Life Optimizer Series

Where are you focusing your time?

Are your current actions bringing you closer to or further from your major objectives in your life, family or business?

This short optimization video challenges your to write down everything you do for the next 7 days to see exactly where your time is going.

I think you’ll be amazed at where your time is spent compared to where you “think” it’s spent.

To your success,

Christian

You know that JV marketing is a good way to build your customer base. You have even gone so far as to make a list of potential partners that could have a positive impact on your business. Now what? The next step is to approach some of those potential partners to see if you could move forward with a business relationship.

If your hands are getting clammy at the mere mention of professional networking and selling yourself to other businesses, you are not alone. Check out these four tips to approaching JV partners to make the process go as smoothly and successfully as possible.

Remain Professional

No matter how you contact your JV partners, whether it is by phone, email or traditional post, professionalism is something that should always be at the forefront of your mind. The written word should be formatted and composed in a business style, with the use of Mr. and Mrs. and common niceties like please and thank you littered throughout.

Do not be too obvious in your sales pitch; instead, outline your company, product and benefits of working with you clearly and succinctly. A potential partner will always appreciate your professionalism, even if the partnership does not work out.

Make it Personal

Templates, both in letters and emails, are never the way to get noticed. In fact, sending correspondence to total strangers is rarely going to elicit a response. This is where professional relationships come in very handy, and you can build those relationships through trade shows, conferences and other modes of professional networking.

Keep your business cards handy to exchange with the associates you meet at the venues. By making that personal connection first, you are more likely to inspire at least some consideration when you approach a business with a JV marketing proposal.

Show the Benefits

In a world of “what’s in it for me?” it is very important to show the benefits of working with you to any potential partner, first and foremost. While you may reap most of the rewards from the relationship at first, your JV partner can also see advantages in terms of commissions on your sales or mutual advertising. Begin with the benefits, and you may at least get your prospective partner to read your email or letter through to the end. This is the first step in obtaining a positive response for an official JV partnership.

Follow Through

Your first email or letter may not get read. Your initial phone call may not get returned. Persistence is the key in any successful JV partnership. While you don’t want to drive your potential partner crazy with daily phone calls or regular sales pitches, a polite follow-up to see if the person has read your proposal is certainly appropriate. Some JV marketers suggest correspondence once a week for a month to six weeks at a time. If a response is not received within this time frame, it is probably a good indication that it is time to move onto another prospect.

Finding JV partners and landing them can be easier said than done. Once you have a list of prospective partners, keep these tips in mind to help you successfully establish good JV partnerships that will benefit both businesses in the long run.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free Joint Venture Marketing Wealth Report.

Forming a joint venture can be wildly successful, and it can also become a headache. Joint venture partners come in all shapes and sizes. And though most entrepreneurs and business owners are professional in their conduct, many are still difficult to deal with, and personality conflicts can arise. So what can you do to help assure a sound relationship with your JV partner?

Take heed of advice from Cesar Millan, also known as the “Dog Whisperer”. Cesar has become the leading expert in dog psychology and dog rehabilitation. Although his strategies are aimed at canine “pack” instincts, his psychology can work well for joint venture partners as well. Here are some examples:

Calm-Assertive Energy

Cesar advocates that all dog owners display calm-assertive energy. An owner should show a dog that he or she is the pack leader using compassionate and calm methods. Yelling, nervousness, and anxiety are not good qualities of a good calm-assertive leader.

This tip doesn’t mean you have to set yourself apart from your JV partner as the “pack leader”.  Nor does it mean one of you must become the “calm-submissive” type that will obey the commands of the leader.

How this can benefit you and your JV partner is that you both display assertive behavior without becoming emotional. Energy is calm, and both are in control of all communications and tasks.

Set Rules, Boundaries, and Limitations

Cesar teaches that dogs must have rules, boundaries, and limitations to know how to respond to different situations. Your JV is just the same. Both you and your JV partner must set rules, boundaries, and limitations so you both are clear on your roles and responsibilities.

For instance, can you contact your JV partner any time of day? Do you have permission to access your JV partner’s facilities? And likewise, does your JV partner have permission to utilize your equipment? All this and more need to be pre-determined before the JV goes into effect. Your rules, boundaries, and limitations will help you and your JV partner know exactly what to expect from each other.

Clarify “Issues”

An unstable dog is unclear about its role. This causes anxiety, aggression and fear. Cesar Millan teaches that a dog must trust his owner to be a pack leader and know its role in the pack.

Likewise, you and your JV partner must know your roles. Who will perform the marketing? Who will keep the books? Who’s in charge of production? Clarify all these types of issues and you will have a more successful JV “pack”.

