Stretch Your Dollar With Horizontal Marketing

Partnering with a company that shares your target market saves you time and money.


It's not an offer you see every day: "Buy a House, Get a Free Electric Car." But that's exactly why Chris Schneider, owner of Honda Motorwerks, in La Crosse, Wisconsin, decided to use such an attention-grabbing sales tactic.

Schneider, 51, has been selling environmentally friendly cars for 30 years, but it hasn't been easy to persuade people to make the switch to alternative-fueled vehicles. Over the years, Schneider has tried many tactics to woo more people into buying energy-efficient cars, but it was teaming up with the real estate agent for his "free car" stunt in July that made the biggest impact.

"It certainly gained a great deal of attention. We did this on a Friday morning, and by Friday afternoon I had already received three messages from people interested in the car," he says. So far, no one has purchased the house, but foot traffic at Schneider's dealership has noticeably increased.


Schneider has learned what many business owners have: Horizontal marketing--two businesses with different products but similar clientele join marketing efforts--is a smart way to increase your customer base without increasing your marketing budget.

"Horizontal marketing is easier and cheaper than just about any other form of marketing," says Shel Horowitz, author of Principled Profit. According to Horowitz, competitors can become some of your best allies.

"In the case of horizontal marketing, a competitor might be someone who overlaps with you but doesn't duplicate your offering exactly," Horowitz says. "Both of you benefit by being able to offer a wider range of services and by pleasing clients who might otherwise have felt a need to go elsewhere."

Of course, you don't have to give away an expensive product like Schneider did to please your customers. There are many innovative ways to market your products and services by getting together with another business. Here are three more creative and cheap ways to jump-start your own horizontal marketing campaign.

Cross-endorsement. "If you're a small company without much brand identity, you can ride the coattails of a stronger brand by offering them some type of promotion for their customers, whether that be a product, coupon, etc.," says Denise Patrick, vice president of creative services for Pierpont Communications. "For example, let's say you own the local miniature golf park. Offer the big movie theater in your neighborhood a ton of 'Buy One, Get One Free' tickets. It's a free gift for the movie theater, credibility for you and access to all the teenagers looking for a fun place to take their dates."

Dr. Desiree Edlund, founder of OC Back & Body Doctors, a chiropractic office based in Irvine, California, that offers acupuncture and physical therapy, has been cross-endorsing with a neighboring gym for seven years. Edlund, 37, offers gym members discounts on services and periodically stations a representative in the gym offering free on-site body fat analyses with the results written on her business card.

"Working with the gym has worked out very, very well because the type of people who work out are people who care about their health and wellness, which is exactly the type of customers we like and who like us," Edlund says. "The discounts pay for themselves in repeat business."

Spread out the cost. Patrick encourages neighboring businesses to "think mall" by turning your businesses into a destination "buying experience."

"For example, say you're a bookstore owner located in a strip center along with a children's clothing store and a discount linens store," she says. Together, you can create 'Build a Fort' afternoon for children. The linens store provides the sheets for the forts, the children's store provides costumes and you host a reading."

Offer a full-service brand experience without increasing your overhead. What other services would your clients like to receive? Michael Hart, a small-business marketing consultant for over 20 years, helped one of his clients reach a wider range of customers through a simple horizontal marketing tactic that any business can use. Hart helped a heating and air conditioning company recruit eight other businesses that had similar clientele to be featured in a full-color, 10-page home services coupon catalog. The businesses in the catalog all offered different services--termite and pest control, lawn care, carpet cleaning--but they all marketed to the same type of customers.

"Each vendor increased sales by 20 percent or more, reduced their advertising and mailing costs, and expanded their client base eight-fold," Hart says about the catalog's success.

No matter what type of business you have, there are creative ways to increase your clientele through horizontal marketing. From product giveaways to coupons and discounts, you'll be able to stretch your marketing dollars further by forming a friendly alliance with other businesses in your area.

