Page 60 - 100 Great Marketing Ideas (100 Great Ideas)

26 TAKE YOUR PARTNERS

Bringing in business yourself is always satisfying—but how much
better would it be if other people brought business to you? Choosing
the right partner organizations can make a dramatic difference to
you—the right partner can do most of your selling for you, and will
be more than happy to do so if it benefits their own business.

If the businesses are suitably complementary, it may be possible
for you to pass business back their way—benefiting both of you
even further.

The idea

Swansea Sport Flying is an ultralight flying school operating out
of Swansea Airport, on the Gower Peninsula in South Wales. The
Gower is an area of outstanding natural beauty, with many hotels
and guest houses that are thronged with visitors each summer.
Swansea Sport Flying does a roaring trade in trial lessons during the
summer, when tourists take the opportunity to see the Gower from
the air and also have a go at flying an ultralight (with an instructor
on board, of course).

To promote trial flights, the school has an arrangement with most of
the guest houses, hotels, and pubs on the Gower. The guest house has
trial-flight vouchers to sell, for which they take a 10 percent deposit
to firm up the booking. The customer pays the remaining fee when
he or she arrives to take the flight: the guest house keeps the deposit
as its commission on the deal. This keeps the bookkeeping simple,
and provided the guest houses have a good supply of vouchers it is
clearly in their interests to sell flights—after all, the sale of a flight is

100 GREAT MARKETING IDEAS • 51