Achieve Balance

Ultimately, you want to achieve balance with your JV. Much like Cesar advocates for dog owners, balance creates a harmonic, productive, and happy life. Set and know your limitations and boundaries. Set up roles for you and your JV partner. Let Cesar Millan’s experience with canine psychology teach you similar lessons in JV psychology. All elements should be balanced so both parties are happy with the effort, as well as the outcome.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free Joint Venture Marketing Wealth Report.

What I’m about to share with you could seriously change your financial future in a positive way…

Wait let me rephrase that.

What I’m about to share with you, directly led to over $250 million in sales for one of my clients in less than 11 months.

Okay, I don’t expect you to believe me, and I know that’s a bold statement so let me give you little background.

I’ll also fill you in on my latest marketing project (these are the same tactics that I used in creating the $250 million in sales for my client) that I’m working on with Mark Joyner, the legendary marketer and business building expert.

I’ll keep this short as possible while explaining this very powerful, “integrated” way of marketing yourself, your idea or your existing product or service.

As you know, I specialize in doing joint venture deals. I connect supply and demand chains, create new relationships, products and services and ethically use underutilized assets of other people, companies, networks, etc as distribution channels to create, automated profit centers.

I know that’s a mouth full, and it may sound confusing, but stick with me.

A little background first…

You see, leveraging existing relationships and trust of other people can literally cut years off of the time that it would take you to create these relationships and trust networks by yourself.  It’s one of the primary tactics that top level marketers and  entrepreneurs, from one-man startups to international corporations have used to launch and expand their businesses for the last 200 years.

If you can tap into these types of existing relationships (and I’ll show you how),  the time it will take you to start earning more money from your business (or start a new one) will be reduced by weeks, months and years. This is a proven fact that I personally witnessed week in and week out since I (unknowingly) started doing joint ventures back in 1989 at the will age of 19.

You’ve been on my list, RSS feed or read by regular blog posts, so you know that I try to push out high-quality, joint venture based information on a regular basis to give you proven ideas, tips, tactics and strategies that I’ve personally used to create millions of dollars for my clients over the years. Hopefully, I’ve earned your respect and most of all your trust in directing you towards being more profitable in your business using joint venture marketing techniques.

Okay, so maybe you know this already. You know about the power of leveraging other people’s underutilized assets. You’ve heard how joint ventures can quickly turn into profits. But, I’m willing to bet that you have not successfully executed a joint venture relationship as of yet.

Let’s take this one step deeper. There is a subcategory to doing joint ventures that allowed me to “integrate” my clients services directly into the existing sales process of another company for no upfront, out-of-pocket costs and with very little risk. In fact, the entire process was set up with a phone call and one face-to-face meeting.

So let me help you take the next step and introduce you to the specific way of setting up profitable joint venture deals through a process called “integration marketing”. In short, integration marketing literally allows you to integrate or insert your existing product or service into the existing sales process of a related product or service.

Integration marketing techniques have been used by some of the world’s most famous companies including Microsoft, McDonald’s, HP and Wal-Mart,  but don’t let that intimidate you or send you down the ” this won’t work for me” highway. It works just as well for small start-ups and  entrepreneurs at home in their pajamas. The same tactics apply regardless of the size of your company. It works if you are one man or woman show or if you manage a complex international corporation with thousands of employees.

My latest project has connected me with the legendary marketer, Mark Joyner. Mark has written an entire book on the subject of integration marketing. He’s taken the concept and broken it down into bite sized, easy to understand concepts that make it easy to understand and apply these integration marketing tactics to your own business. He’s even come up with a method based on “predicted math” that you can use to ensure the highest probability of success when you apply these integration marketing methods.

My next post will give you specifics of how you can start increasing your profits  using these integration marketing techniques.

When you formed your JV business, where did you acquire your customers? Did you combine mailing and contact lists to offer existing customers great new and improved benefits with your JV business? Did you advertise to a specific demographic and target market?

Wherever your JV customers came from, it is important to realize that repeat business is essential for most businesses. In addition, it is important to remember that customers, new or returning, have a choice and can always go to your competitors if they feel you have not earned their business.

What can you and your JV partner do to keep the customers returning time after time? Here are four great ideas about how you can treat your customers to assure their loyalty.

1. Give the Extra Value

No matter what you sell in your JV business, always go the extra mile for your customers. As an example, say five other businesses selling hair products just like your JV business. What attracts customers to your place of business? It could be that you offer a free trial, you give complementary samples along with a free wash, or maybe it’s because you simply sell the products cheaper by running a low overhead.

Regardless of the reason, people will choose your business over another because of the value they receive. Be sure you give them the extra value so they keep coming back.

2. Respond Promptly

Do you and your JV partner operate a service business? How quickly do you respond to customer calls or inquiries? Do you answer calls right away, or let it go straight to message?

Responding right away to your customers gives them the impression that their problems or needs are your top priority. Even if you can’t answer a call right away, returning a message within an hour or two is essential for letting the customer know you are on top of his or her problem and will be there to serve his or her needs.

