Now that you’ve had time to think about joint ventures, you may want to understand how to set up a joint venture with a competitor or competitors. While the best JVs share a division of labor – when you’re first getting started before you have a large following – the best way to do it is to identify who you want to form a JV with and then produce the idea in advance.
Then, at least at first, do most of the work before you invite the participants. Once you have one or two successful JVs under your belt, they’ll start coming to you, and you’ll be able to command more time and effort while doing less of the work as you become one of the industry movers and shakers yourself.
- Know Who You Want to Work With – Before you even produce a JV idea, figure out who the competitors are that you’d like to work with within a joint venture. When you know who, it’ll be easier to figure out what you’re going to do.
- Decide on a Project – Now that you know who, figure out what. Think about the skills that the person you want to work with brings to the table. The more you can let them stand out, the more likely they are to want to participate.
- Make it Short Term – Don’t start with a long-term JV because you don’t know how well you’ll work together. Try one webinar or one live event or one book compilation but don’t start a long-term membership site or anything you have to work on permanently with someone you’ve never worked with yet.
- Make it Easy for Them – Once you figure out what you want to do, write it all down so that it’s understandable. Set up every single thing so that it’s easy to divide up the duties and move forward.
- Create the Contract – You can set up the contract before you even invite them to the project so that all they have to do is read it to understand each party's rights, responsibilities, and expectations.
- Set Benchmarks – Remember to add benchmarks into the contract to know what measures will mean that this JV is a success. For example, you might agree that when you get 100 signups for your joint webinar that you both throw in another free gift to the audience that you can announce together.
- Set Deadlines – Also, be very specific in the contract about the deadlines for each person’s contributions. If you don’t put deadlines, it’ll be hard to keep everything going—hint: Set up reminders in your project management system once they agree to the JV.
- Keep Moving It Forward – If you do as much of the planning and organizing before you even invite the first person to your JV idea, you’ll be much more likely to succeed. Plus, you’ll impress the competition, and they’ll be even more likely to want to work with you not just on this project but on other JV ideas long term.
They say that birds of a feather flock together, and nothing demonstrates this more than looking at who your industry leaders align themselves with. Pick the best partners for you while also being willing to venture out of your comfort zone. But do always put your own morals, values, and principles first as you choose who to work with or who not to work with as you form your joint ventures.
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