Give Your Joint-Venture Offer An Extra Punch

The other day I was asked, “How do I moti­vate a poten­tial joint ven­ture part­ner to bite? When you have a great idea and you’ve located the per­fect part­ner, how do you moti­vate them to do busi­ness with you?”

In my last post, I talked about the power of a USP and how to define one. Being unique, or hav­ing an inter­est­ing twist or hook, will def­i­nitely up your chances of get­ting noticed.

But regard­less of how you approach your prospec­tive part­ner, whether it’s through an email, fax, or phone call, or by snail mail or FedEx, it is impor­tant to craft the offer in a man­ner that shows the ben­e­fits to your joint-​​venture partner.

How­ever, there are a few extra tricks to moti­vate a poten­tial partner.

Here are some of them…

More often than not, show­ing your prospec­tive part­ner how their clients or prospects will ben­e­fit from your offer­ing is a big step forward.

Look at all the poten­tial ben­e­fits your part­ner­ship pro­vides. Don’t stick with the obvi­ous. Dig deep, and list all the advan­tages they get from doing this venture.

At the very least, and aside from the extra money they earn, if you can show your part­ner how your offer­ing will ben­e­fit their prospects and make your part­ner look good, you have a headstart.

But don’t stop there.

Think about it: if your part­ner­ship will make your part­ner look good, what will that trans­late into?

More money? Sure.

But it can also trans­late into more sales of their own prod­ucts. More pub­lic­ity and vis­i­bil­ity in the mar­ket­place. More word-​​of-​​mouth adver­tis­ing. More brand equity and trust from their peo­ple. New dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nels to exploit. New mar­kets to enter. New or increased opt-​​in lists. Dif­fer­ent test­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties. And so on.

Per­son­ally, I hate it when a poten­tial joint-​​venture part­ner approaches me, only to offer me a por­tion of the sales. This is typ­i­cal of most commission-​​based affil­i­ate sales, and is by no means a joint-​​venture part­ner­ship at all.

A joint ven­ture is a joint venture.

(I par­tic­u­larly hate it when they also ask me to con­tribute to the prod­uct — such as pro­vid­ing some if not most of the con­tent — or any of my prod­ucts as bonuses. Why would I pay a JV part­ner a per­cent­age of my own sales or intel­lec­tual prop­erty? It’s nonsense.)

Again, there’s got to be some­thing dif­fer­ent. Some­thing extra. Some­thing else that makes this a truly viable and worth­while invest­ment of your partner’s time, mar­ket­ing, and intel­lec­tual property.

Bundling prod­ucts or offers is an effec­tive strat­egy. If the JV’s prod­uct is a non-​​competing one, com­ple­ments your prod­uct, and fits your mar­ket too, then it can be bun­dled with yours to cre­ate an entirely new and sep­a­rate offering.

If you have a list that can ben­e­fit your part­ner and if your part­ner has a list you can pro­mote to, or if you can build a new one together that you both can share own­er­ship, that’s another added benefit.

But let’s say there isn’t any­thing else.

Let’s say you have cre­ated a truly excep­tional prod­uct that would greatly ben­e­fit your partner’s peo­ple. And let’s assume you’re look­ing to lever­age prof­its from your prod­uct off of a joint-​​venture partner’s opt-​​in list.

First off, you need to have sales mate­ri­als ready and tested to prove that:

1. Your prod­uct is in demand.
2. Your prod­uct is already selling.
3. Your prod­uct is sell­ing well.

In this case, you can send your poten­tial part­ner a let­ter or FedEx pack­age, and you offer to give them 50% of the sales, and include a sam­ple of your prod­uct and your proven, high-​​converting sales let­ter, if possible.

(Unless you have an exist­ing rela­tion­ship with your prospec­tive join-​​venture part­ner, try to avoid email if you can. In fact, other than snail mail, pick­ing up the phone and call­ing them directly often gives the best results.)

Again, point out the ben­e­fits. Their list will appre­ci­ate the valu­able prod­uct they’re offer­ing, and they will appre­ci­ate your part­ner for think­ing of them, too.

But do your home­work first!

Do you know and under­stand their mar­ket? Is your prod­uct a per­fect fit? Is your mar­ket a per­fect fit for their product(s), too? How many peo­ple do they actu­ally have on their lists?

If you can dis­cover how many peo­ple are on that person’s list, you can pro­vide them with a lit­tle math ahead of time.

For exam­ple, let’s say you know that their list con­sists of 5,000 peo­ple. Based on a sales let­ter with tested con­ver­sion rate of 3% and an aver­age open-​​rate of 40%, you can spec­u­late that your part­ner will gross about $3,000 in prof­its on your $50 prod­uct by doing just one mailout.

But again, this is a seem­ingly typ­i­cal offer any affil­i­ate or commission-​​based pro­mo­tion can make. So amplify the offer to increase your like­li­hood of receiv­ing a “yes.” Make it a lit­tle higher than nor­mal, if you can.

