Daniel Lane

Originally Posted by Paul Barrs

Following is an exact cut / copy / paste of a series of emails that I received and replied to recently. These came to me from a guy prospecting me to JV with him in an advertising program. I’ve copied these emails here for all to learn from, with a few comments in italics. Let me say by posting these here I’m not trying to beat up the guy… but this is NOT how you go about trying to get well established marketers to do JV’s and run cross-promotions with you.

Enjoy.

PS. Names have been changed to protect the innocent

First email in -

Hi Paul,

I’m a super affiliate in the Internet marketing niche and I’m interested in promoting your product. I have a very powerful and unique method of generating sales, which you’ve probably never heard of before. So, before I use it I would like to get your approval first.

I will send a spike of sales immediately and then sales over time.

Note that we have generated $500,000 in the IM niche using this methodology. It’s completely white hat.

Please reply back if you are interested. This is NOT a sales call.

Thanks,
John Smith

A “super affiliate” using a “method I’ve never heard of….” Wow. I’m impressed. Well, actually, no I’m not. I’ve been in this business now and making money since 2001. There really ain’t much I “haven’t heard of”.

When you’re doing JV’s NEVER assume you know what the other person does or does not know.

My first reply -

Tell me John, which product were you talking about?

Paul Barrs

You see folks, the thing is if John had done any research before he would have known what my ‘products’ were. If you’re going to prospect someone for a JV you damn sure better know what they’re already doing before you talk to them.

Hey Paul,

Thanks for getting back to me. Currently we are running contests for products in the IM niche. You can check out our current contest here: www…..

As you can see these are professionally hosted and comes with a methodology of driving a lot of sales for sponsors.

Also, please take a look at the attached PDF. It will explain the contest flow in more detail. Note that the PDF mentions contests for the health niche, we are updating the PDF for Internet Marketing, but the contests are run just the same.

If you have any questions at all or would like to join us and become a sponsor please get back to me by responding to this email. Our next contest for the IM niche starts May 1st, so I’m fulfilling spots right now.

Finally, you should consider joining this month’s contest to see how it goes from the user standpoint. You are certainly eligible for the prizes.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,
John

Hmm. OK. But the thing about JV’s with *very busy people* is that you actually want to be able to offer them to do everything for them. Yes… everything. Set up their links. Write their product descriptions, ad copy, sales letters… EVERYTHING! (I actually have an affiliate program… “John” could have done all this without me.)

John, I appreciate your canned response, but you didn’t answer my question… “which product (of mine) were you talking about?” that you want to promote….

Paul Barrs

Hey Paul,

Do you have any products in the IM or health niche? I can work with those next month.

Thanks,
John.

And this is where he lost me, not that he ever had me in the first place, but –

John,

First up let me say ‘thank you’ for your reply, as well as ‘forgive me’ for my blunt reply.

But I find it very hard to believe that you have any idea what you’re doing when you ask me “if I have any products in the IM niche”. It’s not that I would have expected you to have participated in my training programs before, but before you asked that question I wonder if you did any homework at all?

Did you put my name into a search engine? Did you look at my email address to see what domain it was from? Did you visit my website and click the link that says “IM Training Programs”? Did you look at my affiliate program? No.

And that’s why we can’t work together. It’s not my place to do all the work for you when you’re the one wanting the JV.

Paul Barrs

I posted these not to try and belittle “john”, no. But to illustrate to everyone reading that if you want to go from playing little league to big league in the world of IM then you must take the time to (1) do your research with your prospects and (2) also put in the time to get to know your prospects as well.

I once did a great JV with a guy called Aiden Chong. Aiden put together a terrific product on relationship marketing and the power of JV’s. Between the two of us we cracked out a top product. Part 1 was his eBook explaining the topic. Part 2 was me recording a video based around his content. Aiden did some work, I did some work, we both shared it out to our contacts and social circles. It was a JV that reaped reward many different ways.

The whole thing was about RELATIONSHIP BUILDING.

Get this one thing right, and you could very well add an extra $50,000 or more to your annual income!

- Paul Barrs

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