Even if someone thinks that there is no life without money, then friends do not require a business, unlike money that requires spinning. At the same time, business without friends is possible, but sometimes it is better when with friends. It is only important that friends are nearby, and not in your business. Worked for you, but not with you. Feel the difference? Business is better when there are friends. It is only important to keep them at a distance from your business.

I have done business projects with friends more than once. We made money, faced difficulties, misunderstandings, but, fortunately, we never lost each other because of money. Perhaps because they stopped the project before they had time to quarrel to the point of enmity. It used to be different: business projects brought us closer, and the time we spent together, earning money and overcoming difficulties, strengthened, not separated.

Has something terrible happened from the “don't do business with friends” model? Personally, I never have. Nevertheless, I continued to hear from different sides sad stories of partings, hostility, anger, revenge and poisoning each other's lives in different ways.

Once, the guys and I were running the same business, including getting money by registering “dead souls”. This did not mean that we only received cash for everyone, enjoying life - we worked, some for two, some for three. By justice. But somehow my friend came and said: "Give me back my money." Did he work? No. Then why? Just because his name is there. The situation required remarkable self-control, complex negotiation skills, time, emotions, but we gave in and gave the money. But they kept the relationship. Are relationships worth a few thousand in any currency? I think no. And now, after many years, we continue to be friends. Without ulterior motives and distrust.

My good friend, with whom we sincerely consider each other strong friends and whom I trust, does otherwise. He is the owner of a good business, surrounded himself with old and new friends, gives them work and earn money. Business with friends? Exactly! Only they are not partners, they have labor Relations. Does he discuss his business with me? It happens. Did he take me as a partner? No. There is a difference between the friends you work for and the friends you do business with. And I agree with him: do not confuse, so calmer.

Another story that you can’t live without is cherchez la femme. We had interesting projects We made very good money. From the very first day we shook hands about the partnership, we trusted each other and decided to be open in the relationship. We never quarreled - not because of money, although anything happened, not because of anything else. With each success, we trusted each other more and more. But at one point, we broke up. Quietly, without tantrums, clarifications, and even dotting all the i's. This is a story about how someone else can easily influence the relationship of partners without friendship.

What I definitely do not want to wish is the forever ruined relationship of my acquaintances. Business - separately, friends - separately.

What is the difference between my stories and someone else's? Perhaps the point is not in the inability of people to separate human relations from monetary relations, but in the fact that:

1) for some, attitudes are invariably higher than papers in the set of values,

2) some know how to behave: negotiate, find compromises, solve problems, openly, honestly, nobly, even if the situation requires breaking up.

If everything is bad, then the lost, left or lost money is easier to restore, return, earn than to restore and return friendship, the basis for which is trust. So to most, especially the young and hot, I'd say don't do business with your friends until you and they have prioritized values.

Denis Zapirkin,
independent expert and consultant for business development and process optimization. Certified instructor at Carnegie Mellon University (2006). Progressed from programmer to vice president consulting company. He worked at Microsoft Business Solutions, where he led the most complex and important partners of the company. 10 years of experience with world-class brands and SMB companies: business creation and development (B2B, direct and partner sales). Achievements: Deal of the Year in a multi-million dollar organization, implementing over 15 business plans, building over 10 successful organizations.

Hi all!

I am writing this story with my current companion and friend. In 2012 we created together law firm Belman Partners.

At the moment, we have successfully worked together and have a wide pool of projects, starting with Miron Fedorov (Oxxxymiron) and the publisher of Marvel comics in Russia and the CIS (Parallel Comics), ending with the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway and the Mikhailovsky Theater.

But a few years ago things were very different. At the beginning of 2012, there were 4 partners in our team.

At that time, we had just finished our studies and had little experience in the largest consulting companies.

Studying together and having fun together gave us the idea that we could work well together. And so they did.

Together we successfully did such "important" things as registering an LLC, came up with a name and ordered a "corporate website". Then there was a division of administrative, advertising and partnership functions.

It must be said - on this Team work ended.

The first partner left us after about six months, with the wording “you won’t succeed, guys.”

The reason was as banal as possible - after a fight at someone's birthday, our former friend stopped answering calls and avoided contact with us in every possible way.

Attempts to reconcile and improve the working environment were complicated precisely by personal factors, which for some time completely paralyzed the work of the company.

