Double Your Revenues with Joint Ventures

Double Your Revenues with Joint Ventures

by: Glen Hopkins

The best way I know of to multiply your online results, such as doubling the size of your optin email list, or increasing your sales, is through the use of joint ventures.

Joint ventures are partnerships created with other reputable business people that create a winwin situation for not only you and the person you partner with, but also your customer!

A great example of a joint venture that can be used to double the size of your optin subscribers overnight, is to partner with another publisher who publishes a newsletter for a related, but not competing, product or service as yours. This is called co registration.

Hereกs how you do it. Create a subscription page for your newsletter. Once the visitor subscribes to your ezine, have them automatically forwarded to a ‘thank Youก page that offers your partners ezine along with a recommendation. The recommendation will greatly improve the response you get so give your partner a good one.

Now all you have to do is have your partner do the same thing. Provided you are both generating approximately the same amount of new subscribers per day, you will DOUBLE your subscription rate!

This technique can be done with simple programming or the use of a popup window. You can find the script for a popup window at: http://wsabstract.com/popwin/index.shtml. To see a sample of how I use this technique check out: http://www.jokeboy.net You will notice, I have modified the technique a little to suit my needs. What I have done is forward the subscriber to my contentrelated, ezine subscription page, where other publishers pay me to collect thousands of subscribers for them every month. To learn more about this service visit: http://www.listopt.com/lbsignup.html.

The second type of joint venture is in the form of a personal endorsement that each partner sends out to his respective ezine readers. This technique will yield you amazing results.

What you want to do is work out a deal with your joint venture partner whereby you can offer his subscribers a special offer or discount for your product or service. By doing this, your partner wins because in the eyes of his readers he is making them an exclusive offer (and therefore, the subscriber wins too). Your partner may also reap the rewards of any referral fees you might give him. And you win because of all the new business that is generated for you for free!

Below is a sample of my latest joint venture endorsement letter that a partner of mine sent out to her entire subscription list. I in turn sent out a similar letter to my subscribers. The letter will give you a clear picture of how you can implement this technique right away.

******* SAMPLE JOINT VENTURE LETTER *******

Dear friend,

Why would a publisher of a Joke Ezine write to you about a subscriber acquisition service?

Itกs because I felt it was so important that you find out about The ListOpt List Builder Service. You know there aren’t too many businesses nowadays that meet your expectations, let alone exceed them. But ListOpt Publications has done just that.

And thatกs why I wanted to personally introduce you to Glen Hopkins, the owner of ListOpt Publications.

For 4 years now, Glen has collected tens of thousands of opt in email addresses for my ezine and has been an absolute pleasure to do business with.

And since Iกm always on the look out for great deals for my valued subscribers, friends, and fellow ezine publishers, I asked Glen if he could let me do something special for you. After a bit of กfriendly persuasionก he agreed!

So hereกs the deal: When you join The ListOpt List Builder Service and forward this letter to Glen, youกll get $5.00 added to your account credit. Iกve attached information below so you could see what Glen has to offer.

Take a look at it and then contact Glen at [email protected] right away. Youกll be glad you did.

Sincerely,

Your Name

www.yourdomain.com

****** END SAMPLE JOINT VENTURE LETTER ******

Can you see the potential in doing something like this? Iกm sure you can. So get you wheels turning and think of who YOU could create a profitable joint venture with, and set it up today.

Of course, if you are interested in creating a joint venture with me, please send your suggestion to [email protected]. I am always looking for new business partners to multiply results with!

You have permission to reprint this article provided you include the following resource box:

About The Author

Glen Hopkins is the director of ListOpt Publications Inc. If you’re looking to build your newsletter subscriber base quickly, easily and inexpensively, visit http://www.listopt.com and learn what hundreds of other publishers are saying about ListOptกs amazing List Builder service.

This article was posted on October 14, 2004

by Glen Hopkins

How To Build Your Sales

How To Build Your Sales

by: David Coyne

You may have heard of joint venture marketing, It’s used frequently by savvy entrepreneurs to increase profits and add loads of prospects to their customer list.

So what is joint venture marketing (or j/v)?

Speaking at the Information Marketing Boot Camp (http://www.dcinfobiz.com), Joint venture expert and entrepreneur John Alanis describes it as ขa mutually beneficial agreement to sell similar products or services to customers or prospects.ข

You approach another entrepreneur and ask them if they’ll endorse your product and allow you to mail to their customer list.

In exchange, you give the entrepreneur a cut of the gross profits, usually anywhere from 5 to 25 percent. Or you could arrange a list swap.

J/V marketing allows you to quickly add hundreds or thousands of names to your customer list.

The first step is to find a suitable joint venture partner.

Where do you look?

Try your own customers first. Send out a letter or email announcing you’re looking for a j/v partner. Be sure to tell them you’re looking for a partner who sells similar products to your own. And ask how many customers they have on their list. Obviously, the more, the better.

Another way of to find j/v partners is in trade publications. Look at the advertisers. You’ll probably find a few that sell similar products to your own. Contact them by phone or letter and explain you’d like to create a joint venture with them.

Also look in the Standard Rate and Data Service (SRDS) (http://www.srds.com). This directory has every commercially available mailing list, the list owner, etc. Most larger libraries will have a copy of SRDS, although it may be a year or two out of date.

