If you are the owner of a small to medium sized online business, chances are you’ve heard of joint venture marketing or a joint venture marketing partnership in passing, but weren’t sure if it was the right choice for your business. You may even be a little intimidated by the fancy-sounding professional name, but a joint venture marketing partnership is really a simple and straightforward business strategy that even the smallest companies can easily employ to boost their exposure and, ultimately, their profits.

Getting started with an online joint venture marketing partnership is much easier than you might think. Often, the most difficult step to take of starting something new is the first one, and some people don’t get past the “thinking about it” phase because the prospect seems so daunting. But there is really nothing to fear with embarking on a joint venture marketing partnership. It is quite a straightforward process and simple to execute.

Brainstorming

The first step of a joint venture marketing partnership, and often the most difficult, and the one that tends to stop people in their tracks, is to come up with a list of companies with whom you would like to partner.

In order to do this, you will want to think of the types of companies that would make good joint venture marketing partners, and then go about making a list of specific companies from your first, more general list.

Be Creative

When composing your lists of types of companies, it is important to be open and creative to ideas that pop into your mind that upon first assessment may not seem appropriate. If for instance, you have a wedding cake business, some of the first companies you think to partner with will probably be wedding planners, caterers, and photographers because these businesses are likely to have clients with similar interests to your potential customers, without being direct competitors. But you may also want to think about talking to some local bakeries or party accessories stores. Neither suggestion may be at the top of your list, but they are still potentially profitable joint venture marketing partners.

It may seem counterintuitive to contact bakeries if you have a wedding cake business and this initially seems like it would be direct competition. But not all bakeries offer a wedding cake service, and these are the ones you will want to target. Small neighborhood bakeries often have a loyal clientele, but may not specialize in making wedding cakes. Chances are that the majority of their customers know someone who at some time or another is getting married and will need a wedding cake. It is also likely that these customers will ask their favorite bakeries for suggestions, which is where your joint venture partnership comes in.

Party accessory stores are another good option for a joint venture marketing partnership, and one that may not come immediately to mind. These types of party stores often have wedding accessories, but it is not their main focus. However, even if a wedding clientele is just a small portion of their business, you gain exposure to this niche. It is a great way to boost exposure for your own business.

The thought of embarking on a joint venture marketing partnership may seem daunting, but it need not be. The first step is to brainstorm, and you can even enlist the help of your friends and family for a fun way to get some work done. Invite people over, order pizza and ask everyone for a few suggestions. You’ll have a productive evening, as well as not feel so alone and overwhelmed when embarking on this new phase for your business.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing & Consulting firm empowering business owners to discover and implement Integration, Alliance, and Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve specific business challenges and increase profits. To read more articles related to Joint Venture Marketing, please go to his Joint Venture Blog Site. He can be reached at christian@synertegic.com

Making it easy for your clients/customers to get ahold of you is vitally important to any enterprise. A key part of being reachable is having a powerful small business phone system.

A small business virtual PBX phone system is really the ultimate solution to the entrepreneur’s business phone service needs. By incorporating leading-edge communication features, this system makes the business owner’s telephone system behave like that of a bigger corporation.

The front-runner in virtual PBX phone service is RingCentral. As an hosted virtual, very affordable business phone and online fax service, RingCentral brings cutting telecommunication features within grasp of the average entrepreneur.

No special hardware or phone lines are required to use the RingCentral service. By taking advantage of your current phone lines, RingCentral is incredibly easy to setup and charges no expensive startup costs. All that is needed to have RingCentral service is at least one phone that is able to receive calls.

Your small business easily distinguishes itself apart from the competition by combining the RingCentral advanced call management services with a local or toll free main telephone number. A client or customer calls the main number for your business, and is then routed to the necessary phone line via the versatile RingCentral phone auto attendant service.

Regardless of the number of employees your company has, or where they are geographically located, the RingCentral business PBX service allows your customers to call one main number and be able to reach anybody in your company.

Leading-edge telecommunication features come standard with most RingCentral service plans. Features include call forwarding, virtual receptionist, call screening, online faxing with dedicated phone number, voicemail with email delivery, and much more.

With RingCentral virtual PBX service, your current business phone service is turned into a powerful sales machine. Increase the power of your existing small business phone system by giving RingCentral a try with their worry free 30-day trial. You will be amazed at the results you see.

As a entrepreneur, you need to have a way for your clients and customers to get in touch with you. Telephones are still the most common and most used form of communication in the world today. Shouldn’t your existing company phone service be working harder for your small business?

If you want to take your current small business phone service to the next level, then you need a small business PBX phone system. Working with your existing business phone service, a hosted small business PBX phone system greatly enhances your most simple form of communication.

A business PBX service makes your current small business phone service behave like that of a much larger company. If you have ever called a larger company that has an automated phone system that answers your call and allows you to choose an employee or department to be connected with, then you know exactly what a small business PBX will do for your company.

With a small business PBX service, you have either a local or toll-free phone number that is the main telephone number for your company. Once a person calls this telephone number, they are greeted by your virtual receptionist and offered the choice of where their call should be routed.

You have full and utter control of incoming call routing. You can set up your small business PBX service can route inbound phone calls to any phone, at any location. So you can be spending time in the Bahamas and have business calls sent to your cell phone.

With service plans starting at under $10 per month, you have to have a small business PBX service for your business. Two of the largest providers are RingCentral and GotVmail. RingCentral has been shown to have the combination of the best set of features and available service at a very competitive price, not to mention a free 30-day trial.

From powerful virtual auto attendant features, to call screening ability, to online voicemail, a business PBX service really brings a lot of value to your existing company phone service.

If your small business relies on telephone service to communicate with customers, you have to give a good look at a business PBX phone service. You will be surprised at how one of these phone services can change your existing small business telephone service.

If you are the owner of a small to medium sized online business, embarking on a joint venture marketing partnership can be a pathway to increased success and profits.  Joint venture marketing is a proven tactic for increasing the exposure of your products and services, which leads directly to increased profits. 

In these difficult economic times, you may think such a proposal sounds great, but not for your business. You don’t have a lot of excess cash to pump into a new marketing platform and no matter how potentially profitable it promises to be. But the beauty, and genius, behind a joint venture marketing platform is that it doesn’t need to cost a lot and often, it costs nothing at all!   Thus, you can amplify the exposure for your company, with almost no upfront investment.

Too Good to be True?

Most business owners are wary of anything that sounds too good to be true.  Everybody knows that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” and “you can’t get something for nothing” are standard American mottos. A way to potentially increase your profits with little to no upfront costs may sound too good to be true, but indeed it is not - not with a joint venture marketing partnership!

The difference with a joint venture marketing partnership is that you aren’t exactly getting something for nothing . . . you’re getting something for what you already have - your business. With a joint venture marketing partnership, you are leveraging your existing assets, and combining them with the existing assets of one or more companies to mutually benefit both entities.

Exchanging Experiences and Customers

You have more to offer with the cards you currently hold than you think. Joint venture marketing is about employing the resources you already have, and getting to them to work for you in a new aspect. This new aspect involves a mutual sharing of knowledge, expertise and an important asset you already have: your website.

The easiest and most standard method for embarking on a joint venture marketing partnership is to create an arrangement where a reciprocal relationship of company website use is established. This may sounds overly complicated, but it is really quite simple and completely safe. You are not going to turn over the administration or control of your company’s website to your partner - you merely allow them to use existing space on your website for them to advertise their products and services, in return for space on their website to market and advertise the products and services of your company.

Choosing the Right JV Partner

The biggest key to a truly successful joint venture marketing partnership is to choose a company to engage with, who is not a direct competitor of yours. You also don’t want to try to forge a joint venture marketing partnership with a company that is in a completely different realm from yours - that would be largely unproductive. The goal is to have the customers who go to your partner’s website to be potentially interested in the products and services you have to offer, without taking any business away from your partner or being in direct competition with them. This will greatly increase the exposure of your company, and potentially lead to greatly increased profits.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing & Consulting firm empowering business owners to discover and implement Integration, Alliance, and Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve specific business challenges and increase profits. To read more articles related to Joint Venture Marketing, please go to his Joint Venture Blog Site. He can be reached at christian@synertegic.com

Bottled water with customized labeling is now readily available as an advertising and marketing device on many websites; let’s see why this happened.

