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What to Know Before You Meet to Negotiate A Strategic Partnership

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Strategic Partnership Series

What Is a Strategic Partnership?

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When two business parties agree to build something they can build better together than they can build alone, you have a strategic partnership. The advantage of strategic partnerships is that partners can do more with fewer resources. Knowing ahead of time that you’re building the same basic product together means that some parts of it will serve both parties and won’t have be built twice.

Let’s say you are in Fashion and I’m in Fitness. We both have a core audience of recently graduated college students. We might decide to take the place where our Venn Diagram overlaps — Fitness Fashion — to offer a clothing line through your distribution and mine.

That shared “We” on the diagram points to the areas where we can lower costs and increase resources by working in partnership. With two teams working one clothing line or one fashion-fitness event, we’ll enjoy:

  • the ability to split costs and spread the work
  • a wider resource of experience and fresh ideas from another industry
  • a better chance to focus on what we’re good at — if you’re good at staging events and I’m great at marketing, we can specialize and give our best to the team.

A strategic partnership can be formed between any two parties who can align their goals to work together for mutual benefit. How to Identify the Highest Potential Strategic Partnerships tells what I’ve learned about how to identify the right partners. For the strongest partnerships, look for partners who share your values and philosophy of business but have different strengths and skill sets.

Don’t overlook partnerships with the folks in other departments, with your vendors, with potential customers and sponsors. Anyone whose goals align with yours can be a strategic partner. Small partnerships offer the same advantages a big ones and are sometimes easier to manage.

Once you’ve decided a strategic partnership is a good idea.
Do a little preparation before you try to negotiate one.

What Is Negotiation?

Let’s be clear on the question, What is negotiation?. The goal I set for initial strategic partnership meetings is a viable answer:

Negotiation is two parties to agree to a workable and positive outcome.

When you first meet with a potential strategic partner, you should know how you can help each other, but they may not even know you. Even if you do know the folks you’re meeting with, the idea of a partnership may be alien to their usual way of doing business. That means a discussion — a meeting. Few folks have longer than about an hour or so. That’s not much time for negotiating first impressions, new ideas, deals and relationships.

On my trip to London, I had to introduce myself and our business. I needed to make business deals and wanted to establish long-term business relationships. Most importantly, I hoped to start an international network — a collaborative effort — publishers working together to build our businesses in a way that no one publisher could have achieved alone.

What to Know Before You Negotiate Any Strategic Partnership

The best first impression and the best first meeting reflect and demonstrate how you the strategic partnership will work. If you want an open, honest, equal partnership based on mutual growth, structure a meeting that offers the best possibility of that outcome.

Strategic partnerships are relationships not transactions. A first meeting is more than just selling or “going fishing.” Relationships are established by building solid foundations.

Have a Goal, Have a Vision, and Articulate the Fit

  • Set a Realistic First Steps Goal. Great relationships take place in stages. A test case of a process establishes whether the communication has been effective. The first steps goal should be small, set in time, and easily measured.

    Time was tight. Urgency was high. The first goal was to identify, license, and bring back existing products that we could version and get to market quickly.

    In the example of fashion and fitness, it might be that I might ask you to put some of your fitness fashion in my fitness centers for distribution.

  • Have a Vision for the Relationship. Great partnerships collaborate to grow both businesses over a longer term. It’s important to know what the next stage will be.

    When I went to London, the ideal partnership would be with companies from whom we would first buy, and then collaboratively partner on products in the areas where we served similar customers (in non-competitive venues).

    In the fashion-fitness example, the future might be that we collaborate on an exclusive fashion line that is only offered in my fitness centers.

  • Articulate Why the Partnership Is a Good Fit. No partner wants to get the impression that you’re working with them by accident. It’s important to articulate why it’s them not just anyone. It’s important that potential partners in business (as in romance) know that we’re making an informed and conscious decision.

    On my London trip, I could point to products that fit the values of my audiences and how easily I could promote them with over 900,000 color catalogues to my market.

    In the fashion-fitness example, I might point to how our customer groups were the same people, how our companies shared the same values, and how well our skill sets complimented each others’ skill sets.

Preparation was a foundation to solid success of those 8 or 9 days of meetings and the resulting strategic partnerships. Having a goal, having a vision for the relationship and being able to articulate why this partner and not just anyone made it easier to keep the tables even when I walked in the door to discuss strategic partnerships with that would grow both of our businesses.

It started a chain of irresistible events.

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Watch for more on negotiating strategic partnerships.

Online Reputation: Fostering Relationships With Influential Bloggers

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h4> by
Alex Summers

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Relationships with the Right Bloggers

A blogger can make or break your business. With a few strokes of a keyboard, a blogger can either catapult your brand into the worldwide realm or sink it into oblivion. Having a relationship with the right blogger is key to keeping your business at the forefront of the positive chatter on the Web.

