Christian Fea - Collaboration Marketing Strategist

Business owners have to be creative when it comes to cost effective ways to promote a product or service. Advertising has its place, but it is critical that any advertising and marketing efforts have a return on investment. Joint ventures are an extremely effective and low-cost way to market your business and increase profit.

There are many simple ways to step into the joint venture arena. Think about sharing these ideas with a joint venture partner:

• Exchange links on your websites
• Include information in your newsletters about your joint venture partner
• Display information on counter tops
• Place information in shopping bags, billings or other mailings
• Share a booth at a tradeshow or event
• Write articles for each other’s newsletters
• Provide prizes for fundraising events for various organizations
• Become involved with a local non-profit or non-profit event that allows you to be seen as benefactors.

Find businesses and service providers in your industry or a cross-related industry and approach them about with your joint venture idea. Here are some examples of creative joint ventures to get your juices flowing:

• Make up Artist/ Bridal Shop: The make-up artist kept bridal shop and prom information in her kit and passed it to potential clients when she was out on a job. The bridal store displayed the make-up artist’s information on their counter.
• Travel Agent/ Wedding Planner: The wedding planner kept the travel agent information available for her clients to book honeymoons and received a free trip for every so many clients she sent to the agent.
• Real Estate Agent/ Moving Company: The real estate agent negotiated a discounted moving rate within a local area for her clients. The moving company received additional advertising in the agent’s newsletter.
• Small Pet Shop/ Dog Groomer/ Animal Shelter: The pet shop offered the groomer’s services and helped to promote the local animal shelter fundraising events. The groomer offered services to the shelter and the pet shop. The shelter promoted the pet shop and the groomer to people who adopted pets.
• Travel Agent/ Luggage Store/ Non-wrinkle clothing line: The travel agent promoted both the luggage store and the non-wrinkle clothing line. The luggage store included the travel agent’s card and information about the non-wrinkle clothing in their luggage and on the counter. The clothing line consultant promoted the luggage store and the travel agent during her consultations.
  By thinking of scenarios where both parties benefit, joint venture opportunities abound. Pick a target market that you don’t always reach, but your potential joint venture partner does. Then brainstorm as to the type of cross-promotion you would like to do. Bring that to your potential joint venture partner and explain what it is that you envision. Be sure to highlight the benefits to the other party. Also, make sure that you outline what the responsibilities are for each project you work on together. That way, you’ll avoid misunderstandings. Use joint ventures to increase exposure and profit. Be creative and have fun!

Joint venturing is a wonderful tool to help increase your profit, visibility and market share. Joint ventures leverage the time and resources of the parties involved, and when done properly, should also bring increased value to the customer base of all the parties involved. Successful joint ventures have several things in common.

First, a successful joint venture will have an in depth understanding of the target market it is intended to reach. This is important because joint venture utilize the existing relationships that the other company has formed with its customers. If their customers are not your target market, and vice versa, there’s no sense in forming a strategic alliance because the customers won’t see any value. On the other hand, if you’re both reaching the same market with different products or services, you can create an instant revenue stream, especially if the customer views the product or service you introduce them to via your joint venture partner as something that is an excellent value to them. Remember, value to a customer in your target market doesn’t always mean money or savings. Sometimes value is found in helpful information, time-savings, and value-added services that will enhance their lives.

Joint ventures that instantly provide you with enhanced credibility are worth their weight in gold. Make sure that the company you choose to partner with for your joint venture is one with a sterling reputation with its clients. You can instantly increase your opt-in list when a company with a good reputation recommends your products or service to their people. People love having the legwork done for them ahead of time and are more likely to use a company that is recommended to them by someone they know and trust. When you’re working in a joint venture, be sure you guard the reputation of the company who is recommending you by taking the need to service their customers seriously. They’ve put their reputation on the line for you, and you for them. Make sure you both understand that the customers you’re sharing are a valuable asset for both companies and treat them accordingly.

Another feature of a successful joint venture is the new product or service offerings you can provide to your customer base. Joint ventures are great because you can offer a product or service with little or no investment of time and/or money. And your customer receives products or services through your company that they may otherwise not have received. When a customer feels that you’ve taken additional time to find or pass along quality products or services to them, they will begin to develop a sense of loyalty to your company. Building loyalty in your customers is a key to business success. Keep the customers you have happy, so that you can continue to expand your network via their recommendations. Just be careful that the products or services you are offering via your joint venture agreement are quality products. You don’t want your customers to get the feeling that you’re trying to make a fast buck. Nothing will give them that feeling faster than shoddy performance from your joint venture partner.

Creating a successful joint venture is worth your time and energy. Do your research, understand your target market, and go out and service them.

The growing popularity of joint ventures, powered by the significant revenue benefits it brings to businesses, has prompted many entrepreneurs to jump into the opportunities – without analyzing the situation carefully.

Unfortunately, improperly conceived decisions might lead to fatal mistakes, hurting both brand image and profitability of your small business.  If you are not familiar with the inner workings of joint ventures, it may be wise to consult with a joint venture expert – especially considering that the market dynamics in each industry are unique.  Here are some of the worst joint venture mistakes entrepreneur must avoid:

1.    Lack of research.  Like a marriage, finding the right partner is one of the most important elements in a successful joint venture.  You need to understand all the benefits you expect from the joint venture, as well as what you can bring on the table. You need to ascertain your prospective partner’s relative strengths, such as business reputation in the industry and quality of products or services, to ensure it matches your own business model.

2.    Penny-pinching. For a joint venture to succeed, the offers from both parties must be lucrative enough to strike a commitment. A meager incentive plan is a waste of time and money because it will not motivate your joint venture partner. Be reasonable all the time, and do not let greed ruin your business.

3.    Not testing the waters. Signing a long-term joint venture agreement can be a large mistake - for the simple reason that your strategies are not yet proven effective. If your joint venture flops, you have no choice but to continue at a loss or pre-terminate the agreement and pay for damages incurred to the other party. If you already signed the joint venture agreement, you may want to propose an escape clause in the event the joint venture is unprofitable.

Ideally, you negotiate for a short-term contract and conduct test marketing to some of your customers to gauge their reaction and solicit feedback. If you can tweak the problems, then it is time to roll out the joint venture in the bigger population for a long-term commitment.

4.    Not developing backup plans. It is faulty to assume that a joint venture will succeed until it does. Even though your joint venture is seemingly impeccable, there will always be some glitches, misunderstandings, or series of unfortunate events that might befall on this partnership.

Always have a set of alternatives developed in case an unfortunate event happens. As they say, do not put your eggs in one basket – and this is especially true when it comes to joint ventures.

5.    Being too open. Joint ventures do not exist if there is no trust. However, it does not mean you have to bare it all and share your trade secrets to the other side.  For instance, some entrepreneurs share their whole hard-earned client list to their joint venture partners, hoping that it will help build relations.  Unknowingly, they are violating the privacy of their customers, as well as losing their leverage over the partnership.

These are just a few, yet very deadly, joint venture mistakes often committed by small business owners. The success of any joint venture lies in details, hard work, and careful analysis of your business industry.  By walking through your joint ventures carefully and intellectually, and potentially consulting with experts, your business can reap the significant benefits of joint venture partnerships.

Smart entrepreneurs go completely against the herd mentality of business.  They don’t compete – and this is how they build highly successful businesses.  “How could they not compete?” you ask, arguing that competition is the core of an economically viable company and economy.  Interestingly enough, smart entrepreneurs do not compete – instead, they take advantage of their competition and make strategic alliances with them.

Keep your business enemies closer…

Indeed, smart business owners keep their partners close, but their economic enemies even closer.  Although this may seem counter-intuitive, developing strategic alliances with your competition to expand the overall pie, ensuring that you both get a larger slice of profits.

The need for strategic alliances is especially strong in industries where competition is fierce.  Many entrepreneurs can feel very isolated in their business, feeling as if the competition is closing in on them.  With that said, simply by altering your mindset, you can quickly begin to see the opportunities in your industry.  Indeed, you can quickly turn the competition lemons into sweet, profitable lemonade for all parties involved.

How to shift from competition to strategic alliance

For the vast majority of business owners, it is not easy to embrace the competition – and that is completely understandable.  However, once you begin seeing the beauty of your competition, you can capitalize upon their standing in the market place to further your exposure and profitability.  There are several modes of analysis that can help you make the jump from typical competitor to smart ally:

1. The closer you hold your competitors, the greater you will understand how to differentiate your niche – giving you an economic edge in both the short and long-run.  For example, although two competing companies may sell spyware software, upon closer evaluation, they are not the same.  Company A’s target audience are consumers, while Company B targets the technical directors of major corporations.  Having in-depth knowledge is incredibly powerful, both in terms of perfecting a branding strategy and generating higher levels of sales.

