Business to Business Partnership Opportunities

There are several types of business to business partnerships that a business owner may pursue in order to improve their business. The main objective behind most business relationships is to find new customer leads and convert them into increased sales and revenue for both participating companies. Consider these four primary types of business to business partnerships in order to achieve the goal of increased sales and revenue including: suppliers, customers, resellers or companies with significant existing sales channels and/or vendors. Each type of partnership has its own unique set of advantages and challenges for successfully implementing and maintaining, therefore it’s important to evaluate each type to understand which is in your best interest to pursue.

Suppliers

Creating business relationships with suppliers usually makes great financial sense and can lead to unique business opportunities. Many suppliers are in a very competitive environment and constantly have to find new channels to sell their products. As a rule suppliers will be willing to give a business partner special pricing, expedited customer service and business referrals when opportunities that are out of their scope present themselves. However; there are some disadvantages with aligning too closely with a single supplier. It is recommended that you keep your supplier partnership agreements as open and flexible as possible to allow multiple partnerships to exist in the same space thus avoiding price spikes or product unavailability due to unforeseen partner problems.

Customers

The best types of business referrals come from existing customers. Provide a revenue share or special pricing for customers that are able to deliver leads that turn into new clients. Developing an incentive program for customers that make referrals is a win-win situation. Often a simple discount can keep your business at the forefront of the customer’s mind when their meeting with someone that fits your target market.

Resellers or Agents

Many businesses that have large databases of potential customers will actively sell a product through their sales channels for a fee and/or a revenue share. Building partnerships with resellers can quickly grow a company’s ability to reach out to the market. Resellers will invest time and resources to market their partner’s products and put their sales force to work selling the product. Small businesses with limited staff to actively sell can benefit greatly from these types of partnership deals.

Vendors

Finding other vendors that sell a complementing product is the right partnership solution for a company that by itself has a product that is not the full solution that a customer is looking to purchase. An example is a computer hardware manufacturer partnering with a company that makes software to do unique tasks that a customer needs.

As a business owner seeking additional deal flow, it is important to evaluate all of the business to business partnerships that are possible for your company. Regardless of whether the focus is on vendors, resellers, suppliers, or existing customers, if properly executed business to business partnerships are one of the best strategies for business growth.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Building Business Partnerships Top 5 to Do’s

As a small business owner or business development executive there are several things to remember to do when establishing new joint venture marketing business partnerships. The following is a list of critical items to be conscious of when building business partnerships that will make sure your business finds the right partners and mutually beneficial business deals that maximize the opportunities and results in growing your company. All business partnerships have their positive and negatives, however as a business executive it is critical that you understand the risks and areas to focus on to reduce small problems from turning into deal killers.

Top 5 To Do’s When Building Business Partnerships

1. Research – It is nearly impossible to build successful business partnership without doing a considerable amount of market research and analyzing the business of potential partners. Failing to adequately understand a prospective partner can only lead to future problems. This could be something as straightforward as not having access to the right client base or simply being a mismatch culturally. Therefore it is absolutely necessary to spend the time and resources to research the opportunity fully.

2. Examine Customer Base – Before finalizing a partnership that promises to give your brand or products access to new customers, request customer demographic data and information on a couple of their key customers that can be cross referenced.

3. Meet in Person – In-person meetings with the executive management of the potential business partner is always better. While most communication can occur in the traditional forms of email and phone calls, it is best to ask for an in-person meeting very early on in the process when determining whether a business is a good candidate for a partnership.

4. Develop Performance Based Incentives – Depending on the nature of the business partnership that you’re creating, compensation can come in many different forms. Packages that include revenue shares and/or bonuses will ultimately reap more rewards compared to partnerships that do not include performance based incentives for growing the partnership. Be sure to include methods for compensating specific team members as some will be capable of selling more than their peers. You may also want to offer bonus incentives to the sales team as a whole for their combined efforts.

5. Hire Experts to Eliminate Errors – Small business owners need support in executing successful partnerships and maintaining focus on existing customers and product development. Enlisting outside support will ensure the partnership is built properly. Hire a lawyer that can provide a partnership template that can be used for drafting the agreement between the two companies. Using a template will reduce legal fees when forming future partnerships simply by having a lawyer finalize and sign off on any adjustments to the template with each new partner.

You may also want to find a business consultant that specializes in joint venture marketing partnerships. These consultants will save you valuable time by identifying new partners and making first contact. Hire the right consultant and you can get your foot in the door with your dream business partners and have their expertise at your disposal required to draft a partnership agreement that will ensure a profitable business relationship.