The Call Of The Entrepreneur

Taking Over

Buying out your boss? You can do it--and get a good deal.

Question: My boss wants to retire and offered to sell me his business. I don't know how much it's worth, and I doubt I'd even have the money to pay for it. Any advice?

Answer: Unlike large public companies with many shareholders, your boss's business isn't likely to attract many buyers, so you are in a good position to get a relatively low price without a lot down. There's no firm rule for valuing private companies, so your boss may be willing to sell for some multiple of his annual earnings (say, three to five times the company's bottom line). If you can't get a bank loan, ask your boss if you can finance the purchase out of profits on a schedule that doesn't pinch the company's cash flow, says Joseph Fulvio, a management consultant for startups and emerging businesses. Another option: Ask your boss to "hold paper," lending you the balance over a fixed number of years at a set interest rate.

Make sure you consider tax consequences. "A sale of shares or a third-party brokered sale results in a capital gain for the seller, whereas interest income paid on a loan made by the current owner is treated differently," says Fulvio. "The same goes for buyers with a loan on the books vs. some other form of payout, like a profit-sharing agreement." So, consult an accountant or tax attorney.

Optimism Knows No Slowdown

Small business owners say they're too busy thriving on Main Street to worry about the gloom and doom on Wall Street.

Spend enough time following the news, and it's enough to make you wonder if Chicken Little was appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve. Granted, things like the dismal housing market and soaring gas prices are certainly real problems for everyone. On the other hand, when you read about some cubicle jockey complaining that she had to give up Starbucks because the economy's so bad, the line between real problems and a dire shortage of common sense becomes pretty blurry.

So, is the sky really falling? According to a March 2008 study, small business owners say no.

"The entrepreneur is still thriving," says Rick Jensen, senior vice president of small business for Intuit, the company that conducted the survey. "It goes back to the roots of who these small business owners are. They've faced adversity and they play offense. This isn't news to them."

The study, which sampled 751 small business owners with 100 or fewer employees, found that 90 percent of those surveyed said they see opportunity in the current economic climate and 75 percent said they expect their business to grow. About half said the economy levels the playing field between small business and their larger counterparts, and 65 percent said they've had experience guiding their business through tough economic times. Their focus, to the tune of 63 percent of those surveyed, is customer retention, something Jensen says is a big part of what drives small business owners and allows them to do well under any economic conditions.

"They're in a unique position based on where they come from," he says. "They think fast. They're much more in a position to move very quickly in terms of how they align their resources. They're used to doing that anyway, in good times and bad. It goes back to the reason they got into it in the first place--passion."

Joe Gebbia, 26, is no stranger to the sort of passion that can lead to a groundbreaking business. As an art and design student in Rhode Island, he endured long critique sessions that often involved sitting on uncomfortable benches for hours. When his search for a suitable seat cushion came up empty, he designed one of his own, and Critbuns was born.

"I feel like I've been an entrepreneur my whole life," Gebbia says. "I tried to fall in line with everybody else because I felt like that was the thing to do. I'm glad I did it because I learned a lot, but I'll never forget the day when I made the decision to finally go into my company full time. It was an amazing feeling."

Critbuns' sales tripled in 2007 after being featured in several major catalogs, landing in four international retail outlets and offering direct online sales from its website. Gebbia says his success and that of his fellow entrepreneurs is as much about attitude as it is about business sense.

"I think it's a character trait," he says. "There's a quality that somebody has that they have to like the sense of adventure. You go into it being uncertain, so if there's a recession, who cares? Why would I let the forecast of a recession bring me down? I don't see it any other way. When things are good, you're confident. When things are going bad, you're confident. You're your own biggest cheerleader as a small business. If I'm not rooting for myself 100 percent, how can I expect anybody else to?"

Other entrepreneurs have managed to thrive in a slow economy by combining the usual innovation with a healthy dose of good karma, a very marketable commodity in any economy.

