Partnering with my company

I'm a small local roofing company and I have a friend with a larger company from out of state. He wants to partner with me like I've seen many times with other companies. I explained that in my experience over the yrs that any company partnering with a local company does so in the background so that homeowners assume that everyone involved is a local person. He said he wants to build his name too so he wants his trucks and contracts, shirts, flyers, cards and everything to say his name and just add mine and say to people we are partnering. This to me seems confusing. I need advise please. I don't mind his assistance in helping us grow as a team but not at the expense of ruining my name by being associated with "out of town roofer" please be blunt and give advise.

MikeH, Not sure what I said, but you are welcome.

Thanks Lefty.

I started to distribute tile in 1987. In 1997, I moved to my present location. It's a house, a couple of shops on 2 1/2 acres. It allows me to do everything I need to do as a roofing company, but bringing 2 or three semi trucks a week in would cause problems with neighbors, so I cut back on local distributing.

I decided to see if I could get a deal with a couple of roofing companies in the SeaTac market to keep my volume up high enough to continue my distributorship. I contacted the two that I perceived to move the most tile up there and both were interested. All I would be doing for them is issuing PO's for them to pick up tile in their trucks and billing them.

At the volumes they claimed they would be using, it looked like I could make about 5-6k per month and still save them a substantial amount of money. On paper, it looked like a win/win situation.

When I went to a lawyer to see how best to structure the agreement, I found out my whole plan was a liability trap for me in about 5 different ways. Don't do anything as a partnership without running it past an attorney.

Donald, The better questions you ask yourself, the better answers you will get. We can give you good questions to ask yourself.

MikeH,

Last summer a guy sent me a letter saying he was going out of business and selling his equipment. I went and bought a few things and started to ask him some questions about him and his business. I left to take a load of stuff to my shop, and before I left I asked him if he wanted to sell his phone number to me. He was confused it never crossed his mind.

When I got back he asked me if I wanted to do a job he sold. He had the figures on a piece of paper. I looked it over and said yes. I did the job and gave him $500. Used the money I made on the job to buy more of his equipment. He kept giving me leads. I kept doing the jobs I got from the leads. Gave him $50 when I sold one of his leads and bought more of his equipment.

He never followed through to sell me his phone number. I got real busy and could not follow up with him enough to make it happen.

60 year old roofing company gone. The reputation is there with his customers having no place to go. The guy was on 50 years old. He did not want to do roofing anymore. I offered him a job in whatever capacity he wanted to work.

Extremely interesting question because I had a similar conversation with someone. Very similar conditions, but I'm the "other" guy in this conversation. I think I have a little different scenario in my mind, but it's good to see this question, if for no other reason than to get some validation that I'm not totally nuts for even thinking about it, and the fact that Lefty didn't shoot it down like a Japanese Zero.

The first questions I'd ask are: 1. Do you personally know this person? 2. Do you trust them?

"No" to either one, and without a doubt, my answer would "no" to the original question as well. If the answer to both is "yes", then the real hard questions, planning and conversations necessary to reach a full understanding can begin, with a big ol' "STOP" button setting in my lap.

You are not that small if they want to partner with you.

Have they done this with anyone else? If so talk to them.

What are your plans for your company, in the long run.

How long do I plan on working myself before I retire or do something else?

Can I just sell them my company and work for them?

These are some question you need to ask yourself. This may be a way to cash out on what you built.

You have a "friend" or did a storm chaser with a sales team contact you?