MONEY
Simplify the law
6 WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR PROFIT: STEP SIX
Building on
the success
of the deal...
Simon Hetherington of simplifythelaw.co.uk,
a company that helps SMEs solve legal issues
without lawyers, explains how to take the deal
you’ve made and use it to grow your business
S
o, you negotiated
your deal, delivered
your end of the
contract, and the
other party did too.
Any wrinkles that occurred
were ironed out along the way
and everyone’s happy. And
now you think you can do
more - not just repeat business,
but taking it into new markets,
expanding and diversifying,
and scaling up. What are the
options for you?
Firstly, make sure you know
what went right. In the same
way that you should learn
from what may have gone
wrong, you can also build on
what went right. What can
you do to ensure good things
happen again? This may be as
simple as turning some of your
correspondence into templates
for future use, or using the
strengths of particular team
members that they (and you)
didn’t previously know they
had. It may be seeing that an
improvement you made to
your service or product for
one customer could be rolled
out to others.
Then comes the question
that all businesses like to ask
themselves: how can we use
this to grow?
DISTRIBUTION
If you know there is a market
for your products and the
challenge is to break into that
market – especially abroad – a
distribution arrangement is
worth considering. Under a
distribution agreement, you
would sell your goods to the
distributor for them to sell on
in the market for which they
are responsible. A distribution
agreement can be sole,
exclusive or non-exclusive, and
each has its advantages.
A non-exclusive distribution
agreement might work for
high volume sales of consumer
goods, whilst sole or exclusive
agreements are more effective
in specialist markets, but you
would want to build some sales
targets into those agreements
because your routes to market
are restricted by them. An
exclusive licence is one under
which only the distributor (i.e.
not even you as the original
manufacturer or seller) can
sell the goods in the territory
covered by the agreement. If
you want to retain the right to
sell, a sole distributor agreement
would be the one to choose.
Whatever kind of
distribution agreement you
choose, it will need to cover
a number of particular issues,
notably:
• The products sold;
• Where and to whom the
distributor will resell these
products;
• Sales targets and a
mechanism for reporting
sales;
• Marketing responsibilities;
• Any consent agreed that the
distributor may employ subdistributors;
• Intellectual property rights;
• Termination.
If there is a
market for
your produ 7G0