After a couple of weeks, we seemed to have reconciled, but each meeting smoothly flowed into a showdown between everyone and everyone and turned into an ordinary quarrel.

A week later, our friend loudly announced the beginning of a solo career and left, taking our only printer.

It sounds trite - but learn to separate personal and work. You should not try to smooth out a work conflict by going to a bar together. Rather, you risk making it worse.

Leave work conflicts at work, personal conflicts outside the office doors. The discussion of each type of conflict should also take place only in the appropriate place.

Moreover, having mastered this skill, you will learn not only not to quarrel over work moments, but also once again think about whether it is worth swearing for personal reasons, because. it will negatively affect the business.

But this was only the beginning of difficulties on the basis of friendship.

The three of us left, we again shared all the responsibilities equally, proudly playing democracy. Everyone is equal and no one is in charge.

One of the partners, who later left us, understood the term duty in a very different way. In fact, for half a year we gave him a part of the profit equal to our parts.

Every time we encountered yet another failure to perform duties on his part, we were sorely lacking leverage.

Despite the complete incompetence, at that time we could not admit to ourselves and our third partner that we did not need him. It seemed to us that we cannot demand, we can only ask, because this is our friend!

But, everything has a limit. Having badly spoiled our reputation and lost two clients, we decided. We had a hard conversation and said goodbye to him.

Our major mistake, as is often the case, became equality.

It was then that we realized that only irresponsibility can be collective, responsibility is always personal. This time we learned the lesson that functions should be clearly demarcated, fixed and should not concern one area.

Only after all this we moved off the dead center. We realized that we had stepped on every possible rake that is invested in the words “business with friends”, but we were able to find the basis of systematic work and start moving forward.

At the moment, one of the partners is responsible for all legal work and control over project implementation, and the other deals with customer acquisition and advertising.

The lessons we learned from this experience are also the disadvantages of building a company for those who decide to do business with friends, namely:

1. The company must have a clear delineation of functions and responsibilities. Each of the partners does something better than the other, as always. And it is better to divide the responsibilities on this basis.

2. The absence of a hierarchy and a leader making decisions in an unequal partnership is one of key issues in the current work of any company, and their presence is the main and most effective way to influence another partner.

Now there are two of us left, so in the event of a controversial situation, we always consult with the opinion of a third-party person whom we both trust.

3. And, probably, the most important thing. Each of the companion friends must understand where the personal ends and the work begins. This requires incomparably greater efforts and an increased level of personal responsibility, the result of which will be fruitful cooperation.

But not everything is so gloomy: the main advantage of doing business with friends is that you have complete confidence in your partner, the feeling of a real, strong team. It is unlikely that this can be achieved by another team building or training seminar.

And if a friend is known in trouble, then the business will provide you with many situations that allow you to check this.

This story began in the spring in a cafe, when, while helping our friend from a gum university with a technical subject, we came up with the idea to build our own business. We knew each other for a long time and well enough to decide on such an adventure. But for the time being it had to be postponed. If only because there was no clear idea, no clear understanding of why it was necessary. And there wasn't enough time either. But in general, she brought me a lot of new experience and taught me how NOT to build a business.

Part one.

Registration.

Left out of work (by own will(well, almost on my own)) in December, I came to the conclusion that here it is, my finest hour. By evening, I dialed a friend's number and announced to him the information that I was in business. At first everything went well. With the help of friends, everything was decorated Required documents for registration, the fee has been paid and here I am sitting with a blue folder in the IFTS and waiting in the wings.

I must admit that I was not ready to create a business. In my head, it all played with bright colors, and I already imagined how I would cut on a brand new Mercedes between my points and collect money. Unfortunately, no one really managed to warn me that if everything was so simple, then everyone would have their own business, and the market would grow by over 9000 percent a year. But no.

Approximately with the same wording, I was refused registration of a company at the place of residence in the Federal Tax Service.

A meeting of the board of directors decided to rent a legal address cheaper (then I still hoped to meet the reserves from being fired from my previous job) and re-register the documents.

A week later, I’m already sitting in the IFTS somewhere in the middle of nowhere (the legal address was cheaper there, who knew that later I would spend more money on gasoline, every time I had to go to the tax office) with a new blue folder with new documents. They are accepted and after a few more days we collect from the IFTS a certificate of registration and registration of our Company with limited liability. How does it sound. I was bursting with the feeling that I was the CEO. The first thing I did when I got home was to order facsimiles and prints for myself. And of course I made a new entry in the labor. OOO "XXX" CEO. I didn't know anything about HR either.

