One of the ways in which a small business can leverage income is to do business with other businesses, rather than with individual members of the public.

There can be several advantages such as: potentially bigger and more consistent orders for your product or expertise; Increased visibility for your business in the business environment; usually (but not always!) less hassle getting paid etc etc.

There can also be serious disadvantages for a small business doing business with other, especially bigger, businesses. These include a squeeze on monetary and human resources when suddenly faced with delivering your biggest ever job;prolonged credit terms - you will get paid but possibly only in 120 days!;increased collateral damage to your name and image if things go wrong, and so on.

It is the classic capitalistic conundrum - high stakes with high rewards if you get it right, but a big, potentially fatal, problem if you get it wrong.

Most small businesses, if they are to grow, will have to adopt the "nothing ventured, nothing gained" attitude and become involved in doing business with other businesses. But they need to load the bases in their favour as much as possible beforehand.

This is where a business to business marketing strategy comes in. In reality a small business should re-look it's marketing plan and recognise that there must be a difference between their marketing strategy for individuals and their marketing strategy for other businesses because they represent 2 entirely different target markets.

By taking the time to relook their marketing plan and adjusting their marketing strategy to deal specifically with other businesses, small businesses will benefit through recognising new marketing opportunities and restricting the wasting of resources on marketing efforts that might not be appropriate for businesses.