As well, check out the Oxbridge Directory of Newsletters (http://www.mediafinder.com) It’s an excellent source for potential customers from newsletter subscriptions. It’s an expensive directory to buy, but ask your library if they have a copy.

YOU MUST BE ENDORSED The most important thing is you must have your fellow entrepreneur include a letter of endorsement.

He has already established a relationship with his customers. You haven’t. If his customers are satisfied with his product, then they’ll much more open to receiving information from him about other products.

Without the endorsement, the customer response will drop significantly.

You can also ghost write the endorsement letter for your j/v partner and then have him sign it.

APPROACHING A J/V PARTNER The best way to approach a potential joint venture partner is to send a letter and then follow up by phone. Be prepared to phone at least a couple of times before your partner agrees.

When sending out the letter proposing a joint venture partnership, be sure to do the following:

Offer to do all the work. You’ll handle all the mailing, marketing documents, and product fulfilment.

Collect the customer money yourself and then send your j/v partner his cut for each sale.

Stress the fact that your partner will be ขgetting money for no work.ข This is a strong incentive for an entrepreneur to become your j/v partner.

You will deduct your mailing costs and other expenses first and then split the balance with the partner.

Always get your j/v partner to sign your letter agreeing to your terms.

Include an ขexit clause.ข This allows you to cancel the j/v agreement if you find your partner is a headache to deal with.

By following these steps to a joint venture, you’ll be able to quickly add hundreds or thousands of potential customers to your database that normally would take years to accumulate.

And, most importantly, you’ll increase your sales.

About The Author

Dave Coyne is a copywriter, marketing consultant. Start A High Income, Low Risk Home Business And Never Create A Product, Write An Ad or Talk To Anyone. Get this free report. Send a blank email to [email protected]

This article was posted on February 25, 2003

by David Coyne

Earn On Offshore Web Design and Development

Earn On Offshore Web Design and Development

by: Julia Ramyalg

If you have some experience in web site design and want to make good money you can try acting as IToutsourcing partner. Learn more what you should know and how to start.

Why offshore web design and development

Offshore web site design and development help to keep prices at least 35 times less, for example, average hourly rate of web development services in USA is $3575; in UK $2550, in Ukraine $520.

How it works?

Typical plan:

You find a client who needs a web site, ask his/her requirements for the project and send to your offshore partner company.

The partner makes a proposal and gives you the project estimation basing on his hourly rate, for example, $10.

You mark up the rate $10/hour as high as you wish (and can taking into consideration competition in your region, level of demand for web design services, and other marketing factors), for example to $30/hour, and sends the proposal to the client. So if the web design project is estimated on 50 manhours of work, you charge the customer $1500, from which $500 you pay to your offshore partner company, and $1000 is your profit.

The partner company works on the project and delivers it to you along with copyright for the work.

You deliver the site to the customer.

Result you have a satisfied client and good profit from the marked up price.

How to start?

The first and most important step is to analyze market in your region and decide if it’s worth to start this business.

If you already have your own web design company it is easier for you because you already know situation in the market, gain certain reputation, have clients list, etc.

But don’t be afraid if you are new to web design business. Believe in yourself and work hard and finally you will be rewarded for all your efforts.

As in any type of business, starting the one in web design area, you must ask yourself general marketing questions:

Who will be your customers?

Why they will order the web design services exactly form you?

Where and how they will get to know about you?

Without having clear answers to these questions you shouldn’t try to start anything.

The second step is to find trustful and reliable partner – offshore web design company – that will work as ขdevelopment centerข for your business. This company must have good experience in web design and development area, good reputation, top level of customer care and communication. There are many resources in the Internet where you can find necessary information – search engines, web design directories, outsourcing portals.

For example, you can try searching in search engines for appropriate key phrases ขoffshore web designข, ขoffshore web site designข, ขoffshore web developmentข and analyze sites of your potential partners.

Also here are several sites where you can find lists of offshore web design companies sorted by country.

http://webdesigners.bluegeckonetwork.com/

http://www.theoutsourceguide.com/

http://www.1234findwebdesigners.org/

How to choose the right offshore web design partner company?

There are 2 main factors that determine your choice – cost and quality of web design work.

Cost

Basing on the average web design prices in your local market and your competitive abilities you set prices that you will charge to your customers. There are several methods of web design price calculation, most used are flat price for fixed web site packages, and price based on manhour rate. Most web design companies operate with both and choose one depending on each project type and requirements.

Then you decide which profit you want to have and narrow down your search choosing companies with appropriate price range.

Quality

Consider the company reputation, portfolio of previous works, testimonials of previous customers, level of communication. Pay attention to payment policy and method, conditions of ready projects delivery, warranties, postdevelopment support and maintenance.

If all details are agreed you may start partnership. Sometimes the first project is quite simple to test abilities of both parties and if everything is going well the partnership will bring mutual benefits.

About The Author

Julia Ramyalg

Marketing Director

http://www.itinventors.com

ITInventors professional offshore web site design company.

We are located in Ukraine and due to local economy we can offer you affordable rate $10/hour for custom web site design and web development services. Itกs at least twice less than average Western European rates and more than 3 times less than USA rates.

We have developed more than 130 projects for dozens of satisfied customers, established strong relations with partners from USA and UK.

Services we offer: Custom web site design, Ecommerce web site design, Content Management Software integration into existing web sites, Real estate web site design, Flash sites design, Logo design, SEO. Visit our site http://www.itinventors.com for more details.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 20

by Julia Ramyalg

Microsoft Great Plains Nationwide Remote Support

Microsoft Great Plains Nationwide Remote Support

by: Andrew Karasev

ERP Consulting industry is on the way to serve clients nationwide and even worldwide, when the client is multinational corporation. There are several reasons to specialize in remote support. In this small article we’ll give you these reasons and the advantages of remote installation, customization, integration, programming, reporting.

• Remote Support Technologies. These technologies are well known and we will just mention them: VPN, Citrix, Remote Desktop connection, Microsoft Terminal Services, Web Sessions, PCAnywhere (however the last one should be avoided if possible)

• MS SQL Server Platform. This means that in the case of data repair, upgrade, testing, it is relatively easy to backup DYNAMICS and companies databases, install them on MBS partner server, do the job and then restore the results in the client’s production environment.

• Dexterity Customization Technology. Dexterity uses chunks to integrate customizations, you, as dexterity developer can test your customization in your test environment and then deliver and integrate final version of the chunk.

• Standard Reporting. Microsoft Business Solutions recommends Crystal Reports as reporting tool of choice.

However there are additional reasons to seek remote support in the case of large corporation of medium size business. Let’s look at them:

• Microsoft Business Solutions Partners specialization. Specialization allows Nationwide MBS customization & implementation partner serve specific industry: aerospace & defense, oil & gas, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, healthcare, apparels, wholesale & retail, beverages, distribution & logistics, freight forwarding & transportation, biotechnology, etc.

• Customization Partners. Each vertical market requires MBS partner to be experienced with business processes implementation via GP custom logic. Writing proper specification form the customization is probably 70% of the success.

• Cost Reduction. This is also important for both – client and GP partner. Usually remote support partner has US based lead developers and project manager and uses excellent programmer in such countries as Philippines and Brazil where developers have excellent Dexterity source code programming experience.

Happy implementing! You can always appeal to us to help you with your system. Give as a call 16309615918 or 18665280577, [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Microsoft CRM, Axapta, Navision, Microsoft RMS, Microsoft Business Portal customization company, serving clients in Chicago, Boston, New York, Miami, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Toronto, Montreal, Brazil, Mexico, UK, Australia, Canada, UK, Europe, Russia an having small offices in multiple states and internationally.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 16

by Andrew Karasev

3 Things You Should NEVER Do in a Joint Venture

3 Things You Should NEVER Do in a Joint Venture

by: Jinger Jarrett

A joint venture can be one of the most profitable and fastest ways to make money on the Internet. It can also destroy your reputation, get you ignored, or worse, accused of spam if you if you don’t take the proper care to create a valuable offer.
There are three things you should NEVER do when creating a joint venture proposal for a potential partner. Below are three things NOT to do, with several tips to help you do it right.
1. Fail to Plan.
Before you send out any emails to potential partners, you need to plan your offering, decide who you are going to send it to, and what you expect in return.
First, create your offer. Ask yourself these questions:
What am I going to give the potential partner to make him/her want to joint venture with me? i.e. Are you going to give the partner a copy of the product, do you have bonuses available, whatกs the commission you are paying, are you offering a large one time commission, or a recurring monthly commission?
My rule of thumb is to never offer less than 50 percent. What you want to do is make the partner an offer that is not only fair, but more beneficial up front for him/her than it is for you.
Once you know what your offer is, you want to create solo ads, a review, or something that the partner can plug his/her information into so that you have something to give him/her when you make the offer.
Include the affiliate sign up link, and make it as easy as possible to sign up. Also include the link to the product, as well as tell the partner how to get the download, the membership, or whatever you are selling.
The point is, make it easy. My joint venture partners are busy people. They don’t have time to write ads for me, or spend a lot of time getting prepared. They need something they can set up in a few minutes, send it out, and move on. Remember, your potential partners are probably the same.
2. Forget to Target Your Market.
I get over 500 emails a day. Mind you, they aren’t all joint ventures although I get a lot of those too.
The point is this: research your market. Find products, services, memberships, etc. that complement yours. Then you have a market.
3. Send Your Offer to the Wrong Person.
No one wants to read offers that say, กDear Publisherก, กDear Friendก, or anything like that.
The first, and most important thing about creating a joint venture is to make sure that you send it to the right person at the right email address.
Although I don’t recommend it, you can send your joint venture proposal to someone you don’t know provided you have properly targeted your market. This doesn’t mean you can send your message to 100s who just happen to be in your target market.
What I recommend you do is this: build a relationship with the person. Build a lot of relationships with a lot of people. If you have something relevant to say about someoneกs newsletter, write him/her.
I get so many bogus offers that when I get something I appreciate, or I enjoy, I always write the publisher a complimentary email. If thereกs a survey, I answer it. If the publisher needs help, and I can, I answer.
This is how great business relationships are built online. You would be amazed at how much others are willing to help you when you take the time to get to know them.
Finally, unless you know one of the กgurusก, and very well, I wouldn’t advise sending them your offer. Most of them already have joint venture arrangements in place and aren’t really willing to work with someone they don’t know, or who hasn’t made it to กguruก status.
There are plenty of potential partners out there with nice sized mailing lists who are hungry for more ways to make more money. With millions online, you have a wide range of potential partners to choose from.
Remember, it really doesn’t matter if you sell gardening tools or ebooks, or anything else for that matter, a joint venture can quickly and easily add to your bottom line.

