Debra Unplugged on Information Marketing

posted by Debra Unplugged on Nov 14

Seminar Promoting Strategies To Fill Your Event and How to Get Cheeks In the Seats By Thinking Outside The Business  Strategy 2.1 “ Joint Ventures (Part 2 of 2) If you havent read Part 1 of my Joint Venture strategy, then scroll down to my previous article that I posted yesterday and take a quick gander at it. You dont want to miss any part of this important strategy for your seminar business or any of your businesses for that matter.

Joint Venture vs. Company   But Debra what if I found someone and I went through all those reasons you previously stated and strategically it makes sense to join forces shouldnt we just create a company instead? One of the best words of advice came from my dear friend and mentor, John Childers.  This happened as I was starting out into the business of specializing in promoting public seminars and before I became the CEO of his company.  You see, during this period of my career, a lot of people in the business wanted to become business partners with me because of my success and the results I had with events.  In fact, Robert Allen at the time was broadcasting my results to his protagas around the world through his various training platforms.  This drew a lot of attention and the word was out and they wanted a permanent piece of the action, they wanted to become partners with me and create a company.  It was amazing!  I didnt know what to do at the time as this was so new to me.  I had some very reputable speakers and promoters approaching me to create a company and build a seminar business.  It was mind boggling my head was spinning from the excitement and opportunity with such individuals. Thank goodness I took the time to stop and talk to my mentor.  I discussed the various opportunities with John and what follows next is his words of wisdom which I still heed today and refer to now as my Golden Business Rule.

My Golden Business Rule Now Debra, as John use to say to start our conversations, A partnership in a company is only as good as long as the partners need something from the other that they themselves are lacking in.  It boils down to only two things and it is either knowledge or money.  Once one of the partners acquires both of these assets, then they no longer need to be in the partnership and their desire then moves toward dissolving the company and it usually happens at the detriment of the other individual(s). Don’t rush out to create a company just for the sake of creating a company.  This partnership is much like a relationship.  There has to be a lot of give and take and just like any marriage it is not perfect and will certainly have its ups and downs.  A partnership, like marriage, requires trust, nurturing and unconditional love in order to sustain. John further emphasized, Partnerships can ruin the best of friendships.  So unless you are truly committed to the company and to the partnership don’t rush out and create a company.  Instead, test the waters, work together on an event or project, maybe a product for that matter, through a joint venture arrangement.  This relationship will allow you to commit to each other for a common goal, while still allowing you to remain independent. It gives you the opportunity to work together and test the relationship to see if you want more out of it. As with everything in the seminar business, and again what John drilled into my head always TEST!

The Strategy Behind Joint Ventures   It is from this sage advice from John that I followed his words of wisdom and instead of creating companies, I went on to create Joint Ventures to promote various events.  I can not thank John enough for this advice.  It truly has had to have saved me multitudes of money and countless amounts of time.  Some of the joint ventures revealed themselves to be a one hit wonder and others went on to sustain and grow into actual businesses.  For example one joint venture opportunity led to the creation of a new company called Seminar Marketing, LLC or also known in the industry as SMART for Seminar Marketing Alliance Resource Team, with my business partners Armand Morin, Heather Seitz, Robin Thompson and our junior partners George Callens and Bret Ridgway. The beauty behind this strategy is the strengths that each individual brings to the table and contributes along the way that can multiply the success of your event.  The strengths can be both tangible and intangible as we reviewed before, whether it is experience, lists, products, relationships, time, money, ideas, etc.  So you see Joint Ventures do work and in some cases may evolve into the more permanent creation of a company, but whatever it is for you take the time and assess it carefully to decide if a Joint Venture is the right strategy for you and your event.  Ask yourself the hard questions before you decide if a Joint Venture is right for you, then discuss it with your mentors to see if you have the same answers.  Don’t do it for the sake of doing it though make sure that there is some strategic value that it will bring and more importantly make sure you are not doing it out of fear.  And if you go for it, consider how many players you will let on the team.  The more players, the more difficult to manage and the more diluted the profits. A final word of advice Joint Ventures can be one of the best ways to produce and promote events.  Make sure its right for all of you involved a WIN-WIN.