"One of the things that helps is that we have a double bottom line," says Pankaj Shah, 34, founder and CEO of GreenDimes, an online company based in Palo Alto, California, that removes subscribers from junk mail lists and plants trees on their behalf. "I think people are willing to help themselves and help the world. We have kept it simple. Everyone gets junk mail at their house, and no one likes it. With us, for $20, you can get rid of it and do something good."

The company, which started in 2006, is already posting eight-figure revenues, with 2008's numbers projected to triple those of last year. GreenDimes also sells high-end T-shirts, with a portion of the profits going to charity. Shah says part of what has helped his company thrive is its ability to make doing the right thing easy.

"Everyone doesn't have time in their day to become an activist," he says. "But I do think most of the population wants to do something good and give something back. It's hard to figure out all the things that are broken in the world. So we decided we're going to sell these products and services, and these things are going to be good 100 percent of the time. And we take care of the part where you do something good in the process."

Despite what's being said about the dismal state of the economy, Shah says being an entrepreneur gives him hope because he sees the sort of creative thinking he hopes will change the way business is done--and he hopes his business model will be part of that revolution.

"There are more smart, driven, educated people trying to do good things in the world now than there have ever been," he says. "I see the light at the end of the tunnel. There's some business model that's going to prove you can have this thriving business entity that puts pieces of society on its back and says, 'We're going to make this better.' And it's not preachy. It's just fun, hip and interesting. I hope it's the wave of the future. You can buy our T-shirt, and three kids in Africa won't die from a bug bite. Those are the kinds of things consumers can relate to."

Besides small businesses being better equipped to handle a slow economy to begin with, Jensen says, the current economy actually favors them because as larger companies struggle, their customers and even their employees will flock to smaller ones.

"I think small businesses have a unique opportunity," he says. "As you see larger companies downsize, you're going to see Middle America turn to small businesses. Small business will be a place where the middle class will find their middle class wealth again. The thing about America is that the entrepreneurial spirit has never been stronger. Small businesses are where people are going to want to go to work. What people are going to see is that, as small businesses continue to grow and be a more important part of the economy, it will fuel entrepreneurship even more."

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A Call to All Young Entrepreneurs

A Call to All Young Entrepreneurs

A Call to All Young Entrepreneurs: Leverage for Your Small Home Based Business

Being a young entrepreneur, your small business is only as good for all those people who know about it. And for those who don't know, well they simply don't care.

After all the hardships you have gone through while starting up your business. After all those attempt to give it all up and return back to more secured corporate living. After all the risks you have to pass through. And now that you have toughed them all, the only aim that you now have is to make your small business grow.

Well, that actually is not as simple as it may sound. Making your small business grow will lead you to more compromises. This entails you to take further risks. It is harder this time of course because you are delving into deeper realms of risk. Sometime, the absence of assurance for success will make it more difficult for you to get on through the next level.

One of the many paths to growth from your youth in entrepreneurship towards maturity is to spread words of your small home based business. You may posses the best of the products in the industry but there would be no sense to them if the only people who know are those that are within your block. Your product may have the potentials of breaching million dollar sales but if no one buys it, there is no sense in dreaming of becoming a tycoon.

Start promoting yourself and your services. Some small home based business young entrepreneurs begin promoting their products even before they were fully launched. However, there are many who do promotions only when they have tapped the estimated potentials of their items. You always have the choice between the two though.

There are two basic techniques that you may use to take your small home based business into the scene. One is through paid advertisement and the other through public relations.

Paid advertisements require the process of negotiating with advertising agencies and stations to have your product promoted. Mediums like televisions, websites, newspapers and radio spots are among the most typical options you have.

In public relations however, you would have to ask an author to have your story and your business venture written on articles or an expert as search reference. The only problem though is that you have to be convincing or your story must have that extra pop so as to be worthy of mention.

