The Real Truth About a B2B Joint Venture
By Chip Tarver
 

(A Joint Venture is when two or more people or companies do a business, product, and/or marketing deal together, typically sharing the work and the rewards.)

For lots of people, these joint venture sales letters just look too good to be true.  Many are ... but why?

For a joint venture to be successful, you have to have three crucial factors in place.  Do you have these?  (As we go through these, I suggest that you review your own product or service to see how 'JV friendly' it is by applying these three criteria.)

First, your product has to have the "Oh, Wow!" factor so people run for their credit card when they see your product.

Sadly, most joint venture products don't get this reaction - and many products on the Net are just rehashed old products, or not much more than 'me, too' copycat renditions ...

(The very joint venture best products meet a specific need.  They solve compelling and relevant problems.  To perhaps help you identify the problem your product solves, begin to think in terms of solving problems as the very best method to make sales.  How does your joint venture product accomplish this?)

Next, you need a fairly big list of at least a few thousand.  How big is big? 

Big is big enough to receive enough exposures to your offer and enough sales to make your joint venture efforts pay off.

The 'average' person does not have a big list, so if you expect a conversion rate (the number of people who buy, divided by the number of people who look at your offer) of 1%, you hope that 1 person out of 100 will buy your product when they see it.

Understand that you typically need many 'exposures' to generate significant dollar volume at a 1% CR.  And most people don't have a big responsive list, which is why many CRs hover around 1% (or lower.)

Let's say that you have 300 people see your joint venture offer for your new $27.00 ebook. 

Only 1% buy, (a 1% CR) which is 3 sales x $27.00, which equals $81.00 in gross sales.  If your goal is an extra $150.00 a month to begin, you need to double your traffic at your current CR.  Then you'll have 6 sales times $27.00, which equals $162.00 in gross sales.  Of course, another more advanced option is to improve your Conversion Rate. 

But that's another article for another time ...

Third, the Big Guys want to know your Visitor Value (the total dollars you receive divided by the number of visitors.)  If you generate $100.00 in sales and have 100 visitors look at your offer, your Visitor Value is $1.00.

Without a visitor value of at least $1.00, many established Big Players have personally told me that they won't even talk to you about your joint venture deal – which is the challenge for everyone wanting to contact Big Guns.

Opinions vary, of course ... and some people like a joint venture product well enough to market it without knowing the Visitor Value.

OK - now what?  What's the key here?

To be really successful in doing high performance JVs that generate your personal sales goals, you need enough traffic, an awesome product, and you should test the whole process before you ever attempt to do a joint venture with the Big Players.

That's why you now see 'JV Everything' popping up all over the place. 

The JV market is beat up from over-saturation and JV over-exposure. 

People these days are marketing all sorts of programs as 'shortcuts' - but you have to take all the steps in the correct order to pull off successful joint ventures.

People see too many new joint venture offers every day.  Yawn.  Delete.

Everyone piles on tons of unrelated freebies, further defining their product as not worth the entry fee they ask.  Yawn.  Delete.

So where's the real truth in all of this?

Well, let’s discuss how to begin to develop these successful relationships for yourself.  Relationships come before joint ventures begin ...

The real, honest truth is that successful joint ventures are built entirely on relationships.  Not on products.  And not on hype-y sales letters. 

Relationships.

To grow a big list, you need a great relationship with your readers ... who know, like, and trust you.  To do a JV with anyone you can actually trust ... you first have to build a relationship with that person.

To have an awesome product ... requires a relationship with the niche market in which your product will be marketed.  To have a great joint venture product you have to intimately understand your target market and their needs and wants.

To have the numbers to show a potential joint venture partner ... you need o have *everything else* figured out, tested, and working. You do this by doing all these steps in the *correct* order.

And all of this is not at zero cost to you.  So, when you see all the goofy offers that promise you the world with no effort on your part - all by next week ... RUN!

So what's the answer for the 'average' person?

Begin today to develop the mandatory skills you'll need to start and nurture great relationships.  Here are three hints to get you started immediately:

1. Never tell people how great you or your products are.
2. Offer to do something your partner can't do for himself.
3. Offer to do something your partner won't do for herself.

Here are 8 more very important joint venture steps to follow after you understand the first three mentioned just above:

1. Only get involved in joint venture that is marketable, and for which you feel a true passion.  Try to never do it just for the money.

2. Begin building relationships by getting to know your new 'target.'  Subscribe to his or her ezine, study her site, read his articles, look in the search engines ... do your research and do your homework.  

3. Make an excellent first contact by always approaching your target to see what you can offer, not just 'take.'  Always give first ...

4. Go slow.  Treat this like a first date with someone you want to know.  Don't rush your joint venture.  

5. Never attempt a first contact unless and until you've done your homework and have a well-defined goal for the contact.  

6. Use nice manners and common courtesies.  A lot ...

7. Be politely persistent without becoming a pest.  Big Players are (and everyone else are busy.  The good ones appreciate gentle reminders, not demanding emails.  

8. Master making great first contacts first ... because great introductions open your door to the other joint venture steps.