Joint Venture Lightning

So, you have a business idea that you think can make some money online?

Here is an actual business that I am working with right now that you can follow along, look over my shoulder and see exactly what I do and what the real results are.

Business Name: Fit Club
Type: Fitness Center
Owner: Pam T. is a personal trainer who has been in the fitness industry since 1982. She started Fit Club in 2006 and opened her first fitness center location soon after.

Day 1 (09/25/07): I met with Pam to propose the idea that she develop an e-commerce side to her thriving business. Turns out she had been thinking of doing that for quite awhile but never really got much beyond registering a domain because she’s not a web marketer and doesn’t know how to do that sort of thing. She’s also very busy doing personal training which is what she loves and is an expert at. So, that’s where she focuses her time… rightfully so.

I asked Pam if she would like to significantly increase her income with almost no additional work. Her response? “Well, Duh! Of course I want to do that,” she said.

“Great. Here is how I propose we do that. Are you familiar with e-books, blogging, or info marketing,” I asked. She had heard of it but didn’t really get how it all worked. So, I proposed that we form a Joint Venture where I do all of the set-up, marketing and product creation for her and all she has to do is be the fitness expert. Then we set an appointment to meet the next day to discuss more of the details of her ideas and how we can turn them into info products.

That evening, I researched her ideas to see if there was a market niche with a demand and to gauge the possibilities for business expansion, sales, profitability, competition, etc. Once I felt like this joint venture had a good chance for success I set up a sample website so Pam could see what it might look like.

Then I designed a logo and color scheme based on her existing business brand, searched for some sample fitness related images to illustrate the site design and published it to the web. I sent her an e-mail with the link so she could look it over before our meeting the next day.

Day 2 (09/26/07): We met in one of the very nice meeting rooms of the Franklin County Public Library in Rocky Mount, Virginia. The Library is right behind Pam’s Fit Club location so it’s very convenient for her. Session #2 is where I interview the client to learn more about their business, their vision for the future, what they like best about their business, what they don’t want to do, what role they see themselves moving into as the business grows, etc.

Some of the most important questions I ask are:

• Describe your ideal customer
• What do you do that makes you different from your competition?
• Why is your business more successful than your competition?
• What do your customers say about you?
• How much time can you put into making your dream a reality?

These questions are very revealing. It’s this interview process that draws out the details, hopes, desires, passion, etc. that will help carry the business forward. This is the same process I use to help non-writers create their content, their sales and marketing info, their website, their squeeze page, their seminars, and more.

As the meeting drew to a close, I reviewed the scope of my services and outlined the nature of our joint venture. Then I gave Pam here first homework assignment:

1. Contact her clients to arrange a video testimonial shoot and find a good, quiet, well lit location to shoot the videos.
2. Focus in on the one aspect of her business that she feels will have the broadest appeal and the greatest chance for success.
3. Get a debit or credit card for her business. (This lets us buy her domain, set-up her web hosting and take her new website live.)

My homework is to write out the list of interview questions so that I can begin creating her e-mail auto-responder campaign and e-zine articles.

Why is this important? Because this is how we are going to build her client / subscriber list by offering valuable FREE content before we even have an e-product created to sell. I’ll get into more of how this works in an upcoming post.

Day 3 (09/27/07): I’m posting this write-up and registering Pam’s web site domain. I’ll set-up her web hosting as soon as she has her business debit card. Also, I’ll be working on the interviews described above, fleshing out the jv agreement between Fit Club and Joint Venture Lightning and spending part of the day with my three new foster boys who just joined my family last night. A busy day indeed.

Here’s the definition from Wikipedia:

“A joint venture (often abbreviated JV) is an entity formed between two or more parties to undertake economic activity together. The parties agree to create a new entity by both contributing equity, and they then share in the revenues, expenses, and control of the enterprise. The venture can be for one specific project only, or a continuing business relationship such as the Sony Ericsson joint venture. This is in contrast to a strategic alliance, which involves no equity stake by the participants, and is a much less rigid arrangement.

Organizations can also form joint ventures, for example, a child welfare organization in the Midwest initiated a joint venture whose mission is to develop and service client tracking software for human service organizations. The five partners all sit on the joint venture corporation’s board, and together have been able to provide the community with a much-needed resource.

The phrase generally refers to the purpose of the entity and not to a type of entity. Therefore, a joint venture may be a corporation, limited liability company, partnership or other legal structure, depending on a number of considerations such as tax and tort liability.”

There are different types of JV deals but the fastest and easiest is probably the endorsed internet joint venture. An endorsed JV is when the company or individual that you are partnering with endorses or recommends your products or services to the customers on their mailing list. One of the reasons that this can be so successful is that your partner already has an established relationship or rapport with everyone on their list… a customer base who values their opinion.

Now there is another way to leverage the value of internet joint ventures beyond simply tapping into somebody else’s mailing list.

You could spend thousands of dollars buying programs from various marketing guru’s. Then you could spend months learning how to do all of the various steps required to build an internet business. I’ll cover the detail on what’s involved in producing and launching your own electronic and physical products in future posts. Here’s a short sample list of some of the tasks that you will face:

• Idea development
• Niche market research
• Content development
• Video production
• Text production (electronic and/or physical)
• Graphic design
• Photography
• Web site development
• List building
• SEO
• Traffic generation
• Deliverability
• Testing and refinement

And that’s just the product side of your business. You also need to consider:

• Accounting
• Business structure (sole proprietorship vs. incorporating)
• Taxes
• Regulatory Compliance
• Employee management
• Payroll
• Expenses

Starting to get the picture? There is too much for one person to do. This is one of the main reasons people never take action on their ideas. Another key reason is uncertainty of what to do next.

Or you could follow Rich Scheffren’s advice and outsource all of the functions that you can’t or don’t like to do yourself and hire an experienced, successful business development and marketing team. Having the experts at Joint Venture Lightning on your team speeds the process and greatly increases your chances for success.

You can see our scope of services on the About Us page. No internet hype, just real world experience from the trenches of the business battlefront.

We are looking to team up with entrepreneurs like you who have great ideas but who need help getting them produced and launched. You bring the idea, passion and expertise and we’ll bring the business experience. Together we can produce real products and real profits.

Be sure to subscribe to begin your joint venture project today.