Fix Small Business Joint Venture Marketing Problems Quickly

It can be impossible to stop unknown problems from occurring with a joint venture marketing relationship, but as a small business owner it’s critical to identify problems and either address them or take the appropriate actions to terminate the relationship and focus on more fertile ground. There are several critical areas of a business partnership to be conscious of at all times including: customer service and satisfaction, tracking referrals, accounting and revenue shares and promoting a positive brand image to the market in general. If an issue arises in any of these areas, it is absolutely necessary to spend the time to fix the root cause to eliminate it. Otherwise the right solution may be to simply identify new partners and move on.

Customers Satisfaction

At the end of the day it’s always about making sure that customers are happy and feel that they’re getting good value for what they are purchasing. Regardless, whichever side of the partnership your business is on it is critical to focus on providing great customer service. If you’re opening up your company’s rolodex of existing customers, you don’t want to jeopardize future business for yourself because the new JV marketing partner you’re introducing does not perform as expected. During the early stages of starting a new business relationship it is very important to test the waters early by referring a few loyal customers that will provide you with honest feedback about their experience with the new partner. Send over a couple of “new” leads as well and have a person within your organization act as the customer to get a real understanding of how the partner treats their clients. There is nothing worse than sending over a group of customers to a new partner only to receive emails and calls with negative experiences from those customers. This reflects on you as a business owner and can be avoided by properly implementing the new partnership.

Track Everything

Make sure that the partner is tracking referrals, new leads, products ordered, products delivered, products returned, marketing campaigns, ROI, brand reputation and any important data points related to your industry. It is very difficult to measure the true value of a joint venture marketing relationship without this information. You will have to rely on an open business partner to get many of those details and keep an open line of communication. By tracking everything related to each of your business partners it’s easier to accomplish the required accounting and to come to firm conclusions about which relationships are the most profitable and provide the greatest return. This will let you prioritize your time and resources for future activities and identify partners it may be better off to just walk away from. It is recommended that you monitor the market in general and understand what the market says about your business partners. As a business owner it can be very frustrating to have a partner do something unwise that creates a lot of negative press as this can reflect on your company, especially if you’re very active together with co-branded marketing.

Small business owners need to be prepared to spend the necessary time to monitor each business relationship and collect the required data during the month to accurately assess the success or failure of the partnership. When you identify a major issue related to servicing customers or accounting for the referrals that are being sent to a partner then set up a meeting to fix the issue as soon as possible or move away from doing business with the partner in the future. Allowing a negative partnership to linger just because you have already done all of the work to put the relationship together can be detrimental to the business and the brand for the long haul.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Tips for Getting More Clients from Marketing Activities

joint venture marketing

joint venture marketing

The new year is always a time to review last year’s execution and make plans for growing the business. The following tips and techniques can be used to maximize your existing marketing activities in getting more clients. If you have a product or service that is currently being marketed through your own activities or from your joint venture marketing partner then it’s necessary to close every lead and potential deal that is on the table. To acquire a customer it often takes several different attempts with layered marketing of the company and its offerings. By quickly following through with every marketing activity you can potentially hit a customer in multiple channels.

Blog Posting

A blog post may about a new product or new company information that is posted in order to educate customers and potential customers about the product or company. Blog posts are a great foundation to build on and leverage for improving the companies rankings in the search engines. It’s important to expand the reach of your company blog by using the following actions and services on websites to promote the blog post.

Email – Blast a company message with the title, link, and summary of the blog post to people in your newsletter lists.

Facebook - Post a link to your company’s blog post. These should be posted on both companies Facebook pages if it’s a joint venture.

Twitter - Post a link to your company’s blog post. The co-branded blog posts should be posted on both companies Twitter accounts.

Fiverr - Hire someone to submit blog pages to social sites like Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon and other locations. Hiring additional people to also promote and engage with the content can help posts gain traction faster in the Search Engines.

While results may not be instantaneous, if you follow the steps above your blog posts will receive more value in search engine rankings for your target keywords from Google due to the links that will be created directing back to your specific blog posts. This will help create more traffic to your company’s main website through promoting your content.

