3 Key JV Partner Identifiers

By Christian Fea

In our quest to develop the perfect small business, we as entrepreneurs often ask ourselves what we can do to make running a business easier. We find we like to play our strengths, be it in sales or managing employees, and we spend less time on the tasks we despise, perhaps accounting or marketing. By asking the question, we may discover that a joint venture is a perfect way to rid ourselves of the struggling tasks.

By performing a detailed search for the perfect JV partner, you may be able to make your business thrive by focusing on the business duties in which you excel. But how do you find the perfect JV partner? You may find one, a few, or even many potential JV partners, but before you start on the path to joint venture land stop to consider these important keys to identify the ideal partner.

1. Complementary Strengths

Remember, you may want to find an ideal JV partner who has strengths complimentary to yours. You may want to focus on the sales portion of your JV while your partner focuses on marketing. What good does it do you if you both want to perform the same tasks? Look for a JV partner who can compliment your working style so you both get more done.

2. Similar Goals and Values

What are your goals and what do you value in business? Profit? Making a difference? Producing jobs for local workers? Be mindful of the goals and values of your potential JV partner because if yours and his do not align, you could end up with friction in the future. A JV requires that both partners be on the same page as far as your goals and how you want to achieve them.

And in regards to sharing duties and profits on a joint venture, what do you value? Do you both want a short-term JV for a specific project? Or are you both looking for a long-term lasting and successful partnership? Get those values and goals in line or a rocky JV you will have.

3. Compatibility

Similar to a marriage, you will need to be sure that you and your potential JV partner are compatible. You may find that your potential JV partner is an independent soul who likes to work alone and do things their way. How would that help your business? Or perhaps you have a family and you want a JV partner who understands your commitment to spend time with your family as often as you can. If you team up with a JV partner who expects you to burn the proverbial midnight oil to make the JV work, you may be incompatible as partners.

Take these three key aspects of a successful joint venture and consider them carefully when evaluating a potential JV partner. By identifying an ideal partner at the onset, you will have a much easier time making your JV a success.

The Ultimate Sales Tip - Give Up the Need to Sell

By Rishabh Bathla

Most business people will tell you that selling is not their favorite activity. Let’s explore a way to look at the process of sales a bit more favorably.

Whether we like it or not---“we’re all in sales”. Most of us have an internal dialogue about both selling and closing that is less than positive. Most of us approach the sales portion of our business hoping we’re not “coming off like a salesman.”

Most of us hate to be sold to. Most of us have to sell to live. Most of us realize that in order to keep our business afloat, we need to sell. I suggest that you give up that need to sell.

Please notice that I didn’t ask you to give up the commitment to sell, but rather the need to sell. The hardest time to do anything is when you need to.

In the revised edition of his book “Man’s Search for Meaning”, the noted psychiatrist and author Victor Frankl coined the term “Paradoxical Intentionality”. He defines “Paradoxical Intentionality” as “The twofold fact that fear brings about that which one is afraid of, and that hyper-intention makes impossible that which one wishes.”

In other words, if you need to do something it makes the task much more difficult. Frank’s thesis can best be illustrated by an example with which we all can identify.

The last time you needed to get to sleep because you had something important to do the next morning… how easy was it to get to sleep? The last time you needed to stay awake for the end of a film… how easy was it to stay awake?

So I repeat… give up the need to sell. Be committed 150% to making the sale but avoid becoming tied to the “outcome” of making the sale.

This is contrary to what many of us have been taught. However, if you view yourself as a “problem solver” rather than a “maker of sales” this concept will make much greater sense.

I define a problem as, “something that exists when there is a difference between what you have and what you want.” My definition of business is, “The ability to solve other people’s problems and get and make a profit.”

Closing is “the ability to create an environment in which the prospect can come to the conclusion that our product or service will solve his/her problem.”

Based on these definitions, our job becomes a process in which we first uncover whether the prospect has the type of problems our business solves. Next we have to find out if the prospect truly believes that a problem exists (and it’s important to let the prospect be the judge.)

If the prospect believes that there is a problem, and that the problem is likely to cause monetary or emotional sacrifices, he or she will be more open to having someone who can be trusted help solve the problem. In other words, the prospect begins to close the deal.

Your prospect will begin to convince and influence you that there is a need for your help. He or she will become the source of the sales presentation and the close. As backwards sounding as this may seem… it’s really the way it works.

Because the responsibility of convincing and influencing is assumed willingly by the prospect nearly all of the stress and negativity we associate with selling literally disappears.

Use this approach to selling and you’ll see a big difference. Instead of a day filled with trying to sell things to people, you will get to solve people’s problems. This is a much more enjoyable way to approach the selling part of your business.