Today I’m going to discuss with you the key to joint ventures. I’ve had a lot of experience over the last year dealing with joint ventures and I’ve probably made more mistakes than anybody else when it comes to joint venturing, I’ve messed a lot of these up. But through trial and error I’ve kind of figured out the real world view of joint ventures, the stuff that I don’t hear other people talking about, and I’m going to give you some really practical applications. Typically everybody teaches the worst way to do joint ventures, so I’m going to teach you four more important and positive strategies for getting joint ventures to work, and you’re going to notice here that there aren’t some magic solutions, there’s a little bit of upfront work before you take it into account, but it’s worth it.
Why? Because joint ventures are the simplest and best way to get traffic. Typically, all things being equal, joint venture traffic converts higher than every other traffic especially if you pick the right joint venture partners. And it’s fast and you only pay in advertising costs a percentage of sales, so you only pay out of profit, you don’t risk anything. That’s why joint ventures are absolutely the best. A key focus for anybody who really wants to do well in internet marketing should be joint ventures.
For example, let me show you this. I met Steven Schwartzman in Austin, he’s a really cool guy I like him a lot, a good friend of mine now, and I met him at a seminar. He promoted my time management product to his list and the thing about this is, Steven doesn’t have a very big list – I think he has a couple of hundred people on his list – and the upfront sales weren’t that great, I think we sold 4 or 6 products, so it only made me about $80 or $90 on the joint venture itself.
However that’s not a problem because a person on his list was actually somebody that Steven writes copy for – Roger. And so Roger purchased my time management product through Steven and then Roger liked it. So then he promoted it to his list and somebody on his list was Martin Messier, so Martin Messier purchased it. So then Martin loved it so much that he emailed me, he was like “Jason can you give me a discount if I purchase everything you have?” I’m like, “I think that could be arranged Martin”. So Martin then went out and bought everything including a very high end coaching program for my copywriting class and so that’s a high ticket item that Martin bought from me.
Then in that class I discovered some really cool stuff that Martin was doing and I made an offer to do a joint venture with him on that and actually do a fifty-fifty business equity split where we create the communications and we create the product together and we split all the profits fifty-fifty, and that niche is probably going to be more lucrative than my business in the internet marketing niche.
So that one connection with Steven has the potential to make me over six figures, and probably over seven figures, over the next couple of years. And in real world numbers it’s made me at least $3000 in actual profits just knowing Steven, he’s a cool guy, and now I recommend people hire him for copywriting because of this joint venture. But it all started because I met Steven personally in Austin, then I hung out with him again in Philadelphia and he’s a real cool guy. So then that’s how this joint venture came about.
So the power of joint ventures here is that they snowball – he promotes it to somebody, that gets somebody on my list, they then promote it to somebody else who gets on my list, they then buy a lot of my products and then I talk to them personally because they’re a good client of mine and then I work with them on a business because he had a lot of good opportunities set up that I liked. That’s the power of joint ventures.
The Art of Joint Ventures – Create a Personal Relationship First
Now here’s the art of joint ventures (and it’s an art more than a science). Let me give you the best way to create joint ventures. The best way is to create a personal relationship first. So that’s very simple. Let me give you an example of that.
Me and Robert have co-launched several successful projects together, in fact, we did a launch that netted over $10,520 in sales in less than 4 hours, because the power of having somebody else there with you is this synergy where the whole is greater than the parts. So that’s what’s so great about working with Robert is we both have separate strengths and when we combine them together we get more strengths than either one of us could hope to have on our own and so it’s more profitable for each of us to work together than on our own in a lot of scenarios.
So me and Robert have co-launched several successful projects together and it all started because we hung out and drank beers together at seminars. So again, notice with Steven and the same thing with Robert, in fact I was hanging out with Robert and Steven for the most part at these seminars. I’ve hung out with Robert at 3 different seminars, we talk on the phone probably too much, a couple of hours a week, and we’re really good friends now, I like the guy. I’m going to go visit him just for the fun of it and we’re going on vacation with our girlfriends together. We’re now really good friends.