Keep these ideas in mind the next time you are in charge of building a business partnership and you will be much more likely to align with the right partner, in a mutually beneficial relationship that can be put together in a relatively quick time frame.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Integrate With Business Partners to Get New Clients

Small business owners that are looking for their big break in reaching new clients quickly are wise to develop joint venture partnerships with companies that can instantly integrate their product into existing offerings. This is the type of partnership that will limit the amount of interaction a company will have with the end customer, however it drives sales numbers so it’s worth the loss in branding to partner with a top tier company that can really accelerate growth quickly.

Be conscious of who you partner with in these types of relationships. If you have developed a truly unique product the company you do business deals with may see you as a potential target for acquisition. Be sure you have the proper intellectual property documentation filed. This is a good thing for most business owners, however even at the earliest stages of a company with unique intellectual property you need to be aware of your exit strategies and how structuring a business deal leads you down different paths.

Path of Least Resistance

Going to market and acquiring customers is expensive. The purpose of a joint venture relationship is to leverage the capability of a business partner to bring new clients that are actively looking to buy a product or service. However, sometimes the path of least resistance for quickly closing new business is to integrate with a partner and allow them to sell their clients a solution that includes both you and your partner’s products and services with no difference seen by the customer.

By allowing a partner to OEM or white label your product it reduces the amount of training and education required for effective selling to new clients. Bundling a product into an existing offering allows a partner to increase their value to their customers and at the same time reward you for your innovation. These types of relationships also reduce the overhead that is required for even basic tasks like accounting and customer service. While there may be some duties required, if issues arise with the product or service these will generally be dealt with between the two companies independent of the customer.

Prepare for Growth

When doing an OEM deal with a product for a business partner that has the Rolodex of customers to quickly sell a product or service it’s important to anticipate and plan for the growth. However; it is critical for most small businesses to time the addition of new employees with the actual time they are needed to fill in. Temporary hires can always be found in a pinch through a temp agency depending on the tasks your business and the partnership will require. It’s crucial that you have a clear and open dialogue with the business partner and to start the roll out slow with a pilot program in order to give your business time to ramp up and keep up with demand.

The plan for your businesses growth if doing business with a larger Fortune 500 type company is essential to the success of the partnership. There will need to be funds available to service the demand if the business partnerships success increases faster than anticipated. Some revenue cycles for larger companies may be longer than a small business is capable of operating under without having the necessary cash for pay roll and new costs associated to the growth occurring with new clients.

Find partners that can integrate your company seamlessly and the chances for a successful partnership go up dramatically. The reduced costs involved with an OEM type relationship will increase the ROI on each relationship versus other deals that may have significant capital investments in marketing and customer support duties.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

What Should Be In Your Business Partner Training Binder?

When forming a new joint venture marketing partnership it’s always a good idea to put together a training binder that has information about your company, the products and services the business provides and key details that are relevant to the business partnership. Training a business partner to execute the partnership in the right manner is critical to successfully finding new clients. Here’s a short overview of the standard documents that should be included in a binder that is provided to your business partner.

A binder that is provided to key executives and the one that is handed off to a person that is just involved in one element of a business partnership should be adjusted accordingly, however it is important that key individuals have a clear understanding of your business and the details of the relationship.

Binder Documents

• Executives should have a copy of the partnership agreement included in the binder.

• List of contacts based on role within partnership. It is always good to have at least two contacts for each vital link inside of a business partnership in order to resolve critical problems when needed.

• Current and future co-marketing campaign budgets should be included depending upon recipient.

• Flow charts for exchange of data, client information, client referrals, sales information, customer service requests and any other specific part of business transactions that occur based on the joint venture. Only include what each party requires.

• Company information, basic overview of company.

• Product and Services information. In depth information about the company’s product and services, pricing, etc.

• Incentives. Depending on the role within the company each joint venture partnership should include bonus incentives for employees that perform and excel in their roles of executing a successful partnership. For sales organizations this may already be included however; other positions that require additional work to perform the new duties should experience rewards of a successful business venture as well.

• Additional document. Depending on the businesses involved there may be additional information that companies wish to share with each other including demographic data, client information, and many more details.

Be sure to use a cloud based document storage service and keep a copy of your training binder available for all parties that require it.

The training binder is intended to serve the purpose of reinforcing the partnership agreement and act as an implementation tool for kick starting the business relationship. When distributing the binder to the appropriate people there should also be a timeline of when activities will begin and the flow charts will be followed. Create a visually appealing template that can be used for that specific partnership and any new clients or businesses that join the partnership in the future. Take the time necessary to clearly write out the details needed in the training binder and the chances for success will increase.

A well trained business partner will understand your business thoroughly and be able to sell your company and its products or services to new clients, which is ultimately the point in creating a joint venture marketing relationship in the first place. A well trained sales team that has been provided the right information will always deliver better results than the sales team that is given minimal or incomplete information and asked to educate themselves concerning the company’s products and services. By training your partners in a consistent manner, even when personnel change occurs during the course of the partnership and it will continue to remain productive and profitable due to the core training you have in place.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.