Are There Red Flags in Your Business Partnership?

The best partnerships run on trust, respect, communication, and shared values. Those principles sound simple, but building them and supporting them every day requires self-awareness and effort.

Unfortunately, simply trusting a partner is a bad idea. It's important to foster good relationships, but it's also critical to understand what dangerous behavior looks like. That's why it's smart to watch for red flags. Understanding signs of trouble and reacting quickly can protect your energy, sanity, and bank account.

While every great business partnership starts with optimism, some partnerships fall apart. And in most cases, it's not because of one big mistake, but is the result of a series of small, ignored red flags.

I’ve been there. I once built a company with a partner who seemed like the perfect fit, only to discover that trust and respect were never part of his plan. What followed taught me lessons I now carry into every collaboration, and into my work with The Partnership Guys, where we help others build partnerships that last.

Here are the red flags to watch for, and the lessons behind them.

Your Partner Does Not Understand or Value Your Contributions

The first sign of trouble in any partnership is probably subtle and easy to ignore. Sometimes it's a dismissive comment, a shrug, a joke at your expense. However, when one partner consistently minimizes the other's contributions, the foundation begins to crack.

After a full day of meeting clients, processing payments, and building relationships, I once heard a former business partner tell me, “That's all you did? My wife could’ve done that.” That one sentence said everything about how little my contribution was understood or valued.

Partnerships work best when both sides recognize that different doesn’t mean less valuable. Whether it's sales, operations, design, or finance, every role that grows the business matters equally. If you want a good business partnership, remember that mutual respect isn’t a bonus; it’s the baseline.

Your Partner is Keeping Secrets

A working partnership requires honesty and a mutual commitment to full disclosure. Transparency in business isn’t a courtesy; it’s a safeguard. Every client conversation, company decision, and financial detail should be open and accessible to both partners. If someone resists that level of visibility, that’s a red flag.

That same business partner I mentioned above was always guarded. He didn't like telling me what he was doing or why. He felt insulted when I asked him about company details. At first, I tried to respect his guardedness and looked at it as something that we would "outgrow."

But we didn't move past it. Instead, it became much worse. I discovered that my business partner was keeping business details from me, including financial ones. He even opened a private bank account and was depositing client payments into it.

When a partner hides money, information, or intent, it’s no longer a working partnership. So, always make full business disclosure and financial transparency a mandatory term of the relationship.

You Find Yourself Relying on Contracts to Protect You

Many partners think that a signed document equals security. It doesn’t. That former partner happily signed a partnership agreement, but we never had alignment. We didn’t talk through the uncomfortable stuff: ownership expectations, role clarity, how decisions would be made, or what would happen when we disagreed. And that meant we were headed for disaster.

At The Partnership Guys, we teach that real partnership work isn't about the signatures. It’s not about filling in blanks on a contract. To create a highly functioning, mutually profitable partnership, you must align on values, agree on communication styles, and share a vision for growth. A strong agreement formalizes trust, but it can’t create it, and it certainly can't replace it.

You Avoid Conversations

Every partnership will face conflict. The difference between those who survive and those who implode comes down to one thing: how well the partners communicate.

In my work with former NFL player Shawn Springs, we created the first certified girls’ lacrosse headgear. It's a great partnership because we both agreed that communication wasn’t a bonus skill. It was the rule. We didn’t dodge disagreement; we leaned into it. We talked through the hard stuff, not to “win,” but to understand.

Partnerships fail when silence takes over. Make an effort to keep communicating, especially when it's not fun. Avoiding tough conversations doesn’t protect the relationship; it slowly poisons it.

You Catch Your Partner in Lies

Integrity doesn’t collapse overnight. It erodes one small lie at a time. It starts with a harmless omission, a half-truth, or an excuse that sounds reasonable in the moment. But once a partner gets comfortable bending the truth (and the other partner allows it), the habit grows.

Those small lies turn into bigger ones. The distortions become strategy. And before long, you’re no longer running a business built on trust. Instead, you’re managing damage control in a partnership built on fiction.

I’ve lived it. After ignoring my business partner's habit of creating small fictions, I eventually found myself in court watching that former partner claim under oath that he “barely knew” a colleague he had called over 500 times. Sadly, I wasn't even surprised. I realized I had ignored his seemingly small acts of dishonesty, and that had led us into a legal battle.

When you catch your partner in small lies and ignore them, you’re not avoiding conflict. You’re giving deceit permission to grow. Because once truth becomes negotiable, everything else, including your reputation, your relationships, and your business, is at risk.

Without honesty and integrity, no contract, profit, or good idea will ever protect your stake in the partnership. So, insist on total honesty early and often. Don't excuse or ignore lies. And model honesty and integrity back.

And if that's impossible in your situation, you may need to end that partnership.

What Great Partnerships Actually Have in Common

At The Partnership Guys, we know what attitudes, behaviors, and approaches work to create a strong, mutually beneficial partnership. We're an unbiased third party who can help partners establish new partnerships, improve existing ones, or even leave unproductive arrangements.  

We step in with a series of conversations, systems, and strategies that keep the focus on what matters: building partnerships that perform and last.

Want To Test Your Partnership Score?

Take our free Partnership Score Test and see where you stand. We're here to help you create better partnerships, improve existing partnerships, or end partnerships in ways that benefit both partners. Contact us today to schedule a free consultation.