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There’s a reason some of the greatest marketers in the world think of joint venture relationships as the #1 most effective marketing strategy.

Someone else has spent tons of time and money building trust with a list of clients and prospects. Joint ventures make it possible for us to access their list, tap into the trust, and sell our coaching services.

As with most brilliant marketing strategies, it’s not always the easiest thing to pull off. Even when coaches know the value of joint ventures, they often lack the right process that takes a JV partner from having never heard of you to promoting you to their list.

Without a streamlined, straightforward approach, joint ventures can take months to get started and conversations with potential JV partners often lead nowhere.

With the right process, joint ventures can quickly fill your pipeline with new business on an ongoing basis. This is what we’re after!

Before we can create a successful joint venture, though, we need to find partners.

WANTED: Perfect JV Partners

Right from the start, we need to identify the perfect people we want to work with.

Remember the WANTED/REWARD posters from old Western movies? There’s a dusty town in the Wild West with posters nailed to every wall so all the townspeople would know who the sheriff was looking for.

We want a WANTED poster of your ideal JV partner. It sounds obvious, but we can’t approach the right people until we’ve identified them.

A coach I worked with years ago, Steve, used to go to BNI (networking) groups on a regular basis. That’s not really my style, but it worked out great for Steve. Once a month he’d pass out fliers to people in the group.

The flier had WANTED! printed in huge letters above a photo of a tired, stressed out business owner. He gave this avatar a name and listed out their character traits (works long hours, exhausted, overwhelmed, etc.).

For the next few weeks, the whole group knew exactly who Steve was looking for. He profiled his ideal partner in so much detail that when they spotted someone who fit the description, they would let Steve know. He found tons of JV partners this way.

We want to do something similar, but in a non-BNI sense.

What Are You Looking For?

While one-time joint ventures can still benefit your business, we’re looking for something more permanent. We want to start JV relationships that will last longer— real partnerships that will stay active on a recurring basis.

This means we need to be intentional about who we enter into a JV partnership with. A potential partner may run a wildly successful business on their own, but if you can’t stand them as a person, you don’t want them in your business.

I want you to take a minute to write down what kind of person would make the perfect JV partner for you and your coaching business.

What characteristics do they have?

What sort of database do they need to have?

What sort of person do they need to be?

There are some industries that will naturally be a match for your coaching services. So now, write down the categories of businesses or organizations you think would be a good fit.

Finally, list out the specific individuals in those categories you want to reach out to.

Here’s an example of how this looks in action:

I was recently on the phone with one of our members, Steven Dixon, going through this same process of identifying perfect JV partners.

We worked out the categories of business that matched up well for his small-business coaching program — accountants, bookkeepers, chambers of commerce, council business groups, etc. — any type of business that also served small-business owners but weren’t in direct competition with Steven’s coaching program.

We came up with nine different categories.

Then we identified 5-10 individuals from each category we wanted to approach.

We ended up with 45 potential JV partners to approach that were all good matches for a joint venture with his coaching program… in less than one hour. It doesn’t have to take long, but it requires a bit of thought.

Identifying potential partners is the necessary first step, but now we need to reach out to them and get the ball rolling.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Leave a comment below.

P.S. Whenever you’re ready… here are 4 ways I can help you grow your coaching business:

1. Grab a free copy of my book

It’s the roadmap to attracting prospects, signing clients, and scaling your coaching business. — Click Here

2. Join the Coach Dojo and connect with coaches who are scaling too

It’s our new Facebook community where smart coaches learn to get more income, impact, and independence. — Click Here

3. Join our Implementation Program and be a Case Study

I’m putting together a new coaching case study group at Black Belt this month… stay tuned for details. If you’d like to work with me on your client-getting and scale plans… just send me a message and put “Case Study”. — Click Here

4. Work with me and my team privately

If you’d like to work directly with me and my team to take you from 6 to 7 figures… just send me a message and put “Private”… tell me a little about your business and what you’d like to work on together, and I’ll get you all the details! — Click Here

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