On a purely commercial level, something has continued to baffle me since the start of the pandemic.
It’s simply this:
Why have so few small and medium-sized businesses collaborated with one another?
There has never been a greater need for businesses to collaborate or a greater opportunity for commercial collaboration. Reaching out to another business, which offers a complimentary, non-conflicting service to yours is so easy. Joint ventures, endorsed relationships and many other forms of mutually beneficial opportunities are available.
Yet at a time when so many business owners are really struggling, they’re isolating themselves from acres of exceptionally profitable, easy wins.
I don’t know all the reasons why this is happening, but I believe it’s partly caused by focusing so much on survival, that business opportunities are not on their radar. If you’re hunkering down until things go back to ‘normal’, your mindset is all about how to survive, when it should be on how to thrive.
I’d like you to consider that thriving right now is not only possible, it’s highly probable, so long as you do the right things correctly.
Commercial collaboration in action
If you’d like to very quickly start attracting great new clients (or customers), try this.
- Consider for a moment who your ideal client is.
- Now think about non-competing providers who have access to your ideal profile of client AND who offer a service that in some way compliments yours.
- Do some research and identify those who have a professional reputation. And reach out to them.
- The way you reach out will depend on your industry or profession, whether you’re both local businesses, whether you’re members of the same association or group… and a ton of other things. There’s no one size fits all approach.
- Find a suitable way to get the ball rolling. And roll with it!
- Now identify the next collaboration partner and repeat the process.
If you’re not proactively developing commercial collaborations you really should. The opportunities are there. Just waiting for you.
The small business owners I work with enjoy far more sales, attract better clients and grow amazing businesses.
If you want the same, here’s exactly how it happens.