Joint Ventures 101

[Mark Austin]

Joint Ventures 101

The Intricacies of the joint venture. So powerful, yet so fragile. With the power to make your business immensely profitable, but at the same time, with the power to ruin future possibilities of expansion and increasing profits if done incorrectly.

Getting it right first time around is something that we as online marketers can’t afford to sacrifice, as this is something that will form the base of much of our future promotion. It’s amazing how one small minor detail can ruin weeks of planning.

Listen in as I share with you some of the major pitfalls that have come about through my own joint venturing experiences, and in addition, some of the experiences that have come my way from people wanting to get their hands on my promotion resources.

Everything from how to JV correctly, from first contact through to the final sealing of the deal, to where to find an abundance of prospects, tips and tricks to increase your success rate dramatically, and to avoid the pitfalls of modern day online marketing. What’s more, you’ll learn how to sneak in the back door, and gain JV’s with people some business owners don’t even know exist, because they’re all fighting over the same twenty big names.

All of it experienced, all of it tested and proven, all of it now yours. An unfair advantage you may call it, but that’s for your competition to worry about.

JV’s ... Million Dollar Deals For The One Man Operation

Welcome to the first section of four, that I'll be talking to you about; the extremely important aspect of joint venturing and how to go about it. In this first section I want to start by giving you an overview to show you just how important it is, and some real life examples of how much they can add to your business to the point of it taking off so fast you'll almost lose your hair.

In fact, joint ventures can make or break a business, but at this point, if you're thinking you've heard it all and you're about to click off to move to the next section, don't do it. I've got some real important stuff I want to share with you on this aspect of online marketing. Probably the most important thing you'll ever learn how to do, and it will take your business further than you ever thought possible, to new heights, and through new ideas and innovations.

It's something to really get excited about without a doubt. So no moving on until you're done here, because this is going to make up one huge part of your business starting now and reaching far into the future.

Ok, I’ve hyped it up enough; if you're still reading great. Those people that didn't carry on reading, and clicked off looking for the new quick way to earn a little bit of cash online will be at a major disadvantage. I want to show you some things here, but my primary objective is to not show you how to do this just yet. That comes in the next chapter. I really want to get across to you what kind of thing can be achieved if you take the time out to do this.

What Constitutes A Real JV?

So first up, what I want to look at is, what is a joint venture. It sounds simple enough taken at face value. It's a task that you undertake with other business owners, to achieve a goal that’s beneficial to both parties. But I really want to spark your imagination here about the type of things you can get into and the type of deals you can strike with other online marketers that allow you both to reap the rewards. Time to get the juices flowing.

So really, what kind of joint ventures are there out there to be had? You know, this is a subject that I enjoy so much, simply because there's a huge amount of space for innovation and improvisation. New ideas, and new methods to bring in that all important deal that’s going to get your ad and your brand in front of hundreds of thousands, and even millions, of the most powerful customers. The ones that will make or break your business.

These customers are the pre-qualified, 100% already interested in your product, customers that are extremely likely to buy from you. What you'll find here is that the response you're going to get far surpasses any e-zine ad or lead purchases and stuff like that.

There's several different types of joint ventures on the market for your money making pleasure. Everything from simple ad swaps, where you might send an ad to your list while someone else sends an ad to theirs about your product, all the way up to full-scale partnerships, such as this site for example. Now, we have already had over two hundred members through here since the launch of this product, that's already a total income of over fifty thousand dollars. This would not have been possible without harnessing the power of joint ventures.

This very site was put together from a full-scale joint venture between two business owners. We just happened to meet one day, put our ideas together, and are now taking at least fifty grand from it. How did most of you find us? Through joint ventures. This is what I want to show you.

As I started saying earlier, there are plenty of different ways to joint venture, from full scale sites and businesses like this one, to simple ad swaps, but what I'm going to be concentrating on is the kind of joint venture that gets your site, and your ad, seen by hundreds of thousands of people. However, I think here it's important to understand the fundamentals and the 'whys' before we move on to the ‘how’s’.

Why Joint Ventures? Your Chance To Adapt.

It's real important to me that you get this type of information. I've seen so many products out there that talk to you about how to do stuff. That's great, but if you don't know why, it's very hard to adapt things and come up with new ideas for your business. If you haven’t noticed already, I'm big on inspiration and innovation, not breaking rules that are already in place that we know work, but twisting them to make them original and make you and your business stand out from the crowd.

So without further ado, let’s talk about ‘why’. If I asked you why do you do joint ventures? Or why should you do joint ventures? The likely response would be 'it makes me more money' or even 'Joe Bloggs told me to'. Not to worry, this would be most people’s response, but there's more to it than the underlying ‘I want to earn lots of cash’ motivation.

Hey, why not start out with the obvious before getting too heavily into this. I want you to know something, and that's your time is not being wasted here. To put it simply it is so much easier to succeed when there are more people on your side and promoting for you. Forgetting advertising in e-zines and stuff for now. This is so much more powerful. I'm talking thousands of percent. So first tip of the day, even if it seems like you’re cutting your profits, never go it alone. Many are failing because of this one factor alone.

Now we're concentrating on getting other people to promote for you here. We'll even be getting your competition to promote for you in the next report, but first, let’s look at what is so powerful about this type of joint venture. Aside from getting access to big lists, which is all well and good, there are so many advantages to this that people don't see. Not seeing the advantages and underestimating the possible returns is a sign of a disaster and very few closed deals, because people simply won't take it as seriously as they should.

And heck, why should you take it seriously? Well, there are a lot of reasons, but to keep things short and to the point I'm going to talk about the two main ones that everyone has to know. The power of this is unimaginable; I'm going to show you that now.

When you're sending ads out to e-zines you're doing something very expensive, whether you know it or not. What you're doing there is looking for new customers. Whether you're using the e-zines to directly sell your products, or to gather new leads, when you pay for ads you're trying to get yourself new customers.

This is not an easy job. Far from it in fact. It's expensive and isn't guaranteed to work as I'm sure you've already experienced. Now see what happens when you approach a fellow business owner or list owner with an offer they simply can't refuse? You get something massively important.

For some time now, many years in fact, e-zines have slowly been turned into personal lists. The big name marketers have their huge lists of people that they only use to sell their own products. Why do they do this? Because when you're bombarded with advert after advert from customers that have paid to advertise to you (ala normal e-zine) you're going to get bored, and all you're seeing are ads from random people when you see that ‘from: Joe Bloggs’ field in your inbox.

The bottom line is, the response rate starts to drop off. Adding to this problem is the fact that there are a lot of e-zines out there that just don't provide quality content anymore. It's all about making the money. Granted there are a few exceptional e-zines that do still do this, but they're few and far between. Many of them just turned into unresponsive ad lists.

When you approach a fellow marketer with a great offer where they gain, and they agree to send an ad out to their list, you're getting a couple of very important things.  First off you're getting access to some of the most highly targeted customers around. What makes them highly targeted? These people have purchased from these marketers that you JV'd with, and there's no way on this earth that you would get access to their lists if you said "Hey, you do e-zine ads right? Here's a hundred dollars, send my ad to your list of forty k's and we'll call it even'. It doesn't work like that.

These lists are pure gold. They're customers who have bought from these guys before. They're customers who generally know their list owner is a success, and is on their list because they want to either keep an eye on what they're promoting, to get new ideas, or to follow suit. They listen closely and take note.

Imagine how long it takes, and the work, not to mention the huge amount of cash you would need to get a list of just ten thousand people that have bought from you before and want to be on your list for those reasons. Oh yes; now it all starts to become clear. The highly targeted people that are guaranteed to be interested in your product are right there for the taking. Not freebie seekers, not people that are hit and miss, they are interested. They're spenders. They've bought before, and they'll buy again. That’s the big difference.