Part two.

Business plan.

Our entire business plan consisted of 4 words "To hell with the business plan." I relied on business intuition and a bit of luck. I didn’t count anything else, and I couldn’t count, because I walked like a hedgehog in a fog in different directions trying to figure out the intricacies of legislation. Our obligations with our partner fell approximately in half, but legally I was the general director and chief accountant, and then this played a bad joke on me more than once.

Part two.

First quarter, current account and first reporting.

After checking in, I felt like a freshman. With a sinking heart, he tore off the folder with founding documents and looked like a record book. Of course, I ordered business cards for myself like in an American psychopath and, quite pleased with myself, thought about the idea. No not like this. Idea. Capitalized. This went on until the end of March.

And in April it was time to submit reports. I stubbornly delayed this process, because I had no idea how to do it. After asking familiar accountants, I found out that I need to buy 1s. This took me a couple of days. It took me a couple more days to put the parallels on the poppy, on the Windows parallels, and on the Windows 1s. Then it all had to be updated to the desired version. Which also caused problems. In the end, I submitted reports to the FSS. But I didn’t pass it to the FIU, because I had to go back to that very wilderness and get an agreement on connection. Meanwhile, the clock in the first quarter reporting window continued to tick. In the end, I did not have time to hand in on time and received my first fine. But it was much later. Thank you Russian Post. Somewhere in parallel, it turned out that we still need a current account, but the most difficult thing was to find where to open it cheaper. We still kept saving.

Part three.

Rent and the first conflicts.

All in all, the first three months went well. I was in charge. He was engaged in reading codes, PBU and other bureaucracy. In parallel with this, I got enough sleep, rested, traveled and enjoyed life. Doing business was exciting. Especially considering the fact that the business did nothing. And now the time has come to rent a room, having traveled around the city, we found a suitable place, went to the agents and signed an agreement. Register separate subdivision It was pretty easy, and we set about repairing it. We saved on everything and made repairs with our own hands. In the end, it paid off and we started to work. First of all, it turned out that cash cannot be accepted just like that and I had to fork out for cash machine. Taking into account the first + last month of rent, we had the first cash gap. Money ceased to suffice from a word absolutely. I don't even go. By that time, quite a lot of effort, time and money had already been invested, and pride refused to accept that the world was not as rosy as I imagined it to be. The constant lack of funds led to the fact that we ourselves worked as a chief accountant, and a personnel officer, and administrators at the counter. The work was seven days a week, sometimes I didn’t sleep for several days plugging wires into the system, and my friend acted as a call center. Constant overload and lack of money led to the fact that the first conflicts began. The partner demanded to hire more employees, especially since operating money began to appear. Explain that this is money that we may need in which case I did not succeed. Working endlessly for 24 hours a day and realizing that the security guard of the business center in which you are sitting gets more than you - it kills even more. In order to somehow earn a living, I had to find myself another job. Gradually, the conflicts only intensified, as did the demands to unload us at the expense of the egg-pod. And I was leaving everything more strength to protect her.

Part four.

13 percent personal income tax is a happy utopia. By the end of the first quarter in which we began to work normally, I realized how much I pay taxes. Tax on the simplified tax system + personal income tax for employees + FSS and PFR for employees. And I also had to pay a salary to myself and pay taxes and funds from it. In total, I had to give almost half of the money to the state in one form or another. Against this background, new conflicts began. As it turned out, building a crystal-white business is a rather expensive undertaking. From that moment on, our views on the process diverged further and further. It required more and more money. I couldn’t delegate authority, I didn’t trust any of the employees normally, because I myself saved on them. As a result, it turned out vicious circle. I was spending more and more time on part-time jobs to put that same money back into the business and see it gobble it up and not choke. Gradually, checks from labor and other inspections began to appear. Considering the hell that was going on in our documents, the number of violations in our country simply went off scale. And this meant only one thing - new fines. We started dumping jambs on each other in documents and accounting. There was not enough time for anything from the word at all. I started to shudder from the phone, and by the evening I just wanted to throw it away. Thoughts about Mercedes and millions gradually changed to dreams of a day off and healthy sleep.