Facebook

Facebook can be a unique place to advertise for many businesses. However; there are a few strategies that can work for companies and their joint venture partners that are looking to gain access into specific local markets and have a solid presence on the social network.

• Facebook ads can generate interests from a partner’s existing customer base that follow them. Create an advertisement special that customers of a partner can have access to if they post a message in there Facebook status about your brand. Getting more clients from Facebook requires them sharing your company with their friends.

• If you want to build a following of people, then as a company you have to be educational and have interesting content that makes people want to subscribe to your content. Create interesting videos that provide specific details about a topic in 2 – 3 minutes and post them to your Facebook page as well as on Youtube.

• Create an interesting ad that targets very specific demographics. The ad itself needs to be short and sweet and catch the attention of viewers for the target market your business is after. Purchase ads to the exact details of the market that you need to reach whether it’s regional or based on the individuals occupation, age or gender. Facebook allows for creating amazingly detailed ad campaigns. Make the campaign about clicking like to your Facebook page versus redirecting to your website or a sales landing page.

Brochures / Mailers

If part of the marketing activities is sending out a regular printed brochure, catalogue, or promotional newsletters / sale offerings then it is important to maximize each piece of mail, due to the cost of regular mail campaigns.

Email - Sending an email at the same time as a physical mailing is a good way to use the marketing material twice and help reinforce the physical papers that may get shuffled around for a few days before being reviewed. Invite them to a webinar that will be conducted concerning a topic related to the products or services that are being offered in the mailer. Include a form in any emails that can be filled out and sent in requesting more information as some people prefer to communicate through these channels rather than making a call.

Phone Call – Making a follow up phone call 5 – 8 days after sending a letter / package to a perspective client is always a wise idea. If you are conducting a massive mail campaign and neither you nor your business partner has a call center, it’s ok. There are people that can be hired for a fairly affordable rate that can quickly understand your company’s basic information and products to make lead generation calls to provide hot leads to your sales team. Train sales people making follow up phone calls to get email addresses during the conversation as it’s the easiest way to ping potential customers on a regular basis.

Have a great 2012; enjoy growing your business and maximizing all of your existing joint venture marketing activities to get more clients.

christian fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A joint venture marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Discover more joint venture marketing Strategies join his free report on joint venture marketing.

joint venture marketing

joint venture marketing

Equip a Sales Team with iPads and Close New Clients Faster

joint venture marketing

If you’re seeking a way to improve your sales team that’s servicing referrals from a joint venture marketing partner and want to increase their productivity while meeting with new clients than consider equipping them with an Apple Pad. The iPad will allow your sales team members to have access to more information as well as be able to actively input customer information and requirements into your companies database while away from their desks.

This will not only help increase their efficiency, it will allow your company to represent a business that is serious about providing customers with top level service. By embracing new technology a business is able to portray an image of being with the times and maximizing tools that can improve their business which conveys an image in the mind of the customers that you are very professional and serious about securing their business.

iPad Improves Your Sales Team

The iPad is similar to a laptop however, it is easily usable in a meeting as it does not take up a large footprint on the table or block the view of the person you’re meeting with. Yet it can access the web, email, and have materials ready to easily share with a new client prospect such as marketing collateral, videos of the product in the field or testimonials from happy clients.

Apps a Sales Team Should Have When Meeting With New Clients

Quickoffice Pro HD – This app gives you access to the Microsoft suite of office tools like word, excel, and power point including the ability to open PDF’s. It’s important to have an app like this so that the sales team can read file attachments they receive in their email. The app also has a great drag and drop feature for sending files. Rather than telling a new client that they will receive an email later with additional details to review, they can send a copy right then in a meeting. If a customer is intent on moving forward right now, the sales representative can make a few adjustments to a purchase order and have the contract in the new customers email inbox before they leave the premises.

Penultimate - A note taking app that allows a sales representative to take handwritten notes using a stylus on the iPad to then save and send if needed to other team members to stay up to speed regarding the meeting with a new client. These notes can also be attached to a customer relationship management database for keeping a very current file on the new client.

Dropbox - The Dropbox solution allows your team members to have files easily available. This is great for companies that have many products and accompanying product spec sheets and marketing collateral. It may be difficult to know exactly which products and solutions a new client from a joint venture partner is actually seeking so by having all of the marketing files at a swipe of a finger, can be impressive and deliver what the customer needs to make a buy decision. This is great for product demo videos and other marketing information.

ListMonger - Is an easy to use task management app that can be shared amongst sales team when a new client comes on board everyone on the team can be up to date with the status of the project. This can help manage traveling sales member’s daily schedule and make sure that they do not forget to also update the business tracking system after a meeting and to send emails and whatever else is required post meeting.

Office Time – This app is a simple and effective time tracker app. The sales member can record the time on the road and time in meetings for the day with new clients. While your pay structure may not require a sales member to report the exact time worked each day this data can be very helpful to determine the overall ROI of a joint venture partner by tracking the amount of time that is spent on each referred customer. This is valuable information that can be shared with a partner if required to show the customer care and time that is being devoted to the partnership.

There are dozens more apps that will help your sales team close new clients faster if they are carrying an iPad when they are out on the road meeting business leads. Of course the staples like Maps, email, and Facetime which allows for a video conference with another iPhone or iPad owner is worth it for increasing productivity, it’s the full package of business apps that can make a sales team drastically more efficient. If you have been looking for something to motivate as well as reward your sales team to increase performance consider getting them iPads, it will not only make their daily routine more efficient and allow them to close deals faster, but they can also enjoy the iPad during non-business hours and is a great way to show appreciation for your team.

joint venture marketing

Strategies to Get New Clients

The best part about developing joint ventures is the ability to create unique strategies to get new clients from the existing client base of the joint venture partner or through new marketing activities together. Some companies mistakenly, simply create a basic press release and expect the new partner to come up with all of the strategies and marketing materials to market the partnership. If a business wants to maximize each joint venture partner it’s best to be active in the marketing decision making process as well as develop creative offerings such as product bundles, free sample offerings, partner promo specials and other strategies to get new clients. If a business commits to being open to new marketing strategies regardless of past marketing campaigns and focuses on developing a complete new channel, great things can happen. At the heart of the strategies to get new clients should be the overwhelming focus to provide customers a great product or service for an affordable price. When developing consumer related joint ventures having special pricing and product promotions is critical.

Product Bundles

Identifying whole solutions or product bundles that can deliver to a customer an entire solution or package that at the same time saves the customer money over buying each component separately is a strategy to get new clients. When marketing to a new potential customer base with a new joint venture partner many of these customers may already be using a competitor’s product or service so there needs to be a strong incentive to use a different company. Product bundling is an excellent way to handle all of a customer’s requirements and give them this great deal. Include a product or service from the joint venture partner into the product bundle if applicable and jointly market the product bundle. This also increases the buy-in that a partner may have in assisting with promoting the partner product bundle.

Free / Lite Version to Partner Customer Base

Depending on whom a joint venture partner’s customer base includes, developing a targeted free or lite version or product samples that can be provided free to the customers is a well proven strategy to get new clients. Often just getting customers to try a product out for the first time is the hardest challenge a business can encounter. This is seen most especially when launching a new product to market. Working in conjunction with a joint venture partner to distribute product samples, free versions of a product or service to identified target customers, will get the product in the customer’s hands quickly and efficiently. This provides potential customers the opportunity to get to know your product before making a buy decision. Depending on the structure of the joint venture partnership a free product demo sent to existing customers can be included in the agreement between the two businesses. Small businesses developing a new joint venture with a much larger company may have the product samples subsidized by the larger corporation because it is in both company’s interest that the target customers become acquainted with the products and the smaller companies brand. These types of joint ventures can really launch a new product into market rapidly. This is a strong strategy to get new clients that all businesses should evaluate if it would work for them.

