When I began my career in cannabis the feel for potential partnerships was very similar to the feel of it in 2020. Meaning that 6 years ago, partnerships were still very prominent and desired in order to scale efforts and claim larger territories. This is STILL an industry full of startups making the industry itself a “startup” industry. With that being said, businesses and individuals are still forming partnerships daily and for that reason, I wanted to pitch in my 2 rusty pennies for the ones out there that haven’t taken the leap of faith on partnerships.
Partnerships can look like finding another individual to contribute to your business idea, partnering with another business to form a bigger business or offer additional services/products and it can also look like a million other things just with different details. Either way, you are joining forces in attempts to shortcut through the industry or provide greater value. Partnering with the right entity or individual could really accelerate you to success and level you up. But with everything, there is a polarity to that.
Partnering with the wrong entity or individual could really just be detrimental to your career in the industry. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions and although you may have all the greatest intentions with forming a potential partnership, if you aren’t careful and intentional it could just cost you your business. I am aiming for the bit of advice that I provide in this article to keep you off that road to hell and onto the road to success.
Depending on your age, some of us are aware of our values and what we value in life. This is related to your value structures and additionally, you have a value structure for your working life as well. For myself, I strive to surround myself with people that talk about the future, healing the people and healing the world. These are 3 things I am interested in and curious about, so that means I value these and the activities that play into these. I also value people that are in efforts of these things or are interested in these things as well, making those people good potential partner candidates. Things like owning a bunch of stores, becoming famous or controlling a lot of moving money are things that I am either less interested in or not at all. These would be things that I don’t value as much or at all and the people that do wouldn’t be very good potential partner candidates. Their efforts, interests, ideas, connections and dreams would be around things that are misaligned with mine, making things very difficult going forward. When you push a business forward it’s critical to have business values that match up with the people operating the business because if you don’t, the misalignment can be reflected in the business efforts and can cause confusion among consumers who will blame the inconsistency.
You will want to avoid being inconsistent in the public eye because that can lead to a growing distrust for your company and you don’t want that, you want to get and maintain the trust of the public because they are your potential customers. Values are great and it’s not like you have to check off every single value in alignment with yours. Check off core values as you meet people and get to know your potential partners, ask questions and let them tell you on and on what they dream of. If there are commonalities in your values and theirs, I would say that is a good potential partner candidate.
Alignment of values
Fixer, Innovator, Builder- I believe there are 3 personas that you need for a great idea to be manifested through the world. Those 3 personas are a builder, a fixer and an optimizer. We could all be a little bit of these things but there is one of these 3 personas that we resonate the most with. The builder is relating to those that thrive in the area of starting things. The fixer is relating to those that thrive in the area of coming into a situation or existing model and solving existing problems. Lastly, the optimizer is relating to those that thrive in the area of optimizing current systems and squeezing all they can out of a situation or model. Identify yourself as one of these 3, where are you most dominant and passionate? Is it when you are building things, fixing things/people or optimizing things? List these 3 personas from strongest to weakest to get an idea of how you relate to them. After you have done this, you can recognize what areas you need to be thinking about supplementing for.
As you meet potential partners, account from their stories of business which one of these 3 personas they are. And if you can’t decide, just ask them point-blank which one they most resonate with. You need an answer and if the answer is one of the 3, that is not your dominant persona. I would say that you have a good candidate for a potential partner. They can supplement in areas that are not instinctively the areas that you thrive in. Now, I recognize that there are 3 personas, so your question might be, does this mean you suggest we always have a 3-way partnership, a trio? Not exactly. You can certainly start with 2 and can always be open to a 3rd and that can look like a partnership with an individual or entity. Or you can certainly accomplish great things with 2 or fewer people but having these 3 personas is a must. Do the exercise, find out which one you are, and avoid partnering with those that share your dominant persona.
My last penny, I guess this would be my 3 rusty penny piece instead of 2, puts the attention on the legal documents that you have between you and your potential partners. I would actually say that this one is the most critical of the 3 because one bad agreement could cost you everything. The way that I was taught to think about agreements was to really look at them to be used in the time of disagreements. So think of them as disagreement agreements, used in times when there is a disagreement within the company. What this looks like is you and your partner(s) gather together and come up with splits, duties and other specifics of operations and compensation, then you take it to an attorney and they help you put it together in a formal, legitimate document.
Make sure to get an attorney that will explain the details and complexities so that you can feel 100% comfortable with the agreement. It does suck to have to pay an attorney and get this worked out and written up but it is so worth it when you go through with it and sign the paper knowing you have a solid foundation with you and your partner(s). If you don’t want to pay an attorney, I would strongly advise you to get out there and start building relationships with new and upcoming attorneys!
Like I said earlier, partnerships can look so many different ways varying how many people are involved, how much compensation, when is compensation, how much is contributed upfront and so many more little differentiators. The things mentioned in this article are just little pieces of advice from my experiences and sources of advice. If you are in the business or are looking at getting into the industry, I really encourage you to take a few notes from this article and use it in your partner selection process. It is a trust-building exercise when you form partnerships and they won’t all be good partnerships. That is why we have processes that we can build that will help us when making a decision with such great importance.