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4. Both your egos are too big.
Some partnerships are spectacular, because, as Jennings would indicate, two people pulling a wagon is much better than one. At this point in time, everything is very optimistic. The future looks bright.
"When you first start out, it's very idealistic: 'We're gonna do this, and we're gonna do that, and isn't it going to be great?' Just to be on the same page, having same goals, plans, ideas is wonderful," said Tonilee Adamson, who co-founded Media 4 Women Enterprises, Inc.—an organization based in New York City that helps women entrepreneurs promote their businesses—with her business partner, Bobbye Brooks. "But then as you start going down that path, you have to figure out if you're going to address issues the same ethically. You have to figure out so many things about the other person that suddenly, you're realizing that when they say 'partnership,' they really mean it."
Problems occur when one or both partners want the title of "head honcho," even though "honchos" cannot happily exist in an equal partnership. Experts say both partners need similar—if not equal—billing for the company to run smoothly.
"A lot of people ask "'Who wears the pants in the family?'" says Jennifer Kocen. "It alternates back and forth based on the decisions need to be made or whatever the issues are, but I never get the sense that one of us is striving to be a more important person than the other. Egos are left at the door, basically."
Egos are unnecessary distractions when you're starting a new business, but when you have a partner, they're borderline unacceptable.
"Whenever there are two partners, because it's one-on-one, each person has to be willing to put their ego aside," Brooks says. "You start getting into the details of 'Who's name goes first? Is it the last name in alphabetical order? Or is it the title? Who's going to be the CEO? Who's going to be the president?' In a business partner, no one wants to be the vice president. It took us probably a good two years to really work through a lot of those challenges."
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5. You lack clearly-defined roles.
Maybe you do all the work. Maybe you do none of the work. In any partnership, regardless of role or capacity, both partners need to feel that there's equity in some fashion. This is why most business coaches will suggest that you and your potential partner have similar desires and goals, but are complementary in skill and role.
"One of the things about a good partnership is you really can define the roles of each partner, and at certain times, one partner knows when to zip it," Rashap says. "In other words, I have an area of expertise, my partner has an area of expertise, and I think the person with the area of expertise should be in charge of making those decisions."
Sometimes, when partners can't clearly define their roles, tensions rise and disputes flare up more often.
"We had trouble with the business cards," Brooks says. "Do we call ourselves co-owners, or co-founders? We didn't like 'co-CEOs'... After about two years, our gifts and our strengths began to fully emerge: I have much more of a business background with a more sales and marketing bit, and Tonilee has much more of an operations background, so we were able to start allowing what we do best to come through."
While confusion over a title may seem trivial, a lack of clarity over roles may lead one partner to feel more incompetent than the other. This disparity may lead to jealousy and bad feelings between the partners.
"What ends up happening is, compared to the person with the stronger skill set, the person with the weaker skill set feels badly about themselves," Adamson says. "So instead of realizing you're bringing strength to complement, you start thinking of all the ways you fall short. We've seen a lot of women—and men—not being able to go through with their partnership because these things became a major distraction in their mind."
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