Not Spotting a Narcissist in a Business Relationship May Cost You a Fortune

This is what my 22-year business experience has taught me

You think 17 minutes is a long reading time? This article could help gain back years of your life. A 22-year experience of business relationships revealed to me: Choosing the right people is paramount to any business, spotting the wrong ones, even more so. Neglecting that may cost you everything — from health to career.

Photo by Mohammad Metri on Unsplash

The idea behind a partnership is simple: Let each of us do what we do best, and as a result achieve more than we would have done on our own. The synergy effect is what makes people collaborate; it has been proven many times: when the right people come together, then 1+1 is not 2 — it is 3, 4, 5, or even 10.

On the other hand, choosing the wrong business partner will not put you at minus 1, or minus 10 — it will put you out of business.

The truth is that 50% of all new small businesses fail within the first 5 years of their existence, and one of the main reasons for their failure is inadequate partnerships. Partnerships include not only your business partner, but every business relation that is vital to your venture. A crucial supplier of raw materials, for instance, may hurt your business perhaps not as much as a bad accountant, but seriously enough to make you lose your most important customers.

Businesses rely on personalities, and not just on skills

Whoever is part of your business is part of an invisible web of trust. Whatever relations you have spun, you did to allocate work to other people with the idea in mind to achieve synergy. Even in today’s online micro-business world, there is a plethora of things that you can’t do yourself, and for which you need to choose someone to do them for you.

And any one of your choices is a potential risk to your operation. Whenever you hand over responsibilities, you hand over money and time. So it’s of utmost importance that the people involved are trustworthy and reliable. Many new businesses think that skill is the only factor that really counts; if only they had the right experts, they would succeed.