That is the absolute best way to do joint ventures, it’s also the hardest. It required me to spend a lot of money going to seminars, travelling to seminars and stuff, but I got to meet him personally. You don’t have to be that personal, you could do masterminds with people and then that can evolve. There’s other ways to create personal relationships which I’ll talk about, but the best without a doubt is to go to seminars and network with people. You don’t have to be a good networker. One of the reasons me and Robert got together is because I’m not very good at networking with people and neither is he so we hung out together because we shared that commonality and then that’s how we networked. So that’s the best way to get joint ventures.
Joint Venture with People who buy your Products
The second best way is to joint venture with people who buy your stuff, especially your coaching programs. Let me give you an example of that.
I’m working right now with three coaching clients on a fifty-fifty business split, that’s my favorite type of joint venture. We create the business together, we create the marketing communications together – they do what they’re really good at, I do what I’m really good at. Typically they have the expertise in that field of information and I have the expertise in marketing. We say “Well you get half the profits, I get half the profits” and that’s the joint venture.
So I’m working with three coaching clients right now on a fifty-fifty business split who came to me first as coaching clients, so these business partners were first coaching clients. Martin was one of them, I have another person in another niche where she came to me, she wasn’t very good at marketing or copywriting but she had a damn good story and a really good product that I knew would sell. So I said “Let’s just do it, let’s go fifty-fifty on that”. But she was first my coaching client so she was paying me to learn from me and then that’s the perfect joint venture because I have that authority and expertise already in her eyes and so that’s great for coaching.
One guy emailed me, he was like “Jason I just want a personal hour of your time. How much can I pay you for an hour of your time?” I said “Well that’s very simple; you can pay me $125 for an hour because that’s what I charge for coaching”. He says “Done!”
So he’s coming to me already knowing that I’m an expert and he’s willing to pay me $125 for an hour of my time and he knows that I’ve got this value that’s going to help him very much. Then we talk on the call about his problems and I say “Look we can do this together if you really want me to, if you want to hire me, I’ll do this and we’ll just split the profits”. And he goes “Done”. I go “Okay, great”. So then that’s how that evolved.
I have two more right now that might turn into very lucrative joint ventures, simply because they paid me for personal coaching. I have a client right now that’s paying me $350 a month for personal coaching and if this coaching goes well, which it’s going really well, he’s like “I absolutely would be really interested in promoting your coaching for you to my list of customers”. I’m like “Right on!”
So, yes, one of the greatest ways is to get people to buy your stuff because then they already come to you knowing that you’re the expert and they look up to you and typically they’re happy to buy your stuff and so then when they approach you with questions it opens up an opportunity to set up a potential joint venture with them.
The limit to this is you’ve got to be able to sell stuff. That’s why joint venturing is more of an advanced strategy because:
- a) You have to have the ability to create a product;
- b) You have to have the ability to sell that product;
- c) You’re going to have to have that ability to ask for the joint venture.
But it’s the second best way. And in reality the barrier is a little bit higher but that’s good because the worst is the approach most people do and teach and that’s why it’s not that effective.
Give Away Good Information
So the third best way is giving away really good information to demonstrate authority and expertise. If you currently don’t think you can sell something on your own or create a product on your own and you don’t have the ability to go to seminars and network with people or coach people on a personal basis, then the third best way to set up a joint venture is to give away really good information to demonstrate authority and expertise, and here is an example of that.