The people on these big marketers’ lists are the people that are going to see something they like and pull out their wallets to buy. They're deeply involved with the subject of the list and they have so much power to make a difference to your business when you reach them.

But there’s more. Long term plans. The story here is the same. These are the type of people that once you've got them on your list, are going to be the repeat customers that come to trust you and buy from you again and again, reducing your need to go out and spend a crap-load on e-zines looking for new customers that just 'might' be interested. I sure hope you're starting to see the power of this.

What really hurts me is how so many people get it totally wrong and underestimate this. In fact, I have rather an amusing story that shows this which I'll tell you in a moment about a guy that tried to JV with me (if you can call it that) but first comes the number two most important thing to keep in mind when you're trying to strike up join ventures.

JV's Inspire Confidence

Alright that's number one sorted. We know about the numbers and the type of people you'll be reaching, and why they'll be so important, but remember you're doing the actual deal with the list owner not the people on the list. So out comes this hugely important factor of why these people are on this persons list anyway, and that is the trust factor.

Imagine this for a moment. You receive two ads on the same day, both with the same copy, both with the same subject and website. It just so happens that it's a product you're interested in buying, but one of them has a vital difference. It states that the list owner totally trusts this product, even swears by it in the every day use of their business.

Remember, you're on this marketers personal list already, so it's likely you've bought a good product from them before, or you want to follow in their footsteps with the amount they earn, or even look up to them. Which one are you going to go ahead and click on? That's not a trick question, but it's so simple it's overlooked. When you carry out your joint ventures, get the businessperson you're dealing with, the list owner, to say something good about what you're selling for the simple reason that it will inspire confidence.

Getting the message of inspired confidence to these very personal lists, a message from the list owner that people know and trust is pure gold, and it's worth going out of your way to get. Never forget that. Remember, these people are interested in your product, and they're going to be even more interested in it, and more interested in staying on your list and buying from you again if they're told you're being listened to by someone they respect.

It's as easy as that. It's one of the reasons corporations hire celebs to be the face of their product, and to get up and say to people "Hey, check this out, I trust these guys, I trust their product and want to be associated with it". It works, and if you don't recognize it and start getting these joint ventures together now, you're going to be dead wood in a couple of years wondering where it all went wrong.

Ok, we've got a 'how to' section coming up with a pretty funny story about a couple of guys that really stick in my head that have approached me in the past couple of years, but before that I'm going to get a little personal on you, and aside from these very profit orientated advantages to joint ventures, I'm going to show you some other obstacles that these type of deals can overcome.

JV’s Overcome Personal Obstacles

Here's one for you. Now personally I love business. I'm in it for the thrill of building something amazing up from nothing. Starting with a blank piece of paper and in a few months time saying "Hey, look at this, I made this, and people are buying it, and liking it". A great feeling. I really like being independent and have a habit of doing things on my own and not letting anyone else in, because it's something personal to me, but I still carry out JV's.

Don't be afraid is all I can say here. Don't think that you're losing a part of your business, or that you have to rely on other people to be successful. This is all part of the business world, wheeling and dealing, putting together mutually beneficial packages.

You know what I love about this whole thing? I can own my own business and work with other people without losing out. I might be sounding a bit strange and vague right now, so let me put it bluntly. Whatever you do, do not leave this manual with renewed inspiration thinking you can do it all on your own. Whether it's pride, whether it's ignorance, I don't know, but everyday I bump into people and they say 'Why am I not making any money?”

The answer is usually pretty straightforward. That they’re doing it on their own. Ouch. That can hurt in the time it takes and the huge hole it'll burn in your pocket. Now as I already mentioned I like to achieve stuff on my own too, but don't fall in to the trap that almost every other marketer falls into. They go into their own little world not letting anyone else in trying to do everything on their own. You will likely go broke doing it.

If in doubt, JV. Maintain control; get access to an amazing array of pre-qualified highly targeted customers without losing any control of your business. This to me is a very big advantage, and to be honest I don't know the motivations of other marketers as It doesn't seem to be talked about a lot, so seeing as no one else wants to say it, I will.

Team up with just one person, and you already double your chances of success. Don't follow the example of the masses out there. You will regret it. Been there, done that, got very broke doing it in my first year online. Don't make the same mistake.

Another factor I'd like to talk about, just quickly even though it's important, is don't be afraid. I have spoken to people that don't want to act and approach people with big lists, or with personal lists, simply because they're worried about being rejected. Seriously, don't be, and remember if you are, it's business, it's not personal. I'll show you in the next section how to maximize your chances of success.

I need you to keep in mind though, how valuable even a ten thousand subscriber list is when you consider it’s quality over random e-zine ads and lead generation. For whatever reason the people out there don't carry out and offer joint venture proposals, whether it be they want to be independent and run their own business the way they want to, or they're just afraid to go about this, don't turn into one of them.

Understand that you don't have to hang about in forums or be super sociable for this to happen. It's most likely once you get started you'll be introduced to more and more people and your contact list will keep growing. (In fact, not a single successful marketer I know hasn’t had this happen to them in some form or another. Word just spreads, and that’s a good thing. Be mindful not to turn your back on the result).

Long Term Profits

There's another process going on here too that I'd like you to be aware of. Again it's something that's little talked about and that's the circle effect. See, once you've made a deal, it's likely you'll be returned to with another deal or you can go back to them with further deals without having to cold call/mail them from scratch. Once you have these contacts it's a sure fire way to add something solid and reliable to your marketing arsenal.

The circle effect I'm talking about is something that I've witnessed many times, on many different levels. That's when there’s a group of marketers out there with lists or promotion resources of some kind that are being shared with a circle of friends who are in regular contact about business. Each promotes the others new product, and you know, once you have this circle of friends amazing things start to happen. This is when you know you're getting somewhere.

Don't forget this when building your contact list. Don't just JV with someone once, get them to come back to you to get an ad to your list at a later date. We'll be talking about how to do this in the second JV report, which is far more ‘how to’ focused, but all the same, for now, remember JV prospects and partners are just like your affiliates and your previous customers. Once contact has been established make the effort to keep it and you will prosper from it, and so will everyone else in your 'group'.

Go For It

Last but definitely not least, something I believe if everyone did, the people struggling to make money would be in a minority, is to go for it. Yeah, that's all it take sometimes, for you to bite the bullet, put your personal feelings aside and just say "I'm going to go for this" and actually getting up off your seat and doing it.

Never underestimate the importance of these joint ventures. Never pass one up if the offer is in your favor, and never pass up the opportunity to offer one to someone new. But please, when you're taking this advice, remember, it's important to start out well. If you can catch a deal on the first pass you've won half the battle already.

Great. Excellent. I really enjoyed writing this report. I hope some of the pizzazz inspired you and got you in the mood for the next section, and that's the ‘how to's’. How to go about joint venturing, how to not fluff it up big time (like most seem to have the knack of doing) and, of course, how to secure those all important deals that are going to get your ad amongst some of the most quality bound and productive lists out there today. Lets get the summary out of the way first, a quick break for yourself, and we’ll continue to part two of the manual.

The whys and when’s of joint ventures

I really hope that that got through to you and you don't underestimate the power of these things and what they can do for your profits.

It's a big part of marketing nowadays, bigger than e-zine ads, bigger than lead purchases, not to mention more effective. It's going on all around us, all the time, and I reckon the sooner we get you inside the curve and part of a team the better, and henceforth, joint ventures two, the specifics is born, AKA, how to do it properly, not fluff it up and get denied all the time.

If you want this to be a big part of your marketing, you gotta do it right. It's especially hard to make contact with someone again if things go really bad the first time around, and although all is not lost when you get denied, it sure makes things more problematic in the long run. Get it right and you'll have great ammunition for future promotions, a massive flow of all important customers that are interested in buying your product, and of course, wads of cash which we all love.

So without further ado, let’s start from the very beginning looking at some solid and blatantly proven effective joint venture methods. We're primarily talking about getting your ads to these special lists we're familiar with from joint ventures part one here, although there's many other types which we'll get into a little later too.

Who Are We Contacting?

Alright, first up, who are we contacting here? The answer is pretty straightforward really, anyone that has access, owns a newsletter, e-zine, private list or any other form of contacts that will get the word out about your business.

People with access to highly targeted customers, which will therefore generally be interested in the products you're selling, the quality of which far surpasses any other form of advertising, and may be the deciding make or break factor within the marketing operation of your business.

Simply put, people that can send information about your product to lots of other people. Easy enough right? Well, it's not all that straight forward, and without trying to put you off, I've personally had some hysterical moments when I've been approached for joint ventures. Don't be worried yet though, these were very extreme, and I'll tell you a little about some amusing 'That's definitely how not to do it' encounters a little further down this section. First though lets get down the facts.

Smart Ways To Find Prospects Ethically

Your first concern after reading report one on JV's and the intro above, was more than likely something along the lines of 'Great, it's all well and good that these things are powerful, but where exactly do I find these people? Well, there's a pretty straight forward answer to this one too, and contrary to a lot of people’s beliefs, it doesn't involve waiting for someone to see your website and your offer, and contacting you with an offer, nor does it involve spamming, bulk mailing or any useless stuff like that.

Straight up, no lies no messing about, you want to be on their lists. These valuable lists made of pure gold that you want to be contacting, you want to be on them. It really is easy to do too. It's not exactly a challenge to get yourself on some lists. Take your existing e-zines, take well known marketers and get on their lists, ask your friends and any contacts you may have already made what do they subscribe to? It doesn't take long to do, and hey, if your own contacts are recommending them, or they have a big name, there's already some likely candidates to start out with.

Now you may not necessarily be contacting all these people or every e-zine owner or private marketers list you're on with JV offers, but this way, all you'll be left with is an organized list of e-zines and personal list mailings being sent to your inbox weekly. I personally have a separate one for this, and what I've found seems to happen, every now and then through these lists you're hear about some other reputable people, so you get yourself on their lists too, and so, after the initial boost and well rounded subscriptions to trusted people, the ball starts rolling and your list of possible JV prospects grows and grows.

Simple really, so simple that I get the feeling that's why people seem to overlook it. Where do I find joint venture offers? Everywhere is your answer. Start getting yourself on peoples lists. Don't get me wrong though, I'm all for organization and keeping things neat, and that's the reason you don't do a search on google or suchlike for 'Online Marketing E-zine' and start subscribing to a load of them, which some marketers seem to teach. I don't agree at all. All you end up with is a load of useless and self replicating mails clogging your inbox.

This does a lot for you, relating to the sales of your product, future contacts and new lists to get on, which is why it's important to keep them organized, because you'll likely be looking through them a lot. Not easy when you're bombarded with "Buy T3H RoxxoRz of Teh Viagras111447 today and get 4 Discountorz!!11one", hence the organization and not being reckless about what you subscribe to.

Your New Found Information Network

So lets look specifically at what you're achieving through your new subscriptions, and taking a read when you get a spare moment. Number one, you're getting more subscriptions, and taking note that you only subscribed to these trustworthy marketers in the first place, stuff they send you has likely been fully checked out already, and you can get more subs from the recommendations they send you, ever increasing your knowledge base and database of trustworthy list owners in your target market, and possible JV prospects.

Secondly, while increasing size and quality, by reading you can usually get a pretty good idea about what these guys are promoting, what kind of things they're promoting, and of course whether or not they're related to your target market. You can also gauge what kind of lists these are. Are they personal lists? Do they accept ads from people? Are they only sending their own ads for their own products, or are there a number of non paid ads coming to you from their friends and contacts, which generally gives out the signal that they may be joint venture prospects.

Spotting The Important Signals

You're getting some very important signals here already, even after just a couple of mailings from the list owners, and just like we're always told as online marketers, you have to target your customers. No good trying to sell your golf clubs to an athlete enthusiasts list. The same rings true for joint ventures. They must be targeted. Always keep this in mind, and always ask yourself, for the sake of your business and the list owners time "If I mail this person with a joint venture offer, and they were guaranteed to say yes, would my ad be going to my target market?". If your answer is yes, see how the first hurdle is jumped already? If it's no, move on and look elsewhere. It's not worth your valuable time.

Thirdly, you're getting an insight into the list owners and their products too. This is valuable when you're approaching your prospects, and even though you'll see in a moment, I'm teaching you not to be long winded, it's great to be talked to personally as the person that's going to be receiving your joint venture.

They Know You Already

Here's an example of the power of thisfor you. Imagine for a moment you have a list of say, fifty thousand highly responsive and valuable customers that you know people want to get their hands on. Which would you be more responsive to? Someone who approached you that you'd never heard of, and didn't make any effort to form any kind of bond with you, or someone who mentioned one of the products you've recently created, or one of the ads and joint ventures you've sent out to your list already?

See how just this little addition here starts to create an empathy with your JV prospect and lets this concept begin to fall into place? The fact is, no matter how busy they are, people like to talk about themselves, and the effect you get when a response or some sort of reaction to something you've done comes from someone is similar. You've been acknowledged, and suddenly this random person you don't know that's mailing you trying to get their hands on your list isn't such a stranger after all.

They've been buying your products, reading your list, taking your word, and you're one of their valuable customers. Instant ice breaker, and a really soft change from the cold call or mail, the "Hi you don't know me but.." approach. Don't go overboard and declare you're their biggest fan or anything like that, no sucking up is needed either, but a simple acknowledgement of what they do demonstrates to them that you yourself know why you're there, is important. Don't Forget to mention at the start of your introduction something about them and their product, or their e-zine. Remember it, and do it. You'll see that people are far more receptive to you.

Put Yourself In Their Shoes

When working out JV's, put yourself in the shoes of the person you’re contacting. What kind of reservations would your customers have about your product? What kind of thoughts will stop them form buying? The same is true for joint ventures.

You're still selling here, and even though it's not a hard sell, you're still trying to get someone to say yes to giving you something in exchange for something else in return. What would you say to your offer? If it's “get lost", that's most than likely the response you'll get from them too. Never forget to look at it from the other person’s point of view, and you'll find yourself pulling in more responses than ever. That goes for sales letters, ad copy, and any ads you run and pretty much any deal you're striking that relates to marketing.

You don't have to be the best salesman in the world at all. I suck at sales, especially hard selling (which I absolutely hate if you hadn’t guessed already), but if you can do this and sort out peoples problems, and get their reservations thrown out before they even think of them, you'll reap the rewards. And that's a mighty fine introduction to the next section coming up.

Alright, we now know what to expect when joint venturing, and I hope I've managed to inspire you. By now you should have all sorts of possibilities roaming around in your head. That's great. That was my aim. I wanted to wake you up and stir your brain to recognize the possibilities. Stay focused though, now we know why, who and when to approach, and how to find the people to approach in the first place, it's time to look at the real nitty gritty. And that's how to approach to maximize your chances of success and to build on something for the future.

How To Approach Your Prospects. Mistake 1.

There's a couple of instant rejection lines that seem to happen quite often so lets look at what to avoid. First up, if you want to get anywhere, you have to be a little personal about it. Unless I'm specifically on someone’s list, seeing 'Dear friend' or 'Dear Joint Venture Prospect' or 'Dear Online Marketer' at the header of a joint venture proposal screams bulk to me. I don't want to see bulk mailed joint venture offers unless I'm on the persons list. The end result will get you nothing more than, well, not a lot. It's as good as spam and with the increased amount of people doing this and trying to make contacts nowadays, this is definitely something you want to avoid if you want to get any sort of response at all.

Keep in mind what you're aiming for here. Surely it's worth more than just a bulk mailed junk email to hundreds of people. Again, we're looking for quality over quantity, so bulk mailing a large list shouldn't even cross your mind. Some may take note, but the important ones with the personal lists won't look at you twice.

How to Approach Your Prospects. Mistake 2.

The same applies to the subject line. You'll likely be talking to these people directly, and even though in effect you're selling, there's no need to try and trick them into reading your mail. Make sure your subject line is personal, simple, and to the point. In this case, ads are different. You don't want your prospects overlooking your offer because they mistake it for another ad, or another bulk mailed piece of junk.

A little time and personalization gets you everywhere. You know what I like to see and what brings me the most response? A simple, non confusing and quite blatant to say the least "FAO Name Here, Joint Venture Proposal", or something to that effect. It doesn't have to be any more than that to be intriguing. Who wouldn't open it up to see what they're being offered and what they get out of it? I sure would and indeed do.

Here's a couple of bad ones that I've run into on occasion. "Wow, we are going to make so much money". And stuff like "This is the most important deal you'll ever make". That screams advert to me, and the people you're trying to really get hold of here are established, and hold more interest in other people trying to further their current business than trying to sell them stuff. It's happened to me, it's happened to every other experienced marketer I know, and when you get a quality list of your own that people start jumping on you to get hold of, you'll see it too.

How To Approach Your Prospects. Mistake 3.

Here we go again with the personalization. Remember earlier in the report I talked about subscribing to lists, getting to know people and their products, and the market they have access to? Well it wasn't just so that you get access to the right kind of lists, it was much deeper than that, and that's empathy. A little connection that you need to make if anyone is going to take any notice of you at all.

This is so easy to do, yet from my experience hardly anyone does it. In fact, my current business partner pulled this one on me, and here we are, working our butts off at two thirty in the morning, ready to put up this site that we'll be selling to five hundred people, for five hundred dollars per copy in a under a week.

Now Imagine what would have happened if he e-mailed me and said "Wanna put up a website and sell stuff?". What would you think if you got that e-mail? I'd understand if you'd be slightly confused and befuddled, I know I would have been.

So there we have it, it's all plain sailing so far. Simple subject, personalized greeting and an introduction. Putting it like that, it's putting it in terms of real life and is just the basis for meeting new people. A greet, and an introduction. It seems just like common sense. Maybe that's why people don't do it? It's just taken for granted. Don't fall into that trap though, whatever you do.

"Hey your name here, this is Joe Bloggs, a subscriber of your Marketing Tactics E-zine" or "Hey your name here, this is Joe Bloggs, a subscriber to your personal list". Now that's something that I'd like to hear. I don't have a problem with reading my subscribers e-mails, especially when I know it's a real person and they've proved it by naming my list or one of my products in the introduction.

Fact of the matter is, if you're an outsider or some random person I probably won't have time for you, and neither will any other list owner you e-mail, but if you're on my list and know the names of my products and the market my list is aimed at, I am going to listen. Why? Simple really, because you're one of my long time customers, or my long time affiliates. Something that makes you pure gold and a valuable asset to me, and I want to keep you because you weren't cheap or easy to get hold of in the first place.

This is another reason why bulk is out of the question for this type of method. You can't bulk mail hundreds of joint venture prospects and tailor the whole offer to them, their lists and what you've learned whilst being subscribed. It's more effective to do this one by one, the non automated slow way, and the results that come back sure are worth it too.

How To Approach Your Prospects. Mistake 4.

Next comes something that should be paramount and set down on paper miles before you get to this stage, and that is you have to be different, and not forget to actually tell your prospect what they're dealing with here. A quick short, sharp introduction to your product is the next step. I've seen this one done in a strange way too, and that's a big long winded show about what I'm going to get out of it, and by the time I'm done reading I'm even more confused than before you explained.

Whatever you do, don't forget to tell people what your product is. It doesn't have to be a sales letter or anything like that, but make sure you introduce your product, because the result is really kind of amusing when people don't do this, or when they do it in a boring and non caring way. Here's an example of the boring non caring way for you. "I'm writing to you because I just launched a new e-book about marketing and thought you might be interested in promoting for me". And then this person proceeds to talk about how much money I'm going to make out of it.

Hmm ok, that doesn't tell me anything really. You wrote a new book, congrats. About the only thing that's right with that sentence is it's short and to the point. Where’s the twist? Why do I want to sell this to my customers instead of the other twenty offers I got to sell e-books today? This is something that you should have thought about before your product even got off the drawing board, what's your twist? If it's just a plain old e-book called 'Online Marketing E-book' I'm very unlikely to be interested.

Then there's the ultimate classic "Hi yeah, I launched this product and if you promote for me, we'll make so much cash, and I'll give you higher commissions and stuff, and it'll be really excellent because you'll make a lot more money than the other affiliates and stuff blah blah blah". Now emphasizing benefits of a deal is great, showing what your JV partner will get in return is equally great, but I have to worry a little bit when people blab on about this stuff before they've even told me what the product is.

Don't forget! Or you may find the people you're mailing will just decide they're too busy for this and click off and delete. They don't want to have to reply to you and ask what your product is, what the site is, and so on. It's not their job to chase you. It's you who wants their business, and to get it, it's your job to make things easy and quick for them.

How about this, "The reason I'm mailing you is because I've just launched a brand new, original, intensive marketing guide that takes people from start to finish and guarantees they'll create a product, put up a site and successfully launch within thirty days...". It's still short and to the point. Two lines but there's a twist. It's interesting, and I'm more likely to actually say yes here rather than take the "New Marketing Site, New Marketing E-book" approach.

Be confident and be excited, be personal, but don't take a corny hard sell approach, avoid cliché’s and you're now headed in the right direction. People will start to take notice and take an interest in your joint venture offers.

That's your introductions sorted out, and how to instantly grab people’s attention without being hard sell-like or advert like when your message appears in their inbox. So far we've stopped your mail being deleted, made a connection, and told them what your product is and why you're here with the blatant subject line.

That's the basics out of the way, but wait, we still have a lot more to do. I've exceeded the length limit of this report already, and to keep things interesting for you, I'm going to separate the meaty goodness of it all, and the real important stuff in the next report. Now you've been noticed, you need to be accepted and get a response. That’s what we’ll cover after a summary of what we’ve just discussed.

Million Dollar Deals For The One Man Operation

Alright, in the previous JV report we looked at how to find your target markets through lists. How to start gathering prospects to approach with offers that you might come up with and products that you're going to be creating and selling, and, most importantly, the beginnings of a very personal e-mail where you created a link to your prospect through showing them recognition, and you got yourself noticed without being chucked into the deleted items folder.

Congrats. You've already won half the race and beaten a large percentage of marketers out there with this knowledge. You'll make more important contacts before they get a look in. They won't know what hit them. Straight back to business then, and let’s follow on our e-mail from where we left off last time, and that was right after the introduction of your new and exciting product.

Your Offer On The Table.

Here comes the good part, and that's the part where you offer them something and you get access to this all important, highly targeted, list in return. This is also where more of the lazy research comes into play, when you were reading a little bit about the people you're dealing with and their list. I call it lazy research when we do things like this really because we don’t have to do anything aside from a little reading to get this all important information. Good deal if you ask me.

Now, all that reading and 'lazy research' comes into play here because we're getting to the point where you have to start making the offers to these list owners, which of course can vary. It's really important to have a good understanding of their main concerns at this point, again, putting yourself into their shoes, and tailoring your offer to suit their needs and their status.

