A marketing budget is a big expense to small business owners, and often one of the first to go when times get tight .  However, marketing is the lifeblood of continued sales, and the small business’ poor performance is often enhanced because of the cuts.  One way to dream big even when times are tough is to take advantage of joint venture opportunities. 

The definition of joint venture is a calculated partnership between a number of business owners to share resources toward a common business goal.  In plain words, everyone has the chance to throw in what they have towards a goal to everyone’s advantage.  A joint venture can be as simple as working with another business owner to cross promote your products, or as complicated as collaborating together on an elaborate weekend event. 

Anyone involved in a joint venture will benefit regardless of the complexity. First, is your chance to create more power from your marketing budget.  As an example, maybe your budget only allows for print media advertising, but by consolidating several business owner’s resources you will be able to expand into radio or even television advertising.  Not to mention that everyone’s sales force is expanded by the other participant’s customers and contacts.

A newer business owner can quickly establish credibility by working with strategic joint venture partners.  If you choose successful joint venture partners, your credibility will grow rapidly as people perceive you to be similar to those you associate with.   And the added bonus is that by taking advantage of these successful business owner’s skills and knowledge, you will bypass many of the mistakes a new small business owner might make along the way. 

But the biggest advantage of joint venture marketing is that you can keep your dreams alive through collaboration.  No goal is out of reach once you have found the right partners to make it happen.  Small businesses are thriving through joint venture marketing, even during these tough economic times.  Yours will too when you seek out the ideal joint venture partners to meet your objectives. 

Get more small business success strategies and claim your free white paper: “7 Ways Your Stone-Age Accounting System is Stealing Money From You Every Day … And, How to Get it Back This Year”  to learn about an online accounting program that makes it simple to track the success of your joint venture marketing.

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Review

Get set, go! Entrepreneur Magazine’s Start Your Own Business claims to be “The Only Start-Up Book You’ll Ever Need.” That sounds mighty boastful, but the author’s credentials are strong, the book loaded with business resources and the information is down-to-earth (Everything you need to start a successful business… except the money, But we’ll show you how to get that, too!”) Author Rieva Lesonsky and the staff of Entrepreneur Magazine put together the book which starts with “Are you ready to be an entrepreneur?” and goes on to starting versus buying, choosing the name attracting investors, hiring employees, location, loans, image, leasing versus buying equipment, choosing a phone system, learning from failure – all the nitty-gritty stuff, plus some long-term thinking. Lesonsky, Entrepreneur’s Vice President / Editorial Director, frequently speaks at small-business conferences and appears on TV and radio business programs. — Geneevieve Buc (more…)