I have one potentially extremely lucrative joint venture, I can’t even talk about it, I had to sign a NDA because the idea that this guy came up with is so unique, and the problem with unique ideas is you don’t know if they’ll work or not, but it was so enticing I absolutely am going to move forward and we’re going to work out the details here in a few days. Actually we’re going to call it up and we’re going to hopefully hammer out a deal, we’ll see if it works, but it’s a potentially extremely lucrative joint venture and the way that this guy contacted me was – I gave away a free report in the War Room of the Warrior Forum, it’s a private forum, I wrote up a report and I gave it away for free. This guy read it and he was thinking “Jason knows how to write really good, I like this guy already, he seems just perfect for what I need to help launch my business”. So he emailed me and he was like “Can we get on the phone and talk? I really loved your free report”. And now he wants me to help him create his marketing plans for his completely new and unique and innovative idea he has that he wants to roll out and so I’m like the missing link.
So I got that set up for that connection because I gave away a free report. Again, notice the reframing here, I’m getting people to come to me or I’m coming to the same place as they’re coming to and then I’m proposing joint ventures if it makes sense and it can be beneficial to both of us – huge – it doesn’t get any simpler than that.
Now will it work out? That remains to be seen, we’ve got some details we’re going to hammer out as far as compensation and such and if we’re going to fit together or whatever but the fact of the matter is, that’s just one more potentially lucrative joint venture that has come my way, one of many that come my way, and it’s because I give away really good information so people find me and then want to do business with me on a joint venture level. People buy my stuff and they like me and they know I’m an authority and then they have a good opportunity that I see, because I interact with them personally, and then I either make the suggestion or they ask me, or it’s just people that I know and I’m friends with who have businesses as well – that’s the easiest.
Do Something Beneficial for Someone First
The fourth best thing to do is to do something beneficial for someone else first before you approach them for a joint venture.
I gave a tip for one of my ghostwriting clients, I said “Here’s a good way to get clients to ghostwrite articles for – go to PLR websites and simply ask the person because, think about it, that person needs 300 to 400 articles a month or 100 to 200 articles or a report or whatever – they need good ghostwriters” And I said “The approach you give them is you come to them first with something for free that they can use in their membership site regardless of whether they hire you or not”. So you come to them giving them something of benefit regardless of the outcome, that’ll make them much much more likely to want to hire you and that’s a ghostwriting strategy but it works equally well in joint venturing because the premise is that you’re doing something beneficial for them first without any guaranteed compensation and then in return you ask them about a joint venture, and you’re more likely to get it or at least get their attention.
Here’s an example, promote their product and get a lot of sales and then approach them. I was working with a coaching client and I told them that strategy and I helped get some good joint ventures. I’m like “Look at it, man, you’re promoting the heck out of these other guys’ products and you’re making sales. Have you ever thought about approaching them and having them promote your product?” And he’s like, “No”. It seems obvious but sometimes you overlook the obvious. And so I’m like, “Do it” and he was able to instantly get their attention simply because he had sold a lot of their products so they knew who he was before he approached them. That’s a great strategy.
The other thing is you can ghostwrite content or give them a favorable review on your blog. You could review their products, you could show that it’s got spider food, you write ezine articles promoting their products without your affiliate link even in them or you could simply say “Here’s a free report, you can put your name on this and send this to your list like it’s from you, because I know it’s similar to communications that you have and something that you’ve been talking about so I did it for you. I’ve given you rebrandable content with your name so I’m helping you build your brand. Go ahead and run it and see what happens and then if you like it maybe we can talk business or whatever”. And then you could throw a joint venture at them later.
Send traffic to them, even if it doesn’t convert people just love to get traffic. I got this technique because I saw this Stu McLaren talk on a product I purchased from him, he was talking about how he sent like 250 people to John Reese’s blog, and I mean John Reese is one of the biggest names in internet marketing, and John knew Stu did that because John tracks his stats. Then when he talked to John later John was like “Hey Stu I really wanted to thank you for sending those 250 people to my blog”. And you think in your mind, 250 people to John Reese’s blog, that’s nothing, he doesn’t care about that or whatever but trust me he does and I do, you know I love it. When people promote my products as an affiliate it only makes me $200 or $300 sales but I had to do absolutely nothing, I love that kind of money – 2 minutes of work maybe in customer service or maybe talking to them or email for a couple of minutes for 300 bucks, I’ll take that all day long.
