Habiba Abubakar: I would say that whoever is going to implement joint ventures needs to have a map, and that map is the answer to these questions… Where are you going with the venture? What do you want to achieve? What have you got to offer to the other person? How can you help them? As long as you are clear about these four points, you’re good to go.

Dan Janal: Great. And again please remind us how we can get in touch with you and learn more about your products and services.

Habiba Abubakar: Okay, I’m available through my website which is at http://www.profitdiva.com/

Dan Janal: Habiba, thank you so much for taking time out of your day, or your evening rather to join us from England and share with these really interesting ideas on how to create successful joint ventures so we can all benefit. This is Dan Janal the president and founder of PR Leads. Thank you so much for joining us on our teleseminar today. Have a great day. Good-bye.

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Dan Janal:        Hi Annie, go right ahead.

Annie:    Yes. This is very, very fascinating information, but supposed you don’t have a huge following. You’re an expert in your field in a little local area, how do you know what a big wig joint venture would find attractive about cooperating with you. I mean what do you have to offer if you don’t have a massive e-mail list?

Habiba Abubakar:      Okay. I’ll take that. Hi Annie, It’s Habiba.

Annie:     Yes. Hi Habiba.

Habiba Abubakar:      Hi. As long as you can show the joint venture partner that you have great credibility, you’ll be good to go.  You may have press coverage, or references, and even if you don’t have press coverage, you may have testimonials where some clients testify that you have good high-quality products and services, and that they’re are happy with you. If you have authored some articles, and you can show where you’ve been featured in the media, again that enhances your credibility. As long as your joint venture partner can trust that you’ve got good business ethics, good character, and your company is liked by your clients, they will want to do joint ventures with you. It’s not necessarily to have a big list to do a joint venture. Sometimes somebody is endorsing you, so you are the endorsee.  The person with the product or the service is the endorsee, and the endorser is the person with the big list or client database who is endorsing you. So in that situation you don’t even have to have a list to do joint ventures.

Dan Janal:    Sure. I want to build off of what Habiba said because one of my clients, and I’ll keep her name confidential because I don’t know the terms of her deal, but she is an etiquette expert and she is the spokesperson for a major cell phone company, and she is their cell phone etiquette expert and I’m sure, well I don’t know this for a fact, but I doubt if she has to do any marketing for them on her list. I’m sure it’s the other way around. I’m sure that that cell phone company is saying, you know, we need to find the best person in the country to represent us so we can put her on a plane and have talk to reporters or have her speak at conferences and make us look good because we are presenting this expert on cell phone etiquette to speak at different groups and associations. So there are many, many different ways you can play this.

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Dan Janal:        Wow.

Linda Hollander:     So basically with joint venture marketing when you do it at that level, which is the corporate level, you really have to know your demographics and I can tell you everything about my demographics because women business owners 25 to 54, I know how much they make, I know about their buying habits, so you really have tell this joint venture partner if it is a corporation or a large company what’s in it for them, and just say that in every fiber of your being and in every communication. Tell them what the benefits are for them and I guess that translates to when you’re one coach doing a joint venture with another coach, the same thing applies.

Dan Janal:    Great. That’s excellent advice.  I’m just curious at the corporate level, what title do you approach, what job title person do you reach out to, to get these corporate sponsorships for your seminars?

Linda Hollander:    Okay, there’s three titles in departments that I would go to. First I would go to marketing. And I would get a marketing director. I would also go to sales. I would go to public affairs or public relations. Those are the main departments in a corporation that I would go to. You could also go to community relations or in my case diversity relations because I have a women’s conference and the diversity department are interested in that or if you do something with minority market. Diversity department would be interested in that.

Dan Janal:    Great. Thanks for that advice and thank you for giving us that information. Why don’t you let people know what your website is, so they can learn more about your conferences.

Linda Hollander:    Okay. I have two websites. One of them is Wealthybaglady.com. And one is a long one but it’s descriptive. It’s women small business expo.com. That’s women with an “s” small business expo.com.

Dan Janal:    Great. Thanks as long as have the phone lines open, why don’t we take a few questions for Habiba and Linda as well if you’re willing to play and if any of you have ideas on what you’ve done for your joint ventures, we would like to hear what those are too. So who would like to ask the first question or share the first idea.

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Dan Janal:    I know you’ve done a lot of joint ventures in your lifetime, I was just wondering if you could give us a few more examples of the kinds of deals that you’ve seen so it sort of act like a memory jogger or an idea, inspiration generator for us. If you could give us a couple of ideas that you’ve seen work among your clients or even deals that you’ve done.

Habiba Abubakar:      Okay. One that springs to mind is when you’re featured as the guest author of the month on your joint venture partners’ ezine or electronic newsletter. The owner of the newsletter would obviously tell their subscribers “Oh my good friend, Mr. X has an informative article for you today.” The publisher of the newsletter might get a cut of the profit or might not, but either way it is still a joint venture because you’re leveraging off their credibility.  They’re looking good in the eyes of their clients because they have invited a specialist on a certain subject to tell their clients more about that special subject. Another joint venture example that I can think of is when you host a seminar. You might put resources together, whether capital or whether it is subject expertise where you’re speaking. You get a host of speakers, maybe five speakers, you host a seminar, everybody gets a cut out of the profits gained from the seminar whether it is from the product sales, or from the seminar registrations itself. This could also be done on a tele-seminar series where you have perhaps 10 independent professionals who all have expertise in different subjects for a broad topic like marketing for example.

You might have an expert in niche marketing, an expert in joint venture marketing, an expert in speaker marketing and you would put together a tele-seminar and everybody gives a one-hour speech on their specialist subject. Now what happens is if you combine the newsletter lists of those seminar speakers and promote the seminar to the subscribers, you’ll be enhancing the profits you’ll get from the registrations and the product sales, and you’ll be borrowing off of each other’s credibility and you’ll also be increasing your visibility in the market place. Those are two that spring to mind right now.

Dan Janal:    Fantastic. Those are great ideas. I know Linda Hollander is listening to us on the line and if Linda is still there I would like to open up the phone lines and see if she’ll share some of her joint venture ideas. Linda can you share a few ideas about joint marketing strategies that you have done that have been successful for you?

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So I guess joint ventures can be anything that you want it to be, but as we look at this as a worldwide media, it just shows how easy our cross pass and here we are helping each other out. What rules do you have doing business internationally? What tips would you give for doing deals in different countries?

Habiba Abubakar:      Well I spend most of the year in London and most of my joint ventures are actually international. I would say you could easily do joint ventures across the globe without even meeting your partner face-to-face as long as you can get the full scoop - and this is important - the full scoop on their credibility, their character, and their business ethics. And you can know this just by doing some online research. You can find out where their articles appear, what press coverage they have. What online reviewers are saying about them, and carefully notice who they associate with. It’s so easy to do that just by observing which tele-seminars or seminars they are speaking at and what goes on in online discussion groups, and what forums are saying about them.

If you subscribe to newsletters in a certain industry and attend their events, you also start to notice who associates with who. So that’s one way. Secondly, I would say that you should make sure that you are not in breach of any laws in any other country, because obviously there are different laws. Unless you’re joint venturing with someone in a country where they don’t have human rights, I would say that usually international laws are all fair. It’s not that different but you’ve got to check that you’re not breaching any laws in a different country. And thirdly, as I was saying earlier you need to decide which country is governing the written joint venture contract, that is if you have a contract.

Dan Janal:        Yes.

Habiba Abubakar:      And like you said Dan, you meet people at seminars, you get to joint venture with them, you are across the globe, well a lot of joint ventures that I have done have been on a trust handshake as well and some million-dollar ones are based on that as well. You just need to assess the person’s credibility and their character.  And like I said you can do it online and you’re ready to go, even if they live in Japan and you’re living in India.

Dan Janal:    Great. Now what happens if a joint venture goes bad? How easy or difficult it is to just get out of it and walk away or is that a case-by-case basis?

