Creating True "Win-Win" Joint Ventures Online

You’ll hear the word “JV” tossed around and banted

about and but most people use it completely wrong. In

my opinion, a true joint venture is a partnership

where two or more parties come together to create

something thatís better and bigger than what they

could do on their own. 

Partnerships and real joint ventures have been very,

very good to me, to the tune of millions of dollars

in extra sales. In fact, this is has been one of the

driving forces behind my business growth without

hiring additional employees.

I donít have room to cover all aspects of joint

ventures, but I want to introduce to one idea that

could have a significant impact on your bottom line.

***Joint Venture on Services***

Think of all the money-producing tasks that you

donít have time to do or you donít have an affinity

for. Hereís a quick list off the top of my headÖ

* AdWords/PPC 

* Direct Mail 

* Product Launches

* Buying Advertising

* Testing

* Telemarketing

* Affiliate Management and Recruitment

* Product Creation

* Search engine optimization

* Publicity

* Copywriting

* Coaching

* and so on

Each of these and more can become a joint venture

of sorts with trusted individuals who will help you

make more than you could make on your own. In fact,

thatís one of the criteria for a good joint venture

for a service is a task that can be paid out of

additional profits and measured that way. I like

that.

For example, I know one information marketer who

joint ventured with a telemarketer to run a phone

room. He pays them a large percentage per sale for

the events and high-end products they sells, and

thatís it. This venture brings in millions and

millions of dollars of additional revenue, but he

doesnít have the headache of babysitting and

training a bunch of telemarketers. Or if I joint

venture with a partner to do search engine

optimization for my sites, itís a pretty clean

relationship because I can simply give them their

own affiliate id# and let them have at it.

Personally Iíve worked with several partners on

these service joint ventures. The first one is with

a friend of mine, Rob Olic, to help me run all my

direct mailings.

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Side note: Iíve harped on this before. If you are

only using email and online marketing you are

missing serious revenues and not maximizing your

profit.

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Now I donít feel like tweaking copy, handling my

mailing list, coordinating with vendors, etc. If I

had employees this would be a function of one of

them ñ but since I donít want employees at the

moment Iíve gone to partnerships.

So Rob does all those duties to make sure the piece

gets in the mail. Heís also a good copywriter, so

heís written the teasers on envelopes, lift-notes,

etc., all the little things needed to get a good

direct mail piece out. Now I pay Rob based on

results. I think thatís the best way because we are

both in it together. If I do well ñ he does well.

I pay him a percentage of profits ñ which is

figured by gross sales from the promotion less

mailing costs (postage/printing/graphics), credit

card fees and cost of goods. Rob also has a sliding

scale of percentage depending on the total volume of

sales generating via direct mail. Now if the direct

mail is a postcard that drives people online ñ I

just give him an affiliate id# to track the sales.

***Product Launch Partnership***

The other experience with partnering up on a

service was just recently for the Underground DVD

launch. I recruited one of my former Apprentices,

Chris Zavadowski, to help coordinate and run the

promotion launch. Chris was someone I knew got

things done from working one-on-one with him. I

approached him and offered a percentage of gross

sales from the launch for taking care of activities

like running my blog, posting to my blog, helping

with messages on the blog, getting the video clips

edited and online, coordinating with affiliate

partners (we had individual pages/links for each

partner), working with my tech guy, etc. Basically

all the details and things I didnít want to do.

Chris was happy because he got a chance to work

with me and learn some new things and I was happy

because I was off running with the bulls in Spain

one week before the launch and things were running

without me.

Now one of the secrets was I wasnít greedy. I gave

Chris a very fair percentage of the sales. I donít

want to reveal the specific percentage, but I'll put

it this way ñ it was enough to buy him a new car. 

The other key aspect of working with partner on a

service is to be specific in their duties and how

they are going to be paid. You donít want to upset

people because of a misunderstanding later on. Chris

knew he was paid on every DVD set sold except those

sold via direct mail, because Rob was paid on that.

The other thing a good joint venture service

partner brings are their own ideas and initiatives.

Chris helped me come up with the idea behind the

"real-time inventory countdown script" ñ and he

spearheaded developing the whole thing on

RentACoder.com.

One last point I want to leave you with is to get

your agreement in writing. Even if you are best

friends with your joint venture partner ñ itís

always best to get in writing (especially if you

want to remain a friend). Memories fail but a nice

simple written agreement helps alleviate

discrepancies. Even if you just email your partner

the key points to an agreement, thatís better than

having nothing in writing.

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Yanik Silver is the creator and author of several

best-selling online products, but he still canít

build his own website. You can find more

information at http://www.SurefireMarketing.com

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