Business collaborations work well when you take the right steps.

Firstly, let’s look at the word ‘collaboration’. The Oxford Dictionary states:

‘The action of working with someone to produce something’

Unlike employing someone to do a particular role within a company, to create business collaborations is to source particular ‘skills’ in return for a mutual benefit. Sometimes this can be payment in return, but often there services that you can exchange that negate the need for payment in funds.

We are all good at something, but very few people possess all the skills that may be needed for a businesses to work and grow the way we want them to. When you team up with other people all wanting to achieve their goals, you can create a fantastic opportunity for business growth.

Think about the skills that your business needs and then consider what benefits your business can offer others who may be able to contribute to yours.

Most businesses need one or more of these basic skillsets:

• Sales & Marketing – selling your product/service, advertising, PR
• Customer service – communicating with your clients and resolving issues
• Finance – Business accounts, VAT, pricing, business plans, bills
• Worker – people who provide services, those that churn out the work
• Creators – New business ideas, new products, trends

If you possess all of the above, you can go back to your yacht and enjoy the sunshine while we strive to create a team of elite business people to help us achieve our goals.

You’ve heard the term ‘play to your strengths’? It’s exactly that. Do the tasks you are excellent at and let others do the rest. The key is to find others who are ‘excellent’ at their roles. Combine these properties together and we are starting to look like a successful business collaboration.

Case study scenario:

Business collaborations for Web designer/Salesman

You may find a web designer who is great at building websites but has no people skills or sales experience. That web designer is pretty much going to have to work for a company in order to be successful. Whereas if he were to create business collaborations with a salesman who understands customer service, we can see clear benefits. Not only will the design work be completed competently, the salesman will bring more work and keep the existing clients happy. It works the other way too. Can you imagine a salesman selling websites who doesn’t know how to build them?

The key factor is finding the right people, with the right skills to complement your business idea.

Historic Business Collaborations

From Coco Chanel and Pierre Wertheimer to Larry Page and Sergey Brin, some of the world’s most effective business partnerships in recent history have resulted in companies with products and services that pioneered new industries and business models. Read more on the Bloomberg website here.

Will your business idea be the next Apple success story? Steve Jobs teamed up with his school friend Steve Wozniak to produce and sell home computers. One built them, the other focussed on selling them to fund the business. The rest is history.

Where can you find great business collaborations?

ItsOnlyBusiness.co.uk – there are lots of business people looking for partners. Visit the main site today and Place your FREE ad to start your perfect business collaboration.