In 1997, we were working at Washington, D.C., radio marketing firm as team members--Susan in sales and marketing and Lynn in operations--when a client suggested that we made a great team and should consider starting our own company. From our work together on the firm's more difficult clients, we knew we had complementary strengths and that we got along well. Our client sparked our imaginations, and we began putting together a business plan to go out on our own.

Eleven and a half years later, here we are with the most successful radio PR firm in the country. Even better, our close partnership and friendship have grown and sustained both the company and one another through life's changes, including our marriages, the birth of children (three--all of them Susan's), audits (two--one IRS, one state), internal staffing issues and tough economies. We've made it through to say, "Whew, what a roller coaster ride, but I wouldn't have had it any other way!"

Many entrepreneurs consider the business side of a potential partnership before launching a new venture, which makes perfect sense. But what about the more personal side of the business? And if you're already friends, which comes first, your business or your friendship? In the early stages of any new company, you're going to be spending a lot--and we mean a lot--of time together.

True, we didn't ask ourselves these more personal questions, either. But fortunately for us, as we encountered situations that provided the answers to such questions, our business and interpersonal lives grew richer.

While we faced challenges inevitable in any business--from cash flow and staffing issues to a government audit that nearly made us shut the company down--what we learned through our close partnership is that it's great to have another person there, experiencing what you're experiencing. It's almost like a marriage, for better or for worse. When we rise, we rise together. If we fall, we fall together and pick ourselves and each other back up again.

Given our positive partnership experience, here are some questions we advise you to ask yourself before entering into a partnership with a friend:

1. Do you like your business partner as a person? Do you respect your partner and can you vouch for her integrity?

This is the primary question, and if this one comes back with an iffy answer, don't move forward. The last thing any new partnership needs is uncertainty about whether your partner is ethical. Honesty and trust are the basis for any good partnership--in business and in life.

2. Do you get along well, and do you know how to resolve conflicts?

In our case, we always discuss things calmly. Typically, an issue will come up during a big project or when a client makes a constructive comment. Our first goal is to fix the problem at hand to make sure the client or employee is happy. Then we set up a time to discuss the issue once we have some distance from it. We want to learn from the problem and prevent the same mistake from happening again. With distance from the situation, we can discuss things calmly and rationally to make certain it's a learning experience.

3. How will the business impact your friendship, and vice versa?

Because work is such an ingrained part of who we are, it's become part of our friendship. It was just a natural progression. Although friends when we started the company, we didn't know each other in the deep way we do now. When we started the company, we also shared an office so small that our chairs bumped when we pushed away from our desks. We got to know each other a lot better personally and professionally. And now that we work in separate cities, the bond we created in the first six months of our company has carried us forward all these years.

4. How will you resolve differences? Do you know when to pick your battles?

In our case, we determined that work would come first most of the time. We know we have a responsibility to our clients and employees, so if we have a disagreement about something, we address the business issue first. Once that's solved, we focus on the issue that impacts our friendship. We've both learned how not to personalize business conversations and decisions.

5. Do your communication styles match or are they more like sandpaper?

While our communication styles are not the same, our goal for communication is: to be on the same page about company-related issues. Susan is more direct: She likes to get to the point. Lynn also says what she thinks, but she focuses more on people's emotional responses to that communication. We've found that both styles work well in collaboration. We decide which one of us should address a situation by matching the communication style with the issue we have to communicate.

6. Do you bring different, complementary skills to the table? What are they?

We come from different career backgrounds. Susan's background is sales and marketing; Lynn's is operations. So Susan's day-to-day responsibilities focus more on sales, marketing and finance, and Lynn deals more with day-to-day operations. Allowing us to focus on our strengths is a big benefit to the company. We've also learned from each other, so we can step in for one another when needed.

7. Are you willing to change the way you do things to accommodate your partner?

We change things all the time to accommodate each other. If something is really important to one of us, and she's offered good reasons for that importance, the other partner will make accommodations. Susan is more numbers based, and Lynn's decisions tend to be more intuitive. Since we both believe in each other's reasoning skills, we are happy to change the way we do things to accommodate each other. This also ensures that the company is a learning organization that can grow and adapt. This flexibility helps keep our company vital in a tightening marketplace.

8. How will you deal with really tough situations?

In our case, the most challenging situation we dealt with was an IRS audit in 2006-07. Susan had to deal with most of it because it was conducted out of our Bethesda, Md., office. Lynn provided support along the way, but it was definitely the darkest time either one of us ever experienced. It was hard on Lynn to be disconnected from the actual audit, but she was always there for support and to do whatever she could do remotely.

We've been completely honest and transparent about the ethical way we run our business, so it was hard to have government bureaucrats come in and shake our confidence. It all ended up OK, but it was a rude awakening for us. Because our intentions have always been good and we are honest businesspeople, we thought that would come through in the audit. We learned that was not necessarily so.

9. How will you distinguish between a business conversation and personal conversation? Do you know how to keep yourself from personalizing business decisions?

Sometimes it's hard not to personalize decisions. Over the years, we've gotten a lot better at working things out when we see issues on the horizon as opposed to letting everything come to a head and then being mad at one another about everything. We always present a united front to our clients and employees even if we don't fundamentally agree on a particular issue. We have a weekly planning meeting to discuss nuts-and-bolts business decisions, but it's also a forum to present each other with issues we might foresee before they become overwhelming.

10. Do you have fun together?

One skill we developed was the ability to laugh at tough situations. For example, we have a lot of running jokes about our audit. Another example occurred early on. Cash flow was very tight when we started the business, and we were working hard to make our name in the industry. We were at a studio doing some production work for a client and feeling the pressure of this new venture. During the recording session, Susan took a gummy bear from a candy jar and put it in the mouth of a totem pole in the studio lobby. Two days later, she put a gummy bear on the back of the women's restroom toilet, where Lynn discovered it. That cut the tension, and we still laugh about it more than 10 years later. And gummy bears still show up occasionally in funny places.

The key to a successful partnership and friendship is to remember that challenge is part of any entrepreneurial enterprise. Be honest about your relationship before entering into a partnership.

We're fortunate in that we learned to keep work and personal issues separate and come up with constructive ways to handle conflict. But not every friendship will flourish under such conditions. If your friendship works well as a partnership, having a common goal will create stronger bonds both personally and professionally.

News Generation Inc. is a public relations services firm that specializes in using radio techniques, such as radio media tours and audio news releases, to secure client placements.