Co-Opetition Through Joint Ventures

I looked though her web site, noted all the services she offered, and was very impressed with her range of knowledge. I learned that Milana had come to the United States from the Ukraine fifteen years ago, a music teacher who spoke no English. She soon realized that making it here as a music teacher wasn't going to happen, so she changed directions.

Milana mastered English and got two degrees in Computer Information Systems, and then went on to master the Internet and online marketing. She now offers e-books, teleclasses, web design and other online goodies for Independent Professionals.

Boy, tough competition!

So what did I do? I called her and set up a joint-venture relation- ship. In Internet circles these days it's called "co-opetition." By co-operating with your competitors, you can get a lot more mileage than direct competition. I'll be promoting Milana and she'll be promoting me.

On Thursday, May 8th I'll be offering a free TeleClass with Milana on the ins and outs of publishing and selling your information online. I'll announce it officially next week and you can enroll then.

In the meantime, you might want to check out her ASPOW (Association of Professionals on the Web), a membership site with everything any professional service business would want to know about leveraging the web to market yourself.

It's certainly wonderful working as an Independent Professional, but sometimes there's a big downside to independence. By building inter-dependent relationships with like-minded business owners, you can do things that would be impossible to accomplish by yourself.

However, let me warn you against making contacts with potential JV partners and first asking if they can refer you to all their clients. That's starting a joint venture deal from the wrong end. Instead, you want to approach someone who has a valuable service and find ways to give them exposure to your contacts.

If you can create a success by promoting someone else's business, you're going to gain many advantages. Your networking currency will rise in the marketplace, you'll get more word-of-mouth business, and others will seek you out to do joint ventures with you.

From there you'll develop relationships with other business owners where you can do bigger joint ventures such as co-developing a product or service and offering it to the marketplace. When you do joint ventures, you create marketing synergy where ideas, opportunities and money all come together.

One place I'm starting is with several other online publishers who have exceptional material that goes into great depth on one focused aspect of marketing your professional services. If you're looking for a marketing technique or how-to, it's here:

http://www.actionplan.com/partners.html

And I'm also exploring other exciting joint venture relationships that you'll hear about in the near future.

• Co-Opetition is about people and their businesses thriving when they realize that ideas and resources are not scarce. There is enough to go around. There is enough business for everyone.
• Find associates that have the same market as you but are not directly competitive. It certainly helps if you both have good client and prospect lists. Then look at ways you can introduce each other to your respective clients and prospects.
• Do a mailing or an emailing introducing the products or services of your partner. For instance, if you're an HR consultant you could introduce your colleague who is a management consultant. You could agree that the consultant pay you 15% of any business he generates as a result of your introduction.
• Put on a joint workshop for your clients and prospects. Each of you handle part of the presentation. Your partner lends the credibility he has earned with with his clients and vice versa. Some people call this the "halo effect."
• Have your partner give his clients a gift from you, such as a tape or informational report. You benefit from the exposure, the partner benefits by being a valuable resource, and the clients benefits from the information.