The Partnership Pivot: Navigating Perspectives to Drive Growth

Starting the conversation:

Most businesses don’t fail because of the idea—they fail because the partnership went sideways. Get actionable steps to future-proof your partnership before your big goals derail. Jess Dewell, Red Direction, Christy Maxfield, Purpose First Advisors, and Dean Barta, Barta Business Group, talk candidly about developing value through the strength of partnership with your co-founders and co-owners.

This discussion starts with knowing what you want and digs into the untapped potential of being curious and holding each other accountable. Then we talk through 5 steps to assess your partnership today and how to use your answers to have purposeful dialog with your partners.

Your Panelists:

• Christy Maxfield, President and CEO at Purpose First Advisors
• Dean Barta, Founder and CEO at Barta Business Group
• Jess Dewell, Managing Partner and Growth Strategist at Red Direction

What You Will Hear:

04:15 When business hits stride, sometimes it’s when partnerships start to hit a wall…

• Hitting obstacles in partnerships can occur at any stage, before or after a business finds its rhythm.
• Spotting problems in a partnership early is crucial, as alignment impacts performance and growth.
• Proactively discussing partnership dynamics can reveal potential issues before they become critical.

11:00 Partnerships change as life stages and business needs change.

• Partners may have evolving objectives depending on their age, position in life, or personal circumstances.
• Differences in goals can arise, such as succession planning, retirement, or continued growth.
• A mindful approach to partnership means considering how changing life situations affect business direction.

15:25 Hold each other accountable for roles, responsibilities, and support.

• Successful partnerships require clear division of roles based on each person’s strengths.
• Accountability ensures all partners contribute equitably toward shared objectives.
• Open communication facilitates support when partners face difficulties fulfilling responsibilities.

20:15 Interest does not always equal capability—delegate and specialize as your business grows.

• As a company matures, tasks should be handled by those most capable, not just interested.
• Transitioning from generalist to specialist roles helps the business achieve higher levels of performance.
• Delegating responsibilities can be challenging, but is necessary for organizational growth.

30:45 You cannot plan for the future without alignment with your partners.

• Strategic planning is effective only when business partners share a unified vision and agreed goals.
• Lack of alignment among partners can undermine resilience and momentum.
• Synchronizing priorities, resources, and decision-making empowers organizations to adapt and thrive.

39:10 If you aren’t honest about what you want, partnerships may fail even after success.

• Misalignment in long-term goals between partners can jeopardize even successful ventures.
• Clear, early conversations about each partner’s intentions help avoid misunderstandings.
• Failure to communicate truthfully about wants and expectations is a common cause of partnership breakdowns.

45:15 Culture and communication norms in partnerships start from day one.

• Establishing norms around communication and feedback lays the foundation for open dialogue.
• A healthy partnership culture encourages candor, supportiveness, and continuous check-ins.
• Early attention to cultural values and conflict resolution strategies helps prevent future avoidance of tough conversations.

3 takeaways:

• Christy Maxfield: Tell the truth and know what you want.
• Dean Barta: Value of how to communicate with each other.
• Jess Dewell: Include key people, your life partner, in conversations about what you want from your business.

Resources

• Dean Barta on LinkedIn
• Christy Maxfield on LinkedIn
• Jess Dewell on LinkedIn
• The Real Reason Smart Leaders Don’t Take Action — And How to Overcome It

Transcript

Jess Dewell 00:00
What I want you to do is say, Hey, why am I here? If you’re here, because we’re talking about partnerships, the partnerships that you are in.

Christy Maxfield 00:08
We’re talking about partner with a big P, and it has some similarities to partner with a small P, but you have to agree. What does partnership mean?

Dean Barta 00:15
A successful businessman once told me, You start with the end in mind and work your way back in life. And that was the main advice for me.

Jess Dewell 00:24
I’m so glad you’re here. Thanks for stopping by at the Bold Business Podcast. We are normalizing important conversations.

Yes, there are tips. Yes, there are ways to solve problems. More importantly are going to be, what do you need for yourself to be able to solve those problems and make the most of the education, the training and the programs that you are already using. This is a supplement to that.

It can sit on top of it, fuel your soul, fuel your mind. And most importantly, regardless of where you’re at on your journey. Maybe you’re starting out. Maybe you’re ready to scale.

Maybe you’re going through re-invention? The conversations we are having will help you at each of those stages. So hang around, see what’s going on.

And I look forward to seeing you engaging with our videos.

Announcer 01:16
Welcome to It’s Your Business brought to you by the Bold Business Podcast. This is your source for navigating today’s ever-evolving business landscape. In this program, Jess, Christy and Dean share the realities of current business challenges and triumphs.

Get ready to lead with depth, understanding and achievement.

Jess Dewell 01:36
Welcome to the Bold Business Podcast, hosting It’s Your Business. This is your go-to source for navigating today’s ever-evolving business landscape. I’m so glad to be here today as one of your hosts and panelists.

I’m Jess Dewell. Also with us as Christy Maxfield and Dean Barta. We will introduce ourselves in just a moment in more detail for you, but I don’t want you to go away just yet. What I want you to do is say, Hey, why am I here?

If you’re here because we’re talking about partnerships, the partnerships that you are in, by the way, this could help you with partnerships outside of business too. So just hang in and enjoy this immensely. And we want your participation.