And if you do make an offer of a higher com­mis­sion rate, don’t bury this fact! Make it stand out.

For exam­ple, put the higher com­mis­sion rate in the fore­front and tell them that it is higher than nor­mal. In other words, give them the goods right away. It makes it look spe­cial and doesn’t drown the JV offer in a bunch of his­tor­i­cal plat­i­tudes, or patron­iz­ing, hype-​​filled dia­tribe that’s only going to result in a few yawns.

But don’t stop there, either.

Point out, in no uncer­tain terms, that you’re mak­ing this offer to them and them only. And point out that you’re mak­ing this offer avail­able only through this spe­cial partnership.

Yes, I highly rec­om­mend you do offer some­thing extra-​​special or exclu­sive. (Remem­ber, you’re look­ing for a joint-​​venture part­ner, not just an affiliate.)

If not, tell them you’re mak­ing this offer only to a very select group of peo­ple. But also, make sure to list all the facts and rea­sons why their pro­mo­tions won’t get drowned in a sea of com­pet­ing, pro­mo­tional messages.

Nev­er­the­less, say some­thing like:

“Since I’m con­fi­dent your peo­ple will love this prod­uct (and they will love you more for offer­ing this to them), I want to reward you specif­i­cally by pay­ing you 50% [rather than my stan­dard 25% com­mis­sion rate for affiliates]…”

Here’s an extra tip.

(This sin­gle tip is one of the most effec­tive ways we use to gain partners.)

If you want your JV offer to stand out a bit more, then offer a bit more, too — such as 55% rather than the typ­i­cal 50%.

It’s true: when peo­ple are offered 55% in spe­cial JV deals, it pulls more than 50%. Why? Because 50% is such a round, arbi­trary num­ber, where odd num­bers like 55% sound “spe­cial.” (We’ve tested this by offer­ing 51% and 53% in JV deals, and they did bet­ter than 50%.)

Another rea­son it works so well is that it makes the JV prospect feel as if they’re get­ting the bet­ter end of the deal. They are mak­ing more money than you are.

It’s all about life­time cus­tomer value. If you’re doing this pre­cisely to lever­age their lists in order to build a big­ger one for your­self from which you can profit more in the future, then who cares if they get paid more?

Finally, I would also add that you can go even a step above by offer­ing a bun­dled offer after the ini­tial pro­mo­tion, where you and your JV bun­dle your prod­ucts together at a higher price, and split the profits.

(Again, a true joint ven­ture goes beyond a typ­i­cal affiliate-​​based arrangement.)

You can pro­mote this bun­dled pack­age to both your lists. If they’ve offered your prod­uct in the past to their lists, then a bun­dled offer can get the remain­ing non-​​buyers to buy.

It might just be the extra nudge they need!

Say your con­ver­sion is 3% on aver­age. Your JV part­ner pro­motes it as a stand­alone offer to their exist­ing lists of peo­ple, with whom they have an estab­lished rela­tion­ship. Their con­ver­sion is there­fore 5%.

If you bun­dled your prod­ucts together, you both can scratch up an extra 3–5% or even more in addi­tional sales (I’ve seen as much as 11–12% by sim­ply doing bun­dled offers).

These non-​​buyers might be more inclined to buy the big­ger, more valued-​​added package.

If you can, offer it at a spe­cial price too, which is less than the two prod­ucts sold sep­a­rately. This helps you to abstain from offer­ing any dis­counts, which can cheapen your product.

(The bun­dle and its price are sep­a­rate and dis­tinct from both indi­vid­ual prod­ucts, so any spe­cial pric­ing doesn’t affect the value per­cep­tion of each stand­alone product.)

Look at it this way: you wouldn’t have gen­er­ated these addi­tional sales if you or your part­ner sim­ply stopped after the ini­tial offer.

In fact, this bun­dle might be just the per­fect nudge to get your JV’s prospects to finally buy that JV’s own prod­uct! (Now, that’s a ben­e­fit you should def­i­nitely include in your request, if you choose this route.)

Or at the very least, ask your JV part­ner if you can become their affil­i­ate and pro­mote their prod­uct to your list, too. Again, it’s a win-​​win solu­tion and beyond a typ­i­cal affil­i­ate arrangement.

Some­times moti­vat­ing a poten­tial joint-​​venture part­ner takes a lit­tle mas­sag­ing. Don’t be afraid to do your home­work, show the num­bers, pre­sent­ing them in a light that most favors your part­ner, and list­ing all the ben­e­fits and pos­si­bil­i­ties they may not have considered.

Above all, don’t just talk about the money. While it is the most com­mon rea­son behind joint-​​venture part­ner­ships, list all the addi­tional ben­e­fits your part­ner (and their prospects) will receive, too.

A good list-​​leveraging part­ner­ship is worth a lit­tle extra effort.

About the Author

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