More and more business are finding that the virtual world of business can be just as lucrative as the traditional employee-based business. In fact, more lucrative. How else can you rapidly expand into new markets, new regions and even new countries without hiring one additional employee. The balance of this article outlines the key considerations in deciding whether Joint Ventures are a viable growth alternative for your own business.

In my own experience, joint venture relationships have been the single most lucrative factor driving the growth of my businesses, with the most successful joint venture generating over $200 million in consulting fees that were split between the joint venture partners.  Other joint ventures I have participated in have been responsible for tens of millions of dollars in additional net revenues in the bank.  Yep, I do believe in the power of strategic joint ventures for most businesses!

Where To Start

Step one is to determine your own growth objectives. It is impossible to know whether you have made forward progress without first knowing what “forward” means. For some, growth of sales revenues is king. For others the only measure worth consideration is net profit. What are the elements of your growth plan for your business?  Do yours include any of the following:

• Sales revenue growth
• Net profit growth
• Efficiency ratio improvements
• Staff size growth
• Pace of new product releases
• Customer satisfaction ratings
• Repeat customer sales volume
• Reduced error rates
• Revenues per employee
• Financial stability and liquidity

These are just a small sampling of factors business owners use routinely to measure the health of their businesses.  If you have not formalized your criteria for success, now is the time to do so.

The second step is to identify those things that contribute most to your ability to achieve your business goals and those that prevent you from achieving all the success you would like.  If you are like most business owners, you will probably list some or all of the following as impediments to your success or at least things that keep you from achieving all the growth you would like.  The most common challenges reported include:

• Shortage of qualified staff
• Shortage of qualified management talent
• Shortage of cash to fund growth
• Inadequate processes, controls or technology
• Inability to get in front of a  sufficient number of customers and prospects
• Not enough products or services to sell
• Too much strong competition

Well, the good news it that you can attack every one of these obstacles with carefully constructed strategic joint ventures, effectively leveraging the assets, talents, prospects and customers of your partners.  Good joint venture relationships are the single fastest way to put your business in overdrive with the lowest financial cost and risk.

Characteristics of a Good Joint Venture

My experience is that most lasting joint venture relationships are stronger than the paper they are written on.  In otherwords, while contracts are important, they are rarely sufficient to overcome “bad blood” between the participants.  Just like a marriage, the partners must want the joint venture to succeed and be willing to “roll with the flow” when things get a little rocky…  because they will get a little rocky somewhere along the way no matter how well the venture was designed.

So what are some factors that contribute to a successful and lasting joint venture?  Number one…. all joint venture partners must see the relationship as a win-win relationship.  If you enter into a relationship where either of the parties intend to take advantage of the other partner…. don’t waste your time.  It will not last.  In most of the partnerships I have participated in, I found myself working just as hard trying to make things go smoothly and profitably for my partner as I did making the business good for my own company.  Good relationships take effort and diligence.

Another factor that contributes to a successful joint venture is how the objectives of the partners correspond to each other.  In the best partnerships, the needs of one partner correspond nicely with the strengths of the other partner.  For example, one partner may have “killer” high benefit product but a weak distribution channel, while the other partner may have a worldclass distribution network and a need for innovative new products to drive through that distribution channel.  Both partners stand to profit substantially with minimal investment and risk by working together.

There are many other joint venture success factors I will address in future articles, but if you cannot get past these first two, then you probably do not have the basis for a successful, long-lasting  joint venture.

Finding Good Joint Venture Partners

Now this section may strike you a little odd, but trust me, it works.  Strangely enough, one of the first places to look for a homerun level joint venture is  to your strongest competitors.  If you can find the right stategic fit with a strong competitor, think of the advantages…. they already have something you want right in the niche you are wanting to hit a homerun in.  They already know the “lingo” and already have either a proven product or a solid marketing and distribution channel.  They are in the best position to immediately capitalize on what you have to bring to the table.