And today we’re going to be holding the mirror up to ourselves and we’re going to be holding the mirror up to those that we have chosen to hitch our wagons to and make decisions with and go get our goals with. And why does that matter today? Because I would like to get it correct.

So while I’m not reading the note is important to make sure we are all starting from the same starting line and more critical than ever before are our partnerships. This, whether it’s an uncertain market, whether it’s disruption, whether it’s just making decisions about how do we streamline and where do we put our energy, the levers of growth include who we are, who we founded with, who we’re executive managing with, and being able to be all in a trusting open way. So moving beyond the excitement of ventures that we were in or that honeymoon period, when we start working together, we want to take the partnerships we have today and leverage them to create the future we want for our business.

So with that, I’m going to let us introduce ourselves.

Christy Maxfield 03:17
Hi, Christy Maxfield with Purpose First Advisors. We help owners, founders, create a pathway to a successful succession and exit planning.

Dean Barta 03:30
I am Dean Barta Business Group and we provide a fractional CFO to bookkeeping services for small businesses, especially growing ones, and definitely have experience with partnerships.

Jess Dewell 03:42
And I’m Jess Dewell. And I will tell you what, not only by day do I host the Bold Business Podcast and get to be on panels with Christy and Dean, I also am working with companies who are creating their future right now. Whatever we’re doing today is determining how relevant we will be tomorrow.

So are we making the right decisions right now for that? Okay. So when we get into this question, everybody, we’re going to get into this question.

I actually wrote down the question too. I know we all have it in front of us. I’ll read it.

When business hits stride, sometimes it’s when partnerships start to hit a wall or sometimes our partnerships hit a wall before our business is in stride. But it’s that hitting the wall piece, I think is what we’re really focusing on today.

Christy Maxfield 04:32
You can hit a wall at any point, but I think identifying it’s if you’re feeling as though there is a wall, there’s lots of things to check in on and your state of your partnership is one of them.

Jess Dewell 4:46
And I was thinking about this, right? As far as when we’re thinking about our partnership today, if we needed or wanted, maybe we’re in the best business. We have the best business co-founder, co-founders ever.

We are getting along and everything is amazing. This is still a great time to have a conversation. It’s not only when we’re having a problem because the sooner we’re talking about it, the sooner we can make sure we’re doing all of the things that we can within our power.

How about if we revisit the end in mind? We all decided we’re going to get together for a mission at which point in time that mission is accomplished. Now what?

We’ve started with an end in mind of our work, what we want to do, the service we’re providing, the product we’re going to make, but what we don’t necessarily do is check in with each other about how we feel it’s going, how it’s been so far and where do we want to go? So just like Stephen Covey’s end in mind, it’s important to be thinking about the end in mind for our partnerships too. Are we clearing what we want?

And I wanted to open up the discussion for all three of us for that, because I know we do it in other parts of business for sure.

Dean Barta 05:56
Yeah. A successful businessman once told me you start with the end in mind and work your way back in life. And that was the main advice for me.

So I think it’s apropos in partnerships to look at where you want to go, where you want to be at. And if you’re in concert with that, with your partnership, and then how do we get that? And you basically reverse engineer, right?

Jess Dewell 06:21
How do you decide what your end is going to be? Do you do it on your own or do you do it together? Is that part of that business plan that we may or may not do before we say, hey, we really don’t want to do it alone.

Let’s go find a business partner. We actually successfully did that. And now here we are.

Dean Barta 06:35
Yeah, no, it’s got to be done together. And I think it’s good to, to come up and I’ve seen this happen before is just have, what is the individual, let’s say partner one, two, and three, okay. Is what is each one of their goals and then come together and see where you might be off.

Because if you’ve got a partnership where say one partner is a strong personality and drives or enrolls the other people in that vision and they go along. But I think it’s important for every partner to say individually is, hey, this is where I see it and then come together and say, okay, now let’s see if this all works together. But that’s my perspective on it.

Christy Maxfield 07:21
Oh yeah. I do some early-stage business model validation-stage coaching for founders. It happens to be a program where partnership is required.

They have a minimum of three team members usually who are looking to evaluate whether or not there can be company formation. And you’d be surprised how many people are willing to jump in without having that initial conversation, even if they think they’re aligned because we know we want to sell, right? We know we want to have a liquidity event, right?

But they haven’t necessarily said, do we think that’s in a five-year timeline, a 10-year timeline, a 15-year timeline? What happens if that changes? What if we don’t want to exit?

What if we get an offer sooner rather than later down the line? A lot of folks don’t just, they don’t write a business plan. They don’t really talk about something like exit beyond, oh yeah, that’s the goal.

Or I’m never going to sell. We’re never going to sell. We’re going to do this forever.

It’s two extremes. Either selling is a foregone conclusion, but we don’t talk about when and how and to whom and under what circumstances. Or we’re never going to sell.

We’re going to, this is our life’s work and we’re going to do it until something changes. And usually one of the partners sees the business going in a direction that the other partner’s not quite aligned with. It can come in different shapes and forms.

Jess Dewell 08:41
And just knowing what you want.

Christy Maxfield 08:43
This is- Knowing what you want.

Jess Dewell 08:45
What do I want? We’re doing this even just within It’s Your Business and it’s not an official company of any kind. We’re three peers that care about sharing and having conversations and keeping this dialogue open.

