Developing Win-Win Joint Ventures

 prefer to think of joint ventures in terms of what I call a host-beneficiary relationship. In essence, you serve as a "host" introducing someone else's complementary and appropriate products or services to your customers -- preferably under your express endorsement.
You can do this in many different ways:

First, you could send out a letter offering the product or services to your customer or clients. Then you could follow that letter with a phone call. If you can't do this because you don't have the people, time or money, then get the company whose product you're endorsing to do it for you.
A second possibility: Let representatives from the beneficiary company set up a table, booth or desk in your office -- or let them make sales rounds with your salespeople.

Or you could put out a promotional announcement or sales letter about the beneficiary's product or service in packages or statements you send out. Or you could allow the beneficiary company to share exhibition space with you at trade shows, or in ads.
Here are some examples you'll recognize: Allstate insurance booths at Sears stores. Offers for electronic goods and watches tucked in with your charge card bill. The FedEx logo and add-on shipping offer with catalog pages.
I promote my newsletter through endorsements to different people's mailing lists. I can go on, but I'm sure you get the general idea.
You can set up a host-beneficiary deal in one of two ways -- depending upon which role you're playing. We assume that you are the one who'd be introducing customers, clients or patients to someone else's product or service.
But, of course, the exact opposite works just as well. You can get tons of businesses and professional people to endorse you and your product/service to their clientele. It's easy.
Start by identifying the businesses with products or services most compatible and suitable to your customers. Next, contact the owner, president or general manager of the targeted enterprise. Introduce yourself, explain that you've spent X years and Y amount of money developing goodwill with your customers.
Then explain your assumption that the target company's product would bring great value to your customers. Ask enough questions to figure out whether or not the product or service is a "one shot" or has a back-end component. If it's a one shot, offer to split profits or sales (splitting gross sales is always preferred) with them. If it's got a good back end, try and get all of the front-end profit and even some of the back end.
Value and respect the real worth of your endorsement to your list. Keep control. Have the orders and even the money -- if appropriate -- go through you. Also, maintain quality control on the product, promotion and customers. Stipulate when going in that all resulting customers are your proprietary property and cannot be resolicited without your written approval.
Put all of this in writing. Once you've made the deal, don't do things too big. First, test small to make sure the hosted product sells. If it does, offer it to all your customers. If it doesn't sell, the problem could be the choice of product / service, or it could also be your execution on the endorsement. Find a different product or service and try it all over again.
If you don't succeed at first, it's no problem. Keep trying until you hit pay dirt. The first time you tap into your goodwill with your customers or clients by endorsing something -- sales should shoot to the moon.
The Flip Side
When trying to become the product or service being endorsed, the opposite applies. Find a target company that already has your desired customers as its customers. Approach the company. Tell the owner / president / manager that you believe they have enormous untapped wealth stored in their goodwill with their customers, and just because they haven't fully tapped into it doesn't mean they shouldn't.
Then walk them through a deal that lets you keep from 50%-75% of the profits or gross -- depending upon what you're able to negotiate.
Tell the targeted host company that you'll do everything, for them, but that they will retain 100% approval over what you do, how you do it and what you say. In essence, give them all of the control, none of the risk and up to half the rewards.
Here are a few of the profitable joint ventures that I have engineered over the years:
I got one of the largest financial newsletters in the industry to create a special bonus eight-page interview with me to promote my Protege-Training Program. It produced two million dollars in profit.
I got a business-opportunity company to recommend my program to all of their unsold prospects. That sold $250,000.
I got a famous best-selling author to endorse one of my client's financial services. That sold $20 million.
I got the largest magazine of its kind to endorse one of my other client's financial investments.
A karate school owner persuaded a local gym to help him get started by letting him use their space for a fee. The only problem: the karate school was so successful, and grew so fast, that it had to move to larger space in a new location!
Please try to approach at least two host-beneficiary prospects as both beneficiary and as host. Let me hear from you once you set the deals up. We'll share a bunch of actual first-hand stories in a future article.
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