The surprising way I pick partners

I have many clients and many professional collaborators. I have few true partnerships. Here’s how I pick them.

My clients pay. That’s not really a partnership.

A client is someone who I help for a fee. It’s popular to describe people in a commercial relationship as partners. That’s not really right.

When money changes hands, there is an obligation on the part of the person sending the bills to deliver value to the person paying. While those relationships are cordial, they’re one-sided: I help you, you pay me. No matter how friendly things get, that’s the basis of the relationship.

When a client says “You were a great partner,” I accept the praise. When they say “Let’s do this as a partnership,” I know they don’t want to pay what I’m worth, so I decline.

My professional collaborators help our mutual clients. That’s not a true partnership either.

I work closely with publishers, ghostwriting agencies, copy editors, self-publishing consultants, cover designers, and publishing lawyers. I refer people to them; they refer people to me.

There’s a high likelihood after one of these referrals that we’ll be working with the same client on the same project. I need to count on their professionalism, and they need to count on mine. At the end, we’ll be able to look at the mutual client’s project and say “We did a good job on that.”

But those are partnerships of the moment. We’re professional colleagues, not joint venture partners.

When a professional collaborator says “You were a great partner,” I know I’ve done a good job of collaborating. When they say “Let’s do this a partnership,” I get nervous about boundaries being violated.

About my true partners

Twice in the last year, I have decided to build something with a true partner. The first is my partnership with Soqratic around virtual personas for authors. The second is a new project I haven’t announced yet, one that I’m very excited about.

I’m not a VC or a serial entrepreneur, so I don’t do this often. Both of my partners are mid-career — already accomplished in their own right, but with big opportunities ahead of them. One is a man, and one is a woman.

These partnership look like this:

• There is an opportunity to build something awesome.
• Neither of us can do it alone.
• I plan to put a lot of energy into our joint venture, and expect the same from my partner.
• I respect and trust my potential partner.
• I expect to learn a lot from my potential partner, and become a better person as a result.
• My potential partner expects to learn a lot from me, and become a better person as a result.

It’s those last two points that have opened my eyes. I don’t partner with people where I’m the expert and they’re the learner. Nor do I partner with people where I’m the ignorant one. We’re both going to grow, a situation which is highly rewarding.

In both of these cases, we didn’t set out to be partners. We started working together on something and found we were well-suited to building as a team. Things grew from there.

(This is my way of telling you not to reach out to “partner” with me — I’m unlikely to be interested.)

In these partnerships, my knowledge and skills and those of my partner are complementary. That’s what makes it rewarding. We’re continually having moments where one or the other of us lights up with new knowledge and understanding. We’re building things that are fundamentally ours.

If we succeed, we’ll make money together. But that’s never the most important goal.

It’s a vulnerable thing to do, to join a partnership like this. But the rewards are off the charts. It’s fun.

I like to build things. Building things together is an awesome experience. My available capacity to work on these projects creates awesome opportunities. Retirement? Ha!

Look out. Because great things are coming.