Does this still align with our other goals? Do we have other goals? Does this support it?

How come this is important to us right now? And it’s cool to see the overlap that says all of these things make this possible for us to do, which is amazing in and of itself. And so we’re doing it not in an official business capacity, but we have our business partners.

We’ve made a commitment to each other here. This is the 16th one of these that we’ve done. So there’s longevity here.

Christy Maxfield 09:23
It feels like a commitment to me. I always challenge people when they use the word partnership, because I just signed on with an IT company and they’re calling me partner. And I’m like, I’m not your partner, I’m your client.

And I know they want this all-encompassing, we’re enveloping me and we’re partners in this. But that’s partner with a small P. We’re talking about partner with a big P and it has some similarities to partner with a small P, but you all have to be in the same.

You have to agree, what does partnership mean? And then what role are you playing in that partnership? And what are your roles and responsibilities in that partnership? And being really super honest. When we say, what do you want? We mean like really the thing you’re afraid to say out loud because you think you’ll either sound arrogant or greedy or crazy.

Well, what do you really want? And be honest with yourself. And then maybe you might even give yourself permission to change your mind along the way.

And both of those require that you don’t let other people’s expectations of success influence you to the point where you’re doing things that you don’t want to do or that no longer suits you, even if at one point they were what you wanted. So this is some pretty important stuff to get honest with yourself about. I currently have three clients with partnerships.

Two out of the three are married to each other. The partners are married to each other. I have a fourth on deck who would be a father and son.

And for the father and son, age difference alone means they have different goals. They’re at different stages of their life. What they need out of the business is different.

And one of the reasons they called me is because they went to their CPA and said, do we sell? Do we keep growing? When would we sell?

And when do we know it’s time? They’re really grappling with what’s best to provide mom and dad with the financial security they need and their son wants them to have. And to also position the son for what is still a very lengthy, what we hope long and prosperous life in this business or in some other.

So really understanding how, who you chose to go into business with and where they are in their life and what they need from this, whether they have kids or don’t have kids, whether you’re married, because your business partnership may end, but you may not want your marriage to end. Like it gets messy if we don’t think through.

Jess Dewell 11:57
Ryan and I worked together. It was one of those things where I was like, this is going to be so great. It was not great because we were in different departments and we had different goals for those different departments.

And they actually ended up competing against each other. And so in our case, it wasn’t an enclosed system anymore, where it was us and other people that own the company. It was other people that own the company.

And now we were in separate places and there’s a big difference between the two. And we didn’t like that at all. And I think, and that’s important to be able to know and say, Oh, look, this cool thing happened, but Oh, look, that means all this other stuff might also be changing.

So that’s a great point, Christy about life stage. If you can’t write it down and share it with the people that you are sharing your life with in your community, in your businesses, in your family, then you’re actually not a very good partner. And I’ll just say, if you haven’t done it yet, put this on your to-do list before the end of this year and take some action.

It’s scary to put out there just in case it’s really different, but I’ll bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I’ll bet you’ll be surprised to know that they have these goals and dreams too, that may be more similar than you realize.

Dean Barta 13:03
I call it the three T’s. Tell the truth. And whatever that truth is for you.

And that’s where it originates. And knowing that things change. My truth from starting a partnership 10 years ago is different than my truth is today.

And it’s just checking in on that. But yeah, it can really go up the rails when someone’s really not being truthful with themselves primarily, which begets not being truthful with their business partner.

Christy Maxfield 13:34
Yeah. And I was just going to add that when we hit the growth trajectory, when we’re starting out, we went 50-50, which I would never advise. 50-50, we each have 50% of nothing.

And then we actually do the thing and it becomes a thing. And now it has value not only to us, but to other people. And we start to get really excited about where it can go.

And we may be getting stuck. We might be hitting that brick wall that Jess talked about earlier, because it was easier to be aligned when there was lots of risk and no actual there. Now there’s lots of risks, different risks, because you created something and now people are depending on you in a way they probably weren’t before, but you have the risk and there’s a lot of there.

And now we’re debating in real time with real assets, what resources to put where, how much of those resources to dedicate, how much risk to take with those resources. And this is where if you’re not having regular meetings, not just to talk about the business of your business, but to really understand what your partner values, what’s going on with them personally. Married people move in different directions and grow at different rates of speed, even just within their own marriage, even if they’re not working together or owning something together like a business.

So creating that space. And that’s often where we find it’s like you bring in Dean, bring in Christy, bring in Jess, bring in somebody who can ask some questions that it’s not I’m questioning whether or not you’re on board anymore, but I’m questioning just how is this functioning and whether or not this partnership has really sussed out what it needs to be able to move forward. Cause if somebody agrees to something, they’re not actually on board for that will either actively or passively sabotage it.

It just, it will happen.

Jess Dewell 15:25
And that’s when we get into the roles and responsibilities, who is doing what, right? Usually partnerships are different people with different experiences, with different skillsets that complete the areas of coverage necessary to build something from nothing or to take over something and turn around something and make it something greater. I think about that.

And I know this is something that Dean, you shared a lot about. I know in our pre-calls, do you want to start us off in this one?

Dean Barta 15:57
Yeah, definitely roles and responsibilities. And because everyone brings what I call their superpower to their partnership. And there is different variations of that.

