One of the most crucial pieces of starting a successful business is choosing your business partners carefully. The quality of your working relationship with your partners can be the difference between building up one another and sharing in the mutual success of your company or fighting tiresome and unwinnable battles which ultimately lead to the downfall of your business. Digital marketing expert, Jonathan Rivera, has mastered the power of leveraging strong interpersonal relationships to create thriving business dynamics for him and the people he works with.
Rivera learned about the necessity of trust, openness, and close friendships in any successful business when he began managing musicians in college. Rivera would form strong bonds with his artists that led the artists to trust Rivera’s bigger vision. “The qualities that made me a successful artist manager were trust, communication, and the ability to see the bigger picture,” says Rivera. “Also being able to understand my artists at a close friendship level allowed me to bring amazing characteristics from them into their music, branding, and marketing.”
Rivera continued on to have a successful career in the Social Media Department of Sony Music Group before meeting his current business partner, Xerxes Frechiani. The two teamed up to create Double X Media, a digital marketing agency that regularly delivers 10-20x ROI in both profitability and digital media presence. Rivera credits this success to the strength of the relationship between him and Frechiani. “Communication is key,” says Rivera. “A lot of partners hold grudges because they didn’t like something that was said or done and let it slide until it eventually culminates in a fight, loss of trust, loss of clients and much more. We established one important rule of saying anything on your mind, no matter what, and taking care of it right away.”
Rivera stresses the importance of a continually positive working dynamic. A company isn’t built on one good or bad decision but rather the accumulation of overcoming challenges in a way which helps business partners grow and learn from one another. “Some of the key long-term qualities that make a great partnership are trust, communication, passion, good vibes, and a hunger to learn,” says Rivera. “Remember it’s like a marriage, so don’t try to fit a square peg into a round hole because you’ll be destined for chaos and failure.”