2. There are plenty of fish available in the sea, especially if you are targeting clients on the Internet.  The Internet provides an endless plethora of traffic, which means you have a nearly limitless supply of clients.  This eases potential conflict tensions, and instead, boosts the overall exposure for the entire industry.  The selection of blogs, all who quote, cite, and link to their competitors, is a testament to the power of strategic alliances within one industry.

3. With enough creativity, harsh competitors can turn into great strategic alliances that boost your revenues and help your business reach the next level of profitability.  For example, website design is an incredibly competitive industry, with new companies entering into the field every day.  However, it is still very effective for two competing companies to become partners.  Every single company – regardless of how competitive the industry is – has a specific niche.  In the case of website design, one company may be excellent in Flash, while the other company specializes in Java.  Thus, by referring clients to each other that are seeking a specific type of programming, both companies benefit.

The internet has changed the face of business and economic processes dramatically, and it is those smart businesses that can harness the power of strategic alliances that will be able to reach their full profitability potential.

Joint ventures are no longer reserved only for the powerful Fortune 500 companies. With the advent of the internet, both small and medium businesses alike can benefit from this powerful business strategy. The types of joint venture marketing partnerships you create are only limited by your imagination, and every industry has different dynamics that should be accounted for when creating the partnership. With that said, I have compiled three very effective joint venture marketing strategies that can take your business to the next level of earnings.

1. Utilize cross-promotion strategies with a synergistic client base.

As a traditional model of joint venture marketing, cross-promotion still reigns powerful as a strategy to increase your market share. Without having to spend any additional monies, you can instantly gain an exponentially larger client base simply by partnering with a business that has customer synergies. In addition, these synergies may not always be in the most obvious places – and some of the most powerful partnerships have come from creative thinking. For example, while a baby products website may not have obvious synergies with an electronics website, this could be a very successful joint venture partnership. Considering that research shows that women do the vast majority of shopping in the household, they are looking for both products for their babies – and their husbands. Thus, although the two products do not seem synergistic, the target audience certainly is.

2. Create an affiliate program.

Would you like an instant, powerful sales force – without any of the salary costs? By instituting an affiliate program, you do not risk any upfront costs, but instead gain a powerful sales force that can bring in customers outside of your typical marketing reach. However, it is important to keep in mind that if you do create an affiliate program that you provide your affiliates with the proper support. If they have questions or need samples of copy, make sure you can support your network of affiliates – and they will return your efforts twofold with increased revenues and market exposure to your business.

3. Create lead generating incentives.

Human psychology is triggered through incentives – which is why the big box retailers push Black Friday’s great sales as an incentive to get consumers in the holiday shopping spirit. Joint venture marketing strategies also need to employ the same psychological strategy. Provide incentives for your affiliates and partners to use, which will generate leads. For example, whenever an individual signs up for your newsletter, they get a bonus eBook filled with valuable information. Or, if they order through your affiliate within the next 24 hours, they enjoy free shipping. These incentives will turn leads into closed sales, and everyone benefits.

Joint ventures are one of the most powerful marketing strategies – yet it costs nothing for you to implement. You do not have to pay for hefty ad space, PPC dollars, or expensive sales staff salary. Instead, simply by harnessing the power of joint ventures, you can significantly boost the effectiveness of your marketing exposure.

Joint ventures are typically associated with Fortune 500 companies, where major players team up with other large corporations to further increase their share of the marketplace.

However, what if I told you that your business can also reap the same exponential rewards of joint venture marketing? Indeed, whether your company has one or 100 employees, joint venture marketing is the ultimate scalable business strategy, capable of exponentially increasing your current levels of revenue – without any additional investment of up-front costs!

To understand how a joint venture marketing partnership can take your revenues to the next level, let us break down the different components.

The conceptual foundation of joint venture marketing

Joint ventures, also known as JV, are a relationship between partnership organizations to enhance corporate activities, whether it is in research, development, or marketing. By pooling together their resources, the JV partners can split expenses (if any), and hopefully gain a larger market share through their dual efforts.

Essentially, by working together, joint ventures create a tangible strategy to the age old adage, “two minds are better than one” – except in this case, it is two businesses who work together to reach a better, larger target audience.

Determining how joint ventures fit with your business strategy

Regardless of the industry you operate your business in, the type of business you have, or the size of your business, you can significantly gain additional market exposure with joint ventures. By finding the right JV partnerships, you can significantly increase your revenues, while simultaneously adding new asset pools without any inventory or overhead costs – giving you streams of revenues that translate into 100% full profits.

Joint ventures may also be right for the new entrepreneur who would like to work for themselves, but may not necessarily want the financial burden of overhead costs, HR hassles, and administration management. Without having to invest in inventory or take in financial risks, a joint venture partnership allows the new entrepreneur to start a business that can quickly grow into full-time income. You simply connect the consumer demand with a supply – and get paid more than a pretty penny for your efforts.

Visualizing the economic power of joint ventures

Indeed, there are many entrepreneurs who have solely utilized joint ventures to make literally millions of dollars. The potential for joint ventures can be greater than the standard business model, which is limited by the number of products and services you can physically provide. On the other hand, with joint venture marketing, you can earn significant revenues simply by connecting the buyer and the seller – without any physical constraints or bottlenecks.

For example, you may run a website that sells supplies for wedding floral arrangements, but with the intense competition in PPC for the keywords “flowers,” you are limited by your budget for your advertising endeavors – and thus, your revenues do not meet their full potential. However, you find another website that sells wedding invitations – and voila – and joint venture marketing partnership is born. The synergy between the partners is perfect, as the two target audiences are completely in line with each other. Your partner sends out an email to their client base about your floral website, and you instantly gain tons of exposure without spending a cent! In addition, you have now increased your inventory offerings. You can earn a nice commission on all of the invitations your clients order. In the end, you get greater client exposure and two streams of revenue – significantly boosting your previous levels of sales.

The key in benefiting exponentially from joint venture marketing is to find the right partner, one who may share synergies with your target audience. However, the rewards are certainly worth the efforts. Joint venture marketing is not only a savvy business strategy, but an incredibly affordable one as well. Who says nothing in life is free?

With the 2007 holiday season ending, new statistics have been published, revealing the comfort level of consumers and shopping online. Indeed, not only have consumers increased their ease with shopping online, but also with their comfort with online advertising.

In the past holiday season, the comfort levels consumers displayed with rich online advertising were greater than ever before. Indeed, consumers increased their interaction with online advertising, converting over from these ads into sales. One of the greatest indicators of a sales conversion is related to how long a customer interacts with an ad; the longer the interaction, the higher the probability the interest will turn into a conversion.

Capitalizing upon consumer’s ecommerce ease

What does this mean for your business, either online or brick and mortar? For any business operating online, the increased comfort level of consumers shopping and viewing ads online brings tremendous potential for revenues. Whereas the internet economy was initially embraced by a targeted segment of the population, it has now grown into mass acceptance.

Whether you own a strictly virtual business, or one that is supplemented by a brick and mortar establishment, tapping into the tremendous full potential of internet commerce is made significantly easier with joint ventures.

Understanding the potential of joint ventures

Both small and big businesses can profit significantly from the power of joint ventures. Traditionally, Fortune 500 companies engage consistently in joint ventures, ranging from research to marketing efforts. However, with the power of the internet, small and mid-sized businesses can benefit from joint ventures.

One of the most popular forms of joint ventures online is affiliate marketing. Growing tremendously in revenues and profits, affiliate marketing has become its own industry in the internet ecommerce, spreading through different industries, services, and products. Essentially, the affiliate works to spread the marketing campaign to a wider customer base, and the affiliate partner earns a percentage of all recommended sales.

Affiliate joint ventures work well for every business structure, ranging from individuals to multinational corporations. As the partner, it is a great way to gain instant exposure for your business beyond your traditional customer base. As the affiliate, you earn additional income without having to bear the responsibility of inventory and structures. It is a great win-win situation for both parties involved.

Taking advantage of the burgeoning opportunity

The trend for consumers gaining additional comfort and ease with shopping online will only continue to grow. In addition, lured by the competitive pricing and services offered online, more and more consumers are turning to the internet as a means of finding the best deal, both for products and services. With that said, considering that 2008 is predicted to be a potential recessionary year, more consumers – restricted by tight spending – will move their spending online, where their dollar stretches more.

Indeed, there are many “super affiliates” that have built very powerful businesses strictly by finding strong joint ventures – and then matching those companies and services up with a related customer base. The earlier you start building your joint venture partnerships, the stronger you build the strength of your business earnings.

