What made you pick the small guy in the first place? I did the same thing about two years ago and the big thing for me was getting actual answers when something broke. With the national network I was just a ticket number, waited days for callbacks. My local partner texts me back in an hour and knows my name, my clients, the whole deal. Here's the practical part though, put the split in writing early even with a friend. We did a simple one pager on commission, who owns the lead, and what happens if it goes bad. Saved us a dumb fight at month six.