1. Why do you want to do a joint venture? Do you have goals? If not, write down a few goals for your joint venture project.

2. Do you have a partner in mind? If no, do you have a plan to find an appropriate partner?

3. Is your potential partner a compliment to your strengths?

4. Have you researched your potential partner thoroughly?

5. Have you prepared your proposal and covered the details?

6. Do you have a plan of how you’re going to approach your potential partner? Email? Phone call? FedEx?

7. Do you have the right attitude? A positive attitude is a must for a successful joint venture.

8. Are you prepared if your desired partner is not interested?

9. Are you prepared to negotiate?

10. Do you have a legal agreement? DO you need one?

11. Is this joint venture the best use of your time and resources, or do you have a better alternative?

12. Are you spending your own time, money and resources, or are you using other peoples’ time, money and resources? A good joint venture partnership should at least have equal amounts of effort between partners. If you’re creating a product using your own time and resources, then the other person should be spending as much time and resources promoting the product.

13. Is this deal as good as you thought it would be? Is the other party doing what he or she said they would?

14. Is this win/win and does every party benefit, or is someone being taken advantage of?

15. Is your partner ethical, honest and professional?

16. Do you have a promotional plan in place?

17. Do you have someone to handle every task, and are the responsibilities and profits being shared fairly?

18. Do you have checks and balances in place to track sales and profits?

19. Do you have a plan for your profits?

20. Are you making the most of your joint venture partnership, or are there opportunities you’re overlooking?

If you can answer every question with a yes, then you’ve succeeded in a successful joint venture partnership. Congratulations! If there are a few no answers, take a step back and evaluate your plan.

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Sometimes who handles each responsibility is apparent. For example, if one partner is skilled at product creation - whether it is an audio, video, book or software product, and the other partner has a substantial opt in list and is skilled at marketing, then how the responsibilities are divided is an easy decision.

However, sometimes it isn’t so clear. When this is the case, it is helpful to list your assets for the project and divide the workload and profits appropriately. Appropriately may mean whoever is stronger in a particular task. It may also mean whoever has the most resources or time.

For example, if a person wants to co-create a product and co-sell it, and one person has a significantly bigger opt in list, it may make more sense to have one person handle the marketing and promotional material and the other contributes their list.

Another option is to skew the profits in favor of the person that is handling more responsibilities. Say the original plan was to co-create a product, co-market the product, share opt-in lists and split the profits. If one person has a larger opt in list, then the percentage of profits can either be adjusted to reflect the larger contribution of one partner, or the workload can be shifted to accommodate. Meaning that the person with the smaller opt in list would do a bit more work to compensate for having fewer clients to market the product to, and still receive half the profits.

While a partnership is about money making, it is also about networking and building relationships. When you approach a partner and a partnership, do so honestly and enthusiastically. Take stock of your strengths and weaknesses and be prepared to negotiate profits and workload based on these strengths and weaknesses. In the end, the real strength and benefit to a joint venture partnership is about building relationships, and that is accomplished with honesty and hard work.

Have fun with your joint venture partnership and the profits will follow.

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This is what can happen in a joint venture partnership, and why it is so important to not only find the right person to work with, but also to lay out the responsibilities beforehand.

The first step, it would seem, is to find a partner to work with. If you’re a writer and that’s your strength, there may not be any benefit to partnering with another writer with the same strengths. No one is bringing anything new to the table. However, if that same writer is also excellent with marketing products, then you may have a partnership where one partner writes the product and the other partner markets it.

The objective is to find complimentary skills rather than competing skills. Let’s imagine that you as a writer are able to work well with another writer to create a product. The “too many chefs in the kitchen” analogy famously doesn’t apply to you and you partner. A real top notch product is produced. What do you do with it? You’re both great at writing and neither of you have marketing, list building, or fulfillment skills, knowledge, or experience. You’re stuck in the mud.

So you see, it is important to not only have complimentary skill sets within partnerships for the sake of working together, you also need to be able to make some money off of the venture.

The following are examples of potential complimentary partnerships:

o Partner with a large opt in list or list building skills with a partner that has proven experience in product creation.

o Partner that has proven sales and marketing skills with a partner that has a proven product.

o Partner that has a high blog or ezine subscription rate with a partner that has a proven product/website/service and can guest blog in exchange for part of the profit.

o Partner that has excellent web design skills with partner that has excellent writing and copywriting skills. You could put together a profitable affiliate website or information site.

o Partner that has a number of relevant products and an opt in list with a partner that has a number of relevant products and an opt in list.

