Joint Venture Lightning

Here is a handy free keyword suggestion tool that I use to help develop my marketing strategy for each joint venture I work on. Feel free to use it or visit the web site where it originated at Digital Point Solutions. Simply enter the word or phrase and hit the enter button on your keyboard. The Digital Point Solutions web page will open with the list of suggestions and the number of daily searches on each variation.

Video, video and more video.

I spent Wednesday morning shooting quick tips videos for the FitClub4.com web site with Pam Turman. Then I spent the afternoon editing and uploading the videos to her web site.

Today, I spent editing and uploading content for the Geoffrey Zimmerman web site to promote his new romantic adventure novel “Love Never Dies.” His auto-responder is set-up with chapter one ready to download when you subscribe. Then you’ll get a new chapter or two each week.

Once that was taken care of, I started editing my own testimonial video from Pam Turman of FitClub4.com about why she chose to work with Joint Venture Lightning instead of some other company. It turned out pretty well if I do say so myself. I love doing testimonial videos and capturing why people love the companies they use. You can see the finished video here:

JVL Testimonial: Pam Turman of FitClub4.com from JointVentureLightning on Vimeo.

Then to finish off the business day I met with the owner of Downtown Music to discuss a joint venture deal with him to promote his line of custom-built banjos and electric guitars. I’ll keep you posted on that case if we decide to work together.

And then just to prove that I really do like to have fun, I met with Ian Piefer of Windsor, Ontario to go ride our Dirtsurfer inline boards on Callaway Road. Man, I love that sport. What a RUSH!

I’m always pushing to get to product creation and launch within the first 30 days. That’s why it’s called Joint Venture LIGHTNING. If you want to talk to me about possibly working with you on your project then you need to make your best pitch ASAP because my schedule is filling up fast for the year and I am becoming increasingly selective.

Stay tuned for the latest on these real businesses. You can see step by step exactly how I do it and what the real results are… good or bad… I hold nothing back.

Cheers,
Brian

Have you ever seen or heard of the movie “The Horse Whisperer”?

It’s inspired by a real life horse trainer who uses a gentle and natural technique called Natural Horsemanship. So instead of forcing a horse to comply with your wishes, it requires you to understand the horse’s natural tendencies and communicate with the animal in a way that has the horse wanting to do what you want.

The first time you see it in action, you might be inclined to believe that it’s some sort of magic or that the horse is specially trained to respond to secret hand signals. But it really does work.

How do I know? Because my wife and I had natural horsemanship expert George Schaefer come to our home to conduct a training clinic for us and a few of our friends who own horses, too.

That’s how I met George and saw first-hand how good of an instructor he really is. That’s also what got me thinking about doing a joint venture with him to help him create and launch his own downloadable video programs and e-course.

So, I called George last week to schedule an appointment to discuss the details with him and his wife at their horse ranch over in Gretna, Virginia. We met last night around his dinner table where he explained that he had been thinking of doing something like this for years but never really knew how to get it all started. Friends had told him he should write a book. He knew that all of the big-shot famous horse trainers each had web sites and had written books but it was all a bit overwhelming.

I just smiled and listened.

Then it was my turn to share what I was doing with other entrepreneurs just like him and how we could team up in a joint venture to make all of his goals a reality. We asked each other questions, I showed him some examples of my clients’ web sites, then I gave him his first homework assignment… to clearly define who his best customer is… their age, income level, experience level, and so on. This will help us target the right audience.

Then he has to come up with 26 topic points that we can cover in 1 to 2 minutes of video to give away to subscribers through his auto-responder campaign.

And finally, he has to set-up a time when I can video record some client testimonials. By the time our meeting was over, he was already listing satisfied clients who would be willing to do testimonials for him… including my wife. His only up-front expense to start the project was $10.61 for me to register his new web site domain with GoDaddy.com.

He’s conducting a training clinic in Lovingston, Virginia this Friday so I might be able to get some good footage of his class and shoot some Quick Tips content right away.

Remember, my goal here at Joint Venture Lightning is to launch a new site and begin product creation within the first thirty days. I’ll continue to post updates on George’s horse training joint venture as we progress.

Cheers,
Brian

How do you help a new author get his first book published and in the hands of readers around the world?

Geoffrey Zimmerman is an experienced world traveler and writer. He’s written for television, including the hit show Miami Vice. He’s a poet, novelist, and self-described romantic. He’s also trying to break into the publishing world with his first book… a romantic adventure set in Europe and New York.

He explained to me that he has been floating the transcript around to agents but no takers so far. So, he has been looking into self-publishing his book but wasn’t sure how to begin and he didn’t want to pay a ton of money to get a few hundred copies printed.

I recommended that he consider e-publishing and offer sample chapters to subscribers. Since his new book is part one of a trilogy, he has ample opportunity to build a fan base to whom he can sell his future books.

Since this was a new market niche for me, I had to do some research to see if this was an area worth getting into. Why do I sound so picky? Because if I get bogged down in an unproductive niche market, then I can’t be working with clients who are in highly productive and profitable niches. So, I have to research the potential before I invest my time and resources as a joint venture partner.

I have decided to take on this new challenge with Geoff and have started his web site with www.geoffreyzimmerman.com.

This case has some unique challenges.

• Fiction is a luxury so there are few pain points to drive customer response
• Geoff is located in another city far from my location, so video / photography must be sub-contracted
• We are starting totally from scratch which means we need to get some reader testimonials
• We’re exploring how to tap the power of video for a book / text based niche product

These are the biggest challenges at the moment. There are others but we’ll address those as we come to them.

For now, I am in the process of editing and loading his content and waiting on his new photos so that I can customize his site. Our plan is to load chapters from his book into the iContact auto-responder so when visitors subscribe, they immediately begin getting his book. Every couple of days they will get new chapter. Along the way, we will include updates on the development of book two in the series.

