Why not create partnerships with other businesses that are in a complementary business but do not compete with your own? Say you are a web designer. You can partner up with someone who provides SEO work. You benefit because you can get your customers websites higher on the search engines and in return they can provide you with leads of people they help that have shoddy websites.
Why Not Merge With Your Main Competitor?
By combining your businesses your buying power increases and you will be able to make both businesses leaner and fitter. If your competitor is smaller than you, why not take him over and remove him from the equation? This will allow you to increase your prices and therefore make higher profits.
If you want to increase your offering why not merge with or acquire a business that can enhance and increase the variety of your offering.
New Technology can Save you Money
Embrace new technology to make your business more efficient. Admittedly this does cost money in the short term but the longer term benefits could be huge. It could be possible to get more done with less people.
Will that be Cash, Cheque or Credit Card?
Do you offer the ability to take payments with credit cards? Why not? By offering many different ways to pay you can make it easier for your customers to buy.
The supplier I use is a company called 2checkout.com. There is a one off set up fee and no monthly charges. They can accept payments in most currencies and charge only a small percentage each time a customer buys. No transactions equal zero charges!