Water which flows to the surface from a subterranean spring is considered natural spring water. Characteristically, natural spring water maintains all of its minerals. Bottled spring water is better for your body’s hydration, which is important for good health. in this water you will not find the impurities, flavors, sugar, salt, and toxins found in most water.

The human body is over 70% water, affecting all of our bodily functions. It regulates temperature, and also dissolves and rids your body of many impurities and toxins.Pure spring water cleans and hydrates your body better than anything else. It is the most important fluid you can drink.

Many unhealthy conditions and illnesses have been linked to forms of mineral accumulation in the body. These often range from kidney failure to arthritis. It has been recognized that many of these problems are solved by removing these minerals and then flushing them out of the body.

The result is the biggest new industry– bottled water. The first 2 pages of a Google search on bottled water, lists websites for water coming from any pure spring in our country, each claiming to be the purest and best tasting.

This then leads to the newest and most popular way to get your brand, logo and slogan out before the public. It’s bottled natural spring water, showing your company’s logo or trade mark on a custom made label. The term for this type of marketing is called private labeling.

it’s a clever, affordable way to get your company name, logo, or message to your customers. The marketing industry always looks for something new and creative; custom labeled bottled waters or sparkling waters are a pouplar innovation, especially with the new health fad of always carrying drinking water with you.

The most creative form of branding that I found? Private label bottled water for wedding guests. Custom labels can be made for weddings, cocktail parties, engagement parties and outdoor events, all with private labels with the name of the bride and groom, the wedding date, and so on.The label can even match the napkins and other items commonly ordered for weddings. You can even make private labels– instantly and for free– at freelabelmaker.

I guess you could even use this fun gimmick to announce the birth of your first son – private labeled bottled water named after the baby. I am certain if I sat here long enough, I can think of a million more or funnier ways to use private labeled bottled water, but I believe you get the idea from what I have already written.

If you run a small online business, joint venture marketing is an excellent way for you to raise awareness for your business and its products, while boosting sales and gaining new clients - all often without any monetary investment. Joint venture marketing is also a psychologically positive marketing platform because it is based on mutual trust and respect, and symbiotic business relationships where the growth of all involved parties is fostered.

The Fundamental Basics of JV Marketing

A joint venture marketing partnership is a formal or informal business arrangement between one or more companies, where all parties involved benefit from the experience, knowledge and expertise of the other parties.  Joint venture marketing is a subset of a relationship marketing platform, where client relationships are the center focus of your marketing scheme.

In joint venture marketing, your business partner relationships are on par in terms of importance with your client relationship. This elevates the importance of relationships to include those of your businesses associates, as well as your clients.

Help During Difficult Times

Aside from many business advantages, such as shared information and marketing costs when applicable, joint venture marketing also has a positive psychological impact on the participants who enter into such an agreement. Both the businesses entering into the partnership, as well as the clients and customers who are touched by these relationships benefit in a positive way.

From a business standpoint, a joint venture marketing partnership relays a sense of security to its members because there are others to fall back on. Having a network of business owners that you trust and have developed a strong relationship with can be extremely important during a difficult time for your company. Most businesses have been affected by the recent economic crises. If you are operating a solo marketing strategy, these global difficulties can leave you feeling frightened, frustrated and alone.

A joint venture marketing partnership allows you to share the burden of a difficult time, and get advice from your fellow partners who may have ideas on how to proceed with your business. These angles and opinions are something you would not be privy to without this type of partnership.  Certainly you can always ask another business associate for advice or an opinion. But a joint venture marketing partner will be invested in how your company performs, and most likely you’ll develop a strong personal and professional relationship over time. A joint venture marketing partner of yours will give you more thoughtful, true advice since the success of your business may potentially affect theirs.

