Highly Profitable Joint Ventures with Charles Byrd

Hello and welcome to Marketing Speak. I'm your host, Stefan Spencer, and today it's my pleasure to have Charles Byrd with us. Charles is CEO and founder of CharlesByrd.com. He's author of the Amazon bestseller Internet Marketing Secrets. He's been featured in Forbes, ABC News, SiriusXM, and the National Speaker Association. He is a world-renowned expert on joint venture or JV partnerships. He was also a past guest on my other podcast, Get Yourself Optimized, where we geeked out on Evernote because he is one of the world experts on Evernote and a fabulous, amazing note-taking system that I use on a daily basis. And he has such a sophisticated and smart way of capturing information, just everything from ideas to to-dos to conference notes and all, all of it in a trusted system, which happens to be Evernote. So if you're interested in that episode, do check that one out. It's episode number 186. And Charles, it's so great to have you on the show.

Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Well, let's start by, if you could maybe share how you ended up in this JV kind of world because you were previously known as an Evernote expert, which you still are. And we have that great episode on Get Yourself Optimized, episode 186, where we talk about using Evernote as the trusted system that— and how you set it all up, which I've applied a lot of it in how I track everything that comes out of my head and things that I'm listening to or in conferences, presentations that I'm attending, that sort of thing. It all goes into Evernote in the way that you'd recommended it with the tags and with the titling and with the date at the beginning and all that sort of stuff. So I know your origin story a bit, but let's share it for our listener. Or viewer how you ended up going from Evernote expert to expert on JVs.

Sure. So I'll give— I'll go one layer deeper and explain this trajectory. So I started in Silicon Valley, worked 15 years starting on a help desk at a software company, ended up as a director at a billion-dollar software company. And I wanted a taste of that entrepreneurial freedom I read about in books. And so when I left there, I created my first product, which was a low-ticket productivity course, the Evernote course of which you fondly speak of. But being new to the space, I didn't have an audience following. I didn't know a ton about marketing at the time. I knew I had something I wanted to share that was very useful in my life and wanted to share that with others. So I started going to events and connecting with people online, folks in the entrepreneur world, and quickly figured out my new peer group and friends already had my ideal audience as part of their audience. So I started setting up presentations to other people's audiences, providing value and training, and then offering my program. And that's when I first started getting traction with it and making sales and helping people get a lot further with their productivity. And I thought, instead of doing this here or there, why not take my IT and systems background and systematize the JV process from relationship building to booking to executing the promotions? And I thought, you know, instead of doing this every 6 months, what if I do it every month? or every week. And so I did. I took my systems background, systematized the process. Eventually people wondered how I book 2 to 6 joint venture promotions per week for my own offers and started putting on high-ticket events. I had one called Pure JV I ran for many years and then started doing private consulting. I ran a group program for many years and that's what I specialize in and focus on now is helping million-dollar-plus businesses scale with joint ventures, which for many of my clients, even within the last year, have generated $1.5 million-plus in revenue. So it's very satisfying to come into a company that has a good offer, they're known for what they do, and show them how to systematically add endorsed joint venture traffic, which converts a lot higher than cold traffic as well. So I'm sure we'll get into that with your expertise on the SEO side. But yeah, that's, that's my sweet spot. And it's, it's all built on creating wonderful relationships with people, long-term relationships, and finding ways to be of service to them.

Yeah, that's awesome. And so how do you How do you personally do this 2 to 6 joint venture partnership per week kind of output? Like, what's the 80/20 of that? Or even, even better, what's the 80/20 of the 80/20 of that? Because the Pareto principle is fractal. So, there's a 5% that generates 56% of the, of the value or the benefit. So, what is that 5%?

You Couldn't be more correct. And it took me actually a little while to figure that out because back in the day, I'd book a very high volume of joint ventures. And, and a little while later, I realized 80% of the revenue was coming from 20% of the partners. So then they become your, your stable go-to people that you work with, and you can continue auditioning new partners. And for the partners that you get a lot of traction with, that's when you can go deeper and create embedded partnerships with them where part of or all of your product or service is inside of their offers or vice versa. And it's, it's a wonderful thing because you're creating a single deal that is an ongoing traffic source. As a couple examples of that, I'm the JV expert in Eben Pagan's Virtual Coach Program. I'm the JV expert in Yannick Silver's Maverick Mastermind, in John Assaraf's Winning the Game of Business, in Danny Inney's Course Builders Lab. In all these programs, the idea of joint ventures and the high level of how to go about it and best practices are featured there, which becomes an ongoing traffic source. And I have many clients who've done the same thing to great success by creating Those embedded partnerships, and after you get a momentum with it and a rhythm to it and known for it, the JVs kind of just come to you. It stops. I mean, anything takes a certain amount of effort, but basically any call you get on, you're lining up a JV, and so it makes it relatively easy. As with anything that you're good at, it becomes quite easy. And that's what we help people do in a systematic way. Like when you look at my site or my SEO details, it's easy for you because you're, you're damn good at it. So I show people systematically how to build the skill set and the framework to execute it and simply snap it into their existing business.

Yeah. Yeah. And for a listener who doesn't know the context of what you were just saying, I went over your website with an SEO lens and conversion lens last week, I think it was, and gave you a bunch of tips. So that's—

It's true.

That's why that comment. Yeah. Anyway, so what would be kind of a— not foolproof, but a kind of tried and true approach to identifying the 20% Or the 5% of the potential JV partners? Let's say you've got a big spreadsheet and you don't want to waste a bunch of time with low-value relationships, you want to go straight to the big ones. How do you identify which ones are going to be the best ones?

All right, well, I'll start with the fact you don't know until you try, although there's certainly some indicators that you'll want to pay attention to. And I will preface what I'm about to say with the fact that your listeners and each of us are at different levels of what we're doing. And that also has a lot to do with who you can and should be partnering with. As an example, if you happen to be brand new to business and you have an untested offer, you can't go JV with the biggest people in the industry because you need to build your way up to that, which honestly is a good thing because by the time you are working with them, you have an offer that converts well, you know exactly what you're doing, you know what the objections are going to be and so forth. But getting back to some of the basic indicators, in general, and there's certainly exceptions, but I I wouldn't book a joint venture with anyone with a list of less than 10,000 because it's a numbers game. When they do mail their list of 10,000, which depending on who you are listening to this, you might think that's a large list or you might think that's a tiny list. But as a numbers game, only a certain number of people are going to open that email or see it. Well, see it first, open it second. Only a certain amount are going to be interested in it and click on it and register for a training. Only a certain amount of those are going to show up, and only a certain amount of those are going to convert. So being a numbers game, step one: you want to make sure there's really strong legitimate audience alignment, like something that just goes together like peanut butter and jelly. As a simple example, if someone is helping their clients create courses. What's the next thing they need after they have a course? They need traffic, and they have 3 different paths to choose from. They could do content marketing, SEO, they could pay for traffic, or they could do joint ventures. So when I come and present in those groups or communities, I have something specifically they need next to be successful with what they have. So, that deep alignment where it truly does make sense and help people go further together, you want to identify that. You want to, as I was alluding to, make sure they're of a— they can get enough people there to make it worth your time and their time. So, it can be tempting in the beginning to just line up anything that you're able to, but you want it to be useful and productive and create revenue for, for them and yourself. So it's, it's good to be mindful of that. And then as I was saying, testing. I've landed really huge partners that would make people drool. It doesn't mean they performed well. And I've I've landed folks that are not quite as known, but they're not doing a lot of joint ventures, so their list pays quite a bit of attention and converts really well. And the beauty of it too is, as you get good at this and you are able to work with bigger and bigger people, it makes it really easy to book everyone else because you have the credibility and track record to back what you're doing.

Yeah, and do you think that it is essential for the JV partner to receive 50% of the revenue, or is there—

Definitely not.

Okay, good. So tell us more about that.

Yeah, so I'll give you a general breakdown, and of course there's a nuance to these things, but when you have a purely digital course like my original Productivity course, it was a just a digital program. I always paid a 50% commission on that because my effort to fulfill on it was very low. It was maybe responding to a few emails back and forth for customer support, for example. Whereas when I was running my group program for many years, I paid a 30% commission because I was on there live with these folks every week. My business partner Bill Barron was on, my team was on, people had individual coaches assigned. So, the higher the cost to fulfill and deliver, the lower the commission, which is also why, like, direct referrals, which you and I both get a lot of, I pay a 10% commission on referrals because it's one-on-one directly my time for that. So there's that spectrum. And it needs to be interesting to who is promoting and supporting because your offer is basically competing with other ones they could be promoting during the same time windows. But you also need to feel good about it. And a nice barometer is like, What might someone already be spending on traffic? What is the cost of acquisition already? And then it's just kind of a not to oversimplify too much, but it's sort of basic logic. I I just was booked to be featured in a Revealed Films documentary that will have Robert Kiyosaki and so forth. And one of my clients, the same company is completely happy to promote. They have a list of two million. And they're talking about creating an embedded partnership. And before he had hired me, he was like, oh, we don't pay a commission on those things. It's like, dude, do you want someone with a 2 million list to promote you or not? You'll be paying them back with money you never had before.

All right. And so what did they— did they change their mind about that?

They're in process. I have a meeting with them next week. I'm like, because really, you are, you do need to look at your cost to fulfill and your margins and things like that. But you're truly paying people with money you wouldn't have had otherwise.

It's— It's free money.

I mean, it kind of, it kind of is like, yeah, simple example anyone could follow. If you refer me a client, John Lee Dumas referred me a client this morning. If I happen to land him as a client, I'll be sending John money with money I wouldn't have had otherwise.

Yeah. And you're paying only once you receive payment from the client. So if— what if they demand a refund? Not that that's going to happen, but like, what? Yeah, you mentioned systems, right? And Systems include not just tech, it includes standard operating procedures and checklists and if this, then do that sort of decision tree. So what's the refund kind of decision tree there? Sure.