About The Author

Jinger Jarrett has partnered with Russ Moore to create the Killer Marketing Arsenal, a membership site offering all the tools you need to market your business for maximum traffic and sales. To celebrate, they are helping to sponsor a monthly contest where you can win over $10,500 per month. Enter today. Itกs free. http://www.killermarketingarsenal.com/contest.html *****************************************************************

This article was posted on May 01, 2004

by Jinger Jarrett

5 Steps To Successful Joint Ventures

5 Steps To Successful Joint Ventures

by: Raam Anand

Most Internet Marketing related ezines have carried at least one article on Joint Ventures; probably many.

JVกs are THE MOST preferred and fastest way to increase sales and cash flows.

Itกs no longer a secret!

Everyone knows a good JV is the master key to online success.

But… why many people are failing to use this master key? Why so many website owners are not able to make use of this powerful strategy?

Here are some reasons:

1) Other marketers are NOT WAITING for your JV offer. Before sending your JV offer, make sure to address the question กWhatกs in it for the JV Partner?ก. Unless you give a compelling reason, most partners are not looking forward to your offer. No, it won’t work that way…like, you offer one of your products for free and your partner will gladly endorse it to her list. No, it won’t.

It takes time to craft an irresistible offer. The offer should be beneficial to your potential partner and her customers/subscribers.

Take it from me… I told you it takes time… but itกs definitely possible.

2) Many JV offers are passed onto the ‘recycle binก with even being read (I told you… they are NOT waiting)

Some leading marketers get about 200 JV proposals every week! May be more. Most of these JV offers doesn’t catch the attention of the busy marketer.

Some are lost due to SPAM email filters.

Solution?

Followup is the key. If you consistently followup, your chances of getting the attention of your potential JV partner is very high. Usually a second email will get the response.

A mixedmode followup is sure to get higher success rates. An initial email followed by another email reminder and a phone call should normally get you going.

3) Another strong demotivating factor is NOT sending personalized JV offers. If your proposal does not กspeakก directly to your partner, itกs chances of succeeding are very thin.

Thatกs why I told you earlier, it takes time to create your JV proposal. You need to visit your partnerกs website, subscribe to their newsletter, study their online content and read their publications and articles before you attempt to draft your proposal.

Your JV proposal should address your potential partner directly, using their name. Mentioning a few things about their website, products, ezines or articles in your offer will surely catch their attention.

4) JV partners are not your affiliates. Differentiate your resellers with your strategic JV partner. To drastically raise the success rate of your proposal, offer a higher commission than your affiliates.

For example, if you are offering a 50% commission for your affiliates, your JV partner should be offered 60% or more.

5) Targeting a large corporation for your JV is a surefire way to failure. First, try and do several JVกs with businesses similar or smaller than your own and build a track record. Then you can approach bigger businesses with a record of your successes.

Large businesses have large problems everyday to tackle. They have struggled hard to build their enterprise. They have their own range of products to sell and keep their customers happy.

However, if you have a compelling story to tell, along with factual proof of your claims, it will definitely bring you windfall profits.

Iกm not discouraging you to keep away from these giants. Iกm just telling you the right way to approach.

You see friend, Iกve revealed to you some key tips on Joint Ventures. Now, itกs up to you. Follow these rules and create a compelling offer and Iกm sure you will succeed in making highly profitable Joint Ventures.

About The Author

Copyright (C) 2004 Raam Anand With Raamกs Joint Venture Manager, you could make 10.. 20.. even 30times more money! Click to learn more about JV Manager: http://www.infoYOGIS.com/track.cgi?1

This article was posted on November 20, 2004

by Raam Anand

Microsoft Business Solutions Partner – new consult

Microsoft Business Solutions Partner – new consulting era

by: Andrew Karasev

We are crossing the time of new economy recovery and we believe that dramatic change will happen in the US hightech and software business systems application and technical consulting. We would like to share our vision, based on our consulting practice and market reaction on our advertisement campaign. Our business lines include Microsoft Great Plains, Microsoft Navision, Microsoft CRM (client relation management) and Microsoft RMS (retail management system).

Let’s look back to Clinton era – 1990th, when consulting companies, specializing in generic ERP/business system with wide market niche and large number of clients were seeing their growth in hard sales campaign to local clientele. When company felt that local market share is gained to the targeted percentage – it was investing in the new offices in neighboring business metros. Sales model was described in hightech products selling techniques bestsellers, such as Selling to the Top (IBM), Selling to VITO, etc.