While publicity may oftentimes require you to share the toll of finding a writer to work for your home based business, there is still no way for you to disregard the benefits of having your story advertised. It also has cost effective feature since you seldom pay for such an advertising medium. But the better part goes with the truth that you can be better remembered with an article rather than in a TV commercial. People normally have more trust on a write-up rather than paid advertisement showed in TV or in the internet. Publicity also offers the potentials of reaching through various people and if you have that good streak of luck, the national audience may be reached by your story.

Even the online world recognizes that actual power of television advertisements than using links and postings on message boards. There are many times when the website has become successful because it was featured on a television show. Thus, discarding all the "almost useful" power of drawing people through creating juggling lines of links in the web.

The media works on herd mentality. Once a program caught site of what your home based business has to offer, other programs may have the hitch of spreading the word further. Thus, you can expect other shows to modify your own story to supplement for their own. This is very effective indeed since you will have your advertisement without spending a dime while reaching wide spectrum of audience.

The problem though comes with attracting journalist and writers towards your home based small business story.

Plan your target points. Your aim is to court writers towards writing your tale. Never put them off by sending bulks of email to virtually all journalists that you know. Point only towards those who are in the beat with your story. Identify what publications will find your venture useful and know which kind will use your story. Try making a list of newspapers, radio programs and television spots that will work well with your aim. If you truly want publicity, go direct with personal emails or letters to those who are most likely to find your small home based business story interesting.

A Call to All Young Entrepreneurs

Business Opportunities and Quick Tips for Women Entrepreneurs

Business Opportunities and Quick Tips for Women Entrepreneurs

Are you one of the women who happened to be yourself, a mom, a wife and a businesswoman altogether? Well, American women seem to have morphed into super ladies who can do any works demanded from them. From house cleaning to child rearing and into developing their own businesses.

Well, there are just too many opportunities for mom entrepreneurs that you may even find yourself overwhelmed when you see the whole spectrum of chancing on the career of your life. You may not have realized it but you see, you have the potential of not only becoming a housewife to you husband or mom to your kids but also the master of your own business unit.

However, not all of us women can tough the tides and perform all our tasks simultaneously. Somehow, we have to sacrifice a thing or another. But this must not be the case. If there is a way that you may find to balance everything, then you no longer would have problems on sacrificing anything. You just have to divide things equally in the many aspect of the life you are trying to pursue.

Being a mom entrepreneur entails you to find your vein, find where you are really good at and find an activity that you love doing and in return would generate an income for you. This way, you need not get tired of your "work' but will only enjoy working on your income.

If you would not want compromising anything from your being you, you can try a business that is home based. Atleast, you can have income while staying at the comforts of your home and while raising your kids. Thinking that this would not allow you focus? Actually, it will.

Think of this- you can help your husband with the support for your finances while rearing your children.

Home based opportunities for mom entrepreneurs

§ Pet-Based Products
There is nothing that indulgent pet owners wont do for their pets. If you can tap on the opportunities that this reality presents, you are sure to be on the road to financial freedom. You may try retailing pet products among your friends first to test grounds. Then go about the block and spread the news. There is too little chance that this wont click. The next phase would deliver you to promoting your products online. There, real business happens.

§ In-Home Beauty Services
Some women just have the talent making people feel good about themselves. You can choose to enterprise on home beauty services. We have this unexplainable contentment when someone knocks to our doors and deliver beauty and youthful look. Well, probably that's one way of experiencing luxury. Being a mom, you can invest less on this while actually earning good cash.

§ Catering services
Great for mom entrepreneurs with passion in kitchen stuffs. Catering doesn't start with big parties alone. Because America has grown too busy to take charge in the kitchen, many families are now finding themselves eating outside for dinner or having their foods brought in from the restaurant. Well, this type of living can be monotonous at times and all we have to do is to create innovations on making dinner a little more exciting while cutting the prices down. If you have the kick for careful planning in preparing and planning nourishment for people, and make appealing foods and deliver them straight to the customers doorsteps then catering services will be a great one for you. Who knows, this might also be a good time for you and your children to spend time.