They Know What They Have

Something that I'm always aware of is that, if the list is a personal list of people that these marketers have built up, made up of what they know to be real in demand customers, you might just get a plain 'no' no matter how good your offer is. There are simply people out there who will not promote anything to their own lists but their own products.

Another thing to keep in mind is that your offers have to be really tight and beneficial to the personal list owners. E-zine owners that sell ads, that you can pay for, are a little more flexible even if you're asking for a personal recommendation for your product. Expect personal list owners to get as much as they can out of you. They know what they’ve got, they know you want it, and to get these people on your side takes effort and some sweet deals that they'd find useful and beneficial.

In short, expect to have to offer more on the table to these personal list owners than e-zine owners. Although this is not always the case, and because everyone is different, that's all the information I can give you on this, because, of course, it's highly unlikely that our contact lists will be the same. I can't tell you  how you should deal with people I've never met and in effect get them to let you in and say 'yes'.

Don't fret though, there are some basic rules that I can give you, and some information that not many people seem to contemplate. Let talk about this now, then we'll use this info to get back to the e-mail template we started earlier on so we can complete the initial keys to the successful joint venture section.

How To Approach Your Prospects. Mistake 5

The number one rule that most people overlook, especially when trying to get access to these super special personal lists, is the money factor. Most people seem to assume that the higher the commissions the more likely they are to promote for you. This is incorrect. Granted, ok, I don't disagree, higher commissions are a good thing, but there's something working in the background that's even more important to your prospect. You'll do well to keep this in mind too for when you have your own list and start getting offers like this, if you don't have one already. If you do check this out.

The amount of money should not be the deciding factor, simply because it's such a short term thing. Fire out the ad and if you're JV'ing with someone you'll get higher commissions. That's all well and good, but what else is there that you'll be looking for as a business person and a list owner?

If you didn't guess then let me tell you what these guys are looking for. They want to look good. They want to get people talking about them and their list. They want to spread the word about the great things they give their subscribers and the people close to them, simply because it spawns even more joint ventures and opportunities for them. You can take advantage of this pretty easily. It's amazing that most people totally overlook it.

Always remember when doing a deal, that as well as bigger profit and commissions, list owners want something for their list too. Something that they can give their customers and say "Hey look, I negotiated a deal with these guys and their awesome product, and they're giving you a whopping 25% off of this seven hundred dollar price tag, but only because you're on my list.

Oh yeah, that's so powerful because it's going to get people on their list to do even more than put money in their pockets. It's going to build their reputation, it's going to build the trust people have in them, and hey, if they're getting good deals like this, they're not going to be going anywhere right? And if they're not going anywhere, once again, they become the list owners long time subscribers, long term customers and affiliates.

The people that cost a lot to get a hold of in the first place are cemented on peoples’ lists because they get good information, make good money, learn a lot of stuff, and of course, get some good deals along the way. Don't forget this when doing your joint ventures. If you have forgotten this factor in the past when trying to carry out joint ventures, or you haven't done any yet but will do after reading these reports, add it in and see what a difference it makes.

I guess people overlook this because it seems so insignificant to them. I mean, seriously, who really worries about the future of someone else’s customers? Even your competitors’ customers? They do. And if they see you taking this into account, they're going to love you for it, and pave the way for a great deal to be made. Again, instant sales and money isn't always the prime motive to do something.

Although in today’s fast world we all like instant gratification (me included) there is always the future to think about. It's those of us, me, and you now after reading this guide, that are going to build a solid base for ourselves, whilst others will struggle to even hold a couple of hundred dollars a week in profit.

Money Isn’t Everything To Them

Next up come the heightened commissions we already talked about. This is the one I call a raw ingredient in these types of deals, mainly because when approaching others to promote for you, and they haven't come to you first, this always seems to be something that's in there. Why? Easy, because coupled with the above technique, it works like a charm.

Whatever you do don't make the mistake of approaching someone with just one of these offers. Generally it's far easier to get a yes and to appeal to people with a few good offers rather than one great one. Think of it as just adding ammunition to your campaign. Something I like to think of when writing sales letters too. In terms of step number one: get it noticed, step number two: squash fears and problems, and step number three: pile on the ammo until you push the potential customer, or in this case joint venture prospect, over the edge.

How To Approach Your Prospects. Mistake 6.

This one makes me laugh to be honest. It's another idea that you can add to the two above, when you offer your joint venture ideas, and that's giving your product away. Now there's nothing wrong with this one at all. Give them the product to test, to check through, or send them a demo to try out relating to your product. It's quick and it's easy, but please, don't fall into the trap of assuming they will ever use your product.

More often than not, if you're trying to reach people with these big lists, they're already established, they're making wads of cash and they're happy in their ways. They've been around a long time to get a personal list like this, so please, don't e-mail them and simply offer your 'How to make five thousand dollars a month online’ report in return when they're earning fifty thousand dollars a month online.

I know, it sounds big headed and all, but don't be offended. The lesson really here, along with adding ammunition to your campaigns by using a few different methods, is to don't ever assume that they need your product. Remember, you're trying to show them that it would be in their money making, brand building interests to send this out to their customers, because it's a good product, you're not trying to get them to use it on a daily basis. Remember what your goals are, and don't stray, and don't assume anything like this.

Also, don't be afraid to give your product away. I can see how sometimes people hold their pride and joy of something they've created close to their hearts, and I remember how it felt a little strange to start giving free products away on a pre-launch product that hasn't sold any units yet. Don't worry though, take it from me, you'll reap the benefits in the long run with the deals and new contacts you'll make.

How To Approach Your Prospects. Mistake 7.

Alright, back to our e-mail then. We've already got the subject, the personal greet, the connection, or relation to the joint venture prospect you've been talking to, the quick sharp and concise product description as well as an explanation of who you are why you're here. Next up, you'll need to start giving out those benefits. For a start, make sure the list owner would be interested again. I know I keep saying this, and that’s because targeting is the key here. You'll just get strange looks if the list and your product are totally unrelated.

So here we go with the benefits to the list owner. Start strong to keep them reading the biggest benefit to them. "I have set up a personalized sales page granting all of your long time customers and subscribers a 25% discount off of the normal price of $697". Great start.

Something to make them look great and something for their list too. Very important.

Granted, this is just an example and, depending on your product, giving the list something is likely to be the most powerful hook in this situation. It doesn't even have to be a discount. If your product line allows you to offer something of equal importance to the same effect, great. Go for that instead. Be creative. Every product will have it's own collection of things that you can offer here.

"I have an affiliate system up and running with the current commissions set at 40/10 for regular affiliates, and a higher rate of 55/15 for joint ventures such as these ready for you" Awesome, here come the commissions. It’s always a bonus to be offered higher commissions. Like we talked about, it works, and you're stacking on the benefits now.

"I'm also ready to forward you an unlimited use license for the full product for you and one other person of your choosing." Great they get the product free too. Always a bonus. Notice I added in a sneaky little one extra free for someone of your choosing. I love doing stuff like that because you never know who they're going to talk to and where that can lead. Word of mouth is a really powerful thing, and this my friends, will get them talking. It's to your benefit.

Alright so there we are. In a few sentences we've met, greeted, got the notice of, made a connection with, and handed a shed-load of advantages to this list owner. It's short, and it's simple, but as you can see there is a lot of reasoning behind it. Of course, like I said earlier, I like to talk about the ‘whys’ of methods and why they work, because if I didn't, it's hard for you to adapt them and use them in the future when things change and you start developing your own methods.

How To Approach Your Prospects. Mistake 8.

"Yeah and I'll give you higher commissions because my current commissions are like forty percent on level one and ten on level two, but if you like I'll up them a little for you, I think ten percent is enough, do you think it's enough? if not feel free to mail me and we'll sort something out next week".