Now let’s take a look at the selling techniques, utilized in promoting such product as Microsoft CRM:

Nationwide advertising campaign – due to new technologies, such as web interface, remote support and webtraining plus hectic competition – Microsoft CRM partner has no other choice, but to target nationwide market

Internet marketing – internet is major (if not the only one) media for nationwide campaigns. Open google, type in something like Microsoft CRM partner and you will see the battle place on the right side of your internet browser. The same is happening on yahoo, altavista and other search engines

Additional Pluses. Internet sales discipline MBS partner to tune up its website to educate prospects and clients up to the point of their internal decision on the product – even prior calling the Partner. This allows decrease selling and software selection cost, pushing software implementation rates down

You can always have the option to call us and be your Microsoft Business Solutions Partner: 18665280577, 16309615918, [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is consultant at Alba Spectrum Technologies, LLC, ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) nationwide ERP consulting company, serving clients in California, New York, Illinois, Virginia, Florida, Minnesota, Colorado, Georgia, Texas, Arizona and having MBS BPO facilities in Chicago, Houston, LA, Boston, Sao Paulo, Brazil

[email protected]

This article was posted on March 06

by Andrew Karasev

Link Building: To Link or Not to Link, That is the

Link Building: To Link or Not to Link, That is the Question

by: Vik Tailor

Lately, there have been a lot of heated discussions regarding link building. Is it ethical to create a link building campaign? Does Google or any other search engine penalize for ขlink farmsข (a bunch of nonrelated links created for the SOLE purpose of increasing search engine ratings)? Is the ขlink building eraข over?

Link Farms

Many webmasters claim that Google penalizes websites for link farms. If this is so, why are a link farm sites that have a page rank of 5 on their link farm page? Let me give you an example, go to Google.com, type in any popular keyword(s) and append the word ขlinksข to it. For example, ขABCD Links.ข Notice you’ll get tones of websites that are linking to unrelated sites, but still have a great PR. I do not encourage link farming in any way or form, but building valuable partnerships is something I do encourage. If you’re a jewelry site and you’re exchanging links with an antiques site, I think this is a great thing. It’s very possible that someone searching for jewelry may have an interest in antiques. I own a few sites and the hits I receive from partially related sites are phenomenal. Most of my websites are targeted towards webmasters so I receive hits from all sorts of sites. Remember, many webmasters claim to know the truth regarding search engine algorithms, but no one knows the EXACT TRUTH except the programmers at the search engines. Webmasters may have been penalized in the past for link farms and doorway pages (pages created around certain keywords for the sole purpose of redirecting surfers to the main page), but who’s to say why some HAVEN’T been penalized.

Who Should I Create Link Partnerships With?

1. Create link partnerships with sites related to your site.

2. Create link partnerships with sites that have an audience that may be interested in your products

3. Exchange homepage links with websites that fit in your genre. You’ll receive a link on a page with a good ranking and you’ll get quality, targeted hits.

How Do You Find Link Partners?

1. Signup with an automated links management provider that organizes your links and helps find link partners. Automated tools are the best because they help you save time. Uploading and downloading your pages for every link exchange can be a huge pain and very time consuming. Automated tools are NOT link farms because they give you complete control of who you exchange links with. If a member exchanges links with every website, he/she might be abusing the tool. If a member uses the tool responsibly, it can be very effective.

2. This is a great little exercise I would recommend to anyone.

Write down 20 search terms pertaining to your website

Go to http://www.google.com and type in a search term written in step A

Contact as many websites as possible listed under that search term and ask them to exchange inner page or homepage links with you. If they’re NOT interested, ask whether they would be interested in selling advertising space. If your website is fairly new, you may want to ask sites for advertising prices. Free hits are the best hits but sometimes you might have to go the extra lap and pay for service. I wouldn’t recommend spending over $100 / month for advertising UNLESS itกs a high traffic site with your site audience. The best deals are the ones that offer $1025 / month. There are sites out there that will sell SUPER cheap advertising, and others that charge an arm and a leg.

EVERYONE gets rejected sometime or another so keep your head up and keep moving along! The internet is comprised of Billions of websites. If you’re rejected 500 times, you still have MANY business opportunities left! This is a continuous job so set aside time every week to do this. If you don’t have time for this, then you don’t have time to make money.

3. Hire a link building firm (this can be quite expensive but if you have money, its minimal work for you)

PageRank

Pagerank is a great tool but don’t use it as your ONLY measurement for success. I can’t explain everything about pagerank but a good explanation is given at http://www.googlewatch.org/pagerank.html.

Conclusion

In conclusion, link building is not only for increasing link partners and search engine rankings, it’s also used to create partnerships and establish profitable relationships with other webmasters. Link building is a tedious process, but one of the best for getting free (sometimes not), targeted hits from other websites.

About The Author

Vik Tailor is the owner of http://www.linkexchanged.com and http://www.buyadvertisingonline.com. He has been in the online advertising industry for over 45 years and has extensive online marketing knowlege.

[email protected]

This article was posted on October 12, 2004

by Vik Tailor

Microsoft Business Solutions VAR/Partner Selection

Microsoft Business Solutions VAR/Partner Selection – overview for IT Director/Manager/Controller

by: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Great Plains and Microsoft CRM become more and more popular, partly because of Microsoft muscles behind them. Now Great Plains is targeted to the whole spectrum of horizontal and vertical market clientele. Small companies use Small Business Manager (which is based on the same technology – Great Plains Dexterity dictionary and runtime), Great Plains Standard on MSDE is for small to midsize clients, and then Great Plains serves the rest of the market up to big corporations. Microsoft CRM is extremely scalable and fits to all the market niches.

