Episode 106: The Ins & Outs of Having a Business Partner

Episode 106: The Ins & Outs of Having a Business Partner

Brandon Condrey:
A business partnership is not a set it and forget it thing. You can't just like, all right, business partner, done, check, move on. This is a thing that's gonna change and evolve as the business changes. And if you're gonna look to be finding a business partner, you need to make sure that you guys are on the same page. Like just how you would like with a marriage and a prospective partner. You're going to look at what are your thoughts on child raising and what are your thoughts on discipline and all these things like you wanna make sure you're on the same page with all that stuff before you make a legally binding marriage out of it. You wanna do the same thing with a business partner.

Announcer:
Grow your cleaning business, make more money, have more time. This is the Profit Cleaners podcast with your host, Brandon Condrey and Brandon Schoen.

Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Profit Cleaners podcast. You are in the place to be learning from the top 1% of cleaning business owners from around the world to take it to the next level and win.

I'm your host, Brandon Shane. I'm joined by my amazing co-host, Brandon Condrey in the house. That's Me sipping this coffee over here. I love it. Brandon you. You're looking good today, man. I don't know what, you've just been doing something. You stopped drinking, you start starting showers more. This is my new office if you're watching this on YouTube.

This is my new office in Los Alamos cuz we moved and my computer monitor behind it is this huge window. It is a giant window. It is maybe eight feet wide and four feet tall. So I've got a kick ass view of like the forest back there, but it's a sub effect of the lighting. It's snowed today. So there's like this white light coming in from behind me so it looks like I'm using a key light or something,

but it's just snow. You're glowing, naturally glowing by the snow and yeah, I have my nice baseball hat on today. It's not all gross. I don't use it in the garage. This is my fancy one. Oh man. Doesn't have all the pregame luck and sweat on it, but hey, it still still looks good on you. So let's jump into it.

We're business partners, right? Brandon? We Are. It's true. Which means that we have to work together and there's some type of magic happening here with some type of winning formula. So that is a nice segue into our episode today, which is all about the ins and outs of having a business partner. That's what we're gonna talk about today and we're gonna talk about why you need visionary and integrators,

why both are essential and I think Brandon and I we're gonna describe why we think our business partnership works so well. But this question comes up a lot guys. A lot of people ask should I get a business partner or should I not have a business partner? And you always hear like the horror stories of a bad business partnership, which is just like any marriage you like.

There's a lot of divorces out there too. But when you get a business partner, it's like getting married, right? So you have to work together and be a team. And we wanna talk about today guys, why we think Brandon and I are good business partners, what we think that winning formula is and we're just dissect what, what a good partnership looks like.

What are those factors? What are those elements, right? So I think a really good way to start too is let's start with e O s, which is the entrepreneur operating system. We talk about this book Traction by Gino Wickman a lot. If you guys haven't picked it up, We should call Mr. Wickman, see if we can get a corporate sponsorship,

the amount about which we talk about and you'd think he's paying for us to do it for the record. Yeah, he's not, we just found this to be a very good book, a very good tools that we have used for, it's gone on three years now. I think that we've been using traction and it's been transformative for us. And so we are trying to help you be your best business owner and so we talk about it a lot.

Yeah, so what he talks about an entrepreneur operating system, which really resonated with me when we started learning about this little over a year ago or whenever that was. But he says in an entrepreneurial company the roles of visionary and integrator are essential. And no matter how big or small the company is, the integrator and the visionary couldn't be more different in terms of how they think and problem solve.

And really Brandon and I are very different in how we think and problem solve. So it is very true the way we work together but match together when they're working together on the same business goals, the results can be really, really amazing. So let's just break it down guys. So the visionary, which I tend to be more the visionary, but Brandon's also very visionary.

So you're gonna have a little bit of overlap on both of these things. But the visionaries, passion, drive creativity are the key elements that help launch a business and fuel a company's growth. But when the company is growing, the visionary entrepreneur can start to feel swamped with the overwhelming workload and their momentum begins to stall and sputter. So you hit a threshold.

I've definitely felt this, I told you this from the very beginning brand. I was like, I'm really good at like some of the beginning stuff and big ideas and getting things going, but I suck at some of the follow through and some of the other stuff. And you're like, well I'm really good at that and other details. And so from the beginning when we talked about it,

that's what we were going leaning in towards. But it says the visionary needs someone who is detail oriented, who knows how to keep team harmonious and productive, who is great at resolving conflict, who can execute detailed plans for maximum results, enter the integrator. So integrators maintain business harmony and the visionaries drive creative thought and innovation. So the integrator comes in in order to maintain that harmony.

