Business joint venture - how to boost income with strategic alliance

Your Business

Job Search

self-employment

Translator talks

Legal Stuff

[?] Subscribe To This Site

Business Joint Venture - Boost Your Business With Strategic Alliance

A business joint venture is formed when two businesses work as a strategic alliance, helping each other market to a larger combined customer base.

If you think a business joint venture is only good for big companies, think again. Freelancers and solo entrepreneurs can benefit tremendously from forming such an alliance as well.

Many translators work from a home office and they often rely heavily on emails, internet and telephones for marketing activities and various communication needs. Therefore, reaching out to other professionals/businesses and working with them can be a great way to save your money while boosting your marketing results.

Not every business joint venture succeeds. Like everything else in business, it takes time and effort to make a strategic alliance work. Here are few tips for you:

1- Find the right partners

Not every business can be your joint venture partner. You have to be selective. It usually works best if it’s someone who offers services/products that compliment yours. By agreeing to recommend or promote other’s services to your existing client base, you get a certain percentage of commission if it results in any business transaction. Naturally your joint venture partner would do the same.

Some businesses that have worked for me are lawyers, business consultants, web designers, writers.

2- Focus on mutual benefits

The only reason someone is willing to form a business joint venture with you is because of the benefits they are going to get. You have to make the benefits attractive enough for others to form such an alliance with you.

My friend Liu has a gardening business in the greater Vancouver area and he mostly targets the Chinese households in some high end neighbourhoods due to his limited English. We started working together last summer. Since then I’ve helped promote his services to a few English speaking communities. We also came up with an idea of a gardening tip booklet both in Chinese and English to further spread the word and establish his credibility and reputation in the trade.

On the other hand he promotes my services to his clients. He has since referred a dozen of clients to me for court interpreting jobs and other translation work. That joint effort obviously has brought benefits to both of us.

Of course potential benefits is always associated with possible risks. While you have to make sure you and your alliance partner enjoy mutual benefits, you both should be aware of the possible risks and be willing to share those risks.

3- Be creative

Don’t feel intimidated by the term of joint venture and alliance. It’s merely a creative way to maximize your profit by reorganizing your resources. There are numerous ways to form a business joint venture or a strategic alliance.

The first step is to get out of your comfort zone and do some serious networking. Tell your friends, family and other contacts that you are looking for business partners. There are a few other places you might want to look into:

Go to the local library and search for professional directories
Newspaper or online Classifieds
Business networking events
Community groups
referrals

4- Be committed and be flexible

If you would like to see great results from your strategic alliance, you need to be fully committed to the whole process. Be honest with yourself and ask yourself the following questions before you take actions:

What’s your strength and what can you bring to the table?
what do you love to do and what would you like to delegate?
What’s your weakness and how finding an alliance would help you?
What are the values and skill sets you look for in an alliance partner?
What are the goals of your business joint venture?

What are the areas you’re willing to compromise and what are the areas you won’t?

Ok, you’ve got my point – something has gotta give if you work with someone else. Make sure you have a clear vision of your own business. Pitch your ideas to your contacts and prepared to adjust to appeal to others.

A final note – it’s always a good idea to put your agreement in writing and check references. There are plenty of honourable people out there but you need to take every measure to protect yourself in the business world.

Want more tips to get quality translation jobs and high paying clients? Sign up for my free ezine here: