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Partnerships and Joint Ventures Are Good For Business

Posted August 21, 2007 in Business 5 Rockin' Comments »

I’m a big believer in joint ventures and partnerships. The best thing to have happened to my online business, in fact, was a partnership agreement. It led to more income, more work, and more satisfaction.

As a freelancer, many times we’d rather go it alone. It’s that old self-reliance, independence forever mindset. I have it. I think we all have it. That’s why we’re in business for ourselves.

Truth is, as the old adage goes, two heads make better than one. If that’s true then three and four heads should be even better, right? Well, I’m not a proponent of having too many cooks in the kitchen or too many chiefs in the tribe, but I do believe that partnership agreements can lead to bigger and better things for both partners if there is mutual respect.

That’s why I think yesterday’s announcement that Freelance Folder and Skillance have agreed to a partnership is good. It will be good for the partners, but it will also be good for the customers of each. Joint ventures lead to good things.

I highly encourage all freelancers to seek out a partner. There are many ways you can partner with another freelancer online and off line. Here are just a few of the possibilities:

• Partner to share office space
• Purchase advertising together
• Send each other referrals
• Agree to enhance each other’s work at a discount
• Reciprocal linking between websites
• Provide a link to the partner website on each other’s blog (done right, you can avoid the reciprocal link penalty)
• Promote each other through article marketing
• Recommend each other’s services to your customers
• Bundle your products or services into a package

These are just a few of the ways you can enter a joint venture or partnership agreement with another freelancer. Try to choose a freelancer that doesn’t compete with you, but whose services might accentuate yours. For instance, if you are a corporate lawyer you could share office space or enter a partnership agreement with a CPA. If you are a graphic artist you might partner with a freelance writer for some services. Sell hunting and fishing equipment? Maybe you can recommend a certain game land in exchange for customer referrals. There are loads of ways to partner with like-minded freelancers that will help you both build bigger and better businesses. I highly recommend you pursue a partnership today.

The Old Man

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The Old Man is the operations manager for Blog Content Provider and SEO Service Provider. He is always open to new JV/Partnership arrangements.