Occasionally, friends will go into business together and achieve great success. More often, friends go into business together and wind up hating each other by the end. Starting a business can be risky for a variety of reasons. Starting one with a friend brings another dynamic into it. Money, different business approaches, and levels of professionalism are things that can cause huge rifts quickly.

Keeping situations civil and productive might be a challenge, but not impossible. When it comes to how to make sales online and keep friends, it can take a bit more attention and patience from everyone involved.

Talk It Out, Buddy

First, make sure anyone who’s part of the business works well together. A good way to test that is to collaborate on something on a smaller scale first. Working on a self-contained project can give prospective partners an idea of how the business might function. If a team can keep it together for a weekend event or project, then moving forward might have potential.

Business partners need to be able to communicate effectively. Two friends starting a venture should already be excellent at discussing ideas and issues with each other. Presumably, that’s how they got the notion of going into business together in the first place! Talking on a personal level is different from talking about a business. Tempers and anxieties can flare up when the conversation turns to money or specifics that aren’t working. It’s best to have harder conversations as early as possible. This helps iron out expectations and can highlight communication lapses before anything gets tense.

Know Your Role

Roles are important to the success of any business. As a business expands, roles become vital to keep everyone focused. Business partners who are friends may not have all their boundaries in place for a professional situation. Divide the work according to your individual strengths and stick to the agreement. For things to work, partners need to trust one another and their abilities. They also need to accept where they might be lacking in skills.

Something as simple as selling beauty products from home can teach someone a lot about running a business. A lot of practical skills are learned by doing. Picking the right person with whom to start an enterprise begins with assessing the capabilities everyone brings to the table. Nobody should be trying to do it all and everyone should have something to do. Being honest about where skill sets start, and end helps a business start with a solid foundation. Let the partner with the experience take care of areas that pertain to them. If someone is trying to do something they’re not good at, tell them. Just because they have a certain degree or vision doesn’t mean they know what it takes to do every job. If a partner can’t hear hard truths then they probably won’t be able to handle the pressure of a founder. If they’re unable to assess themselves accurately, they might struggle to have a clear perspective on a business.

Getting Off to a Good Start

Having a partner on the journey of entrepreneurship can be priceless. It eases the burden of being a single founder, helps with work distribution, and can make the experience fun. This is only true if the partner is a good one. Friends can initially seem like a good choice but sometimes familiarity can create conflict. There are examples of friends remaining as such after starting businesses but usually those are success stories. Even a successful venture will be stressful; an unsuccessful one can be downright nerve wracking. When it comes to how to make sales online and keep friends, the question of what works comes down to the individuals taking on the challenge and what they think is possible.