These Friends Really Take the Issue of Maintaining Successful Business Partnerships Without Harming the Friendship – Essence

Most friendships don’t survive a visit to Miami. Imagine what could occur when best friends start doing business together. Maintaining a healthy skilled relationship could be hard enough without having to consider the financial aspect.

70% business partnerships fail, and in accordance with some experts, this alarming statistic could also be attributable to a weak management team, financial insecurity, poor exit planning, and even child/family issues

Some businesses can mix friendship with professionalism and soar to the top. Take the leaders behind Aliya Huey and Scottley Innis, co-owners of , a rooftop restaurant positioned in Hotel Indigo WilliamsburgIn addition to the cocktail bar, they recently opened an Afro-Caribbean Asian Fusion restaurant,

They had known one another for years, working in promising industries—Innis in culinary entrepreneurship, Huey in hotel and hospitality—but eventually decided to hitch forces almost by accident.

“It just made sense,” Innis tells ESSENCE. “We’ve always gotten along as friends and I’ve watched her work, so it just made sense that we’d work on something together to take it to the next level.”

Now, years later, their partnership has matured they usually realize how much they didn’t know.

“We have completely different communication styles,” Huey tells ESSENCE.

She explains that while her extensive experience in hotel management has taught her to be diplomatic in most situations, Innis often takes a more direct approach.

“We learned to meet in the middle and read each other’s signals.”

Best friends in business Nicole Marzan and Nycole Flynn agree. Together they run boutique PR agency NMF Collective, a enterprise that appears very different from their perspective.

“Nicole taught me to be a little more pragmatic about how I approach things,” Flynn tells ESSENCE. “The entrepreneur in me is willing to take on anything and get the job done for our clients by any means necessary, but Nicole taught me to step back and assess our scope to determine how long it’s really going to take. How much money it’s really going to take and how much we should really charge. She sees my blind spots.”

Generally speaking, the most significant quality that each one business partners must possess is trust.

“Without that, there’s nothing,” Marzan says. “And that’s built through constant transparency.” She suggests establishing regular times to envision in with one another to debate funds, workflow processes, and business goals. Some experts recommend day by day status meetings to foster strong communication and quickly discover any challenges facing the business.

Above all, doing business with an acquaintance requires “respect.”

“We try to treat each other the way we would want someone to treat a family member,” Flynn says. “Talk to each other, be honest, and understand each other’s weaknesses so that if something falls through, you’re prepared to deal with it. And don’t just go into business together because you love each other. Make sure they can actually do the job.”