People ask me almost every day about their JV relationships
“I have this opportunity and I don’t know what to say”
“I’m in the middle of this relationship and it doesn’t feel so good anymore”
“I’m ready to add a JV strategy to my marketing but I’m not sure how to connect or what to say”
Can you relate to any of these questions? Well, I recently published a “Help! I’m stuck with my JV’s” survey to identify the top reasons why business owners, like yourself, are not active and successful in their JV and relationship marketing strategies. The survey has only been live for a few hours, but it’s fascinating to see the responses coming in.
So far, the #1 reason that entrepreneurs are not leveraging a successful JV strategy in their businesses is because they have tried and it didn’t work out as well as they hoped. In fact, when all was said and done, here is what they are saying:
I feel used!
Interesting!
This has prompted me to share the most common mistakes I see people making in their business relationships. Don’t feel bad if you have made any of these mistakes–most of us have at some point or another. Just notice it and stop.
Scenario 1: You’re creating an amazing program and you want to leverage some highly visible JV’s. So you create a “sample” web page with the program/promotion including the potential JV’s you are hoping will participate.
What’s wrong with this? A few things: First off, you are “using” other experts names hoping to attract some cool people. But most of the time, the experts you are “using” don’t even know they are being used until the others are on board. This does NOT promote good feelings when the experts start talking about “that one telesummit-I just did it because you were involved…oh really? I just did it because YOU were involved and I thought you did your due diligence…” See what I mean?
MISTAKE #1: Name dropping without full-disclosure
If you are hoping to get some of these experts on board but they are not there yet, let the person you are speaking to know that.
Second, if the web page is live that you are sharing with potential JV’s, then you are using the experts “visibility” to build your own expertise and visibility without permission. This was a practice that worked a few years ago, but needs to go away. It is NOT a good REALationship builder.
MISTAKE #2: Leveraging experts names without permission
When you publish content of any kind on the web, you give the impression that those experts are already committed. If that is not the case, don’t go there.
Scenario 2: You’ve connected with an amazing friend and love her energy. You both decide to create a program together. You have the skills to write good copy and she has a large social network that seems quite responsive. But a few weeks into the promotion before the program starts, you feel like it’s all on you. It takes way more time to write everything than it takes to just publish it. If you are doing most of the work and splitting the proceeds 50/50, how is that fair??
What went wrong?
There are a few possibilities here, but the most obvious problem is that, while you both had the same end-result in mind, you were not clear about HOW you were going to get there AND how each of you would be compensated.
MISTAKE #3: Not having clarity about the details of the relationship
If you choose to invest your time, energy and even money into a business relationship with another cool person, take the time FIRST to get all the details sorted out-including contingencies for things you can’t think of until they happen. I highly suggest you get everything in writing (here is a simple partnership agreement template for identifying the details), but at the very least, bring it all up in conversation. Perhaps invite your assistants to the call to capture the important details that you might overlook in the excitement of the opportunity.
There are many more scenarios and mistakes that people make. But these are by far the most common. So learn from other people’s mistakes and don’t fall to far into the excitement of the opportunity without taking at least a moment to ask yourself “Have we worked out all the details here?”
If you want to share your two cents and even receive a new gift I am offering, take one minute to complete the survey at this link: