D'oh! a big mistake!

[Harun Bahri]

I was reading through Sterling Valentine's Special Report "JV Mistakes" and found it quite intriguing as I'm a big believer in learning from not just my mistakes but those of others as well.

So how about hearing from some of you experienced JV'rs here about some of the big mistakes people make when it comes to JV'ing?

This would be a great lesson for many of us newbies learning the ropes.

[Mike Merz]

I could write a book ... and most likely will one day, on mistakes others, my clients, and I ... myself, have made over the years.

I'll leave you with two, for now ...

1) Lack of patience - using JVs to leverage the success of a launch can multiply the profits you would have experienced on your own many times over ... wouldn't you think that something that important would have you at 110% in regards to having all your systems in place? ... all your ducks in a row, before you pull the trigger? You'd be surprised at the half assed rush jobs I've seen in an effort to make a fast buck ... and how they've actually wound up costing both the merchant ... and me, money in the long run. Test, tweak, and make sure your whole marketing & sales process is water proof before you hit that button.

2) Lack of interaction between the Merchant and the JV partners - I'm not talking JV mailings, I mean taking the time to speak with every JV partner at least once ... one on one, to nurture your hopefully ongoing relationship ... and to potentiate follow through. A list of 100,000 means SQUAT if they don't press the send button ... if you have the ability to reciprocate, let them know it ... even schedule a mailing for one of their projects at an agreed upon date after your launch.

That's all the rambling I have time for right now ... ;)

Best,

Mike

[Martin Brock]

Good points...

I'd like to add one thing that I think a lot of people neglect.

Typically the best JV partners are very conscious of what products they choose to endorse because they want to maintain a good relation with their audience. And typically, they also receive a lot of jv requests.

For these reasons I think it is of great importance that we put immediate emphasis on demonstrating how people are benefiting from the product we want them to promote.

If I'm going to consider taking a look at a product, I want to know who thinks it is good other than the person who's selling it :) I think too many people start off a jv request telling how much money they are willing to pay, and that's basically of no importance until I know the product is good. And if it is someone I don't know, who doesn't address this issue in the request, I may not even look at the product.

[Richard Trice]

Hello

This is a section that is very important to me. I am extremely interested in not making mistakes or atleast too many mistakes when it comes to my business.

I have made quite a few obviously because it is not yet where I would like it to be, but I appreciate all the insight that I am recieving, THANKS

[Egidijus Andreika]

Hello,

Well, I'm not an experienced JVer, but some mistakes I can tell:

1) Many people are only interested to throw out their product and write letters like this:
"I have a good product. I want to JV with you. I will pay you $XX. etc"

Well, I'm just simplified everything... But you get the idea - most of marketers only want to throw their product without even bothering to write a personal e-mail message. I can bet that the same message was sent to another 100 people asking for JV... People don't get personal... They don't care about you... So why should I care about their product?

2) There are even some requests with grammar mistakes - try to double-check your letter for spelling and grammar mistakes before considering sending it.

Have a nice day,
Egidijus

[Hamida Pall]

I came across this thread in the Warrior Forum a few weeks ago and got a few good tips from it http://www.warriorforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=124821&SearchTerms=,jv - It's Worst JV Blunders Of 2006!

[charleskirkland]

This is just some of my personal war stories. This year I launched a site using my on in-house list. The site was priced at 9.95 per month I decided on this price based on a survey of my list as to what they would be willing to pay.

I have my own server so I didn’t thing bandwidth would be a problem. Well trying to stream 11 hours of online video is a lot of juice. Now add a few hundred members signing up and viewing this the first couple hours slowed down my box to nothing.

Now through in the 400+ websites I have that are also on the 1 box and you get a nightmare.

I have people mad asking for refunds left and right since the site is down, plus now I’m getting people mad because I’m not responding to them via email.

The short of this story make sure you have enough bandwidth to handle your videos.

Thanks
Charles Kirkland