Part five.

One evening we sat down and decided that my part of the project and investments would be bought from me and we would part ways as good friends. So, when it comes to money, breaking up as good friends without getting dirty in shit is quite difficult. Because everyone believes that he has invested more effort and money than the other person. And if money can still be somehow calculated, then the number of nerves and money is already much more complicated. And I didn't want to go cheap. As a result, it turned into battles lasting several months. We counted everything down to the penny, who owed whom more, because of whose jambs fines came, and who screwed up where and how much money was lost because of this jamb. There was no trace of good friendships left. After the handover, I left the process and now work again at a regular job. I have a healthy sleep and I feel much better, but sometimes somewhere under the crust of the brain the thought of something new begins to knock. But it's different. And with other people.

Part six - conclusions

According to school tradition - the conclusions from all this:

1) Never build a business with a person you can't dump in the worst sense of the word. Up to the point that he can be imprisoned for you. And you shouldn't have a guilty conscience for it.

2) A business plan is good, but sometimes it's better not to have one. Even in good business it’s quite difficult to calculate how much and to whom you owe

3) As soon as you decide to start a business with a person and no matter what plans you build, the first thing you should do is to paint the output of each project. You will be more whole. And healthier.

4) Don't skimp on staff. It will be more expensive.

5) Formal and informal responsibility are different things.

6) Business is not fun. It's difficult and sometimes scary. Especially when you have to deal with bureaucracy and crime.

"And they lived happily ever after. And they died on the same day.

And with them another family business went into the world…”

Is it worth building a business with relatives?

This review, or rather, the “cry of the soul”, was left on one of our pages in social networks. I bring it, as they say, "without cuts":

So, today we will talk about the family business. That is, about a joint business that is being built with relatives and family members.

First of all, let's understand the terms.

What does it mean to "take a relative into your business"?

“Take into your business” is not always “take as a partner”. This can mean "hiring" a company, entrusting the leadership of a department, instructing to do this or that job, and so on.

Relatives and business is a fairly broad topic, and today we will talk about one of the aspects, namely, what it is where a relative is a business partner.

Let's start with motives.

Why does the owner (in this case it does not even matter - a beginner or an experienced one) takes a relative as a partner (co-owner) in his business?

In fact, there are very different reasons. So,

The key is trust

Confidence! The cornerstone of business in general and joint business in particular. To whom, if not my wife (husband, matchmaker, brother) can I entrust part of my business or (in operational management), such as a marketing department with a huge budget or inventory control?

Support

Because I don't have any today big money, no necessary connections, to develop your business idea and come up with everything from start to finish is much better with a person who will support you in difficult times, give you a shoulder, will not leave you in trouble, etc. Who, if not a close person, will be ready to support me in everything, while sharing responsibility, being a co-owner.

Money

Of course, I can look for an investor, I can take a loan from a bank, but ... it’s much easier to “ask and borrow” from relatives. At the same time, if you take a relative as an investor partner, then it will be much more convenient and profitable to negotiate with him. Our people, let's consider ...

No formalities

Employees always need something - vacation, formalization, description official duties, beautiful name positions, high salary, etc. You can always come to an agreement with relatives... And if relatives are your partners, then even more so... Your own people...

Personal reasons

In my practice, there was a case when a well-established business woman took her husband as her business partner in order to (attention!!!) "he was in front of, under supervision."
Being busy almost around the clock in her own successful business, this smartest woman began to worry, "how is he there" and did not think of anything better than to make him a partner! It was a very sad story...

As you can see, the examples can be very different. From mercantile-proprietary to the most noble.

In a family business, everything always starts very rosy. No need to get used to each other, no need to comply with any formalities ...
Everyone knows, loves, appreciates and respects each other. Everything happens in a family way. From the heart.
We are relatives! We are partners! This is OUR business!

A few months pass, and problems and nuances begin to come out.

As it turns out:

• co-owner-sister not only doesn't know how to talk to customers, but also considers his contribution to the joint business more significant than you think,

• co-owner-brother not only has no idea what it's like to own a business, but also strongly “turns up its nose”, claiming the role executive director having no experience in running a company,

• beloved mother, as a business partner, shirks from work believing that if she is the owner of a business, then she has the right to decide for herself what to do and when it is convenient for her,
• native uncle begins to "pull" money out of the business for his personal needs, even before the company can afford it. He is a co-owner - this is his profit (dividends)!
• cousin, with all his desire and decency, has absolutely no idea what strategy is, and my dear cousin, being one of the owners of the business, sees herself in the Canary Islands in six months, while you yourself are planning to invest in production ...