Partner Promo Specials

Developing unique partner promotions helps differentiate the deal that a customer gets by having an existing relationship with a business that is now a joint venture partner. This is important for businesses that develop multiple joint venture marketing relationships. Depending on the level of a joint venture partner’s commitment, special promos can be developed so that they can offer their customer base a unique offer that is not being provided elsewhere in the targeted market. This allows a business to structure partnerships accordingly. Those partners that do the most for driving new business and spending resources on marketing the partnership can receive better discounts and promotions for their customers. Promotions can set up as just a single offering with a company or have a new monthly promo, whichever makes sense for the partnership. Using partner promo codes is always a great way to organize business leads in a CRM system as they are coming in through the defined sales channels. Being able to record a promo code can help you track leads and determine which sales rep those sales are coming from, which can be great data for managing the partnership.

There are many great strategies to get new clients through joint venture marketing campaigns with partners.  Be active in identifying the right strategies for marketing the partnership.  A few of the ways a business can reach out to existing customers is to offer them a special promotion, product bundle or even a free product sample to provide the required incentive to try a new product.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Reasons for Joint Ventures During Uncertain Economic Times

When the economy is in a downturn there are several really good reasons for joint ventures as a way for a struggling company to get the little extra business required to stay afloat and live to do business another day. Joint ventures provide many opportunities for companies to grow into new markets, extract additional revenue from their existing client base, and develop a strong network of other businesses that can be relied upon for supporting their customers to ensure a high level of customer retention. During tough times people do not spend as quickly or freely as during good times and so it’s very important to do everything possible to service existing customers and make it as comfortable as possible for new customers to try a product or service for the first time.

Develop New Customer Acquisition Strategies

One of the best reasons for a joint venture during a time of economic uncertainty is the potential to acquire new customers. Acquiring a customer is expensive and time consuming and the beauty of joint venture marketing partnerships is the potential to market to a partners existing customer base a product or service. Gaining access to customer lists or the capability to have a logo and company description sent out from a V.P. of Sales to existing customers can be a make it or break it opportunity for a small business in a tough economy. If a product or service your company is selling fits well with a partners existing offering you might receive new sales and never have to touch the customer because the partner is handling all of the customer facing activities and delivering your product or service to them directly.

Earn Additional Revenue

Earning additional revenue from an existing client base is an excellent reason for joint venture marketing relationships to be established with companies seeking to market to the demographic of existing customers. During tough economic times companies might be willing to negotiate better referral fees and percentages of revenue for each closed sales lead increasing the value of the partnership. Most small businesses are not servicing their customer’s entire needs and so it’s easy to identify at least 3 or 4 great potential partnerships that could support customers’ needs and put money in the company’s pockets simply for making products and services available to the company’s customers.

Create a Strong Web of Support

It is vital to create strong network of partners during a tough economy. It’s important to remain active pursuing the best and most attractive joint venture opportunities. Companies do fail during bad economies and so it is imperative that if a business has an important joint venture partner that is supporting its clients and putting money in its bank account that there is a backup plan in case a partner goes out of business. While it may not be the number one reason to continue to pursuing joint ventures during tough times, if a company that your business has a relationship with fails, it’s important to be able to quickly replace them with a new partner and promptly provide customers the confidence needed to not jump ship. Failing to not have a backup plan in place for servicing client requirements that are supported by joint venture partners is a big problem, but can be resolved by creating a strong network of associates and even partners that are in place, but not yet fully active.

There are many good reasons for joint venture marketing in a tough economy as well as during good times. Focus on developing strong JV partners to limit potential risks that may occur during a down economy and make sure to continue to track down new opportunities. Every joint venture partner is a new potential channel to acquire fresh customers and at the same time is an opportunity to gain additional revenue from an existing customer base.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

How to Track Joint Venture Activities through Online Tools

How to track joint venture marketing activities is the most important element of executing a successful joint venture marketing relationship. Without being able to understand what successes are achieved and where failures may be occurring it will be difficult to improve your joint venture marketing activities and it will also be next to impossible to hold your partners accountable to the agreed upon terms of the relationship. There are several online tools that allow anyone to quickly set up and execute a joint venture relationship as well as manage the relationship over the long haul. It’s important to clearly identify all of the ways that the joint venture marketing will happen and sales will occur to ensure everything is accounted for and easily track able. It is vital that through the tracking solution deployed metric based reports can be crafted to analyze activities to know what to focus on in the future and what can be avoided.

