We Met Over an Airbed...

Hello again

Today, I've a little story for you. Imagine this:

You are struggling to build your business beyond what seems to be its natural limits.

You work hard on and in your business, but let’s imagine your business is supplying inflated beds. That’s airbeds with the air already in…

Do you know what it’s like blowing up an inflatable bed? For ages, little seems to happen; it feels like the air is going nowhere, then it starts to take shape and you begin to feel rewarded for all that huffing and puffing. Then, just when you think you’re really winning, the bed is full and each and every puff gets harder than the last. Meanwhile, the bed gets no bigger…

Now you meet a partner, and he or she points out that you could be inflating a double airbed with all the effort you’re putting into trying to grow the single one. What’s more, they can add their puffs, too. In fact, they have access to a pump, if only you can supply a few more beds….

Now you have a business that’s potentially ten, a hundred, even a thousand times the size it was – and you’re doing far less huffing and puffing, too. In fact, you’ve probably automated, systematised and standardised to such an extent by now, its as though you’re doing virtually no work at all – you just keep getting richer!

And you’re the world’s number-one inflated airbed supplier, with partners all around the world.

All because you met a partner with a pump…

That ‘pump’ could be any skill or asset you don’t possess. And your airbeds could be anything they don’t have. But together? Together, the world is at your feet.

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

PS. To meet the owner of your potential 'pump' you will have to take some action. How about going to the next networking event, seminar or conference and just making a real effort to meet people? Go Here!

Five Ways to Secure a JV Deal...

(...With a Following Wind)

Hello.

No, I can't guarantee any of these methods will work, but they will ALL improve your chances of securing that all-important agreement from a major marketer to promote YOUR product.

You see, the main problem you'll have with your jv proposition, once you've got a great product and a good conversion rate and a great 'fit' to your target's list, is getting your jv target to listen to it.

So, keeping the promise I made to you yesterday, here are five ideas you might try:

• Email them personally. I've started with the method least likely to succeed, so you can see that even this can be done well or badly. Emailing these days will often get you nowhere. I get dozens of emails every day, and I expect you do too, and most of them are junk. Of those that aren't, I probably read about ten percent (unless I'm very bored, which isn't often these days), the rest I save for 'later' - which never comes. An email addressed to me by name, that looks like it might be a personal message, will at least get read promptly, so think of an original and personal-sounding subject line. Maybe try a topic you know they're interested in away from work - but it must tie in with the subject of the mail, even if a little tenuously.

• Write to them. A real letter, that is, with a hand-written envelope, addressed to them personally. We hardly get any personal mail these days, so a brief letter, again hand-written if possible, that speaks to them, might just sway them. Maybe tell them you'll follow up with a phone call, or invite them to phone you - don't forget to leave your number! Remember to make a strong sales pitch within your friendly little note.

• Join the forums on their membership sites and read and post regularly on their blogs. Get yourself known by name, at least. You'll have your email and website address in your profile. Then you can contact them through their site or by email or letter, or...

• Phone them. Some people are genuinely too busy to answer their own telephone, but not always the people you might expect. Speaking with them directly is much more likely to give you the results you're after and much more likely to get you off on a friendly footing, too. Even if the answer is 'no' this time, you're more likely to be remembered if you've actually spoken, and a good impression now may well pay dividends next time - in the form of a 'yes'. We all like working with people we know and like - it's simple human nature.

• Meet them face to face. Network, in other words, and try to get to the events where your targets are most likely to be - often as speakers. That doesn't make them untouchable or out of bounds. Networking like this also throws up other opportunities for joint ventures that you probably haven't considered. At the very least, you can speak to several different potential jv partners in the course of one networking day. Know what you're offering and be prepared to think on your feet, because there will probably be other deals on offer that you should consider.

That's my five for today. I've assumed you've done your homework on your 'targets', found or created a great product, demonstrated that it will sell, and that you are the kind of person a successful marketer will be happy to work with.

And I'm sure there are plenty more ways to get the attention of the big guns in Internet marketing - let me know about any you've had success with!

Until next time,

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

PS. Never forget, we're dealing with human beings here, so what works with one target might be exactly the wrong way to approach another. Trust your instincts, listen to their advice about what works (because that's probably what works with them), but most of all, TAKE ACTION. When you have a good product to promote, for goodness' sake PROMOTE IT!

Networking Tips

Hello again

I make no apology for returning to the topic of networking, but I do apologise for extolling the virtues of networking without offering, up to now, much advice on how to go about it.

So, apology duly made, here are a few tips to make your networking easier and more productive. That's for you and for all the unlucky people you've hitherto pinned in their seats or trapped in a corner without due cause or reward.

Well, maybe you haven't, but here's the tips anyway:

1. Know what you're there for. It's fun but it's also business. If you're trying to achieve nothing in particular then that's about all you'll achieve. Which is a waste of time and probably money.
2. Know what you have to offer, and be open-minded about it. Make a mental list of your skills, talents and interests and try to be imaginative about how you might help other people.
3. Know who else is there - find out in advance, if possible. By the 'who else' I mean the people you've been admiring, hoping to meet (should be the same) or hoping to avoid, and take the appropriate action.
4. When you meet your 'hero', 'heroine' or useful contact, don't ask them for a favour (or a loan). Rather, be friendly, interested in them and what they're up to, get chatting and ask - and this is the critical bit - 'What can I do to help you in that?' or just 'What do you need to help you accomplish that?' After all, you may know someone else who can help them, even if you can't.

Networking is about giving, as much as or more than it is about receiving - at least directly. So be useful, helpful, friendly and open. What goes around truly does come around. To quote the BNI's ugly but true motto, 'Givers gain'.

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

PS Watch this space, or better still, subscribe to this blog, for exciting news about the best, most exciting and (if I have anything to do with it) most fun networking, masterminding* opportunity the Internet has yet seen.

PPS *'Networking' may or may not be a word (see previous posts), but 'masterminding' surely is, if not quite in this context...