What will you do?
Our people…

Important to remember (!)

• That, sympathizing with a relative, better to help him with something else(money, advice, time ...), but do not risk your business and do not take it as a business partner.

• What is trust in a person doesn't make him a professional and effective business partner.

• What do your business customers nothing to do with your family.

In a word, imagine a situation when you come to the clinic and the surgeon does not know that you need to operate. Will the fact that he is a co-owner of the clinic and the brother of the owner greatly console you?

"So what," they sometimes ask me, " FAMILY BUSINESS(business with relatives) is definitely bad?

Of course not.

I have been part owner of a family business all my adult life and I will never say that this is bad.

This is great if you REALIZE two key, strategically important issues. Only they will help you build a successful joint business with relatives.

Strategic Question 1

A family is a family, and a business is a business, relatives are not chosen, and business partners - you really need to choose.

Imagine that the relative you want to take as a partner is not your relative, but a potential partner with whom you are negotiating a future joint business.

It is important to ask yourself questions:

• o this person would be mine business partner, if not a relative

• o why is he, what are his strengths and weak sides why we will be effective and necessary for each other

• o why with this partner I can achieve results faster, do much more than myself(our union 1+1 = more than two or less?)

• o am i ready consider the opinion of your partner, trust him not only as a person, but also as a professional

Ready to perceive your relative not as a relative, but as a business partner - then GREAT! Your choice is conscious and thoughtful.

Strategic Question 2

In business and partnerships, there are laws and regulations that apply whether your partner is a relative or a stranger.

These rules must be known and followed.

For example, one of the rules

“Business partners must conclude a written partnership agreement on the start of joint business activities and on all strategic issues in the process of business development, negotiate on paper, that is, in WRITTEN.

Ready to propose to your partner-relative to agree on paper?
You are not embarrassed, “what will he think of me, maybe he will decide that I do not trust him ...?”

If you are on these two strategically important questions were answered with a firm "YES" and determined that you are ready to make conscious actions, then - Great!

You have a great chance to use all the advantages that partnership and joint ownership of a business with relatives really gives.

The family business paradox is as follows:

Do you want to build a successful family business and effective partnerships?
Forget that he is family!

Verified by me personally, by all members of my family (experience in the joint business of my family is already 24 years old) and clients who have been coming to me for 8 years now to conclude a written partnership agreement and build effective relationships with each other.

How to do business with friends and keep relationships.

Many people know the saying “if you want to keep a friend, don’t lend him money!”. How true is this saying about business? I have been consulting as a psychologist for many years, and I have met with many situations, including those related to business. And you know what's important?
While still a student, I learned one truth:

You can't mix contexts, the therapist and the client can't have a relationship other than therapeutic!

This rule has saved many psychologists, and the violation has ruined more than one career. It's a question professional ethics psychologist, just like that, and nothing else. Personal relationships are possible, but over time, and only after the full end of the therapeutic relationship. “How does all this relate to business?” - you ask. Yes, very easy! This is also a business, only specific, and the rules are clearly regulated, and developed over more than one decade. But life is different.

Of course, when a business is just starting, there are not enough resources, and the fear of the unknown is great, then who better than friends to turn to for support? You have a great idea, and you need someone with whom you can share the responsibility, risks, whose help you would like to count on. And who, if not your friend, with whom you “ate a pood of salt and drank a sea of ​​tequila”, would be suitable for this role?

When deciding to do business with friends, know: you increase your risk of failure by several times. A friend has only one indisputable advantage - it is EASIER for you to trust him (I emphasize that it is not possible to trust him, but he is EASIER to trust). All! That's where the benefits end, and disadvantages begin! Of course, you can object to me and even give some positive examples business partnership based on friendship. But history abounds where large quantity not good examples.

DISADVANTAGES AND BEHAVIORS

Dov e rie. Just because you've known a friend for 1,000 years and sat on the potty together in kindergarten doesn't mean you know them as a business partner. First, in business it is important business qualities and not personal, and secondly, you will be dealing with money. Not everyone is destined to pass the test of money and fame. This environment can break relationships even between very close people (parents and children, brothers, and even more so friends). You have yet to find out what your friend is like as a business partner.