There is also the added piece of a personal feeling and relationship that has most likely developed with your joint venture marketing partners. People are always more concerned for and willing to help those people that they care about and have developed a personal relationship with—it’s just human nature. A joint venture marketing partnership will give you increased business security, as well as increased psychological security because such a partnership will provide you with other experts to fall back on in times of market unrest.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing & Consulting firm empowering business owners to discover and implement Integration, Alliance, and Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve specific business challenges and increase profits. To read more articles related to Joint Venture Marketing, please go to his Joint Venture Blog Site. He can be reached at christian@synertegic.com

As a small business entrepreneur, you are always keeping an eye out for services that can help you in making your small company the best it can be. The good news is, there are many business services that can help you get where you want to be.

Business services that assist the entrepreneur come in many different varieties. These services can help the entrepreneur in coming across as a much larger operation to their customers and/or clients. They can aid employees be more productive and efficient. Or they allow a business owner to run a multi-million dollar company from anywhere in the world.

What allows these services to succeed is advanced technology. This technology allows entrepreneurs access to business services that, until fairly recently, were only available to the largest of companies.

A virtual business phone service is a wonderful example of a business service technology. This service gives any small business, regardless of size, the ability to have a business phone system that acts just like a large business’. With just a single phone number for anyone to call gives an entrepreneur complete control over the call routing, making sure the right person helps the customer.

Another good example of a business service is internet meeting services. Gone are the days of having to spend a small fortune to have a way to meet, in essence face-to-face, with a customer or colleague who is not located in the same city as you. Now, with just a computer and a high-speed Internet connection, an entrepreneur can hold an online meeting with anybody, regardless of their location in the world.

Pricing of today’s small business services is very enticing. These business services don’t cost very much money. In fact, for pennies per day you can make your business act like a much larger operation. Today’s technology gives you the ability to be competitive with the largest of your competitors.

To grow your business like it deserves to, start using the available small business services. No longer will you be held back when you are trying to be competitive with the big boys.

There will always be some conflicts in the supply chain, without regards to the industry. And this will be true in the future, I believe. More times than I can remember, I have presented my keynote presentation titled, The New Era of Manufacturer/Distributor Cooperation at either manufacturing or distribution association meetings.

While doing some research concerning this issue, the partners are satysfied with the level of good communication between them. That rarely proves to be the case, unfortunately. Through collaborative relationships, supply chain partners can improve.

To build efficient and productive relationship with any supply chain partner, important thing that will definitely help to improve the level of communication is an ability to understand a value that your supply chain partner has to receive from that relationship. One good example of this is that a procurement department can be in position to believe that a supply partner could lower the price in such way that they can not make any profit. This is simply crazy.

If you make an effort to understand the total value your supply partner needs and help them to receive that total value package, they will perceive you as a great partner and communication will become easier. Don’t give away the bank here, but to deliver the value your supply parnet needs, you should put your energies into the services and activities and other similar tasks.

Improvements of the Supply Chain

Just-in-time inventory purchasing and supplying as exemplified by the famous relationship between Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble has continued to prove successful. Another example are Dell Computers and Home Depot that have built a strong strategic alliance with the justi-in-time inventory that is so much cost saving. You could also apply this in your business. It is possible to develop much closer relationship and communication with a supply chain partner.

To share the same strategy as your partner is a must in the business. The highest priorityis to promptly respond to any complaints and conflicts that arise. It is one of the best ways to improve the trust and build up loyalty betwenn you and your strategic partner.

The workplace should be one place an employee can expect to feel safe. Maintaining a safe workplace should, therefore, be a primary goal of any business owner. The easiest way for an employer to prevent injuries in the workplace (and the associated costs that inevitably come with them) is to ensure that every eventuality is considered, and appropriate safety measure are put in place. The twelve Workplace Safety tips below are a good start.

Workplace Safety Tips:

1. Encourage your employees to maintain a clean and tidy workspace. This will have the dual effect of improving safety AND productivity by removing any potential hazards or distractions from your working area.

2. When working with heavy machinery, use specially constructed guards and engineering solutions combined with PPE (personal protective equipment) to protect your employees from injury.