Also, visitors will have the chance to read some of his other works like short stories and poems that Geoff has written. The graphic elements of the site will include photos Geoff has taken during some of his travels and story research trips.

But what about the video? Good question. We are planning to load short video clips of Geoff telling about how came up with the story idea, what inspired him, various scenes in the book, the history behind the story and so on. Geoff also knows a professional reader whom we are hoping to get to read some of the book as an mp3 audio file listeners can download.

We’ll keep you posted on the progress of this interesting case study as it develops.

I first spoke with professional life coach and certified hypnotherapist Gail DaVall the other day to get an idea of how we might be able to work together.

Our first conversation focused on what she does for a living as a life coach and relaxation therapy specialist. Then we discussed why she was looking for a joint venture partner like me. She told me that she had been wanting to launch the online side of her business for several years and had bought domains, invested thousands in internet marketing courses, tried learning how to do all of the technical side of web marketing but she just never seemed to be able to get over the hurdle of actually launching her products online.

So, we set an appointment to meet face to face for later in the week. At the meeting, Gail showed me page after page of how she had planned out her web site, written sales copy, designed layouts, etc. She also brought sample cd’s she had produced as physical product to sell once she had her site up and running.

Once she filled me in on her current situation, I presented some details of how I work, how I select partner businesses to joint venture with and outlined my system of launching e-products works.The meeting took about an hour and a half and ended with me giving her an assignment of setting up some testimonials that we could video record for her new web site.

My first step was to look into her competition and research better domains than the ones she had already purchased. I settled on working with her personal domain first to help her begin building a local client base with www.gaildavall.com.

Our first priority is to help her increase local business to stimulate cash flow before we get into marketing her audio programs. It’s been two weeks and Gail’s schedule has prevented her from arranging the testimonial video shoot for the near futur. So, I have worked on setting up her appointment calendar and auto-responder. I’ll follow-up with Gail early next week to nail down a date for the first video / photo shoot so that I can customize her header banner and load her testimonials page.

In the meantime, I have been busy working on FitClub4.com, JointVentureLightning.com, BrianGDuvall.com and GeoffreyZimmerman.com. I’ll be posting updates on the progress of Geoffrey Zimmerman’s web site in an upcoming case study, so stay tuned.

The video and photo shoot at Fit Club 4 in Rocky Mount went well on Saturday.

We shot four client testimonials immediately following Pam’s fitness class. Then we shot some introductory video of Pam explaining how she got started in the business and why she started FitClub4.com. You can see the results for yourself on her web site.

I chose Vimeo and Vod:Pod for my video hosting for several reasons.

1. Vimeo is free like YouTube or Google.
2. But it doesn’t have that obnoxious YouTube logo in the corner of your video.
3. It displays the title, the author and the next video when the video is done playing.
4. I like the clean video control better than the other free services.
5. Vod:Pod has a real cool widget for WordPress templates that is handy for displaying testimonial videos in the sidebar.

Pam completed her homework assignments and has e-mailed me a bunch of content that I’ll be editing and posting into the auto-responder system and using to create e-zine articles for distribution. Our next step is to begin shooting Pam’s free content videos that tie into the auto-responder campaign and articles.

I’m also working on creating some fitness themed header banners for her web site using Adobe Photoshop software.

In the meantime, Pam has been a real dynamo in referring new business to me. Thanks to Pam I have also been working on www.GailDaVall.com and a proposal for Geoff Zimmerman, a romance novelist looking to promote his new trilogy. Next week I’ll be meeting with George Schaeffer and his wife to discuss how Joint Venture Lightning can help him launch his natural horsemanship video programs.

We’ll see just how busy this new business gets and I’ll share each case study every step along the way so you can see first hand how my system works and how fast we get real results.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at brian at jointventurelightning.com

Cheers,
Brian Duvall

Pam has been busy working on her homework assignments and lining up customers willing to appear on video giving testimonials. Our video shoot will be held on Saturday at 11:00 am at Mary Elizabeth Park in Rocky Mount, within walking distance of Pam’s business. The weather forecast is for mostly sunny skies and 85 degrees… perfect for an outdoor video shoot.

In the meantime, I went ahead and registered her domain www.fitclub4.com and put up a basic web site fast using WordPress templates. I also set-up a free Google Calendar so Pam can post her training and class schedules and where clients can check her availability or book appointments.

Then I added a sample Videos page where we will post video clips from Pam’s Free Fitness Tips. The nice thing about all of these site features is that they are Free and the code is produced for you so you don’t have to do any coding. Simply copy and paste the code into the web page. It’s quick, easy and adds cool interactivity to your basic web site.

I also added a Testimonials page for Pam so we can go ahead and post those videos we’re going to shoot on Saturday.

The next step for me is to get Pam’s auto-responder set up at iContact. I got hooked on this awesome service when I was working for Dirtsurfer.com. This powerful auto-responder / e-mail service was recommended by Buck Rizvi and Brock Feldt of Pipeline Profits fame. These guys are masters of co-registration and use iContact to supercharge their list building.

I also highly recommend iContact for a number of reasons including price, features, power, ease of use and more. The real biggie is that when we decide to go do some co-registration to drive traffic, iContact has real-time delivery that most other top e-mail providers do not allow. I even recommend it over Aweber, one of the biggest auto-responder services out there.

So, do yourself a favor and add iContact to your Million Dollar Rolodex.

O.k., enough of that. I have two more case studies to introduce.

1. Gail DaVall – professional Life Coach and certified Hypnotherapist
2. Brian G. Duvall – professional Joint Venture Partner and Business Developer (this is my personal project)

I’ll cover Gail’s project in the next post, so stay tuned.

Cheers,
B

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.