Yesterday I had the privilege of meeting with two women who are starting a new publishing company. Excited about the meeting with them for weeks, and I had no idea just how much sitting and meeting with them would enrich my life.
In conversation, they shared the evolved circumstance of how they became partners in business. Longtime friends, brought together initially by their children, Pattie had lost a job and struggled to find something she could do without a long commute into the city. Jackie’s husband discovered the business concept through a happen chance meeting. Jackie brought the idea to a group of friends, they contemplated, they prayed. Out of the group two people responded, Jackie, and Pattie, a new company was born.
The constant stream I want to enlighten you with throughout this story is partnership. The idea was shard with them, and together they share the birth of a new business. For anyone who is a parent, do you remember the birth of a child? The excitement, the shared love, the care that strengthens the union, the partnership. I could actually feel the love, partnership, and sisterhood the two have developed not only in business, but friends as well.
According to the dictionary partnership is a relationship resembling a legal partnership and usually involving close cooperation between parties having specified and joint rights and responsibilities. Beyond that it requires trust, love, honesty, and revealing all of yourself, gifts and talents for the good of the business. It means looking out for another before yourself, and for the good of the team.
Are you struggling to create a marketing plan, handle your accounting, or launch a company website. Are your skills and talents best served doing something else? Several new books emerging have encouraged the theme do what you love, and leave the rest to someone else. Bishop T.D. Jakes, author of “Reposition Yourself” at a recent conference encourages partnership. Strategic partnerships free you to do what you love. Partnerships when in concert can be the best strategic move a business can make. Are you handling tasks best served by another business or an employee?
Action Step: Make a list of the tasks that you perform for your business. Rate them in order from one to ten, one being the task you like the most and moving down to ten the least favored task. Review how you can either outsource to another company. Make this day the day you join in partnership, share, and do what you love!
