I’ve got a dirty little marketing secret…
In fact, it’s the ONLY thing which has made it possible for me to break into the most brutally competitive market I’ve ever attempted…
A market where I’m competing with the likes of Tony Robbins, the founder of the Sylvan Learning Center, and the International Coaching Federation…
Little old me!
It’s a secret I wouldn’t have dreamed of even trying to enter this market without…
A secret you’ll find MOST of the best direct response marketers quietly using behind the scenes…
Yet it’s something we all seem to tacitly agree NOT to talk about publicly…
SCREW THAT NOISE… I’M TALKING!!!
So what’s my dirty little secret?…
It’s NOT some secret traffic source…
Or a new and brilliant research technique I invented…
Nor is it my ability to analyze and optimize ppc advertising or landing page conversion (although those are good guesses)….
And it most definitely has NOTHING to do with advanced mathematics, tracking, or software I’ve had developed…
My dirty little secret is…
JOINT VENTURES!
See, I noticed something very unusual in the last few years. It seemed none of the people I knew who were doing the best in direct response were relying SOLELY on paid advertising. And, for the record, I’m talking about people who spend a fortune on media…
In fact, many of the people I knew who were spending the MOST on paid advertising were also extensively utilizing Joint Ventures!
At first this seemed very counter-intuitive…
I mean, if you can make paid advertising work, isn’t it preferable to rely on this more controllable, cleaner traffic source than to be beholden to some JV partner who’s love for you is largely determined by how much profit you made him (or her) YESTERDAY?
And since a big part of my personality is oriented towards CONTROL and RISK MITIGATION in business, I had hitherto always thought of joint ventures as a kind of “gravy” for my business as a whole. Kind of like a “nice to have”, not a “must have”…
But when I took a hard look at how much several business people I greatly respect were relying upon JVs in addition to their paid advertising, I had to challenge my reasoning…
And, now that I’ve begun to crack the code on this brutally competitive market I can tell you first hand WHY joint ventures are such an important part of virtually ANY business… especially one which relies on paid advertising!…
First and foremost, to make a competitive market work in paid advertising these days requires a much longer time horizon than it did in the past. Advertisers are more savvy, the major ad platforms have higher quality and screening standards, and there’s just a lot more money chasing the media than there used to be (so it’s a lot more expensive).
What this means is, you’ve got to have enough capital, time, and energy to get passed the profit line. You really can’t expect to be there in a month or two like the old days. Going into a competitive market under-capitalized is both emotional and financial suicide…
Which leaves you with three options: Either you can fund it yourself with the full expectation of running seriously in the red for a while, raise the money from investors, or take it from other, more successful, lower risk parts of your business.
OR… you can try to do it without any of the above and spend night after night smacking yourself in the head with a spatula. It’s entirely your choice!
Joint Ventures serve as a low-risk/high-reward financial infusion into your business to give you the staying power to make your paid advertising work! They also are a morale booster because their speed to monetization is a stark contrast to the “slow climb up the mountain” which paid advertising almost always requires.
In plain English? It’s a LOT less painful to beat your head against the wall with test after test while you slowly go from losing $20K/mo to $18K/mo to 15K/mo to $10K/mo, etc IF you’ve got $10K to $20K/mo coming in from joint ventures.
Duh!
Beyond this though, there are many other benefits of integrating joint ventures as a strong marketing channel in your business (assuming you do them the right way–not the scummy way):
- You can use JVs to build your business even if you’re unknown in your industry, have NO list, and don’t have enough money to buy a cheeseburger at McDonalds…
- Because JVs rely on warm, friendly relationships with real people—NOT behemoth advertising companies—you’ll be almost entirely invulnerable to Slaps, Penalties, Sandboxes, Rising Bid Prices, and the whims of wet-behind-the-ears employees who just barely know how to shave…much less understand your business…
- When (and I do mean “when”, not “if”) you have trouble with a cherished paid advertising medium, having a strong joint venture channel established in your business can be the one thing which keeps you afloat…
- JVs can help you keep pace with your list’s desire to consume when you can’t produce enough products and services yourself…
- JVs can be MUCH more instantaneously scalable than paid traffic…
- And, of course, when you’ve got the RIGHT partners JVs can be a helluva lot of fun!
The problem with JVs is that (a) it’s easy to get conned; (b) most people don’t treat them seriously; (c) the most typical JV is a one-shot-deal, not an evergreen funnel. But with a little education you can learn to use them the way I have… finding just a few key partners to work with year after year, often in an automated way.
Anyway… I hope this gives you some food for thought.
And I’m sure it won’t surprise you to learn I’ll be releasing a ridiculously affordable product later this month called “Joint Venture Fast Track”…
Keep your eyes peeled for it because we’ll have a very time limited introductory discount you’ll want to take advantage of…
Until then,
The Good Dr. G 🙂
PS – In case you’re curious, here’s my offer in the market above. If you’re remotely interested in becoming a coach you should take the trial and/or get on the waiting list.