Patrick Giesbrecht’s posterous

Joint Ventures in business 



October 20, 2009

A 4 Hour Work Week???

As I am writing this, I am sitting in my bedroom looking out the window reflecting on Tim Ferris' book The Four Hour Work Week. Tim refers to the New Rich as the current entrepreneurs who are not satisfied with working their butts off all year just to enjoy 2 weeks of holidays a year. In his book he describes exactly how to systemize and declutter your life so you can work as little as 4 hours per week, and travel the world.  Of course most of us are saying "Nice thought, but not possible. How do you run a business and travel the world at the same time?"

Well my friend and mentor Robin J Elliott does that. He is a master Joint Venture Broker and can run his business in one hour a day from nywhere in the world. I also spend less than one hour a day on my current Joint Ventures and they make me more than I need to live on month to month. I am busy by choice, though, with my wife and kids and always working on the next deal to add to the income. Also, with kids in school I limit the travel time to 4-8 weeks per year as it is simply impractical to be gone all the time with a family.

The key Tim makes very well in his book is that we can do whatever we want, when we want, whith whom we want, as long as we set it up that way. Joint Ventures are the best way I know to accomplish this. As I sit here I am counting the number of people that actually work for me making me profit. (many of them don't even know who I am) The number I am coming up with is over 50. I have no employees and yet over 50 people are working diligently making me profit every month. (Not MLM) To understand more about Joint Ventures check out www.jointventuresunlimited.com and download a free e-book Joint Adventures written by Robin J Elliott.

If you want to know more about how this kind of business works email me at patrick@pacificnorthmarketing.com and tell me about you and your business. Perhaps I can give you a few ideas on how to detach yourself from the 9-5 rat race.

To our mutual success!

Patrick Giesbrecht
Joint Venture Broker

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July 29, 2009

The Value of Working With The Right People

Hello again! Its great to be back in the saddle after 2 and a half weeks of holidays. I took my wife and 2 sons across the Canadian prairies visiting family, doing some RV'ing, and some fishing. At the end of it all I am happy to be back home doing what I love; helping other businesses grow by referring them business.

Earlier this summer my wife had a medical condition that kept her in the hospital for a few days. Needless to say it was a major distraction for our family and I got very little business done for over a weeks time. Here is the point I want to make today. My business kept right on rolling because my joint ventures kept bringing in money despite my circumstances. I have great joint venture partners that are reliable, and dependable in everything they do. I was reminded again that the key to a great business is great people.

My joint venture partner Robin Elliott and I were scheduled to host another week of Certified Business Mentor training just as my wife ended up in emergency. All it took was a phone call and I was told to take all the time I needed with the family. I lost no income because of my absence that week. How many small business operators can leave the business on short notice for a week and not have it affect their bottom line? I have owned a traditional small business with a sales and operational staff. I can tell you from experience that this would have been a nightmare. True freedom or flexibility is much harder to maintain in that environment. 

The great news is my wife has pretty much recovered her health and our business didn't miss a beat. I want to once again thank all of my joint venture partners for stepping in and covering for me where needed during this trying time. It is a testament to your character and the strength of our relationships.

To the rest of you; don't compromise your standards and do business with someone who doesn't meet your criteria. Most of the time these people will only let you down when you need them the most. Also, make sure you treat the people around you the way you want to be treated. I can tell you the pay-off is immense!

Patrick Giesbrecht
Joint Venture Broker
www.jointventuresunlimited.com

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June 19, 2009

What Else Are Your Customers Buying? (And You're NOT Getting A Piece!!)

All of us will agree that getting a new customer is not only a lot of work, it is often much more costly than maintaining a strong relationship with our current ones. A good quality hardcopy newsletter with great content can go a long way in accomplishing this, by the way. We all know that, but very few companies do it. (I've got a great source for that service if you're interested)
 
I am always looking over the list of people that I do the most business with, strategizing how I can leverage that strong relationship and solve more of their problems. My clients buy many things. One of my cIients has an information marketing business. I supply him with certain marketing tools to help drive his campaigns. I am always looking at what he is doing; trying to identify other products I could source for him to help build his business, or simply to make life easier. Of course, I don't buy the software, or the needed equipment to fulfill these new services, I find great Joint Venture partners to handle that for me; and earn a percentage of all on-going business.
 
As my Joint Venture Mentor Robin J Elliott has said many times; "Imagine if Save-On Foods decided they were just going to focus on selling bread and milk". This would be disasterous for them. (check out his blog at www.robinjelliott.com ) Our customers typically have many more problems that need to be solved than our service or product will address. And yet, we do little or nothing to fix those problems if it doesn't involve our specific product. This of course, can be addressed by implementing some simple Joint Venture strategies in your business. We don't need to carry more products, we don't need to learn new technical skills or get educated in providing new services. We simply need to find good JV partners, learn how to refer them effectively, and give the customer a reason to take action and try them out.
 
I'll give you an example; I have a landscaping client who wants me to show him how to increase his bottom line profit without actually spending more time doing landscaping. He meets with homeowners every day that buy his excellent service. In the past he has seen them as landscaping customers; people with lawns to mow. Of course they are much more than that. They buy a lot of stuff. Most people that hire a landscaper to mow their lawn and trim their hedges every week have disposable income, and more expensive tastes. Now my client sees himself as a problem solver. He is starting to ask his customers questions like, "What else are you doing around the yard this year?" or "Are you doing any home improvement projects this summer?" Depending on the answers, opportunities will arise to refer other people's businesses to them.
 
Within a few days we had a small handful of JV partners that he could begin referring. A painter, a real estate agent, an interior designer, etc. All of these partners will pay my client an ongoing commission of 10-20% of the gross business they do; on any business he refers them. They are all supplying him with gift certificates, offering samples of their services, etc, that he can give his clients; giving them a no risk way to try them out. Over the next year or two, this could lead to a LOT of extra profit to my clients bottom line.
 
Have a look at your business and identify services your clients need that you can refer them to; and profit from. Contact me for a free, no-obligation phone consultation on how to add JV profit to your bottom line.
 
Patrick Giesbrecht
Joint Venture Broker
www.jointventuresunlimited.com

 

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June 5, 2009

This ONE thing will make a difference in your Joint Ventures

via youtube.com

Here is another short clip of my Joint Venture Mentor, Robin J Elliott , giving good advice on a critical component of success.

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June 5, 2009

What does Reciprocity mean?

via youtube.com

Here is a short clip of my Joint Venture Mentor, Robin J Elliott, talking about the principle of reciprocity. This is the basis of Joint Ventures.

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June 5, 2009

Ultimate Leverage- And A Real Life Example That You Can Use to Make Cashflow With Zero Cost!!

If you understand leverage, you understand how to get rich. Some people leverage other people (employee's) time. Others understand how to leverage money to create more wealth. Joint Venture brokers understand how to leverage other people's time, money, credit, reputations, and on and on. For example, I work closely with a person who is very well known, and indeed a celebrity, in certain circles. By building a relationship and creating overlap (check out previous articles to see what that is) I continue to leverage his status; in so doing building my profile and rapport within his circle of influence much faster than by working on my own.
 
Have you seen speakers endorse someone else from the stage at certain seminars or events? This is a powerful form of leverage. What if a business with a large loyal database endorsed your business to their whole group of clients? This can very quickly drive massive profit to your bottom line. This can create leverage on a massive scale. One of my mentors, www.robinjelliott.com, many years ago, had his business grow from $4000 per month to $20,000 per month in revenue; in ONLY 4 DAYS; using this strategy.
 
One of the best forms of leverage I know of is accomplished by a closely trusted Joint Venture partner of mine. Clients of his borrow money from the bank at 2-5% and lend it to him for 12%!! The best part about this is the rate is fixed and is paid out as monthly cashflow of 1% per month; actually putting cash in your pocket every month after any interest costs. Imagine the amount of real estate equity, intro credit card rates, cash, etc, etc, that could be leveraged this way! I have been doing this personally for nearly 2 years now; and every month this JV puts cash into my bank account. Talk about leverage! I am making money on the banks money; instead of the other way around. (Did you know that you are actually going backwards when you accept 3% interest on your savings?)
 
The opportunity above is only available by personal referral. I can put you in touch with my contact if you like. I use this strategy to park any cash, credit or equity I am not using at the moment; because I can get it back in 30 days notice; after the first 6 months.
 
The key to getting ahead of the money game is leverage. We all have the same amount of hours in the day; and yet some people make far more money than others. Why is that? Self employed people are either leveraging knowledge, special skills, or time. None of those three will make you truly rich; unless you are a movie star or an athlete, perhaps. Your average "Joe" can get rich if he understands leverage, using the power of Joint Ventures.
 
Remember to download a free E-book on the power of Joint Ventures at www.jointventuresunlimited.com/freeoffer Now please, go forth and Joint Venture!!
 
Patrick Giesbrecht
Joint Venture Broker
www.jointventuresunlimited.com

 

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May 28, 2009

More Customers Than You Can Handle! -How Is That Possible In Today's Economic Climate??

