My partners, Terri  Shearer, Margaret Hampton and I got a chance to sit in the hot seat.  We presented our business  www.HomeHealthCareBooks.com/Caring to a panel of experts.

We showed them our newest product, Caring For Your Loved One At Home. It’s an ebook, and Audio and Video information product that teaches.

 Get Caring For Your Loved One At Home for free here.

 This expert panel grills you and picks a part your idea. Then they give you suggestions on how to improve your idea and take it to the marketplace.

We received excellent suggestions from Willie Crawford, Frank Sousa, Christine Camaford-Lynch, Phil Basten, Jane Mark and serveral others.

Here’s a picture of Willie Crawford and I at jvAlert Live.

 I also had the honor of meeting several other The Internet Marketing Inner Circle members. Especially David Perdew of http://www.NicheWidget.com. He showed me his new product before anyone else saw it. That was really cool.

 Then there was David Schwartz of http://blog.thetoolwiz.com. He and I shared a room and we worked on his new product The Viral Document Toolkit.

It’s a document branding software that enables you to publish a re-brandable document. This is so your partners can insert their own links in your viral document. It was another preview of a product never seen by the public.

You can see it at http://www.ViralDocumentToolkit.com

jvAlert Live was like no other seminar I’ve attended. It was more like a family gathering than a business seminar. When I spoke with Ken MacArthur (founder) I asked him to make sure he kept the attendance small to keep the family gathering athmospher going. I

I highly recommend you check it out.

I plan on attending the jvAlert Live in the fall this year. I recommed you do to. Just to go to http://www.JVAlertlive.com and get signed up for the pre-notification list.

 Until next time.

The next thing I did was find out everything I could about Joint Ventures and being a JV Broker.

A Joint Venture is an arrangement between multiple parties that share resources to mutual gain. In my case a product owner and list owners seeking to form a partnership so that all parties would gain (especially the customers).

Here is the definition from WikiPedia

When  I think of Joint Ventures, Willie Crawford immediately comes to mind. I snatched up his book The Amazing Secrets of a Black Belt JV Broker and read it several times. Then I read it again. The books is a fast read and Willie doesn’t add any fluff. He gets right to the point.

I needed to understand what Troy White was offering so I could build a list of potential partners to contact. Fortunately I’d been following his newsletter for quite some time and I was also a customer.

I followed his email promotions during the launch of the Wild West Wealth Summit and I studied the sales letter and speaker profiles making hand written notes. This gave me an understanding of who the idea customer is.

Then I went to each of the speakers websites and researched them to find out who their customers were and what they were buying from them.

The most important thing I learned was that you have to consider what your partner and his customers want. What’s in it for them. Focusing on anything else will never work.

In my case I was representing a product owner looking for a JV partners that:

1. Had the attention of customers that would buy the product.
2. Had products or services complimentary to the product being offered.
3. Would be willing to promote one or more times.
4. Had products that sold for a similar price range

Troy White is also very particular about whom he partners with. He’s very sensitive to protecting his name and credibility. So I had my job cut out for me.

I put together a list of requirements for the ideal JV partner.

1. Small to medium size lists (2K-10K)
2. Promoted both content and promotions to thier lists on a regular basis.
3. Customers who were interested in growing their businesses.
4. A long term partner that I could develop a relationship with all parties.
5. Knew who Ted Nicholas was.

Now that I had what I needed to look for potential partners. I am subscribed to many newletters promoting a variety of content from internet marketing, software consulting, personal development, copywriting, web site conversions, etc.

I sent out 10 or so email hoping to get a response. NOTHING!

I followed up with a phone call and no one answered.

I figured I’d better improve my email message so I got a copy of Yanik Silver’s Instant Sales Letters and re-wrote my JV letter.

I was convinced that now I had the right letter.  I sent out the new JV letters. NOTHING!!!

How in the heck was I going to get the JV’s attention?

Follow up phone calls. I hate cold calling! I’m sure you do too. It wasn’t until I went outside my comfort zone did I understand.

I got my first JV to respond. I won’t tell you his name here. But I called his office and HE answered the phone. I was blown away and scared to death.

I asked him if he’d read my letter. He said “Yes, I saw your letter. Sounds interesting. But I probably wouldn’t have done anything with it if you hadn’t called me”.

That was probably the easiest thing I could have done! Just a simple phone follow up to an email did the trick.

I qualified him on the call and arranged for a follow up call with Troy. It was a done deal. Too bad I had procrastinated so long. With this first success I knew I had become “The Accidental JV Broker”.

Now to find more partners. That’s when I turned to Willie Crawford. I’ll tell that story next time.

This past summer I was feeling the pressure of trying to pay my bills and found that I was getting behind on just about everything. It’s a very painful experience when you realize that you are maybe 60 days away from losing your home to forclosure.

I had been trying to make money online for about 2 years and spent a lot of time and money learning internet marketing and studying copywriting. I knew that if I could write good sales copy it would make my promotions much more effective.

I also knew that I couldn’t become successful on my own. I realized that I needed a business coach. My favorite copywriter is Troy White. He has a very personal style and he has the uncanny ability to make the complex seem simple. His off-the-beaten path methods of coming up with promotions it genius.

 I took a gamble and sent him an honest, very personal, email telling him my story and how I really needed his help. I had nothing to lose. I asked him to be my business coach and in return I would donate a percentage of my profits to his favorite charity, The Ronald McDonald House.

I never really expected to hear from Troy but to my astonishment I found his reply in my inbox a week later!

He told me he was leaving for summer vacation in just an hour or so and didn’t really have time to work with me but he promised he’d get back to me once he got back. He told me my my letter was a very heartfelt one and if I used the emotion I used in my letter in my promotions that I would do well.

Then he dropped the bomb that would prove to change everything for me.

Troy said:

“Why don’t you find me 10 or so Joint Venture Partners to promote my Wild West Wealth Home Study Course? I’ll share a percentage of sales for every sale they make. Would that help you?”

That blew me away! I know what Joint Ventures are but I never thought of doing one without my own product.

It scared me at the same time. I thought how in the hell could I get someone to even talk to me, let alone promote this guys product?

In the next post I’ll tell you how I figured out how.