Written by Aaron Colman info@ibasics.biz http://www.ibasics.biz

If you were in an elevator and had 15 seconds to sell your business, what would you say?

"My USP, of course! Right?"

WRONG!

Your USP is good (USP == Unique Selling Proposition. If you don't have this yet, get one first!) but 9 times out of 10 it's just too big. You need something more concise. Something that can be defined in one sentence and leaves them wanting more.

The best Elevator Pitch I ever heard was at an Internet Seminar I attended. One of Personal Coaches and I had been talking and we needed, literally, to get into elevator. We talked, and around 3rd floor a middle-aged man got on. He overheard us talking and asked us "That's interesting, what do guys do exactly?"

His response? "I help average people achieve extraordinary success."

Brilliant. How can you say no to that? You may be skeptical,you may not believe guy... but you can't say no. "No sir, I don't want extraordinary success. That's not what I need at all!" If you can say that with a straight face then you're a better (wo)man than I.

It's perfectly okay to have a few different multiple elevator pitches for different scenarios as long as you can keep them separate. In fact it's a good idea to have 2 or 3 main facets of your business and a way of approaching different types of clients for each of them.

Written by Aaron Colman info@ibasics.biz http://www.ibasics.biz

Ever wanted to form one of those nifty "Joint Venture" things?

One of most powerful marketing techniques around is to form an alliance with another company.

A few types of joint ventures:

* Swapping space - Do you have a place where I could advertise in your store?

* Sponsored joint products - Could you design a product that sold both of your products?

* Sharing referrals - Actively passing on interested clients

* Passing out business cards - Passively distributing marketing material

* Shared marketing campaign - Both businesses share in cost and reap benefits.

* Customer list exchanges (Being careful of CAN SPAM provisions)

* A joint newsletter (A 2 page free newsletter can be very powerful)

One of trickiest things to do is find a business that would benefit from an alliance, but not be hurt by your competition.

To find these businesses ask yourself some of these questions:

* People that buy from us also buy from whom?

* What other things do people that buy from us also like to buy?

* What kind of problems does my product or service help to solve?

* What kind of products or services tend to create these problems?

* Do people that buy from me have anything else in common?

* Does my product help people accomplish things that require also might require another product or serve?

* Can I slide up or down product chain?

Example: Lets say you sold gardening tools. You wouldn't want to approach other gardening tool makers, as they're in direct competition with you. Instead, you might want to approach landscapers, professional gardeners, sod companies, fertilizer producers, etc.

Also, realize that your product is just a chain in a link of products. Again, if you sold gardening tools... people that buy them obviously need additional things to get their garden up and running.