The term “joint venture” is usually associated with either large corporations or well-known Internet Marketing “gurus”. In either case, you can pretty much assume that large amounts of money is involved.

You and I aren’t mega-conglomerations. We don’t own IBM or get invited to speak at seminars costing thousands of dollars to attend. We are who we are, but that’s no reason not to consider joint ventures.

Ok, let’s back up a little and define the term “joint venture”. Generally speaking, it is when two or more people or organizations combine resources (financial or otherwise) to jointly market a new product. In the Internet marketing world, you may find two gurus combine forces to sell a new ebook or software. Because each of these gurus has a large list of opt-in subscribers, the act of combining those lists means a greater chance that the product will sell well.

Unless you have an incredible product to sell, or a large subscriber list of your own, it’s not very likely that you can get one of these gurus to agree to do a joint venture with you. If you could get them to agree, there’d be a really good chance that your product would sell lots and lots of copies? Why? Because the guru had the massive subscriber list to expose your product to - and - he had the name and reputation to back it up. If he recommends your product, his loyal followers will likely buy it.

So, now that you see how this whole joint venture thing works, how can you make it work for you? You may or may not have a product. You may or may not have a list of subscribers. Ideally, you should be working towards both, but in the meantime, you can still work on forming joint ventures based on what you do have. Yourself. Your talents. Your time.

Sure, you won’t be likely to attract the attention of the big gurus, but how many non-gurus are out there? How many people, just like you and I, are there? If you combine your gifts, talents, and time, with one of your peers’ gifts, talents, and time - or better yet - several of you join together - what kind of synergy would they create? By joining with others for a short-term goal, you could all benefit.

Just think about it for a while. Consider what you might have to offer such a partnership. Think about who you think would be interested in such a joint venture. Consider reaching out to some of those people and discussing the concepts of working together, short-term, to accomplish one goal that would be beneficial for all.

I see no reason why joint ventures should be reserved for the “big boys”. The concept should work for everyone.

(from Smash Mouth. "AllStar" Astro Lounge. Interscope Records, 1999.)

Posted on November 14th, 2007 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Business Development