4. Join Networking Groups
Kathy Strauss, the creative director at Imagewerks, a communications design firm in Lake Ridge, Va., uses multiple networking groups to bond with other small firms. She has drummed up plenty of referrals and developed business relationships by regularly attending meetings at several local chambers of commerce and setting up a booth at local trade shows. “It’s more imperative than ever to form alliances and partnerships,” she says. “If we’re not out there networking, there is absolutely no way the phone would ring.”
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5. Build a Trusted Business Network
Bob London, the president and founder of London Ink in Potomac, Md., acts as a virtual vice president of marketing for firms that aren’t ready to hire a full-time marketing director. He meets with a group of business peers at least once a month to discuss how they can share leads and grow their businesses. Recently, they pooled their marketing dollars to rent a bus to take clients to Twin Tech, a networking event for the technology community in Washington, D.C. Each of the business friends coordinated the invitation list and shared its progress via Google Docs (Stock Quote: GOOG). The bus generated a lot of buzz within the community and enhanced the status of the partners.
6. Share Your Virtual Business Network
London has been using online social networking tools LinkedIn and Facebook for years. He shares his network with his closest business friends and they each have about 700 people to connect and partner with through the online services. “There’s some real leverage there when we each tap into each other’s networks,” he says.
7. Join Listserves
Strauss also belongs to several listserves with designer, photographer and editor members. When she needs help on a project, she posts an inquiry on the listserv and broadens her two-person company as big as it needs to be for a certain project. This way she’s able to offer clients not just her design specialty, but as a full-service shop by offering writing, copy editing and Web development and in multiple languages if necessary. “No small business can be a jack of all trades," says Strauss. "But by forming partnerships you can be a turnkey operation.”
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