What is a Joint Venture and How Can It Work for My Business?

Joint Venture Business

When I first heard about Joint Ventures, I was thinking in terms of big business such as a merger between two large companies.  There have been so many in the last few years.  Recent mergers or acquisitions like Yahoo and Xobit (inbox spelled backwards) or IBM and Outblaze are two examples of companies that want a share of the Social Media realm and email services geared to Social Media.

So, at first, I wasn’t sure whether Joint Ventures would even apply to my tiny business and whether I should consider it.

Joint Ventures are not beneficial for just big business.  Whatever size your business, partnerships with other businesses looks more and more inviting in challenging economic times as a means of acquiring new clients for both parties involved, and sometimes multiple parties.

Since my business is Virtual Assistance, I have heard of many joint venture partnerships amongst many VA’s who specialize in different fields – they have often evolved into multi-VA businesses.  Each individual VA – such as an Internet Marketer, a Copywriter, a Website Developer, an SEO specialist and a Social Media Marketing VA  joining together can each bring their special talents to the table to provide clients with a fantastic service in optimizing a website to reach it’s full potential on the internet.

I encountered someone a short time ago who operates a business group in the trades.  Individual men, each owning their own business – a plumber, a drywaller, a roofer, a painter, an electrician, a carpenter, etc. all worked under one roof as a “group” to provide services to their clients.

Another example might be a Business Coach who partners with a Sales Expert and a Website Developer to present a webinar/seminar or event even though they operate individual businesses.

And often experts come together in multi-speaker events taking place on-line or locally with all kinds of themes such as preparing for the sale of a house or property or environmental issues.

If you think about your business, who would you be interested in collaborating with that could benefit your business, their business and the clients?

One place to look for possibilities would be JV Village, a NING social group.  They can be found at:  http://jvvillage.ning.com/.  As well, if you belong to any Social Media networks like Facebook or LinkedIn, many groups can be found with similar businesses or opportunities for alliances.  One of my clients, who belonged to many groups, posted a discussion, looking for Joint Venture opportunities.  He received 40+ replies in 24 hours.  Not all of them were a good fit for him but it provided him many new opportunites to grow his business.  And there are local networking groups like BNI or your local Chamber of Commerce to explore as well.

Do you have an example of a Joint Venture opportunity which has been beneficial to your business?   I’d appreciate any feedback.

Diane L. Coville

ALTERNATIVE OFFICE ASSISTANCE

www.alternativeofficeassistance.com

Tip of the Week: What really happened on Facebook this weekend?

What really happened on Facebook this weekend?

 

For those of you who missed the frenzy this Sunday on Facebook  because you were hanging out at your cottage or basking on a beach somewhere, I can enlighten you.  Facebook issued an invitation to all it’s users to get their very own “vanity” URL for their business/fan pages.  They set certain criteria to be eligible including:

• Your Facebook Page must meet two requirements: it must have been live on Facebook prior to the May 31, 2009 cut-off date and have had a minimum 1,000 fans at that time.
• This limitation is temporary. All Pages created after May 31, 2009 or that had less than 1,000 fans on that day will be eligible to claim usernames on Sunday, June 28, 2009 if they have more than 25 fans.

Then  yesterday, Facebook changed the rules again in that you had to have no less than 100 fans on your page.  Suddenly everyone was scrambling to add fans.

Kudos to  Mari Smith, the “pied piper” of Facebook as well as Mashable’s Pete Cashmore who posted on Facebook yesterday afternoon to update everyone on the change.  Not only did they post the change, they both jumped in with their ideas on how to help us reach our 100 quota!

Mari Smith directed everyone to   “Come join my friend Hazel Grace of Socialbees in this fabulous new Facebook chatroom for support on Facebook Fan Pages/Vanity URL registration tonight…”.

And Mashable’s Pete Cashmore invited everyone to “comment on his post” by adding their Fan Page addy and inviting fans.  At last count, I noted that over 400 comments came in from Facebook users.

At first, I visualized Facebook sitting back and watching the extra frenzy they created in changing their criteria for eligibility at the last moment as we Facebook users “stepped up to the plate” and scrambled to meet the new rules.

I, for one, wouldn’t have had the time on a regular workday to meet this challenge but it was Sunday evening and I had pretty much burned out on work for the day so I started “fanning” everyone who had posted a comment on Mashable’s post.  In the end, I did not reach the goal of 100 fans, but I did gain something much more valuable.  I gained many new fans to my Business Page and in doing so, I met and learned about over 50 businesses on Facebook that I probably would never have met otherwise and will continue to become more familiar with them as their posts show up on my “wall”.

As a Social Media Marketing Specialist, I just learned another big lesson on the power of Social Media sites, and about Facebook in particular.  I don’t put a huge value in gaining thousands of fans, followers or connections within social networking.  I do, however, value and appreciate making manageable and meaningful connections with businesses and people through Social Media that wouldn’t have been possible in the past.

So did Facebook change their criteria at the last minute for some specific reason or did they actually do their users a favour?  I invite your comments and thoughts…

Tip of the Week: CONVERSATION MARKETING or “GHOST” TWITTERING

I have heard many discussions of the pros and cons of Twitter and the tweets that are posted.

There are those individuals who have no problem with someone posting “tweets” on their behalf.  On the other side, many believe that you should do all your own “conversation marketing”.

So why do people join Twitter?  In the professional business world, most would say they join to build their presence on the internet, form relationships, get acquainted with alliances in their own industry, seek joint venture connections and gain new clients.

Social Networking operates much like local networking but “virtually”.  When you join your local Chamber of Commerce, do you send someone else to represent your business?  Do they hand out your business cards, shake the hands of group members and do your sales pitch?  Do you get results when someone else represents you?

When I attend local networking events, I enter to meet new people, learn about their business, build my “brand” by establishing my expertise in what I do and what problems I can solve for my clients.  By attending on a regular basis, I get to know fellow members and their business and they become familiar with me as well.  I am building my “brand”.

When you are trying to build your “brand” by networking over the internet, many say (and I agree) that you have to be yourself, be honest and want to share and mentor with your connections.  Unless your “Ghost Twitterer” knows you very well, how can they possibly project your personality or your expertise into the “tweets” they are doing on your behalf with your connections?  I doubt that it would  be any more successful than someone representing you at a local meeting.

When you are contemplating the Social Networking scene and building your presence on the Internet, it would be prudent to think about whether you want to commit your time and efforts interacting personally or whether you are comfortable with someone else representing you.  And if you do employ someone else to represent you, are you closely monitoring the “conversations” to make sure that it is being done to your satisfaction?

Diane L. Coville

ALTERNATIVE OFFICE ASSISTANCE

www.alternativeofficeassistance.com