Business 2K Blog Place

The simplest form of association for joint ventures is an arrangement under which the participants agree to associate as independent contractors rather than shareholders in a company or partners in a legal partnership. This type of agreement is often referred to as a consortium or co-operation agreement and is suitable where the parties wish to avoid the formality and permanence of a corporate vehicle.
Here the rights and duties of participants as between themselves and third parties and the duration of their legal relationship will be derived from the provision of the joint venture agreement, any associated agreements and general common law rules.
Such an agreement should set out the obligations and commitments of the individual partners and how a return on investment will be achieved. Even though no corporate vehicle is involved and the venturers will not be partners in a legal sense, it is possible for them to be exposed to claims and liabilities because of the activities of their co-participants on a contractual or quasi-contractual basis. Therefore, an indemnity should be included in the agreement under which one party will indemnify the other for any losses that are caused through the actions of the co-participants

Three basic legal structures can be used for joint venture, these being:
• a limited liability company (i.e. a corporate vehicle);
• a partnership or limited partnership (i.e. an unincorporated vehicle); or
• a purely contractual co-operation agreement.

A partnership is the relation which subsists between persons carrying on a business in common with a view to a profit. There are also certain “hybrid” vehicles or arrangements, such as a limited liability partnership, with characteristics from more than one of the above categories.
Whilst tax and commercial factors may sometimes lead to the use of an unincorporated vehicle, e.g. a partnership or limited partnership, the majority of ongoing business ventures tend to use a corporate vehicle whose share capital is divided between the joint venturers. The advantages of using a corporate vehicle are:
• a company is a universally recognised medium and gives a strong identity for dealings with third parties;
• it allows for a management and employee structure to be put in place;
• the participants have the benefit of a limited liability and the flexibility to raise finance; and
• the company will survive as the same entity despite a change in its share ownership;

Joint ventures have become an important strategic option for many businesses. Due to increased globalisation, the proliferation of modern technology as the means of conducting business, and increased international travel, businesses are now operating in a world without borders, albeit that there are still cultural and language issues. This guide summarises the key considerations in establishing a joint venture or other strategic partnership.

The term ‘joint venture’ is an umbrella term which describes the commercial arrangement between two or more economically independent entities. In practice, the legal form of a joint venture is likely to be determined by a number of factors including the nature and size of enterprise, the anticipated length of the venture, the identity and location of the venturers and the commercial and financial objectives of the participants.
Resource

It’s time to put what you’ve just learned about joint ventures into action. So how about we give it a shot through a short practice task? It’s the best way to get things going in my eyes, and it’s a nice change of pace from the constant explanations of the standard report format. Lets give this a shot.
Your first task for today is to create a new inbox. If you’re using outlook, or outlook express, create a new account called ‘publications’, or something to that effect, and direct your mail coming from the account into that specific box.
Your next task is to subscribe, as we talked about earlier. If it’s relevant to your target market, subscribe to it. Select the most influential people or figures in your target market. Pick out as many of them as you can, head to google, search for their sites and get on their lists for that account.
What’s going to be coming into your inbox now from the very start is a selection of mailings from people already doing what you want to do. They’re going to form a great base of research for you, lazy research if you will. For now, get subscribing. Select fifteen of the most influential people in your target market and subscribe to their publications.
A few words of warning - The first: What you’re doing here isn’t creating a junk mail box. This is going to form the very bottom floor of your joint venturing and your research at the same time. All information that comes in here is important. Don’t head off and subscribe to random publications or anyone who asks for your email address either. This box is specially reserved for the most reputable people in your field of expertise, and we don’t want your shiny new inbox packed with masses of important information and research material to be taken over by unsolicited mail.
The second point I want to make is that I don’t want you to contact any of these people. Remember when we talked about pulling in joint ventures two sections ago, and how we’re going to use the information coming into our inbox to reach people that no one may necessarily have heard of before. They may not have a big name, they may not have reached you before, but these people are the ones that are your back way in to powerful joint ventures.
Especially if you’re in online marketing, it’s likely that you’re going to have to fight through, who knows how many hundreds of people, to attract the attention of big names with a lot of promotion power. There are far more people out there with masses of promotion power than you may think. It’s up to you to reach them using this method and not jump the gun, especially if you’re still developing your product. This is just for preparation purposes.
Your second task is to keep an eye, over the next week or two, on what these people are mailing you. Who are they promoting? How are they promoting? What type of products are these people selling? Go check out their sites and jump on their lists as well. Continue this throughout the course, until prompted to act on the information you’ve gathered, and you’ll end up with a bunch of knowledge and insight, not only of the big names, but also of the people they’re promoting. Your back door. You’ll know what makes them tick, you’ll know what they’re selling and what type of joint ventures they’re offering and being offered. You’ll have a pile of potential contacts that aren’t being bombarded by hundreds of people (like your big named 15) that you can freely attempt to joint venture with.
For now, subscribe. Watch. Listen. Learn. Soak up the information, not that they’re sending you about their products, but about the people doing the sending. This is massively important for later, and if skipped now, there will be no base for your marketing when we reach the middle of the course, so don’t skip this task.
Just to give you an idea of how I do this, and to show you it’s not as time consuming as it sounds and far more beneficial than it seems at first.
I picked my big fifteen back in 1999 and I’m still with them now. It took maybe ten minutes to think of a big fifteen and get on their lists through a simple search for their sites. I now wake up in the morning, and the first order of the day is to look at what other people are sending me. It takes maybe five or ten minutes to skim through them all. At the end of the day I can tell you what’s hot and what’s not, what each list owner wants from a joint venture, who does JV’s, who doesn’t, the specific market they happen to be in, or if they have a particular niche that turns them on and makes them tick. I could tell you about their products, their writing style and emulate them. I could tell you what tools they use for their campaigns, what methods they’ve tried, invented and tested. Which ones worked, which ones didn’t. What my competition is doing, how, when, why, with whom and at what price. Mixing with your target market is also an amazing idea generator.
All of this information is freely available for you. All it takes is ten minutes now, and five or ten minutes each morning when you turn your computer on. Skim through the mails, check out and subscribe to the publications of the people they’re recommending and so on. This information is more powerful than any course could ever be. I find it strange that only a select few seem to use it or even know it exists and shares so much free information.
Be careful not to get distracted, especially if you’re in online marketing.
Happy Jving!