It is always good idea to install everything on your own however Great Plains requires combination of computer networking, some programming, good accounting/distribution/logistics/reporting background so it is not a surprise that Microsoft Business Solutions requires their customers to have specially assigner Microsoft Great Plains Partner/VAR/Reseller to serve the account.

If you are IT Director/Controller who has the dilemma of proper partner selection – read this and you will have the clues on where to look further.

1. Local partners if you are in the remote area there is often seen the opinion that local partner is the best choice. Consider this however as a contra argument local partners maybe tiny with one/few consultants and they may not serve you adequately when you have somewhat complex such as Manufacturing, complex Project Accounting needs, integration with UNIXbased legacy system, etc.

2. MidSize partners in Major Business Metros – these companies were classical Great Plains VARS/Resellers with balanced application consulting and technical expertise. Please, consider these points, however: in recent recession most of such partners were bought or merged with big auditing companies and lost their flexibility, plus their consulting fee went up due to the fact of belonging to big conglomerates.

3. Nationwide partners with local representative offices. This maybe a very good option, if you need kind of reliability and complete expertise missing parts could be taken from different location with this specialization. However the hourly rates are probably the highest among the first three.

4. OneProjectManager partner with Offshore consultants – Well this is very new type of partners and you potentially can save a lot of money if you are risk taker hourly rate is usually lower, price of the failure maybe higher.

5. Nationwide partner with tiny local representation, serving via remote support. We are in this category, so let me tell you couple of good points here. Companies like ours have to specialize in order to do excellent job in what we claim is our specialization (technology challenging projects with heavy customization needs). Serving via remote support lets us keep reasonably low rates and often go for fixed bids.

Also couple of hints about how do you switch the partner. It is actually more easy than you may think you just send the new proposed partner the letter in free format saying that you would like to switch to you as my Microsoft Business Solutions partner and this is it.

Happy shopping! if you want us to help you give us a call 18665280577! [email protected]

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, based in Chicago, California, Texas, New York, Colorado, Washington, Florida, Canada, UK and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 16, 2004

by Andrew Karasev

10 Steps to Joint Venture Setup and Success

10 Steps to Joint Venture Setup and Success

by: Stephen Mistretta

The goal of this article is to show you how to start and maintain a successful Joint Venture Program.

1. Choosing Good Partners

One of the keys to a successful JV is to pick high quality and high traffic sites with which to partner. In this case, and below, we will be using the example of selling an Ebook that you have created. The topic of this particular Ebook is ขBass Fishing.ข An easy way to find potential JV partners is to go to Google and type in the top three terms related to your topic. In our example we type in ขBass fishingข Large mouth Bass and Small mouth Bass. With the size of the Internet, and the searching capabilities of Google, you can write your Ebook on almost any subject and find a large list of websites that cover it. I suggest starting with a group of 50 sites, total, with which to work.

2. Choosing Quality Sites

Look for Quality growing sites within your niche market.

Once you get a list of sites (I suggest you break them down into groups of five) you should then go to www.Alexa.com and download their toolbar. Check each site’s overall growth rate and use the ขwaybackข feature to get an idea about how much work they have put into the site. Do not be surprised if there is no data available in a number of the categories; Alexa measures growth rates of only the most rapidly growing sites.

You want to find the highest traffic growth sites possible. Out of your first five sites pick the top two growth sites and put them to the side for future use. Take the other three sites and, using the downloadable Google tool bar (http://toolbar.google.com), find out the page rank of the sites. If the page rank is lower than five I suggest putting them into your ขTo contact later pileข If the page rank is five or higher put them into your contact file.

3. Contacting Smaller Sites First

Contact the smaller slower growing sites first. The reason I suggested, putting the top two growth sites out of each five to the side is because you are much more likely to get a JV and reciprocal link from a smaller site when you are first starting out. Once your site has reached a page rank of five or above AND with at least 10+ back links to quality sites you can then contact the bigger sites. Lets face it, not only do the sites that sell your Ebook want to make a percentage of each sale, they also want to increase their PR ranking and number of quality linking partners. If you go to the bigger sites on day one you are much more likely to get a ขnoข than if you build your site rankings and links first. Big sites, above all, don’t want to have their rankings go down. So really do your JV homework and linking prior to contacting them. (OK I am finished preaching about that!)

4 Write a Professional Contact Letter.

One of the keys to a successful JV is to prepare a professional contact letter that clearly states the benefits (percentage of sale) that the JV partner will receive. Another key point to state is how many sites you are linked with and their average page ranking. (Remember: five or above). It is imperative that you make your letter short, concise and clearly stating the benefits to them. This is also the time to mention the fact that you will provide the partner site with all the necessary ad copy, pictures, banners and ongoing emails that they will need to promote your product so they can get paid. Before contacting the JV partner you will also want to set up an affiliate program through www.shareasale.com or www.clickbank.com. My point is: the simpler you make things for the JV partners the more positive responses you will have.

