How to start a joint venture?.

It is an option to scale-up when you are a small business owner and you are somehow well connected and have the knowledge and the right business resources. Then starting a joint venture with same minded people who share their investments in a common business. For this you need to find solutions with the employers and business partners to succeed. The communication is a vital part to get access to the smooth flowing working mind state. You might want to get to know about the other individuals and companies that offer help to get you gain more riches.

How can we describe a joint venture?.

It is unlike a partnership it is temporary. It is an agreement for a certain time to dissolve a task to complete a job. It is often an agreement between two or more parties that take a job to complete. The advantages can be that two or more take the job to make money. 

How can you start a joint venture?.

It considers temporary time terms to scale-up when two individuals or companies detect the opportunity to make profits. The companies or individuals sign a contract for a certain time. Joint ventures are common for media, technology or real estate companies. To make money on new markets people or companies put their hands together to start joint ventures. With skill sets, investments and a common goal these people embark on a journey to offer help to a new market demand.

What are the main characters of a joint venture?.

The parties involved in the joint ventures are legally independent. Which means they work together for a certain period as an one company. They work with the same purpose to make money. The parties involved share the investments, resources and ownership to make their profits or accomplish their goals. The individuals or companies are exposed to common risks. Once they become bankrupt the risk is for all of them. But the share in the workforce, investments or risks might not be equal because of the stake in the business. Also one company might offer the investments and another party might offer the workforce and another parties might take care of another departments. 

When starting a joint venture you need an agreement.

When you start a joint venture you need a written agreement to establish the risks, terms, tasks, investments, shares and profits. It should give specific terms and rules what the contribution are of involved parties. It is truly essential to write a contract to make the statements clear to have a fully understanding of the risks, tasks, contributions and investments. You should take time to write a clear contract to get a clear picture for all the individuals or companies involved. 

What are examples of joint ventures?.

Joint ventures can be useful when small businesses or mega corporations come together to complete a certain market demand. It is not only for Fortune 500 companies. Even two individuals or two small businesses can embark on the journey to offer goods or services to a certain market demand. A joint venture might occur when two mobile companies share their network. A transportation company such as KLM and internet company join forces to offer Wi-Fi. When different real estate companies operate together to establish a shopping mall. A example of a joint venture can be when you are a restaurant owner and you make Shushi and team up with a distributor to get your products into the supermarkets.

What can be joint venture alternatives?.

Joint ventures can be similar to partnerships but it is unique. It is good to know why the joint ventures are different from partnership. A general partnership is a term which can be similar to a joint venture to accomplish a mission which deliver mutual benefits. A partnership mainly share profits and losses. Partnerships are build to last for a long term. 

  

How to start a wholesale business from scratch?.

If you want to start a business and you are somehow business savvy, then you can consider a wholesale business. It takes things like writing a business plan, finding a location and most of all a proper investment. It is truly getting into details when come to planning the whole business to start. It is the thing to offer a certain value for the right price. Even planning might sound easy, but it is not. You might be inspired by the big game hunters, friends and family because you heard success stories. Planning and execute is the issues you might want to consider when start a wholesale business.

Make a choice what type of products to sell.

It depends on what your interests are and passion. To keep the long term focus you need to be a devotee to certain market. If you have worked in a supermarket, then you know one and other thing how it works in the supermarket. You can start a food supply distribution chain. There can be a single product like smartphones or laptops. You can start a wholesale business to sell goods such as hardware. If you do not have the affinity then you might want to find a market which might interest you. Nowadays it is the newest thing to do business online, but you need to understand the risk is not small.

Pick a business name and the appropriate entity.

You need a business name which is unique. This is for the legal purposes. You might want to design a professional logo with appealing lettertypes to your market. You can find an industry professional with expertise to design your logo and packaging. To find a business name you can explore online at the website of Chamber of Commerce. You need to get the right entity with the right benefits. Most wholesale businesses operate as LLC. Choosing a LLC means you have to pay an onetime fee and also an annual fee. Depending on the scale of your business you can pick the right entity which is suitable for you.

Find a business consultant.

Before starting your business find a business consultant to get more information, details and facts which involves starting a wholesale business. These consultants are experts in their field they can help you find business sources that is helpful to start your wholesale business. There are various types of business consultants.You need to find a consultant which has the knowledge of giving advice about starting a wholesale business. A consultant can give you advice to pick a name, entity, an accountant, to find factories and more resources.

You need a wholesale licence and suitable permits.