When two companies are considering a collaborative marketing or joint venture partnership, there is a precise recipe for success. Negotiating a joint venture is very different than other types of business negotiation. Instead of splitting the pie, where one companies vies for a larger piece, the key to joint venture negotiations is expanding the pie – where both parties walk away in a “win – win” situation.

Approaching a collaborative marketing or joint venture partnership requires a fine balance between negotiating for your own self-interests, while keeping in mind that this is an “interaction implementation” partnership – not a one time transaction where you shake hands and walk away from the table forever. If negotiations are conducted poorly, then the joint venture is doomed from the beginning.

Traditional vs. implementation negotiation

Traditional negotiation methods call for “trump cards,” where one party withholds as much information as possible. Since “knowledge is power,” negotiating parties perceive the sharing of information as a weakness during the negotiation process. Negotiators will not reveal what is most important to them – this may “cost” them more in the negotiation. Instead, through smoke and mirrors, negotiators mask what is important to them and the information they hold. In addition, the negotiators believe that the other party should conduct their own due diligence research to reveal the reality.

If traditional negotiations extended into a joint venture partnership, then the collaboration risks a high probability of failure. Like any relationship, it is open communication and information exchange that keeps the partnership healthy. However, with traditional negotiations, information is inherently kept secretive – which spells disaster when it comes time to implement the partnership. To keep a long-term collaboration and joint venture partnership healthy, it is important to disclose vital pieces of information, as this will determine whether the partnership will function effectively. Talk about your priorities, what factors must be in place in order to make the relationship fruitful for your business. Likewise, keep an open ear to your potential partner’s needs. By speaking openly during the negotiation process, you can develop a creative solution that will relatively expand both pieces of the pie – instead of simply attempting to negotiate for the bigger piece.

Moving from the negotiation table to the working room

Once the negotiations have closed, it is time to transition into the working relationship. Interestingly enough, it is important that both partners in the joint venture relationship have an understanding of flexibility. With the rapid changes in the marketplace and emerging internet technologies, the specific details that were hammered out in the initial negotiation may not be relevant in six months. Therefore, in order to make the transition from the negotiations table into the working relationship, it is important that both parties can work together – in all market conditions – to continue the fruitfulness of the relationship.

The key to negotiating joint venture or collaboration marketing partnerships is open communication, ensuring that the relationship’s implementation will be meet with smoothness – not surprises.

McDonald’s Happy Meals and Disney’s toys.  Garmin’s GPS and Hertz’s rental cars.  These are all tried-and-true joint venture marketing partnerships that have led to significant success – and increased revenues.

The underlying fundamentals of joint venture marketing are simple.  You partner with a company and have them deliver your message to their customer base.  In turn, your collaboration partner garners a percentage of your profits by expanding their asset offerings.

Whenever Disney has a new movie arriving in theaters, they utilize McDonald’s as a marketing partnership to generate additional excitement and exposure.  In turn, McDonald’s capitalizes upon the popularity of the movie and makes additional Happy Meal sales.

With the relationship between Garmin and Hertz, the benefits are significantly twofold.  Garmin’s legitimacy undergoes a significant boost, as Hertz is actively promoting the product.  In addition, Garmin demonstrates to the end user how effective its GPS systems work, thus having essentially days to engage in first-hand marketing to the consumer.  On the other hand, Hertz gains additional profits from renting out the Garmin units as an addition to their rental car fees.

Whether you own a multibillion dollar corporation or a one-person operation, any business can capitalize upon the powers of joint venture marketing.  In fact, joint venture marketing is much more effective than your traditional advertising campaigns – where you toot your own horn to a critical audience.

For example, if you see a banner advertisement extolling the virtues of X Company’s software, you would review it with a weary eye.  Consumers, both subconsciously and consciously, believe that they should be critical of any self-promoting advertisement.  Therefore, not only do you have to overcome this initial skepticism, but you must compel them enough to click through to your website.

On the other hand, if their favorite blogger mentions the power of X Company’s software, the consumers are much more inclined to take a look at the product.  In fact, they already have a good impression, and thus, chances are they will become a converted sale.  You eliminate the barriers of skepticism, as well as the lack of motivation to view your website. The other company also enjoys increased revenues, typically through a commission on all leads or sales.

Thus, one of the most effective ways you can promote your website is through joint venture marketing.  By capitalizing upon the relationships that other companies have already built with their customer base, your products can enjoy the benefit of a positive first impression.