And you got to be aware it’s a two roosters in a hen house, or is it a visionary and an integrator who’s taking care of what and basically bottom line responsible for and delivering on those because I’ve been exposed to partnerships that one person is working hard, moving forward, but the other partner is not holding up their end of the deal. And those tough conversations have to happen. It’s a checks and balances, but you’re also holding the other person accountable and supporting them as well.

It’s not just an accusatory nature. It’s more, Hey, we need to move forward. And what do you need help with?

And then I need help with this. And if you’re looking at a two-person partnership, and of course that gets a little bit more complex if you’ve got three partners, four partners, but everyone’s gotta be taking responsibility for that and delivering and knowing how to get support when they’re not.

Christy Maxfield 17:12
I think it’s also important to note that, especially in this world of a lot of folks use or self-implement EOS, there’s often one person who is clearly a visionary, but that does not mean the other person is automatically the integrator. They may have skills and capabilities that compliment the visionary, but they may not actually be the person who likes to bridge the gap between vision and execution, or they may like doing that in some circumstances, but they have their own visionary, maybe perhaps a more narrow area of focus in the business where their visionary capabilities come through. So I find sometimes that the partners, because they’re partners say, obviously one of us has to be the visionary.

One of us has to be the integrator. And it could be like, actually, no, you both have visionary qualities and you need an integrator to join your team when you can afford to bring that, or you have visionary capabilities, but also you might be playing against type. Not every business is breaking the mold, is innovating constantly.

We’ve got lots of good solid business models that people are running every single day, and they’re not waking up with visionary innovations, but they also may not be the best at connecting where they want to be in five years to what has to happen in the office today. So to not get caught up in forcing specific roles on different people and early on really thinking through what are you best suited towards, and then what kind of job title does that translate into? It may be that one partner is actually better suited to be the director of marketing or chief people person or something else along those lines, or really is the tactician, really knows the technical aspects of the work that’s being done and really enjoys being on the front line of executing the work.

So I caution people not to try and cram themselves into those kinds of definitions, and I think, Dean, you also bring up a point of not only the number of partners, but their roles. So oftentimes there could be somebody who is working full-time in the business and maybe somebody who’s working part-time in the business, or somebody who’s a partner but is contributing the money and not working in the and really being clear on what are our equity stakes, what are our jobs, our roles and responsibilities, and where do we have authority autonomy so that our expectations are right-sized.

Jess Dewell 19:42
I’m your Host, Jess Dewell, and we’re getting down to business on the Bold Business Podcast. This is where we’re tackling the challenges that matter most to you with actionable and achievable advice to get real results that lead to your success.

Announcer 19:59
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Jess Dewell 20:15
There are things in businesses that we need to do because it falls under our purview and sometimes those don’t align. And after listening to some of this, what I have found, just thinking back, is a lot of the partnerships of businesses that are three and five years old, they can keep the lights on, they have proof of concept, they’re ready to scale, they’re doing this next work. What ends up happening is there’s actually tension and polarity around who’s actually doing the thing because many people want to do the one thing, but they all need to also do their own thing.

And as you get to that certain point, when four or five people are wearing one hat because everybody likes to do it, and now you’ve scaled enough and nobody has time, so you want to get somebody to take on that role, it’s the quickest way to some tension because nobody wants to give up the thing that’s most interesting that they like to do the most. And that’s one example. Another example is just in our own work.

Every single one of us, when we have deep work sessions, whatever that looks like for you, you will know what you like to do the most because it’s where you start. Hands down. Do I like to look at my numbers?

Do I like to do the planning? Do I like to understand what our opportunities are and evaluate those? What are the problems we’re possibly solving?

Whatever you go to first in your deep work time is an indication of what you really enjoy. And so my question to you and to your partner would be, remember when I said, do you know what you want? Hopefully, because if this is the work I want to be doing, maybe I’m not in the right role.

Maybe I’m in the wrong seat on the bus for myself. And if I’ve never written it down or said it out loud, how would anybody else know, including me? And so sometimes it needs to be, I’m going to go back to, it needs to just be that straightforward because once we know what we have that’s interesting, where we alone have interest in it, that’s where we can create value in our company.

It’s where nobody else, neither one of our, any of our other founders have that same interest. Another thing I was thinking about was that I’m a big proponent of business plans. I like them simple.

I don’t like them big and complex unless there’s a reason for them. There are reasons for those. And so if we’re spending more time on the business plan than interacting with each other in our business, that is a pretty good clue that we’re in silos, that we are going to be diverging not only in our interest, but also why we’re doing the work we’re doing.

And it really comes down to why are we doing the work we’re doing? What difference are we making? And do we want to do it together?

And how can we continue to create the future of our business to continue to do it together?

Dean Barta 23:04
And what I’ve experienced is because finances, it’s like the short straw, let’s say. Rarely do you have business partners that are like, oh no, I got the finances because that’s most fun thing to do. It’s usually, I’ll take care of marketing.

I’ll do this. I’ll be in operations. And then, okay, who’s taking care of finances?

I guess I will. And as partners, when you’re looking at that is maybe none of you are great at finances or maybe none of you are great at marketing. So you got to bring someone who is a geek about that because it’s all those areas of sales and marketing and operations and HR and finances.

You can’t let one of those gaps just fall behind to the short straw syndrome because that will come back to bite you too. Because ideally in a partnership, you’re doing what you love and you’re doing what you’re good at in the business. That’s the ideal.