You need an employer number and you need to pay taxes. You need industry specific permits. For example if you are going to start tabacco wholesale you need to pay excise. Get advice from an accountant to find the needed permits and the right tax information. You have the option to apply online for an IRS number. It is quickest way to apply online. Otherwise you need to wait online with a ticket to get help. 

Find the right manufactures.

You need the right logistics such as factories, transportation and other businesses that is willing to help you. You need to be aware of the price and the quality of the involved businesses. Such as the speed they deliver and quality of the products. You can not afford to oversee these issues. Because of the transportation costs you need to choose a manufacture which is located nearby you. If you starting an online business which is equivalent to a wholesale business such as dropshipping. Then you do not need no inventroy. But if you start a brick and mortar business you need warehousing. Depending on the scale of your business you can rent space or build your own after buying land.

How to train new sales managers?.

There is no such thing as natural born sales people with sales DNA. In the past such as '70 and '80 when America started to become powerful. There were sales people who came out of high school and went to sell stocks. But a high school graduate can not do this before a thorough training. They need direction and sales techniques and the proper know-how to find their way which is a stressfull and competive environment. It might sounds like you can be like Nimrod to conqueror the world by selling. You need to be convincing and polite. Not even a Yale business graduate can not pitch like a oldschool stock broker with experience.

How to train sales managers?.

If you attract experienced sales managers and they come to sell new goods. For example if you hire a sales manager who used to sell stocks and now this person is going to sell Coca-Cola as an account manager. Then this sales person is in a whole another field. You need to teach this new sales person few new things about selling Coca-Cola. This sales person have set of skills which he has bought from the pervious job. Then you need to give them relevant skills and also find a balance between new and old skills set. As a manager they must understand delegating and giving direction to the sales team. New managers got a functional skill set that got them promoted and give them a relevant skill set for the new job to keep their long term focus.

Experience is the best teacher and let them learn on-the-job.

There are possibilities for young people to work 4 days and go to school for 1 day. This mean money and knowledge. Also this means they can practise what they learn at school on-the-job. Let them learn by putting theories into practise. Also a roleplay is a system that can teach them a high-performance sales techniques. Create new opportunities for new managers and give them a perspective to gain for them self such as new mind set to succeed and also relevant sales techniques. 

Do not get the new sales managers caught up in self-centered hype.

Do not let the new sales mangers get caught up in an image of their self and their previous successes. Your goal is to train that new sales manager to succeed in a new field. Give them a chance put in the effort to get a hold individual skills. To gain more such as new sales values, transforming them to become a whole new person that is attactive to the customers. Train the new sales manager to give direction and to increase the individuality of your sales team.

Train the new sales managers to focus on common goals of the sales team.

The sales team must come first. The sales manager should learn to motivate, delegate and give direction to the sales team. The sales team must recognize the team spirit and the sales values of the sales team. The person who can support the sales team is the sales manager. When the workday starts the sales manager should delegate the tasks to the sales team such as where to go to find new customers. For all the under-performing sales persons should be given new directions to shape them to see new opportunities such learing new values. 

Train the new sales managers to look beyond numbers and ask "Why?".

Train the new sales managers to find reasons why?. They have succeed and why?. Not. It is easy to crunch numbers and analyze the sales records, but make the new sales manager to find reasons and copy from successfull sales managers. Mostly customers want to know why they have to buy your company's products. Not every customer come to your store for a specific reason. Some 'happy customers' have a budget and step into your store or explore your company's website because they have money to spend. It is the trick to convert that prospect into a loyal buyer.

How to improve your business' branding through a market research?.

To stay ahead of the competition you need to adapt to the newest trends. To focus on the future you need to find your market segment's needs. Once you need to take descions about price, product or packaging for example. You need a market research to give that extra edge to become outstanding in doing business. To understand your target market you need a knowledge base solution such a market research to gain healthy income.

Stand out from the competition.

To do this you need to raise brand awareness. What type of image do the customers have of your business in their head. Just ask why buy from me?. Then you will get a clear picture of your pros and cons of your brand. You will find out how familiar the customers are of your brand and if you can convert more customers in the future into your loyal customer base. You will get an idea of when customers compare your brand with the competition. How does the customers approach your business?. How do they describe to family and friends about your brand?. 

Get feedback from focus groups.

For a discount as an incentive you can gain feedback from customers about the navigation and user friendly features of your website. Also you can get to know how attention grabbing your lettertype of your logo is. You can create a focus groups and discuss matters what relates your branding issues. Such taste tests, pricing, packaging and scaling your brand to another segment such upgrading or downgrading. In these focus groups you can find information from members in small details about what you can do to improve your brand's awareness. You can get feedback about marketing content and brainstorm with members of the focus group how to make your brand more relevant to the nowadays demand.