Having more customers than you can handle is a pretty rare thing these days. Businesses that focussed on building effective marketing during the good times are doing better than most; but businesses than managed to put together multiple prospect “feeders” using Joint Ventures are doing the best of all. The best marketing tools of all are ones that work without you there, and you only pay for when you get results. I’m not talking about going to networking meetings and handing out business cards; or begging people to send you business because you’re a nice person. I’m talking about setting up referral SYSTEMS!

For a referral system to work well it needs to be set up correctly. That means you also need to consider the needs and desires  (see Hot Button) of the person who is supposed to send you business! So many of us forget that. We automatically assume that the other party already has our best interests in mind. Of course they don’t. They are busy worrying about getting their needs meet. For a great article on how to establish someone’s Hot Button read DollarMakers Certified Business Mentor, Chris Hiller’s blog at http://chrishiller.posterous.com

Here is one simple referral system. Let’s say you find someone who calls on the very same businesses that you are looking sell your product to. Once you discover what she REALLY wants; you can put together a plan to help her get that, by working with you. Suppose she would like to go on a trip to Mexico. And suppose the trip in question costs $2000.

Now let’s say that you can pay a $200 commission per sale you make. Here is what you do. Ask your contact how soon she would like to be sent on a trip at no cost to her. She says in 10 weeks time. That means you need to close 1 sale per week from leads she sends you to pay for her trip. Make a deal with her whereby she sends you at least 5 QUALIFIED leads every Friday afternoon at 2:35 pm. These leads should be expecting your call and have a legitimate need your service. (The set-up is key) The following week you visit the leads and close at least 1 out of 5, and send your referrer a cheque for $200.

Now, how many of these referrers could you set up? 10? 50? You would never have to cold call again! Does that sound like a good deal? You only call on people who actually want to talk to you and are interested in your service. Everyone wins.

Remember to get a free e-book at www.jointventuresunlimited.com/freeoffer

Patrick Giesbrecht

Joint Venture Broker

www.jointventuresunlimited.com

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May 18, 2009

Create Distribution for an Existing Company Using Joint Ventures

The headline may not be too catchy; but when I show you how to do this with no cost and no risk I think I will get your attention! I have a client (my wife!) who was selling a product as a commissioned sales agent, working from home. The product is a line of Whole Body Vibration machines www.tzoneusa.com and she sold these part time at tradeshows and to people referred from friends and happy clients, in the usual way. If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you will understand that I immediately saw the need to increase the leverage in this business model. It's not that she wasn't making good money; she was. It's just that there are only so many hours in the day. We have two young boys who require a lot of our time, and to really crank up her net profit they would pay the price in lost time with their mom.
 
I found out who owned the manufacturing company and had my wife make the introduction. I had her introduce, in very vague terms, what I wanted to talk about so he was friendly and receptive when we made contact. To make a long story short I asked him the following: "If I could bring you distributors in markets that you are not currently in, at no cost to you (upfront) would you pay me a percentage of each unit my team of distributors moves?" Now, having learned how to position this by one of the best; Mr. DollarMaker himself, www.robinjelliott.com, I was pleased to get an enthusiastic "Yes!" on the other end of the phone.
 
Of course I told him about the extra value we would be bringing; like training the new distributors how to build their businesses with no money and no risk; how to add value to the end-user at no cost to them, etc, etc. The final package we agreed to offer our new distributors looked something like this:
 
No inventory to purchase. Distributors pay for their machines as they are sold.
A No cost, No risk marketing plan based on tried and tested Joint Venture principles, provided by me.
Support through regular conference calls, provided by our team.
 
Of course this sounded great but we had no team members yet! The first thing we did was put the word out about our new opportunity to all of our contacts. Next, we offered a select few of my wife's clients the chance to participate. Her second distributor saw the huge opportunity and agreed to come aboard on a full commissioned basis. We simply shared a portion of the volume over-ride we recieved from the parent company with her, based on her production. A few months later we had 8 distributors in 6 different states and provinces. This month alone, with the orders placed so far from our team of distributors, we have generated just over $100,000 of business for them. And it's only the 18th day of the month!
 
The manufacturing company I negotiated this deal with is happier than ever as we have opened states and provinces they had no presence in at all. And it cost them NOTHING! We are happy as we have built another stream of income that grows every month; and it cost us NOTHING! 
 
Now, here is the great part! If you would like to participate in this business and learn how to make $$ every month by participating as a distributor email pegiesbrecht@shaw.ca If you know of someone who wants to start a No Money-No Risk business; email the same address and learn how you can make $$ every month based on their volume! Passive income is a wonderful thing!!
 
So, how hard was that? Once I had learned how to approach the manufacturing business and found out what they wanted, this deal was a slam dunk. Contact me if you want help setting up a similar deal yourself, with another company. My email is patrick@dollarmakers.com
 
This is the kind of Joint Venture that gets me very excited. Pretty much anybody can do this with the right training and support. Talk to you soon!
 