Friendship. Remember that from now on your relationship will depend on now the relationship will depend not only on the success of the entire operation, not only on you and your ability to yield, but also on the personal qualities of your friend, which, unfortunately, are not so easy to control ( and, most often, impossible). In the event of any problems or crisis (and they are guaranteed to occur), your friendships will be subject to another test, perhaps the last.

Competition. Everyone is used to the fact that competition is part of the business, but they don’t think much about the fact that there is also competition between two even the best friends. Most often it is unconscious, but such is human nature, representatives of the same sex will compete with each other. For the emergence of real competition, a resource is needed for which it will begin to unfold. As long as you remained friends, the most you had to compete for was attention and success with women. But as soon as you started a joint project, you have a really significant resource - power and money. All animals in the jungle are equal, but there are more equal! There are no two bosses, each considers his opinion to be correct, each believes that he is doing more, therefore he has more rights. Especially if women intervene in these relationships who will support their husbands, blaming the other side: “Look, you are so tired, you do so much, and your partner only uses it, why is he needed, you can do everything yourself!”. Women's competition is even more merciless than men's because it is hidden, rarely recognized, and well disguised.

The ideal option is when you are still “ashore able to conclude a marriage contract”, having specified your roles, the principles by which they will decide conflict situations, responsibility and participation. And not just a verbal agreement, but a written agreement certified by a notary. But I know the realities, and such agreements are rarely concluded, because they can be convicted of distrust. But in vain!

Goals. Any business is created with one main goal- making profit, and this is an axiom. But profit is banknotes, which are then translated into some material goods and opportunities. And here again unconscious motives: one wants to build a transnational company in order to increase his importance and gain power, while the other wants to close his needs and not feel needy. One will go out of his way to move to the next step, and the other will just do his job. Remember the original contract? It would be nice to discuss the question: why does each of you need this? Draw your visions of the future in 3-5 years and compare them. All of a sudden they are very different.

Subordinate Friend. So far I've only talked about partnerships, but it happens that someone calls his friend into the business as a subordinate (performer or head of a department). This is the worst option imaginable. Because friendships are horizontal relationships (equality), and boss-subordinate relationships are vertical relationships (inequality). You're just planting a time bomb that will go off when you're completely unprepared for it. Not only will your business suffer, your personal relationships will suffer. You can always point out to a subordinate his shortcomings in work, demand, show rigidity in discipline, condescending attitude towards a friend, they will definitely start using this. You will create the ground for inequality among your subordinates, and everyone will see that there are “more equal and close”, sow envy. And not because your friend is such an "asshole", but because it is such a human game. Read Eric Berne with his book about games, you will understand everything. In psychology, this is called the “problem with boundaries”, when they are already all mixed up, violated many times, then they have to be restored with with great difficulty, and most often with quarrels. You can't do anything, that's life.

Relatives. This option is even worse than the previous one with a friend-subordinate. Why? Yes, for one simple reason: with a friend, you can eventually end the relationship, and your relatives will not stop being blood relatives to you. The whole family can be drawn into the conflict, even grandmother Zina from Kozhepetovka. I know stories when children and grandchildren continue the conflict, the essence of which they do not even realize and do not understand. I have had such cases in my practice. It is enough to ask about relationships in a large family, as skeletons begin to fall out of family closets. I don't wish it on my enemy either. Most successful examples family businesses come from countries where family values ​​are high cultural phenomenon. Belarus does not belong to such countries, unfortunately. Our people don't know their horses, they don't know their family histories, many don't even know the history of their parents' acquaintance and relationship.

Personal and business qualities. Even if your friend plays the guitar perfectly, can drink a bottle of vodka, and knows 1000 funny jokes, this does not mean that it will also be good or pull the function financial director. If you have already decided to take the risk and take your friend into the business, then at least try to choose someone who really has the necessary competencies and knowledge that you lack. Let him be a professional, not just a great guy. Your expectations that he will catch up, most likely will not come true.

Unconscious. I already mentioned the unconscious when I talked about competition, about goals, about games, but there is one more important thing that almost no one knows until one day, for some reason, he gets to a good psychologist.

