If you are a solopreneur – there’s just you in your business – you will need help from other businesses of some kind. You’ll need advertising materials, a website, a delivery system (depending on your niche) and so on.
Few people have the knowledge to perform all those services for themselves. The solution is to find providers for each specific niche that you need within the online B2B Marketplace.
You may need additional money for your business. There again, locating business partners through business networks is the solution.
Let us say you want to create an E-commerce store selling your hand-painted pottery. You could hire someone to build a custom-coded website for you (using a provider from such B2B Marketplace sites as Fiverr or Upwork (which has absorbed ODesk and Elance) and Guru.com.
Or you could partner with companies that offer “associate” programs in your niche. For example, you can create an e-commerce store on eBay, to sell anything you like from your own books to used books, tools, jewelry, sporting equipment and so on. You could also partner with Amazon.com, or BarnesandNoble.com.
Other global companies offer affiliate opportunities. Basically, they will pay you to create a business presence online in order to help them market their goods and services. How can you find these affiliate opportunities? Join a business networking site, and learn from those who already participate in such programs.
Using freelance marketplace portals to find talented individuals is one form of business partnering, but it is in an on-demand basis. You use these individuals only as you need them, and the portal that provides their services. Since freelancers work for a variety of people, they may not be available the next time you need them, so you have to find a new provider.
Finding business partners outside of these marketplace portals, that you can partner with officially, solves this difficulty.
For example, shipping costs from one country to another country can be prohibitive unless you “drop-ship”, meaning you send your product to a partner in another country, and that company stores the product and sends it out as needed to people in-country who order the product.
People, or companies, who offer such services can be found on B2B Marketplace sites.
To find these B2B Marketplace sites, simply do a web search on that term. Then, simply search through the results to find a site that offers business services in your particular niche. A B2B Marketplace site is in essence a business network, and networking is the key to expanding your business into the global market.
Business partners located in different areas around the world can also help you advertise your business, in particular your e-commerce business and make it known throughout the world.