Archive | January, 2023

You’ve just entered a niche that’s brand new for you and you’ve got zero contacts. But you’re creating a product to sell and you need joint venture partners. So how do you get those all important JV’s when you don’t even have any contacts in the niche? Like this…

First, make sure your product is something that gets people excited and wanting to promote it to their lists. You can do this by solving a BIG problem, preferably something that people are already spending time and money trying to solve.

Second, solve the problem with a step-by-step formula – sort of a blueprint to success. You don’t want to just give a bunch of info – they can find plenty of that on the Internet. Instead, it should be a system to solving the problem, such as “7 Steps to Getting 7 Hot Dates in 7 Days.”

Now that you’ve got your product, take a little time to set up a JV page and an About Me page on your website. The JV page should tell about your product and how it will help the potential JV partners’ customers, as well as how much commission they will earn, how you will run the JV, etc. Make it look professional but don’t obsess over this – just get it done.

The About Me page should give some personal and professional info on you – enough so that a potential JV partner learns something about you and gets comfortable with the idea of possibly working with you.

If you’ve already collected some testimonials for your product, create a separate testimonial page. If you haven’t yet collected any, skip this.

Now go find your potential JV partners. Let’s say your new niche is tennis. Go online and search for tennis newsletters and find all the results you can. Search for tennis e-courses and tennis products and anything tennis related – including blogs – where it’s pretty clear that someone has a list of tennis players. Because that’s the key – finding the people who own lists of people who play tennis.

It doesn’t even matter if they have a product of their own – what matters is they have a list of tennis players. Use a little creativity and you’ll find hundreds of people who own lists like these, some of which have never even monetized their lists – they just do it as a hobby.

Social media and Facebook are especially good avenues for finding these potential partners. Focus at first on finding the small to medium sized list owners to build your confidence. You can go after the really big players in your niche when you’ve done a few JV’s and you’ve begun to build a solid reputation in your field.

Ask yourself who is already talking to the audience you want to talk to? Where are the people you want to meet hanging out? This is where you need to be, both online and possibly offline as well.

When you find these tennis list owners, take down their name, URL and email address. If you like, get their phone number as well. Now email them individually, one by one. Don’t do more than a few in one day just in case you get several replies back at once.

When you email, you might tell them how you know them. “I read your book” or “I’m a fan of your blog.” Show them some admiration and respect, but don’t go too overboard. A little is great, a lot might make them uncomfortable. Be specific in your praise. Don’t say, “You are the greatest tennis blogger ever!” Say, “Your article on serving mistakes helped me tremendously, especially that point you made about ___.”

Next in your email, you’ve got two different avenues you could take – the direct and the indirect.

The direct goes something like this:

“Thought you might be interested in doing a joint venture. Here’s an opportunity we have, and if you’re interested, we’d like to get something scheduled with you very soon.” Then give them the link to your JV page, to your About Me page, to your testimonial page and even your sales page. Offer to send them a review copy of your product.

The indirect method is just that – more indirect. It takes a little longer, but it tends to work better, so you decide which is right for you. It goes something like this:

“I would like to support you by creating a mutually beneficial relationship.” Ask them for a quick phone conversation to discuss the possibilities. Include a link to your About Me page but include no other links. If they want, they can search your site and find the other pages, but you don’t want to be the one sending them there yet. Then get on the phone with them and discuss the possibilities, which of course could include promoting your product.

If after you send either of these emails you don’t hear back in a week, send the email again with a one line note that says something like, “Just wanted to be sure you saw this,” or “Gentle nudge,” or whatever is in keeping with your personal style.

Now I know some people will disagree with this method of getting JV partners and you’ll say that it’s best to spend some time establishing a relationship and doing favors for the potential JV partners before ever asking. And without a doubt that’s a great method, one I endorse wholeheartedly.

But if you need money now, this is the way to go. And if your product does indeed solve a big problem in a step-by-step fashion – in other words, it’s a great product – you will get JV partners this way. You might need to contact 10 to 20 people to get 3 JV’s, but it’s all a numbers game and it’s worth it.

Just don’t burn any bridges. If someone never gets back to you, it’s okay. If someone tells you to bugger off, it’s okay. Always be super polite and friendly, never take offense.

You might want to wait to contact the really big list owners until you’ve gotten a few JV’s under your belt. In fact it’s probably a good idea.

But there is a way you can contact the big dogs in your niche from Day 1, if you’re up to it. That is, if you’ve got the confidence.

You’re going to ask for an interview with them that you can add to your product. Most everyone is looking for more exposure and publicity, so this is a great way to get your foot in the door as well as making your product even better. And odds are if they grant you an interview, they’ll also promote your product because it contains their interview.