Those were only three of the business opportunities any mom may try venturing into. Be careful though, as a mom entrepreneur you also have other commitments that you must keep in mind. Commitments to your husband, to your kids, to you business and to your self. And somehow, there'd be days like you cant actually have sufficient time for anyone of them, not even for yourself.

Once you see this coming, take things slow and give a break for yourself. And keep in mind that there should always be a day off from all these. A time for yourself so you wont have to deal with burning out and loosing touch of your goals later.

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Business Opportunities and Quick Tips for Women Entrepreneurs

How Women Entrepreneurs Changed the Face of Business

How Women Entrepreneurs Changed the Face of Business

Alright, let us examine the world of business. Before, business was dominated by men. Change, as it always is, was inevitable. Daring to oppose the male dominated world of business, women entrepreneurs stepped forward and offered some serious competition. Effectively cornering markets that men did not focus fully on, women entrepreneurs managed to beat men in unfamiliar territory.

From this, men learned that underestimating women was a very bad idea. Good thing, they learned quickly about the value of fair treatment of every person. Had they tried to ignore the growing number of women entrepreneurs, men would have found themselves facing downfall.

In true business fashion, men gave way to a compromise. Jacks gave way to Janes, and more women were brought in to different businesses. Killing prejudice in offices and the market took time, but were accomplished. Lately, we have observed how women can accomplish great things.

Moments in history have occurred when women have outperformed men in business. Nowadays, no one can judge you by your gender, but by your accomplishments.

Of course, there is the question of equality. People have been asking, what does equality really mean? Quite a few groups, especially feminists, insist that equality can be attained only if women totally rule everything. Respecting their views is a pretty good way of treating them, as most people have found out. Some people, however, think that their views are twisted in the sense that, equality means that each side should have the same opportunity.

Thankfully, this seems to be the case today. Under today's laws, you can not base a business decision on a person's sex. Very few people now are still narrow-minded enough to look down upon a woman, and these people often end up facing a lawsuit.

Women entrepreneurs changed the world by showing us how women can understand some things better than men can. XX chromosomes or XY chromosomes, we are now officially equal under law. Young people, however, tend to take this fact for granted. Zany teenagers think that equality always existed, and the women entrepreneurs who pioneered the change are forgotten.

And that, my friend, is the story of women entrepreneurs from A to Z.

What do women entrepreneurs face today? Well, as you may have observed, there are a lot of opportunities today that open up the world for women entrepreneurs. These opportunities need to be watched out for and taken advantage of. Thankfully enough, there a lot of places out there where you can get help to get your business going.

Check out the internet. You can find a lot of useful websites and organizations that specialize in helping women entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground. In fact, the different organizations out there can actually help you realize your dream of owning a globally competitive business.

Remember that you exist in a free-for-all environment. When you stepped into the world of business, you have joined the cycle of kill or be killed. In today's world, you need to have the ability to stand up to every kind of competition and problem.

Women entrepreneurs face the same kind of threats that their male counterparts do. They face the hardship of finding capital, building a customer base, and basically trying to shape their businesses into a globally-competitive machine. You'll need to be able to focus fully on your job and make decisions based on sound reasoning mixed with a bit of human emotion.

Remember that there should always be a balance. Too much of anything can be very bad for you. What you need to do is arm yourself with information. Study yourself and your environment for anything that can either help you, or bring about your downfall. Make sure that you are prepared for anything, bad or good, that can affect your business.

These are but few of the things that the woman entrepreneur of today is facing. However, the technology of today makes it easy for anyone to be competitive in the world of business. You now have the tools at hand that will help you rise above your opponents. However, one question still remains. In order for you to succeed, you must look within yourself and ask: Do you have the will?

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How Women Entrepreneurs Changed the Face of Business