And someone has to take the garbage out eventually and have that, if you will, crappy job that, okay, I’ll do it, but I’ll make sure it’s done. And it’s not all sunshine and puppy dogs.

Christy Maxfield 24:21
Yeah. And I’ve even know of brothers who are in partnership together where one brother said, I will take on the finances. And because the other brother didn’t feel strong in that area, he really put a lot of faith and trust in that.

And it turns out that person wasn’t really as well suited for that position as they could have been. Delegation even to each other as partners does not mean abdication. And so even if you’re not responsible for a core business area, you are responsible for knowing enough so that you’re not left in a place where someone else is really controlling the destiny of your company, making decisions that you’re not fully aware of and you don’t necessarily know all the implications of.

I think also the interest doesn’t always also equal capabilities. So my interest in doing marketing and my ability to do marketing early in my business when I have no money and I have to do it all myself is great. But when we move out of startup phase and we move into growth phase, it’s now time to start specializing.

And so even if I really love it, if I am not the best at it, I probably need to delegate it. And that can be really hard for people who enjoy something, who think they’re really good at it, who may be very good at it, but who may not be the best at it. The business’s capability to hit the next level of achievement really depends on bringing other people in who are more specialized than they are.

Jess Dewell 25:51
That’s a really good point. And even after that specialization comes in, who’s the number two? Who’s the person who is going to say, cool, I appreciate this.

What about this? How can we challenge each other from the inside so we get zero comfortable chairs? Because one of the biggest things I see that will impact a company’s growth and cause things to sneak up on companies that they don’t realize is because we were in a groove.

We decided to just let it go. And all of a sudden something changed, but the person was in such a groove. They didn’t notice the change.

We are here to challenge each other. We are here to do that hard work. And whether you’re bringing in somebody like Dean, Christy, or myself, we’ll help you get those questions asked, but we’re going to be teaching you, how do you do that yourself?

Because this is something on week-to-week, month-to-month, quarter-to-quarter, year-to-year, you are deciding the future of your business. You are deciding what relevance looks like in the future by your decisions today. And that is an interesting thing to think about.

So I like what you said, Christy, about delegation is not abdication. I think that’s very important. And I would say, how do we show up to challenge?

Just because I might not be strong in something, I still can ask a question.

Christy Maxfield 27:14
Probably the best person to ask the question. He basically said that you don’t want the expert to be the person, say, giving you feedback on something because they know too much. And you don’t want the novice to be giving you feedback on something because they knew too little.

You need the person who knows just enough to be dangerous, because they’re going to ask the questions they need to ask and bring a different perspective than they would if they had no knowledge or too much knowledge. So how do you build that capacity within your organization? Or how do you bring in people who can help facilitate those kinds of conversations?

I also think what you might have alluded to, Jess, is it’s great that we have specialists, but our specialists need to have other people who can step in the event that they’re unable to perform their duties for whatever reason. So I think that’s when a company also matures from doing performance reviews to doing talent management activities that really evaluate not just current performance, but future potential. And they start to be really intentional about helping people cultivate the skills they need to do the next job or to expand their skill set.

And we’re talking about transferability then, right? Not only the partners and the founders need to have people who can do their jobs better as well, if not better than them, but then who are the next layer of management that also needs to have a team that’s constantly growing and moving towards being able to do the next level of work. That creates a transferable company.

That creates a valuable company that can help bring in the valuation you want when you are ready to exit.

Jess Dewell 28:53
I really appreciate that you said that can step in when somebody must step out. Life happens, whether it’s a day and we have a flat tire, whether it’s something else and whether it’s ourselves or somebody else that is required to take leave for whatever reason and desires to do that and the company says, yes, let’s do that. And we say, of course, in our partnership, in our alliance, it matters.

Let’s go and figure this out. Sure, it will be hard from a workload perspective. But when we’re having the right conversations, it’s never hard from a let’s absorb this and figure out how to make that work.

And that’s one of those things where we’re having those conversations. And all the time. This is not water cooler conversation and it’s not text chat.

It’s definitely about putting attention on the words that we use, the things that are important to us and making an effort. We should probably remind people, Hey, we’re talking about the partnership pivot. We’re talking about making sure we are here present with ourselves and with our partners, with our business founders, whether they’re active or silent.

We’ve already talked about having the end in mind and writing down what you want and knowing that you have something to find dissonance along the way. We’ve been talking about roles and responsibilities and what that actually means. And why is it important today?

Christy or Dean, what do you think?

Christy Maxfield 30:24
I’ll take it this time. Okay. I think today, literally this time of year, as we’re going in Q3, we’re moving into Q4, that it’s, you cannot plan for the next year ahead, the next three years, the next five years, however far in advance, you’re looking to map out the path for your business.

You cannot do that. And if you’re not in alignment with the partners in your organization. Now, obviously, if you don’t have partners in the big piece sense, you still have partners in your leadership team and alignment across the organization is hugely important.

But if the owners, if the partners who are deciding where we’re going, what money we’re spending and what people power we’re putting behind it, what priorities are, if they’re not aligned, if you’re not in sync with your partner or things have fundamentally changed and nobody’s talking about the fact that Christy just doesn’t show up the way she used to, I wonder what’s going on there. If we’re not delving into it now, then we’ve missed a really important conversation as part of our annual planning process, reflecting on our current year-to-date and planning for our next year. And because in this environment, meaning 2025, 2026, but also just the state of business at any point in time requires that you be on the cutting edge of your own organization.