Here’s a trick: Find the big players in your niche who are doing something now or in the near future. Maybe they’re releasing a new book or a new product, something where they want publicity. This is the best time of all to ask to interview them, as they have their own reason for wanting to get as much exposure as possible.

Another benefit to having well-known names in your product package is you can leverage this to get more JV’s. Some potential partners will be all ears when you start name dropping because they’ll think that if these big names are in your product, then it’s something they want to be a part of, too.

Remember, if you have a great product that creates breakthroughs, you can get partners – you just have to be persistent in finding and asking these folks to JV with you.

Whether you’re solving a problem, writing a blog post, crafting a review or creating your next product, creativity is one of your best tools for getting the job done with finesse and style. With that in mind, here are 17 methods anyone can use to become more creative.

Free write – This is where you just start writing anything and continue to write as the words and ideas flow. At first it may be silly nonsense, but you’ll be surprised how fast your words and ideas can coalesce into something truly inspired.

Carry a notebook – By jotting down ideas as soon as they appear, two things happen. First, you don’t forget your ideas because you’ve got a written record. Second, the act of writing them down tells your subconscious that you want ideas, which will encourage it to give you even more.

Make lists – The very act of writing things down frees up your mind to be more creative.

Take breaks from your work – Get up, walk around, play 5 minutes of hopscotch – whatever. Just take a breather.

Get up and go – Leave your computer at home, take your notebook and get away from the office. Go anywhere – a park, the mall, a coffee shop, a museum – just get out, get away and soak up some different surroundings.

Get near water, especially if it’s moving – Studies show that being near moving water floods you with negative ions, which makes you feel good and can boost your creativity. Remember how you get some of your best ideas in the shower? That’s part of the reason why.

Talk nice to yourself – Positive self talk on how creative you are will produce more ideas. Beating yourself up for being a dummy won’t.

Have caffeine – If you don’t normally drink caffeine, one cup of coffee or tea can have remarkable effects on your thinking.

Clean off your desk – Nothing stifles creativity like a messy, cluttered desk.

Read something different – Read an article on a topic you know nothing about, a page out of the dictionary, a chapter out of a random book, etc. Learning outside the box can trigger many new ideas for you.

Practice writing or bouncing a ball with your non-dominant hand – This can help activate the connection between the two sides of your brain.

Be open to new ideas – All too often we dismiss an idea before giving it a real chance. Even if you think it’s a bad idea, try playing devil’s advocate and find all the reasons why it’s a good idea – you might be surprised.

Collaborate and mastermind – Two heads are better than one, and 5 are better than 2. Form a mastermind group, present a problem, and then let the ideas flow. The only rule: No one shoots down an idea.

Sleep on it – Give your subconscious your problem or need: “I need 3 new blog post ideas by tomorrow morning.” Then let it go and see what your subconscious finds for you.

Make friends with mistakes – When you goof up or make the wrong decision, realize it’s not the end of the world. It’s simply something that didn’t work at the moment. This allows your creativity to continue to flow.

Purposely break rules – Don’t break the big ones like “do not steal,” but do break the little ones like “this is what a blog post / new product / video should look like.”

Be you – Don’t worry about what others might think because no great idea is without naysayers anyway. In fact, if everyone thinks your idea is great, then it’s probably not.

One last tip: Ask “Why?” and “Why not?” a lot. Oftentimes we just accept things as they are, when there could be a whopper of an idea just staring us in the face the whole time.

Well over 5.5 million gigabytes of content is currently being shared daily through social media and email. Want to grab a piece of that viral pie? Here are 5 tips to help get your content moving into new hands and seen by many new people every day.

Use Great Headlines. This one’s a no brainer, yet it’s the biggest mistake marketers tend to make. Your headline should be short enough to be readable, long enough to be interesting, interesting enough to instantly grab attention, and the more curiosity it provokes, the better.

Use a Story. “Buy this great product” is never going to get shared as often as, “The Customer Service Nightmare on Elm Street” or “Redhead Finds Bliss in a Bottle.”

Use Visuals. Relevant, interesting visuals grab attention, heighten interest, tell a story, make content stand out in social media… do I need to go on?

Use Humor. Nothing gets shared as much as something that makes people chuckle – or better yet – laugh out loud. Find ways to insert humor into your content, both in the words and the visuals, and your shares will immediately go up.

Make It Easy to Share. Add buttons for each of the main social networks. The idea here is to keep the sharing process as easy and simple as possible. Even one extra click can result in no shares.