Building relationships with joint venture partners/mentors is very important if you want to learn from high, world-class mentors. Within this article I will discuss how you can develop these relationships very inexpensively - actually at zero cost.
The first thing - make sure you make a note of this, underline it, circle it, make a star beside it. Participate. That's the word I want you to write down. Whenever your given the opportunity - participate.
When I was first getting started, I was unknown, completely unknown. During my first time at John Childers' Million Dollar Speaker Training, he taught me a very important buisness lesson. "It's not what you know, or who you know. It's who knows you."
What I'm trying to get through to you is to get known. Your mentors will give you opportunities to 'participate' so make sure you take advantage of it and they may turn into future joint venture partners.
Here is a few ways you can participate. Give feedback on anything they are asking about. Whether it be feedback on a new project, or answering a question they asked to their email list, give it. Ask them questions. Participate in everything you can. It's logic - the more you participate, the more they are going to get to know you and, which is very crucial.
This is another one, and so many people underestimate this: Provide testimonials. And I'm not talking about "normal" testimonials either. I'm saying make these testimonials the best testimonials you have ever given, and then send them a picture that they can use.
Even if they don't ask for one, give it. So many times I've done this and it ended up on their website, even though they never asked me for one! Alex Mandossian taught me this strategy.
When I first got started in this business, every single website I seemed to go to, Alex Mandossian was there giving a testimonial. Do you know how effective that strategy was for him?
Alex was able to get all kinds of leads and business through putting up testimonials on other people's websites. Use this strategy and learn how to give really good testimonials. Give them even when they aren't asking for them.
An example of a good testimonial is one that is specific and relevant to a measurable benefit.
A quick example of a good testimonial could be heard from a gentleman who was one of the winners of a testimonials contest for a recent teleseminar of mine. What was so good about it was that he made sure he included his name, where he was calling from and gave a specific benefit that he received from the teleseminar.
This is a very easy way to get your testimonials onto other people's websites. When you send a picture along with it there is a good chance they will post a link to your website as well, which is only going to help you generate traffic, giving you all sorts of benefits.
Secondly, this will only help to develop your relationship with your mentors and hopefully future joint venture partners.
Here's another strategy: Participate in forums. Many people have their own forum. There's all kinds of forums out there online in just about every kind of industry.
Whether you're in that market or whether you're not, I want you to seek out forums that you can participate in and give lots of content, tips, resources, anything in these forums. Get yourself known.
Another to do is read people's newsletters and look at them to find any important and personal insights and details.
Some things you want to keep your eye out for is any birthdays. It doesn't matter if it is the person who writes the newsletter or their husband, wife, even their kids. If you can find out their birthdays, send them a car or happy birthday E-mail, or even an audio postcard.
Look for anniversary dates or to see if they're doing product launches. All kinds of things. Read their newsletters and scour for important and personal insights, and use those to build a relationship.
Always look to offer help to your mentors or future joint venture partners. You wouldn't believe the response that you will get when you ask somebody if there's anything that you can do to help them in their business.
Or, let's say for example, that you know that there's something coming up in their business, like a product launch or a seminar or anything of that nature, and you ask to help with something specific, they're going to know that you've been paying attention to their business, and they'll be surprised, number one. Number two, you're going to stand out in their minds later on down the road.
What I've done in the past is I've sent information to my mentors that I thought would be of value to them. It is just another way to develop good relationships with these people. The tips and strategies I'm talking about are not difficult to do, but people rarely do them.
Some of the things that I do is send them information that might be of value, like articles that I may have found on the Web that they may be able to use or extract value from. Newspaper clippings. I've also found resources like web links or other resources. I also look for on-line and off-line tools and then I shoot them an email saying, "Hey, I think this might be of value to you."
One thing you want to make sure you don't do is include affiliate links or anything like that. Focus on only sending them information that will be of value to them.
Your focus is on building a relationship and providing value - not making a quick buck. They'll see right through that and you'll ruin any chance of a long-term relationship.
Those are all strategies that I've used and then I leverage those efforts in to all kinds of great relationships with all my mentors, and future joint venture partners. It's resulted in all kinds of projects with all these people. It's just amazing what will happen when you focus on building a foundation with all of these individuals.
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