Anna Osgoodby is a Co-founder of Bold & Pop – a social media, branding, and web design collective. After working in the social media and PR industry for several years, she partnered up with past colleague, Mallory Musante, to launch Bold & Pop. As a guest contributor to sheBOOM, she shares her experience on how partnerships can benefit your business.
To have a business partner or not? That is the question. While the right answer for each sheBOOMer may be different, there are certainly many perks to having a partner. Teaming up not only allows you to increase the skills and services you offer, but also provides a support system for accomplishing your goals. I’m not the only one who sees the value either, according to the latest data from the IRS, the number of partnerships in 2014 increased by 4.4% from the previous year.
Wondering if it’s for you? Here’s a look at 4 ways having a partner can be beneficial.
Collaboration
While we all have many skills, the truth is we can’t all be great at everything. Having a business partner allows you to tap into both of your skillsets and offer additional skills or expertise for your clients and customers. This allows you to appeal to a larger audience, which can also result in securing more clients or customers.
Accountability
No matter what stage you are in your business journey, having a business partner automatically adds an accountability partner. You know the things you put on your to-do list that just keep getting pushed down or those great ideas you have that you just don’t have time to implement? Well, when you have a partner you automatically have someone to help you stay accountable for your work.
Divide and Conquer
Along with having complimentary skills, having a business partner allows you to plan out tasks and divide the work. This technique can improve your efficiency in getting tasks completed now that you are each able to focus on different parts of your business or projects. Because you can complete tasks faster you may also be able to take on more business.
Support
It can also help with the emotional toll of business. It’s no secret to fellow sheBOOMers that being a business owner is HARD work. Even the most successful businesses have ups and downs and having a partner along for the ride can help with the emotional end of business.
Now that you’ve read some of the benefits hopefully you can start to think about the possibilities! While there are certainly pros and cons to teaming up, I have personally experienced the benefits firsthand of a successful partnership and think it can be a great structure. At the end of the day make sure you do what is best for your business!