There’s actually two mistakes in one there. Spotted them yet? Let’s take a look. First up, is the blabbering. Lots of info we don't need to know there for sure. Lots of blabbering and small talk, jokes, laughs and so on. No matter how long you've been following this person, or been on their list, and no matter how much it feel like you know them already, they don't know you, and aren't likely to appreciate this.

Keep the benefits short, to the point, keep them powerful and bullet pointed, and they will be read. Write one huge paragraph and they won't. Whether it's because the busy list owner gets called away to do something else and forgets, or they just get offended, get the wrong idea or get bored reading the blabber and click off. Avoid it like the plague.

How To Approach Your Prospects. Mistake 9.

See the undecided-ness compared to the previous versions there? I know that's a pretty blatant and harsh example but it happens to different extents. It's the time and hassle issue all over again. What you don't want to get into (at this stage anyway) is twenty or so e-mails going back and forth to this person, who's likely very busy and pressed for time.

Keep it simple, set everything up, and get this ready and sorted before you even send the e-mail. It's much nicer receiving a concise offer that offers a clear advantage that’s ready to go rather than having to wait and fiddle around, get all messy and disorganized. People just won't bother with it. Don't make that same mistake because it will in effect ruin everything you've picked up in these reports so far and destroy your chances of a meaningful response.

Don't get me wrong though, if they initiate conversation and bartering fair enough. This can lead to some long term and very profitable deals for the both of you. Just know how to go about the first approach, know when to stop and how to keep things organized and set out clearly on the table for you both to see and manage so you can make use off it quickly, and with minimum hassle.

How To Approach Your Prospects. Mistake 10.

The last addition to the main body of your joint venture offer, and to complete the offer itself should be a little bit of confidence and inspiration for your prospect. It's important to show them that you're serious and have gone out of your way to make this the best deal possible for them personally and, indeed, everyone with big lists that you contact about promoting your business to their lists with a powerful endorsement.

You've showed off your product, put forward the deal and now it's time to cement it and really carve it in stone. "I have also carried out some preliminary testing of the product and the sales and follow-up process, which has produced pleasing results from an audience of fifty thousand e-zine subscribers. As well as personal endorsements from Joe Bloggs and Joe Bloggs Jnr, it is consistently bringing one sale for every seventy five targeted visits ".

Simple as that. All I'm doing here is bringing forward the point that it's not a dry sales process. By dry I mean untested. I want this person to know they're really going to get the most out of this deal, and I want to make one hundred percent sure that they're not disappointed with their results, and they're confident in what they're about to promote.

It's quick, it's simple and it makes a heck of a difference. Now here, as an addition, I also used Joe Bloggs and Joe Bloggs Jnr, who are my imaginary big name marketers that have given me endorsements and testimonials. You don't have to do that if you can't get hold of big names to endorse your products, that's fine. Just point them to the testimonials you have gathered from the purchasers of your product to prove that the product itself is actually a good one, and their subscribers are going to like it.

There are many other ways of inspiring confidence, but many people seem to leave this one out or go off about negative things. No space for that here. Do whatever you can to make sure these people are happy and comfortable. Make sure that they know they're getting a good deal and their subscribers are getting a good deal. This is most important, as especially with these personal lists, their reputation is very important to them. They don't want to be selling dodgy products. If they have any doubt they won't do it and you've lost the deal.

How To Approach Your Prospects. Mistake 11.

Your initial e-mail contact is almost complete, but this is a big downfall in the sales process that people seem to have a problem dealing with. I can see why too. It's because it's blatantly asking for something. In the real world it's known as closing the sale. In this case you're not asking your prospect to order now, or to hand over their cash, but to simply reply. Imagine the e-mail we've just put together without a call to action at the end. It would seem pretty meaningless and you'd probably be left thinking "ok and...? Did I miss something?". It all seems pretty random without a reply request.

Nothing major here, and yes, people do forget to do this often. You’ve got to get these guys to reply to you, even if it's a straight up ‘no’. Asking isn't such a bother. It doesn't have to be complicated either.
”Thanks for your time. I'm looking forward to hearing from you" or "Thanks for taking the time to consider this joint venture offer, looking forward to your response". Just whatever you feel comfortable with. Make sure it's polite and asks for a reply and you'll be fine.

How To Approach Your Prospects. Mistake 12.

Lastly something else which seems meager, and on the surface you may wonder why I'm telling you, or why you need to bother, but it's important to include your full contact details, nice and clear, at the bottom. Not just your email address, but your telephone number too. Some people like to call you up to have a talk or to re-negotiate some more things in their favor, or to find out more and so on.

If they don't have the chance to call you, who knows what kind of deal you may have lost due to someone forgetting because they can't get in contact right away and don't have the time to wait for a reply. It's all about the details. This report is rigorous and full of tiny, seemingly minor details, but understand that one missed detail, could mean one lost joint venture deal, which could have spawned scores of sales and affiliates for you, not to mention thousands of leads and who knows how much lost profit.

Well, that's all of it. Now your e-mail is complete and you know who to go to and why things happen. I'm confident that you can tailor these rules to your own business and your own products, and innovate on top of the basics that I've given you to follow here to grab new and fresh angles on the subject. Keep to the rule base and smother it in creativity. If you're not a creative person that's not a problem. Ideas will start to flow once you get more products out there and have a larger and wider audience to promote to through the general techniques we've been talking about.

So what's next on the subject of joint ventures?.  Well, we're not done yet. I hope you didn't think you'd escape that easily. You've only done half of the business so far, and by not following the next joint venture report here, you're likely missing out on over 50% the deals you could have made. That's exposure to who knows how many hundreds and thousands of people and future prospects, and detrimentally the sacrifice of an unknown number of contacts.  Ouch, big time.

So what's next? We’ll get into follow up aspects of joint ventures right after a summary of what we’ve just talked about in the final JV Section in this manual.

Alright this is now the fourth part of the course on this subject, but it's also extremely important and something that should not be missed. By now, if you've read through the previous sections, you know how to find and grow your list of joint venture prospects and you know how to watch them like a hawk and select the ones that are appropriate to your business.

You know when, and how, to approach them and not get your offer deleted right away and how to put your offer forward in a beneficial way that doesn't just involve instant extra profits. Put all these together and you have a great base for your joint venture journeys. Now getting them in the first place is probably the hardest part, but sending out an e-mail and just waiting for a response is only half of it.

Following Up.

Now comes the part that hardly anyone does for one reason or another. Maybe they're too busy or it'll cost too much calling internationally, maybe they're shy or worried about being told no, or being intrusive. If any of those describe you, put them aside right now. Remember, this is business, nothing personal, and if you call someone up the worst that can happen is they'll say no. It's not like you're cold calling them trying to get them to spend money or anything. It's a mutually beneficial deal, so it's likely if the deal is good, they'll be glad to hear from you.

The reason that it's more effective to go for the email and then the call approach, rather than a straight up call, is two-fold. First, you've got all the time in the world to plan and set your deal out on the table through the email. This is far easier to do when you have time to write rather than have to try to explain it in person, plus you don't forget to mention anything, and you're more likely to get your initial point across.

Secondly it's far easier to grab someone’s attention when they already have the details as you've already contacted them via e-mail. It's kind of an organization thing. They have a hard copy of your deal that they can refer to rather than having to take notes on the phone at a possibly bad time for them.

The reason it's important to call in the first place is simple. How many times a week, or even a day, do you see things and think to yourself "Hey, yeah that's cool, I'll check that out later" and you just plain forget or get distracted or called away to something else. Prepare for your call. Have the basics in front of you for a start. There's no guarantee that your mail actually got read. Be ready for that, and be ready with some back up plans and to change your original offer. The better the list, the higher the profile, the more you're likely going to have to offer.

