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.

Fix Small Business Joint Venture Marketing Problems Quickly

It can be impossible to stop unknown problems from occurring with a joint venture marketing relationship, but as a small business owner it’s critical to identify problems and either address them or take the appropriate actions to terminate the relationship and focus on more fertile ground. There are several critical areas of a business partnership to be conscious of at all times including: customer service and satisfaction, tracking referrals, accounting and revenue shares and promoting a positive brand image to the market in general. If an issue arises in any of these areas, it is absolutely necessary to spend the time to fix the root cause to eliminate it. Otherwise the right solution may be to simply identify new partners and move on.

Customers Satisfaction

At the end of the day it’s always about making sure that customers are happy and feel that they’re getting good value for what they are purchasing. Regardless, whichever side of the partnership your business is on it is critical to focus on providing great customer service. If you’re opening up your company’s rolodex of existing customers, you don’t want to jeopardize future business for yourself because the new JV marketing partner you’re introducing does not perform as expected. During the early stages of starting a new business relationship it is very important to test the waters early by referring a few loyal customers that will provide you with honest feedback about their experience with the new partner. Send over a couple of “new” leads as well and have a person within your organization act as the customer to get a real understanding of how the partner treats their clients. There is nothing worse than sending over a group of customers to a new partner only to receive emails and calls with negative experiences from those customers. This reflects on you as a business owner and can be avoided by properly implementing the new partnership.

Track Everything

Make sure that the partner is tracking referrals, new leads, products ordered, products delivered, products returned, marketing campaigns, ROI, brand reputation and any important data points related to your industry. It is very difficult to measure the true value of a joint venture marketing relationship without this information. You will have to rely on an open business partner to get many of those details and keep an open line of communication. By tracking everything related to each of your business partners it’s easier to accomplish the required accounting and to come to firm conclusions about which relationships are the most profitable and provide the greatest return. This will let you prioritize your time and resources for future activities and identify partners it may be better off to just walk away from. It is recommended that you monitor the market in general and understand what the market says about your business partners. As a business owner it can be very frustrating to have a partner do something unwise that creates a lot of negative press as this can reflect on your company, especially if you’re very active together with co-branded marketing.

Small business owners need to be prepared to spend the necessary time to monitor each business relationship and collect the required data during the month to accurately assess the success or failure of the partnership. When you identify a major issue related to servicing customers or accounting for the referrals that are being sent to a partner then set up a meeting to fix the issue as soon as possible or move away from doing business with the partner in the future. Allowing a negative partnership to linger just because you have already done all of the work to put the relationship together can be detrimental to the business and the brand for the long haul.

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.

5 Tasks You Can Outsource Now to Attract New Business

Find More Clients Being Active in Local Business Communities

Small business owners can find more clients by becoming active members in the local business community, whether by joining a local business chamber of commerce or through industry groups, or just attending business social events and local trade shows. By interacting with local businesses a small business owner has the best chance at locating companies that can be excellent joint venture partners that are currently servicing their exact demographic. The following, highlights a few of the most important aspects of developing joint ventures through participation at local business community events.

Find Industry Groups / Business Owner Gatherings

Determining the type of companies and people that are required to develop the relationships needed to create successful joint ventures is the first thing required before identifying where to meet them. There are lots of places to find information about local business groups and trade shows for industry groups. A few Google searches for trade shows and a specific location will result in lists of venues and upcoming events. Attend relevant events that would be interesting for pursuing companies and individuals of interest to your business. One good source for finding local events is Meetup.com where there are plenty of business / entrepreneur focused groups where business owners get together to talk about business topics as well as industry groups that are interested in a specific niche, like software developers that get together to talk about industry topics.

Develop Relationships with Business Decision Makers

When at business functions and events as a small business owner it is best to focus energies on meeting and spending time talking with individuals that are decision makers. At business events and trade shows time can be wasted interacting with a sales rep that is just looking for sales opportunities. This can be good if there is an existing customer base for your business that aligns with their product or service, but if the desire is to locate new existing customers for a business through joint ventures, spending time with executive management is key and it’s best to avoid the typical sales rep just pitching products and services.