The integrator can have many other titles but no matter what you call it, this person is going to manage daily issues as they come up. And the ability to integrate all the major functions of the business like sales and marketing, operations, finance into one harmonious group. Simply the integrator acts as the glue that keeps the team together. So finding that winning formula is really what it's all about.

But when you get back to the visionary, they're more like the dreamers guys. They're up in the clouds a lot of the times. They're the person who's always come up with bigger ideas. They're pushing things a little bit further than they maybe everyone wants to go making people uncomfortable. They're a natural creative problem solver. Visionaries tend to be more emotion driven,

less logic, which I just think like this is a perfect example. Like Brandon and I are very different in some of these ways too. Like we'll say I'm more the gas, Brandon's more the brakes. So maybe I'm more like emotion, Brandon's more logical like these balances is when you look at this formula, I really take a step back and I'm like wow,

this is probably why this works so well. There's a lot of other details that we're not covering here, but this is really a a great structure guys. I think when I thought of it this way and, and I think you can find integrators in other ways, but when you balance your company with the leadership like this and having a good business partner that balances you out like this,

it's really, really gonna set you apart and it is really a winning formula. So that's just a nice little introduction guys on the integrators versus visionary roles. So let's dive into it more Brandon. Yeah, so Gino Wickman Intraction is very heavy on his trademarked stuff. So we've got this in the show notes for you so you can go read this webpage where he describes this.

But you can describe a relationship like this a bunch of different ways. Brandon's referred to it as gas and brakes, he's gas. And so over time it's worked well. I mean we've had struggles along the way. There were struggles during the pandemic about how we handled that response and how we were paying ourselves and we're different people man. Brandon's different. I'm different.

We have different families, different financial needs and like anything like I suppose marriage, I've referred you as my work wife to people before and I'm gonna be around you for a long time so you might as well put some effort into it. You know what I mean? So a business partnership is not a set it and forget it thing. You can't just like,

all right, business partner done, check, move on. This is a thing that's gonna change and evolve as the business changes. And if you're gonna look to be finding a business partner, you need to make sure that you guys are on the same page. Like just how you would like with a marriage and a perspective partner, you're going to look at what are your thoughts on child raising and what are your thoughts on discipline and all these things like you wanna make sure you're on the same page with all that stuff before you make a legally binding marriage out of it.

You wanna do the same thing with a business partner. And so, and it's not like Brandon and I sat down and like quizzed each other on things, but we hung out for quite some time. You know, we were buddies in the neighborhood and bit balling business ideas and things like that. And over that time you get to know the other person And really I think what led to the business partnership was we were both of the same mindset.

We didn't want nine to five jobs. We didn't wanna be working for someone else. I was working for a small business at the time, which was great, I loved that job and it paid well and I got to do cool stuff. But I looked up to my boss and it was because of you ran a small business and did cool stuff. You drove a Mercedes and traveled to two new countries flying first class with his wife every year.

They did not have kids. They'll put a little caveat on that, but that was his like life. And I was like how do I get that? And so he started his business at 35. I was 35 when we started Sandia, Green, Clean, that that coincidence did not surpass me. So I think the winning formula that Wickman talks about is that you need to have complimentary skillsets.

You need to make sure that you're not both the integrator where we're both trying to detail orient everything to death. Like you need to make sure that your skillsets work with each other and that also like when you're going to like found the company that your roles and responsibilities are clearly defined. That's literally in our LLC operating agreement. Brandon's gonna do this, I'm gonna do that over time.

That's drifted a bit, but that's always with discussion. So it's not a contract, we don't need to stick to it forever. But that LLC operating agreement is there to back you you up in case something crazy happens. Like your business partner, I don't know, bails on you and moves to Puerto Rico or something and then you're like, well I have case to whatever remove you using Force Maju or blah blah blah.

I'm not a lawyer, don't take legal advice for me. But you just wanna spell those things out I think. And then over time it's just like any other important relationship in your life, you gotta work on that stuff along the way. Nurture it, make sure you deal with conflict along the way in a productive manner and don't end up hating each other.

Cause we've seen other businesses fall apart along the way and I don't think ours is headed towards that certainly, but that's because we put effort into it and we've had other examples that we've seen just kind of implode overnight and just don't be that person. Yeah, absolutely. When I look at our business Brandon I, I see us making progress. Like always,

we're always moving forward. We're even if there's an obstacle or the pandemic hit, things come up and I think you should tell 'em like that example, that's a good example during the pandemic. But really it should be pushing forward like a good business partnership. It's like the teamwork makes the dream work. Like you should all be rowing the same direction. And if you feel like you're not doing that,

if you feel like there's somebody always holding you up and you're like, gosh, I gotta talk to my business partner and he just never understands or she never understands, like if they're always waiting you down, maybe that's a something to consider. Be like maybe they aren't a good business partner, but you should definitely consider a lot more things than just ending your partnership just based on that.