3. Recognise employees that conform to the safety standards that are set, and ensure appropriate discipline is handed out to employees that flout these rules.

4. Give clear work instructions. Make sure your employees know the right way to do what is expected of them. Include safety instructions in every procedure you write.

5. While you should consider every aspect of your workplace safety, you should focus on the most common problems for your particular workplace first and foremost. You should keep a log of any workplace accident, which will allow you to identify and solve the most pressing issues.

6. Try to care for your employees more than your profits. If a machine is unsafe shut it down. If an expensive repair job is required, or a project delayed because of this, then so bet it. Better that than and injured employee.

7. Spend time getting to know the details of the work your employees do. Even if you once did that job, it is likely it is done differently by different people. By knowing the details of your employees daily work routine, you can help to ensure it is done safely.

8. Do not wait for your machinery or work tools to become defective before repairing them. Many times employees get into dangerous situations by having to compensate for a machine defect or wear. In the case of wear, it may have occurred so gradually that they think it is normal. Regular maintenance of your equipment will ensure optimum safety and productivity.

9. Ensure unavoidable hazards (such as wet floors or hot surfaces) are clearly labelled.

10. Ensure your workplace is well lit, allowing your workers to see what they are doing and reducing eye strain, which can be damaging over time.

11. Ensure your workplace is well ventilated, ensuring a fresh supply of oxyggen and removing any contaminents from the air.

12. Ensure optimum visability in your workplace. If possible, keep areas open and opsticles at eye level and above to a minimum. In some cases, however, reduced visability will be unavoidable. This can be improved with the use of observation equipment, such as cameras or convex mirrors, which can provide wide angle views on blind turns caused by tall obsticles. These safety mirrors are also useful as security mirrors, reducing shoplifting by providing better overall visibility on the shop floor.

If you’re looking for ways to take your business in a new direction, but not sure where to start, consider a joint venture marketing partnership. A joint venture marketing partnership is one of the fastest growing and most effective ways to infuse new life into an already successful, but perhaps stagnant business.

To stay on top in the business world, even if your current business is a success, you must always be looking for new ways to gain exposure and new customers. Building and maintaining a solid base of loyal and regular clients will be the bread and butter of your business, but continually gaining new clients and exposing your business to new customers will be central to the future of your success.

A joint venture marketing partnership is created when one or more business gets together to share marketing strategies, ideas, plans and expenses. A joint venture marketing partnership can be so successful because it incorporates experience and expertise from various members of the business community. You may be at the top of your game in your niche, but there is always more to learn, and partnering with another successful business can help give you the extra edge you need.

The Next Step

If you run a small business, it may be difficult to conceive who to approach to enter into a joint venture marketing partnership, or even how to get started. And, if you run a small, online business, chances are that you don’t have a large marketing team or budget to go to for opinions and guidance, so it is likely you’ll have to do the brainstorming on your own, or with one or two other top officers in your company.

Joint venture marketing partnerships are easiest to handle when your business is small and when you’ll approach other small businesses for potential partnerships.
If you are taking this next step on your own, what you’ll need to do is to think of businesses that have a similar client profile to your own, but who will not be offering the same products and services.  You want to seek out businesses that have an existing client base of customers with similar needs, wants and lifestyles to your own clients.

If, for instance, you are a small company that offers pet care products, your client base will obviously not target people who are not pet owners. What you will want to do is to find a company or series of companies that have an existing customer base of pet owners, but whose company doesn’t sell pet care products, or at least not the same pet care products that you do.

In this particular instance, you might want to form a joint venture marketing partnership with dog walking agencies, animal hospitals or veterinary clinics. The idea here is that you would share marketing campaigns with these other business, since each of your existing client bases may have use for the others products and services. Just forming a joint venture marketing partnership with one company has the potential to exponentially increase your client base and website traffic.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing & Consulting firm empowering business owners to discover and implement Integration, Alliance, and Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve specific business challenges and increase profits. To read more articles related to Joint Venture Marketing, please go to his Joint Venture Blog Site. He can be reached at christian@synertegic.com