How NOT to start a JV Contact.

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

Got a comment? Love to hear it below….

you are right ... this man it's seem doesn't know what to do ...
recently, i decide to start JV's Invite to promote my products, i hope i do it right ...
thanks for this post Mr Paul

Hi Paul, I know EXACTLY who you are talking about!

Because I got the very same emails from this CLOWN too!

It really winds me up that people like him can actually get away with his very unscrupulous tactics. I feel sorry for the innocent people he has managed to con!

Hey Paul, thanks for this post.

In the past I made the mistake you mention of not doing enough research before making contact with someone, and it burned the relationship. Since then I've made sure to be a lot more careful about doing my research, and it makes a huge difference.

I'd like to also add a tip for folks who are not making the basic mistakes noted above, but who might still be having problems gaining traction with JVs. In particular, I know it can be super challenging to get people to follow through, and taking some guidance from Brian Tracey's sales training has helped me a lot.

So, here's the suggestion...

As soon as you gain interest from someone, get them on to a voice call. I've found that it is really challenging to keep someone's attention through a series of back and forth email messages about setting up a JV. On the other hand, once you get someone on a phone call, you have their full attention, at least for the time that you are on the call. This makes doing research in advance of the call even more important, because you want to make sure you know what you are doing before you have your hot JV project on the phone.

Finally, before you get off the phone with your hot JV prospect, you should make sure that you have a follow up call scheduled to review your progress on the JV you are setting up to keep things moving. Just because you got someone on the phone once, doesn't mean you'll keep their attention when you have future email conversations with them. Also, scheduling a follow up call helps keep everyone accountable to moving things forward because there is a deadline to meet.

So, in summary:

`As soon as you gain interest from a JV prospect, get them on a voice call
`Whenever you are getting off a call with a JV prospect, make sure you book a follow up call to check in on your progress and to keep things moving forward.

Nathan

I also received the email mentioned here but it's not the first time unfortunately.

Some people seem to think they can just send a message offering to promote one of your products when you can tell from the email they haven't even bothered to check it out properly, and really all they want to do is get you promoting their product or sign you up to some sort of scheme.

It works better for all concerned if it's a genuine Joint Venture proposal that's going to be followed through properly.

And here I was thinking I was "special" ! :)

Interesting to read the replies -

Paul

Hi Paul,

I loved the reply you gave him, LOL.

I've received a few messages like that myself, from different people. It makes me wonder if there are a lot of people who have taken bad advice on "how to do a JV" from a really bad training course.

Cheers,
Suzanne

Great thread Paul. Much appreciated!

The idea that someone needs to actually work and research, and communicate clearly and honestly seems to be lost on some.

All the Best,
Patrick

Hi Paul

That's very sound advice in any marketing strategy whether online or on a b2b basis. Even if you were going for a job interview you would first want to find out everything you could about the buisness you were hoping to be employed by.

I really enjoyed your post and have printed it out and stuck it to my office wall just to remind me that one should never get too big for their own boots!

Thanks again for the great advice.
Caroline

I think his tactic for generating traffic is the same as it is for signing up JV partners... SPAM!

If he could really send that many sales to any offer, then he doesn't need to contact you, he just needs to go to ClickBank or CommissionJunction and start spamming away!

Hey Paul,

It looks like he typed in IM in search box and sent out a response to everyone the same.

I would do my research before attempting to ask anyone about JV.

Thanks for your candid expose on this.

wow. I'm impressed with your patients with this guy.

'this is not a sales call' usually means my product is so crap i don't think i'm going to sell it.

Hey Paul, thanks for the post.

I really don't know what this guy was actually expecting? I'm guessing this was a collection of emails that went out to everyone and his dog and unfortunately, you just so happened to be on his list.

Very funny! Thanks for the share.

Cheers,

Des

nice report Paul! Much appreciated..

This was a good case study everyone in Internet Marketing should see before they begin asking for JV requests. I know I learned a few things myself from reading your email transcripts/

Hey,

While the "method you've never heard of" comment is a good indication that this person is wildly arrogant, overconfident and very likely a fraud, I must say that JV requests containing numbers like $500,000 is very enticing for someone who isn't yet making an extremely good living off of marketing.

Just goes to show that it pays to dig a little deeper! Thanks for sharing this, and thumbs up to your reply! "canned response" I like that!

Chris

I'm almost certain that this technique was taught in one or several "how to get big JV partners" type products, the name is at the tip of my tongue, but I honestly can't remember. So in many cases you have the blind leading the blind, telling unknowing people that are just getting started to "cut and paste" these types of emails, find the addresses of possible JV's and blast them out.

John, I read the email flow and i have to say, good job. I initially would have fell for this guy's pitch!
I really appreciate this and it really made me realize that if you stop and think about something it's not that easy to have the wool pulled over your eyes. Plus, it sounds like this guy is trying to grab big partners with a ridiculous generic message. Proves that experience trumps everything!
Regards,
Greg
5MinuteCure.com