Affiliate Marketing Sites

If the majority of the joint venture sales activities will be delivered through online referrals than it is extremely important that that an affiliate network program has been established for the JV partners to utilize. This can be achieved through several different methods. One model is to simply sign up with one of the large affiliate marketing sites like Commission Junction, this not only provides access to the tools necessary to create a tracking system for referrals and sales, but also will help market JV opportunities to website owners that are seeking additional partners that fit well with their customer demographics.

Choosing to not create a presence in one of the large affiliate marketing databases is more than acceptable as there are several solutions available to develop the same capabilities in house, that provide tools for tracking marketing activities of joint venture partners, whenever they are promoting your brand online whether on a website or in an email. A few of the more popular affiliate marketing tools available are LinkTrust, HitPath, and DirectTrack. Each of these services allows a business to create unique ads that will track the clicks and actions that a user makes when clicking on one of these ads. This is vital for a joint venture and will ensure all actions can be tracked back to who is achieving the goal of successfully selling products and services and how much they have earned from their activities. Failing to track leads and sales successfully will quickly harm joint venture marketing relationships and potentially loose a business a valuable partner.

CRM

While online sales may be an important element to a joint venture it also may not be nearly as important as personal introductions and more traditional marketing efforts that may occur from a joint venture marketing relationship. If a business specializes in larger priced items, it is much less likely that a sale will occur from a website click, therefore having a Customer Relationship Management “CRM” system in place to track the lead from the initial referral all the way to closing the sale will be able to provide the data necessary to track, evaluate, and reward marketing partners. A few of the popular CRM solutions are Salesforce, ZohoCRM, and SugarCRM each has the customization capabilities to fit the requirements of almost any business and sales process. These systems can be set up quickly. Joint venture partners can be invited into the system to enter potential sales prospects and follow the sales cycle, all the way to closing of the lead as well as seeing the final closing amount for the client. This will help track and calculate the monthly or quarterly referral checks that need to be issued to each joint venture partner as well as keep them in the loop about the progress of any deals that may be closing.

Promo Codes

Setting up a promo code and assigning it to an individual person or to a specific company or marketing campaign will help track joint venture activities. If a business wants to be able to measure the success of a specific marketing activity just including a simple promo code will ensure that customers will actively assist in gaining the knowledge required to know if they came in through the marketing brochure, radio ad, or were just flipping through the yellow pages and decided to call. By utilizing promo codes it’s easy to put together raw reports of how many people are responding to a specific message, to refine your marketing pitch, or to identify which sales people in a company that you have a JV relationship are really pushing the products and services and who is not.  Being able to reward those that are selling products is vital to make them feel appreciated and this data point is easy to set up. Make sure you create a field in your CRM system called promo code and instruct everyone processing sales leads to always ask the customer if they have a promo code and include the details in the field. Since it will be a field in the CRM then you can run a report just for that individual code or look at the results of several codes.

Use online tools to track joint venture marketing activities and ensure that energy and resources are dedicated to the right partners and channels. Make sure that when structuring a new joint venture each party clearly understands the expectations of the agreement concerning reporting and tracking all activities and that everyone is fully capable and trained to meet the requirements. Failure to track a joint venture properly can lead to many problems in the future and create more hassles then overall benefits.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Common Joint Venture Risks And Effective Solutions

Considering all possible joint venture risks carefully before potential partners finalize their agreement is essential. This should continue throughout the lifetime of the partnership. The process of partnering with a different business is not always a walk in the park. However; the time investment for a full assessment is worthwhile to ensure the partnership runs as smoothly as possible. Both sides need to fully understand the risks involved with integrating personnel and the relevant financial fundamentals of the each other’s businesses.

What are your objectives of the joint venture?

It’s important to communicate the objectives of all partners with the shareholders. Otherwise an unknown or unidentified conflict of interest may arise. Keep in mind that during the planning stage of the partnership, each side is in a “wooing phase” and on their best behavior. Enjoy it while it lasts. Be prepared for the end of the honeymoon because it will end. If goals, responsibilities and roles are not clearly outlined, a more assertive partner may attempt to impose their objectives and goals absent a thoroughly planned agreement.

