How Do You Partners Run Your Business?

[Ibrahim Hughes]

I tell you a GREAT idea for a course imo would be one on how to build and efficiently run a business. I guess there are some books out there (any recommendations?) but I wouldn't mind plunking down some $$$ for a course on something specifically dealing with real estate investors.

In any event as some of you know I recently took on a business partner recently and things are running pretty good. I'm primarily responsible for acquisitions and he's primarily responsible for marketing and sales (he will also deal directly with the contractors on rehabs while I handle the administrative details of the rehab). The last partner I had was my Brother and he was pretty content with me dealing with all administrative matters including communicating with our attorney regarding contract negotiation (we use attorneys in northern NJ).

But with my new business partner we've decided that I would communicate with our attorney during the purchase phase and then hand it off to him once we have a signed contract. He will then send our attorney an email signaling the completion of the purchasing phase and the beginning of the selling phase while announcing himself as the lead person. And if the attorney needs to communicate anything to us regarding something on the purchase side (i.e. title issue) he can communicate it to my partner.

Your thoughts on this? My concern is that it will take a little getting used to since my attorney is used to communicating all issues to me. PLUS it can be a problem as we have multiple deals in multiple phases. However I feel it does make us more efficient as I want as little to do with a property and deal once I get a signed contract. I want to focus as much of my time and energy on buying - especially in this market. Your thoughts? How do those of you in partnerships split your duties and communicate with the same vendor?

I'm also a Realtor working at a small investor-friendly Brokerage ran by 3 Realtors-Investors. One of them handles all office and administrative details while the other 2 do all of the leg work including getting sellers under contract for investor deals and listings.

I feel this does NOT work for us as we both do our best work in the field. Plus I'm good with sellers and feel that we'll hurt ourselves if I'm taken off the field during the Big game just to deal with paperwork. Thoughts?