Use Co-op For More Than Just The Money

If you have been in business for more than a day, you probably have heard about Co-Op advertising, or advertising your distributor, manufacturer or wholesaler either pays for or does on your behalf for buying their products.

Free advertising in a down economy = WIN!

Using co-op funding to market your business is a great way to get much more bang for someone else’s buck for doing what you already do…buy stuff. Now, I have talked about co-op here before, but I want to get you to start thinking in terms of “YES, you deserve to get co-op funds”! You see, most of the time the contractor doesn’t have enough “banked” or saved up, or they don’t buy enough to be able to participate.

Then I say find someone else to do business with!

If your current vendors won’t help you sell THEIR products, then screw’em! Find someone else that will. There are other companies that make water heaters or paint or whatever you need to do your job, you just have to find them.

And if free money isn’t enough of an incentive…

I often have to do a “sell-job” to a contractor to get him off of his ass and using his co-op…even when he does have money banked.

But maybe you don’t know if your people offer co-op?

Well, let me make this easy for you, if the manufacturer you use has a logo, they are paying SOMEONE to advertise it. It may not be you, but someone is getting some serious coin to promote that brand. So, this is going to be a two-part post because tonight you are going to get homework. That’s right, it’s not all fun and games here at Darren’s, I want you to learn too.

Tomorrow, not Friday (unless tomorrow is Friday when you read this) or next week or next month, tomorrow I want you to find out from wherever you buy the most from if they have a co-op program. Once you get that answer, your next question should be how much do you have available to you? If the answer is zero, then that’s a bad answer. If you have money in reserves, find out the guidelines you need to qualify, then come on back here tomorrow for the rest!

Photo Credit: Lloyd Crew