Let's face it, if you could give up a portion of your profits in exchange for a worldwide, 24X7, plugged-in, highly productive sales force that only get paid when you do, who wouldn't jump up and take notice?



In fact, if your dream is to publish once and move on, having a strong network of partners where you can simply announce your new products, sit back and watch the sales roll in is a must.

A recent forum posting got me thinking about what has worked (and what has not worked) in terms of attracting the most productive affiliates and joint venture partners to my business. Here is the extended version of the response I posted - just for you.

Here's a powerful system that attracts long-term, super affiliates who will continue to promote your products months and years after initial contact.

This approach has the added benefit of also creating reviews, testimonials and potentially truly joint venture created products and services as well as resellers.

Step 1. Praise Them Up - Offer A Review

Lets face it, when you first approach a joint venture partner, they won't know you from a hole in the head. Anyone who has been in business and created a certain level of success online will have been approached by many joint venture partners - most of them not worth the time to review.

So, what is likely to happen when you send them an email cold introducing yourself and asking them to become your partner?

Delete!

Sure, you might succeed in getting 1 in 10 to respond, but chances are the best partners, the busiest and most successful partners simply won't have the time to review every one of these.

A better approach that will get you a much higher response rate is to introduce yourself and offer your relevant product for review.

Start your letter by making special mention of something you noticed about their site, business or product (if you own one of their products).

"Mr X, just wanted to tell you how valuable your article on "Y" has been to my business. You really have put together one of the best sites on "Topic X"

"I myself have some experience with "Topic X" and have just finished "product Y" and wonder if you might want me to provide a copy for you to review?"

"Its clear that you really understand the market, have a very professional business and know a great deal about your customers, it would be a great priviledge if you would take a few minutes to review this package?"

"If you agree, please let me know where I can send the review copy and I'll make sure it is sent asap."

"Thanks again, and I wish you ongoing success with your business"

How would you like to be approached with that kind of praise, respect and positive attitude? Seems logical that this would work, yet in reality this sort of approach happens less than 1% of the time.

When I've used this technique I get over 80% to accept the initial offer of a review - assuming your product is highly relevant to their market.

Make sure your praise is legitimate and specific, not just made up from a few second review of their site.

If you find a particularly hard nut to crack, consider picking up one of their products. Contacting the owner after you have purchased their product is much easier than before you were a customer (HINT: Listening to you becomes customer support rather than a pain in the *ss)

Step 2: Review To Testimonial

The next step is critical. There is no sense pursuing a joint venture partner who is not convinced that your product is truly great.

One partner who thinks your product is incredible is worth a hundred more who are not convinced and so never really promote or endorse your products.

So, you want to push for reviews of your products with an aim to seek out the reviewers who really love your products. Those are your super affiliate candidates.

What about the rest?

Some will provide negative feedback - great, their feedback can often be used to improve your product or develop additional products.

Others will simply not get back to you - either they are too busy and its not the right time or they didn't like your product but didn't have the heart to tell you. In either case, they would not likely have promoted your product well anyway, so no big loss.

Step 3. Mutually Beneficial Offer

Once (AND ONLY ONCE) you have succeeded in getting a glowing review from your potential partners, you can easily follow up with an offer they can't refuse.

You want to look at each case separately.

Here's an example of some offers I've had success with:

1. For one website owner with a heavy content focus, I offered to write a half-dozen, exclusive, high quality articles that he could use to promote my product. In return, he promised top billing and extra promotion - its over 1-year later and I still get sales each month from this site.

2. Yet another super affiliate, I offered to interview him over the phone and give him a full license to the recording as well as a paid transcript - for that I received both a bonus product, a series of endorsements and a relationship I can use in subsequent promotions.

3. Another example involved an owner who wanted a special, custom site setup for his students - in return he made the product mandatory for his course - nice!!

As any affiliate manager will tell you, 80% of your affiliate business comes from 20% (or often less) of your affiliates. Using this formula, you can save yourself a great amount of time and maximize your results by going after the top 20% right in the beginning.