In business, emotions are a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, they allow you to feel the joys of success when you accomplish something amazing. After all, emotion is what makes us human and pleasure is something we all seek as a part of the human experience, sometimes to a detriment. But when it comes to business relationships, emotions almost always get in the way of sound decisions. Fear of hurting someone’s feelings can result in the manifesting of anger towards someone in a situation until it eventually boils over and becomes ugly. I have had situations that have become ugly and situations that have ended reasonably gracefully in the context of business disagreements in my short time as a businessman. As a young man full of testosterone and emotions running wild, controlling emotional responses in the context of managing business relationships has been a trying subject. Taking emotion out of the picture and operating solely for the benefit of the business is almost always the right decision even if it doesn’t feel like it at the moment.
My first business relationship altercation
When I first entered the world of real estate, I got my agent license here in the state of New York and joined the brokerage Douglas Elliman with a partner I had at the time. For months, we sold houses together and things went relatively well. I learned a lot and was grateful for the opportunity I was given. It eventually got to the point, however, that I wanted to start building my business and scale instead of continuing to spin my wheels doing the day to day dirty work. I found a company that could automate prospecting for us so that we can focus on other things in our business and try to scale. As a side note, I later realized that this quality was instilled in me due to my visionary tendencies. I had this realization from the book Rocket Fuel, and I haven’t looked back after discovering this since. My partner, unlike me, fundamentally disagreed with my desire to start outsourcing stating that my purpose of the partnership was to do the prospecting and without me doing that he didn’t need me anymore. Initially, due to my inexperience in business, I took this to heart and resented this person for saying that to me. I thought it best to move on and go off on my own to do my own thing. At times, the situation got a little emotional and ugly and that should’ve never been the case. A fundamental disagreement should be handled rationally with both points of view being explained and recognized. If there is still fundamental disagreement, the decision to part ways has been made for you, it should have nothing to do with emotion. Resentment and anger only weigh you down and keep you from rising to higher levels of success.
In retrospect, I hold no resentment over the situation that occurred as I learned a lot from this experience. However, not having a dialogue earlier about what my goals are and my intentions to scale in fear that I might get some pushback led to a quick and emotional severance that was completely unnecessary in the manner in which it occurred. I genuinely enjoyed this time in my life and feel as though the lessons I learned are extremely valuable in the context of future business relationships. The bottom line on why this business relationship failed is because we had a common goal, but didn’t share any ideas on how to get there. His view was completely and fundamentally different from mine from the start. Being so young and inexperienced, it would’ve been difficult to make this assertion from the start. Looking back on it, however, I uphold the view strongly that this partnership, along with other partnerships I’ve had that failed, did so because of a fundamental disagreement with either the ultimate goals or the road to get to these goals. Not weeding out these differences in the beginning and getting right into business with someone is a set up for sure failure.
Date before you marry
A great piece of advice I learned from Pace Morby, the leader of the Subto Community in which I am part of, is to “date” a partner before you “marry” them. When you’re trying to find a compatible romantic partner, you typically need to date before you get permanently attached to them through marriage. The same is true for business. You don’t really know how well you’re going to gel with someone before you work with them a few times prior to formal partnership. Expectations may not align, personality types may clash, the goal might be different, the path to success could be dissimilar, and so much more can arise. You can only really see these things come to light after working with someone a few times beforehand. Conversation is just that, conversation. People may only realize after they’ve gotten too far with a specific partner that it isn’t a good match for them and what they’re looking to accomplish. Just like a divorce, a partnership dissolution could get ugly. It is important to remain unemotional throughout a partnership about these types of decisions. It’s not healthy to force a business relationship just because you like someone personally, yet they are a subpar business partner. Date a lot and pay close attention to who you gel with closely. Only then should you marry and officially form the partnership. If you do this, you are far more likely to have successful business relationships which result in higher levels of achievement.