🏴☠️ New Year, New Opportunities, Goals – And New Partnerships!
Back To BlogUnconventional Entrepreneur
Shannon Jean
New Year, New Opportunities.
New Partnerships!
But what if your Partner wants to be treated like an employee?
This is a disaster.
But one you can avoid with some planning.
Heres how to avoid this potential time bomb and ensure you and your potential partner are on the same page BEFORE you start a business together.
If you are getting ready to start a business or a project - you need to get everyone on the same page.
- How can you ensure that each party will know exactly what is expected of them and how the partnership will work?
- How will finances be handled?
- Who will manage what, and what happens when things go wrong?
- Here's the time-tested way that has worked for me.
Years ago, I created a document called the Working Agreement.
The agreement is not a contract. Instead, it is a framework to build your partnership.
The Working Agreement is the foundation of a healthy partnership for your business, side hustle, or one-time project.
By creating a Working Agreement, you take the first steps to create a solid communication and accountability system.
Because the Working Agreement is also a test!
All parties to the agreement are responsible for completing various sections of the document particularly as it relates to what each party will be responsible for.
If one party struggles to complete their portion of the agreement, this could signal how they may (or may not) handle their responsibilities in the future.
By using the Working Agreement to weed out potential partners that actually want to be employees, I have saved myself countless hours and massive amounts of money.
Check out the video below, where I review the Working Agreement's critical aspects.
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Now, I want to talk to you about goals. You set some for 2025, right? But first, here is a quick message from my favorite Entrepreneurial support group, Tribe.
OK, about those goals! I hate to tell you this, but:
Goals are for losers.
Goals make you a failure, most of the time.
When you set a goal, you immediately place yourself in a 'failure state' until you reach it, which can be draining and demoralizing.
Winners use Systems to find success.
But Systems by themselves are not enough.
Your systems need Milestones as road markers to be sure you are headed in the right direction.
If you do something every day, it's a system. If you are waiting to achieve it sometime in the future, it's a goal.
Want faster results in whatever you are working on?
Use Systems. Not Goals.
Systems allow for flexibility and small wins that help propel you to more success.
Goals are stagnating and finite.
Goals can put you into a focus-trap that keeps you from seeing other opportunities.
Systems > Goals
"Goal-oriented people exist in a state of continuous pre-success failure at best and permanent failure at worst if things never work out.
Systems people succeed every time they apply their systems because they did what they intended to do."
Example:
Goal: I will write a book and publish it by the end of the year.
System: I will write for one hour per day.
The system opens up more opportunities.
You may post that one hour of writing on X occasionally. You can also post to your blog, Substack, or Medium, allowing you to build an audience along the way.
Youre writing is the system. Publishing is the milestone. It doesnt matter where you publish. You are creating content for your book.
James Clear of Atomic Habits: "Goals determine your direction. Systems determine your progress."
With Systems, you can adjust, take advantage of more opportunities, and build small successes that propel you forward.
This works for me. What works for you?
Have a great week!
Shannon
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