5. Making A Show of Good Faith.

It is a very good idea prior to contacting potential JV partners to create a link on your site to the potential partner’s site. Try to use their logo or links they have already created. If there is a copyright notice on the site, create a testbased ad instead. Once you set up the link, preferably on your partner’s page or home page at the bottom, you should contact each site. See our www.HomeBusinessSuccess.biz site for an example.

6. Follow up Follow up Follow up.

It is extremely important to follow up until you get a definite answer, yes or no. I suggest that you give the prospective JV site a call the day after you send the email. One thing to remember also is that with spam filters today some of your emails will get filtered out. When you call do not be totally shocked to hear they did not receive your email. If they did not receive the email ask them if you can send a copy of the email to them immediately. Give them your email address and ask them to add it to their address book so future emails will not be blocked.

7. Notification of Sales

Set up an automated email to notify the JV when they make a sale.

It always blows my mind that people don’t do this. Think about it, if you got a short email every time you made a sale for someone you are JV partnered with, wouldn’t it motivate you even more to sell the product? I look forward to opening my email and seeing how many sales I made. It is like Christmas every day! Please do not overlook this simple but important and effective way to motivate your JV partners. Jeff wrote an excellent article on this specific topic which is listed on our website under ขJeff’s Opinionข. It is a great read and contains valuable information. I suggest you check it out.

8. Praise Where Praise Is Due

When your JV partner makes their first sale, email them and congratulate them. This is an excellent time to introduce new products for additional ventures as well as a great opportunity to make some suggestions about placement of your ad. Both of you would benefit even more from your ad being placed in the upper left of the JV partners’ website. This is one of the top 3 grossing areas in which to put and ad. Your JV partner might not be as knowledgeable in some areas as you are, so go ahead ask for better positioning and assist them with any relatively quick tasks that you can to help them get more traffic.

9. Starting a Newsletter For Your JV Partners.

This is an excellent tool for introducing new products. You can also use this tool to form competition between your JV partners to see who can sell the most of your products. It is also a great idea to include any new partner sites in your newsletter. This will help motivate the new JV partners. A newsletter is great for building a sense of community. When preparing the newsletter try to include at least one article about Internet marketing, one on your niche area, one listing any current specials, one listing new products you are selling for other people/sites and finally one open area for facts, questions, and suggestions from your JV partners. Remember, the more you involve your JVs and include them in decisions, the more they will want to sell your products. Post issues of the newsletter on a page in your site. The more content you have about your niche area the better. Also include any testimonials from both clients and JV partners. Please remember: high quality content is king! People need a reason to keep coming back to your site. Provide them with new articles at least every two weeks. If 100% necessary, you can go to a site such as www.Articlecity.com and find free articles to use on your website. I strongly suggest, however, that you write as many articles as you can yourself. JV partners like to read what you are all about. You can submit your article to sites such as www.Articlecity.com for more traffic and the search engines love content the more high quality the better.

10. Contacting Larger Sites.

Once your page rank is over 5 and you have 10+ linking partners you are ready to contact the bigger sites. You should adjust your JV request letter to reflect the successes you have had since you started your site. Include links in the letter to your JV newsletter page as well as your testimonial page. Be prepared to pay superaffiliates a higher percentage of each sale. The volume of traffic that the site brings you should make up the lost percentage. For example, if you pay your smaller site JV partners 40%, be prepared to pay the large sites at least 50%. A good incentive for the larger sites is a sliding scale JV partnership, such as: for the first 100 of your Ebooks that they sell they get 50%, for the next 150 they get 55% and so on. The key is volume of sales.

www.HBS.biz is currently looking for high quality JV partners for both products and link exchange. Please contact us at [email protected] if your page rank is 5 or above. We invite niche sites even if not in the Home Business area. If your PR is not five or above but you have some awesome products, we can still crosssell products. I am not meaning to be rude, but please no contact from link farms. We will not exchange links with you.

Now get out there and kick some butt! You can do it! If you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact me at [email protected]

About The Author

Stphen Mistretta is a partner in www.HBS.biz and can be reached at [email protected]

This article was posted on February 10, 2005

by Stephen Mistretta

How To get your JV Partner to Accept Recommendatio

How To get your JV Partner to Accept Recommendations From You

by: Abe Cherian

One of the brightest moments in my business career were when I was visiting with my joint venture partner and talking about our future relationship together. I remember asking Bill over and we instantly made friends. Simply by chatting about events we both enjoyed doing for our business.

One of the most effective ways to start out a business relationship, is by asking your future JV partner over to meet with you at your office or home. Why? Because you have an incredibly powerful offer to make to them, and if they aren’t sharp enough or interested enough, to come and see you, then they are not going to work with you!

Even though you both may see things for mutual gain, you must stay in control. You’re the fuel making this marketing networking machine run hard and fast. If they are too complacent to not wish to come into your domain at the first meeting, then they are not the winner here.

The thing to realize is not to get hung up on one person or another. Just politely brush them away and move on to the next. In fact, you only need one or two good relationships in each field to complete the circle and take care of your customers. The real beauty of all this, besides them giving you recommendations and paying for some, or all of your advertising, is much deeper than that. The real beauty is that your customers will be well taken care of!