I know, I can hear you saying….. BUT:

• My competitor will steal my stuff
• My competitor will build their own thing and cut me out
• My competitor will take advantage of me
• My competitor will steal my customers
• etc, etc, etc

I understand.  I spent years worrying about that…. over, and over, and over again.  The fact is, if the joint venture is lucrative enough and the demand is high enough to keep both partners busy, these are not nearly as serious a risk as you might suspect.

The next place to look is in peripherally related but non-competitive businesses in your industry niche.  For example, if you provide legal services, look for joint ventures with accountants, or insurance agents or other businesses that work with your ideal prospect.

There are quite a few other strategies for finding strategic joint venture partners that we explore when we are working with clients, but these should get you started.

Where To Go Next

There are tremendous rewards to be gained from good joint venture relationships.  There are also risks to be avoided.   A good joint venture can allow you to grow your business at a pace that you may have never imagined.  In our case, we were able to increase revenue per customer by 500% within two years and total annual revenues by over 300% starting in the first year.

If you decide to tap into this source of new revenue, you can go it alone or work with someone that has done it successfully many times before.  Given the impact this can make on your business, I recommend you consider a guide… like us.  We can minimize your risks and maximize your return on investment and get the benefits flowing rapidly to your business.  Give us call.  Let’s see if it makes sense for us to partner to make strategic joint ventures work for you and your business.

Which marketing method works best?  It depends!  Selecting between online marketing or mobile marketing, if you really had to only pick one, is not as easy as you might think.  It is true that a well run mobile marketing campaign can deliver up to 90-95 percent click through rates and phenomenal  pull-through to action.  Frankly nothing beats it “IF” your business or campaign is well suited for a mobile campaign.  But that is a BIG “IF”.

In almost every case, we actually end up recommending an integrated approach that includes bits and pieces of many different types of marketing and advertising.  For example, if we incorporate a mobile campaign, we almost always use both an online campaign and an onsite campaign to feed leads to the mobile campaign.  The best payback comes from the strategic combination of multiple advertising and promotion methods all feeding into the primary campaign.  But back to the question… which works best if you could only use one method.

The rest of this article offers a few guidelines to consider for deciding whether an online marketing campaign might outperform a mobile marketing campaign, or vice versa.  Admittedly, this article just touches on a few of the more obvious decision criteria.  When we perform a comprehensive marketing assessment we actually evaluate over two dozen different business criteria to nail down the optimal marketing plan.

Basic Mobile Marketing Guidelines

Mobile marketing works best for special promotions, sales events and in businesses that tend to be more of an impulse buy or build a business based on repeat customer purchases.  The obvious businesses that can capitalize on mobile campaigns are restaurants, bars, nightclubs, theaters, and other entertainment venues.  These tend to be businesses that attract repeat visits week after week from a pool of customers, making it worthwhile to build a customer or prospect list that can be tapped many times a year.  But that is not the only type of business that can achieve a big payday using a mobile campaign.  Consider these, just to name a few:

• Auto repair shops
• Home improvement contractors
• Carpet cleaners
• Landscapers
• Grocers
• Package stores
• Clothing stores
• Chiropractors
• Spas and Gyms
• Hair stylists
• Civic clubs
• Churches

All of these business share one common need.  Repeat customer encounters and a steady stream of new prospects and customers.  How about you…. would your business benefit from an economical way to contact and attract repeat customers?  If so, mobile may just be the single most impactful advertising and marketing method for you.

Basic Online Marketing Guidelines

We will actually group several different marketing techniques under the general description of “online marketing”.  As you will soon discover, these techniques work very well hand-in-hand with mobile marketing and they really should be implemented together if you are going to use mobile marketing.

Basically, under the “online marketing” banner we are going to combine search engine marketing (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc), email marketing and several other methods including video marketing and social marketing.  Online marketing techniques work well today for most businesses because so many of your customers and prospects now access computers multiple times each day.  In fact, over 74% of US families now have routine access to the internet each day, and many are using the internet extensively to search for products and services and to locate businesses that sell these products and services.