Get a clear statement about your targeted audience.

One of the main things is to know the size of the market. How you can reach the customers most effective and  cost effective way. Depending on your brand you might want to know about your ideal customer. How old is the ideal customer with the most buying potential?. And why they are willing to buy from you?. What the gender is of the ideal customer?. If this person is married or single?. If this person a parent or not?. Where do they reside and if this person owns a house or rent and annual income and also the profession. Also you might want to get stated if this person went to college or highschool?. By client profiling you can find out how to position your brand to be more effective in doing business and making name for your brand.

Be accountable of your brandings plan.

Meassure the brands plan. Once you have written your brandings plan. Check every detail to find out how effective your brandings plan was. To execute a plan you need to pre-write it in a manner which is most clear to involved departments of your company. Also you need to maintain a well processed communication method to execute the brandings plan. To get the best of your marketing plan you need to adjust to the social media platforms to get an idea of the effectiveness of the market research. Take time to plan and execute. Then again time is your enemy. Once you outsource the market research you can save money by letting experts do the job rather than training your own people for the job.

Find new business opportunities.

To find new demand you need to explore the data from publications from Chamber of Commerce for example. You can conduct a market research to find why other companies are so successful selling a similair product you want to launch. Learn from the competition to find similair opportunities. You need to know the market size, demographics, what moves the market, how the market share is. You  need to find out about the hardest competition. Why some have failed in the past selling a similair product you want to launch. You can explore if there are distribution channels with competitive pricing and how to get the best deal from these distributors. 

Why are credit card machines important for your business?.

In the world of high-finance you will be able to gain more profits, when you allow your customers to pay in advanced manners. There are plenty of choices for payment terminals. Then you will be able to process payments with credit cards too. Missing out on credit card machines will leave your buisness behind and the customers nowadays might find it a major let down. Once you do not offer them the possibility to pay with credit cards,with a credit card payment system, then customer will find a competitor. In a fast changing environment of doing business you need to adapt to changing payment processors. Even a person who buys a cup of coffee pays with a contactless card. This might be a debit card or credit card.

Validate your business.

Once your business have an online appearance, such as a shopping ability where the customers can come to navigate through your site and explore the goods, which they like to buy. It might be real an advantage for your business if you accept digital payments through credit cards. Once you expose your credit cards' names on the payment page, you will be able to attract an international crowd those are willing to buy from you. 

Increase your sales.

One of the advantages are that you will attract more customers with modern payment abilities. In the world of modern technology people move along with the mainstream and make their self easier to pay with advanced tech gadgets such as online payment processors such Izettle payment gateway and many more possibilities on the market. You can buy for 30 dollars a payment processor that accept contactless payment with a debit card. This means you can move on to portable payment processors too. 

Leave the competition behind.

Once you can process digital payment you can be step-a-head of the competition and make a step forward, because more and more people are paying with digital currency. You can easily buy a credit card machine to accept payment or a digital portable payment processor which accept debit cards. If you do not have a credit card payment processor it is the time to buy one. There are only a small amount of people who pay in cash. Especially if your are doing business online, then you can not only accept the domestic payment gateways. It is the time to focus on an international market.

What are the advantage of the wireless credit card machine?.

This makes you reach more customers you have not reached before. This is realiable, secure and fast. This will make the payment work real fast. This works through a radio frequency. There is a account manager who can help you out if you have questions. This makes you more valid as a business and only-cash business should adapt to this option of wireless credit card machines sooner. There are the possibility to accept payments by smartcards, Google Pay, FitBit and more. It is lightweight and compact. If you are a supermarket owner and you deliver goods to the door, then you can easily buy a wireless payment processor to accept domestic debit cards.    

Save time by using a credit card machine.

The time you have to operate manually to insert all the credit card information will be saved by obtaining a credit card machine. All the information will be read by automatically by the credit card machine and this will make your employees work less hours. If you buy a credit card machine it will save time and effort of your business' employees. They will have more time to  do other tasks, this means you can save money too in the long-run by cutting labour costs. Advanced technology is the outcome for any business and to improve your clientele you must move along with the world of modern tech solutions.

How to start a sales conversation and build relationships?

Depending on what your situation is when starting a sales conversation, you need to approach the customer with the thought in the mind that there is mutual benefits involved. You need to sell your self and not rush the conversation to a quick end. You need to ask questions to find the exact need of the customer. It might be that the customer comes for an X product buy leave with an Y product. Once the customer gets home and realize that the sales person ripped him off, then this is a major let down for the customer and you as a salesman has failed to help the customer.