The last possibility is a situation where the people do have the same basic skills. They both have products, both have lists, and presumably both are good at marketing to their list. The benefit here is a combined product bundle where no new skills are needed, just a new product.

When planning your next joint venture and seeking the right partner, consider first what you have to bring to the project and then seek a partner who will compliment your strengths. It will save you both time and money, and ultimately save you frustration.

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So who do you partner with and where do you find them?

One of the best places to look might be with the people you already do business with online. Do you use a virtual assistant? Copywriter? Designer? If your immediate group of associates doesn’t present any options, consider your networking group.

Seminars and workshops are also a fantastic place to locate potential partners. Additionally, if push comes to shove and you’re running out of options, consider posting a “joint venture partner wanted” in relevant forums and membership sites.

Anybody involved in the internet marketing industry or your specific niche can be a joint venture partner. One of the most common joint ventures occurs when one partner has a new product to sell and another partner has an existing mailing list to promote that product to.

If you identify someone you would like to partner with, take time planning and researching before you approach them.

Consider the following steps before you contact a potential partner:

• Find out everything about your potential partner before you contact them. Visit their website, read their books, sign up for their newsletters.

• Get to know their customers if possible. Does their target audience really fit your product or service? If they have a membership site, sign up for it and get to know their subscribers.

Once you’re ready to contact them, consider calling them rather than sending an email. An email runs the risk of being deleted before it is ever read. If email is still your choice, then take the time to customize and personalize your email to the person. Another option is to contact your potential partner via snail mail. If you choose this option, consider sending your proposal via FedEx so that it isn’t mistaken as junk mail.

Any initial contact is best handled professionally and not as a sales pitch. Many business owners, like you, are extremely busy. They’ll happily listen to you if you present your proposal in a professional manner and present the opportunity as it would benefit them and their business.

Pitch it right and you have a brand new and exciting adventure ahead of you. Good luck!

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1. List leveraging. This is a common and generally simple joint venture. If you have a great opt in list and someone has a great product, you can promote their product to your list for a percentage of the sales.

2. Information marketing businesses can partner to bundle their products together and promote them to their combined email lists. The benefit to this type of arrangement is potentially huge. Each business increases their exposure and customer base, each business makes money, and each business gives their customer and email list an opportunity to take benefit from a new product.

3. Another simple joint venture might involve sharing or exchanging text links or banners with other related web sites.

4. Partner with another online business with a similar target market to create and share a web site. For example, you create dog training information products and your partner makes home made dog treats. You will both be marketing and advertising the same web site which means double the traffic.

5. A very simple online joint venture is to exchange testimonials or endorsements for each others products or services. For example, if you are a virtual assistant, you could promote the services of a web design firm or copywriter you’ve used. In return, they could promote your services as a virtual assistant.

6. If you have a product that is nearing the end of its life and sales are dwindling, you could offer it as a free bonus for another businesses product or service. In exchange, ask for a small portion of the profits.

7. Offer to insert a promotional ad for another business into your product package. You could take a small percentage of the profits or ask them to return the favor.

8. Trade ezine ads with relevant businesses that have similar target markets.

9. Create a promotional giveaway with another business and publish your ads and links in the report, ebook, or even talk about them in a video or audio product. You’re essentially sharing the labor to put together a promotion that will reach both your list members and the list members of your partner, which means you’re doubling your reach.

10. Create a freeware program with another business. Include a promotional ad for each of your businesses in the program. Submit it to freeware and freebie sites.

When considering the many possibilities of joint venture partnerships, consider what skills, strengths and assets you can bring to the partnership. This will likely give you numerous possibilities and then all you have to do is find the right partner.

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To help you prepare for the risk of a no answer, let’s examine some of the reasons why a business owner may not be interested in partnering with you:

So what do you do if the business partner you’re interested in says no?

The most important thing to do for yourself and your business is to look on the bright side. If they said no, they had a good reason and it wouldn’t have been a successful partnership. Step back and take a look at how you handled the proposal process. Is there anything you can take away or learn from the process, so that you’re more successful next time?

