Collaborative post – may contain affiliate links

Veteran business owners will often make the recommendation that you should avoid running a company with people you care about. Friends, family, and your special someone are all prime candidates for the sort of person you’d want to work with, and you probably already admire a lot of their qualities. Unfortunately, though, running a business with people like this can be unnecessary stress on your relationship with them. To help you out with this, this post will be exploring some methods which can be used to ensure that your business doesn’t get in the way of the people you love.

Two Businesses

Some of the world’s strongest business partnerships have been those which have originated from the same group of people. Having already broken the ice a long time ago, negotiating with people like this will be easier than doing it with anyone else, and you can build two businesses which work in harmony with one another. This leaves both parties free to get on with their own  work, while also taking away the reliance you have on one another to make money. There are few things worse than having arguments because one person can’t work as quickly as the other.

Sub-Contracting

Persuading someone to start their own business isn’t always the easiest idea, but may mean that the other side of this arrangement isn’t unhappy with the idea of not owning a business. In this case, you could work together as subcontractors, with you passing work down to your friend or family member in the form of freelance work. You will need to manage the legal side of this, with options like CIS registration making it far easier to handle payroll and taxation. Along with this, you will also need to make sure that they are aware that this work may not be permanent. If you can’t get work, you won’t be able to pay them.

Employment

Finally, if the idea above don’t work out, you could think about the idea of simply employing the person you want to work with. While this means they will have less freedom, you can offer them a profit sharing clause in their contract. This means that they will still benefit from making the business grow, but will also have the freedom to move on in the future, without forcing you to find ways to fill in the gaps while they still own part of it. Employing someone is a complicated process, and you will probably need help along the way. A dedicated HR company is usually the best option for this.

Hopefully, this post will push you in the right direction when it comes to working with the people you care about. A lot of people think that their relationship is too strong to be hurt by something like this, but there are few things worse than not being able to meet each others expectations. It’s best avoided, and there are some easy ways to achieve this goal, making it worth putting effort into this as you begin to grow.