Prepare to start the sales pitch.

Once you have approached the customer you need to get to know what they are looking for. Get familiar with their industry, if you are a B2B salesman. You can approach the customer with an e-mail or phone call. Explore the situation and the need of the situation of the customer. Find out why they need a product X or Y by showing your interest. You can not be flat and stoney by not showing interest in the customers situtation. Break the ice with a warm welcome and offering a seat or a cup of coffee.

Tell a story about a previous customer's experience.

There are customers coming to you for similair products. Once you have broken the ice and before the customer is going to decide what the bargain is going to be, you can tell a story about what a previous customer's experience was. How statisfied the customer was after that purchase. Why this customer should be convinced is that you tell a true story about a customer who bought a similair product. Place your self in the customer's shoes. Then you will understand why there is the need. You might find out what type of customers this is and why this person has a such of a need.

Sell your self during the sales conversation.

You might be not that familiar with the customer. Ask questions to find out what the budget is of the person in need and why this person need this product and because of you being an expert means that you know the social resonsibility when you sell. There might be lack awareness by parents once a youth comes to your store for beer example. Then you need to ask for an ID. By branding your self as an expert you will gain trust of the customer and in the long-run you business will maintain a status as social aware brand.

Be clear about the products you sell.

Do not convince of product that is not needed. Be respectful of the need. Find a suitable product to sell and do not make the customer sway with selling something they regret later. Once a customer comes to your store for Nike Air Max, then sell this person this product. If there is a new version of the product what the customer is looking for. Show them the advanced version with better features. Tell the customer that it is not always the looks and be clear about what the trend is on the market now. Which product is most sold and why the price is high and why lower?.

Be a warm sales person.

You are dealing with humans of flesh and blood who breathe Oxygen. We all share the same sunlight and we want to be treated with respect and love. As a sales person you can offer a human touch to your sales pitch such as a warm welcome. A cup of coffee or a promotion item to make the customers feel a bond with your business. Also offering discounts will make the customers become loyal customers of your company. 

How to choose the right branding strategy?

It is hard when you start to succeed with branding. If you are in an early stage and you need to plan and execute a brand strategy that is suitable to your market segment. Once you focus on branding strategy, then you have a plan and an outline to work on. You can follow these guidelines to execute your strategy. You need to know the marketsize and the expenditure of the ideal customers. You need an ideal customer profile. 

How can we describe a brand strategy?

It is creating a plan to execute that include all the details such as how you interact with your customers, creating a brand's personality, projecting the brand's identity to deliver a message to the customers and your logo and print materials. When these aspects work with each other in harmony, then you will have a chance to grow your business. The stratgey will depend on what type of business you own. The branding strategy will change once your company will grow and you need to create a new brand strategy, when this occurs.

These are key branding strategies for start-ups.

If you are starting a business then your strategy will be different from already established businesses. Already established business will choose a brand stratgey that is called line extention strategy. This includes creating new products, This means that these companies will serve an already exsisting audience or create a further market to fill their need. For company's just starting out it is a matter of fact to build a core strategy before the strategy start to branch out too much.

Brand strategies for start-ups.

These are few of the business strategies that would help you out as a new business person.

New brand strategy: This is creating a brand strategy around a central product and launch this product for an audience with this product as the main product. This strategy will work for a brand that is already established and want to get a new market share by creating a new product.

Flanker brand strategy: This is when you want a large customer audience for your brand. Then you need to create different product variations that is appealing to various customer groups. This when you create a high-end products such as TV's in large quantities to be sold to a large market because it is affordable. 

Attitude brand strategy: This is when you focus your brand strategy to get your brand identity to appeal in a certain way as healthy, determined, positive and self accountable for example. Take Nike for example they project an image to their market as those above named words. This is when expressing your brand image as a connection, marketing a lifestyle or as an emotion.

Competitor brand strategy: This when you know that there is a large market for your brand and want a bigger piece of the pie to gain more profits by rising above the competitors. This means that you need to create a new product or adjust your product to the current product trends to fight the competition. Then you just need to know how you can focus on the competitor brand strategy to beat the competition by getting a bigger piece of the market share.

How to choose a brand strategy?.

Depending on if you are just getting warm or already an established company. You need to focus on values, identity and promises that your brand makes. You need to know what your target audience is. What does your brand promise to the market?. What type of values do you deliver as a message?. What story has your brand to tell?. Everyone working for your company should know about the core values and identity of your brand. Especially the customer service must have the know-how about what your brand is.