Establish Joint Venture Partnerships with Local Businesses

Reaching out to local businesses to become joint venture partners is a proven way to find more clients in a specific region. For most small business owners the focus is on servicing the local community with a product or service and so developing partners with other local businesses can quickly expand brand awareness to the right demographic of customers. Local business owners will be easier to develop relationships with regardless if a business is planning on only servicing a local region or planning an eventual national or global launch. It’s important that each joint venture is successful to build momentum in the market and maintaining strong communication between partners is more easily done when decision makers for each business are close enough to meet in person.

Don’t Sell – Find Champions Who Sell

When meeting business executives and business decision makers it is important to not spend lots of time selling a product or service, instead develop relationships with others that can become a champion for your product or service to their existing customer base which will lead to your business finding more clients. Build a personal relationship first even though attending business related functions, the business part will always come, but learn the kids and spouse’s names and other details through the conversation to be used in later conversations to develop a personal relationship with a potential business partner. By the time a partnership agreement is on the table and discussions about how to implement the marketing strategies for promoting the joint venture the terms will always be more favorable than if approaching joint venture partnerships from a strictly business perspective when dealing with local business owners.

Find more clients locally by becoming engaged with local business activities such as small business owner events, chambers of commerce, and other business related activities such as industry trade shows. These venues provide the capability to meet with local business decision makers and find individuals that can help really drive a successful joint venture marketing partnership for the long term.

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.

Reasons for Joint Ventures During Uncertain Economic Times

When the economy is in a downturn there are several really good reasons for joint ventures as a way for a struggling company to get the little extra business required to stay afloat and live to do business another day. Joint ventures provide many opportunities for companies to grow into new markets, extract additional revenue from their existing client base, and develop a strong network of other businesses that can be relied upon for supporting their customers to ensure a high level of customer retention. During tough times people do not spend as quickly or freely as during good times and so it’s very important to do everything possible to service existing customers and make it as comfortable as possible for new customers to try a product or service for the first time.

Develop New Customer Acquisition Strategies

One of the best reasons for a joint venture during a time of economic uncertainty is the potential to acquire new customers. Acquiring a customer is expensive and time consuming and the beauty of joint venture marketing partnerships is the potential to market to a partners existing customer base a product or service. Gaining access to customer lists or the capability to have a logo and company description sent out from a V.P. of Sales to existing customers can be a make it or break it opportunity for a small business in a tough economy. If a product or service your company is selling fits well with a partners existing offering you might receive new sales and never have to touch the customer because the partner is handling all of the customer facing activities and delivering your product or service to them directly.

Earn Additional Revenue

Earning additional revenue from an existing client base is an excellent reason for joint venture marketing relationships to be established with companies seeking to market to the demographic of existing customers. During tough economic times companies might be willing to negotiate better referral fees and percentages of revenue for each closed sales lead increasing the value of the partnership. Most small businesses are not servicing their customer’s entire needs and so it’s easy to identify at least 3 or 4 great potential partnerships that could support customers’ needs and put money in the company’s pockets simply for making products and services available to the company’s customers.

Create a Strong Web of Support

It is vital to create strong network of partners during a tough economy. It’s important to remain active pursuing the best and most attractive joint venture opportunities. Companies do fail during bad economies and so it is imperative that if a business has an important joint venture partner that is supporting its clients and putting money in its bank account that there is a backup plan in case a partner goes out of business. While it may not be the number one reason to continue to pursuing joint ventures during tough times, if a company that your business has a relationship with fails, it’s important to be able to quickly replace them with a new partner and promptly provide customers the confidence needed to not jump ship. Failing to not have a backup plan in place for servicing client requirements that are supported by joint venture partners is a big problem, but can be resolved by creating a strong network of associates and even partners that are in place, but not yet fully active.

There are many good reasons for joint venture marketing in a tough economy as well as during good times. Focus on developing strong JV partners to limit potential risks that may occur during a down economy and make sure to continue to track down new opportunities. Every joint venture partner is a new potential channel to acquire fresh customers and at the same time is an opportunity to gain additional revenue from an existing customer base.

