The old saying, “if you can’t beat ’em – join ’em,” can help your business expand through a joint venture.
Why are joint ventures a great idea? First, you don’t have to “sell” any part of your business or give up any control of what you have built from scratch. A joint venture takes the best elements from two or more small businesses and combines them to bring to market something greater than having to do it alone. Meanwhile, you operate your small business just as always, except with a sort of ‘side business’ with your joint venture partner.
Besides, no one can be a master of all trades. When you join together with the right joint venture partner, you share your particular expertise. For example, say you are a trained financial analyst who is great at running numbers, building forecasts, and creating great-looking spreadsheets. You might find a joint venture partner who has a specialty in dealing with people and making sales. Through your combined effort and shared expertise, you and your joint venture partner have the means to create a great new product, accurately forecast revenue, and make the sales as projected.
Your JV Success Is What You Make It
Joint venture success is not built upon the efforts of just one of the partners. Oftentimes, a small business owner will partake in a venture together only to find that his time is much too valuable to give to the effort. Subsequently, the JV suffers and both parties lose.
To ensure a JV’s success, it is important that you are excited about the possibilities. Secondly, your JV partner must also share your enthusiasm to make the JV agreement work. When both small business owners make the effort, then success has a much greater chance.
Dwell Upon the Possibilities
Joint ventures are not a new idea, but they do take a bit of consideration. Don’t just think of the obvious and most common JV’s such as combining products to form a “package.” Get creative and consider all the avenues, ranging from penning articles together to cross-promoting a hybrid product that is built upon both your businesses’ specialties. After all, it was through a joint venture that scratch-and-sniff stickers were created!
