How to Form Joint-Ventures and Build Your Business
Joint-Ventures (JVs) are an awesome way to build your business and gain additional exposure. What I like best about JVs is it gets people leaning forward and because JVs typically have a “referral component” it shortens up the sales cycle.
For example, in working our prospects we typically have a four to five day sales cycle but when it comes from a JV source and its accompanied by a referral the sales cycle can be as short as one to two days. That makes a huge difference when you’re pumping out a lot of deals.
The downside of JVs is they take a bit longer to setup because you have setup the JV, figure out exactly the best way to work together and to add value to each other’s business and then penetrate their client list with your offer which takes a bit longer.
However, that being said, once the JV is setup you can have a PHENOMENAL source of prospects for a very long time to come.
Examples:
I have a friend who’s in the mortgage business and he setup five different JV sources and that made him the #2 mortgage specialist in his district. All he did was approach real estate agents and told them they should establish a mutually-beneficial relationship where they can refer business to each other. He referred them business and they referred him business. From scratch he created a six figure income for himself which took a few months.
I built a chain of five clinics specializing in alternative health care and it was very common for us to work with doctors and other health professionals to share clients. I took this concept one step further and established a variety of JVs with corporations so they could send their employees to our clinics. With this corporate JVs I was able to promote our service via their newsletter, I did in-house promotions and gave them a lot of complimentary health services which they were thrilled about. Over the course of a few years I built up over 60 JVs which results in over 3000 clients visiting our clinics.
Another example would be the time I built and sold a residential cleaning service company. I had set a vision to build a company that produced a six figure income and sell it in one to two years. I setup JVs with several other “contractor” type companies like carpet cleaners who referred their clients to us. It was mutually-beneficial and as a result I built and sold this company in exactly twelve months.
With Gerry Robert and his FREE Millionaire Mindset Course, I established a JV with someone in England which included Gerry and his offer to 400,000 person mailing list.
With my chain of health care clinics I establish a JV with a local newspaper to create my own column which ran for a whole year and did not cost me a penny!
I broadly categorize JV partners as either “Referral Sources” or “Publishing JVs”. Publishing JVs are great to provide exposure and an opportunity to position yourself in the marketplace. If you can compliment a publishing JV with a good call-to-action and drive people to a capture page you can expand your leads and then turn those leads into prospects.
Building JVs takes a personal touch. You have to build a solid relationship and then work with that person to find out the best ways to work together and make it a mutually-beneficial relationship. That’s the catch! Mutually-beneficial is the word!! That means it works for both of you. This does not always mean money.
I’m working with Management Consultants right now to form JVs and we’re providing the opportunity to do an exchange of service which will lead to more business for them but also it will differentiate them from other management consultant which again will lead to more business for them so it’s a win-win for both of us.
If you have a good network of personal and business contacts, start there. If you don’t then start networking! Go to Chamber of Commerce, Board of Trade, Meetups, Charitable events, 40 under 40, business journal events, mayors breakfast or any other networking event. Just Google “Networking Event, <insert your city>”.
Another good source of leads for JVs (or prospects) is your local newspaper. In my case I focus on the business section because that’s my target market. Do this:
- Pull out your local newspaper
- Find the business section and find articles relevant and written about businesses in your community
- Print out those articles and write a sticky note (yes the yellow paper type) and send a copy of the article to the person who’s being featured. In the note congratulate them and tell them you want to meet, include your phone number.
- Call them to follow up (but don’t chase them!)
- Rinse and repeat!
You will get bites on this approach. I know because I’ve done it! Do the same with the editor or columnist. That’s how I got my own column which ran for a whole year!
See here… I went into this little community and found in this single article 5 leads that I could contact. I PDF the article, print it out and put a sticky note on it. I did this in PDF just to give you an example but you would print, sticky note and send! Then don’t forget to follow up and don’t be afraid to give them some “value-first”. Attach an article or whitepaper or something that will be of value to them!
Download example here – How to get JV leads from your local newspaper
Jean-Guy (JG) Francoeur
Author, Answers You’re Aching To Know
Vice-President, Business Development
Black Card Marketing Group
P.S. If you have a question or want to JV – fill out this form.