It would be highly unusual for a customer to have a team of dedicated professionals taking care of you in this manner. One of the side benefits for you is that you will have this team to work on your own situation, usually at little or no cost. Often, you can set up an arrangement where these people will do work for free or at a discount for you. Of course, you should offer them help when they have personal needs, as well.

Another important fact to look at is your Unique Selling Proposition you bring to the table when you are able to tell a new prospect, how your team works together to maximize the efficiency of managing their purchase of your products or services. Do you think your USP is a little better than what your former competitors say? I would say so, because you have to have a totally different attitude to make this work. You have to be from a place of service with a customercentered psychology.

For example, when you’re meeting with a customer of an associate, and after listening to them, you know that they are really not ready to consider your product or service right now. Maybe later, but not now. In your heart, you know that you have to tell this person that he/she should really think about the future carefully before they pour all their money into whatever your offering.

If this were you, would you lead your customer over the hump? Would you กleadก him/her to the conclusion that doing what you say is the right decision…instead of telling your customer to consider whether doing anything right now is wise? You see, if you ask the right kinds of questions, and listen to what people really tell you, youกll always know in your heart whatกs right. And if you always do what your heart tells you is right, youกll get more business than youกll know what to do with, because of the positive energy you create when you do the right things.

Can you imagine the amount of trust you can build with an associate when you tell his customer and him, that this person (or business) isn’t in the right position to buy just yet, and you advise waiting until uncertainties are resolved? The trust will be a bridge into the heart of not just the customer, but the professional, as well.

Appealing to a professionalกs need for more customers will get the relationship started. Theyกll see you as a person who can help them solve their own marketing problems. After you’re in the door, developing this trust and showing the compassion Iกm describing will help secure you into other professionalกs lives and the lives of their customers.

About The Author

Abe Cherian is the founder of Multiple Stream Media, a company that helps online businesses find new prospects and clients, who are anxious to grow their business fast, and without spending a fortune in marketing and automation.

http://www.multiplestreammktg.com.

Webกs #1 site to find กfree resources to Plan, Build, Market, and Maintain your websiteก:

http://www.multiplestreammktg.com/resources.html

This article was posted on March 28

by Abe Cherian

Microsoft Great Plains Partner Selection – overvie

Microsoft Great Plains Partner Selection – overview

by: Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Great Plains, Navision, Solomon and Axapta are Microsoft Business Solutions ERP applications, serving to the whole spectrum of vertical and horizontal markets. Assuming that you already have one of these systems installed and implemented we would like to give you IT director, Database Administrator, Programmer, Software Developer, Controller your options in supporting/upgrading Microsoft Great Plains for your company

It is always good idea to install everything on your own however Great Plains requires combination of computer networking, some programming, good accounting/distribution/logistics/reporting background so it is not a surprise that Microsoft Business Solutions requires their customers to have specially assigner Microsoft Great Plains Partner/VAR/Reseller to serve the account.

First Scenario. Due to the recession your former MBS partner went out of business, leaving you without support and you lapsed in payment annual enhancement fee. This is very common scenario in fact Microsoft Business Solutions introduced direct quoting to the companies like yours just to insure that you have an option to pay this required maintenance fee. In this situation you can not get new version/migration tool, etc. until you get your company reinstated in MBS enhancement program. What you need to do is these:

1. Find reasonably inexpensive MBS partner and switch to it as your MBS VAR it is very easy to change your VAR you compose the letter stating that you would like to switch to company ABC as your MBS VAR, sign it and fax to your new VAR.

2. MBS Promotions – Microsoft has promotion programs for orphans like your company to be reenrolled into annual enhancement program, usually with small additional charge, for example in October 2004 you could get your reinstatement for 20% of the software list price (normal price is 16%)

Second Scenario. You need to migrate from Pervasive SQL/ctree to Microsoft SQL Server/MSDE. It is known fact that Microsoft decided to breach contract with Pervasive Software and stop supporting Microsoft Great Plains 7.5 and earlier versions on Pervasive SQL 2000. You need to migrate to MS SQL Server ASAP or you will be out of support

1. As in the first scenario select your MBS partner or ask you old partner to give you the quote on Migration tool (k$1.5k$2)

2. Migrate on your own or send your data to migration specialist your partner may provide these services normal price is 8 hours of consulting fee

Third Scenario. You have bunch of Great Plains Dexterity, VBA, SQL customizations and need upgrade and your former GP reseller is not providing customization upgrade services (due to the fact that all developers were laid off several years ago)

1. Locate customization partner. Usually you have to find small nationwide VAR, who serves you via remote support. Switch to this partner

2. Ask for customization analysis most of the old customization pieces should be migrated to new technologies, like Dexterity to SQL and Crystal Reports, web publishing, eConnect, etc. Don’t pay for upgrade กas isก you will lock yourself with the problems

Also couple of hints about how do you switch the partner. It is actually more easy than you may think you just send to your new proposed partner the letter in free format saying that you would like to switch to you as my Microsoft Business Solutions partner and this is it.

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, based in Chicago, Arizona, Georgia, California, Texas, New York, Florida and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( www.albaspectrum.com ), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. Andrew can be reached: 18665280577, 16309615918

[email protected]

This article was posted on November 14, 2004

by Andrew Karasev