By Thane Johnson
Small and medium-size business owners are often so caught up in trying to make their business work, that the neglect to take a look around and discover that there are many ways that a partnership can help them grow, increase profitability and serve customers better. This article will show ways for businesses to identify win-win relationship with businesses in similar and complimentary industries and to strengthen their bottom line through referral and share-the-profits arrangements.
Many business owners look at everyone in a similar industries as competition. This may be true much of the time, but there are some great opportunities to create mutually-profitable relationships. Here are a few examples. A local restaurant teams up with a wine shop to hold wine tasting parties. The sommelier from the restaurant holds weekly sessions at the wine shop. The shop owner and the restaurant both benefit, because they are developing themselves as local experts and cultivating a love of wine, which will bring customers to both places of business. Several scuba diving charters pool their customers and send one or two full boats out each day instead of five or six boats with only a few divers on each boat. A web designer, who lacks programming skills, works with a local programmer who lacks design skills even though they both market themselves to general public as web developers. These are all examples of working with what might be perceived as a competitor to enhance your business.
Finding businesses in complimentary industries with which to partner is much easier. Here are some examples. In a resort town, a restaurant gives each diner a coupon for a discount at a local souvenir shop, and the souvenir shop gives a coupon for the restaurant. A graphic design company partners with a sign shop to refer clients for design and production services. The possibilities for this sort of partnership are virtually limitless. A car detailing business could partner with an oil change shop. A coffee shop and a bakery are natural combination to increase sales and distribution channels. The good thing about this kind of relationship is that there are virtually no upfront costs for either business.
Many businesses make referrals to other businesses every day at no financial benefit to themselves. This is fine in most circumstances, but if the other business is doing a lot of receiving and no giving, maybe it's time to ask for a referral fee. Most businesses are happy to pay referral fees for new customers, so do not feel it's a bad thing to ask for something in return. For example, a web design business is probably very willing to pay a percentage of a project's cost or a flat fee for referrals from the local computer repair shop and vice versa.
Another win-win relationship for businesses can be a share-of-the-profits arrangement. For example, an online marketing and web development company might partner with a jewelry shop to build and market a web site at no upfront cost to the jewelry store for a percentage of the profits. A body shop might be willing to keep some cars from a car rental agency on site and share the profits from rentals. A bowling alley, marketing agency and promoter might partner to put on a concert with each business sharing in the profits.
At the core of all successful business relationships must be the opportunity for each business to feel rewarded for its efforts. If there is not a two-way street, a mutually-rewarding relationship, the partnership is destined to fail.
Kona Impact http://www.konaimpact.com helps small and medium-size business grow with top-notch web design, programming and marketing solutions. Visit our blog at http://www.konaimpact.com/blog/blogs to read more great tips for growing your business.
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