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.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

The Advantages of a Joint Venture for Small Businesses

There are many advantages of a joint venture for small businesses to take advantage of. Most importantly is establishing solid relationships with companies that can provide value to your existing customers which should already be a top priority for any small business owner. It is very difficult as a small business to have the ability to completely service your entire customer’s needs, but if you put in place the right joint venture partners you will be fully capable to service them and at the same time drive additional revenue to your bottom line. Having strong joint venture marketing alliances can increase the reach your brand has while maintaining a lean and limited marketing budget.

Meet New Potential Clients

Small business owners are often faced with having too many things to do during each day of the week and finding the right balance of spending time on generating new business leads and maintaining an existing customer base can be difficult. One of the greatest advantages of a joint venture marketing relationship can provide to a small business is the ability to quickly reach new potential customers. By focusing on developing relationships with companies that already have existing customers and the channels to quickly expose new products and services to them a business owner can focus on having high quality relationships that assist in driving new business. This allows a business owner to continue to manage the day to day operations of the business and service existing customers while a joint venture marketing partner is helping to drive in new qualified leads that are much easier to justify devoting time too rather than cold calling for customers or pursuing other strategies for finding new leads. Small business owners often waste lots of resources on sales teams and sales consultants that underperform and these people also often require significant management time. A great joint venture marketing relationship can out produce even a good sales team if you structure the relationship correctly and manage the relationship properly.

Expand Existing Product / Services Offering

Another significant advantage of a joint venture is expanding the products and services that are available for your existing clients. Most small businesses are excellent at servicing a very specific niche, thus it is difficult for most to be experts in similar services or carry the depth of product lines to fully satisfy all the needs of their customer base. The right joint venture partners that can support your clients with those additional services and products ensures that you will not loose those customers to potential competitors that may be able to service them with a wider range of products and services as well as ensure that you are maximizing every chance to earn revenue from your customer base. Everyone understands that it’s a significant expense to gain a paying customer and so it is important as a small business to encourage your customers to take advantage of joint venture opportunities you can provide not only to share with them a great opportunity, but to most importantly return the favor to those companies that are also sending you business and earn additional revenue in the process.

Co-Marketing Campaigns

Marketing campaigns can be very costly and if they do not immediately provide a solid return on the investment can be detrimental to the success of a small business especially those at the earliest stages. Take advantage of your joint venture marketing partners when they offer to do co-branded promotions. These types of activities reduce the costs for both companies and when done properly will appear as a genuine match that has been developed to ensure customer satisfaction. Many larger companies will offer co-marketing opportunities to small businesses that are providing a serious advantage to their product / services line up or have such a compelling story that the larger company sees significant value in associating their brand with the other business. This is an excellent way to get free branding and marketing as larger firms often already have set in place several core marketing strategies that they will execute for new joint ventures to increase the likely hood for success. As a small business, while doing a joint venture marketing relationship with a bigger company, it is acceptable to ask for marketing support as many companies have in house graphic design teams and others that can help quickly mock up any marketing collateral required. This also ensures that the larger company is approving the way that there company is being represented. It’s never good to spend significant resources as a small business to develop marketing collateral, only to have it redone because the larger partner does not approve of the materials that were created.

Take advantage of joint venture marketing relationships as a small business to increase visibility in the market, establish additional revenue streams with existing customers, and gain access to resources that will help drive business and ensure joint venture activities succeed.

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.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Common Joint Venture Risks And Effective Solutions

Considering all possible joint venture risks carefully before potential partners finalize their agreement is essential. This should continue throughout the lifetime of the partnership. The process of partnering with a different business is not always a walk in the park. However; the time investment for a full assessment is worthwhile to ensure the partnership runs as smoothly as possible. Both sides need to fully understand the risks involved with integrating personnel and the relevant financial fundamentals of the each other’s businesses.

What are your objectives of the joint venture?

It’s important to communicate the objectives of all partners with the shareholders. Otherwise an unknown or unidentified conflict of interest may arise. Keep in mind that during the planning stage of the partnership, each side is in a “wooing phase” and on their best behavior. Enjoy it while it lasts. Be prepared for the end of the honeymoon because it will end. If goals, responsibilities and roles are not clearly outlined, a more assertive partner may attempt to impose their objectives and goals absent a thoroughly planned agreement.

