The primary reasons that most small business owners will delve into the world of alliance relationships are to sell more and spend less:
For other alliance reasons and benefits, you may access that chapter in my book, Developing Strategic Alliances at no charge: http://www.rigsbee.com/dsa1.htm
Sell More
The key here is to identify other businesses that currently have a good number of the consumers that you want. If you too, have a good number of customers that this other business owner wants--you have a great match for cross promotions and possible co-branding. At the least, this will give you double the exposure for every advertising dollar you spend. Your biggest challenge will be to select another business owner that is willing to first cooperate, then collaborate.
It matters not if you are attempting to build local marketshare or national marketshare the above still holds true. Another frequent technique to sell more is through co-representation/distribution where you actually sell each others' products--this takes a bit more planning and contractual work.
Spend Less
The above example clearly demonstrates the idea of spending less to get more. And, there are other areas where you can spend less such as developing a buying group, sharing part-time employees, equipment sharing, and the list goes on and on.
I have frequently seen regional players, particularly retailers and distributors, successfully build small buying groups to better level the playing field with larger competitors. It is not that hard to do. In the Chicago area, a collective of patio furniture retailers built a group called "Chicagaoland Leisure Group" to make special purchases that would be used as lost leaders, share shipping costs (buy entire truck loads together), and advertising costs (advertised as a collective group in the local newspapers). You too can do this...