So then those are the people that when they ask me for a joint venture, if it works on my schedule, there’s really good potential. So sending traffic to them is a great way and then approaching them for a joint venture so that the whole premise here is you have a unique selling proposition, you have a hook that is going to get their attention more than the average person simply because you have done something for them first with no guarantee of being compensated for it. It’s not going to guarantee you’ll get one but it’s a good strategy.
The Worst Way – The Cold Approach
The worst way and the way that is taught the most is the cold approach. It’s akin to dialing for dollars, you basically send out cookie cutter templates and through sheer numbers you get some people to promote for you, although the percentage is like one or two percent.
It will work by brute force but you have to see things through, which a lot of people aren’t good at, and you have to have a strong self-image, it can be somewhat demeaning unless you have a strong self-image because there are a lot of rejections, there are a lot of people that might get mad at you, there are a lot of people that’ll tell you, “Just no, don’t bother me anymore” or whatever the case may be and that’s demoralizing in the sense that you’ve contacted a thousand people and only two answered you. It’s like “Man what am I doing wrong?”
Well you’re taking the wrong approach because you’re doing nothing for them in advance and really you’re a distraction to their normal daily affairs and so it’s very hard for you to switch from a pest to a welcome guest when you’re doing that.
It will work though, so if you absolutely do nothing else do this strategy right here.
The Truth about Joint Ventures
Okay, now let me give you some truths about joint ventures because there’s a lot of crap going on about joint ventures and how they are so easy and blah, blah, blah… They can be made easy but typically there’s a system that you have to work on in advance before you can get it.
The truth about joint ventures is the trick is in the follow-up. That is where you are going to be successful.
90% of people will contact one or two and stay in the loop once or twice but very few people will continue to contact, and I am as guilty of this as anybody, I’ve had probably 6 or 7 extremely good joint ventures fall through simply because I fell off on the communication where I didn’t get back to them in a regular manner or they didn’t get back to me in a regular manner, I didn’t follow-up with them or whatever, but the trick is in the follow-up.
Know in advance and anticipate this and I’ve done this now, I know in advance that it’ll probably take 6 or 7 follow-ups before you guys can co-ordinate something, work something out, get something in the pipeline and then get it set up. I think typical is 7 follow-ups, so if you can’t do 7 follow-ups, don’t do joint ventures.
Joint ventures are not a magic solution. Not at first, you can’t instantly just take this strategy, go out tomorrow and make it work. You either have to do it a lot through the numbers, like with the worst scenario or you have to lay some groundwork before you do a joint venture, you need products, you need free stuff to give away, you need to get some traffic coming to you or you need to be able to have the ability to drive traffic to somebody else or create personal relationships.
And so a lot of people can’t do joint ventures simply because they’re afraid to ask for them from people, again they have that low self-esteem and so they are afraid to ask, they hesitate, they don’t ask.
So they are not a magic solution, there are some barriers of entry and in general, 8 out of 10 joint ventures will fall through. In general – the keyword is general here, if you do the average strategies that the average people do to get average joint ventures, 8 out of 10 of them are not going to work. You either have to reinvent your approach, which really helps if you do this stuff I’m talking about here with the coaching programs, products that you sell people, creating personal relationships, giving away good information, doing something of benefit for them or you just have to accept this: Most people will not follow up with you, most people will say they’ll do a joint venture and then their lives will change, something will come up, their schedule will change and they won’t be able to do it anymore and then people just fall out of the loop with each other or they just can’t get the details to work out in the end.
So in general 8 out of 10 joint ventures will fall through, it’s just a fact. You either have to anticipate that or reinvent your business so you don’t do the general approach – do something so magnificent that 4 out of 5 close.
