What Is A Joint Venture?

You hear it all the time. "I gotta get me a joint venture!" And then I ask the person what they're interested in. And they come back at me with something like, "I got this really great product. If only I could get some big gun to promote it." I see. Well, I probably should have sent him this article, except I hadn't yet written it. Fortunately for you, I have written it and you can at least read about what a REAL joint venture is. Then you won't be so anxious to get some "big gun" to sell your product.

A joint venture is something that you go into with another person exclusively. It is the combining of resources and talents to make one whole product that you share equally as far as profits and expense, or at least as equally as possible. It is not you creating something and then trying to get somebody to peddle it for you. That is finding a super affiliate, which is not the same thing as finding a joint venture.

A joint venture is quite honestly, at least in some ways, more work and harder work than doing something on your own. Why is that? With a joint venture, each side of the joint venture gets an equal say in the project. It isn't a "We're going to do it my way" kind of deal. Inevitably along the way, you're going to have disagreements. There will be aspects of the project that you're not going to be able to get together on. Maybe it will be the price. Maybe it will be the way the web site header looks. Maybe it will be who you decide to outsource the sales copy to, assuming neither one of you is adept at writing sales copy.

Many joint ventures never even get off the ground because of these type of disagreements. It doesn't matter how great your product is. And sometimes, you can't even agree on that much. You decide that you want to put a chapter in on safelist advertising and your JV partner says that it's too geared to new people and you want this to be a higher end product for more advanced users. Yes, sometimes it's easier to just do things by yourself.

A joint venture is a true partnership in every sense of the word. There has to be give and take on both sides. If you have a great product that you want a big gun to promote, the only issue will probably be the commission percentage that you are willing to pay him. If you really want his help, you'll give him what he wants. Remember, you need him more than he needs you. But again, this is not a joint venture. The only risk he's assuming is sending the offer to his list and hope that they don't think it's the biggest piece of junk on the planet. But he's putting in no money, except maybe for some ad expenses if he really believes in the product. You, on the other hand, have put in all the work and funds into creating the product. Certainly this is not an equal partnership.

So the next time you say you want to do a joint venture with somebody, remember, it's not a pitch to sell YOUR product.

It's a pitch to create something together.

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