Business Tips Guides

Joint venture marketing, also known as JV marketing, has become a very popular way for businesses to maximize their exposure in the marketplace, as well as their profits. When two or more businesses combine their resources, contacts and clients in a synergistic way, it has the potential to create a larger marketing impact, and greater profits than either entity has the capacity to create on its own.

Put your needs first - even if you are a new business

When entering into a new joint venture marketing partnership, you are creating a relationship, and one that may potentially be a close, profitable and long-term one. Given this, it may be tempting to look at the partnership from the perspective of your partners to be sure that their needs are being met and that the deal is fair to them. This is important, as people who are not being offered a fair deal are unlikely to be happy with the long-term relationship. But, the first thing you must ask yourself and have a positive answer for is, What’s in it for me? It is essential to secure a fair and profitable deal for yourself and your company.

If you have just started a business, or are new to the practice of joint venture marketing, it may be tempting to think that you should accept a lesser deal because your partner is doing you a favor by deciding to engage in a partnership with a novice. This is the time to be selfish! Do not undermine your potential or sell yourself short by getting into a partnership that doesn’t offer equal benefits to you. If you accept a deal like this, it has the potential to backfire down the road for a couple of reasons:

- Your partner may develop an undervalued perception of your company
- It may affect your partnerships and profits down the road
- You may not be enjoying your fair share of joint revenues

Don’t set precedence for lowered profits

When starting a new joint venture marketing partnership, if you accept a lower percentage of profits or of advertising space, this tends to set a precedent where your partners may then expect you to continually accept a lesser deal. And if this sort of thinking continues, it has the potential to breed resentment on your part and affect your professional relationship with your partner, but it may also affect the future of your bottom line and company profits.

If you are new to the market or new to a business, you have just as much to offer as an established company. They may have a larger and more grounded client list and more experience, but particularly with the climate of Internet business, it is vital to offer something new and cutting edge. You may benefit from their expertise, but they will benefit from your fresh ideas and perspective.

Keep in mind that you may not have the same things to offer as your partners, but you have just as much value to bring to the venture. It is fine to look out for yourself and the interests of your company, and probably a good way to embark on your joint venture marketing partnerships. Being selfish doesn’t entail being unfair or rude - simply keeping the interests of your business at the front of your mind, which is exactly what your partner will be doing for his or her own company!

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing &
Consulting firm empowering business owners to discover and implement
profitable Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve specific business
challenges.
http://www.christianfea.com
christian@synertegic.com

A joint venture marketing partnership is an enterprise undertaken by two or more people or companies, who typically share the expense, and ideally the profits, created by their union. Joint venture marketing agreements do not create new business organizations or third party companies from their union - the idea is for two, or several parties to come together to share ideas, expertise, clients and contacts.

Advertising Joint Ventures

One of the most popular types of joint venture marketing partnerships involves a sharing of advertising space. This can take several forms:

- Trading space on your partners website for space on your site
- Pooling resources to purchase ad space
- Selling space on your website to your partners.

Trading Ad Space

Forming a joint venture marketing relationship where the venture involves trading space for website advertising is fairly straightforward. If you have only one partner, you would swap an equal amount of space on your website for advertising for your partners company, and receive the same amount of advertising space on their website in return.

These types of partnerships are mutually beneficial to both parties and usually don’t require an upfront investment of capital. The same principle holds with more than two partners - each partner would be granted ad space on each of the respective websites of their joint venture marketing partners. This can be a highly beneficial arrangement at very little cost or risk - you could expand your advertising capabilities several times over and reach more people than you would independently. This is also a valuable resource because you will often be able to reach a niche of people that you would not be able to reach solely through your own website advertising.

Purchasing Joint Ad Space

Forming a joint venture marketing partnership where you pool financial resources to purchase advertising space is a valuable way to achieve the high-profile exposure of a paid ad, with a decreased expense. Advertising space, whether on a website or in print, is usually sold in increments of three or four spaces per page. This, of course, will depend on the publication - some will sell as little one sixth or one eights of a page, and you always have the option to purchase a full-page ad.

