Here’s a partial list of most common mistaken beliefs about joint venture marketing. I’ve picked top five to shorten your reading time, but you can listen to more mistaken beliefs when you tune in to hear me being interviewed by Doug Hudiburg at http://tinyurl.com/cov4d.

Mistaken Belief #1: That There’s A High Risk Of Losing Money.

If you’re like most small business owners, then fear of losing money is inevitable because you’re probably on a shoestring budget to start with. However, you can’t lose money when you’re paying for results only. You only pay out a commission when your joint venture partners’ clients buy from you. So, you actually get revenue before incurring expense.

The only other pre-sale expenses are production costs and printing/postage costs for letters, coupons or vouchers. Whether you do joint ventures or not, these are costs you’ll incur anyway, because you’ll need those coupons or vouchers for other marketing tactics. So, belief that there’s a high risk of losing money is misplaced.

Mistaken Belief #2: That You’ll Lose Your Clients.

Your clients will purchase other products and services whether you like it or not. So, it would do your business good to recommend what they purchase and make a profit from it.

In fact, recommending high-quality products and services to your clients will strengthen your relationship with them. How? Firstly, you’re shortening their decision-making process by saving them time they’ll otherwise spend on finding and trying out those products and services. Secondly, by arranging exclusive discounts and bonuses, you’re saving them money. By saving them time and money, you’re adding value to what you already offer your clients, and this will therefore strengthen your client relationships.

Mistaken Belief #3: That Doing Joint Ventures Will Eat Your Profits

Most small business owners would rather struggle to get clients, and get mediocre profits at best, instead of sharing profits with a joint venture partner that sends clients their way.

On-Spot promotion schemes: This is an age old trick which works well at trade shows. Firstly it makes visitor stop at your booth for more than a few seconds. Secondly, a structured promotion method quickly puts visitor through benefits of products (obviously in an attractive fashion) and then a decision making opportunity is thrown at visitor introducing them to on spot interesting offers. Offers can range from products sold on spot at attractive pricing, free gifts with purchases, extended time period of services, lifetime warranty and like. The more innovative offer, more likelihood of success.

Assuming that product and promotion offering are attractive for users, on-spot promos can recover all costs of trade show plus earn company a healthy profit. Quick checks with organizers need to be done before event to ensure that onsite sales are permitted.

Get your customers to speak to visitors: Admitted that this might be a bit tough to execute, but if you have a large enough trade show booth, then it might be an excellent idea to schedule live interaction sessions where you have satisfied customers promoting product. This can have fantastic results in terms of sales enquiries generated at event.