You have your finger on the pulse of your organization, where it’s going, who’s doing what, why they’re doing it, what kind of impact it’s having. Otherwise, the ability to be resilient diminishes greatly.

Jess Dewell 32:00
That’s a great one.

Christy Maxfield 32:01
Do you want to add anything to that, Dean?

Dean Barta 32:04
Yeah, I think Christy summed that up really nicely because being able to flex with changes and partnerships, we’re working with a new client that it’s the partnership of one because of attrition and unfortunately, death of another partner. And his primary goal is not about more partners. It’s the vision he has for the company.

That’s the number one thing that he is stressed out about. And because they are two friends, they got went into a partnership and, or actually it was three people and then lost one partner just out of leaving the company. And then two weeks ago, lost his other business partner to death.

And the main thing is that the vision of the, this organization is moving forward. And that’s what we’re helping them with.

Christy Maxfield 32:59
And he has fundamentally, I would imagine his ability to execute on the vision has fundamentally changed, even though he continues to share and hold the vision that he and his partner had. Having one less person in such an integral role and emotionally, as well as operationally, I’m sure. And I think that’s what people forget is that these aren’t just business decisions.

These relationships aren’t just business relationships. If you’ve gone into business with somebody, in all likelihood, you have a very deep and intimate relationship with them. You care deeply about them.

And when things change, it, there’s a grief around that, that also impacts your ability to do business.

Dean Barta 33:44
Yeah, no, he’s definitely about, he’s really being very outwardly focused on this is that it’s the vision, but it’s the employees, it’s the community they serve. And he’s, he knows that I don’t have this expertise. I’m going to get to the professional that does have this expertise that will help me move this forward.

And so I applaud him for actually making the decision that instead of he’s going through a grief period right now, and will be probably for months. And he is taking a breath or two and saying, okay, this thing is not going to die. So that’s that, that vision is the one that’s guiding him forward and extremely important to this organization.

Jess Dewell 34:33
Yeah. And this is totally different than your example that you just gave Dean. Is it one of the partnerships?

Hold on everybody. I know it’s still partnerships, but this is a whole different scenario. And in fact, I have two, both early stage.

I’ll actually just use one. We had a value difference, but we didn’t know. So we said, this is what we’re going to do. Here’s how we’re going to show up. This is the way we’re going to work together. This is what we’re going to do.

We started to do it. And one of us wasn’t telling the truth. And I actually think in the end, it was a little bit of me. And it was a little bit of them. Neither one of us stopped to say, what do you want out of this? Neither one of us stopped to say, what does success look like to you?

Neither one of us stopped to say, how do we actually work together to do this work? And where are we different? So what can we tap into?

And it’s unfortunate that it fell apart. We had clients and then we didn’t, we had to say, sorry, thanks. No, thanks.

It was a real bummer. It was over a year that this was all happening. I wish I knew what I had wanted. I knew what I wanted. I wanted to grow and scale a business and exit again. The other person did not want that.

And so the way we showed up to do our work was very different than that. And so I think that’s important. I think by the time we got to the point, we could recognize it was falling apart.

Things were not going. And we were probably past the point of return of being able to salvage anything and figure out how to work together. I think I would have started earlier.

Would have been like, I need to understand what you see this mission to be. I need to understand where you see yourself different than me. Here’s how I’m different than you.

And because as we start talking about, so how do we assess our partnerships? That’s my hindsight looking. But having done it and actually having a couple of companies fail because of that, I would say learn from my mistake on that one.

Especially if you haven’t had that conversation yet.

Dean Barta 36:38
That’s why it needs to be done now. And let’s just get to the heart of the matter. And like you mentioned, Jess, it’s you got to tell the truth.

You got to be just so truthful at any stage, beginning stage, maturity stage, whatever it might be. And I just think that’s healthy in any kind of relationship and see if it’s not only what their vision is individually, but really even heart into it. I’m only motivated by the profitability.

Jess Dewell 37:10
That’s something that if nobody else is, at least you got somebody keeping an eye on that. Without that profitability, there is no business. Honestly, I’m going to say, so put on some red rose colored glasses about the things that you don’t really like and go, can I work with that?

Can I be challenged to be better because of it? Will it help me get to my goal because their focus and diligence and desires are different than mine?

Christy Maxfield 37:34
And all of this illustrates the need to do the good for formation documents, the tools that help you break up if and when you need to, and the tools that allow you to respond when things don’t go as planned. So whether that’s a solid operating agreement, governance, structure, maybe there’s a board involved at some point. There’s obviously insurance to help take care of some of these unforeseen circumstances, but there’s also strategies just around mitigating risk.

If two partners are traveling together and things like that, it sounds, Oh man, great problem to have. Yeah. Great problem to have.

So let’s run the scenarios on if somebody needs to step out early, what happens? What kind of risk does that put us at? If someone’s departure is sudden and unforeseen, what kind of safeguards do we have to limit the impact on the business so that we can save those jobs and take care of our customers while we grieve?