So start working on communications, maybe go through this book together and figure out if you do have a business partner, who is the integrator? Who is the visionary or what roles can you take on to help each other? Balance that out and so that everyone feels like you were rowing the same direction but everyone has their own stuff that they're in charge of that they're autonomous and responsible to do.

And I think there's another book Built to Last or Good to Great, I think there's a couple books there, but he talks about getting everyone on the right seat on the bus, right? And so this is the same thing, like if you have a business partner, you guys need to be sitting in the right seat. You can't both be sitting in the driver's seat all the time,

like maybe one person's sitting in the passenger seat and you take turns and it's like a road trip. One person is in charge of certain duties and tasks and things to get things done for the progress of the business. And if you're doing it right, that's how it should feel. If it's not going that way, absolutely consider not having a business partner.

But I think what Brandon and I have found is as much as there's a lot of discussion around like maybe you should, like it's a scary thing to have a business partner or so many things could go wrong. There's actually a lot of things that Brandon and I have found that have gone right with having a business partner. And I've had a lot of businesses that I never had a business partner.

Like I had a lot of different online businesses, internet businesses where I felt even more alone than I've ever felt in the business because I didn't have anyone to bounce ideas off of. I didn't have anyone to talk to. I was literally like working in my room on my computer on the internet all day and it was really lonely. So I would say at that,

at the very least, like being able to talk to somebody and have a that relationship and be able to not feel like you're the only one that's responsible for everything, then that can be super stressful too. So knowing that you have somebody that is holding the the bag with you and you guys are in front of the ship or in front of the car or whatever this thing is that you're driving,

that you got someone that can help you take the wheel once in a while and it doesn't feel so overwhelming. So I think especially with this business, this was something I had never done before. Going from the internet world and being almost very disconnected from customers and even like we weren't doing anything tangible in the world, like going from that to this business was kind of scary for me.

It was uncomfortable. So having Brandon there to like help me do it all and certain things he was a lot better at or like was more gifted at and skills that he had, it just felt like we were moving a lot faster together. And that's what it should feel like if you have the right combination here. Hey guys, quick question. Does your cleaning business need more customers?

And the answer is of course, yes. So if you're like us and you want more customers, we've created a 10 x marketing bootcamp course to help you guys 10 x your business, get to that seven figures and beyond and really commit to your success. So if you're ready to commit, let's tell 'em where to go. Head Over to Profit Cleaners dot com slash courses.

You can get started right Away and we'll see you guys on the inside. Keep it clean, Keep it clean. That being that the sum of the parts is greater than the hole. I think I'm screwing that quote up. But the idea is one plus one equals three, that's what you want. If one plus one equals two or one plus one equals less than two,

then you're not really maximizing the business partnership. So if you've got the synergy going on, you know the the corporate buzzword and you're, you guys are working really well together, then it does feel like you're kind of going faster than you would be on your own. And that's the ideal sort of setup. And to that effect, like we actually linked down below this other podcast episode which talks about this pretty well and that's,

the podcast is called Masters of Scale. It's put on by the guy who founded LinkedIn. And this particular episode is called the co-Founder Effect and it features the two guys who started Roth's Shoes. If you don't know Roth's or shoes that are made out of recycled plastic water bottles. It's a really cool like sustainable company. But when they met, I think they both worked in finance if memory serves,

right? Like they both worked in stock exchanges or something and they were both miserable. And so they met kinda like Brandon and I did at the park doing other things and then just decided that like, yo, you have the mindset and everything that I'm after, like let's do something. And so they both quit their jobs without no idea what they were doing.

And then they arrived at shoes and they tell that story about how their wives really liked Lululemon leggings and somehow that equates them founding a Schoen company. But it was very interesting. And Ru what was interesting is that they had totally different skillsets. And so one guy's bouncing back and forth to China to set up operations and learn about how molding shoes works and making prototypes and the other guys like drumming up business in various Schoen stores and things like that.

So the point is, is that you can become greater than just yourself. It's not so isolating if you are able to bounce ideas off of the other person. And that comes in handy in pivotal times such as the Pandemic, which you know, we keep talking about. But I think the pandemic was a life-altering event for a lot of people and it was for us certainly and for the business when it first hit,

I was freaking out, I have a background in biology, I was like, we're totally screwed. Like this is gonna get so bad before it gets better. And it did, it did get a lot worse before it got better. But my initial reaction was cut everything, save money right away. Like we have to. We can't spend money on anything because we have to weather this storm.