It is more cost-effective to pool resources with a joint venture partner to purchase ad space because it is cheaper to buy a larger chunk of advertising space, even if it will be used for different ads, than it would be to purchase each advertising spot separately.

Selling Website Space

Selling ad space on your own company’s website can be a profitable way to raise revenue for your company. If you have already made an agreement to trade ad space with a joint venture partner, but they would like additional space, you may charge them a fee.

Another option is always to sell space on your website in the open market to companies with whom you do not as of yet have a joint venture marketing partnership, and this can also increase your professional contact list and increase the potential for future joint venture marketing partnerships.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing &
Consulting firm empowering business owners to discover and implement
profitable Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve specific business
challenges.
http://www.christianfea.com
christian@synertegic.com

Joint venture marketing is a highly effective, yet largely underrated form of marketing - one that can be custom tailored to meet your company’s specific needs.

The idea behind a joint venture marketing partnership is to share expertise and resources with the companies with whom you choose to partner. These partnerships can range from sharing client lists and advertising budgets, to simply endorsing the products and services and website of other businesses.

Search engine placement is widely thought to be the most important aspect of marketing. While optimizing your search engine potential is an important step in the process of successful marketing, well-placed endorsements from other companies can prove to be equally as valuable.

Optimizing Search Engine Placement

It is fairly common knowledge that search engine placement and wording to optimize search engine status is a critical component to running an online business. What is so wonderful about a joint venture marketing partnership that incorporates endorsements is that you can increase the traffic to your site. Your joint venture partner can place links on their website pointing to your company, and these backlinks will add authority to your SEO.

Shared endorsements that develop as a result of a joint venture marketing partnership have the potential to have a direct effect on the placement of your website and business on search engines.

What is an Endorsement?

An endorsement in a joint venture marketing partnership is the same as an endorsement in any other realm. Simply put: it is the act of lending support, backing and approval to your partner’s business, including its products and services.

An endorsement in regards to a joint venture marketing partnership is generally the mutual endorsement of your joint venture company’s products and services. This can be a very valuable resource with very little upfront cost, and can be accomplished in a variety of ways.

Endorse Through Your Company Newsletter

If you have forged a new joint venture marketing partnership, using your company newsletter as a platform to endorse the products of your joint venture marketing partners is a great way to start exploring the benefits and parameters of the relationship with very little, if any, upfront cost or risk.

An endorsement of a joint venture marketing partner’s products and services can be something as small as an advertisement placed in some part of your company’s newsletter, or a mention in the actual text of your newsletter.

If you have a loyal customer base, your customers have a relationship with your built on trust, rapport and respect. They will take seriously any recommendation that you make to them. This has the potential to significantly increase your joint venture marketing partners business, sales, customers, and client list.

The bonus here is that since you have formed a joint venture marketing partnership, your partner or partners will be doing the same for you - they will be endorsing and lending support to your products and services at the same time that you are endorsing, backing and lending your approval to their products. The beauty of this joint venture marketing partnership endorsement agreement is that it doesn’t have to cost either party anything at all.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing &
Consulting firm empowering business owners to discover and implement
profitable Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve specific business
challenges.
http://www.christianfea.com
christian@synertegic.com

Partnerships are some of the most difficult relationships in business to manage. More often than not they end in failure. They can become extremely complex and if they don’t work out things can get very messy, often ending in failed friendships and estranged families. So if you are considering a business partnership there are a few things you should keep in mind.

When considering becoming a partner with someone you need to remember that your partnership will become about more than money. It’s about trust. It’s about relationship building between you and your partner. Together you’re going to have a lot of challenges and difficulties that you’ll need to work through together. You can’t just make an important business decision on your own. You’ll need to discuss it with your partner and vice versa. But at the same time there will be instances when something can’t be talked about beforehand and each person will need to have confidence in the other to make the right decision.

