Be Careful Who You Jump Into Bed With!

In the rush to promote and grow your business have you sometimes jumped into a joint venture or partnership  with another person or business only to  later realize that while it looked like a great opportunity it turned out to be a BIG mistake?

When we align ourselves with others we are also telling the world that this is who we’re ‘like’ or ‘similar too’ and if we haven’t done our homework we could find ourselves giving our target market the wrong message or introducing our valuable data base to a message that will damage your relationship with them because we look like we no longer understand them and their needs.

3 Top Business Tips for Accessing a Potential Join Venture

1.       Ensure you truly do share the same target market – spend some time getting to know the other business, who their target market is, if your target market is women 35-55 then that also needs to be their target market. Look at all the detail of your Target market – age, income, interests personal circumstances and so forth and ensure they are a match.

2.       Ensure your services are complimentary not competitive – get to know the services they provide, and ensure that it is truly something your clients would value or benefit from. For example if you run a fitness centre for women 35-55 then aligning with other businesses like – Chiropractors, Physios, Dietitians, fashion retailers and so on who service that target market well. However doing a JV with a fashion retailer who’s target market is 15-25 year old women would be a definite mismatch as would a dating agency if your target market were predominantly in relationships.

3.       Ensure their market message is a match with yours – this is really important and often over looked when accessing Joint Venture partners. Your message and brand may be more conservative and you will attract customers and clients that fit that brand, if you start to align with a more ‘outrageous’ brand that’s more  edgy and provocative you may very well turn your existing clients off ( as this indicates you really don’t get them) and the clients from the other business will not feel aligned with your conservative brand because they have identified as more outrageous. In this case both businesses will lose out and the intention of the JV to build both businesses will of course fail.

These are just a few considerations when entering into a joint venture arrangements. The message is – don’t rush into it and ensure you truly are aligned. Well thought out JV partnerships work wonders for both businesses involved and can be a great strategy in creating small business success. (remember our ‘Dipping for Diamonds’ example with Glenn Kirkwood).

Young couple image is Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos