Get Promoted by Influential JV Partners
Wednesday July 17, 2024
You can have the most amazing program in the world but…
If you don’t get it in front of the right audience, you won’t be able to help enough clients or scale your business to make a bigger positive impact.
Visibility is one of the biggest problems that entrepreneurs struggle with. It’s challenging to get noticed in our crowded online world. At the same time, there are millions of potential clients looking for the help you can provide.
The BEST way to reach them is through collaborative promotional arrangements called Joint Venture Partnerships. If you want to get your offers promoted by leaders who have thousands of your ideal clients on their email lists, this is the most effective and sustainable strategy out there.
Joint Venture (JV) Partnerships have many different forms, and you don’t need a big email list yourself to get started with them. In this article, I’m going to summarize the 3 key elements you need to successfully grow your reach with JV partners.
Element #1: Savvy Planning
There’s an ancient Chinese proverb that says, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
That’s the perfect advice to finding JV Partners to promote you. These collaborations take time to grow and manifest results.
In some cases, you can get lucky and find partners with availability on their marketing calendars and want to hop in at the last minute to email their list about your launch.
In most cases, you need at least several months to build relationships with the right leaders. Many people plan their launches and marketing campaigns 3-12 months in advance!
So, if you dream of filling a program in the new year, now would be the perfect time to start reaching out and having conversations with potential JV partners.
I also recommend you plan your next 2 launches or marketing campaigns that you would like promoted. That way, when you talk with a potential partner, you can suggest two options for them to share about your offer because there’s a good chance their marketing calendar is busy.
The thing about working with JV partners is, promotional resources are limited. There are only so many emails you can send out in a given week. So, the more planning and flexibility you incorporate into your strategy, the easier it will be to find partners who can support you.
Element #2: Patience and Persistence
It’s normal to feel intimidated by approaching businesses that seem bigger than you. Or you might feel nervous about asking someone to promote you when you’re not sure how you can reciprocate for them.
And frankly, getting ignored and rejected isn’t fun. That’s going to happen a lot as you reach out to potential partners. It unfortunately stops many entrepreneurs from persevering.
But don’t worry, this is a numbers game. Most of the time when you hear “no,” it’s actually “not now.” And then you move on to the next potential partner.
The better you get at outreach, the more influential leaders will pay attention to you. Then your network starts to grow with ease and speed. People who agree to collaborate with you refer you to their partners, leading to new valuable connections.
As you gain momentum, you’ll experience how fun and rewarding it is to create successful partnership agreements with other businesses. This truly is the warmest source of traffic so be patient and persistent.
Think of a Joint Venture Partnership as two leaders aligning to help each other grow. Get to know them and find ways you can add value to their business. That doesn’t have to mean you need a big email list, although you should make it your goal to consistently grow your email list. The better it performs, the more value you have to offer certain partners you’d like to promote.
Some partners don’t require reciprocal promotion and are looking for high-converting offers to introduce to their list. They earn commissions in exchange for sending you sales.
Businesses are also looking for quality content and training, so look for guest speaking opportunities and ways to get your videos and articles featured on other people’s platforms.
Even if your list is small (and growing) you can do cross promotions with other entrepreneurs who have similar-sized lists or slightly bigger lists. When I first got started with referral partners in 2008, I asked several of my entrepreneurial friends to promote me.
They were happy to do so, and even though they didn’t have a big reach, their support added up and made a big difference. It led to my first live event that generated $25,0000 in ticket sales!
I also remember one of the first big partners I enrolled to promote me back in 2011. I was hosting my first summit and invited him to be my keynote speaker. Back then my email list was about 5,000 subscribers, and his had several hundred thousand subscribers!
But because I communicated about my summit with passion and commitment, and he wanted the speaking opportunity, he said yes! When he promoted my event, he sent me 1,000 opt-ins to my list in just one day.
Hosting summits and giveaways is the BEST way to inspire larger JV partners to promote you, and that is something I teach in my Irresistible Marketing Club.
The bottom line is, get as many referral partners as possible to promote your launch – big and small!
Sometimes partners with smaller lists can send you more sales than partners with bigger lists. Fit matters more than size.
And remember, a grassroots approach can really add up to significant impact.
At the same time, invite bigger potential partners to discuss collaborating well in advance. Connect and follow up consistently to build valuable relationships that will grow your business.
Element #3: Confident Commitment
The strategy of growing your list and visibility with JV partners isn’t creatively or technically difficult. The collaboration agreements are pretty straightforward as long as you have clarity (this is something we teach in-depth in The Irresistible Marketing Club).
What entrepreneurs tend to struggle with most is their mindset. They question their worthiness to approach bigger partners. Sometimes they shy away from the reaching out to anyone because they lack clarity, confidence, or commitment.
You need to be 100 percent committed to growing your business for this to work well. When you set your launch dates, put your stake in the ground and go all in! Do whatever it takes to make it the best launch possible.
When potential partners sense your commitment and see that you’re boldly and confidently going for your goals, they gain more respect for you as a leader. They’re far more likely to promote you.
On the flip side, if you’re wavering or weak about your launch plans, you will not get influential people to collaborate with you.
Joint Venture partners are leaders, and so are you. Show up like a confident leader. Your confidence comes from knowing your intrinsic value. Regardless of your external results, assets or experience, you have an important message to share and value to offer others.
Trust that you’re meant for this. And be open to magic happening!
By the way, a great resource to find JV partners is the JV Directory. You can get a free 3-month trial by going here.
