If You've Outgrown a Business Partner, Say This — Transcript

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1. 0:00so far. Hey Alex, a friend of mine owns
2. 0:0245% of my business. He's a mentor and
3. 0:04investor, but I'm at a stage where my
4. 0:05knowledge exceeds his, but I feel bad
5. 0:06about suggesting a buyout at this stage.
6. 0:08What to do? Tell the truth, dude. When
7. 0:10for everyone.
8. 0:11When you have a contentious or hard
9. 0:14conversation that you have to have with
10. 0:15someone, say all the things you would
11. 0:17say to a friend about the situation.
12. 0:19I would say, "Hey, listen, man. You own
13. 0:2145% of the business. You've been a
14. 0:23mentor and investor. I just feel like
15. 0:25I'm at a stage right now that my
16. 0:26knowledge is exceeding yours, and I feel
17. 0:28like your value added to the business is
18. 0:30less and not commensurate to the 45%,
19. 0:32and I feel bad about suggesting a buyout
20. 0:34at this stage, but I'm not sure what to
21. 0:35do.
22. 0:37How do you think we can move forward
23. 0:38from this?"
24. 0:41And then now you're going to have an
25. 0:42open discussion. You've put your cards
26. 0:44on the table, and you might be like,
27. 0:45"You know what? I've been sensing the
28. 0:46same thing." And it depends on how good
29. 0:47of a relationship you have. You might be
30. 0:48like, "Do you want me out, or do you
31. 0:49want me to downsize my position?"
32. 0:52Um you know, what do you want? Because
33. 0:53here's the other side of this is that
34. 0:54like did he get 45% for doing nothing?
35. 0:56Uh did he get 45% for helping out? Did
36. 0:59he get 45% putting capital in? Right?
37. 1:01There's There's different things. Like
38. 1:02he If he put capital in,
39. 1:04that's kind of tough cuz he took real
40. 1:05financial risk, and it worked out, and
41. 1:07that's kind of the nature of an
42. 1:08investor. Um if he if he did kind of
43. 1:11call it advisory help, and you didn't
44. 1:12know what you were doing, and he helped
45. 1:13you set you on your way, like that was
46. 1:15the contribution the fact that the
47. 1:16business worked um is a testament to the
48. 1:18fact that like he was greater than uh
49. 1:20zero value add. Um but I think you can
50. 1:22say like, "Listen, I think the
51. 1:23compensation right now is demotivating
52. 1:25for me, and I think long term it's going
53. 1:27to prevent me from wanting to continue
54. 1:28work on this thing." And so if he's not
55. 1:30going to work on it, this is like, "So
56. 1:31we need to reconcile this."
57. 1:35Just state the facts. Tell the truth.
58. 1:37Like I'm telling you guys like whenever
59. 1:38I have a hard conversation, I say all
60. 1:39the stuff that I'm thinking, too. So
61. 1:41it's like, "I really don't want to have
62. 1:42this conversation, but I'm in this weird
63. 1:43spot, and I don't want to piss you off,
64. 1:45and I'm very afraid of messing up our
65. 1:47relationship, and I even was afraid to
66. 1:48bring this up because I don't, but I
67. 1:49think I'm at a point where like I can't
68. 1:51not bring this up anymore." I just say
69. 1:53it. Just say it up front, right? If you
70. 1:55like this video and you're a owner who
71. 1:56wants to break through your current
72. 1:57revenue ceiling, I distilled every
73. 1:59lesson from scaling 10 businesses past
74. 2:0110 million and three businesses past 100
75. 2:03million into a completely free scaling
76. 2:05roadmap that I've used to go from zero
77. 2:06to one, zero to 10, and zero to 100
78. 2:08plus. And so you can click here and you
79. 2:10can check it out. Again, absolutely
80. 2:11free. And since you're a business owner,
81. 2:13I appreciate you and enjoy.