Collaborate with other ZP'ers

Although you made a conscious decision to become self-employed, it may be smart to join forces with other ZP'ers. This way, you can take on larger assignments and offer your clients more service. What should you pay attention to when you decide to collaborate with other ZP'ers?

Why are you going to collaborate?

When you team up with other ZP'ers, you can offer your clients not only your expertise, but also that of the other ZP'ers. So you offer more service and this way you can better distinguish yourself from your competition. Moreover, you often know more together than alone. In this way, you can come to surprising angles and new ideas can be developed.

With whom will you collaborate?

Before you start a collaboration, it is important to find the right people. You must have the same vision and goals, otherwise a collaboration is bound to go wrong. Discuss your expectations and put them on paper. That way, in case of disagreement, you always have something to fall back on.

Working together with friends may sound attractive, but ask yourself whether the friendship will thrive in a business partnership.

Incidental collaboration

Is the collaboration incidental? If you work together occasionally, you can opt for a construction in which you are the client of the other ZP'er(s). In such a case, check whether the ZP'ers with whom you collaborate are in possession of a valid VAR declaration.

Structural collaboration

If you want to work together for a longer period of time, it may be wise to set up a legal form for this cooperation. Think of a vof, bv, maatschap or cooperative. Which legal form best suits your cooperation depends, among other things, on how you want to arrange liability. The advantage of working together in a legal form is that you can share procurement costs and are more visible to the outside world.

On paper

Whatever form of cooperation you choose, it is very important to write down your agreements. Consider together who is responsible for what, how you divide the income, how many hours each of you must spend on the collaboration and what the mutual expectations are. If you know what you are getting into, the chances of a successful collaboration are much greater.