Whether you're King of the Hill and ready to Create Your Own Movement or you want to become the next Global Brand here's absolutely the most important advice you'll get from anybody. . . .form an alliance with your competition. Yep you heard me right. Ever read the Art of War? Well I'll capsulize it for you - "Keep your Friends Close" and your "Enemies Closer"
You're good, yes? You've made it up the Hill.
But you want more. You want to be BIG. Really BIG! You want to own your space, you want to dominate your market and most of all, you want to be "The One" that everyone talks about - am I close?
So what's the issue? You have good leadership skills, a reasonably productive sales process and you're making money right? Ahhh, that's it you're NOT making enough money. Well building an "Intelligent Business Alliance" is a way to profit from using today's most important strategic tools, joint ventures, creative collaboration and strategic partnerships. Paradoxical as it may be, if you're a "self-employed" entrepreneur, the best way to compete right now is to identify your competition, sort through how you can and cannot leverage the majority of these businesses and then form strategic alliances with the rest.
Think about it, whether it's local market ownership or global market penetration and domination it will take this kind of evolved thinking. Even becoming the "go to" business in a local market will rely on getting past the "lone ranger" mentality.
Conflict and competition are not part of the new business dynamic. The Stone Age is called the 20th Century. Cooperation and mutual benefit reign supreme in the 21st Century and those who are smart enough to embrace the concept and plan strategically will own their markets.
So look for a good alliance partner to stand side-by-side with and together you can make "It" happen for both your businesses. Defining "it" together is where the finesse comes in.
Some suggestions: Look for a company who has expertise, skill sets where you "don't" i.e. you have an established business but not enough customers? There are thousands of experienced sales and marketing consultants out there just looking to help you get more customers or let's say you have a new product that you want to market on the internet but you don't have a list of customers - FIND A COMPANY WITH THE SAME KIND OF PRODUCTS same target market and an established list of customers and "partner with them". It makes good business sense to give up a percentage of your profit to this new "strategic partnership" to 'get into business" quickly via someone else's website and lead list.
So you've all heard that the best partnerships are "Win-Win" where both sides get "something" out of the alliance. You've Heard Right!
I challenge you to reexamine your thinking about creative collaboration and approach joint ventures and strategic partnerships with a new awareness. If you move toward potential business alliances armed with the clarity that comes from being 'educated" on the subject and equipped with specific tools to evaluate and manage your collective business - YOU WILL SUCCEED. I GUARANTEE YOU the time you invest to better understand today's most important strategic business tools - joint ventures, creative collaborations and strategic partnerships will serve you well over a lifetime.
