Hannah McNamara

Joint Ventures – what are they and how do they work?

If you subscribe to newsletters and email lists from marketing specialists, you may have come across the term ‘JV' or Joint Venture.  Essentially a JV is a partnership of sorts, but not in the legal sense.

A JV can take many forms, but it's mainly about collaboration – working together to create synergies, i.e. greater results than either one of you could achieve on your own.

Here are just a few ways in which you could ‘JV' with other people:

Tele-seminars and workshops – team up with another professional who is serving a similar type of client to deliver workshops where the delegates get two or more perspectives (and you share the work involved in organising and marketing the event)

Creating Products – on your own creating a product such as a CD or online course might seem daunting, but if you work with someone else you can brainstorm ideas and get it done in a fraction of the time.  Plus you can each market the product to your own databases of customers and clients. 

Product Launches/Special Offers – something I did a few months ago was to team up with other people who help coaches to market themselves to promote my book ‘Niche Marketing for Coaches'<jeune insert hyperlink to the listing on www.marketinghelpforcoaches.com>.  They donated a free bonus and marketed the book and package of bonuses to their mailing lists – everyone benefitted.  People buying the book got a great set of bonuses and found out about other people and websites that they could visit for extra info on marketing.  The people providing bonuses got additional exposure and PR.

Joint Bidding/Pitching – as a professional you may face tough competition when you're bidding or pitching for corporate or government contracts, but with a small team of associates you can stand a much better chances if you pool your expertise, testimonials and resources.

Affiliates – you can either be an affiliate for someone else's products/events and promote them in exchange for a commission or seek out affiliates to promote your own products/events, paying them a commission when the sales come in.

Whenever you're thinking about doing a JV, one thing to be clear about right up-front is the financial side of things.  How much money and time will each of you be investing and how will you distribute the profits when they come in?  Also, what happens if the venture is not as successful as you hoped – who will carry the financial risk?  The best option here is to be transparent at the start.

JVs with the right people and the right companies can work wonders for your business and they don't have to be as daunting or on such a large scale as some people would have you believe.

© Copyright Hannah McNamar