Devoted to women of color in business

Today's post is a guest post by Jerrilynn B. Thomas, founder at Women Partner International. In it, Jerrilynn talks about the benefits of cross marketing. Many of you are already doing this through groups like BNI: consider taking the referral step one further and directly partnering with others to market all of your businesses as a team.

The government is not going to bail out your business if it fails. You need to start thinking collaboratively NOW if you want to thrive in this slow economy. Aggressive and quick action is required if you want to prosper this holiday season and beyond. 

Ladies, you need to start forging cross marketing partnerships. Collaborate with companies that are already selling to your target audience. Develop win-win relationships with them to gain access to their clients and business associates. 

WomenPartner International, a cross marketing consortium for seasoned business and professional women who want to fast track their first million in sales by servicing each others' existing client base while sharing marketing costs to stretch their precious marketing dollars, offers the following words of wisdom for women who want to engage in cross marketing. 

Take a look around at your business space.  Imagine that it's a popular mall that generates a lot of foot traffic filled with other businesses who offer well defined products and services related to yours but not in competition with your company.  Make a list of the businesses you see sharing mall space and customers with you.  Then approach them to discuss forging a cross marketing relationship.

A podcasting consultant, referral generation coach, sales closing consultant, branding consultant, networking coach, email marketing consultant, affiliate marketing consultant, e-book development consultant, web copy consultant, and video development consultant would make a powerful cross marketing team.  

Khrys Vaughn of Her Start Up LLC, Jennifer Large of Marketing At Large, Janet Davis-Leak of Womanscope News Magazine, and Val Olson of Blue-eyed Muse are pooling their knowledge and contacts to create the Holiday Business Survival Kit.  The kit will be packaged on CDs and as PDFs and given away locally as well as online on Black Friday to business and professional women who typically don’t generate a large profit during the holiday season.  The ladies will share the cost of producing the CDs by buying their own CDs and saving the info on them.

Put on your thinking cap and start building your dream business team.  The year is quickly coming to an end.  If you start cross marketing now, you will be able to capitalize on the holiday season.  Visit http://www.womenpartner.com to browse the profiles of women interested in cross marketing.