One of the most frequently quoted ways of exploding your sales on the Internet is by using  Joint Ventures.

So, you’re just starting out and you ask “What is a joint venture”. It’s pretty much what it says in the tin. It’s a sales venture involving two or more people. They normally fall into one of two categories: you either own a product or you have a list to promote to.

The next problem that faces you is finding a partner to do a joint venture with.

If you are a newbie starting out you most probably won’t have a list but may have a product and that’s what I’ll deal with in this posting.

Let’s set a scenario where you’ve laboured over your new product and you want to expose it to as many people as possible but don’t have a list of subscribers to contact. The joint venture you have in mind is therefore to find someone who has a list to whom he/she will promote your product.

As you’re new you may have to adopt a “round the houses approach”.

Method 1 – The Clickbank Way

Go to Clickbank and then click on marketplace. It costs nothing to sign up as a clickbank affiliate and this will give you access to the useful information on products listed such as commission payable and gravity (the number of sales made via affiliates). Find 5 products that are related to your niche and could sit well alongside your product.

Contact the webmaster of each site and explain that you are considering promoting their product. Introduce yourself, tell them about your product, show them you blog and ask for a review copy of their product. You will normally get either everything you ask for or nothing at all.

Review all the products you get but if you think a product is poor quality or value don’t proceed any further with it. For the good products, post a review on you blog and add an email on to your autoresponder series leading to your blog.

Once this all done contact the webmaster again with a copy of your review and say that you are promoting his/her product to your list. It doesn’t matter how small your list is. You can then ask if he/she will return the favour and promote your product to his/her list.

Keep plugging away with this method and you will get some joint venture promotions. Don’t give up because you don’t get instant success.

Method 2 – The eBay Way

eBay can be a powerful tool for you to use in getting your product in front of a mass market. It can also be an equally powerful tool to find JV partners. Go to eBay and look under the category Every Thing Else and then into Information Products. Once there start to look for products that are similar to yours. Products ideally that would be complimentary to yours. Once you have assembled a list begin to thin it down by looking sellers who are PowerSellers. People who are PowerSellers will generally tend to have significant lists. Check their feedback next as it will give you a good idea of how they treat their customers and whether they would be suitable to do a JV with.  If this is your first venture into JVs it will be best to find an eBay seller who is familiar with doing JVs as this will make it much easier for you.  Contact them with a simple email saying you’ve seen their products  and asking if they would be interested in joining you in a joint venture which would take a couple of hours work and split the profits 50/50.

Keep trying until you find someone who is interested and off you go.

Follow either of these courses of action with a bit of persistence and you should end up getting your first JV up and running. Then build on that success and do a few more.

If you’d like a full step by step guide of how to set up eBay Joint Ventures please try “John Thornhill’s JV Auction Profits”