Do you need a business partner for your event planning company? Let’s discuss why this may or may not be good for your business.
As a coach for #eventrepreneurs, I get asked a lot of questions inside my Facebook community. Today I’d like to discuss the big question about whether you need a business partner for your event planning company.
DO YOU NEED A BUSINESS PARTNER?
Instead of asking if you need a business partner for your event planning company, you should be asking WHY you think you need a business partner.
Let me guess, are you thinking that you will need a huge financial commitment to start your business? Don’t believe when people tell you that you need an office, inventory or a venue before you can start your own event planning company.
I started my event planning business many years ago with just my phone, laptop and A LOT of time spent networking and building relationships with venues, vendors and potential clients.
FEAR OF FAILURE
Are you afraid that you can’t pull off building an event planning company by yourself, so if you fail, there is someone next to you? And that business partner is your security blanket?
The good news is, if you picked the right partner, you will NOT fail. If you pick the wrong partner, you will feel doubly horrible because how could two brains not figure out how to start and build an event planning business???
THE ONLY REASON TO HAVE A BUSINESS PARTNER
I am going to kill the suspense and make it simple here for you my fellow #eventrepreneurs.
The ONLY reason why you should have a business partner is when the business partner fills the void in the part of the business that you cannot fill, for whatever reason.
For instance, if you are absolutely disastrous in organizing your work, have zero interest in handling ALL the day to day logistics of running the business such as the accounting work, setting up procedures and protocols, managing staff etc and you ONLY want to do sales and marketing and be involved in the planning process, then you may want to look for an individual who can take over the rest of the work needed to run an event planning business.
Having said that, there is no need to have a business partner. You could easily hire a virtual assistant on a full-time or part-time basis.
WHAT DOES HAVING A BUSINESS PARTNER INVOLVE?
Having a business partner entails a lot more details than just having another person to bounce ideas off and share responsibilities with.
It involves legalities that need to be ironed out before the company is incorporated. It requires you to draft out an operating agreement that will detail how many percent of ownership each of you will have.
If you are incorporated as an LLC or partnership, you do not need to be an equal partner. If you are an S corp, then it needs to be an equal percentage. And several companies on and off the record will use the percentage division to guide them on splitting profit, expense, and responsibilities. The operating agreement will also need to list who is responsible for doing what.
I have seen many business partners buy out their business partner or have a voluntary exit of one partner because of disagreements once the business got going. Someone is not doing what they are supposed to do, someone is unwilling to commit to certain financial commitments, etc. It can get really messy.
So before you decide to have a business partner, you and your potential business partner must have values that align.
Both of you must agree to how you want to grow the company, be very clear about the financial commitment when you first start the company AND once the business is in motion, the responsibilities assigned to each of you and commitment to carrying out the responsibilities as listed on the operating agreement.
It is always best to put together a business plan together where both of you can lay out the EVERYTHING needed to start and grow the business.
Conclusion
1) Why do I need a business partner?
2) What will the business partner do?
3) How would that help me in the business?
Ultimately, if the main reason you think you want to have a business partner is to get physical and emotional support, there is NO need to get a business partner, come join our community of #unstoppableeventrepreneurs instead!
JOIN OUR COMMUNITY
Come join us in our Unstoppable Eventrepreneur community inside our Facebook group.
We have thousands of #eventrepreneurs inside our Facebook group who are going through the same journey as you.
Click here to join us today. We can’t wait to meet you on the inside.