Any business is a certain model that is built by the owner of the enterprise.

A conscious motive is quite good wish earn money and realize your personal potential and ambitions. But creating our Empire (large, smaller, or very tiny) we somehow start act out your unconscious traumas, your unfinished situations, your childhood and family scenarios. Behind every business is a personal story of its creator. Sometimes, this is an unconscious attempt to compensate for what a person was deprived of in his childhood.

For ethical reasons, I will not reveal real stories, which I know, I will name only very simplified options. As a child, there were no friends - but now our company will have corporate parties every month, and New Year we will sit at the corporate table with our families. A strict mother who said that nothing good would come of you - now I am the owner of several factories and secretly dream of the recognition and love of an already aged mother. Not experienced shock trauma - I am in a business that is associated with a real threat to life. We want to prove to those people in the past, to our parents, to our little ones, that we are worth something, we are worth a lot, so that they begin to appreciate. But all this happens deep in the heart, on the surface we are business sharks. But you know what they say:

“If you bought yourself a Bentley, and as a child you did not have a bicycle, then all the same, as a child you did not have a bicycle.”

Business with a friend has its advantages. In particular, it will be easier for you, as young entrepreneurs, and the risks are also divided in two. But is it even worth doing business with friends, and if not, why not? To answer these questions, it is necessary to first determine the source of such thoughts in people.

Fear of starting a business - a friend will help!

A person who discovers a new world in the form of entrepreneurship is usually afraid of failure. He has a fear of losing his money, a fear that something will go wrong and he will not succeed. The source of fear is ignorance and uncertainty, and in this case, the support of a person is necessary, with whom the feeling of fear, if not disappear, will become much duller, and confidence in success, in turn, will begin to appear. The partner will also share the responsibility and costs that are needed at the stage of creating a business, and this reason also plays a key role in many ways. Starting a business with a partner is quite normal and even right in a sense, but in his role most see their best friend or relative.

Since childhood, we have been taught that friends do not leave in trouble, that they help in difficult situations, and this is true. In addition, a friend can be trusted, which cannot be said about a stranger, and in business, trust is simply necessary. We have known friends for a hundred years, and trust is based on this, and at the same time the biggest mistake. If you went with a friend Kindergarten, school, and then college, this does not yet speak of your joint future success. In practice, it has been observed that business breaks even the strongest relationships, because this is an extremely aggressive environment that is associated with money. Most entrepreneurs who start a business with their friends realize a little later that by doing so they make life difficult for themselves. But no one says that this always happens, but the fact that this happens often is a fact.

The risk of starting a business with relatives or friends is high- even higher than starting a business with a stranger. In this case, success in business will depend not only on you and your ability to step back from disagreements that will definitely arise, but also on your friend. But it is unlikely that you will be able to control his feelings.

How to keep business with a friend?

For example, if you organized a small business with a friend, then first of all you need to figure out who will be the main leader. There can't be two bosses in business, and otherwise success will not shine for you. If you "pull the blanket over yourself", then eventually you and your friend will burn out, well, or someone alone at best. Having not decided who will be in charge, quarrels and disputes are inevitable, which will negatively affect the partnership not only in business, but also in life. This risk should be avoided. That is why immediately before organizing a business, you need to agree on who will be the leader. However, this should not mean that one will have more rights, not at all. Just decide organizational matters only one person should, and that's the only reason.

The second point is priorities.. Everyone should clearly know and represent their duties, because otherwise sooner or later you will reproach your friend (or he you) that he (or you) does not work enough. And nothing can be done about it, because such is human psychology. Therefore, responsibilities should be distributed in advance, and this will avoid unpleasant moments in the future.

Identical goals - the third point. If one of you dreams of big company with a millionth turnover of funds, and the second will be enough for a small shop, then such a tandem has no future. Together you must pursue a common goal, and only then can you achieve it. Whether it is a multi-million dollar company or a small private stall, the goal should be the same. Discuss it with your partner, and if it turns out that you look at business differently, then you should not spoil friendships.

The last one is a partnership agreement. Business is business, and it is simply necessary to conclude a partnership agreement, even though you may be best friends. The contract requires signatures and notarization.

Remember, business with a friend is not the most best idea, and the evidence is the examples of millions of entrepreneurs who had the imprudence to do business with a loved one.