It is almost as simple as this.  If these prospects and potential customers find your business first when they are searching for what you are selling, then you have a gigantic advantage over your competitors.  One way to make sure they find your business is to do what it takes to get your business at the top of the search engines.  In otherwords, when some searches for your product or service on Google, or Bing, or Yahoo…. your business needs to show up on page one… as high up and as many times possible on page one of the search results.  This is money in the bank to most businesses.

Getting your business in the top results on the search engines is neither easy nor instantaneous, but when you get there you will be happy and you will have a longer lasting source of fresh new customers without having to shell out advertising dollars every week to promote your business.

So, is internet marketing better than mobile marketing… or vice versa?

The answer is… they go hand in hand.   Each method compounds the value of the other if done well.  In our Comprehensive Marketing Review we take an indepth look at all of your marketing opportunities to help you identify which combination of marketing techniques will give your business the greatest advantage in your own market area.

Be sure to request a copy of our complimentary “Online & Mobile Marketing Guidelines for Local Businesses” and leave your contact information so that we can determine if your business qualifies for a FREE Comprehensive Marketing Review, which will save you $199.

Online marketing and mobile marketing campaigns are significantly outperforming traditional advertising in many local businesses. Historically, most local business owners have relied on one or more of the four traditional methods of  local advertising to attract new customers and prospects.  These included Yellow Pages, Newspaper Ads, Radio Spots and Flyers.

While the cost of these traditional advertising methods have steadily risen in recent years,  the effectiveness has dropped rather dramatically for many businesses.  As the traditional advertisers continue to raise their advertising rates, sharp business owners are checking out some of the lower cost online and mobile marketing methods and finding them more effective at attracting new customers and a much better return on investment.

There are several advantages a savy business owner can gain from online marketing and mobile marketing.

• First, done correctly, both of these methods deliver highly targeted prospects right to the doorstep of the business with very little waste compared to the “shotgun” approach of traditional advertising.
• Second, unlike most traditional advertising methods, both online and mobile marketing results are measurable and trackable.
• Third, online marketing and mobile marketing campaigns can be substantially less expensive to implement than many traditional advertising methods.
• Fourth, the positive effects of online and mobile marketing campaigns are much more persistent and long lasting than traditional advertising campaigns.  It is not unusual for the business owner to capitalize on a single online or mobile campaign for months or even years after the initial investment.
• Fifth, response rates from online and mobile campaigns can be 5 to 40 times higher than traditional advertising campaigns.
• Sixth, the majority of your potential customers already have a cell phone capable of receiving your sales messages and most of them also start their search for what you have to sell online.  Buying habits and trends are changing rapidly.
• Seventh, traditional advertisers and advertising methods are on the decline.  Newspapers are losing subscribers and advertisers at an alarming rate and business owners are cutting back or dropping yellow page advertising budgets because they cannot demonstrate that the costs are justified.

It is time to find out whether there is a better way to advertise and market your business.  The best place to start is with a Comprehensive Marketing Review.  In a matter of a few hours we will be able to determine whether online and mobile marketing will pay off big for you and your business.

Be sure to request a copy of our complimentary “Online & Mobile Marketing Guidelines for Local Businesses” and leave your contact information so that we can determine if your business qualifies for a FREE Comprehensive Marketing Review, which will save you $199.

Joint Ventures can be one of the fastest and surest routes to explosive growth of your business, but it all depends on how well you select and cultivate your joint venture relationships.  In my own businesses, strategic joint ventures have allowed me to increase revenues per customer by almost 500% and increase overall annual revenues by almost 400%….. and these results occurred within 2 years and lasted for almost two decades.

