Carol Bentley

In yesterday’s post I mentioned it’s easier to sell to a prospect who considers you favourably - a warm prospect - rather than a cold prospect who knows nothing about your company.

You get warm prospects when your customers recommend you to other people - but this is not always a reliable, constant source of prospective sales.

You can create a more structured and controlled way of getting those new, warm leads by connecting with other companies and arranging a joint venture. Businesses with an online presence often use affiliates to create the same result.

The idea behind this is to find a non-competing company who sells to the same market place you target. So, for example, a landscaping business could connect with a builder or a garden supplies centre or an estate agent. The company you are working with recommends your services or products in a letter sent to their customers. You write the letter and cover the mailing cost - if you ask the other company to do that they may think the reward doesn’t justify the work or costs involved.

You pay a pre-arranged commission for any new business you get from this arrangement.

Organising Joint Ventures

How do you find companies:

a) you are happy to associate with
b) who feel confident about your ability to deliver what you promise

Selecting Companies to Approach

The first, most obvious criteria I’ve already mentioned, is finding companies whose customers are your targeted audience.

Second, check the company supplies a complementary, rather than competing product/service (you can have arrangements with your direct competitors too, but I suggest you start with non-competing companies first).

Third, make sure the company you choose to approach has a professional reputation to match yours. If the company does not have a top-rate reputation then their recommendation does not do you any favours and could actually damage you.

Fourth, make sure your proposal benefits both sides; maybe even offer to recommend their services or products to your customers in return. Obviously make sure you are happy with the quality of what they supply before agreeing to do this.

Be prepared to do the work in progressing this - your prospective Joint Venture Partner may not see the real benefit to them when you first make the suggestion, especially if they’ve never taken part in this sort of arrangement before.

Making The Approach

If you’ve never considered this approach to finding new customers before it can be a little scary - especially if you’re trying to convince companies who are sceptical about an arrangement like this. The way you make your proposal and follow through on your initial contact makes a huge difference.

You’ll probably find the Strategic Profit’s Joint Venture Partnerships course a useful resource. It looks at the whole area of creating joint ventures, including how to find companies to approach. The course is focused on creating online Joint Ventures but the process it describes is just as relevant to offline JVs.

Are Your Partner’s Customers Interested?

Not all of your Joint Partner’s customers are interested in what you offer and you do not want to upset your partner or his customers by constantly sending offer letters. Ideally you want the customers who are interested, either now or in the future, to show they want to know more so you only keep in touch with them.

The easiest way to do that - as I’m sure you already know - is to offer free information. You can send a tips guide/booklet, an audio or video or invite them to your website to download useful information (make sure you capture their name and email address). Once the customer accepts your offer of free information they have effectively demonstrated their interest and you can continue to keep in touch so that eventually - hopefully sooner rather than later - they become your customer. And, at that point any commission arrangement you have agreed can kick in.

Recession Proof Tip 3: Find Profitable Alliances

Use the joint venture principle to find warm prospects and generate more sales.

~ Carol Bentley

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Date: Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 9:45 am | Category: Marketing | RSS Feed: RSS 2.0 feed.
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