What is a Joint Venture and How Can It Work for My Business? |
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So, at first, I wasn't sure whether Joint Ventures would even apply to my tiny business and whether I should consider it. Joint Ventures are not beneficial for just big business. Whatever size your business, partnerships with other businesses looks more and more inviting in challenging economic times as a means of acquiring new clients for both parties involved, and sometimes multiple parties. Since my business is Virtual Assistance, I have heard of many joint venture partnerships amongst many VA's who specialize in different fields - they have often evolved into multi-VA businesses. Each individual VA - such as an Internet Marketer, a Copywriter, a Website Developer, an SEO specialist and a Social Media Marketing VA joining together can each bring their special talents to the table to provide clients with a fantastic service in optimizing a website to reach it's full potential on the internet. I encountered someone a short time ago who operates a business group in the trades. Individual men, each owning their own business - a plumber, a drywaller, a roofer, a painter, an electrician, a carpenter, etc. all worked under one roof as a "group" to provide services to their clients. Another example might be a Business Coach who partners with a Sales Expert and a Website Developer to present a webinar/seminar or event even though they operate individual businesses. And often experts come together in multi-speaker events taking place on-line or locally with all kinds of themes such as preparing for the sale of a house or property or environmental issues. If you think about your business, who would you be interested in collaborating with that could benefit your business, their business and the clients? One place to look for possibilities would be JV Village, a NING social group. They can be found at: http://jvvillage.ning.com/. As well, if you belong to any Social Media networks like Facebook or LinkedIn, many groups can be found with similar businesses or opportunities for alliances. One of my clients, who belonged to many groups, posted a discussion, looking for Joint Venture opportunities. He received 40+ replies in 24 hours. Not all of them were a good fit for him but it provided him many new opportunites to grow his business. And there are local networking groups like BNI or your local Chamber of Commerce to explore as well. Diane L. Coville ALTERNATIVE OFFICE ASSISTANCE |
When I first heard about Joint Ventures, I was thinking in terms of big business such as a merger between two large companies. There have been so many in the last few years. Recent mergers or acquisitions like Yahoo and Xobit (inbox spelled backwards) or IBM and Outblaze are two examples of companies that want a share of the Social Media realm and email services geared to Social Media.