image

CHAPTER 10

How To identify Potential Joint Venture Partners

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success

— Henry Ford

When you’re looking for JV partners, it’s important that you find people who are both willing to partner with another company—and who have the resources to actually make you money. It’s that simple.

Here’s how you identify if you should partner with someone or not:

  1. 1.Your potential partner has to be LASER-TARGETED to your audience (your product or your contact base). If this isn’t the case, then forget it.
  2. 2.Your potential partner MUST have an incredibly active, trusting and money-spending customer base or contact list.
  3. 3.Your potential partner MUST be upstanding and have a perfect track-record. Ask for references and “Google” them and their products to check out their reputation online. The odd complaint here and there is to be expected, but if it seems to be a chronic problem, then steer clear.

Tips for finding partners that will guarantee you success from day one:

  1. 1.Go BIG. Contact the big, wealthy and ‘intimidating’ companies in your niche first. They are, in most cases, much more open to discussing partnerships because they realize that they can easily add to their bottom line by leveraging your product instead of having to research and develop their own.
  2. 2.Look for companies that actually rent their list of qualified buyers or allow targeted third-party offers to their buyers. In my opinion, this is the best partner as they understand the concept of creative marketing and would be willing to accept joint venture proposals.
  3. 3.Who do you know? Do you have any industry contacts already (on a ‘first-name basis’) that you can leverage in your niche? They don’t have to be the CEO or MD, or even someone in a ‘decision making’ role because you can get them to refer you to the key players.

Again, your choice of JV partners for a particular project will ultimately determine the success of it. If you choose highly competent people for your joint venture there is no reason why it would fail.

If the project involves a joint venture for promotional mileage, for example, the partners you should seek are those with sizable mailing lists and an expansive online presence. You simply cannot get a JV partner with a mailing list of 10 subscribers and expect to get any sizeable promotion put together.

Additionally, all of your prospects will want to achieve something grand from the joint venture you’re proposing. They simply cannot acquire what they’re expecting if you pair them up with people who have less established businesses. This will ruin your efforts and ultimately crumble your credibility as a JV broker as well.

In a nutshell, here are some basic questions you should ask when you choose JV partners for a guerrilla joint venture project: