What would be the Secret Sauce to make a marketing power group work? It is not that hard, but there is a couple important ingredients that I would recommend:

1. There needs to be strong common interest among the group for all to succeed. I look at downtown stores located in close proximity, strip mall occupants, small business communities and yes, people with common ideal clients. The problem with the ideal client theory is that so many times companies product and services overlap that there is competition within the group. Now, I am not saying there would not be competition in the other groups but there is a common need to attract people and satisfy them with the products once they are there. Lead groups work well but again, do you pass on your best leads and is there actually promotion taking place?
2. There needs to be a lead marketing coordinator. The coordinator leads the effort create the community with joint material both on-line and off-line. And not all marketing material needs to be joint, either.  This is interesting in the sense that it is very difficult to create a community by yourself and difficult to have the marketing expertise and time required in house.

It all sounds great, but why not just hire a marketing firm to do this? You can, but if you do not install a marketing system and train everyone in the group on the "System," it will be a disjointed effort and it will simply fail! I cannot emphasize the training part of it more than I do. There needs to be an understanding on what needs to be accomplished and what everyone needs to do to make it successful.