Have you ever felt like the only way to be successful in this industry is to be a husband and wife photography team and become like Justin and Mary… Amy and Jordan… Katelyn and Michael? Heck, there’s even Jasmine and JD? Preach it sister. You are not alone. We’ve all felt the same way but guess what? You don’t need to shove a camera in your history-loving, car-obsessed, engineer of a husband’s face and tell him he’s going to become a photographer and be your photog-hubby and all of your work-marriage dreams will come true. You also don’t need to land yourself in your local photography group dropping “I’m single” hints searching for that perfect hubby for your entrepreneurial single-self.
There are SO many benefits to having a business partner, we talk about those here over on Shaunae Teske’s blog, click here to read it! If you haven’t read that yet, go do it now! I’ll wait for ya. 😉
If you’re reading all of this like “HELL YEAH GIRL!” then I’ve got the key to helping you find your perfect business partner, the husband to your wife, or the Ashley to your Ashley. (see what I did there?!) Now you wanna know how to find that right person!
Let’s clear the air first. Your best friend PROBABLY won’t make the list of the right people to be your business partner. The photographer with that cute office space down the street probably won’t do either. It’s probably someone you least expected that’ll be your perfect match. Think of a few people that may cut it… YES you can put your best friend on that list. Let’s continue on to find out who you should consider!
Ask yourself these eight questions before cliff jumping off the edge and plummet into the ocean of partnership!
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Do you trust this person?
This is probably the most important tip. Would you trust them with your bank account information? Because if you haven’t thought of it already, they’ll HAVE your bank account information – your business bank account information.
- Have long have you known them?
If your answer is less than a year, nope. People can change gradually as they start to do like Shrek and peel off their layers.
- Do you have similar goals to one another?
If you both are keen to becoming wedding photographers, you’re probably golden but if one of you wants to go into product photography and the other wants to travel to destination weddings and adventure with their couples, you’re probably not going to be the best partners. Your goals don’t need to be exact replicas but overall, they should be similar.
- Are your strengths varying?
To make the most of your partnership, make your productivity double, and really reap the benefits of being business partners, make sure you vary in your strong suits. For example, Ashley Kay is a total entertainer at heart so she’s GREAT with being out and doing things. She also conveniently hates numbers and structure, where I am totally a structured person that loves anything spreadsheet related. What I don’t love, she loves and what she doesn’t, I do. It’s perfect. We can split up our responsibilities to the person that thrives off of each. We get done twice as much and are both extremely happy doing so!
- Are they your opposite?
Just like our interests vary, so do most other things. Make sure you balance each other out with personalities too!
- Are you both leaders or is one of you a leader and one a follower?
Being a business owner, it can be easy to like to lead. It’s much easier when one of you is a natural born leader, and the other loves to be along for the party! If you are both leaders, you can try each leading certain aspects of the business and be sure that neither of you cross over boundary lines. What’s yours is yours and what they’re responsible for is theirs.
- Can you have a trial run with them – almost like a working interview?
Before Ashley and I started our business, we spent a wedding season working alongside each other. We were swapping services in a way. We quickly figured out that we both like to photograph different things, and got along swimmingly. If we hadn’t had smooth situations, weren’t able to trust the other, or realized we didn’t like the way they handled any parts of the day, we wouldn’t be good business partners.
- After your trial run, ask yourself, are you 100% positive they’re your person?
If you can, you may have found your other half and the person to make your life that much more joyful!
Now get out there and find your Ashley. 😉
If you have any questions about business partnerships or would like us to write on any other topic, feel free to shoot us an email at hello@kayxbee.com. We’d love to hear from you!
