First thing to do -- take 2 minutes and introduce yourself ...

[Carson Lim]

Another Introduction...

This is Carson from WealthyAffiliate.com and BeatingAdwords.com. I just want to inroduce myself to the group. Mike has put together a real GEM of a site with JVNotifyPro and my partner Kyle and I hope to jump on board with some of the JV opportunities that are available. We are also going to be looking for JV partners for some upcoming projects, and we'll definitely keep you posted as they unfold.

Regards,

Carson
Wealthy Affiliate
Carson@wealthyaffiliate.com

[Chris Lee]

Hi Mike and everyone else,

I have been meaning to sign up here for quite a while and was prompted again recently when I saw Mike's name
popping up when I was promoting Michael Cheney's launch last month.

Our entire business is actually one big Joint Venture - I was in offline direct marketing for 10 years running my own mailorder wine company and sold out a few years back. Internet marketing really interested me and a couple of years ago, I came across my now-business partner trying to sell his keyword research software on the internet.*

I thought the software was great, but the marketing really did need some serious work - so I approached him with a J/V proposal - He to concentrate on developing great software and me to sell it. The rest as they say is history. We have gone from strength to strength with sales now in the six figures, 3 products on the market and a fourth due out shortly.

This looks like a great place to meet like-minded people to do business together. I am always open to new ideas for our customers and subscribers who largely are people interested in Keyword research, Adwords and AdSense or just general internet marketing opportunities.

Well done Mike for a great resource.


Chris Lee
Keywords Analyzer

[Martin Brock]

Hi Carson and Chris, I'm sure Mike will be around shortly with a personal welcome

Chris, your post makes me wonder how many people are out there with quality products or great ideas but who just don't have the faintest idea how to market them. Just yesterday, I contacted a guy who is obviously a viral genius, but he didn't have a clue that viral marketing is such a powerful marketing mechanism and a very sought after commodity by huge companies. I just had to fill him in

[Chris Lee]

Hi Martin,

Well - the opportunities there are I believe, endless. Barely a week goes by where
I don't come across someone who has the makings of a good product and needs
marketing help. There certainly is a business opportunity there for someone with
the vision to put professional marketers in touch with people wanting to sell something
but do not have an idea where to start.

In our case, my partner is a second-language English speaker, and although his
English is very good, it certainly showed in his sales letter at the time - and he was
selling around 10 units a month. I am pleased to say that it is significantly higher
than that now. But on the flip side - I can speak English, but I sure cannot begin
to understand how he develops our software...!

And there is the key.

Good Joint venture partnerships have to revolve around complimentary skills for a
specific objective. I don't advise him how to do software - he does not advise me how
to sell it. Without each other, it would all be nothing.

One extremely important ingredient in a Joint Venture like ours, is the establishment
of trust. Although contracts and so on are of course useful, one has to establish
very quickly the kind of working relationship that either partner completely trusts
the other - especially when one bears in mind that we live on different continents.

For instance, all of my ancilliary marketing, whether list-building, J/V's,
related affiliate income and so on - all of it is for our joint account - everything - even though
I could certainly make a case for that not to be so, it just would alter the nature
of the relationship for the worse - so it's as well not to even think that way.

As of this month we will have been in business two years and we have
yet to even speak on a telephone. We communicate on Instant messaging
daily though.

[Mike Lacoursiere]

Hi Everyone!

My name is Mike Lacoursiere.

I'm from Wainwright, Alberta, Canada.

I've been a very Successfull Affiliate for 2 and a half years now. Clickbank is my specialty. Now I'm into my own product development and I'm getting to experience the other side of the fence! Being a Merchant. I'm about to do a product launch and I came across this site about 3 days ago while doing some research on the best places to find some JV partners.

I'm also well known on a few other Forums and I hope that I can make some valuable contributions to this Forum and become well known here as well.

This is an excellent Forum!

Keep up the good work!

Mike
www.cbstatz.com

[Carson Lim]

Chris, Martin and Mike,

I think we've all come to this site with great intentions and a lot of experience and value that we can add to anyone looking to do JV's. Chris, you hit the nail on the head. There are a ton of companies out there with absolutely great products, but are (for lack of a better word) "Clueless" when it comes to marketing products online. My partner Kyle and I started as affiliates nearly 4 years ago, and since then have moved over to the merchant side of things. We've got an army of VERY highly motivated members at wealthyaffiliate.com, all of who are VERY eager to promote the next up and coming affiliate product.

As a merchant, what are our goals besides making initial sales? JV's can drastically help with a product launch, and getting the word out there, but let's look at this one step further. As Merchants we need AFFILAITES, people who are going make money selling our products. If the product is a great quality product, those affiliates will sell for years to come.

A site like this is GOLDEN for people like ourselves looking for partnerships because JV's don't only help generate sales and product awareness, they help build affilaite relationships!

Anyway, I'm happy to see some other Motivated people here, and I hope that we can work together on some upcoming projects.

Carson
Wealthy Affiliate

[Martin Brock]

Hey Mike, welcome!

Chris, I have a similar relationship with my business partner, although we're personal friends as well and neither of us are native English speakers. It's good to see that such relations are formed across contintents between people who met on the internet -- I hardly think any other medium could have made such things happen on a large scale. Trust is essential, but it's funny how you can actually form trust through digital communication alone, I mean a lot of people would probably say that real world contact would be a requirement, but I know what it's like, I know several people I met on the net that I would gladly send my credit card numbers without hesitation if they asked. But I'd probably get a little curious if they one day did ask ;D

[Martin Brock]

Carson,

You make an excellent point.

No matter how you look at it, marketing always comes down to quality. Those who are in the business of creating value are those who thrive in the long run.

You've effectively trained your affiilates to stay loyal because their customers/subscribers buy your products again and again, simply because they're very happy with them..

For me, that is the core of our business -- focus on creating something that has value and nothing beats the competitive edge that you gain from a high life time customer value.

And not to mention that you inject a viral element into your marketing, not only from customer to customer but from affiliate to affiliate, and that is even more powerful..

[Carson Lim]

Well Said Martin!

Now, what Mike Merz has, is something VERY powerful. He has partnerships, not only with Affiliates, and JV partners, but JV Partners that have affiliates! If this site is properly utilized it could be a GOLD MINE for people looking for JV partneres. I see huge opportunity here already. I've only been active here for about a week and have already had some very good conversations with potential JV's.

The pure power of partnerships is truly mind boggling! I can't wait to post about the success of my new launch that is coming up on the 19th of June. We've created an entire JV site for the launch, and if there is anyone here interested in learning more, send me a pm so we can discuss...

Carson
Wealthy Affiliate

[Mike Merz]

Thanks, Martin and Carson ..

What I'm trying to do here in a nutshell is to create a helpful, usable evironment for JV Marketers with experience to interact ... build relationships, and take the whole community to another level.

I want this to be the most important JV Marketing community ... and we have the tools ... we just have to use them.

The whole is equal to the sum of it's parts ... help me make this community THE place for everything and anything to do about JV Marketing, and reaching higher and higher levels of success as an end result.

Thanks ... again,

Mike