Strategic Alliance Partnerships

I had been giving a lot of thought to what it is like to be a Sole Trader, especially after receiving Business Coaching in the summer. Working for yourself may be attractive because you don’t have to answer to irritating bosses, put up with annoying colleagues and perform mundane projects that give you no satisfaction or don’t allow you to show what you really can do.

But as a Sole Trader it can seem that you are totally alone; there’s no-one to bounce ideas off, discuss new projects, back you up in your ventures or pick you up and analyse things when they go wrong; even the smallest thing can seem enormous and get out of proportion and nobody can guide or prevent you from going off on the wrong track. The learning curve is huge, mistakes can sometimes be disasterous, challenges are real challenges and simple things like writing a business plan and working out a marketing strategy can be very daunting.

I learnt that forming a Strategic Alliance Partnership can provide many advantages. By combining firms or people’s businesses they can add value by making each other aware of their services and products; combine resources to jointly attract new clients; create an increased profile and marketing awareness; lighten each others’ workload by delegation; motivate each other’s businesses; provide a bigger response, larger discounts and a faster service; increase marketing penetration; enhance competitiveness; recommend others as consultants and work with multi-suppliers on a project; develop new business opportunities and expand marketing developments; diversify the businesses and skills; and hone in and challenge any existing ideas.

The next thing I have to do is to think about this and do some more research. And look at my business and see if what I have to offer so it will be attractive to another company or person and whether it would be possible to combine to offer a particular package or service in addition to their existing ventures.

Watch this space!

Alice

Buddies for Start-Up Businesses?

I met a very nice lady at a networking evening and as she came from just around the corner from me we met up for a cappuccino. She was just starting out her business and was very keen to get as much information as possible. While I was relaying all the information I knew to help her, I saw that she was a wealth of information herself, especially in networking opportunities and marketing workshop details, and we talked continuously for over 2 hours!

We have been meeting regularly since then, simply to pass on information and help each other. Having this ‘businsess buddy’ has been invaluable in bouncing ideas, filtering bad and irrelevant material, directing each other to important websites and other marketing information, and providing general backup and encouragement.

Information for start-up businesses is either brilliant or downright lousy, as it is a post-code lottery as to where you start up. Sure, there are lots of websites out there providing marketing information and networking opportunities, but not all these are accessible for women starting their business with not much funding and children to look after. I wish there were more networking meetings during the lunchhour and at more reasonable attendance rates - why does everything have to be geared towards making lots of money? Where’s the altruism? Money will come later, once you’ve got the goodwill of those who you are in contact with, and even if they can’t afford your services at the time, they will surely refer you to others who can.

Does anybody else out there have a business buddy? And what do you think about this concept?

Alice