3. Go for Never-Ending Improvement

Don’t just sell the same product or service again and again, over and over. To earn loyal customers, you must not only meet their needs, but also constantly improve so you always provide that “wow” factor and stay ahead of the competition.

Try to improve the quality of your manufactured goods. Even the packaging of your JV product is a facet that can be improved. Or in a service industry, strive to include more value for your services, such as more streamlined packages, or new methods to include with your service.

4. Always Demonstrate Respect

One of the best ways to keep customers coming back is to simply respect them. Remember when it was customary to refer to customers by last name, such as Mr. or Ms. So-and-So? It is sad to think the days of respect are gone, but you can bring them back in your JV business.

Always speak to customers with a smile. Attempt to resolve conflicts with sincerity and a respect for the customer’s needs. You don’t have to say the cliche, “have a nice day”, but substitute that farewell with something like, “thank you for your business”, “we’ll see you next time”, or perhaps, “it’s been a pleasure”.

Loyal customers are the backbone of your JV business. Give them the reasons they need to make the choice of loyalty. Your JV business will be glad you went the extra miles.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free Joint Venture Marketing Wealth Report.

To make money online many people jump right in before they are properly prepared. You know that to be a rocket scientist, a doctor, a brick layer, a construction worker, an office worker, a teacher there are prerequisites, things you must learn, before you can be successful, you don’t just jump right in unprepared.

The same applies to the Internet marketing industry even though there are unsavory people out there who’d have you believe it’s a “Walk in the Park” and requires no more than the belief that you can just do it.

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And I’ll have to admit, it is a walk in the park compared to what you have to put up with in the working world punching a clock being a subordinate to someone who does not have your interests in mind, but there are still rules you have to follow and pitfalls you must avoid to actually make Internet marketing work for you.

Most people will not make a dime online and yet there are others who will make more in one month than most people make in a whole year. Why is that?

My answer begins with the age-old chicken or egg question, “what comes first the chicken or the egg”? Personally I vote for, well never mind, each argument you or I make comes back to the same old conclusion - I have no clue and I don’t think many of us do either.

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But one thing I do have a clue about and know for sure is that to make money online you must first have Passion for the company products and/or service of any Internet business from which you expect to make money.

Passion in this sense simply means that you’ve researched and like the company and products or services. It is then that you translate that like (or Passion) into the education, excitement and work that usually accompany Passion.

I will have to say that many online entrepreneurs are so good at what they do that they ignore passion because they can sell anything. But I’m concerned about those of you who are not so knowledgeable at working an online business successfully.

Now, I’m not trying to make anyone believe that Passion is the only thing necessary. Because to be successful you must also have a good website, good marketing, widespread advertising, company support, effective keywords, and etc. Those things are often learned from the company you join - but sidestep Passion and you reduce your chances for success dramatically.

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It therefore follows that, if you have no Passion for the company and the products and services provided by that company, again, you won’t attempt to do the work you are being taught.

Internet marketing work is typically not all that difficult or time consuming but it does take motivation caused by Passion to get you off and running with a sustained effort so that you won’t stumble.

You have a great resource in the Internet search engines to search about the Internet Marketing industry for business opportunities, USE IT!

Your research should uncover a company that you like and have confidence in. It should be solid, founded on great principles, and easy to understand with great products and services that are sell-able for which you can have Passion. If you don’t find it move on,
You can find the right opportunity containing the attributes identified above.

Comments like, well, that one sounds good and the compensation plan is excellent so I guess I’ll start that business - does not sound like a decision based on anything near Passion. And remember when you hear that an Internet “guru” does that, don’t be tempted, because as I said earlier they are experienced and can sell just about anything, without being Passionate about the company products and services.

Note: By the way it’s your goal to get to the point where you can sell about anything online. That end skill and goal is a worthy one indeed.

Remember, there are other steps you must make before you step into Internet Marketing but if you don’t first find the right company products and services to be passionate about, all of those other steps may just cause you a lot of frustration instead of bringing you great success.

Not being Passionate about a company and products and services that has market proof that it will sell is a pitfall you simply must avoid.

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I’m here in Washington, DC at Yanik Silver’s Underground 5 conference where Bob Parsons, the CEO and founder of GoDaddy, gave the keynote speech.

Bob is a lively character, full of life, experiences, and street smart wisdom!

At the end of his speech, he gave his 16 time tested, battle ready tips for increasing your personal and business experiences.

1.    Get out of your comfort zone.
2.    Never give up.
3.    When you’re ready to quit, you’re the closest you’ve ever been to succeeding.
4.    Accept the worse thing that can happen. If you can deal with that, do what your contemplating doing.
5.    Focus on what your want, not what you don’t want.
6.    Take things a day at a time.
7.    Always be moving forward. Small daily progress leads to large successes in the future.
8.    Be quick to decide.
9.    Measure everything significant. You can’t improve what you can’t measure.
10.    Anything that’s not managed will ultimately fail.
11.    Watch your competitors, what watch yourself closer.
12.    Never let anyone push you around.
13.    Never expect life to be fair.
14.    Solve your own problems.
15.    Don’t take yourself to seriously.
16.    Always find a reason to smile.

It’s all about minimum input and maximum output.

When I was first starting out on the Internet and as a business owner, I would sit in front of my computer for hours hitting the refresh button after every promotion, website tweak, or SEO hack I implemented. One day it finally hit me. I was spending so much time on activities that only garnished me a small output that I realized my efforts were taking me a long time. Hours and hours, and sometimes days, yet the output that I got from these activities were minimal at best.

I want you to try this exercise.  Take out a piece of paper and draw two lines on that paper dividing one page into three columns. On the left side put the title on the top of the page and call it  “input”.  In the middle column, on the top of the page, label that “category”. On the right side, on the top of the page, put the heading of “output”. Now, on the right side, start listing some of your activities that you do on a daily basis to build your business.  Use this as a brainstorming session. Just write down whatever you do starting tomorrow morning when you get in the office or when you start working from home. You could break your tasks up into a number of categories such as strategy, tactical, operational. For the sake of argument and keeping this article concise and to the point, we’ll label each one of your tasks on the left side with the three categories that we just described. So, for example, if you put down in the left column “modify my meta tags on my blog”, give this a category of tactical in the middle column. If you put down “split test my landing page offer”, this would fall under the category of strategy.  If another one of your tasks is “prepare media Kit”, this would fall under an operational task. Then on the right column, write down what you got out of doing this task. Was it motivational, a desired result, a sale or maybe that activity resulting in no output at all. Whatever it was, just write it down.

By the end of the day, you should have at least 5-10 tasks that you believe are related to building your business that fall under the strategy, tactical, or operational category.

After you do this for just one day from the time you start work until you finish your work, you’re going to be very surprised at the number of activities that you spend time on that do not yield you a high output.

Usually these are tasks that fall under the tactical and operational category. These are certainly important tasks and need to get done, but more than likely, they are not contributing to increasing your profits, or meeting your income goals.

The point of this exercise is to make you aware of what activity you are spending your time on. This will allow you to determine if your current input (your activity) is equating to a high output (your results). I’m not saying do not do these tasks, since they are clearly important to you and your business. What I am saying is to be aware of the time that you’re spending on tasks that should be delegated to a coworker, employee, or virtual assistant so your time can be freed up to work on the strategies that will produce the most tangible outcome in the shortest amount of time.

A good joint venture marketing partnership creates a type of synergy that benefits both parties in greater ways than going solo. One could say that the sum of a JV is greater than the individual parts. How is this so? Using the right marketing techniques together in a combined effort just makes sense if it saves money on the budget and generates more revenue.

JV Match Maker

Finding the right JV match can be time consuming. When you look for a potential JV partner, you should consider which type of people (direct, aggressive, or creative) you like working with. Sometimes a great JV partnership is gained from sharing different talents in a combined effort. For example, you may be a techno wiz and need a creative person who can help with marketing messages. Together your talents can benefit the other.

You also may want to look at the type of industry or business of your potential JV partner. Sometimes working with someone who does a similar business can create a synergetic partnership, and sometimes a company doing a completely different business can be beneficial. Look for what you want to gain.

Sending the Right Message

A synergetic JV partnership develops the right message to customers. Opening the right market channels through your message helps both parties gain more clients and customers, as well as other potential business partners.

More Money

Of course, one of the main goals of a joint partnership is earning more revenue. Through the synergetic efforts of both parties, a JV partnership can save money on marketing costs, possibly production costs, and generate more revenue with increased sales.

Consider if you had a budget of $10,000 per year on marketing costs. Through a combined joint venture effort, including sharing marketing costs, you’ll find that you can save $2,000 a year on that portion of your budget. That’s $2,000 that could be spent on other efforts such as R & D, or perhaps hiring additional employees for all the extra products you need to produce.

Another way of forming cost savings with a JV partnership is by creating an economy scale. Perhaps by using your special container equipment combined with your JV partner’s ability to efficiently manufacture and package goods, your economies of scale synergy can result in saving of costs of goods sold and increased revenue.

Ultimately a successful JV will produce satisfying profits for both parties. Increased revenue with only half or a portion of the effort is successful synergetic business. With increased revenue, you can help take your company to another level of business.

Your potential joint venture partner can help your business succeed. Consider the possibilities of working with another business owner to develop ways of making new business. It starts with choosing the right partner, and working your synergy to develop the right marketing message that results in extra money in your business account.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free Joint Venture Marketing Wealth Report