Choosing a Business Partner – Bet on the Jockey, not the Horse

Lone Star Park by Travis Isaacs (Creative Commons License)

Lone Star Park by Travis Isaacs (Creative Commons License)

When it comes to deciding who will be your business partner or a business investor, choose your associates with as much care as you would a romantic partner. When it comes to selecting these people, don’t you just look at their reputation, their track record, or their wallet. Look at who they are as a person. Look at how they work in relationships with others, their values, and their personality. If you are going to be intimately involved with this person from a business perspective, it should be someone you enjoy being around and who has values and goals that are compatible with yours.

When Gary Vaynerchuk evaluates startup owners and businesses for investment purposes, he says he bets on the jockey, not the horse. That makes perfect sense because there are times of great ideas out there but a much smaller group of people who can take one of these ideas and execute on it in effectively. As Gary would say, “Ideas are shit. Execution’s the game.

Think of your business relationships as a “business marriage.” These are people with whom you will be legally connected and have fiduciary obligations to each other. And if things don’t work out, you will need to get a “business divorce” where one partner buys the other out or when the partners decide to shut down the business and divide whatever assets are left. I’ve worked on collaborative divorces where the owners realized that they could no longer work together on a business but they could agree on what terms they wanted for their separation. I’ve also worked on contentious business divorces where each side has legal representation and the contract negotiation is longer and the parties are much more antagonistic.

In many cases, many problems in a business relationship or the business divorce could have been avoided had the parties verified that they were on the same page from the beginning of the relationship regarding their goals, how they were to run the business, and how they will resolve problems. Unfortunately, too many people use poorly written contract templates they find on the Internet or proceed without one at all. They don’t understand that it is cheaper and easier to write an effective contract with a lawyer at the big getting of a business relationship then for each side to have to hire someone to negotiate their business break up when things don’t work out.

Choose your jockey (business partner) with care. If they treat other people poorly, they will treat you poorly. If you think you can manage or manipulate a person’s behavior, you are already asking for trouble. If your prospective partner balks at the idea of solidifying your relationship with an operating agreement or investor agreement, turn and run away. No one’s money is rich enough to make up for the headaches and heartbreak that result from not having a proper contract in place. In fact, the appropriate response to a request for a contract should be something along the lines of, “Duh.”

If you want to chat more about the importance of business contracts or how to write one to accommodate your needs, you can contact me directly or connect with me on TwitterFacebookYouTube, or LinkedIn.

Make Your New Year’s Resolution Legally Binding

Resolving to Write More - a Worthy Thought by Carol VanHook from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

Resolving to Write More – a Worthy Thought by Carol VanHook from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

As I was reading my Twitter feed the other day, I saw a post that said only 8% of people keep their New Year’s Resolutions. I don’t know if that statistic is accurate but I believe the number is low. If you want help keeping your New Year’s Resolution, make it legally binding with a contract.

Here’s what I suggest: get a friend who also has a New Year’s resolution and write a simple agreement with benefits for sticking to your resolution and penalties if you don’t. The penalty has to be painful enough that it motivates you to want to avoid it. And it helps if your friend is kind of a jerk who will hold you to it.

If I were writing this type of contract, it would be something like this:

Joe and Mike’s Resolution Agreement

Parties.  The Parties to this Agreement are Joe Smith and Mike Jones.

Consideration. In consideration of mutual desires to improve our lives and ourselves, we have created this binding agreement to stay motivated to stick to our New Year’s Resolutions.

Joe’s Resolution. Joe currently weighs 250 pounds. Joe resolves to weigh 220 pounds or less on December 31, 2015. If Joe fails to do this, Joe will donate $1,000 to the charity of Mike’s choice on that day.

Mike’s Resolution. Mike currently smokes a pack of cigarettes per day. Mike resolves to be a non-smoker by December 31, 2015. If Mike fails to do this, Mike will donate $1,000 to the charity of Joe’s choice on that day.

The Celebration. If both of us are successful in keeping our resolutions, we will celebrate by getting opening day tickets for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

This is a real contract. This contract is governed by Arizona law. All disputes will be resolved in litigation in Maricopa County.  The non-prevailing Party will be responsible for the prevailing Party’s attorneys’ fees. The Parties can modify this Agreement only in writing that’s signed by both Parties (but you better have a good reason to ask to change this Agreement).

Signed by:

 

Joe Smith                    Date                                       Mike Jones                 Date

 

Witnessed by:

 

Friend Name #1           Date                                    Friend Name #2             Date

 

I threw in a celebration clause so both sides would have a reason to encourage their friend to keep their resolution, plus it’s always good to celebrate successes. I added in witnesses so there would be more people holding them accountable.  I’d tell both sides to put a copy of the contract on their refrigerator so they’d see it every day and remember the promises they made.