Some of the more prominent joint venture risks include; differing ideas on how to raise capital, financing agreements, and spending philosophies. Be sure to consider whether the JV operations will be capital-intensive or labor intensive. One partner might prefer heavy investment in machinery or technology for a competitive edge. The other may prefer more investment in labor-intensive techniques to avoid tying up capital.

Other common risks may involve personnel and staff integration. The two teams are perhaps worlds apart in terms of expertise, and technical sophistication. Often it requires expensive training to bring the other side up to speed. The new JV partners may also encounter a deep-rooted resistance to change from their respective staff. The risks abound when employees remain too entrenched in their previous philosophies, corporate culture and work environment. Territorial battles ensue over the new system, and non-compliance often leads to increased staff-turnover.

Joint venture risks related to intellectual property and financial information

Another area of contention is how much information to share. It may not be necessary or required to provide the other partner full access to something like production secrets. A number of joint venture marketing agreements are between two related, but not directly competing businesses. A soft drink manufacturer might enter into a partnership with a confectionaries producer. In such a partnership, the soft drink manufacturer would not necessarily find the need to share their soft drink formula and vice versa.

Joint venture risks dependent on capital spending can arise when one side refuses to share exact details related to their financial backers. Sometimes there is reluctance to offer the full details about future investors out of fear the potential partner will contact the investor directly. This leaves their prospective partner concerned that they do not have a true financial picture.

Being aware of the potential risks involved in a joint venture partnership is not enough. Efforts should be taken to protect each company as much as possible from the adverse effects of poor planning and the lack of a thorough evaluation. Building the right relationship from the start is ideal. This should minimize ill feelings that could develop between the new teammates. Adequate research, negotiation and compromise are necessary when developing shared objectives in a joint venture.

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.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Effectively Integrating Your Joint Venture with Social Media

Developing an effective strategic plan to integrate your joint venture and social media is essential for growth. In nearly every industry, social media influence has led to major changes in how joint venture partners do business. Finding and communicating with their customers are the two primary goals.

The tools for a joint venture and social media

Over the last ten years businesses have increasingly diversified their advertising budget to include online resources. The first wave of change was creating appealing and informative websites. The last three years have seen the rapid integration of joint venture and social media profiles for products or services with these websites. For a business with a large product line and customers from all corners of the globe, using these tools are practically required. The building blocks of your strategy is a website featuring links to your profile on Facebook or Twitter. YouTube is also very helpful, especially when educating customers about a new offering. For a business-to-business focused joint venture, LinkedIn is an essential social media channel. One of the newest trends is geotagging your social media content.

Using social media to communicate with joint venture customers

Whether it is breaking news or building product buzz, social media has accelerated the sharing of information. It’s not an exaggeration to use the cliche “faster than the speed of light” when referring to how quickly a joint venture can send information. Governments and businesses continue to learn how important it is be ahead of the information curve about their organization. Over the last three years, we have witnessed how quickly word can travel thanks to social media whether it’s positive or not.

A brief mention of a “fly-in-my-soup” kind of experiences can spread within minutes thanks to the exponential growth of social media usage via mobile tools. If an influential user with a smartphone posts a complaint on Twitter, it is retweeted five times within minutes of sharing. And that is just the beginning. This is damaging for banks or blue-chip companies. But the average neighborhood shop or small business might find themselves severally hampered by a critical review or unconfirmed rumor. These types of joint ventures thrive on their reputation and a damaging social media image can hamper growth.

Facebook has become one of the top three search tools consumers use to learn more about a company’s product or services. It is also the first place they go online when not pleased with customer service or the product they bought. At the bare minimum you should set up a free Google Alert via email for the name of your product or service. Choose the as-it-happens option for delivery. The faster you respond to criticisms as well as compliments, the better.

Relationship building with your customer

The ongoing integration of your joint venture and social media communication is a key method of building relationships with your customers. Allowing your customers to have the opportunity to join a dialogue with you is a great way of building trust. Consistent and quality content shared via social media allows your joint venture to quietly stay on the radar of your potential customer. Perhaps they do not need event planning help today, but what about next month? If they read on Twitter your party planning how-to tips regularly, then when they need the services of an event planner, you might be the first call.

