Joint Venturing as a Product Owner

As the new guy (or girl) on the block, you have to approach other marketers humbly – proving your worth to them and showing them why they should say “yes” to a partnership with you when they receive the same offers from dozens of marketers on a daily basis.

One marketer even requires potential joint venture partners to send him $1,000 to even consider their offer since he’s bombarded with offers from such a high number of marketers.

You need to be choosy about who you accept offers from. Every joint venture you do puts your name on the line (and at risk), so only partner with people you trust as a valuable resource.

Make sure it’s a winning situation for everyone involved. Sometimes when you’re new, that means getting less than you give in the agreement. You might give up a higher portion of the profits or share the list of names you capture with the other partner.

You want to offer more than a simple affiliate promotion where you say to someone, “Promote my product to your list and take 50% of the cut.” If it isn’t any better than what the average ClickBank affiliate can do without you, it won’t be enticing enough for him to accept.

You can spice up the deal by offering more than what anyone else can get when they promote your product. Give them an extra bonus like a video tutorial or report. If it’s a list owner, let him have 75% of the commission instead of just 50 – especially if his list will, in turn, become your list once they buy the product.

There’s no limit as to what you can do with a joint venture proposal. It can be a list-trading deal, an agreement where you both create a product from scratch and launch it together, or one where you trade product promotions to each other’s lists.

Some marketers rely heavily on their joint venture partnerships. Like your list, your business partners are to be revered and you want to maintain a good reputation with them so that you can repeat the agreement in the future.

Always do whatever it says you’re going to do in the contract. And yes, make up a written contract between the two of you. Some joint ventures result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue – do you really want to risk that with a virtual handshake with someone on the other side of the world?

You have to convince the other party that the joint venture will be a good deal for them. Will it bring $25,000 minimum to their pocket? Will it add 10,000 names to their opt in list? Will it brand them as an expert in a niche they’re anxiously waiting to tap into?

Spell it out for them – and make sure you focus more on what they’ll get out of it than what it’ll mean to both of you. If you’re offering to let them promote your product to their list, then make sure you outline the benefits the product will have for their list members.

Their reputation is on the line when they promote something to their list, so if you can convince them that their list will be grateful for exposing them to your product, you will have won half the battle in getting a positive response.

The other party is also going to want to know how much work they’re going to have to do. Will they need to hire anyone to do anything like copywriting or web design, or will you handle all of that for them?

The less they have to do, the easier it is to get them to say yes!

Scarcity is also a good thing when you’re talking with a potential joint venture partner. Don’t tell them 50 other marketers received the same JV offer – they want to know they’re special.

If you’re just starting out, you may even want to create a joint venture partnership with other marketers where they recruit affiliates for you. Instead of approaching customers individually, you’ll be recruiting an army of affiliates to grow your sales exponentially.

You can make a two-tiered agreement where the joint venture partner receives a small commission on every sale made by the affiliate that they bring aboard. So if they recruit 10 affiliates for you, and each one sells 10 eBooks a day at $50 a pop, you can offer them 10%, give the affiliate 50%, and keep 40% for yourself.

That’s $500 a day for the JV partner!

[10% of $50 = $5.00 x 10 sales/day = $50/day x 10 affiliates = $500/day]

Network with other marketers to find a joint venture partner that suits your needs. The more you network, the easier it is to set up the right kind of agreements now, and in the future.

Focus on what you have to offer. Even if you’ve outsourced all of your writing, web design, and marketing, you can still offer it as part of the package and outsource you portion of the work.

When you’re approaching another marketer as the product owner, be sure to include a complimentary copy they can review for consideration. You want to give them as much detail as possible up front without them having to ask for it.