In markets that aren’t aware of joint ventures the trick is ample education. And then in the markets where they do work, the trick is outdoing the competition so in either case you’re fighting something, you have to overcome something.
So if you’re doing a joint venture in the dog training niche most people absolutely have no idea what the hell a joint venture even is, so you have to pre-educate them first, so that’s a tough sell, so that’s why a lot of those won’t work.
However in internet marketing where everybody and their grandma knows about joint ventures then the trick is you have to make your joint venture better than somebody else’s so they choose yours over every other joint venture opportunity they have.
In either case there’s some legwork that needs to be done.
Mistakes to Avoid
Start with simple joint ventures before making it complex. I’m as guilty of this as anybody. I know that if you do a joint venture right you can really explode it to the list. You want to handle it more like a product launch where you hit the list over a couple of days, you want to give them some stuff for free, maybe get people on a free teleseminar or a webinar and then you want to make a special offer just to that list then do a follow up. But the problem is joint ventures are so hard to work out especially with a first-time joint venture that it’s hard to co-ordinate that stuff. It’s hard even though it’s better, sometimes you’ve got to go with what’s practical more than what’s profitable.
So start with a simple joint venture first where they simply endorse your product to their list and if that goes really good and you guys like working with each other then you can build up and make it more complex in the future. That’s how me and Robert started, he was promoting my products to his list and then we said let’s get together and do some stuff. And then we rolled out something simple, then we made something more complex and now we’re doing a seminar and membership site together.
Curb Your Expectations – Take a Conservative Stance
I like to under promise because I’ve found that a lot of joint ventures seem like they’re going to make a lot of money and in the end they only make a couple of hundred bucks. That’s okay, as long as you and the other person have agreements then even if it does lower than what you expect you’ll still be happy, then that’ll make your joint ventures with them in the future much more likely and at the same time you can do more of this complex stuff. Then you’re going to be able to have the process down so you’re going to appear more professional and have a good hook to help when you go and get more joint ventures from other people.
Another mistake to avoid is not factoring in the relationship into the conversion process. This one drives me nuts and that’s why you want to take a conservative approach.
Some lists you absolutely just don’t know how the traffic is going to convert. Your sales letter could be converting on average at 3 to 6% to people that come in that are targeted traffic, your sales letter is awesome, your product’s good, but then you get someone in to promote who’s burned their list out, who’s list has just been hit with a good offer or this that and a third and even though you have a good converting sales page you still don’t pull crap.
I had one big name internet marketer, who shall remain nameless, promote my product to his list of over 120,000 people and we made maybe $100 or $150 off of that joint venture, that’s it. That’s terrible.
I had another lady, a very cool great marketer, and she promoted to her list of 1120 people and I made $3000 in sales. Does that make sense? No, but her relationship was so strong that pretty much whatever she promoted they were going to buy, whereas his relationship was so weak, even though he had the big numbers, it didn’t convert well. And there is timing factors to consider too.
The last mistake is not having a joint venture USP especially in a competitive market that knows about joint ventures. And that is, why should I choose your joint venture over any and other joint venture opportunity that’s available to me? The trick to that is to either not approach them – to have them approach you so that’s not an issue, where they come to you wanting to do a joint venture, and you can do that with these strategies here, or do something beneficial for them first before approaching them for a joint venture like we talked about.
So that’s it in a nutshell. I’m giving you the reality of joint ventures and you can use them and I absolutely would add this to my arsenal of tools to generate traffic and sales in internet marketing but know going in what you’re up against. If you can make them work and create a system out of them it’ll be extremely profitable to you but I’d be lying to you if I didn’t say that there’s some groundwork to lay down. Then once you use the system then it does become a magic bullet.
You know, after 13 years of working my ass off I became an overnight success too!
So that’s it, the straight-shooting on the key to joint ventures. Use this and if you use this as I describe it, you can set up some great joint ventures as I have and prosper from them.
Thank you.
Jason Fladlien
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