side experiences, though, when you realize your business roomies aren’t quite working out, you have to deal with the pain of disappointment – and dissolution – in the very same way you’d pull off an adhesive bandage: as quickly as possible. Yes, there’ll be a major “OW!” that briefly hurts and then stops. In the best case scenario, you’ll still stay friends. In the worst case scenario, they’ll be out of your life forever…but you’ll still be able to move that couch wherever you want to because it’s back to being 100 percent yours.

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This month’s issue continues our showcase of entrepreneurial journeys and the epiphanies that made those dreams come true.

A Dog’s Way To My Heart – by Amanda Pravia

Breaking Into The Freelance Writing Market – by Rashida Tayabali

My Journey to Becoming a Wedding & Events Planner – by Courtney Lutkus

Swapping Bytes for Bites – by Sheryl Thai

An Ancient Business in a Modern Age – by Isabella Kleiman

Bubbles, Bling, and a Book – by Maria Nicola

Help Wanted

Don’t Touch That Couch!