Joint business owners - balancing workload

Joint business owners - balancing workload

Author
Discussion

Undirection

Original Poster:

467 posts

120 months

Wednesday 22nd April 2015
quotequote all
How do you manage this? I work in a business with my business partner who also has other business interests. I look after the operational stuff which means all the day to day customer and operational teams management. He does mostly the rest which includes keeping an eye on the finances, managing online marketing and update (some to the site). It sounds fair but tbh his bit is about 10% of mine but I am not sure how to balance it better and what to suggest. I feel I am running and driving the business and he is just keeping an eye on it.

PBDirector

1,049 posts

129 months

Wednesday 22nd April 2015
quotequote all
Ooft! heavy topic. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. However bad yours is, I guarantee I did it worse smile

You have to deal with it now. Sit down with him/her discuss the roles & responsibilities & remuneration. Of course when you set up the business, you got an agreement between both of you as to who's doing what and how you're going to resolve disputes if one isn't pulling his/her weight...? No I'm guessing probably not, because most people don;t. Now's the time.

you're unlikely to get a great run of sales and that'll fix everything. It's just going to get worse, so sit down and have the conversation face to face. If he/she's a proper, reasonable, business partner he/she'll see it for what it is - you're doing it for the good of the company. If they go off the deep end, then you know where you really are.

Good luck!

jonamv8

3,145 posts

165 months

Wednesday 22nd April 2015
quotequote all
PBDirector said:
Ooft! heavy topic. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. However bad yours is, I guarantee I did it worse smile

You have to deal with it now. Sit down with him/her discuss the roles & responsibilities & remuneration. Of course when you set up the business, you got an agreement between both of you as to who's doing what and how you're going to resolve disputes if one isn't pulling his/her weight...? No I'm guessing probably not, because most people don;t. Now's the time.

you're unlikely to get a great run of sales and that'll fix everything. It's just going to get worse, so sit down and have the conversation face to face. If he/she's a proper, reasonable, business partner he/she'll see it for what it is - you're doing it for the good of the company. If they go off the deep end, then you know where you really are.

Good luck!
Solid advice

TurricanII

1,516 posts

197 months

Thursday 23rd April 2015
quotequote all
What is the share split and/or dividend payment? If they had 10% and you 90% then you doing 90% of the work wouldn't sound quite as bad as if the split were 49%/51% or 34% you/66% them..

If things won't change workload wise then you might be able to have a discussion about you increasing your ownership percentage of the business to reflect the workload. You might have to consider who paid for the startup costs too.. Some people would chuck a load of cash into a business and consider that to be their main contribution while you put in sweat equity.