Something They Don’t Expect You To Do.

Go out of your way a little when they agree, something useful that they didn't expect. Ok we're almost done now. You should be on the way to having some of those hugely powerful endorsements sent out to some of those private lists. I'm a big believer in treating people like individuals, something that’s increasingly rare these days with the anonymity of the internet. If you can pull this off they're not going to forget you, and it's even more likely that you're going to be able to pull off similar offers like this to your list of contacts in the future.

Something that's very important that a lot of people miss, not just with joint ventures but marketing in general, is that you pave the way to the future and leave yourself open to these kind of repeat offers. As I mentioned earlier, it's so much easier to sell something to someone, or in this case make a deal with someone, if you've been successful in the past. So my proposal; once you're done with your JV, the ad has gone out to their lists, you've set up your site to make the most of these hugely important opportunities you want to have the opportunity to repeat this.

Pave The Way For The Future.

So what can you possibly give someone who already has a huge list, most likely one heck of an income, and pretty much all the knowledge they feel they need about their specific field of expertise? Well, that's an easy one. Forget giving them free e-books, reports and dodgy stuff like that. Everyone gives away free e-books to everyone else. You won't be remembered for that. You need to be a little smarter about this one.

So, to make an impact and benefit both of you in the future, what do you offer after the deal is complete? That's easy. You offer them the opportunity to do the same to you. You create a gap for yourself as one of these people and your status is immediately elevated. When this happens, you'll find people start coming to you with these types of offers. You offer them your list. "Hey name here, a quick mail regarding the joint venture we carried out last week. Just to let you know that I also have a private list of people with one heck of a response rate that I don't promote affiliate programs to, just my own stuff. In light of our recent deal you're quite welcome to add me to your list of contacts ready to promote your products when they initially launch in the same fashion".

Great, I'd jump at that offer. Granted, in my eyes, the list would first have to be relevant and substantial, but that won't be too much of a problem if you managed to set up the joint ventures we've been talking about here and successfully prepared to capture leads rather than just initial sales. Don't fall into that trap, because you're missing out big time. The more you have to put on the table, the more you're going to get in return.  Things get easier after your first set of joint ventures which of course, as we spoke about earlier, builds your list and your personal contacts as well as your sales and reputation. This is most important.

Don’t Take Advantage.

Alright, now your joint venture offer is complete. You know how to go about finding joint venture prospects and how to approach them to maximum effect, quickly, efficiently and effectively and you know how to pave the way for future offers. We're almost there but, before we finish up, there are a couple of general tips I'd like to give you that I couldn't fit into the very factual step by step approach we've taken with these past reports.

Now even though they're general tips and tricks, don't underestimate them. I can't tell you how ‘not to do’ and how ‘to do’ these right off the bat but I can show you what to avoid. This is going to fill the gaps now and really give you a solid foundation of knowledge and confidence about these joint ventures.

The first piece of advice I'd like to personally give you is, don't try to take advantage of people, but most importantly, don't be taken advantage of yourself. The idea here is that the offer is even. We give something, we receive something in return. That's business right? Sure, for most people it is, but either through ignorance or negligence, or through their sheer desire to make money, there will come a time when you find someone who is going to try and milk you for everything you have.

Now the experienced guys will be able to spot this a mile off. It's likely so will you, but sometimes the problem is that this starts off small and, before you know it, it grows and grows. They've got so much from you and you've got little to show for it in return. You don't have to be gullible for this to happen to you. Some people just have a knack and try it on every chance they get. Learn to see it, and when you see it, if you have doubts, cut the ties, and know when to stop.

The world of business is indeed harsh. It's the same online as it is offline. Don't be taken advantage of no matter how big the name you're dealing with. Not all of them will be nice enough to stop you and offer you something in return for your work. Don't give a whole lot away then expect something in return here. Lay your cards out on the table first and make one hundred percent sure you know what's going on. This is the dark side of online marketing. Trust me, people will try, and when they do, it's going to be up to you to say no.

Hi Can You Make Me Money Now?

And on that note I reckon it's time for that story I promised a little earlier on, about a guy that approached me some time ago with a joint venture offer. It was possibly the worst attempt I'd ever seen, but I'd like to give you a little idea of what you're up against. How not to do things, and what you're capable of now you have the information in these reports, compared to this guy. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting you've ever done anything like this at all. This is the harshest example that I can remember. Have a little fun, and take everything you've learned in this report and pick this story to pieces. Here's a real life example of a joint venture approach. What can you spot that he's done wrong?

So here’s me, sitting at my computer in the late evening, listening to my relaxing ambient music, while at the same time briefing a freelance programmer on some work I wanted doing to some affiliate software. From nowhere, up pops a message through my instant messenger "Hello". Now, I don't like to give out my IM addresses to just anyone, I generally keep them to the people I know or have had previous joint ventures with.

Anyway the conversation started with me trying to figure out who this was "Sorry do I know you?". "No" came the reply. "Ok, are you one of my customers?". "Yes". Jackpot, so this is a customer of mine that somehow managed to get a hold of my instant messenger handle. Not a problem. I politely requested that if he has a problem to submit a ticket. "Oh no, I'm not here for that, I wanted to ask you to do something for me". Ok now we're getting somewhere. "Right ok, what's that?" I replied. "Well, I'm launching a new website and wondered if you would promote for me".

At this point I thought hey, joint venture offer. Strange approach but I have half an hour before heading out with a few friends. It's a rare ‘not busy’ moment for me now I'm done with the programmer so I'll hear him out. Normally I wouldn't have had the time. I would have apologized and asked him to e-mail me but it was just a lucky break for him.

So he proceeds to send me to this website. It didn't look too bad at first glance, but after reading the sales letter, something jumped out at me. I recognize this. I asked him when he wrote the product, which happened to be a very basic marketing training guide. He told me, in a round about way, that he didn't write it at all. It was a re-sell product from the late nineties, not even a re-brandable one.

Yikes, ok this is where I start to back away. So the best way I know how I tell him, sorry no can do, and of course, why. The reason, this time around, was because he had a weak product. To be honest, with his indirect hidey type approach, that took fifteen minutes longer to explain than it should have, he was lucky to get this far and even get my attention, or anybody else’s for that matter. However, I'm a patient guy.

Anyway, off I go thinking no more of the encounter. I return home, have some food, grab forty winks and jump online again to meet the programmer who I'd arranged to talk to later that day. By this point it was about three in the morning. On goes the computer, on goes the messenger, and take a guess what pops up. "Hello". Uh oh. "I wonder if you've reconsidered my offer". Well I hadn't to be honest. "No sorry, the product isn't strong enough".

Alright so granted his product wasn't strong enough, and the approach he used wasn't exactly to his advantage, but if those two factors had been all present and correct, would I have said yes? Not likely. Where's the evenness, the give and take of it all? He's given me nothing at all that I would want in return. It was clear he hadn't planned this well. I couldn't resist it. Out came a little friendly advice.

"Look man, I'll be honest. If you want to secure a joint venture like this with someone, you need to offer them something in return. A bit of give and take ya know?". Big mistake. "But I want you to be my marketing manager". The phrase which would eventually become the bane of my existence that week. He proceeded to tell me that he'd give me a dollar per sale on his fifty dollar product, which would go up to four dollars if I sold over a hundred copies.

So not only was his product dodgy and something I wouldn't recommend, and not only would he not even give me it to see (He pointed me to the order link at the bottom of the page when I asked), but he was offering me the worst possible commissions ever. Everything about this deal is totally negative and a huge no.  After a week of him messaging me every time I got online telling me "I want you to be my marketing manager" he was blocked, and it's safe to say I'll not be doing business with him anytime in the near future.