I think sometimes people will choose not to engage professional advisors until there’s a problem rather than investing the time and energy upfront to do good formation documents and revisit those as the organization grows and make sure that everybody’s interests are protected. And I personally think there should be legal counsel who’s taking care of the entity and is doing what’s in the best interest of the entity and legal counsel that is advising the individual partners in what’s in their best interest, because those could be three or four different things.

Jess Dewell 39:11
I’m thinking about assessment. I’m thinking about, so wherever we’re at right now, whatever our partnership status is, if we’ve never had a conversation like this, if we have conversations like this all of the time, how can we show up? How can we assess that?

And I was actually asked that in part of the dialogue prior to our live stream today. And I came up with something on the fly. So I figured I could take what I’ve made up on the fly, Christy and Dean, and we can develop it just a little bit more.

Do it. You like it? Okay.

Christy Maxfield 39:37
And then who owns the intellectual property in this partnership? We’re co-creating right now.

Jess Dewell 39:45
See, good documentation. Ownership is clear. Yes.

So this is where, if we have to get started, I’m going to, I’m going to say, number one, write down exactly what you want with zero filter. Number two, then would be write down what your growth strategy of your company actually is today and your feelings about it. And I’m glad somebody else is writing these down because I am not.

So we’re going to need to develop this a little. And how about if we start with one and two and we can then maybe build on to what maybe what could come after that. And I can insert some of the other things along the way.

What do you think?

Christy Maxfield 40:27
Sounds good. I would say is like a zero filter of what you want. Whoever is your life partner, assuming they’re different from your business partner, whoever your life partner is, I need you to loop them into.

Dean Barta 40:41
Yeah.

Christy Maxfield 40:41
Because a lot of times conversations get started because the spouse doesn’t know the plan and doesn’t know. When is she planning to retire? When does she plan to reduce her workload?

When does she plan to do this? So you might have two partners in business who also have life partners who need to, there needs to be alignment that way and with them and the business and personal goals are intertwined and very quickly. And I think you need to be really clear about what you want, but also cognizant of what your spouse or your significant other wants.

And then how you communicate your shared vision for the future of your lives to your business partner.

Dean Barta 41:27
I agree. Having your personal partner involved, because I’m sure each one of us have worked with businesses where I highly doubt that their personal partner has a clue what’s going on in the business, unless they’re involved in the business that is. Yeah.

A very important aspect of that, Christy. That’s definitely a strong one.

Christy Maxfield 41:49
I also like the, what are your feelings about the growth strategy? Because at this point, it’s probably not just two of you or three of you making the decisions. You’ve brought in other professionals for your leadership team.

And I think one of us mentioned before, you might have a very strong personality, either among the business partners or among the leadership of the organization. And so if you’re biting your tongue about a business strategy that’s been proposed, this is the time to stop biting your tongue.

Jess Dewell 42:19
My third one is I experience, I see, I think, I feel, fill in the blanks, when I don’t feel like I’m on the same page with you. And you could be many years. So I’m acknowledging, I’m saying this, and by the way, this is self assessment a little bit.

It’s not even, here’s my key. When I’m in the middle of it, can I look at it? Did this thing show up?

Oh, I am feeling disconnected or, oh, I don’t feel like I’m being heard, or there might be a misunderstanding here. I’m sensing disconnect. I’m sensing dissonance.

Christy Maxfield 42:57
And to be able to bring that up to the other person, if you’re not having active dialogue about it, and your sense is that they have thoughts and feelings and beliefs that are no longer aligned, I think really working with someone to help you identify what you want the outcome of that conversation to be, and how you want to create a space where people feel like they can be honest and candid. You’re not happy. You’re not as energetic or enthusiastic as you used to be.

You’re not as positive as you used to be. We all seem to get in a room together and say we’re doing X, Y, and Z, and then you leave and do A, B, and C, and I’m not sure what’s going on here. I need you to help me understand.

So the art of learning how to start that conversation with somebody who you probably feel like you know as well, if not better than yourself.

Jess Dewell 43:49
Actually, and that was my fourth step, because we know the first three things about ourselves, and we are willing and open to share it with our partners, with our co-founders, with our management team. The last piece is you’re also open and willing to really hear and receive without judgment, without needing to solve problems that are theirs. And to your point that you were just talking, Christy, I think that’s the next thing.

So now you have this working place of I’ve got some safety. I’ve got some trust. I know that I can speak up because this is it.

I agree to speak up when. I agree to ask thoughtful questions to challenge us to grow, not to challenge you as a person.

Dean Barta 44:37
Yeah, true. What we’re all talking about too is that healthy confrontation to create better harmony, to move things forward with growth that everyone’s on the same page. And the confrontation doesn’t have to be negative.

And Christy, you had a great example of just asking those questions, those observation questions. I’m seeing this because you really, it’s inquiry instead of accusatory. And that’s how you’re going to find out more answers.

And it might be a discovery process for the person that’s receiving those questions.

Christy Maxfield 45:15
Yeah. I think it’s that mindset of curiosity that we can often lose when we come really familiar with someone else. And I think we’re also all talking about laying the norms for your culture.

So if you’re 10 years into this partnership and you’ve never had heart to hearts, if you’ve never laid your card on the table, if you’ve never come up and said, you’re just not yourself. Things are different. What’s going on?

How can I help? This is what I’m experiencing. This is how you’re showing up.

If you don’t have a culture where those conversations are normalized, it will feel very hard to start them. And you may avoid them completely. A lot of this is what is the culture you want to have, not just in your company, but with your partner?