● Ok, part four of the course - wrapping up your joint venture deals. By now if you’ve been through the previous sections, you should have a good understanding of how to find and grow your list of joint venture prospects. You know how to watch them like a hawk through your lazy/smart research and select the ones that are appropriate to your business.
● Also you know when and how to approach them, how not to get deleted right off the bat like the majority of deals from other people, and you know how to put your offers forward in a beneficial way that doesn’t involve extra profits. You have a great base for your journeys already. Let’s continue developing these joint venture techniques into something practical and profitable.
● Let’s follow straight on from that and look at following up your mails. Something that rarely happens, maybe because it costs too much for international calls, people are shy, or are worried about being intrusive and told no for example. If any of those describe you, put them aside right now.
● This is business, albeit probably the most personal form you’ll undertake, it’s still business. The worst that can happen is that they’ll say no. This is also different from the cold call, or sales pitch, in that it’s a mutually beneficial deal. If the deal is good they’ll be interested and glad to hear from you.
● The reason we opted for mail first rather than a call is twofold. Number one, you’ve got all the time in the world to plan a mail, and set your deal out on the table rather than having to go into a phone conversation with little or no knowledge of what to expect.
● Second, it’s far easier to grab someone’s attention when you’ve already made contact first and your JV target knows the ins and outs of the deal and what you’re asking. It’s very much for organization purposes, on both ends, that call for the initial email approach.
● The reason it’s important to call in the first place is simple. How many times a week, or even a day, do you see things and think to yourself “Hey, yeah that’s cool, I’ll check that out later” and you just plain forget, get distracted or called away to something else. Don’t forget to prepare for your call. Have the basics in front of you for a start. There’s no guarantee that your mail actually got read. Be ready for that, and be ready with some back up plans and to change your original offer. The better the list, the higher the profile, the more you’re likely going to have to offer.
● If you can, have some preparation ready for alternate plans or extras that you can give when you make the follow-up call. It’s always handy to have something in case your original offer wasn’t powerful enough. Even to give that little bit extra, than that offered in your original mail, which does something even better and more profitable than any single JV could do.
● That is pave the way for the future. You’ve treated them like individuals from the start through your research, and your mail, and tailored the deal to their list. The more you do this, the more they’re going to remember you, and you’ve taken the first step to paving the way for future deals and permanent contact, and even larger full blown partnerships. Who knows where that next conversation will take you?
● A good method of doing this whilst following up is to allow them the same courtesies that they’ve given you. Tell them that your list and resources are always open to joint ventures. Get them to add you to their contact list and say ‘Hey, next time you launch a product, get in touch and I’ll make sure my customer base and list hears about it too’.
● “Hey name here, a quick mail regarding the joint venture we carried out last week. Just to let you know that I also have a private list of people with one heck a response rate that I don’t promote affiliate programs to, just my own stuff. In light of our recent deal, you’re quite welcome to add me to your list of contacts ready to promote your products when they initially launch in the same fashion”. It’s as simple as that, either by phone, or by mail.
● Alright, now your joint venture offer is complete. You know how to go about finding joint venture prospects and how to approach them to maximum effect, quickly, efficiently and effectively, and you know how to pave the way for future offers. We’re almost there but, before we finish up, there’s a couple of general tips I’d like to give you that I
couldn’t fit into the very factual step by step approach we’ve taken with these past reports.
● Even though they’re just general tips don’t underestimate them. You’ll probably find that you come across one or more of these situations later on in your career.
● The first piece of advice I’d like to personally give you is, don’t try to take advantage of people, but most importantly, don’t be taken advantage of. Remember, the idea here is that the offer is even. We give something, we receive something in return. That’s business right? Sure, for most people it is, but either through ignorance or negligence, or through their sheer desire to make money, there will come a time when you find someone who is going to try and milk you for everything you have.
● I remember back in the day when I received one of my first JV offers. The guy tried to take advantage through low commissions, and even by charging me for his product if I wanted to see how good it was. Above all he expected me to make him rich with no mutual benefit at all. Pay attention to this, because when you start your products rolling out the door, you’ll begin to experience this type of attempt from people who think you’re going to make them rich too.
● One slight mistake, one slight slip up, no matter how insignificant it seems to you, is the difference between a surefire “No leave me alone”
response, and a “Yeah that sounds great, lets do it” response. There’s absolutely no room for sloppy work where joint ventures are concerned.
● Another big thing that was going on here was that this person was trying to hide something from me. He totally neglected to tell me in all his explaining about this product, and what it did for his customers to be, that this was a re-sell product. Now I don’t have a problem with that at all. Re-sell products aren’t such a bad thing, especially when there’s only a limited number of them that has gone out, but when it’s so old and decrepit that’s another story.
● Never hold back information from one of your JV prospects. Remember, you’re not just messing with your own business here, but someone else’s, and there’s a great deal of mutual trust that goes into even the simplest of joint ventures.
● Adding to what we’ve just said above, if you’re not sure about something, fix it up, finish it and perfect it until you are sure. If there’s any doubt in your mind about your product, about your offer or your sales process, get it sorted for the same detrimental reasons we talked about above. Get it wrong, have it blow up in your face, and you may have just wrecked future business relationships. We know how fast word of mouth travels and how quickly people find out about bad stuff like that. Not good for your all important reputation.
● Finally plan well and keep a record. Who are you dealing with? When? Who have you mailed for what promotion date? Who have you called, who replied to your mail, and who didn’t. Simple records that will allow you to make important decisions about how to move forward at a later date.