It is also important to thank the person for their time and leave the door open for future business. Maybe make a plan to contact them again in six months. It isn’t enough to ask them to call you if they change their mind, they likely won’t. However, if you contact them again in six months, maybe their circumstances have changed and it will be a better time.

Just because one person said no, doesn’t mean the next person won’t say yes. Dig in, find another potential partner, and approach them with a proposal. What do you have to lose?

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Here are some truly compelling benefits of Joint Venture Partnerships:

Benefit #1: Bigger lists. How big is your current opt in list? Does it have room to grow? Would a bigger list mean more profits tomorrow, next week, next month and next year? A joint venture partnership has the power to broaden your opt in list in many ways. If you are list leveraging with a partner, then anyone who responds, visits your website, or makes a purchase is added to your opt in list.

Cross promotions have the same list building capabilities. Imagine if you post an ad for your partner in your ezine and they post an ad for you, then everyone on their list that responds to your ad is now on your opt in list.

Benefit #2: Better customer relationships. Offering your customers a new opportunity, new product, or new service with a reputable partner gives you instant credibility - not only as a respected business owner, but one that has their customers in mind and takes the time and effort to find and present quality opportunities to them.

When you offer your customers a quality product or service, you not only increase your credibility with them, you increase the likelihood that they’re going to buy from you again. You earn their respect and gratitude for bringing them valuable and beneficial opportunities and for connecting them with other spectacular businesses like yours.

Benefit #3: New products. Partnering with another online business introduces new products into your product base. For example, say you own and operate an information marketing business where your products range from a book on how to organize your home from top to bottom, to personal organization services.

You could partner with a small business coach and create a product about organizing your home office for maximum productivity. Your partner will promote the book to their customers and add the product to their product base, and you can market the product as part of your product base. Down the line you could bundle the product with others and create a larger book package. You could interview your partner and create a product from that.

When it comes to online joint venture partnerships, there really isn’t a downside. You get the opportunity to make your customer’s happy, you build your list, you increase your product base, and you make money. It’s all good!

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Okay - in plain English, an online joint venture happens when you join forces with another online business to make some money. There are no tricks to joint ventures other than finding a good partner, and joint ventures can and do take a variety of forms.

For example, a simple joint venture, which is also quite common, is for two information marketing businesses to bundle their products together and promote them to their combined email lists. The benefit to this type of arrangement is potentially huge. Each business increases their exposure and customer base, each business makes money, and each business gives their customer and email list an opportunity to get benefit from a new product.

This type of joint venture is only one of a thousand possibilities. If you have a great opt in list and someone has a great product, you can promote their product to your list for a percentage of the sales. Or you may be excellent at marketing products and have a great idea for a product your market would buy, but you do not have the time or the inclination to create the product. You could then partner with a programmer or a writer to create the product, you sell it and you split the profits. Like I said, there are many options.

As stated earlier, the real key to a successful online joint venture partnership is finding the right partner. Online networking is an excellent place to find a partner. Perhaps you already work with a business you could partner with. Once you find a potential partner, your first step – before you pick up the phone – is to draft a proposal. Highlight what you bring to the relationship and what your potential partner has to gain.

Once you have your proposal ready, and you’ve done plenty of research about your potential partner, give them a call, send them a letter, or zip over an email introducing yourself and outlining your proposal. Remember to make your proposal about them, what they have to gain and what you have to offer, rather than what you have to gain.

If they’re not interested, part on good terms. You never know when your paths might cross again and you could work together in the future. If, on the other hand, your partner says yes – enjoy the experience and the profits!

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In her email, she was talking about an experience she had attending a seminar in Orlando, FL. and how she met some awesome people that I would someday like to meet too like Lynn Terry and Nicole Dean (I am soooo jealous). She also shared a particular speaker she enjoyed - Sam Crowley and how she truly enjoyed listening to him and learning from him. She even made a video testimonial in her blog about Sam Crowleys’ Six days to Saturday . I checked out the link she shared in her blog post and thought that it was an awesome concept. To learn more about Six days to Saturday, visit Elizabeth’s blog, click here. Watch Elizabeth’s short video and follow the link she shares on Six days to Saturday and get a chance to download a free copy of Sam Crowley’s “Seize Your Saturday Power”.

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