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• Thursday, January 18, 2007 07:36 PM

  This is what contracts are for

  Why is there all that advice against doing business with friends?

  Because of what happened to you.

  Contracts are written and signed by "people who do business together" -- friends or not -- because a contract is a guide to "what happens if this all goes wrong". Contracts are where you write down, in legal terms, "what's the worst that can happen, here?"

  Any "friend" who wants to do business with you without a contract is, firstly, not a business person you want to deal with and, secondly, not much of a friend.

  Of course I know all this now because 15 years ago exactly the same thing happened to me as happened to you. I was out $6,000 -- but that's just a detail.

  I put the cost down to education. That's right. What I bought with that money was a $6,000 basic course in business fundamentals.

  You got off cheap! But you got the same educational program. Write it off to that, and maybe it will stop eating you up.

  The friend? Well let me just say a word about that: friends don't let friends drive drunk.

  How's that relevant?

  Well, in the same vein, friends don't let friends go into business together without everything being written down including what happens if it all goes south.

  He wasn't much of a friend to you -- but you weren't much of a friend back by not insisting on business fundamentals. Is that $1,000 starting to seem like better value now you see how it applies to you as well?

  "Trust" is for interpersonal intimacy. For business relationships, there's contracts.

  —shannonr Read shannonr's other letters
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