Selling other people's products and services as an affiliate marketer can be a very profitable opportunity and many people make a living as affiliates. Unfortunately, the majority of people who start an affiliate marketing business don't earn the kind of income they need to meet their needs and often give up after months or even years of bitter frustration.

You invest valuable time and often lots of money promoting a range of affiliate products but at the end of it all you have very little to show for it. You pay for ads, you write and submit articles, you build a list of prospects, you do everything you're told but still those checks don't arrive like you expected. It can be a very frustrating and time-consuming ordeal to do all this work but receive no reward for your efforts.

But what if you could leverage your efforts and enlist the help of experienced affiliate marketers and others who already had the exact market for the products or services you wanted to promote? Do you think it would help you succeed if you could get your message into the hands of hundreds, thousands or millions of targeted prospects who had already purchased similar products to those you were promoting?

Of course it would. Welcome to the world of the Joint Venture Broker.

A Joint Venture Broker spends his or her days building relationships with list and website owners who already have the prospects he or she wants to reach. Not in a pushy, self interested way of course, but in a natural, mutually constructive way with the end goal of helping each other profit from the relationship.

Sound like something you could do? Ok, so here's the steps involved -

Step 1 - Find a market you are interested in that offers the following -

*A good range of both low and high ticket products that are already selling on the Internet

* Product promoters who are skilled marketers and are currently making sales. You want to work with people who know how to encourage customers to buy from them over and over again.

* Plenty of online activity from people who are passionate about learning everything they can about the market.

Step 2 - Research the market and find the perfect merchants among those available.

Look for Merchants who provide you with marketing materials and a full time affiliate manager to help you with your promotions and coach you to succeed.

Step 3 - Get on the mailing lists of several dozen of the most prominent marketers in your niche. Build a relationship with them by asking questions vial email or participate in their forums if they have them. Get yourself known, become an affiliate and try to make a few sales of their products.

A merchant will go the extra mile for you if you are making him money so this is always a good way of breaking the ice. It's not mandatory, but it certainly helps. All good merchants what you to succeed because you are in turn helping to build their business for them. If you help them, it's in their own best interest to help you

After you have built a relationship with each merchant, ask them if you could put an article you wrote on their site (have them join your favorite two-tier affiliate program as your sub-affiliate first) and let them put their affiliate link in your article. Any sales that come from this will earn you a second tier commission.

Remember, think long-term and always think about what's in it for your partner. After all, it's their traffic and their list you will be getting access to. Take it slowly, build trust and you will both do well together.

Step 4 - Continue to build your relationship over time and eventually put a proposal to them about doing a solo mailing promoting the merchant you are both affiliates of (if they don't suggest it themselves first. Any sales you make will give both of you an affiliate commission and you can continue to work together over the weeks and months ahead to build your business together.

You can set up an unlimited number of these relationships and do very well as a Joint Venture Broker as long as you always respect your partner's needs and build your proposals around what's in it for them, never what you want. Eventually you will build up a valuable list of contacts and partners and these relationships could set you up for life.