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.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

How to Find Joint Venture Marketing Partners

Working with another company through a joint venture marketing agreement can be a good business decision, especially for companies who have limited resources but are willing to take the risk. Teaming up and creating a new business entity with its own assets and sharing the risks and rewards from the project may be just what is needed to accomplish what seems impossible to do individually. But the question is how to find joint venture partners who are a good fit for your business.

Finding joint venture partners

There are two possible solutions to finding the right JV partner. First, look around your immediate and local market for prospective partners and talk to them directly. The other is getting in touch with them through a “feeler” question or comment. A feeler usually draws out the hint, opinions or purposes of others in a group of people who might be interested into contacting you. One of the best places to find prospects is through social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook, however your first stop should be LinkedIn, which is the leading social media channel for professionals. You will find in most cases, that what you are looking for is just a click away.

Strategies for finding potential joint venture partners

In looking for possible JV marketing partners, you should ask yourself what are the qualities in a business partner that you’re looking for. Are you lacking in funds? If you want additional capital but are not interested in getting business loans, then finding a business investor is what you need. Look for them in your own business community, or even from your direct competitors. Sometimes your competitors are just waiting to be asked for a possible merging. Teaming up with a competitor is sometimes easier than getting somebody who has no knowledge of your business at all.

Industry journals are also valuable resources for scouting potential partners. Look for advertisers who might be interested in joining the venture. Scan your circle of business associates as it’s easier to approach someone you may already have an acquaintance with. They can be reached at conventions, conferences or seminars that you’re attending.

For those companies who have enough capital but lack expertise to further expand their business, look to schools, and the web or specialty institutions as possible leads. The internet has plenty of sites that provide access to freelance service providers. You can browse their qualifications and goals, and who knows, maybe he is the one that you have been looking for to team up with.

There are no limitations as to where you might find a joint venture partner. It could be a friend, or a friend of a friend. You just need to share your insights and visions of the joint venture marketing partnership you have in mind. Who knows, maybe the person sitting next to you in a restaurant or airplane turns out to be your future JV partner.

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.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Talking Points You Need to Know Before Forming a Joint Venture

There are many situations in the diverse world of business today that justify the need to enter into a joint venture marketing partnership. After hearing about joint venture marketing, someone might be excited about having their business transformed by creating an alliance with another successful and related business. However, the business world is full of rough-and-tumble personalities which will require you to tread cautiously in order to function efficiently and avoid getting the short end of the stick so to speak when it comes to a JV agreement. Here are several key points you cannot afford to ignore before entering a joint venture partnership.

Do the companies complement each other?

First of all, the potential partners should deliver a product and/or service that complements or at the very least is related to both companies. Obviously you’ll want to avoid partnering with a business that competes directly with your company’s products or services. Offering complimentary products or services in your new joint venture will go a long way to make the partnership a successful one. For example, home décor products would go well with a company that provides consumer electronics.

Does your potential JV partner have a compatible strategy?

The scope of the other partner’s strategy should not clash with yours. If you have a long-term plan in mind, it wouldn’t make sense to partner with a company that’s only in the market for the summer. Keep in mind the scope of your combined strategy will also influence things such as marketing plans, employee recruitment and training, and other short-term goals you may have for your business. Additionally, the combined strategy, whether it’s capital intensive or labor intensive will depend on the size of the businesses involved.

Another factor to take into consideration when reviewing whether or not you and your potential partner’s strategies are compatible is each company’s timeline. Know how soon the other partner plans to do some crucial tasks. Know how often they borrow or pay off loans. Without time lines, a business is just drifting with the current, lunging at any piece of business that drifts downstream. This is clearly not how a profitable business should operate. It’s also wise to crosscheck what customer base the other business already boasts. What quality is there and what room for improvement exists?

Is your potential JV partner financially sound?

Finally, the capital base that exists should be given top priority at the outset. Can you picture entering into a joint venture marketing agreement with a company that is going to declare bankruptcy tomorrow? Often, the integrity of both partners to the businesses will take a beating if one of the two declares that he cannot meet financial obligations. It’s highly recommended to have an attorney draft up an agreement to clearly outline which obligations, whether financial or otherwise, will be handled by which partner. That way, it’s not one person holding the reins of the agreement. The golden rule is being willing to treat the other partner’s business as if it were your own.

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.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

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