Some of the more prominent joint venture risks include; differing ideas on how to raise capital, financing agreements, and spending philosophies. Be sure to consider whether the JV operations will be capital-intensive or labor intensive. One partner might prefer heavy investment in machinery or technology for a competitive edge. The other may prefer more investment in labor-intensive techniques to avoid tying up capital.

Other common risks may involve personnel and staff integration. The two teams are perhaps worlds apart in terms of expertise, and technical sophistication. Often it requires expensive training to bring the other side up to speed. The new JV partners may also encounter a deep-rooted resistance to change from their respective staff. The risks abound when employees remain too entrenched in their previous philosophies, corporate culture and work environment. Territorial battles ensue over the new system, and non-compliance often leads to increased staff-turnover.

Joint venture risks related to intellectual property and financial information

Another area of contention is how much information to share. It may not be necessary or required to provide the other partner full access to something like production secrets. A number of joint venture marketing agreements are between two related, but not directly competing businesses. A soft drink manufacturer might enter into a partnership with a confectionaries producer. In such a partnership, the soft drink manufacturer would not necessarily find the need to share their soft drink formula and vice versa.

Joint venture risks dependent on capital spending can arise when one side refuses to share exact details related to their financial backers. Sometimes there is reluctance to offer the full details about future investors out of fear the potential partner will contact the investor directly. This leaves their prospective partner concerned that they do not have a true financial picture.

Being aware of the potential risks involved in a joint venture partnership is not enough. Efforts should be taken to protect each company as much as possible from the adverse effects of poor planning and the lack of a thorough evaluation. Building the right relationship from the start is ideal. This should minimize ill feelings that could develop between the new teammates. Adequate research, negotiation and compromise are necessary when developing shared objectives in a joint venture.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Talking Points You Need to Know Before Forming a Joint Venture

There are many situations in the diverse world of business today that justify the need to enter into a joint venture marketing partnership. After hearing about joint venture marketing, someone might be excited about having their business transformed by creating an alliance with another successful and related business. However, the business world is full of rough-and-tumble personalities which will require you to tread cautiously in order to function efficiently and avoid getting the short end of the stick so to speak when it comes to a JV agreement. Here are several key points you cannot afford to ignore before entering a joint venture partnership.

Do the companies complement each other?

First of all, the potential partners should deliver a product and/or service that complements or at the very least is related to both companies. Obviously you’ll want to avoid partnering with a business that competes directly with your company’s products or services. Offering complimentary products or services in your new joint venture will go a long way to make the partnership a successful one. For example, home décor products would go well with a company that provides consumer electronics.

Does your potential JV partner have a compatible strategy?

The scope of the other partner’s strategy should not clash with yours. If you have a long-term plan in mind, it wouldn’t make sense to partner with a company that’s only in the market for the summer. Keep in mind the scope of your combined strategy will also influence things such as marketing plans, employee recruitment and training, and other short-term goals you may have for your business. Additionally, the combined strategy, whether it’s capital intensive or labor intensive will depend on the size of the businesses involved.

Another factor to take into consideration when reviewing whether or not you and your potential partner’s strategies are compatible is each company’s timeline. Know how soon the other partner plans to do some crucial tasks. Know how often they borrow or pay off loans. Without time lines, a business is just drifting with the current, lunging at any piece of business that drifts downstream. This is clearly not how a profitable business should operate. It’s also wise to crosscheck what customer base the other business already boasts. What quality is there and what room for improvement exists?

Is your potential JV partner financially sound?

Finally, the capital base that exists should be given top priority at the outset. Can you picture entering into a joint venture marketing agreement with a company that is going to declare bankruptcy tomorrow? Often, the integrity of both partners to the businesses will take a beating if one of the two declares that he cannot meet financial obligations. It’s highly recommended to have an attorney draft up an agreement to clearly outline which obligations, whether financial or otherwise, will be handled by which partner. That way, it’s not one person holding the reins of the agreement. The golden rule is being willing to treat the other partner’s business as if it were your own.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

The Players in a Joint Venture Marketing Team

The amount of people who will participate in a joint venture project depends on both the size of the companies and the size of the project that is being attempted. For two very small businesses it might be as simple as two company owners meeting together to discuss their plans. Usually, however, the team structure is more complex.

