If you have questions about joint ventures, you’re not alone. ClickBank is known for creating opportunities for lucrative joint ventures. Read on to find out more.
A joint venture is established when two or more businesses realize that multiple heads are better than one. Then, they agree to pool talents and resources, such as copywriting skills or advertising expertise, to achieve a particular goal. Some have also defines joint ventures as strategic alliances that allow established businesses to share markets, assets, intellectual property, knowledge, and profits.
There are four ways to set up joint ventures with ClickBank: the traditional way, upsell, affiliate referral, and affiliate joint ventures. The traditional contract allows vendors to give a portion of their earnings to a partner. An upsell contract lets product vendors upsell another vendor’s product and split the proceeds however they wish. An affiliate referral contract permits a vendor to share a portion of its earnings with an affiliate manager or joint venture broker who referred the affiliate that led to a particular sale. An affiliate joint venture contract allows two or more affiliates to share the commission on a sale.
Joint ventures come with several risks and possible pitfalls. It is therefore important that you understand a few things before getting into any agreement.
How much does each party contribute?
You shouldn’t just assume that 50/50 deals are the best. Contributions can be made in any proportions, depending on the agreement. And even where it’s a 50/50 split, what exactly will each party bring to the table and does this equate to their share of the contribution? What are they contributing in terms of skills and expertise? How much cash are they offering? These are the kinds of questions to ask.
Who takes care of operations?
This is another very important question when starting joint ventures. Remember that someone will be needed to take care of day-to-day stuff such as customer service and keeping track of finances. Without a clear plan, these tasks can pile up and may eventually collapse the venture or cause one party to resent the other, leading to a strained relationship. Luckily, ClickBank helps ease operational tasks by providing full details of all transactions that occur regarding products for which there are preestablished contracts, easing visibility for all parties.
For how long does the agreement stand?
Is there an end date? In joint ventures, you need to specify the period of engagement. This is because most joint ventures aren’t eternal. The individual parties are likely to be running separate fully-fledged businesses on the side and the venture may have just been created to boost online store returns for a specific period of time. Deadlines and end dates allow for each party to plan accordingly.
How can intellectual property be used outside the venture?
Normally, you’d expect a few inventions to be made in the course of joint ventures. To avoid future problems, parties are encouraged to provide periodic reports on their discoveries, and to obtain assignments from investors as soon as the inventions are made to provide evidence of ownership. Most importantly, each party should be mindful of intellectual property rights, and licensing and ownership issues must be addressed accordingly.
What happens if there is a disagreement that you can’t settle amongst yourselves?
Of course, you won’t be starting a venture intending to quarrel with others. But what happens in the unfortunate event of a disagreement arising that you can’t solve amongst yourselves? Ensure that the obligations of each party are clearly defined along with procedures in the event of bankruptcy and grounds of default.
There are several benefits of joint ventures including access to new internet business ideas, markets and distribution channels, additional specialized expertise and resources, increased financial resources, and so much more. But most of these only come to fruition where there are clear guidelines and proper understanding of what joint ventures entail.
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