And now, to wrap it all up, a refresher pulling all four joint venture reports together. You now know the basics and the facts surrounding this powerful tool. You know how to find your market, you know how to make contact and get a response and you know how and what type of offers to put to who, when, where and how. Not only that but you now understand the true power of these highly targeted, almost untouchable personal lists and the importance of being able to quickly and effectively get access to them in a give and take situation. With this knowledge alone, you’re streets ahead of those people out there struggling to make a thousand dollars a month online. You know of its power, monetary and otherwise, and you know how to use it. Actually take this information and put it to use. People aren’t going to come to you until you have the resources that these joint ventures will provide you with, and when they do start coming to you, you’ll have even more power to grow your resources because you have something they want. It’s a snowball rolling down a hill getting bigger, and bigger, and you want to get yourself planted right in the middle of it. Put it in to practice, and start reaping the benefits.

Ok we’re coming to the end of the joint venture series now, but before we do, there’s one last piece of advice I’d like to give you. That is to plan well and keep a record. Who are you doing what deal with, and when? Who have you e-mailed for what product and on what date? Who have you called and who have you yet to call? Who replied who didn’t? And so on. It’s a serious problem if you start to lose track of any of these details. It can hurt your joint venture possibilities now and in the future. Keep everything in order, clean, and tidy.