The governing body

It is common practice for both companies to have an equal number of representatives participating on the project. This way neither company feels as though it’s at a disadvantage. This governing body will protect the interests of all involved in the project. While they will have loyalties to their own company, their primary goal is to see that the project is completed fairly and successfully. The greater the size of the company, the larger the team can be. It is important that there are enough people who are part of the governing body to get the project done according to the projected time line, but it’s also important that the companies do not pull too many people away from their regular responsibilities. While the joint venture marketing project is important, it’s also important that the rest of the business continues to function effectively. It is not uncommon for companies to hire new people just to make sure that the business does not suffer.

The management team

It is also customary for there to be a management team. These people will be given the task of overseeing individual aspects of the project. Dividing the work load up allows for more personal attention to be paid to every aspect. These people are often supervisors or managers from their respective companies. They work hand-in-hand with the governing body; overseeing tasks that have been divided up and assigned for completion. It’s important that the company be able to keep the people in their group on task at all times while being able to add creative insight to the project. Oftentimes their jobs are more difficult because in addition to being part of the management team for the project, they are also still required to effectively do their job as supervisor or manager for the rest of the business.

The financial team

There is usually a financial team as well. As the investment of most joint venture marketing projects can be quite high, the job of the financial team is to keep all of the finances in order and try to keep the cost of the project within the projected budget. They research the best deals on anything that needs to be purchased and calculate the projected revenue for each aspect of the project. The more ways they can find to make and save money, the more successful the project will be. They also have the task of making sure the cost of the project is divided up between the two companies in the way initially agreed upon. Because of this it is very important that there are an equal number of people from both companies represented on the financial team. Neither company wants to feel that it is at a financial disadvantage for any reason.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Legal Advice for Joint Venture Marketing

Like almost any business venture, legal advice is generally used when forming a joint venture marketing agreement. This is the wisest way to go to protect the company’s assets in the event the business venture is not successful. While a well-planned out venture generally has no reason that it should fail, it is always important to protect the company. On the rare occasion that two businesses are only going to interact for a very short period of time and there are not any high risks involved with the project, then legal council is probably not necessary. For the vast majority of joint business marketing ventures, however, it is wise to include legal advice.

Choosing an attorney

Selecting an attorney for the joint business marketing project can be a difficult process. The company that initially comes up with the plan will probably want legal advice to help them draw up the outline for the project. However, it is not a good idea to approach the other company under the assumption that the project only needs one attorney. The offer for the other company to have its own legal council should always be extended. This way the second company doesn’t need to fear they’re going to somehow be tricked. The second option would be for neither company to use their own company’s legal counsel, but instead hire outside, impartial legal advice. This way the cost of the attorney could be split without one party being unfairly represented. However, hiring an outside attorney will increase the cost of the project. If both companies already have their own attorney, then that is usually the best option to choose.

The most important stage of any joint venture is to have legal counsel present when both parties sit down to draw up the plans for their project. When making agreements such as which company is going to pay for what and how much revenue each company will earn, it’s very important to have binding legal contracts that cannot result in an unfair advantage to one party or the other. If both parties are sharing the cost of legal counsel, then it is obviously only necessary for the one attorney to look the plan over. If each party decides to have its own attorney, however, it is important that both companies’ legal counsel look over the plan and that they both agree that it will work.

After the initial plan has been approved by both companies and the legal counsel, it is up to the individual businesses to decide whether they wish to keep the legal advice on board for the rest of the project. Obviously if both parties are using company attorneys, then it only makes sense to keep them on hand. However, if both parties are comfortable with dismissing the legal counsel after the plans for the business venture have been agreed upon, then doing so will save both companies money. In the end, the most important thing with legal advice is that both parties feel comfortable with the situations they are agreeing upon and that both companies’ assets are protected.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

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