While many people tout the many benefits of search engine optimization when it comes to Internet marketing, not as much is discussed about managing your online reputation. Monitoring what is said online about your company by bloggers, commenters and forum posters is critical to your business success. All it takes is one negative review from a blogger to send your company’s good name spiraling down the path of no return.

Information moves at the speed of light on the web. By the time an event has aired on network television, the top bloggers have already picked up the story, dissected it, given their personal take on it and opened it up to comments. These bloggers can be your best friends if you manage your resources well and develop a good rapport with the key players in the blogosphere.

Online Reputation: Fostering Relationships With Influential Bloggers

Linking up with the right bloggers is a bit of a challenge. As you can imagine, everyone wants to be friends with the tastemakers of the web. That automatically puts them at an advantage over the myriad of small businesses that want to take advantage of their popularity.

If your business offers a service or product that is complementary to their niche, offer to place their ads on your site for free.

Subscribe to their blogs and add them to your social media sites. The key here is to show them what you can do for them before you ask what they can do for you.

In order to stay in good graces with the bloggers, you must remain a credible resource. Keep your website updated with fresh and relevant content that is useful to your readers. Regularly update your photographs and provide links to related products, services or information. Offer a free e-book or newsletter that your readers will find helpful. Bear in mind that a blogger will only want to endorse your company if you are a genuinely helpful resource.

When you have developed a good working relationship with the key bloggers, work hard to maintain that relationship, even when you’re not looking for favors. By staying in their good graces, you will be in a better position to ask them to endorse your product or service when the time comes.

Sometimes you will receive a bad review on a blog, forum, or consumer website. There may be bad news surrounding your company or personal life. In instances like these, reputation management is key. The first step is to find out what is being said and take steps to mitigate it. If your product is being trashed by a disgruntled customer, handle that customer’s issue before they cause more damage. If it is a competitor, you may have to work harder to erase negative information about your brand online. A good reputation management company can handle these reputation challenges, and their team of experts will work tirelessly to restore your good name on the web.

Most influential bloggers are experts at reputation management — it’s integral to their influence. Most good reputation management companies have great relationships with influential bloggers for that reason.

The relationship between bloggers and businesses is a delicate balancing act of objectivity and loyalty. Your business will benefit greatly from a good working relationship with bloggers who can sing your company’s praises. Foster good relationships with key players and reap the benefits of free advertising. Maintain those relationships and you will find your company’s bottom line grow with each blog post.

How do you foster authentic relationships with influential bloggers?

Author’s Bio:
Alex is a blogger, freelance writer and recent college graduate. She currently performs market research for an online marketing firm when she is not contributing her own thoughts and observations to the online community.

Surprise Yourself

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Timing Isn’t Everything.

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They say that

  • opportunity happens when we’re prepared for it.
  • when we’re ready the right teacher appears.
  • Winning isn’t getting ahead of others. It’s getting ahead of yourself.

I say that trying is what happens right before succeeding begins.

Timing isn’t everything.
Knowing our place in time is.

We can stand in the perfect place in time with opportunity right within our reach. How we’ve used our time to prepare, what brought us here, won’t be enough, the outcome will still be affected by how we think. Despite the fact of our top-notch abilities, if we think we’re ready, we’ll take on that chance, if we think we’re not good enough, we’ll let it pass.

Surprise Yourself

Some days, some Mondays, we may be ready for the week to begin. Some days, some Mondays, come with challenges that mean a lot and we wonder whether we’ll win.

Wondering allows those voices and doubts in your head to say things like,

  • you’ll never be able to do that.
  • you’ll never be as good as he is.
  • who are you for thinking you should that?

Don’t wonder.
Dig in and do something about those doubts.

Consider replacing those old voices in your head with a few voices that I’ve heard in the last week or two …

  • You never know until you try.
  • Never underestimate your own value.
  • People could be saying nice things about you.

Refill your positive opinion of you. Remember when you’ve helped someone, answered a question that someone asked or passed on a kind word that was shared with someone who never knew good things were being said about him. Inside those moments you’ll find fuel to face a new challenge or even a plain old Monday again.

Then spend a while doing thinking about how you might do the same things for yourself. People who can cheer themselves, help themselves, and keep themselves are inspiring to be with.

Be inspired!
And don’t be shy about showing it!


Let a sunrise surprise you and inspire you!

Have faith in your ability to surprise yourself.
Surprise yourself with the ways you can make good things happen for you and everyone else.
Believe in what you’ll make, not what you’ll break!
Your subconscious will do the rest.

Every winner believes in winning.
Every leader knows to believe.
Surprise yourself with believing.
It’s irresistible.

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Beach Notes: Changing Views

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by Guest Writers Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh

Most Sunday mornings for the past year we have walked on Fingal Beach and we looked across the water to Cook Island. Today we decided it was time to walk on another beach further south, the beautifully named Dreamtime Beach. What we discovered that we could still see Cook Island but from another perspective.
Habits can be good but sometimes it is also good to break a pattern and see things differently.

How have you changed your view recently?

