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Successful Networking: Traits to Look for in a Business Partner

Guest post by: Kalen Smith

Article Overview: Many business owners need a partner to make their venture a success. It is human nature to want to work with someone a similar personality. But what qualities should they really be looking for?

Successful Networking: Traits to Look for in a Business Partner

Starting a business is one of the most difficult things anyone can do and many of the best entrepreneurs feel that they just cannot handle it on their own. While entrepreneurs can easily hire a business manager, it is often better for them to find an equally motivated partner who would like to have a stake in the company. While finding a business partner is often great for the business, entrepreneurs often look for the wrong things when they are making this crucial decision. One of the frequent mistakes that entrepreneurs make when seeking a business partner is that they look for someone who is mirror image of themselves. This tends to be because they have a strong ego that leads them to believe that they are the perfect fit for a business and that anyone who is not like them will take away from the business's success. When the ego gets in the way, they fail to recognize that other people have skills and personality traits that make them valuable to business beyond simply sharing the workload. Another reason entrepreneurs look for like-minded business partners is that feel they will spend less time arguing with someone who thinks exactly the same way they do. When I worked with a business partner with similar visions and aspirations I found myself quickly bored and annoyed that I just heard a parrot reiterating everything I thought. It may be challenging to work with a business partner who thinks differently, but it is even more rewarding. It keeps the entrepreneurial journey fresh, exciting and constantly moving in a new direction.

Building on theories created by the Myer's Briggs personality model, a profile has been created for the ideal entrepreneur. It should be no surprise that successful entrepreneurs are visionaries who are constantly questioning the way things are done and are not afraid to challenge the status quo. Research also claims that the entrepreneur prefers to avoid structured thinking because it hinders their creativity. On the other hand, common sense tells us that they still need to have some level of organization to manage their projects efficiently and effectively. Entrepreneurs are also outgoing individuals with strong leadership and communication skills. However, they also are comfortable working alone as they strategize and conduct research.

These traits should not be representative of every member in the team. As mentioned earlier, the project would become lame if every member of the team perfectly matched this profile. Also, some of the traits described tend to come from contrasting personalities, so it is better when partners with different ideas and varying skill sets come together. If one of them is a natural leader the other may be the one who knows how to sit down and do more of the grunt work.

The most important point of this research is that entrepreneurs must remember that looking for a business partner should be different than looking for a best friend. A business is most successful when different experiences and personality traits are brought together like reactive chemicals, leading to an explosion of success and excitement in an environment that would otherwise be stagnant and dull.

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Article Tags: business partner, successful networking



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Books for Women Entrepreneurs - There's a thread for good books in the Resources folder, but it doesn't target books for businesswomen particularly, so I figured I'd start such a thread here. It doesn't matter how successful you are in your business - it's always possible to learn something new. In subsequent posts I give Table of Contents and brief descriptions for various titles - most of them devoted to the businesswoman - and sometimes a review. If anyone else has read a review, or has read the book and found it useful, please comment! 1. The Old Girl's Network 2. Mother's Work 3. The 7 Greatest Truths About Successful Women 4. Pitch Like A Girl 5. Workplace Warrior 6. Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the Modern Consumer 7. Contingency Planning & Disaster Recovery 8. She Wins, You Win 9. Napoleon On Project Management 10. Why Good Girls Dont' Get Ahead, But Gutsy Girls Do 11. Comeback Moms: How to Leave Work, Raise Children, and Restart your Career even If you Haven't Had a Job in Years 12. The One Minute Millionaire 13. Talking From 9 to 5 14. Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambitions 15. 101 Best Home Based Businesses for Women: Everything You Need to Know About Getting Started on the Road To Success 16. Work With Passion: How to Do What You Love for a Living. Revised and Expanded 17. Fail-Proof Your Business: Beat the Odds and be Successful 18. Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End 19. Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide 20. Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen 21. Start Small, Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start - and Run - Your Own Successful Business 22. Rewired, Rehired or Retired: A Global Guide for the Experienced Worker 23. The Martha Rules: 10 essentials for achieving success as you start, build or manage a business 24. The Essentials of Entrepreneurship: What it takes to create Successful Enterprises 25. Net Ready: Strategies for Success in the E-conomy 26. The Promotable Woman 27. Leave The Office Earlier: The Productivity Pro shows you how to do more in less time and feel great about it 28. The Work At Home Balancing Act: The professional resource guide for managing yourself, your work, and your family at home 29. Secrets of Six-Figure Women
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Re: What's 1 word to describe what your business will be in 2012 - Successful.
Marketing 2012 - I am interested in what works for you in 2012, Social Networking, Search Engine traffic, Blogs, Articles, Forums, what? This is a quote from a 2009 Topic "Twitter, Social Networking, What is your Method? From my experience, social networking traffic (Twitter included) also converts at a far lower rate than search engine traffic. Evan Is this still true, or do you use something that gives us better returns and conversions


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