Joint Venture Leverage

See me in the picture? I'm talking to 375 people at one time. Better than talking to each one individually, right? Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I will move the world.” If you had the choice between carrying rocks and using a wheelbarrow, you would choose the latter. If you could either make a phone call or drive to a meeting, a phone call would save you time. This is simple, common sense. Yet as entrepreneurs we tend to forget this in business. You find business owners who are great salespeople spending time on minimum wage activities. Why spend your $100 per hour time on an $8 per hour administrative job?

We complain that we don’t have enough time and that we can’t afford advertising dollars, and we’re right. Because we’re allocating our resources incorrectly and we’re not taking advantage of resources that are readily available. We’re working hard instead of smart. We’re putting the cart before the horse. Two fellows get together and decide to start a transport business. They max out their credit cards and deplete their bank accounts paying for the design of a fancy logo, buying a new truck they don’t need and printing expensive brochures. Then they find they don’t know how to market or find customers and they have no money left.

There are two schools of thought – the one says, “Go out and spend years and all your family’s money creating what you have convinced yourself is a great product, then try to sell what you have made.” The other suggests you first go out and see if you can get some orders before you spend a blue cent on manufacturing. Here’s the Joint Venture approach: Find someone who has a great product, get someone else to market and sell it to their existing customers and you take a piece of the action. Leverage other peoples’ time, money, distribution, reputation, access, database and skills. Let them carry the risk, inventory, leases and sleepless nights. And you make money. Only spend time on things that only you can do.

When you’re selling time and selling widgets, you’re losing out on the power of leverage. When you’re reinventing the wheel, you’re missing the business success boat. Why do consulting or “coaching” when you could have someone else do it and pay you 20% of the gross sale on an ongoing business? I’ll tell you why you would do that: It’s because you don’t understand profit. See, if a five minute referral phone call to a “life coach” makes you $100 net profit, it’s better that spending hours of your time and a lot of other expenses to make $500. Time IS money. Real businesspeople understand that $100 for five minutes is $20 per minute and that’s better than $250 per hour less your traveling time and your gas and car maintenance expenses. They’re more interested in making a profit than in feeling important.

Here’s the bottom line approach for real Joint Venture success: “How can I do this with the minimum amount or time and risk and the maximum return on my time investment? How can I leverage other peoples’ resources? How can I distribute the maximum value to the most people with the highest possible margin in the least possible time with no cost or risk to me?” Think more, solve more problems and use Joint Ventures to make all your financial dreams come true.

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