What are our norms? What are our agreed-upon ways of working together? And what do I need in order to be able to do that self-assessment and that assessment of our partnership?

And have we already agreed on how we bring up sensitive topics to each other in a way that is about being curious and supportive and not being about accusatory and blaming? So again, that’s one of those things that founders often think can wait till later. Oh, once we get the company started and we’re making money and we’ve got more people, then we’re worried about culture.

But it starts at the very beginning.

Jess Dewell 46:34
And my fifth one was metrics. How do we manage and how do we take this shape of all this awesome, I’m going to call it awesomeness, that’s just out and around everywhere and do something with it? That’s going to be very individualized based off of the answers to these questions.

But I do think that quarterly and annually, where are the lenses based off of what’s going on in people’s worlds? Where are the lenses based off of what else might be going on and their risk tolerance and how other things are changing in the world? So it’s going to be, I didn’t bring any specific metrics other than thinking that having a shape with which to measure to and to know we’re either, we’ve moved or not, right?

Do we have the same pieces in our kaleidoscope and they just look different? Or do we have completely new pieces that we’re trying to fit into?

Dean Barta 47:29
Right. Metrics are really important. And this is part of, let’s say in the partnership agreement is what is the metrics?

How is the company going to be valued if any partner exits? I had personal experience with that in a partnership where we were on opposite ends of the spectrum of how to value the company. So once again, that’s a certain metric too, right?

And believe me, you don’t want to go into, okay, someone’s going to exit that partnership and you’re at A and he’s at Z. So that’s part of what I see is metrics to know how things are really measured.

Christy Maxfield 48:11
Yeah. And I think that we’re forgetting too is oftentimes partners are playing functional roles in the business. They’re not off doing their own thing and living their own lives while the management team is running and executing.

They’re often in the day-to-day operations. So just because you own the company doesn’t, in my opinion, mean there shouldn’t be a performance evaluation and a candid conversation about growth and opportunities. Obviously my recourse in being able to inspire you to change the way you’re behaving may be different than that of an employee, but to still have, if I was evaluating or being evaluated for my performance, regardless of my ownership position, would I be making the mark?

What does this role have to do to be successful? What are the metrics that this role is held accountable for to be successful? Even though I’m an owner and you can’t get rid of me, or you can, but it’s going to be really hard.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have expectations for how I’m performing and what success looks like, let alone what are the metrics for our partnership.

Jess Dewell 49:22
So everything we’ve talked about today is to help us get on the same page exactly where we are because when we’re in the middle of it, it’s fun to think we could start over. In reality, the best work is the work that’s right in front of us. The best opportunity really is what do we have and how do we ensure the next step is the right step if we don’t even know because we’re not even talking about what we want and how we see our business having changed over time and how we see the potential of the future and how we want to develop its future.

And ultimately, I think when I think of partnerships and longevity and success, most of the time, unless there’s a reason for somebody to go, we can avoid the, I just don’t want to be here anymore, or I got burned out, all the other kinds of things that can get in the way because we’re having these conversations and it becomes known. So we’re ready for our biggest takeaways of the day. What should we share?

What should we share?

Christy Maxfield 50:23
And I always feel like I’ve got in a gotcha. I didn’t see it coming. That’s me.

I’m not learning from experience here. It’s going to be a takeaway question.

Dean Barta 50:38
I actually, I think my biggest takeaway is the value of how you communicate in a partnership. Kudos to Christy about asking those questions to draw out. Ideally, if you could tell the truth and do that, a good partner will help draw that truth out with the approach of how you communicate.

And that might be the best value of having a partner is that they have a better viewpoint of your blind side than you do.

Christy Maxfield 51:16
Love it. I’m going to go with know what you want and tell the truth. That’s what I got.

Jess Dewell 51:23
Okay. I’ll say in the structure that I brought, that we expanded out right over the last several minutes, I would say, I think my biggest takeaway was don’t forget who else your wants and desires impact outside of your business partnership.

Christy Maxfield 51:39
That’s a good one.

Jess Dewell 51:40
Good one, Jessica. I got there. Okay.

Hey everybody you’re listening to It’s Your Business brought to you by the Bold Business Podcast, Christy, Dean, and myself. We are so glad to have been here with you today. Thanks so much.

And until then, we’ll see you next time. Every single time I have a conversation, I take away something that I want to share with 25 people. I know when you’re listening to this podcast, you’re also listening for that and will have something that you want to share.

In the comments, I would like for you to engage with us. What is that thing that you want to tell 25 people from this program? Here’s why it’s important. It’s important because, yeah, there are going to be how-tos. Yes, there are going to be steps. Yes, you’re going to be like, oh, I wish I wrote that down. I wish I wasn’t doing this and I could take action on that right now. But guess what? You’re not. So engage right now because that one thing you want to share with others will be the thing that you can figure out how to incorporate in your business, in your workflow, in your style tomorrow.

Announcer 52:45
Jess hosts the Bold Business Podcast to provide insights for building a resilient, profitable business by deeply understanding your growth strategy, ensuring market relevance and your company’s future. It is bold to deeply understand your growth strategy with your host, Jess Dewell . Get more information about how to drive solutions and reset your growth mindset at reddirection.com.

Thank you for joining us and special thanks to our post-production team at The Scott Treatment.