– Suzie Cheel

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

Earn Money Blogging? Not Unless You Avoid These Pitfalls

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How to blog series

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Emily Green

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Blogging can make you money but only if you avoid some of the annoying pitfalls that can actually cause you to lose money instead of gaining it. The following are several common and very costly pitfalls that bloggers all over the Internet encounter on a daily basis.

The Time Sucker That is the Internet

The Internet is a minefield filled with numerous distractions. There are social media outlets, games, blogs and search engines that just seemed designed to distract and waste your time. However, if you are looking to make money on your blog you need to avoid these distractions at all costs and apply yourself to networking, writing blog posts, researching and interacting with visitors.

If you are finding it hard to avoid distractions consider some of these time saving methods:

  • Set a timer
  • Block distracting websites
  • Create a schedule and stick to it

Will Write Soon – Losing Contacts

Contacts are everything in the blogosphere. It can often be easy to assume that the contacts that you have made in the blogging world will be there forever, but if you don’t keep in touch you’ll notice that they slowly start to disappear. Avoid losing contacts associated with your blog by devoting a few hours every week to emailing, tweeting and touching base with your numerous contacts and with Android tablets that are designed to keep you online 24/7 there is no reason you can’t keep in touch!

Due Date Delays

Guest blogging or writing blogs for others can be a great way to earn cash, but you have to be willing to stay on a strict schedule. Many of the blogs that welcome you with open arms to guest blog or blog for them have strict schedules they need to keep. When you agree to blog make sure you stick to the deadlines, not only will it help ensure you get paid for your writing but it helps build your reputation within the blogosphere community.

People Pleaser – Catering to the Billions on the Internet

There are billions of individuals on the Internet and as a blogger it is your role to make sure that you don’t offend them. Offending your audience is a sure fire way to send them packing to another blog and cost you money. Remember the more visitors you get the more money you can make! Offending a part of your audience will certainly cost you in the end.

That doesn’t mean you can’t voice your opinion or talk about controversy. No, it just means that you will have to keep comments and blog posts classy and within the limits. And if you do make a risky comment or blog, just remember you risk losing that audience.

Need a little extra cash? Looking for a way to earn money? Grab a computer or a tablet and start blogging. Just remember avoid these four common pitfalls and you’ll be on your way to earning money just for writing and blogging of favorite topics.

Author’s Bio:
Emily Green is a freelance writer and a lover of technology. For work or play, she prefers using an Android tablet . Follow her on Twitter as @emgreen85.

Why Small Business Grants Are the Best Way to Fund a Business

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by James Crawford

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Each year, thousands of government agencies and local organizations hand out billions of dollars in small business grants. Grants come in all shapes and sizes, and are distributed for any number of reasons. There are small business grants for technology, hiring new workers, and even grants for established family businesses. The list goes on and on – if you own a business, thousands of available grant opportunities could fit your business.

Why Small Business Grants Are the Best Way to Fund a Business

Here are some of the reasons why grants are a great way to fund a business:

1. Tax-free capital — Unlike retained earnings, grant payments are tax-free cash that can be used to build upon an existing business. Tax-free capital is the best kind of capital, since a profitable business will pay anywhere from 10-35% of its earnings in taxes — money that can’t be spent on expanding a business.

2. Grants provide networking potential — The best part about grant opportunities is that a grant is usually awarded to several different people and businesses. In accepting a grant, you will have the opportunity to meet other successful business owners who might have an interest in working with your business. As most business owners understand, half the difficulty in running a business is building connections to other business owners and powerful people in the community.

3. No repayment — Grants are free money, period. No capital disbursed through an available grant opportunity has to be repaid. So what you receive from a grant is money that you don’t have to worry about paying back. Many businesses fail because of the stress of debt capital – money raised through bank borrowing that requires frequent monthly payments to service the debt load. Debt tends to be most difficult for smaller businesses that are not yet established, as well as established businesses which have irregular cash flows. Irregularity of income is especially concerning when your expenses are regular, and servicing debt is a burden that will cost your business month after month, year after year.

4. Grants allow for expansion — Sure, some grants will allow you to invest in growing your existing business, but grants can also be used to extend your business into new markets. A printing company, for example, might find a grant which would allow it to hire a graphic designer. In doing so, the company can move into a new market – graphic design – while maintaining its existing business in the printing industry. Think about how you could use capital in your business to make a new product or service that complements an existing business that you have right now.

There is no better way to fund a new or existing business than with a small business grant. Remember that grants are tax-free money that never, ever has to be repaid. And grants are anything but limited – you can find grants for any kind of business in any size.

Start searching for a business grant by reaching out to local business development organizations! Between incubators, free resources like SCORE (http://www.score.org/), online directories, and government agencies like the Small Business Administration (http://www.sba.gov/), there is no shortage of ways to discover free and available funding for your business right now.

Author’s Bio:
James Crawlord writes about business financing, especially about small business grants at Grantstar.org. You can find him on Twitter as @jamescrawlord .