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Dan Janal:    Okay. Are there any specific legal things people should watch out for or just, because I know a lot of deals can get bogged down by having lawyers involved too much, but what are just a few simple things that anyone should put down on an e-mail, which can serve as a contract by the way, any communication where you agree to something is a contract whether it says the word contract on it or not. So what kinds of things should you put in there just to make sure that everything is spelled out properly?

Habiba Abubakar:      I’ll say that once all partners have agreed on the tasks and entitlements, you can very easily in the conversation say something like “Well great, I’ll draft and send a letter of agreement with details of everything that was agreed and we can start the ball rolling once we’ve both signed it.” And here are the things that should definitely be on the letter of agreement. Make sure everybody’s percentage is clear. It can’t be vague. State what percentage each partner is getting out of the sales, and what the term of the contract is. Is it a month, it is six months? Is the joint venture forever? That needs to be in place as well. State what will happen if one of you decides that you don’t want to be part of the agreement any more. That again is crucial. What country is governing that contract? This is important because you might be joint venturing with someone who is across the globe. You’ve got to make sure that if there is a dispute and the contract is governed by English law, American Laws or whatever, that you can fly across the globe and deal with this. Those are very important things that need to be in the contract. Anything else is just minor.

Dan Janal:    Great. That’s good to know, because I’ve seen some contracts come up to me and they were just so convoluted, well at the end of the day you didn’t know if you had any rights left at all and rather than to negotiate that with a lawyer, I said this is just too complicated. It’s not worth getting into and just reject it out right. There are other times where I have just done deals on a handshake because you see these people are seminars and trade shows and conferences and you just know them and trust them. And on the web, you know, word gets around. If you’re a player on the web and you deceive someone, everyone in the world is going to know within a couple of minutes.

Habiba Abubakar:      Oh yeah.

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Step 12, which is the final step is to test and track your strategy for best results. You can’t increase what you can’t measure and as with any other marketing strategy, testing is crucial because that will help you tweak and improve things for maximum results.

Dan Janal:    Wow. That’s a lot to look at and it’s a very detailed, very oriented and very precise. So that’s great. It sounds like Habiba you have some educational material and some coaching that you do as well, so why don’t you tell us about your services now, so people can get in touch with you directly.

Habiba Abubakar:      Okay. Well I have very detailed home study program with all the information and resources needed for any independent professional or small business to implement joint venture marketing. It is actually a three-competent program that shows you how to develop, implement, and manage joint venture marketing as an overall business strategy so you can attract more clients, increase your cash flow, get more visibility in the market place and boost profits consistently. The three components of the home study program include a one hour audio CD, a comprehensive workbook and a special report with 20 real-life case studies. I have also included sample proposal letters and sample coupons, and telephone scripts and fill-in the blank templates to help any professional implement profitable joint ventures. It also comes with bonus gifts.

The first one is a free 30-minute consultation with me. That’s worth over $100 and there’s also a free 25-page directory filled with resources for business growth. The home study program is available for the introductory price of $97.00 at www.profitdiva.com. That’s $97.00 and it comes with an unconditional 180 day money back guarantee, so if you don’t like it for any reason, you just let me know, and you get your money back. And the website is www.profitdiva.com. I also do coaching. There’s a seven week program, which is a more advanced level. It’s called the Joint Venture Action Program™ and it’s for those who have already bought the home-study program and want to move on to the next level.  It’s a more advanced level for do-it-yourselfers who want to implement joint venture marketing in their business but feel that they might need some coaching and assisting from me, and some masterminding with like-minded professionals. That is a seven-week group program which usually takes place twice a year. The next one is not until next year in February.

For those who are not keen on group coaching, there’s also the option of the one-to-one version of this program, which is at a slower pace, and lasts 6 months.  It takes place all year round.

Dan Janal:    And I have seen the materials in that book and they are really, really outstanding and that’s why I invited Habiba to be on our tele-seminar show. What legal precautions should you have in place to protect your interest?

