The Joint Venture, easier way to grow your business

These under-utilized resources can be anything from

equipment to intangible assets such as services. The joint

venture most readers of this ezine will be familiar with is

an endorsement emailed to a partners mailing list. One

person has a product that is a perfect match for another

person's existing contacts/list. He asks that person to

recommend this product to his list in exchange for a share

of the profits generated from resulting sales.



The process described above works beautifully but is often

poorly implemented. In order to carry off an effective

joint venture, the person proposing the joint venture needs

to begin with the interest of his potential partners in

mind. He needs to begin by asking, 'How can I benefit my

potential partner and make him want to take part in this

deal.' He needs to ask, 'What's in it for my potential

partner.' He also needs to ask what's in it for his

potential partner's contacts or customers.



First what's in it for the potential partner. If you are

structuring a joint venture proposal for anyone with a

sizable mailing list or contacts list, realize that they

probably get more joint venture proposals than they can

possibly accept. They don't generally want to bombard

their subscribers with 'special offers' so they will be

fairly selective. Therefore, it is essential that your

joint venture offer be better than the other offers

competing for your potential partners attention.



Since profit is an incentive for anyone in business, one

way to stand out from the crowd is to offer a higher than

normal commission to your potential partners. If you only

offer what anyone can earn by signing up for your affiliate

program then you don't really offer them any reason to

partner with you instead of someone else. To really entice

a joint venture partner you should present him with an offer

that's hard to refuse.



Another way to make your offer stand out from the crowd

with your potential joint venture partner is to offer a

special price to his customers or maybe a bonus that's

only available through your partner's special url.



Perhaps the most important consideration you should have

in-mind when making your joint venture offer is that your

potential partner should only want to offer his list members

top quality products and services. Therefore, you should

only ask him to partner with you in providing his customers

with superior products and services. If your products are

as good as they should be, it will be fairly easy to find

lots of partners. Your job is to provide this level of

product and then show potential partners that they are

doing a disservice to their subscribers if they don't make

them aware of your products or services.



The easiest way to show a potential partner the quality

of your product or service is to give him a complimentary

copy. Make this a part of your joint venture offer so that

he can 'see and feel' your product. This makes it very easy

to get excited about your product and to share its true

value with others.



When structuring your joint venture proposal - think

long-term. Don't get greedy with your partner who is

probably doing most of the work in acquiring new customers.

Instead consider the backend. What we mean by that is that

if you offer a product for say... $20, and it's digitally

delivered, you can probably afford to give your partner

50 - 70%. If he is offering your product to his list, you

are not paying for any advertising, you are only paying for

performance. Structure you product line so that you can

later offer additional products and services to new

customers that your joint venture partners bring in. This

is where the real profits are anyway.



Hopefully you offer a full line of somewhat related

products. If these products are properly positioned, new

customers that joint venture partners send to you are

very likely to buy additional products and services

from you. With the additional sales to the same

customer, you don't have the customer acquisition costs,

so these sales will usually offer a higher percentage

profit. Keep this in mind when you structure your offer

for potential joint venture partners. Offer them as much

as is practical so that they work really hard to bring

you new customers.... customers who will hopefully be

customers for a long time.



If you do have your own products and services and

you approach joint ventures from this frame of mind you

will be unstoppable. Because you place the interests

of your partners and potential customers above your

own immediate interests, you set yourself up for these

same partners and customer to benefit you more in the

long-run. That's all there really is to structuring a

joint venture deal that is irresistible. Make this

mindset you own and you'll be miles ahead of your

competition because they all approach joint ventures

with the wrong mindset ;-)



If you don't have your own product or service, you can

still joint venture with others. You just need to

examine what valuable and under-utilized assets you have.

The same mindset needs to be brought to the table though.