Good to Great: How to Scale With an Outsourced CFO

One of the big decisions entrepreneurs have to make is whether or not to have a partner in a business venture. There’s certainly not a one-size-fits-all answer to this issue because each business is unique. Learning about the pros and cons can help you as you make this important decision. 

 

The Pros

You Can Share the Burden

Running a business can be all-consuming. It’s difficult to maintain reasonable working hours, and you might go years without taking a vacation if you have no one else to relieve you. Sharing the burden can make your business much more manageable. Business partners offer mutual support, and hopefully, you can take turns spending evenings with family.

 

Access to More Skills and Experience

When you’re on your own, you depend on the skills, knowledge, and experience you’ve managed to develop so far in your life, but when you’re part of a partnership, you have access to more. This is especially true if the two partners have complementary strengths. For example, if one of you is very good with numbers and the other is very good with sales, you’ll make a powerful, broad-based team.

 

Effective Decision Making

When you make decisions on your own, you’re limited by your own past experience and personal intuition, but when you have a business partner, you have two different perspectives to consider. A partner helps you to see things from a different point of view, and this can make for more solid decision making.

 

The Cons

Slower Decision Making

While your decision making may come from a broader experience base, as previously mentioned, working through decisions as a partnership often takes longer. You’ll have to negotiate and go back and forth until you reach a conclusion that you both feel comfortable with. The end results may be advantageous, but your business will be less agile.

 

Less Autonomy

If you like doing your own thing and getting your own way, a business partnership may be quite challenging for you. You might begin to resent always having to check with your business partner before committing to something or taking action. Compare your desire for a collaborative business relationship with your desire to work independently of others. Which of these situations do you find more appealing?

 

Exit Strategy

When you’re the sole proprietor of a business, you have the flexibility to sell the business or exit whenever you want to. It’s impossible to know what the future holds, and when you take on a business partner, you tie yourself to that person’s future in some ways. Before entering a business partnership, you should have a frank discussion about views for the future. If one person wants to build an empire while the other would like to quietly ease into early retirement, you’re probably not a great match.

As you can see, there are many issues to consider before taking on a business partner. The best business partnerships meld together a variety of talents, skills, and experience while maintaining a common vision for the company’s future.