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Step six is to decide what to offer the clients of your potential partner. It needs to be something irresistible and a high-quality value.  An example of that is perhaps a discount to the information products or a bonus gift with the sale and the bonus gift could be a free consultation.

Step seven is to know the budget for your proposed joint venture. Remember you’ve got to take out production costs, if any. Usually with digital products there aren’t but there will be shipping costs, which you will need to take out before sharing the profits with your joint venture partner if that’s the format you decided.

Step eight is to approach those joint venture partners. I say the best way to approach them is by telephone because you have more of a one-to-one connection there. Your enthusiasm will be contagious, and it can be passed over. The second best way is to contact them through a letter. Now some people contact people through e-mail. If someone has never heard about you before, in this day and age where we have millions of e-mails everyday, they will probably delete your e-mail so phone is the best way of initial contact and then letter is the second best way of contact.

Step nine is to hold meetings with each partner so that you can state detail the tasks and entitlement of each partner and discuss what joint ventures you might have together.  Sometimes, you know there is a synergy between the businesses but you’re yet to brainstorm many joint ventures you could do together.

Step 10 is to decide whether you’ll have a contract for the joint venture or it will be based on a trust handshake. One thing I’ll say is this. If you’ve just met somebody, and you don’t know their character that well, I would say go with a written contract to save any hassles in the future. However, having said that, I’ve had joint ventures based on a trust handshake. In fact, a lot of mine have been based on a trust handshake, but that’s because I’ve gotten to know the person or the joint venture is clear cut and every aspect of it is traceable.

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Dan Janal:    I was just wondering if this was a great way to expand someone’s network to the international scene. Because let’s face it, a lot of things that we do or what we market are completely without geographic borders. If you’re doing nutrition analysis or stress management, it doesn’t matter if the person is in France or in Indiana.

Habiba Abubakar:      That’s right.

Dan Janal:    Everyone can have a worldwide audience and most of us don’t think of marketing internationally, so we are going to ask a few questions about that later on about international interest. But let’s look about some of the profitability aspects here. What steps can people take to implement profitable joint ventures on their own?

Habiba Abubakar:      There’s a 12-step procedure that I take my clients through and I will just quickly go through these. Step one is to write down your goals and your desired outcome. You need to know your objectives of doing joint ventures and what results you want to get and that’s step one.

Step two is to analyze your target market. And by this I mean that you need to understand what makes your target market tick in terms of buying habits, the kind of offers they would love, the best time to contact them, and the medium through which is best to contact them.

Step three is to analyze potential partners who have an established relationship with their target market. You need to find joint venture partners that have the same client base as you do and the easy way to do that is to simply ask yourself who else your clients are buying from. So if you’re fitness instructor for example, then your clients are also buying the services of a massage therapist or a chiropractor. So you want to joint venture with massage therapists or chiropractors.

Step four is to make a list of everyone in your network who may be a potential partner or who can introduce you to businesses that are a potential good match. That’s what I meant earlier when I said that starting from your network is the easier way to find joint venture partners earlier?

Dan Janal:        Yeah.

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Dan Janal:    Exactly. Very good point. I’m wondering if you’ve actually used Linkedin.com to find people and if you have any case studies or any examples where that’s helped you.

Habiba Abubakar:      I have used Ecademy.com and what I find is I get people approaching me actually on Ecademy.com. What I’ve done is I’ve had a profile on there, and anyone can too. There’s a free level, there’s a power networker level, and there’s a black star level.  I’m on the power networker level, which costs 10 pounds a month. They are international, so if you’ve in The States, they will change it into dollars and you can pay dollars and I think that’s $14.00 a month. And you just have your profile on there and you join a club within Ecademy. There are smaller clubs within Ecademy and you can take a pick. There are about 500 clubs and you can join whatever club you want to join and keep contributing articles to that club and talking to everyone on the forum.  That’s how you get known within that community, and you just get approached, and you’ll find that people are referring people to you. They start calling you the “go to” person for your niche market or your field.

Dan Janal:    That’s great. Can you spell that for us, so I want to make sure there’s no confusion?

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