10 ways collaboration can help grow your business

6. Find a mentor

Many experienced entrepreneurs are willing to work with new business owners to share their advice and expertise. It's a good idea to find someone who has experience building a business in your sector.

Before you go about finding a mentor, think about why you want one.

Is it someone to act as a sounding board, listen to you talk through your challenges and help you work out solutions?

Or do you want a more action-orientated mentor to tell you how to run your business? Those are two different things and will lead to different mentors.

Once you know why you want one, seek out people you think would be willing to help. Attend business events, use social media and ask friends and family for recommendations.

You can also join business groups to meet more experienced entrepreneurs. If you successfully apply for a Start Up Loan, it includes 12 months of free mentoring.

7. Social media influencers

A very modern way of collaborating is working with social media influencers.

At one end of the scale are celebrities who have millions of followers on platforms like Instagram.

At the other end are micro-influencers who may only have a few thousand followers but enjoy strong engagement with a specific group of people.

This tactic works particularly well for product businesses. You can either pay influencers to promote your business or give them free products in return for a review or a mention.

There are advertising rules (.pdf, 1,014kb) Opens in new window around using influencers to ensure people aren't misled. But if you find the right influencer who has a strong following within your target market, it can generate many sales.

8. Joint bids for work

If you're a service business that tenders for contracts, submitting a joint bid with another business can give you access to bigger customers that you couldn't serve on your own.

This may require a formal joint venture. You might also want an arrangement in which one business acts as the main contractor and the other as a sub-contractor. Consult a lawyer for advice.

9. Rent space and pop-up

Many start-ups begin to scale when they realise it's time to move from working at home to an external office.

As pandemic restrictions are easing, hybrid working - spending some time working from home and some time in an office - is also a trend for start-ups.

Workspaces can be expensive, so one way to reduce the costs is to rent space from another business. It could be a few desks in their office or space in their retail store.

Some shops also offer other small businesses the chance to rent shelves within their store to sell their products.

Temporary pop-up shops can be a powerful way to reach customers, so you could join forces with other brands to run one.

Pop-ups are also a useful way to test trading in a physical environment before committing to your own full-time retail store. Landlords are increasingly more open to small businesses renting their properties for short periods to run pop-ups.

10. Referrals

Running referral programmes is a good way to generate sales.

You can either work with other businesses to send potential new customers your way in return for a fee or incentivise existing customers to do so.

You can reward customers with promotions such as gift vouchers or discounts on future purchases.

There are several ways to set up referrals. At its most basic, one business can refer customers to another business in exchange for a fee or share of any revenue that customer subsequently spends.

More structured referral programmes - known as affiliate schemes or affiliate networks - thrive online.

Large organisations such as Amazon or affiliate networks such as Awin pay a fee to websites that refer customers who subsequently buy products and services.