Have you noticed the changes on my blog and website over the last day and a half?  Frank Kanu at GeniusOne helped me by making these changes. 

In addition to having written “Stop Telling… Start Leading!  The Art of Managing Peopleby Asking Questions” and being a leadership consultant, Frank is a fantastic resource when it comes to a variety of IT topics.  He has helped me over the last couple of years with a variety of challenges including:

• Installing PGP (he talked me through it remotely)
• Redesigning my website so that it loaded faster 
• Hosting my website and my blog
• Teaching me to make basic changes in my blog
• Checking my site and blog proactively for issues
• Helping me add functionality to my blog
• Dealing with a supplier performance issue

While doing business with friends has a lot of benefits, it can lead to issues as well.  When doing business with friends, a misstep can hurt both business and the friendship.  In light of this, I adopted nine safeguards for doing business with friends. 

Safeguards for doing business with friends

1. Respect the friend, his or her knowledge and expertise, and the friendship. 
2. Help each other understand priorities and what success looks like.
3. Respect a friend’s right to say “no” on business projects.  
4. Make good business decisions and use due diligence. 
5. Identify assumptions and expectations.
6. Separate business and the friendship. 
7. Talk about issues that could arise.
8. Leave something on the table. 
9. Pay friends promptly.

If you do business with friends, what safeguards do you use to be sure that both people in the friendship feel that they are being treated fairly?  If you choose not to do business with friends, how did you come to that position?

Filed by Coleen Davis at 10:36 pm under Business Tips, Customers, Networking