If you are thinking of forming a business partnership with someone you will also need to determine whether you know the person well enough to work with them. Do your personalities complement each other? Do your business and your partners mesh together effectively? You need to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses and your partners to make sure that between the two of you there exist the skills needed to succeed.
And a successful business partnership needs to have shared goals and values. The two of you need to agree on what you want the business to become. Are you looking to build up your own little empire or are you happy with the fact that you are your own bosses and can make a decent living.

Successful business partnerships are rarely equal partnerships. Fifty fifty splits are not a wise idea when considering being partners with someone. This of course is an area that can cause a lot of animosity. But for a business to be successful most often it needs to have one voice that has the final say. Often this is worked out by determining who will be the president of the company and who is the vice president or some other such title. This can work and often does but the fact that two different people own exactly half of the company can often come into play anyway.

Once the other details have been worked out you’re final test of whether a partnership can work is to draw up a business plan. In it you can outline each person’s area of responsibility within the business. It’s important because even though you’ll want to discuss those important decisions that must be made you also want to be able to take advantage of the skills that each person is bringing into the business. You’ll want the work loads and responsibilities to be fairly equal. Often animosity can develop if one person believes the other is not contributing their fair share.

Business Partnerships can work but they also require a lot more thought than a sole proprietorship does. You need to be cognizant of the other person’s abilities, dedication, personal responsibilities, and goals. Just as they need to be aware of yours. Often good relationships can become strained or even end because of a failed partnership.

Cash Miller is an experienced entrepreneur and speaker who has spent over a decade as a small business owner. His years of experience in small business cover a variety of topics. If you are looking for more small business help please check out http://www.smallbusinessdelivered.com

Every relationship your company creates with clients has value — every contact has the potential to grow into a long-lasting relationship and source of additional revenue.

However, every client relationship takes considerable time, effort, energy and patience before they can become a dependable and trusted part of your business.

It’s a considerable investment, and when a relationship fails you’ve usually lost quite a bit of time and effort along the way.

In this article, we will discuss several techniques you can use to screen out potentially negative clients such as non-payers, clients likely to be litigious, clients with bad credit or financial problems and clients that are just not worth your effort.

The best way to establish a basic level of protection and discover who you are dealing with is to perform basic background check prior to spending your time and resources to their project.

With minimal research and effort, a surprising amount of these potentially problematic clients can be identified before you expose yourself to any risk.

There are several companies that provide basic background check services for a minimal fee that will allow you to weed out clients that you will not want to do business with.

When Should you do a Background Check on a New Client? Every time. There that is pretty simple and straight forward, but it is certainly the easiest way to always have a basic level of understanding of your client.

You can certainly take your valuable time to do web searches and may learn a few things about your client, but aren’t you better off outsourcing this function, and paying the few dollars, so that you can spend your time providing a service for which you are better-skilled, and thus generating more income for you and your employer?

There is a wealth of information that will be provided about your client.Information that can be used in certain areas and at specific times in your ongoing relationship will provide ease of mind and alert you to potential problems, if there are going to be any during this relationship.

A basic background check will provide information regarding your client’s location and length of time at their current or any previous addresses. A check that includes information from the local state or county will verify licenses, permits and tax information. These should be obtained once a negotiation has started or a proposal is in process.

Once there is a signed contract, however, it’s time to do a comprehensive check on the company and make sure that the contract is going to be enforceable and collectible.

The goal is to make sure that the client is who they say they are, confirm that the signatory is authorized to sign on behalf of the company, and verify that the company is legal and doing real business. With those three items in place, you can comfortably begin the project knowing that you are, in fact, legally protected by the contract or legal agreement.

What are other types of information that you will need? Background check service providers vary greatly in the information that they provide and the cost for it.

There is truth in the old adage, “You get what you pay for”. Providers that promise information for less than $20 will give you less than $20 worth of information! It is always best to deal with a provider that has the resources available to provide access to more than one information database to get better value for your money and better information regarding the client you are dealing with.

After you have identified the client’s identity, location and business license with the state, you will want to have information on your client’s financial status. If there are liens or bankruptcy filings, this is a client to be wary of.

A list of assets, such as titles to real estate, vehicles or boats would show whether there is tangible real property and any liens or attachments on them. Any civil judgments, particularly involving principals of the company or judgments against them by previous service providers would indicate a pattern of not living up to agreements with previous business partners.