Why you should be using “Collaboration Marketing” to create “leverage switches” to expand your business and increase your profits? What is Collaboration Marketing?

Collaboration Marketing is an abstract mind-set used to describe a business building process that involves two or more entities (with similar, but non-competing products, services or ideas) that agree to contribute their existing assets (people, time, money, processes and resources) for the synergistic betterment of a newly formed relationship, business, or process.

What?

Ok, here’s a better way to understand “Collaboration Marketing”.

Collaboration Marketing, (CM) often referred to as a Strategic Alliance (SA), Joint Venture (JV’s), or Corporate Partnering (CP) can be defined as “a mutually beneficial relationship between two or more parties”. Collaboration Marketing can range from being very simplistic, quick, informal one-time events to very formal, long-term projects, relationships, or even the creation of a completely new company or company division. The power and possibilities that you can accomplish from a well-planned “Collaboration Marketing Process” are numerous, exciting, and (can be) quite profitable.

In this article, I’ll focus primarily on giving you some high level examples on the benefits of using an informal Strategic Alliance for getting new clients quickly.

The underlying principle that makes a Strategic Alliance so powerful is that they work on the basis of a “trusting relationship”. Trust among the participating parties, trust between the network of clients, members and any other circle of influence you or a potential Strategic Alliance partner may have. Trust that in most cases has taken you or your future Strategic Alliances partner months and even years to develop, cultivate, and nurture.

Ok, stay with me while I give a you an example of “the reason why” Collaboration Marketing works.

Think about how you make your buying decisions. What’s the first thing you usually do when you need to make a product or service purchase that you’ve not used or consumed before. In most cases you’ll ask your a family member, friend or business associate for a referral. Are you asking for a referral because you don’t know were to find the product or service you’re seeking? Unlikely, the Internet, Yellow Pages, and 411 information services are overflowing with invasive ads for products and services (this is also another reason to use Strategic Alliances, but we’ll talk more about penetrating the “Noise Barrier” in a future Collaboration Marketing article) More then likely, your asking someone you “trust” because they have already gone through the sales experience with a particular vendor and can possibly save you time, money, and frustration based on their experiences.

Let’s take an example of how a start-up company used Collaboration Marketing to setup a Strategic Alliance to generate new clients within one week with little to no marketing and advertising cost.

Simon opened his Web Design Company with a passion for creating websites, logos, and custom graphics for his clients. Simon was a skilled graphic designer, but his sales and marketing skills were based solely on theory and what he learned from a few books he had recently read. Simon wanted to do a promotion offering 25% off his services for new clients. Simon and I had a conversation about this promotion and asked me my advice and thoughts on this type of promotion. His objectives were to find new clients quickly without spending a lot of money on marketing. I told him that he had two primary objections to overcome since his business was new, he currently had only one client and his competition in the Web Design space was fierce and while competing strictly on a discount price point may work, I suggested he use a Strategic Alliance to keep his prices at a competitive market rate to obtain new clients, while creating a “leverage switch” with a complimentary business owner that already had a trusting relationship with the exact type of clients Simon was looking to provide service to. I suggested Simon call local printers, illustrators, and web programmers in his area. I had him pick local vendors (so he could actually go meet these other business owners, which builds rapport and trust) that work in complimentary, not competitive businesses. Simon contacted a local print shop, introduced himself and offered to provide a “Web Design” division to the print shops existing base of over 300 clients. Within one week, Simon and the owner of the print shop wrote an email letter to his existing clients announcing the new service. Within two weeks Simon gained an immediate influx of client requests with an acquisition cost of zero!

The reason this relationship worked is based on the established trust the printer had with his clients and the trust that Simon built with the printer. By showing him his portfolio, proving to the printer that Simon was capable and skilled, meeting him in person (not necessary, but it’s an added way to build trust and rapport) and offering the printer an added profit stream opportunity to open a new web division with minimal to no out of pocket costs. This was clearly a win-win Strategic Alliance. The printer was able to provide a profitable service (that his clients were asking for) and Simon was able to position himself in front of an established warm market of prospects.

I hope this has sparked your imagination and creativity as to what’s possible with Collaboration Marketing. What Strategic Alliance opportunities could you use to expand your business this quickly?

If you have any Collaboration Marketing or Strategic Alliance stories, please add a comment to this post so our other readers can benefit from it.

In my next post we’ll discover how to use the underutilized power of “Systematic Collaborative Intention” to attract more clients.