Kaitlyn Szczupak | S&S Transmissions and Auto Repair Inc. owner
One aspect of successfully expanding and growing a business that may be overlooked is creating relationships with other businesses in your field. When moving my business from one location to another, here’s what helped me get started building good relationships:
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Introduce yourself. Find other businesses in your field and introduce yourself to the owner or manager. Deliver some of your business cards with contact information and let them know you are available if they have any questions, concerns or interest.
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Explain what your business is all about. Let other business owners know what your operations consist of and what your mission statement is. If you specialize in a specific area, explain it. For me, my business specializes in transmission rebuilding and repair. To me, other local garages do not touch upon that. Your specialty might trigger interest in other business owners because it is something they may need. Who knows, they may even specialize in something that may be of interest to you.
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Set proposals. Propose to other business owners what your business can offer them. This could mean offering them wholesale work. You want them to be confident in your work and know that it is going to benefit them, their clients and their profits.
Since moving my business to Tiverton, I have created such wonderful business relationships with other local auto repair facilities. More than 45% of my workload comes from the business relationships I have created. They send me transmission work, I send them general repair business. We are all able to work together to grow our businesses.