Contracts are fun, and they can be simple and personalized and still be valid. Good luck to everyone who making resolutions for the next year. I hope you’re successful. If you want to chat with me about this topic, feel free to connect with me on TwitterFacebookYouTubeLinkedIn, or you can email me.

Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.

Hat tip to my friend Jeff Moriarty for suggesting this as a topic.

When’s the Last Time You Reviewed Your Contract Templates?

Inspiration as Commodity by exquisitur from Flickr

Inspiration as Commodity by exquisitur from Flickr

I had the pleasure of speaking to the Photographer’s Adventure Club last week. In addition to discussion the basics of copyright and how to protect their rights in their work, we talked a lot about the importance of contracts.

I know the subject of contracts makes a lot of people’s eyes glaze over – it’s that fine-print-legalese-crap-that-no-one-reads-anyway stuff. A lot of people think contracts are boring and a lot of contracts are . . . but they don’t have to be.

I love contracts. They create the basis of so many relationships – whether they are written, oral, or pieced together through a series of emails. Too often people come to me with a question about a problem in one of their professional relationships and when I ask, “What does your contract say about this?” the answer is “I don’t know” or “We don’t have a contract.” We can still resolve the problem but we could have avoided a lot of headaches and frustration by putting everything on paper in advance so everyone’s on the same page from the beginning.

Having contract templates is often the best way to create the relationship with others that you want. In regards to photographers they should have a file of contract templates for clients who hire them, for other photographers when they have to hire an additional person to work a shoot, a copyright license for publications, a model release, and a location release. And contracts don’t have to be long, complicated, or riddled with crazy legalese to be effective. I prefer to write contracts in straight-forward English and I wish more of my legal counterparts would get on board with this idea.

And contracts can be fun. Recently I saw an episode of Man v. Food where Adam Richman took on the Hellfire Challenge at Smoke Eaters – 12 wings covered in crazy hot sauce. Before he could begin the challenge he had to sign a waiver that required the person signing to acknowledge that “I am an idiot.”

You can put almost anything you want in your contract as long as it isn’t illegal. And if you downloaded your contract templates off the internet, that’s not a bad place to look for ideas, but you should at least consult an attorney to make sure it suits your needs before you start using it. If the contract is valid and you sign it, you’re stuck with the terms so you want to make sure you’re not opening yourself up to get screwed over.

If you need additional information about the minimum you need for a valid contract, please check out my video below or here.


If you want to chat about your contract needs, please send me an email or contact a business attorney in your community.

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Simple Contracts with Foamy the Squirrel

Merry Christmas from our Ninja family to yours! by thotfulspot from Flickr

Merry Christmas from our Ninja family to yours! by thotfulspot from Flickr

If you want to create a contract, the minimum you need are three things.

  1. An Offer
  2. Acceptance of the Offer
  3. Consideration

Consideration is a legal term for a “bargained-for exchange,” which is a give-and-take between the parties. And it has to be an exchange that is reasonable. You probably have consideration if you want to sell your car for the Kelley Blue Book value vs selling it for 2 cents.

Check out this Foamy cartoon that appears to create a contract (I heart Foamy):

Here’s the contract offer I heard: Germaine will get Foamy a ninja for Christmas in exchange for shutting up about his disappointment over the ninja gig. And Foamy accepted with the caveats that the Ninja not be American unless it’s Chuck Norris and the penalty for not delivering a ninja would be that thugs get to rape Germaine with her own severed limbs.

Was there consideration? That’s up for debate. Foamy can be pretty awesomely obnoxious. I can see someone offering a higher ticket item to make him shut up. The big problem I see if you can’t make a contract for something that is illegal. Owning a person is illegal which could be one interpretation of the contract’s terms. Foamy’s caveat about the severed limbs obviously doesn’t hold water.

Check how the contract was executed:

It sounds like Germaine was blackmailed into giving Foamy a ninja, which arguably makes this whole exchange invalid since she was afraid for her life and not acting to get the bargained for exchange. Setting that aside, I can see consideration in exchanging a toy for getting someone to shut up. Foamy could argue that both parties knew that he was bargaining for a real, breathing, human ninja, but that would make the contract invalid since owning a person is illegal. In the end, I think Foamy should take his plush ninja and be happy he got a present.

Happy Ninja Christmas Everyone!

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Please visit my homepage for more information about Carter Law Firm.