"Who do you know?"

Hello  

Just think of the things that go together...

Fish and chips

Bread and butter

Laurel and Hardy

Milk and honey

Tooth and nail

Peace and quiet

Horse and cart

Punch and Judy

Pots and pans

In fact...

It Could be a game to play with friends and children – especially if the next in the series had to begin with the last letter of the previous pair!

Any way...

Before I get off-track and wander down a road guess travelled...

I was in Hong Kong.

And...

Wanted to know a good restaurant in which to have dinner with my wife – Sharon.

So – I asked the concierge of the hotel we were staying in and somewhat surprisingly he recommended an Italian on the Upper Levels.

We decided to walk and rode the seemingly endless elevators up the hill for a good 20 minutes.

Then...

Arriving at the restaurant I was told they didn’t have a table for at least 45 minutes.

“No problem” I said “We’ll just sit in the bar and have drink while we waiting”

“Sorry” the waiter replied “We don’t have a bar!”

You can imagine...

We didn’t want to stand outside for 45 minutes but before I could express anything else the waiter continued with...

“However if you just walk round the corner there’s a great little place called The Animal Bar – just have a drink in there and I’ll telephone you there when you table is ready – OK?”

Well...

It seemed a reasonable solution so off we went to The Animal Bar; ordered drinks and explained we were waiting for a table at the Italian Restaurant around the corner. The guy who served didn’t think it was at all unusual and said he’d let us know when the restaurant called.

They did...

Yes – about 40 minutes later – the guy who’d served us the drinks wandered over and said our table was ready.

And so...

Here’s my thinking for you:

The restaurant and the bar were like Punch and Judy and the others on my starting list – they went together perfectly. It was the ideal joint venture. The restaurant had happy customers – the Animal Bar sold drinks to customers they’d never probably have met.

Do you think...

You might be able to JV with others suppliers too?

In fact...

When we think about this idea – all we need to do is find suppliers whose customer base has the same profile as the customers we’re seeking.

Might be worth doing a list of them and then making the approach – don’t you think so?

Go on then...

Peter Thomson

Editor and JV'ing Publisher

tgiMondays

Please do email me with any feedback or comments

peter@tgimondays.com