Helping small business owners develop extraordinary businesses that really work for their customers, their employees, themselves and their families

Break through business barriers using other people’s resources

Have you ever thought “I can’t do _______ because I don’t have _______”?

This is a common issue, especially for start-up companies and small companies that have very limited resources.

If you can you identify another noncompeting business that has the resources you need, maybe you can structure an arrangement giving you access to their resources for mutual benefit.

A great example of this is a true Jay Abraham story.

When Jay led a business-improvement seminar in China, a young man came to him.

“I have a small business and can’t get capital. No banks or other lenders will loan me any money.” The young man explained he had a small business manufacturing motorcycles. He would like to expand his business throughout Asia, but he didn’t have the manufacturing capacity or the distribution network.

At Jay’s suggestion, he found a large manufacturer of lawn mowers in Malaysia with a distribution network in place. That business had a factory with unused capacity. The young man formed a partnership with that manufacturer to give them tools and dies to build and distribute motorcycles in eight Asian countries and share the profits 50%-50%. With the manufacturing and distribution set up in one year, the Chinese business and the Malaysian business split $10 million in profits.

With a little imagination, you can apply this concept many different ways.

You can offer a discount on your product to another business’s customers to get their customers’ contact information for promoting your business.

You can do joint promotional events.

You can get other business’s products to use as bonuses in your own offer.

You can get access to unused capacity of other businesses. For example, a dentist starting a practice might get access to another dentist’s office and equipment during off hours for a modest rental.

A new year will soon be here and business leaders will be thinking about their strategies to implement in the coming year. Be sure “how can we use other business’s resources?” is on your planning agenda. If you would to explore having me facilitate that process, please contact me at mgray@profitadvisors.com.

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Helping small business owners develop extraordinary businesses that really work for their customers, their employees, themselves and their families