No matter what industry you work in, one of the bigger partnership issues you will face is finding the balance between the work you do and the work your partner or partners do. How much is your effort worth? How much is their effort worth? Are you working 40-50 hours/week? Does your work require lots of time in front of the screen while your partner is eating lunches and dinners with clients? Depending on how you well you and your partners have balanced these issues, you may start feeling resentment and anger that transforms into disputes that can eventually threaten an otherwise profitable relationship with dissolution.
This doesn’t always happen quickly and may only build up over time. You probably didn’t expect this imbalance at the beginning. You were excited. Your partner was excited too, and you both agreed to split the work and split the profits 50-50. You did the smart thing and put together a partnership agreement to make sure things went well. Maybe it even went well for a while, but then things began to change.
Your passion for the business drives you to work hard. This business is the most important thing in your life. You put in the nights and weekends required to help the business grow and prosper. But you come to find out that your partner doesn’t respond the same way.
You partner sees how much work you’re doing, and they realize they can do a bit less and count on you to cover for them. Slowly, they start doing less and less as you pick up more and more of their slack. You realize you are doing 70 percent of the work, but you’re still getting just 50 percent of the money the company earns because of the agreement that you signed. Now you’re angry and it feels like every day is a fight.
If you get to this point and find yourself in a dispute or find yourself hoping to end the partnership, we’d be happy to visit with you so you can be sure you know what legal steps you will have to take to make the changes necessary to enjoy your work again. Call us at –214-242-6444 today to talk through your options with one of our attorneys.
