Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

This is a new twist on an old idea but one that I`m looking to start. I would like to form a vitual corporation dedicated to helping it`s members increase their business. Basically, each member would be a part of a SIC group and the V-corp. will act as a shell to brand product or services. This for the most part is the Home Depot / Wal-Mart model.  Heres`s an example: You have a SMB with 5 employees and you make widgets. Big Box can out price you because of their huge volume. The V-corp does the marketing for it`s members and gets a small percentage and funnels the sell to you. The V-corp is funded through membership qualifications i.e. $24.99 admin fee and 2 referals. The first 2 referals go to the sponsoring company. This way the members have an incentive to bring new members and be paid for the effort. We can also create a micro-lender scenario to fund viable ideas/business.

Just an idea.......... what do you think?

-------------------------

Leonard Campbell
Dir. Business Development
leonard.campbell@gmail.com

I`m working on the same type of idea,  the difference being the program details on how to obtain success.

 

Mike

Sounds like a co-op mixed with MLM to me.

Somewhat I guess. It is my experience that most motivation is driven by WIIFM (what`s in it for me)

-------------------------

Leonard Campbell
Dir. Business Development
leonard.campbell@gmail.com

I`d withdraw the mandatory referral and make it an incentive program.

It sounds like a marketing co-op, which makes a huge amount of sense. The single biggest problem for most business people is marketing, so if the company was a centralized marketing agency that`d work.

The membership fee, at that $25/month, would be feasible I think, even for bootstrapping companies. There`d be a Web site for news, support, questions, etc., and on the home page would be an ongoing button for referrals. IF someone chose to refer another company, they`d get some sort of "gift." Maybe 2 months waived fee or something.

The big and now-successful companies can do all sorts of economics-of-scale, and that`s fine. It`s an ultimate goal for startups to get that big. For now, the increasing number of small startups seems also to be leading toward a barter exchange of some kind. This V-Agency might be along those lines.

The risk and startup capital would be on the side of the V-Agency, though. It`d be a large amount of money, likely requiring some sort of national advertising campaign. Radio commercials work, and I remember hearing about Startup Nation on the Rush Limbaugh time-slot, connected I think with Washington Bank or something.