Any ‘truly’ successful business owner understands the power of leveraging joint ventures, often referred to as ‘strategic partnerships’ for maximum exposure and profitability in their business.
The advantages in using joint ventures to grow your small business are endless and unmatchable. So, if this is the case, why isn’t every small business owner implementing joint ventures as one of their business-building strategies?
Below is a short list of the 5 biggest misconceptions that small businesses and online businesses have about Joint Venture marketing:
Joint Venture Misconception #1:
Fear of losing Money: Many small business owners find themselves on a shoestring budget when it comes to marketing their business. Often times they are busy focusing on how to conserve their marketing dollar and cut back, rather than realizing there is another way, a risk-free way to market their business with little or no out-of-pocket expense.
By using a joint venture marketing strategy, you can arrange it so that a company will promote your products/services for free and they will receive a commission only when they send business to you and you actually make a sale. This means you are only paying when there are results! This is a risk free marketing strategy that costs you no money, and very little time to set up.
Joint Venture Misconception #2:
Fear of losing Clients: Whether you like it or not, your clients will continue to buy other products and services from other companies, including in some cases, your competition.
Rather than trying to hoard your clients for yourself, by referring them and recommending to them other products and services through your joint venture partners, everyone involved is benefiting:
(1) Your client does not have to waste time searching and testing to find those quality products/services themselves, (2) you are strengthening your relationship and rapport with your client by finding them complementary products/services that are of value to them and (3) by leveraging the products/services of your joint venture partner you can offer them discounts and special bonuses, etc., that they would otherwise not be able to get. This in turn, makes your JV happy and increases their willingness to work with you and help promote you, as well.
Joint Venture Misconception #3:
Fear of losing Profits: Believe it or not, many small business owners would rather struggle to get clients than give up a percentage of their profits to someone else. This is a very limited way of thinking and not the mindset of a ‘truly’ successful business owner.
One of the greatest benefits of joint venturing is that you don’t have to waste money on advertising to find out if it is effective or not. Instead, by joint venturing you can leverage the marketing power of another company to generate sales/responses that it would have otherwise cost you a lot of money with little or no return on investment.
Joint Venture marketing takes the risk out of spending money, and although you may be giving up a small portion of your profits to your JV partner, you will have saved a lot of money in the long run, while you’ve gained more business in return. Joint venturing in this sense is also more effective, because you can leverage the relationship and trust that your JV partner already has with their customers, which will more likely increase your chances of making a sale!
Joint Venture Misconception #4:
Fear that they are too complicated: It is true; there are very complex ways in which a Joint Venture can be structured. However, this is usually done primarily between big corporations that have a lot of money invested into it and usually have a lot of red tape and legalities to deal with.
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