Category Archives: Channel

Looking for Your Next Business Partner

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You’re a talented and innovative thinker planning to launch a ground-floor venture. Should you go it alone or bring in a business partner?

As we mentioned in our earlier blog, “Is it Too Much to Ask for the Perfect Business Partner?” a number of business pairings throughout the years have turned into great successes. Primarily because of the skills and traits each partner brought to the pair. However, a lot had to do with the actual relationship between the individuals involved.

Not Everyone Should Be Your Partner

This seems like an obvious statement. However, Continue reading →

3 Questions to Develop Your Channels of Distribution Strategy

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When developing a new product or service, one of the first things to consider is how to get it to the end-user. Deciding on what channels of distribution to use is a very important business decision that must be made correctly. Using the wrong channels of distribution costs you money and depletes the value of your product.

1) How does the end-user want to buy?

To answer this, you’ll need to understand your customers and your relationship to them. How does your customer prefer to buy this product? Will they need customization or regular service? Maybe your customer needs other products or services to be able to use your product. Continue reading →

Your Best Power Partners May be Right Down the Street

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I came across a blog the other day written several years ago by Al Lautenslager for Entrepreneur.com.

He tells a story of walking into the dry cleaners and finding a $5-off coupon for the pizza joint a few doors away. Deciding to enjoy some pizza, he walks to the pizza place to redeem the coupon and there on the counter he finds a $5-off coupon for the dry cleaner. This might be called reciprocal marketing or, as Al suggests, fusion marketing. Whatever you call it, it makes sense.

Finding a power partner – Continue reading →

How Collaboration Can Save Your Small Business

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A small business starting up faces a lot of challenges, and many of those challenges are due to limited resources. Small businesses have to find creative ways to establish themselves as legitimate competition for their often much larger competitors, and somehow reach enough customers to not only maintain itself, but to grow as well. It’s a daunting situation, and according to a recent working paper from Harvard summarizes that it is harder for those just starting to succeed. But those that do succeed show an interesting trend in ideas: a lot of the success comes from some form of collaboration, either in the form of funding or in the form of ideas passed on to beginning entrepreneurs from their former employers.  But collaboration can go much deeper and be much more fulfilling than that.

Kimber Lanning’s “Roosevelt Row” in Phoenix, AZ is one inspirational example of how Continue reading →

9 New Steps for Managing Strategic Alliances That Work

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In a recent press release, Hallmark, the world’s leading greeting card brand, announced a strategic alliance with Shutterfly Inc., a leading Internet-based digital photo site. The goal is to have “exclusive Hallmark-designed customizable cards featured on Shutterfly’s new personalized greeting card site, Treat.com.”

According to Investopedia.com, a strategic alliance is… Continue reading →

Power Partners: The Best of Business Strategies

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Power Partners is a compelling concept. Simply put, it is a group of businesses that band together to use and promote the products of the other businesses in the group. There is an old song; “No Man is an Island.” No one can do it alone in the business world.

As much as we might want to think that we can win the battle alone; it just does not work that way. No matter what your line of work, you cannot afford to stand alone. You need people promoting your business and helping to build your clientele. Yes, we have many online marketing tools to help us out, but what is better than “word of mouth,” especially when it comes from people you trust.

Find the people your customers trust, and build a relationship with them. Continue reading →

How to Increase Sales Growth

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Today in a world where there are literally millions of products being sold, it’s importnat to have a strategic plan to increase your sales. There are many things competing for consumer’s attention. Implementing a plan to get the consumer to buy your product and increase your sales growth is very important. You can use many avenues to do this. Some are to develop a marketing strategy, provide excellent customer service, and also to have an good social networking presence. Continue reading →

Channel or Direct Sales: Should You Cut Out the Middleman?

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The shortest distance between two points is always a straight line. However, selling directly to your customer instead of developing an indirect sales channel isn’t just about cutting out the middleman and keeping all the profit for yourself. It’s about considering the pluses and minuses of going it alone.

Selling direct may sound like the most profitable way for a company to do business, until you consider the costs that go into selling this way. Let’s compare Microsoft and Apple.

For the most part, Apple sells direct. Continue reading →