Are You A Good Partner?

Are you the peanut butter to someone’s jelly?
The cheese to someone’s crackers?
The mustard to someone’s hot dog?

When you’re in the right partnership with someone, you feel like you’re two halves of a whole. You partner with a person because you’re both better together than apart.

As a partner your value increases exponentially because you work together.

Your ability to produce work doesn’t necessarily double simply because you partnered with another person. However, the value you bring to the table could multiply ten-fold if you’ve partnered with the right person. A person who inspires you and your customers. A partner who brings new ideas to the table and doesn’t keep score on who gets the credit for putting them into action.

The best partner isn’t just a clone of you, it should be someone who has a different perspective and a different skill-set. If you’re great at sales, but lousy at paperwork, you might want to partner with someone who is a whiz at  cutting through red tape in record time.

Consider Abbot and Costello.
One of the most famous and successful partnerships in comedy. They each had a role to play — one was the funny guy and the other was the straight man. Abbot wouldn’t have been very funny without Costello pummeling him with lines that setup a perfect response.

Each partner relied on contributions from the other in order to perform at their best. Your partner relies on you to come through for them and make their work better — just like you can rely on them to do the same.