So what is a joint venture? Basically a joint venture is when two or more businesses agree to work together on a project over a set period of time. There are a number of ways joint ventures can take shape, they can involve agreements purely to promote one of the partners products with an agreement to reciprocate when the other partner or partners bring a product to market, or they may involve an agreement to develop a product together.
So what are the major benefits of joint ventures:
1.If developing the product as a group you are saving money on the operating costs
2.You are bringing together a range of skills in-house
3.Sharing expertise can save valuable time and share the workload
4.Time savings bring the product to market quicker
5.The product promotion and cost is leveraged by the partners and their lists.
6.Sales volume is likely to increase due to the leverage that the joint venture partners can bring to the product launch.
7.If purely a promotional joint venture for one of the joint venture partners it is likely
that there will be an increase in the subscribers to the product developer list.
So where do you find potential joint venture partners?
It is possible to find businesses to joint venture with both on-line or off-line. For the purpose of this article we will concentrate upon on-line. In general you will be looking at potential joint venture partners who can compliment your products and services and not ones that are in direct competition.
So lets take a look at where you can start:
1.How about e-mail discussion groups, on-line forums and news groups that deal with your target audience
2.There are likely to be a number of e-zines on-line that concentrate on your niche audience.
3.You may also want to note on your blog or website that you have an interest in doing a joint venture.
4.There are always the search engines and directories to look at, these should provide plenty of potential joint venture opportunities.
Once you find a possible business partner, make a not of their contact details and start by sending out an e-mail with your proposal. It is important to concentrate upon what's in it for them. They don't want to hear about how its going to benefit you, although you will know this in your own planning. However for your potential joint venture partner they need to see how it can benefit them and their business. At this stage it is you who needs them and not the other way around, so be complimentary to your prospective joint venture partners products and services.
Ensure that you have a sizeable prospective joint venture partners list, remember that not every one will be receptive to your offer, it is purely a numbers game.
Don't take any rejection personally, it's the nature of the business and you will always have "no's", but equally you should find yourself your fair share of "yes" replies
|
