Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

This post over at Here comes the Blog, A dicey decision got my synapses to snapping. She’s writing about marriage and couples but her thoughts apply just as well to business relationships. Through the years, I’ve done any number of deals - big, little, in writing, with a handshake. Some worked; some died a horrible, flaming death. There were key success/failure elements common to all, with commitment being one of (if not THE) biggest.

Even as we’re getting teary while the organist plays the recessional, we don’t really expect the happy couple to do the “til death do us part” bit. And, yet, in business deals - from mega-mergers to two-person partnerships - we somehow think we’ll live happily ever after.

Of course, you never want to go into a deal thinking it’ll fail. But, in reality some deals should never have happened in the first place (read about some of the mega-mergers; check out the civil law suits in your local paper and so on.) Even the best opportunity is a bit dicey - no matter how great the idea, there are no guarantees the idea can be turned into a viable business. And, the best of relationships can fail in times of adversity and risk. As noted in the dicey decision post, couples have to trust one another to gamble. If one of you feels uncomfortable letting the other play the game, roll the dice, take the chance - chances are it’s not a marriage (or business relationoship) made to last.

Not to be all doom and gloom. There are successes out there - Hewlett and Packard for example. But, then they were just a bit smarter than the average bear and they worked very hard for years - and they had core values to which they stuck through thick and thin.

Tags: entrepreneur sanity check, business development, strategic alliances