Joint Ventures and Google Alerts

By Paul Barrs

If you’ve been online for any time now you’ll know that without doubt the best and potentially most successful strategy for generating income is through Joint Ventures.

The problem however for most is that the idea of “contacting the top performers” (so-called Guru’s) is completely out of the question. I mean, even if you spark up the courage to actually try to contact them, 99 out of 100 times you never hear back from them do you. That of course means that you most likely *never* hear back from them because you’ve given up well before 99 attempts; this is OK, after all, we can only handle so much rejection before it gets to us.

These problems have faced people working in the sales industry for decades. There’s nothing new about it, it’s just the way it is.

But –

Even though almost everyone out there says that ‘you have to contact the big guns’ to access the big lists to get a successful joint venture, I’m here to ask you… do you? Really?

Sure, it is true that one successful JV with a big list is going to put you in front of more people, and because of this you shouldn’t ever give up on that strategy, but perhaps you could also consider this one –

Let’s say for example that it takes 99 strike-outs to get that one, and you get access to a list of 50,000 or more. OK. Well, at the same time you could hunt around for the ‘small to medium players’ who have been established online for a year or two and probably have lists in the 1000 – 5000 range (I’m talking QUALITY here, not tens of thousands of pointless email addresses).

In this second example you’re more likely to get a successful ‘home run’ each 4 out of 5 times when you approach them. Doing some simple maths, for the 99 attempts it takes to pull in the big one, assuming only 3 in 4 wins and an average list size of 2,500 – that would give you the opportunity to put your offer in front of over 180,000 people… nice.

That now out of the way; where do you find them? Well, gazillions of places – eZine directories, article directories, online forums, and targeted keyword searches etc. The list is endless.

An opportunity that’s also good is through the use of Google Alerts.

I came across this one recently because I keep track of what’s happening online with my name and my products, and by using Google Alerts, each time there’s a change made to a page with contains my “Google Alert” search criteria, I get a notification about it sent in summary form each evening.

So how can we find Joint Venture Partners in this? Easy. The Google Alert system allows me to input any type of search parameter from which it will then send me an update on. So you could use your name… or your favourite “guru’s” name, or your targeted search term for your website / product or whatever. When you get the alert, you simply go to the relevant website, make sure that it all looks OK and contact them. Tel them how you came across their site and compliment them on it, then offer your JV.

What makes it really work though is this – consistency!

Sometimes you’ll only get 2 or 3 updates in your alert. If this happens continually, don’t get disheartened, be happy. Because it’s far easier to research and contact 2 or three people a day than 20 or 30. One of the biggest mistakes I see in business both online and offline is the setting of unrealistic goals. Be careful not to let yourself fall into that trap.

Your goal here is to plug people into your affiliate program through a specific joint venture invitation – people who may never have found you otherwise. Do it regularly, slowly and consistently; after a short period of time you’ll have a dynamic JV affiliate list that produces powerful results every time you mail to them.

Have fun!

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