A week ago I was on a personal and business mission out of the country. My partner and I are looking into expanding our business to the other East African countries, and the only way to do it was to get affiliated with a well established company which does a great job in sales and marketing.

It was a tall order for me going to different companies talking to managers to get to know what exactly we should expect once we got affiliated. I hopped from one meeting to the next until when I met the right people with the right services that our company required.

A friend who was dropping me in these meetings asked me why we can’t open a branch office in each of these countries instead of affiliate partners. I told her that at this time our small company is not ready both financially and in terms of manpower to handle that.

So instead we opted to get affiliated with reputable companies in those respective countries. Most business people do make mistakes when it comes to expanding their business.

Not all businesses need branch offices everywhere in the world, some businesses are best dealt with when they are affiliated with reputable companies to not only help them set a niche in the industry, but with cutting the costs of putting up another office.

Of course some companies get scared in terms of profit sharing, but once that is settled as to who gets what, then rest can be easy.

Sometimes a great way to market your products or services in a new country is to have an affiliate partner who will be able to market your company by linking your products to other companies especially the ones that they already work with.

There different types of affiliations and people are encouraged to enter into affiliations once they have established what exactly suits their needs.  

There is the joint venture affiliation which is common where an association of individuals and/or concerns with interests in any degree or proportion by way of contract, express or implied, consorting to engage in and carry out a specific or limited-purpose business ventures for joint profit over a period of time, for which purpose they can combine their efforts, property, money, skill, or knowledge, but not on a continuing or permanent basis but for conducting business generally.

This means that the joint venture entity cannot submit more than three offers over a period of stipulated time, starting from the date of the submission of the first offer. A joint venture may or may not be in the form of a separate legal entity.

It may also take long to market your products through an affiliate partner and your efforts aren’t going to provide you with the immediate gain you want, but if you can stay focused on the long-term gain of affiliate marketing and partnership, you will find greater success especially in the new markets.

Depending on one’s business needs then different affiliate contracts can be drawn and two or more parties can be involved in doing business with each other. At first working with an affiliate partner may sound very intricate, but once the rules and guidelines have been drawn, then you will find yourself at peace knowing that business is being taken care of somewhere.

Many business owners do not like working with affiliates for whatever reasons, but it is a great way to start a business in a new country when branching out.

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