Patrick Giesbrecht
Joint Venture Broker
www.jointventuresunlimited.com


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May 13, 2009

Getting Paid For Results-Not Promises--(Are You Okay With That?)

Today, I’m going to give you a great strategy to find out if the sales rep hitting you up with the best thing since sliced bread; really believes that, or is just smooth-talking you into a sale. As Joint Venture Brokers, we believe in being paid well for bringing value received by the person paying the freight. As such we don’t pay for promises, but we happily and generously pay for results.

For example; I talked to an SEO company sales rep the other day. (find him at www.seo-guarantee.com and mention that you heard about him here) He told me about his service and how it would guarantee my listing in the top 10 on Google in 30 days or my money back. Now that sounds great; but was it true? He mentioned he had looked at one of my websites and thought it plausible to get a high ranking using specific keywords. The question I posed to him was this: “If I paid you X dollars for every converted lead; every time they did business with me would you do this on a contingency basis?”

What I meant by that was; would he give me the service, at no upfront cost and I pay him when the service ACTUALLY works for me. I showed him how he would only need to get me ONE converted lead over a one year basis to earn his fee. Then I would continue to pay him for the life of the client, in return for him removing the risk.

He said YES! This tells me something. He truly believes in his product, and he gets the Joint Venture mindset.

Now, if I had been cheap and offered him a one-time commission, he would have said he wasn’t interested; understandably. If he wasn’t sure if his product actually worked he would also have been loath to entertain such an offer. (Please don’t contact him and insist on the same offer. Your category may be taken and your offering may not be such that he is motivated to do this. I am just making the point.)

Use this next time you buy advertising of any kind; or business consulting, or any other service that promises to drive profit to your bottom line. Remember; pay for results; not promises!!!

Subscribe to this blog to get regular Joint Venture opportunities and tips. Please go to www.jointventuresunlimited.com/freeoffer for a Free E-book on Joint Ventures.

Go forth and Joint Venture!!

Patrick Giesbrecht

Joint Venture Broker

www.jointventuresunlimited.com

Comments [1]

May 11, 2009

Create a Mastermind- Create Overlap.

Many of us have read, at least part of, Think and Grow Rich. Napolean Hill taught us how to set up a mastermind with other smart successful business people to brainstorm with and create strategy for our businesses. There is a famous story about a certain Mr. Firestone and a Mr. Ford (among others) who were in a mastermind together. Some of the creative ideas that made the Ford Motor Company the Microsoft of it's day came out of this mastermind.
 
I'm not talking about a $500 per month membership with people that you don't know. And I'm not referring to an on-line group of anonomous "experts". Your mastermind should be a group of people that you respect, trust, and best of all, are more succesful than you in some areas. Read Think and Grow Rich to make sure you structure your mastermind correctly.
 
Okay, that was the set-up. Now, let's talk about overlap. The real strength of a mastermind is having a number of businesses having a vested interest in your business. Vested interest in my world means they are sending you business or in some way, adding to your bottom line. You, in turn, are also reciprocating with that business by adding value. This is all tracked and value is paid for in some way. Imagine, if in these economic times, you had 10 businesses with a real legitimate vested interest in the success of your business! How much more secure would all of your businesses be?
 
This could include sharing advertising costs, piggy-backing in your marketing by sharing tradeshow booths, hard-copy newsletters, etc. It could be promoting your businesses to each other's databases, by offering added value, free offerings, etc. This just makes sense! We call this overlap. I AM LOOKING TO BUILD OVERLAP WITH SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSES WHO GET THIS.
 
This is how I currently do business. When I find a reliable, honest, hardworking business person who understands this, I look to build as much overlap between our businesses as possible. This owner essentially becomes a partner in my success, and I in his. I find it interesting. I approach people on Facebook, for example, (and after checking out their business in their profile and thinking it might be a business I want to send business to) and I say something along the lines of "I checked out your website and I think your business and mine may have a fit. Check out my website and let's talk."
 
A lot of people never contact me back because they think I am another smooth talking, bait-and-switch salesperson, trying to sell them my product. That really isn't what that is about. As altruistic and naive as it may sound, I really am looking for businesses that I can add value to. Do I want to profit from that at some point? Absolutely! I am a capitalist, after all; but I only get paid for adding value. I expect to get paid for results, not promises!
 
If this resonates with you subscribe to this blog and I will send you a F*ree e-book about Joint Ventures.
 
Go forth and Joint Venture!
 
Patrick Giesbrecht
Joint Venture Broker
www.jointventuresunlimited.com

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