Collaborating – Velocity Media

17 November 2014

Five ways collaborations can build your business

When it comes to building your business and your profile no strategy is as powerful or as leveraged as collaborations.

Partnering, aligning or joint venturing with another company or person for their skills, experience or influence can be one of the smartest moves you can make in business.

Don’t believe me? Check out how collaborations could be boosting your bottom line – and not just with referrals.

1. Increase your knowledge

Being able to brainstorm, discuss business challenges, draw on experience and ask questions of someone who has gone before you or is going along with you can be incredibly valuable.

We all need a sounding board but we don’t always have the ability or resources to do this within our own businesses. Not to mention an independent, outside-looking-in viewpoint can give you the clarity you need to plan and prioritise appropriately.

2. Win bigger deals

While you may be an expert in your field or offer a superior product, chances are your product or service is not the only one your customers and potential customers will need.

Combining with other complimentary businesses and specialists can give you the ability to offer a full range of products and services with more specialised skills and benefits giving you a competitive edge when pitching for new business in an increasingly competitive market.

3. Further your reach

One of the biggest benefits of collaborating is the promotional opportunities that come out of it. From strong referral channels as your product or service becomes part of another business’ offering, to joint advertising and public relations opportunities across each other’s databases and beyond, it can give you the leverage you need to further your reach and generate some serious exposure for your business and personal profile.

4. Create an additional source of income

Being able to on sell or package up other peoples products and services – without doing extra work can also give you an additional source of income and a wider scope of results. Customers are also more likely to come back or stay with you if you are offering multiple services that they don’t have to look elsewhere for.

5. Save more money

Not only can collaborations bring money in, they can also save you money. It could be that you can share the same tools, promotional costs for campaigns, even offices and staff depending on your collaboration.

The opportunities really are endless with the right collaboration partners.

Do you actively collaborate with other businesses? What are some ways you can give and get even more value from the relationship?

Amanda

17 September 2014

The collaboration checklist

When it comes to leveraging your time, money, contacts and resources you can’t beat the power of collaboration. Not only do strategic partnerships or alliances open you up to new contacts and opportunities, they can also help you value-add to customers and land larger accounts.

But how do you find the right collaboration partners? This five-question collaboration checklist will help you find and evaluate strategic alliances so you can appeal to a wider target audience, attract larger clients and grow your business faster through collaboration.

1. Are you well aligned?

When it comes to building a close business relationship you need to be well aligned, not only in your level of skill and experience, but also in your personality, ethics and business vision. You need to be comfortable with referring your customers to them. If there is even the slightest doubt, address it early.

2. Do you share the same client base?

You want to collaborate with businesses your ideal customer will go to either before or after you. This way you not only supply each other with leads, but also value-add to each other’s customers and projects, share promotional costs, open up profitable promotional opportunities and can joint pitch for bigger accounts.

3. Have you done your due diligence?

When you are considering working with someone closely you need to do your research. What is their reputation like? Do they have the right credentials and licenses? Have you spoken to some of their customers? Do you know their strengths and weaknesses? Have you asked about their capacity?

Remember you will be associating your brand with their brand and referring them customers. Their decision and actions (or lack their of) could impact on your customers and business. Make sure you’ve asked the right questions and have a strong level of trust in them.

4. Do you have a value-add Plan B?

Business relationships, like any relationship aren’t fully equal 100% of the time. Know from the very beginning that sometimes one person will be referring more than the other.

By openly accepting this fact you can build in a Plan B, like a commission on referrals, contra products or services or additional promotion throughout each other’s network at these times so you both feel that you are still receiving value from the collaboration.

5. Are you both equally committed?

Successful business arrangements happen when each party is equally committed and invested in the project. You both need to want the collaboration and see the value in it as much as the other, otherwise it will end up a win/lose arrangement or it will fizzle quickly into nothing.

Like any relationship you both need to be persistent, committed, invested and take the time to nurture your collaboration through communication – a quick weekly/fortnightly call to say “hey, how is everything in your world? Anything I can do to help?” doesn’t take a lot of effort; it can however generate you a strong collaboration and lot of business.

Do you collaborate in your business? How do you find the right partners?