Apart from being the fastest, easiest, and most profitable strategy for attracting clients and boosting profits in any small business, there are so many other advantages of joint venture marketing for all parties involved. So, why arent all small business owners implementing joint ventures? Heres a partial list of the most common mistaken beliefs about joint venture marketing. Ive picked the top five to shorten your reading time, but you can listen to more mistaken beliefs when you tune in to hear me being interviewed by Doug Hudiburg at http://tinyurl.com/cov4d. Mistaken Belief #1: That Theres A High Risk Of Losing Money. If youre like most small business owners, then the fear of losing money is inevitable because youre probably on a shoestring budget to start with. However, you cant lose money when youre paying for results only. You only pay out a commission when your joint venture partners clients buy from you. So, you actually get the revenue before incurring the expense. The only other pre-sale expenses are production costs and printing/postage costs for letters, coupons or vouchers. Whether you do joint ventures or not, these are costs youll incur anyway, because youll need those coupons or vouchers for other marketing tactics. So, the belief that theres a high risk of losing money is misplaced. Mistaken Belief #2: That Youll Lose Your Clients. Your clients will purchase other products and services whether you like it or not. So, it would do your business good to recommend what they purchase and make a profit from it. In fact, recommending high-quality products and services to your clients will strengthen your relationship with them. How? Firstly, youre shortening their decision-making process by saving them the time theyll otherwise spend on finding and trying out those products and services. Secondly, by arranging exclusive discounts and bonuses, youre saving them money. By saving them time and money, youre adding value to what you already offer your clients, and this will therefore strengthen your client relationships. Mistaken Belief #3: That Doing Joint Ventures Will Eat Your Profits Most small business owners would rather struggle to get clients, and get mediocre profits at best, instead of sharing the profits with a joint venture partner that sends clients their way. They dont realize that joint venturing actually eliminates the risk of wasting money. For example, when you pay for an advert, you have no clue whether it will generate responses or not. So, youll lose money if the ad fails. With a joint venture, you only pay for results. So, giving a percentage of your profits away has got to be better than flushing the money down the drain because thats what happens when you spend $300 on an ad that doesnt generate responses. Mistaken Belief #4: That Joint Ventures Are Complicated Of course there are complicated joint ventures, but there are so many simple and short-term joint ventures that a beginner can start with. It only starts getting complicated when youre looking at joint ventures like the one between Merrill Lynch and HSBC a few years ago. The two banks combined logos and actually had a service called Merrill Lynch HSBC, which had a building on Regents Street in London. That might have been profitable for Merrill Lynch and HSBC, but you dont have to do that if you dont have the tools or resources. Any small business owner can do joint ventures that are a lot simpler. For example, you could host a seminar with your partner and both promote it to your client lists. Youll both walk away with more clients and huge profits. Mistaken Belief #5: That Joint Ventures Require A Lot Of Time And Effort. Of course time and effort go into the preparation. However, joint venture marketing is one of the very few strategies that dont take much effort or time to implement. If youre joint venturing with people that are in your network or people that can be introduced to you by someone in your network, then the relationship-building process is shortened. This is because you and your joint venture partner already know, like and trust each other, or you have a mutual friend that introduced you to each other. For this reason, it can take as little as thirty days to execute your first joint venture. On the other hand, if youre approaching a joint venture partner that is a cold contact, the time youre looking at is the relationship-building time. If you have great networking skills then you should be on your way in a few weeks or a few short months. It simply boils down to evaluating each others character and business. Copyright 2005 by Habiba Abubakar and Emprez. All rights reserved. Note: You are welcome to republish this article as long as the resource box at the end is included fully and unaltered. |