And on that note I reckon it’s time for that story I promised a little earlier on, about a guy that approached me some time ago with a joint venture offer. It was possibly the worst attempt I’d ever seen, but I’d like to give you a little idea of what you’re up against. How not to do things, and what you’re capable of now you have the information in these reports, compared to this guy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting you’ve ever done anything like this at all. This is the harshest example that I can remember. Have a little fun, and take everything you’ve learned in this report and pick this story to pieces. Here’s a real life example of a joint venture approach. What can you spot that he’s done wrong?
So here’s me, sitting at my computer in the late evening, listening to my relaxing ambient music, while at the same time briefing a freelance programmer on some work I wanted doing to some affiliate software. From nowhere, up pops a message through my instant messenger “Hello”. Now, I don’t like to give out my IM addresses to just anyone, I generally keep them to the people I know or have had previous joint ventures with. Anyway the conversation started with me trying to figure out who this was “Sorry do I know you?”. “No” came the reply. “Ok, are you one of my customers?”. “Yes”. Jackpot, so this is a customer of mine that somehow managed to get a hold of my instant messenger handle. Not a problem. I politely requested that if he has a problem to submit a ticket. “Oh no, I’m not here for that, I wanted to ask you to do something for me”. Ok now we’re getting somewhere. “Right ok, what’s that?” I replied. “Well, I’m launching a new website and wondered if you would promote for me”. At this point I thought hey, joint venture offer. Strange approach but I have half an hour before heading out with a few friends. It’s a rare ‘not busy’ moment for me now I’m done with the programmer so I’ll hear him out. Normally I wouldn’t have had the time. I would have apologized and asked him to e-mail me but it was just a lucky break for him. So he proceeds to send me to this website. It didn’t look too bad at first glance, but after reading the sales letter, something jumped out at me. I recognize this. I asked him when he wrote the product, which happened to be a very basic marketing training guide. He told me, in a round about way, that he didn’t write it at all. It was a re-sell product from the late nineties, not even a re-brandable one. Yikes, ok this is where I start to back away. So the best way I know how I tell him, sorry no can do, and of course, why. The reason, this time around, was because he had a weak product. To be honest, with his indirect hidey type approach, that took fifteen minutes longer to explain than it should have, he was lucky to get this far and even get my attention, or anybody else’s for that matter. However, I’m a patient guy. Anyway, off I go thinking no more of the encounter. I return home, have some food, grab forty winks and jump online again to meet the programmer who I’d arranged to talk to later that day. By this point it was about three in the morning. On goes the computer, on goes the messenger, and take a guess what pops up. “Hello”. Uh oh. “I wonder if you’ve reconsidered my offer”. Well I hadn’t to be honest. “No sorry, the product isn’t strong enough”. Alright so granted his product wasn’t strong enough, and the approach he used wasn’t exactly to his advantage, but if those two factors had been all present and correct, would I have said yes? Not likely. Where’s the evenness, the give and take of it all? He’s given me nothing at all that I would want in return. It was clear he hadn’t planned this well. I couldn’t resist it. Out came a little friendly advice. “Look man, I’ll be honest. If you want to secure a joint venture like this with someone, you need to offer them something in return. A bit of give and take ya know?”. Big mistake. “But I want you to be my marketing manager”. The phrase which would eventually become the bane of my existence that week. He proceeded to tell me that he’d give me a dollar per sale on his fifty dollar product, which would go up to four dollars if I sold over a hundred copies. So not only was his product dodgy and something I wouldn’t recommend, and not only would he not even give me it to see (He pointed me to the order link at the bottom of the page when I asked), but he was offering me the worst possible commissions ever. Everything about this deal is totally negative and a huge no. After a week of him messaging me every time I got online telling me “I want you to be my marketing manager” he was blocked, and it’s safe to say I’ll not be doing business with him anytime in the near future. So you see what I’m showing you here? I’m not saying you’re like that at all, far from it, but what I am trying to demonstrate is no matter which factor we remove from the lessons you’ve learned in these reports, no matter which section no matter how minute the detail, once it turns from a possible positive into a negative, you’ve totally lost your deal. If you’ve forgotten anything, or you’re ever unsure of anything come back to this course, and read over these sections again. One slight mistake, one slight slip up, no matter how insignificant it seems to you, is the difference between a surefire “No leave me alone” response, and a “Yeah that sounds great, lets do it” response. There’s absolutely no room for sloppy work where joint ventures are concerned.
Another little thing, you may have picked up from that story, is that this guy was trying to hide something from me. He totally neglected to tell me, in all his explaining about this product and what it did for his customers to be, that it was a re-sell product. Now I don’t have a problem with that at all, re-sell products aren’t such a bad thing. Especially when there are only a limited number of them that have gone out, but when they’re so old and decrepit that’s another story. Whatever you do, don’t hold back information that could be important. When you have a good product, and you’re comfortable with it, and confident about it, more confident than you’ve ever been about something, then you shouldn’t have anything to hide anyway. If you do, then there’s something wrong. Go back and fix the problem before offering up any joint ventures, because to put it quite bluntly, if it sucks and you do fob someone off and get them to promote it, when their long time customers come back with complaints or it dents their reputation because of it, they sure aren’t going to be happy. Remember, be open, be honest, and don’t hide stuff. If stuff needs to be hidden in a joint venture of this nature, there’s something wrong with your product and sales process. Go fix it, or you’ll have big problems later. Adding to what we’ve just said above, if you’re not sure about something, fix it up, finish it and perfect it until you are sure. If there’s any doubt in your mind about your product, about your offer or your sales process, get it sorted for the same detrimental reasons we talked about above. Get it wrong, have it blow up in your face, and you may
have just wrecked future business relationships. We know how fast word of mouth travels and how quickly people find out about bad stuff like that. Not good for your all important reputation.