So you see what I'm showing you here? I'm not saying you're like that at all, far from it, but what I am trying to demonstrate is no matter which factor we remove from the lessons you've learned in these reports, no matter which section no matter how minute the detail, once it turns from a possible positive into a negative, you've totally lost your deal.

If you've forgotten anything, or you're ever unsure of anything come back to this course, and read over these sections again. One slight mistake, one slight slip up, no matter how insignificant it seems to you, is the difference between a surefire "No leave me alone" response, and a "Yeah that sounds great, lets do it" response. There's absolutely no room for sloppy work where joint ventures are concerned.

 Another little thing, you may have picked up from that story, is that this guy was trying to hide  something from me. He totally neglected to tell me, in all his explaining about this product and what it did for his customers to be, that it was a re-sell product. Now I don't have a problem with that at all, re-sell products aren't such a bad thing.  Especially when there are only a limited number of them that have gone out, but when they’re so old and decrepit that's another story.

Whatever you do, don't hold back information that could be important. When you have a good product, and you're comfortable with it, and confident about it, more confident than you've ever been about something, then you shouldn't have anything to hide anyway. If you do, then there's something wrong.

Go back and fix the problem before offering up any joint ventures, because to put it quite bluntly, if it sucks and you do fob someone off and get them to promote it, when their long time customers come back with complaints or it dents their reputation because of it, they sure aren't going to be happy. Remember, be open, be honest, and don't hide stuff. If stuff needs to be hidden in a joint venture of this nature, there's something wrong with your product and sales process. Go fix it, or you'll have big problems later.

Adding to what we've just said above, if you're not sure about something, fix it up, finish it and perfect it until you are sure. If there's any doubt in your mind about your product, about your offer or your sales process, get it sorted for the same detrimental reasons we talked about above. Get it wrong, have it blow up in your face, and you may have just wrecked future business relationships. We know how fast word of mouth travels and how quickly people find out about bad stuff like that. Not good for your all important reputation.

Plan Well And Keep A Record.

Ok we're coming to the end of the joint venture series now, but before we do, there's one last piece of advice I'd like to give you.  That is to plan well and keep a record. Who are you doing what deal with, and when? Who have you e-mailed for what product and on what date? Who have you called and who have you yet to call? Who replied who didn't? And so on.

It's a serious problem if you start to lose track of any of these details. It can hurt your joint venture possibilities now and in the future. Keep everything in order, clean, and tidy.

A Final Word.

And now, to wrap it all up, a refresher pulling all four joint venture reports together. You now know the basics and the facts surrounding this powerful tool. You know how to find your market, you know how to make contact and get a response and you know how and what type of offers to put to who, when, where and how.

Not only that but you now understand the true power of these highly targeted, almost untouchable personal lists and the importance of being able to quickly and effectively get access to them in a give and take situation. With this knowledge alone, you're streets ahead of those people out there struggling to make a thousand dollars a month online. You know of its power, monetary and otherwise, and you know how to use it.

Actually take this information and put it to use. People aren't going to come to you until you have the resources that these joint ventures will provide you with, and when they do start coming to you, you'll have even more power to grow your resources because you have something they want. It's a snowball rolling down a hill getting bigger, and bigger, and you want to get yourself planted right in the middle of it. Put it in to practice, and start reaping the benefits.

And Now For Something Completely Different.

It’s time to put what you’ve just learned about joint ventures into action. So how about we give it a shot through a short practice task? It’s the best way to get things going in my eyes, and it’s a nice change of pace from the constant explanations of the standard report format. Lets give this a shot.

Your first task for today is to create a new inbox. If you’re using outlook, or outlook express, create a new account called ‘publications’, or something to that effect, and direct your mail coming from the account into that specific box.

Your next task is to subscribe, as we talked about earlier. If it’s relevant to your target market, subscribe to it. Select the most influential people or figures in your target market. Pick out as many of them as you can, head to google, search for their sites and get on their lists for that account.

What’s going to be coming into your inbox now from the very start is a selection of mailings from people already doing what you want to do. They’re going to form a great base of research for you, lazy research if you will. For now, get subscribing. Select fifteen of the most influential people in your target market and subscribe to their publications.

A few words of warning - The first: What you’re doing here isn’t creating a junk mail box. This is going to form the very bottom floor of your joint venturing and your research at the same time. All information that comes in here is important. Don’t head off and subscribe to random publications or anyone who asks for your email address either. This box is specially reserved for the most reputable people in your field of expertise, and we don’t want your shiny new inbox packed with masses of important information and research material to be taken over by unsolicited mail.

The second point I want to make is that I don’t want you to contact any of these people. Remember when we talked about pulling in joint ventures two sections ago, and how we’re going to use the information coming into our inbox to reach people that no one may necessarily have heard of before. They may not have a big name, they may not have reached you before, but these people are the ones that are your back way in to powerful joint ventures.

Especially if you’re in online marketing, it’s likely that you’re going to have to fight through, who knows how many hundreds of people, to attract the attention of big names with a lot of promotion power. There are far more people out there with masses of promotion power than you may think. It’s up to you to reach them using this method and not jump the gun, especially if you’re still developing your product. This is just for preparation purposes.

Your second task is to keep an eye, over the next week or two, on what these people are mailing you. Who are they promoting? How are they promoting? What type of products are these people selling? Go check out their sites and jump on their lists as well. Continue this throughout the course, until prompted to act on the information you’ve gathered, and you’ll end up with a bunch of knowledge and insight, not only of the big names, but also of the people they’re promoting. Your back door.

You’ll know what makes them tick, you’ll know what they’re selling and what type of joint ventures they’re offering and being offered. You’ll have a pile of potential contacts that aren’t being bombarded by hundreds of people (like your big named 15) that you can freely attempt to joint venture with.

For now, subscribe. Watch. Listen. Learn. Soak up the information, not that they’re sending you about their products, but about the people doing the sending. This is massively important for later, and if skipped now, there will be no base for your marketing when we reach the middle of the course, so don’t skip this task.

Just to give you an idea of how I do this, and to show you it’s not as time consuming as it sounds and far more beneficial than it seems at first.

I picked my big fifteen back in 1999 and I’m still with them now. It took maybe ten minutes to think of a big fifteen and get on their lists through a simple search for their sites. I now wake up in the morning, and the first order of the day is to look at what other people are sending me. It takes maybe five or ten minutes to skim through them all. At the end of the day I can tell you what’s hot and what’s not, what each list owner wants from a joint venture, who does JV's, who doesn’t, the specific market they happen to be in, or if they have a particular niche that turns them on and makes them tick. I could tell you about their products, their writing style and emulate them. I could tell you what tools they use for their campaigns, what methods they’ve tried, invented and tested. Which ones worked, which ones didn’t. What my competition is doing, how, when, why, with whom and at what price. Mixing with your target market is also an amazing idea generator.

All of this information is freely available for you. All it takes is ten minutes now, and five or ten minutes each morning when you turn your computer on. Skim through the mails, check out and subscribe to the publications of the people they’re recommending and so on. This information is more powerful than any course could ever be. I find it strange that only a select few seem to use it or even know it exists and shares so much free information.

Be careful not to get distracted, especially if you’re in online marketing.

[Jim Burney]

Mark

Great post (yet again) 

JV are the way to make megabucks. Of that I am sure.

With the information shared on this thread, at least we know how to do it the correct way.

Thanks

Jim

[jumpstar]

Hey mark, you might publish this on one of my other sites
http://thearticlebeach.com.

I think lots of people like this and can learn from it.

btw. don't look at the structure of the site as this script is all ready due for update
but still there are about 250.000 articles for free

subscribing before taking would be nice

cheers

[hillsborowd]

Thanks for all the info I love it as I am trying to catch up