How do you approach people with a joint venture idea? If you rush ahead and email the people you want to approach, your email will join the thousands of exact same emails that these people receive every day, and it will be immediately deleted unless you give it a lot of thought.
When you think you have a great idea for a product, marketing venture, ad swaps, guest post on someone else’s blog, etc, you need to think about how best to apporach the person in question. So many people simply write a generic email, and don’t bother to mention the person’s name, their blog or even tell them who they are or what their idea is. They just send the same spammy email to everyone.
For example you might want to do some ad swaps with another marketer. You tell them you will promote their product to your list if they agree to promote your product to their list. It doesn’t necessarily matter if their list is a lot bigger than yours, as they can send the email to a portion of their list. But they haven’t a clue who you are.
6 Step Plan to Approaching People for JVs
1. Firstly you need to find out about them, and reading their blog is the best way to start. Keep notes on things such as their hobbies, pet hates, etc, that they are only too happy to talk about, so you can use this in your conversation with them at a later date. If you click through to their YouTube channel or Facebook page and just spend a couple of minutes looking at a videos or photos, then you have even more information about them that might endear you to them later.
2. Next, they need to know who you are, and it goes a long way if your name at least rings a bell in thier minds. Have you ever posted a comment on the blog? A complimentary one that proves you’ve read their post? Ideally, you should post several decent comments before you approach them. Then you are building rapport and not approaching them cold.
3. When you contact them, use their name. Sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised at how many people write a standard email from a template, that just says “Hi, Would you consider letting me write a guest post for you on your blog?” And yet the email fails to name them or their blog. It’s so obvious they are sending the exact same email to hundreds of other people!
4. Also mention what you like about their blog, and how you can relate to their “school run” experience or how your dog too starts pining the minute you start a Camtasia recording. Mention the similarities between your readers and their readers and how you think you can help them. Minimize what they can do for you, maximize what you can do for them, and always be polite without groveling.
5. They do not need to know about all the stuff you’ve done for other people. They will want to know what you can do for them. So write the email that you are going to send out to your list to promote their product. This will not only flatter them; it will let them know you have already invested time into this venture, and are serious about it. It will also save them having to write the email themselves.
6. Similarly, if you want to write a guest post on their blog for example, write the guest post before you approach them. The worst that can happen is they turn you down, and you can still use the content to approach someone else, or use it as content for your own site.
How Madonna Does It
When Madonna wanted to sample part of ABBA’s song; “Gimme Gimme Gimme” she knew she would be turned down if she simply approached ABBA’s songwriters Benny and Bjorn with just the idea alone. So she recorded her song “Hung Up”, and then approached the guys for permission once they had heard it. She also wrote a letter detailing how much she admired and loved their work. They still didn’t agree straight away, but it went on to be a record breaking hit.
Madonna had put herself into the minds of the people she wanted to do business with in order to win them over. She thought it through, got into their heads and worked out the most likely method of getting them to agree to her request. She knew that Benny and Bjorn had only allowed one other artist, The Fugees, to sample one of their songs previously, and that many artists approach them but always get turned down.
She also knew that if she invested her time into the project beforehand, flattered them and let them hear the work for themselves, she would have the best possible chance of success.
Give yourself the best chance of success when approaching people to do business with. Take a leaf out of Madonna’s book.
Image by Alan Light