Alright, now your joint venture offer is complete. You know how to go about finding joint venture prospects and how to approach them to maximum effect, quickly, efficiently and effectively and you know how to pave the way for future offers. We’re almost there but, before we finish up, there are a couple of general tips I’d like to give you that I couldn’t fit into the very factual step by step approach we’ve taken with these past reports. Now even though they’re general tips and tricks, don’t underestimate them. I can’t tell you how ‘not to do’ and how ‘to do’ these right off the bat but I can show you what to avoid. This is going to fill the gaps now and really give you a solid foundation of knowledge and confidence about these joint ventures. The first piece of advice I’d like to personally give you is, don’t try to take advantage of people, but most importantly, don’t be taken advantage of yourself. The idea here is that the offer is even. We give something, we receive something in return. That’s business right? Sure, for most people it is, but either through ignorance or negligence, or through their sheer desire to make money, there will come a time when you find someone who is going to try and milk you for everything you have. Now the experienced guys will be able to spot this a mile off. It’s likely so will you, but sometimes the problem is that this starts off small and, before you know it, it grows and grows. They’ve got so much from you
and you’ve got little to show for it in return. You don’t have to be gullible for this to happen to you. Some people just have a knack and try it on every chance they get. Learn to see it, and when you see it, if you have doubts, cut the ties, and know when to stop. The world of business is indeed harsh. It’s the same online as it is offline. Don’t be taken advantage of no matter how big the name you’re dealing with. Not all of them will be nice enough to stop you and offer you something in return for your work. Don’t give a whole lot away then expect something in return here. Lay your cards out on the table first and make one hundred percent sure you know what’s going on. This is the dark side of online marketing. Trust me, people will try, and when they do, it’s going to be up to you to say no.

So what can you possibly give someone who already has a huge list, most likely one heck of an income, and pretty much all the knowledge they feel they need about their specific field of expertise? Well, that’s an easy one. Forget giving them free e-books, reports and dodgy stuff like that. Everyone gives away free e-books to everyone else. You won’t be remembered for that. You need to be a little smarter about this one. So, to make an impact and benefit both of you in the future, what do you offer after the deal is complete? That’s easy. You offer them the opportunity to do the same to you. You create a gap for yourself as one of these people and your status is immediately elevated. When this happens, you’ll find people start coming to you with these types of offers. You offer them your list. “Hey name here, a quick mail regarding the joint venture we carried out last week. Just to let you know that I also have a private list of people with one heck of a response rate that I don’t promote affiliate programs to, just my own stuff. In light of our recent deal you’re quite welcome to add me to your list of contacts ready to promote your products when they initially launch in the same fashion”. Great, I’d jump at that offer. Granted, in my eyes, the list would first have to be relevant and substantial, but that won’t be too much of a problem if you managed to set up the joint ventures we’ve been talking about here and successfully prepared to capture leads rather than just initial sales. Don’t fall into that trap, because you’re missing out big time. The more you have to put on the table, the more you’re going to get in return. Things get easier after your first set of joint ventures which of course, as we spoke about earlier, builds your list and your personal contacts as well as your sales and reputation. This is most important.