Joint Venture Lightning

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.

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.