So how do YOU find joint venture partners that will allow you to grow your business at such a rapid pace?  That is what this article is about…. how and where to find a good joint venture partner.  Some potential partners are totally logical and probably should be on your "A" list to pursue first. Others may be more illusive. For those you should review this 7 Hotspots Strategy for finding, pursuing and closing on some of the less obvious joint ventures partners

Direct competitors – Before you call me crazy, let me assure you that some of my most profitable and life-changing joint ventures have been with direct competitors in the same market space as my company.  I’m not saying that these types of joint ventures feel the most comfortable or will survive without a lot of care and nurturing.  These types of joint ventures will give you sleepless nights and heartburn, but also can be quite rewarding.

A successful joint venture with a direct competitor partner will probably be somewhat parasitic, sort of like misletoe in the top of an oak tree.  Oftentimes one partner is stronger or bigger than the other, usually with a more established sales or distribution channel.  But the smaller partner oftentimes brings either a unique product or service or a level of agility or adaptablility that the larger partner lacks.  Analyze competitors and find ones that could earn incremental revenues or efficiencies if they partnered with you.

Complimentary needs – Most businesses have strengths and weaknesses.  Look for joint venture relationships to fill in your weak spots.  For example, maybe your strengths are a strong customer list, good distribution channels and a fairly speciallized product line.  Your ideal joint venture partner might have products or services that would enable you to stimulate additional, incremental revenues from existing customers and provide an additional magnet for new customers.  The joint venture arrangement might be structured as a private label arrangement for one or more of your joint venture partner’s products.

Parallel niche providers – Other companies and professionals are already calling on and selling goods and services to your ideal customers.  Seek out the non-competing companies  where you both could benefit mutually from the exchange of leads or some form of shared marketing and distribution arrangements.  In its simplest form, this might just be a formal exchange of leads and prospects through referrals.  More mature relationships might include shared marketing and distribution arrangements.

Complimentary product or service – The best way to explore these joint venture relationships is to put yourself in the shoes of your customer.  What else would they want or need if they did purchase your product or service?  For example, if you sell custom inground pool installation and maintenance, an ideal complementary service provider might be a landscape company or perhaps an architect.  Both parties could benefit substantially from cross promotion and referrals.

Tag along – This type of joint venture typically occurs when one partner, with a large customer list, partners with a vendor of a consumable or somewhat related product.  In its simplest form, it might just be a mail insert for your product that is inserted in the routine invoices or correspondence mailed by the partner with the larger list of customers.  In many respects, these types of relationships look a lot like a simple advertising relationship, however often they can include partnering characteristics like revenue sharing, cross mailing, and even private label arrangements.

Suppliers and distributors- If you look upstream and downstream from your product or service, you may have ideal joint venture partners in either direction.  Take for example this simple possibility: your company sells a unique, branded cleaning compound that is applied with power applicators manufactured by your supplier.  An ideal joint venture relationship might involve you offering a private labeled version of that cleaning compound to the supplier of the power applicator to bundle with their power applicator when it is sold to other consumers and manufacturers of cleaning compounds.  You benefit from the incremental profits on higher productionline utilization and the supplier benefits from either incremental product sales or a competitive advantage, or both.

CoDevelopment- Sometimes you can get to market faster or with a better product when you partner with another company.  This happens fairly frequently in the software development world.  Both partners work together to develop a new product or refine or merge existing products.  Great care should be taken in the design and drafting of the joint venture agreement to clarify exactly who owns what and when.

Summary – Your ideal joint venture prospects will probably partner with someone…. why not you.  If they partner with you, you stand to profit and get stronger.  If they partner with your competitor, you stand to lose market share.  Get out there and find your ideal joint venture partners.

If you want to jump start your joint venture relationships and avoid some of the many hassles and risks that go hand in hand with joint ventures, you may want to work with an experience guide, like us.  We can shortcut and accelerate your joint venture search and help you avoid the pitfalls and risks.  The right joint ventures can truly mushroom your growth and profits…. let us help you make it happen.  Just submit a joint venture contact form so we can talk.

I think the law of gravity also applies to Joint Ventures and partnerships in general. "What goes up must eventually come down". It is quite rare for today’s joint ventures and partnerships to survive forever. The needs of the parties change over time. Ownership structures change.  Attitudes change.  Market opportunities change.

Good planning and  communication up front will help assure that your joint venture does not end in an “ugly” divorce.  For all but the simplest of ventures, a written joint venture agreement is recommended.  The purpose of this document is to provide clarification long after recollections and memories have faded.  Some of the more important  issues, but certainly not all of the issues, to cover in your joint venture agreements include:

Responsibilities of the partners – Be a specific as possible about the day to day responsibilities of the joint venture partners without being overly restrictive.   If you answer who is obligated to do what and when then you have a pretty good start on this section of the agreement.

Authority of the partners – Be very specific about which partners can make decisions and who is authorized to obligate the joint venture entity or partners in any way.  If you do not intend for a particular partner to be able to make large purchases, or enter into credit or debit arrangements then specifiy that in the agreement.

Performance expectations – The better you can break down the results and actions you expect from the partners the better positioned the partners are to address good or poor performance issues.  Activities related to sales, marketing, product creation, customer support, etc. should be broken down into measurable performance measures that can be routinely tracked and reported.

Profit or revenue sharing – Specify how profits and/or revenues will be split among the partners.  If the split is not fixed then specify the formula and criteria that will be used to split profits and/or revenues.  The goal is to eliminate all surprises related to money.

Future capital infusion – Sometimes an additional investment of cash or other resources is required to sustain or grow the joint venture business.  Specify who, how and when the joint venture partners will be obligated to make additional contributions to the joint venture beyond the initial obligation.  Closely tied to this provision is to address what happen if one of the obligated partners chooses not to fulfill their obligation.  This happens far more often than anyone would like.

Ownership and intellectual property issues – Specify which partners own the separately and jointly created assets of the partnership in the event of a dissolution of the joint venture, and even while the joint venture is operation.  For example: who owns physical assets brought into the partnership; who owns physical assets created by the joint venture entity; who owns the customer list; who owns trademarks, patents and similar intellectual property rights; who has the right to sell or market products created by the joint venture after dissolution; who can market independently to joint venture customers while the joint venture is still active; etc, etc, etc.

Amicable “divorce” provisions - Specify how and when the joint venture will be dissolved.  This is a more difficult section of the agreement that you might think, and often it is not given the level of thought required to avoid conflict at the time of a split up.  Specify what happens in following scenarios: one partner wants to move on to other ventures (most common reason); one of the partners fails to fulfill its obligations; one of the partners violates one of the provisions of the agreement or acts illegally or unethically; the joint venture or one or more of its partners become insolvent; one of the partners dies or becomes incompetent; one of the partners is unable to perform for whatever reason; etc, etc, etc.

Summary – Even the simplest joint venture arrangements can grow into significant, long-term businesses.  Any effort and thought invested in the beginning to work out the details and expectations of the partners and commit those to a written agreement will pay off many times over when and if the joint venture should later turn sour or outlive its usefulness.

You rarely know up front exactly where a joint venture will ultimately go.  I have been a joint venture partner in ventures that have spanned several decades and produced hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues, while others that should have been long-lasting have ended prematurely.  In every case, the efforts spent on the front end on the joint venture agreements have been time well spent…. and probably insufficient to cover all the bases that should have been covered.  Spend the time up front…. save the headaches later.

Do you need more traffic and customers in your business?  Since most business owners are in business to make money through sales of products or services, it is essential to inform prospects and customers about your offerings.  Customer cannot buy a product or a service if they do not know that it exists.  Obviously, that is why, as a business owner, you need to continue to advertise your business.

