Taking on a business partner or finding an ally

As a freelancer, you have worked, I imagine, on your own, singing and dancing to your own tune for many months, if not years. And if you are ‘busy busy busy’, with no time to take on new customers, your phone ringing off the hook with missed opportunity or maybe having to turn away trade because it’s not in your area of specialism, you might be thinking about taking on a partner. Alternatively, you could enter into an alliance/arrangement with another freelancer.

You should also, after reading this guide, seek legal and financial advice to ensure your assets and business is protected if you’re going to look at expanding or branching out. This is not an instructional guide on developing your business, but is a ‘get started common sense’ view of things for you to consider before finding out more.

The Very Rough Guide to Finding an Ally v Taking on a Partner

Ally

Finding an ally or forging a business alliance can be a very beneficial activity. Basically, it’s entering into an agreement to trade favours or custom with another business, either by allowing them to provide part of your service to your customers, and you with theirs hopefully, or working together to provide a whole product or service. This can be useful for freelancers – you could share customers needing different things – you could even share equipment (make sure you agree terms if so) or marketing and advertising if your products or services fit well and are not competing with each other. What you don’t share is your cash or your company itself. Business alliances can be temporary, project based (you could work with a company on a particular project or product and on another company with another project or product).

Business alliances for techies can be particularly beneficial if you work in areas that are complementary. Hardware and Software (OK so it’s rarely split that simply but you know where I’m coming from), data and equipment, PCs and servers, all of these things can work well together and will mean you have someone else to collaborate with, and therefore someone to learn from, and even someone to talk to about your shared woes if things are not going well!

Some things to think about when you’re looking to look for a business ally:

What do you want to get out of it? Be clear about that before you start.
Is it a short term or long term project? This will change the way you approach the project – for example, you wouldn’t go as far as a shared phone and website for a short term project, and if you’re doing any advertising, who’s going to benefit from it and for how long?
What do you stand to lose if it goes wrong? If it’s any of your core custom, you should really not be undertaking this alliance. If you’re entering into something that puts you at risk as a business, DON’T DO IT.

What are the rules of the alliance going to be? If you’re clear when you start, you’ll know if they get broken.

Do you trust the person or business you are proposing to ally with? Although you don’t need to share a bank account, you may need to split monies at some point if invoicing is done jointly – don’t put yourself in a position to get ripped off!

Do they measure up? You should check their credit, check with their customers, telephone both parents (well not really the parents, but check everything you can).
How are you going to measure its success? If you don’t know this, how will you know if it works?