And then Brandon's reaction was the exact opposite. We should spend more money on marketing because no one else is gonna do it. And it happened like competitors folded during the pandemic and we picked up customers because instead of them being people that we didn't pick up customers that were ignoring the pandemic and just wanted it done, we picked up customers who were like, I want every surface of my house cleaned all the time.

And so that's who we picked up. So the competitors that were closing voluntarily or whatever, like we just leaned into it a little bit and came out. We grew during the pandemic a lot and that was because of this relationship we had. If it was just me on my own, I would've told everybody, everyone's taking a 10% pay cut and we're stopping advertising and we have to put everything in the savings account and we'll see how we end up on the other end.

And I think that's what a lot of people did and that's why a lot of businesses didn't do so well. Yeah, absolutely. And that's, that's a good example of the gas versus the brakes. Now if it was all gas all the time, we'd probably drive off a cliff, right? But the fact that Brandon's like whoa, we're gonna drive off a cliff.

We, he hits the brakes a little bit right before we hit that cliff, but now we're already so far ahead that we're able to be making that progress. So it's a ebb and flow, it's always going but that balance is really key because if we were just slowing down all the time and not going, then we wouldn't have that progress either. So it's like you gotta have both of those things to really push things forward and,

and yeah like kinda like that I'll come up with an idea and be like, what about this Brandon? And you'll, you'll push back on it and say, well that wouldn't work cuz what about this? But then we'll be like, oh yeah but what about this way? And then we find this unique kind of in between that none of us would've thought of on our own.

And but that's the magic of having those two different ways of thinking and different skill sets that when you bring that together you can make magic happen. You know? And that's, that's really what I think I've found working with you Brandon and part of it too that I think is really important is know thy self. Like you have to know who you are and we talk about doing this with employees all the time,

but you should definitely know who you are. Like take a personality test and figure out what's your personality type. And this is another great way to match yourself up with a good business partner too, is find complimentary skill sets. So if you're really good at details and more of an integrator and things like that versus someone who's maybe more of a big idea person who's more visionary,

like figure that out. And so there's a couple of tools that we use like disk assessment is a great personality one, there's another one you've used right? Brandon? Yeah, It's called the Five Voices Assessment, which is put on by Giant TV I think. But that's one we use in the Firecracker leadership group that I'm in. So I think you have to register for an account with Giant to be able to take that.

But the test ultimately is free. And that one actually has been really good. We actually made everybody at San Diego Green clean in the, in the office, take that as well. And so you get, everyone has these five voices, it's like pioneer, nurturer, yada yada yada. And depending on the order in which they are loudest for you,

that's how you think about things. And then you get, it gives you little tools like this is, if you're a pioneer, here's how you communicate with a nurturer. Cuz sometimes you are polar opposites and we've actually seen that play out a couple different times, particularly in some customer service reps that didn't work out so well and you go back and look at the that data and you're like ah,

well could have played that differently if you communicated the right way. So yeah, those tools are super cool. I highly recommend using 'em. Yeah, absolutely. So I think we pretty much covered it Brandon, but like really it's all about going faster and if you can find somebody that can help you go faster on this road trip guys, on this giant journey that we're on,

that's never gonna end cuz there's no destination, we're just gonna keep going. So you might as well have someone fun to do it with is how I feel. And if you can find someone that compliments you and gets you there faster and you have more fun, I mean that sounds like a great option to me, right? So Agreed. I think that's it.

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Which brings me to another point. We are launching our new coaching program and course that goes along with that. That's basically combining everything we've taught so far along with a whole nother level of content that we're adding to it, knowledge and coaching, we're doing a lot more consistent coaching on the back end of that as well. So guys come along for the ride,

join us if you like this kind of content on the podcast. We're doing 10 times, like a thousand times more awesome content inside the course, inside the coaching. We get really, really into it and you're surrounded by people doing the same thing and taking it to the next level. So we're getting that out in the next week or so. So stay tuned.

But if you're interested, reach out. Hello at Profit Cleaners dot com, let us know I'm interested, I'm in. And let's go guys and let's figure out what is it gonna take for you to take it to the next level this year in 2023. And whether that's getting a business partner, whether that's getting new strategies, new skills, new mindset,

new knowledge, whatever it is for you, let's figure that out guys. And let's, let's work together and win and take it on the next level. So until next time, keep It clean. Keep it clean. Thanks for joining us today. To get more info, including show notes, updates, trainings, and super cool free stuff, head over to Profit Cleaners dot com and remember,

keep it clean.