Associate Your Start-up with Trusted Brands to Build Credibility

It’s no secret that for a start-up getting the first couple of sales is absolutely critical. It validates the business model, proves the product, gives you experience that can be leveraged to capture the next set of customers and makes you a credible player in your chosen market.

However, think of the risk that your early customers are taking by buying your product. They don’t know if the technology is real, if the product works as advertised, or if you’ll be around to support the product or expand their deployment in the future. Your champions are putting their jobs on the line when they go for your start-up’s solution over more proven ones.

There’s a saying that nobody ever got fired for buying IBM. Now this saying may be slightly dated and you can substitute other established and proven companies in place of IBM but you can’t substitute a start-up’s name in place of IBM. You need to remember this saying when your customer puts their business on the line for you.

This blog post, in the series about how to make your marketing more credible, will look at one way to solve this issue. You can give your marketing and company credibility by associating yourself with the trusted brands of established companies through a strategic partnership or joint marketing and sales relationship.

It's rare that a start-up can make it alone so leveraging a larger company can help in many aspects of the business including sales, bringing it credibility on the marketing front, R&D dollars, and the list goes on. Not to mention the fact that many acquisitions begin with a strategic partnership between start-up and acquirer.

At the same time, larger companies may not be able to react as quickly to a customer request to add a specific capability that solves a new problem. Larger, more established companies may look to start-ups to try new things and take risks that they may not be able to take. So this relationship can definitely be a win-win situation.

Now striking and building these relationships is not easy but the pay-off can be huge and the obstacles these partnerships help to overcome may be insurmountable otherwise. Developing strong partnerships with trusted brands will not only increase your credibility but will also lead to sales opportunities with customers that may not have considered your offerings before.

And while I’ve focused mainly on partnering with other companies as the trusted brands you should associate your start-up with, there are other third-party organizations that can also bring credibility to you and other benefits but not to the same extent. For example, there are many industry organizations that will help the start-up build similar credibility and may be easier to achieve in the short-term.

In the end though, it’s just as important whom you associate with from a credibility standpoint, as it is that you associate yourself with them in the first place. That’s why the term “trusted brands” was in the title of this post. You can’t just pick anyone to partner with or any organization to join. They need to bring your start-up credibility for this to benefit you.

There is a certain truth in the saying that you will be judged by the company that you keep. For a start-up, the companies you work with will be absolutely crucial to your success but at the same time, start-ups need to be careful whom they select as a partner and ensure that it fits with their soon-to-be trusted brand.

Comments

[Taobao in English]

Um...like the style of your writing.*_*

[Supra Skytop]

It's rare that a start-up can make it alone so leveraging a larger company can help in many aspects of the business including sales, bringing it credibility on the marketing front, R&D dollars, and the list goes on

[Nike Shox]

Your article looks good, I like bits and pieces of daily life, like a movie.

[Alex]

Honestly, the difference bewteen good and bad experiences is more based on the policy holders understanding of his coverage and his relationship with the agent rather than the name of the company that issued the policy.For example, you finance a new car, perhaps trading in one you are upside down on, and your agent offers but you say no to gap insurance. After all, you don't plan on having a wreck. Otherwise you have full coverage. On the way home you wreck, and it's your fault. But no worries, you have full coverage. Now you find out your insurance will only pay fair market value, and less your deductible, and it goes to the lender, and the remaining balance is yours to pay. That makes your insurance agent an SOB in your mind, but it's really you not understanding what you had.If you want to see what is available to you based on your criteria, talk to a local independent agent and see what they might offer.

[Yamile]

I use LinkedIn and all my professional coctnats are there on LinkedIn. I kinda like this new social community SkillPages. Is there any option of letting know all my LinkedIn coctnats that I am here on SkillPages?

[supreme caps cheap]

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[cool flash games]

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+1