How to Make Productive Partnerships Work

In this essential episode for restaurant entrepreneurs, Matthew Mabel breaks down the critical elements of successful restaurant partnerships. Drawing from personal experience and years consulting with multi-unit restaurant businesses, Matthew explores how restaurant owners can create productive partnerships that drive business growth rather than hinder it. Learn why staying in your lane, establishing shared vision, clarifying compensation structures, and aligning on risk tolerance are fundamental to restaurant business partnerships that thrive in today's competitive market. This episode offers practical strategies for restaurant entrepreneurs looking to form new partnerships or strengthen existing ones for maximum business impact and sustainable success.

Key Topics Covered

• Four partnership necessities for restaurant business success
• Why staying in your lane creates more productive partnerships
• How to establish shared vision among restaurant business partners
• Creating effective compensation structures for partners
• Aligning risk tolerance to enable bold action in the restaurant industry
• When and how to seek outside perspective for partnership issues

Links Mentioned

• How Successful Restaurant Owners Get Out of the Way and Pick the Right Lane
• Restaurateurs When You Want Change, Should You Think Big or Small?

Resources Mentioned

• Website: www.surrender.biz
• Free initial consultation available

Connect with Matthew Mabel

Matthew works with owners of successful, independent, multi-unit restaurants to improve:

• Profit growth
• Sales optimization
• Guest count increase
• Unit expansion
• Employee engagement
• Brand loyalty

How to Support the Show

• Subscribe to the Restaurant Success Podcast and Newsletter
• Rate and review the show
• Visit www.surrender.biz for additional resources

Transcript

Today we're going to talk about productive partnerships in the restaurant business.

How to make them work, what to watch out for, and why having the right approach to partnerships can make, or break your restaurant business.

I'll share my own experiences with partnerships, outline four key necessities for successful partnerships, and offer some real-world examples of how I've helped restaurant owners navigate partnership challenges.

Early in my career, as an operator with partners, I experienced the joys of an imploding partnership: enriching lawyers and exchanging money, territories, and grief.

My CPA told me, "A partnership is like a marriage: easy to get into - hard to get out of."

Many of my clients love doing their own thing without an official partner, except for possibly a spouse back home, who takes on that partner function.

Others, do prefer to collaborate with partners, or they want a team behind them where the band makes more impact than the solo artist ever could.

Let me share what I consider the four partnership necessities that every restaurant owner should consider.

First, trust in roles. The most productive partners stay in their lane and don't duplicate each other. They trust their partners have their designated areas covered and they don't ask a bunch of questions about minutiae.

How that works takes thought at the beginning, and updates when businesses need change.

Second, shared vision. Partners must periodically campaign with each other to arrive at conceptual agreement on the direction of the business. Otherwise, your guests may experience confusion or worse, boredom, while employees feel perturbed.

Third, clarity on compensation. Focus partner compensation on the actual value contributed to your company, not the title of "partner." I have clients where some partners' only compensation comes from distributions. The actual partners, or operators, see a paycheck every period.

Fourth, risk tolerance. If you follow my work, you know I advocate bold action in today's market to ensure people notice your brands. As with trust and vision, partners must have a common appetite for risk and change.

People staying in their lanes - and the need for taking bold action - are themes I've written about in my newsletter, and I've put links to two of those relevant articles in the show notes. 

Now, let's talk about how outsiders can help partnerships function better. Often I serve as a voice of outside reason with partners out of alignment, or groups that simply want to validate they are on the right track and would benefit from an experienced outsider's view.

I worked with three partners who owned eight restaurants, and they were experiencing uncomfortable trouble in relying on each other. I showed them how even though each had a different perspective, I could connect them to the same desired outcome. I worked with them on accepting each other's behavior and honoring each other's contributions. And through one initiative, we added millions of dollars of profit to their business, which they eventually sold for a great price.

I also recently worked with three partners who bought a business together, creating a specific documented plan on how each person would have responsibility and accountability and compensation in their new venture.

Moving through this process included ups and downs, but we crossed the finish line, and prevented a complete disaster.

Let's not forget about periodic maintenance.

Partnerships can be either the greatest synergy ever created or an aggravating nuisance that ends in divorce. A partnership does not come with a dashboard warning light telling you it's time to take it in for service. So, whether you want to refine a current partnership, are contemplating a partnership, or are thinking about leaving a partnership, imagine that light is beaming, and take preventive action.