Joint Venture 101: Finding Your Partners

Now that we’ve established the basic reasons who you should engage in joint venture (JV) partnerships (see part I of this series), let’s now move on to the actual how-to guide- on to finding joint venture partners.

Finding the right partner for a venture heavily relies on your pre-existing connections and/or networks. Hopefully, if you’ve been around for sometime, you already have an idea of who to talk and negotiate to. These might be the people you’ve corresponded sometime ago, or someone you know and trust based on his credentials and expertise. It’s obvious that the first thing you should do is seek out for them and send your proposal.

However, if you’re a newbie and you don’t have the pre-existing contacts to those kind of people, you’d have to take an extra effort in looking out for them. Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean you’re at a loss. There are still methods you can use to find the perfect JV partners.

Networking in the Right Places

If you really don’t know where to start looking, go for the obvious –> Google it! Yes, it may sound like a ‘duh’ idea, but you see, when it comes to the people (or at least sites) that matter, you should trust search engines to lead you to them (after all, if they show up in Google, that already means something right?).

If you are not really much of a ‘Google-it’ fan, you can opt to really on good, credible top lists. For example, Guy Kawasaki, in his AllTop site lists the top blogs from all general niches. And the last time I checked, it was VERY reliable. Start by looking around, from there, you can work your way up to find JV partner prospects.

Using Keyword Research Tools

This method is usually used by the professional internet marketers if they want joint ventures for their would-be-launched or pre-existing products. In short, for products that they need to mass market quick time.

There are many market research tools, commonly in the form of software that lets you track down or collect lists of whatever kind (keyword related) information that you need. For example, if you’re about to release a health-related ebook and wants to find A LOT of JV partners to promote it for you, instead of the manual searching, you simply type in a keyword, wait for the software to populate a list of sites that are related and contact those sites that show up. If you have an even better keyword research tool, sometimes, it can even identify the contact details right away (if I can remember the name correctly, I think Keyword Elite can do this).

Of course, that kind of a powerful tool doesn’t come for free. You have to invest in it. So be careful and wary too on your choice of software. Look out for the best.

Serendipity (Just Plain Luck)?

Sometimes (and for so many things), we have to trust our luck too.

And yes, this might mean randomly hoping for someone to be interested. You never know right? Try forum posting, especially in internet marketing forums like WarriorForum.com or in the Digital Point Forums. There are literally thousands of people in there who are looking for a profitable partnership. Just post your proposal, give out contact details and hope someone would be interested enough to give you a message.

How to Contact JV Prospects

Like for everything else, you have to follow the conduct of professionalism. Be straight to the point, be persuasive. The subject line must clearly state your intention in the email, write a short introduction of who you are and the venture that you want to propose. You need to highlight (without exaggerating) the benefits of the partnerships. But then, you also have to be clear on the responsibility that becoming your JV partner requires (because some people just get the ‘money’ and not the ‘work’ part).

If you seriously want someone as a JV, follow-up your email after 1 or 2 days to make sure. If it’s a big venture, you might try to directly call (people will take you more seriously if you go the extra mile).

Accepting a Partnership

The best part is when someone gets interested and accepts the partnership. But don’t be too excited yet, you have to really confirm and review the people you get into a venture. A quick interview or chat never hurt anyone. Get to know the person a bit more and try to see proofs that you’re getting something beneficial out of it.

Last but not the least, explicitly state what it takes to be a JV partner. After all, the goal is to get the job done 😉