But when it comes to advertising, many business owners shudder at the thought of shelling out hard earned dollars on something that may or may not work.  Are you one of those?  Me too!  The problem is that most advertising methods cost money. Sometimes a lot of money.  Most business owners prefer make money, not spend it, right?  Well, let us introduce you to one advertising method that costs very little, if anything.  We are talking about Social Network marketing.   Social network marketing takes time, but participation can basically be free of out of pocket cost if you do the work yourself.  In a minute we will explain why you may not want to spend YOUR time doing social network marketing, but you certainly can do it yourself if you want.

Are you curious why you would want to take the time to promote your business on the social networks?   Traffic, pure and simple. Consider these statistics:

• there were 248 million unique monthly users on the top eight social networking sites (SNS) in the US (Mintel)
• social network traffic is growing by over 40% per year (Mintel)
• 61% of internet users have a profile on at least one social networking site, up from 41% a year before (Mintel)
• 90% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know, while only 41% trust sponsored ads on web pages (Neilsen)
• having a social media presence builds the trust trust in current and potential customers (Nielsen)
• time spent on social networking sites by internet users worldwide has increased from 3 hours per month to 5.5 hours per month, an impressive 82% increase (Neilsen)
• people spend the most Internet time overall on social networks and blogs (Nielsen)
• social web sites such as Facebook are now the most common homepages for Internet users (Nielsen)
• one third of adults post at least once a week to social sites such as Facebook and Twitter (Forrester Research)
• on fourth of adults publish a blog and upload video/audio they created (Forrester Research)
• 60% of adults maintain a profile on a social networking site (Forrester Research)
• 70% of adults read blogs, tweets and watch online video (Forrester Research)

Any way you cut it, the facts are impressive.  Millions of adults and teens frequent social network sites regularly and you have an opportunity to introduce your product or service to them without having to spend a dime, just by using something that is readily available online. That “something” is an online social networking website.

Although social networking websites are traditionally focused on those that would like to make online friends or develop online relationships, there are networking sites that are designed almost exclusively for business owners and professionals.  These websites will allow you to share your business information with other business owners and will allow you to develop close relationships with those prospects and potential joint venture partners that share an interest in your product or service. You may find that you learn valuable business information while also walking away with a new business joint venture partner or a new friend.

While business-related social networking websites are a great way to promote your business to other business owners and job seekers, the other more generalized online social networking websites offer a great avenue to reach potential consumers of your products and services.  This is a great way to get feedback about your offerings and to introduce your products to new prospects.

If you are looking to join an online community, you will need to create your own profile or profile page.  If you are planning on joining a traditional social networking website, to gain access to millions of potential new customers, you are urged to be careful when making your online webpage or profile.  One thing many internet users hate is being solicited directly for business. This does not mean that you cannot use social networking to your advantage; it just means that you need to be careful with how you do it. In some of the more general networks you may achieve better results by setting up a “personal” profile page rather than a business profile page.  On those sites the goal is to build trust over a longer period of time.

By joining a social networking website, especially one that is popular and has a large number of members, you should be able to generate interest in your business.  These sites can be a great way to “demonstrate” the value of your products and services and to promote special events, contests and coupons.  If you do it well, you may tap into a totally fresh new pool of customers with a very low investment of time and money.  Give it a try, it costs nothing to experiment.

Now if you are ready to really go after it, you may want to invest a little in having a pro build your social networking presence.  There are quite a few tricks and techniques that will optimize the results you can receive from social network marketing and investing in a pro will generally give you a solid return on your investment.

One of the areas we will evaluate in our Comprehensive Marketing Review is how your business might benefit from a solid social marketing campaign and how that campaign could best be integrated with your other marketing efforts to maximize your return on investment.  Be sure to request a copy of our complimentary “Online & Mobile Marketing Guidelines for Local Businesses” and leave your contact information so that we can determine if your business qualifies for a FREE Comprehensive Marketing Review, which will save you $199.