They may be trying to do business with you because no one else will have them, or they are going into a relationship with you knowing that they have no intention of paying for your products or services without legal action. A small investment in a background check could save you thousands of dollars in legal fees in trying to collect payment.

In the end, you can save yourself incredible amounts of time, stress and money by doing a bit of due diligence at the beginning of a client engagement. Considering the low cost of record searching and the incredible hassle associated with collections and litigation, background check research is one of the best insurance policies you could ever find.

It is wise to protect your bottom line, yourself, and your business by doing a little work up-front to find out background information.

AssetSearchPros.com is your dedicated professional services, background investigative firm that makes the commitment to meet each and every clients needs. Visit them today at http://www.AssetSearchPros.com

When economic times are uncertain, business buyers become very cautious about a potential merger acquisition transaction. They attempt to negotiate for a lower price, but they also try to negotiate for the seller to have a significant interest in the post acquisition performance. This results in less cash at close and more of the transaction value tied to an earn out based on future sales of the acquired new division or business unit.

The buyers, especially experienced buyers, know that one of the key mistakes is to underestimate the amount of time and effort it is to institutionalize this new business. It takes a good deal of time to transfer the intellectual capital from the target company to the buying company. Converting customer loyalty to the new entity is not an automatic. Meshing corporate cultures can be problematic and good employees may leave. The owner is almost always viewed by the buyer as a critical element to the future success of the new division.

How is this reflected in the transaction? If the buyer views the owner as the center of her company’s universe, owning all the customer and supplier relationships, possessing all the intellectual capital, and taking on the identity of the company, the transaction will involve a large earn out over several years. If the owner has done a good job of developing a management team and has delegated herself out of day to day operations, then the cash at close will be much greater and the earn out period will be reduced.

A great deal of a buyer’s due diligence will focus on the owner’s current role in the business and her role post acquisition. Forgive me for a broad generalization, but most lower mid-market businesses we have worked with have an owner that is a passionate subject matter expert that started the business almost as an afterthought. They are not necessarily skilled as CEO’s and really do not enjoy the administrative duties required to run a small business. One of the reasons they are selling is to remove themselves from that grind of administrative duties.

That is a great platform to present to the buyer. The buyer usually has the infrastructure to handle that and does it much better than the target company. They are buying the smaller company in order to leverage their assets and grow at a much more rapid pace than the smaller company could grow on their own. The buyer wants to remove all the barriers for their new subject matter expert, provide her additional resources and support, and let her do what she does best - sell her product or service.

As the business seller, if you take that message to the buyer, you will find that the buyer will feel more comfortable about the risk profile of the potential acquisition and you will get more favorable terms. Unfortunately, many times the seller over communicates how tired they are and how much they want to get away from the pressure cooker environment they currently have. We have literally watched this unfold in the most unfavorable way for our sellers. When this message comes out, the earn out period gets extended and the cash at close gets reduced. The more the seller wants to get away the greater the buyer’s attempts to lock her up for an extended period.

The lesson here is that if you are a smaller mid-market company and you want to receive the maximum value for your business, count on staying involved for a reasonable period of time post acquisition to insure the success of the buyer’s new division. The buyer will structure the transaction so that you do have a vested interest in this success. It is acceptable to the buyer that you do not enjoy the day to day duties of being a CEO. They are counting on that because they already are performing that function. You can proactively present your vision of your new role in a way that will be received very positively. I want to be the product evangelist. I want to be the promoter at industry events, speaking engagements, blogs, and industry publications. I want to focus on integrating the two companies and helping with the strategic plans. If you position it this way, the buyer will be more generous with the cash at close and will be less likely to try to lock you up for an extended earn out period.

Dave> Kauppi
is the editor of The Exit Strategist Newsletter, a Merger and Acquisition Advisor and President of MidMarket Capital, representing owners in the sale of privately held businesses. We provide Wall Street style investment banking services to lower mid market companies at a size appropriate fee structure.