You’ve acquired one or more partners for your joint venture and now you’re wondering how to take the next step. Sound familiar? When building your joint venture empire, you’ll want to ensure that all cards are on the table when you’re discussing the business model, payment, marketing and all the rest that goes into your typical joint venture situation. The following will give you a brief rundown of the proper steps to take when beginning any joint venture.
Get Everything In Writing
When building your joint venture, it’s oftentimes easier to just forgo the paperwork in the beginning. Don’t do it. You may think that your partners are trustworthy and you know you’re trustworthy, but all it takes is one disagreement and you could find yourself in a very sticky situation. Joint partnerships should always have clearly written contracts laid out that discuss the terms as you all agree to them.
Consider Hiring An Attorney And/Or An Accountant
It might be a good idea to let an attorney draft up or at least look over your agreement prior to signing; and an accountant can help keep money matters in order while the joint venture is ongoing.
The Money Aspect
You likely presented a strategy to your joint venture partners when you first approached them. This included a way to make money, one would presume. This part of building your joint venture involves laying out – in crystal clear terms – how the venture will earn a profit and how that profit will be divided amongst you.
One of the reasons why most joint ventures break up is because of lack of communication when it comes to the money side of things. Disagreements over money and the handling of that money can turn even the most cooperative partners into bitter enemies. Get the finances ironed out now, while you’re building your joint venture foundation, so that you can avoid any nasty complications later on.
The Path To Success Utilizing Each Other’s Unique Skills
Once the above details are agreed upon, you can move onto the marketing strategy side of the joint venture. This is where you will discuss your products or services, how you will market those services, how you will sell the products online or off; and how you will strive to provide the best customer service.
You should by now realize that each partner has a unique skillset that the other partners might not have. Use this to the benefit of the entire joint venture by utilizing each person’s skills to that person’s optimum ability. After all, that’s why you’re building your joint venture with these ambitious and talented people – they bring something to the table you might be lacking. This is your time to capitalize on those differences to bring the joint venture strength.
Scalability
All joint venture operations start off small, but you should be prepared to scale up quickly if the need does arise. And let’s hope that an influx does indeed arise. You’re putting your best-of-the-best abilities against one another to create something great – others are going to be interested. Make sure you can handle all that comes with that interest by stocking up on inventory, customer service staff and plenty of 5-hour energy.
Building Your Joint Venture – And Then Tearing It Down
All good things must come to an end, including the most successful joint venture partnerships. You should discuss in your original agreement the times or situations where each of you will say your goodbyes. You might set a certain time limit, you might pledge to earn a certain amount of money, or you may set terms for dissolution in the case of disagreements.
Keep in mind that you don’t have to completely walk away. You may decide to set a time limit to review the terms and change them if necessary. With the business world constantly changing, the marketing strategy you put into place now may not be as effective three years from now. It might be worth it to discuss possible alterations to your original agreement after a certain period of time to allow for growth in times of change.
Keep Positive And Push Ahead
Building your joint venture from the ground up is an incredibly rewarding experience, especially if all partners involved are on the same page. Follow the above steps and open the fields of communication between all chosen joint venture partners to allow for a more amicable agreement.
And most of all, get that agreement in writing; and looked over by an attorney if possible. You may not think it’s necessary now, but wait until you’re finished building your joint venture and your partner disappears. What would you do in that case, but kick yourself for not getting everyone involved to sign on the dotted line?