So let's use a more typical JV price point of, let's say, a $2,000 digital type of program. Basically, I'll set the partner payout day to be after the refund window. Let's say it has a 30-day refund window. You would pay the partner maybe on day 35. So, you know, other ways you could do that is pay a partner a certain percentage because in my case, I've I could count my refunds on one hand over the last— well, certainly for my JV products, probably a couple fingers.

Yeah.

And so it's very uncommon. But let's say someone's doing a high-volume program, they know what their refund policy is, like their numbers, and then they can either just wait till the refund window's closed, Like, I'll be promoting Ryan Levesque's upcoming launch, and he has a 14-day return window. So I can guarantee the partners will be getting their money right after that.

Got it. Yep, that makes total sense. And so somebody like Ryan, how would he come up with an amount to pay? Is it just the standard 50%, or has he figured out something different?

Oh yeah, very common with these kind of things is a 40%. Now, in his case, his offer, they, you know, help build people's funnels and all kinds of stuff. But they just know too that being more generous, like if all their partners do well promoting them, they'll, they'll put their back into it, they'll, they'll do the work necessary to make it successful. And if you feel like someone's being kind of cheap, you're not going to be as inclined because you're like, really? Like, uh, another reference to a client that sells like $30K packages, and I asked about their referral commission and he's like, oh, we pay $1,000. And I'm like, wow, how big of you. So, like, you want to make it feel good. Like, I've sent referrals to friends that have like $75K offers and get $7,500 for making an intro. That feels pretty good.

What's the highest commission you've received?

From, well, from a single sale, that $7,500 for an intro would probably be up there. I mean, for promoting launches and other things, I've received more, but yeah, in general, it's, you know, $5,000 or $10,000 here or there. And the cool thing about promoting other people to your own list is there's no fulfillment cost. There's not even transaction fees. So it's 100% profit.

That's awesome. Let's talk about the assets that a JV partner would get, like swipe files.

Yeah, so my whole principle when it comes to adding partners is to make it— take the thinking out of the process for them, have them have the least amount of responsibility possible. And there's two reasons for that. One, if it's super easy and they don't have to do very much, they're far more likely to say yes. And it's a quality control mechanism because you can trust your team and your own ability, but when you're interacting with other teams, you don't know how great they will or won't be at execution. So I like to make it very white glove. I like to again take the thinking out of it, and I'll I'll contrast this with the opposite and then tell you how I go about it. But basically, several years ago, a friend of mine asked me to help him get a few partners and so forth for a launch, and and I agreed to promote it too. And then he sends over some link that goes to a portal. There was just a mess, like you didn't know where your links were, where your swipe was. I, I kid you not, I poked around for two and a half hours to figure out how to support his launch, and I was quite not happy about it. I'm like, I'm doing you a favor, and you are screwing my day. And so it just made me realize, take the thinking out of it. So how do you go about that? Number one. It's the communication. You want everything nice and clean, documented, and I like keeping the message itself simple. Like, here's the promo date, here are your mailing dates, here's a link to your JV kit. So very nice and clean. Then you simply click the link and it has, here's a link to your swipe copy, here's a link to your affiliate portal, here's a link to join the webinar, here's a link to my bio. And then if they want to see the swipe, they simply click it and And there's all the swipe copy fully filled out for them with their affiliate link in there, with their name in there. Again, to take the thinking out of it for them. So it's not overwhelming. You just see a basic menu of options and they link to what you're going to need. And so for the, for those listening, this is the, the JV kit. These are the assets you share with a partner so they are able to promote you. You're you're giving them emails to send that they can customize if they'd like. But point being, I remember one of my very first JVs ever. I get the thing booked, and and he's like, "Okay, well, you're gonna send over the swipe copy." I'm like, "Swipe copy?" He's like, "The emails to send to my my people." I'm like, "Oh sure." Start writing up the emails. Basically, you're not expecting them to go write a bunch of emails to their people. You're you're supplying them. the resources to frame up the topic, what it's all about, what benefits people are going to get out of coming to your training. And so you make it again very easy for them, and that's, that's the whole point of it.

Yeah, and how many emails would be best practice for a JV partner to send out, and at what timing?

Sure, so let's pretend for a moment we just agreed on doing a promo in 3 weeks on, on a Thursday. So I actually baby step through the process. So I wouldn't say, Stefan, can you mail 4 times for me for this? I would say, all right, since we're doing a promo on Thursday, do you mind mailing the day before to get people registered for that? And you'd say, sure. And then I go, and then partners mail 2 days before that. So that would be on Monday. Are you okay with mailing on Monday too? And you go, yeah, why not? And then I'd say, and our, our partners get the best results when they mail the replay the day after the promo. Are you open to do that? So we're getting micro-commitments on the way. And so really, that's, that's only 3 days of mailing. And then we'll throw in when we do send over the JV kit, 2 weeks before the promo, we will add another email that just says optional, because in general you would like them to mail as much as they are willing to while also being sensitive to their list. And not everyone wants to send a bunch of emails, but some partners are totally down. So you would want to get as many mailings as you can while being respectful of how they interact with their list.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And what about social pushes? What about other, other channels, maybe creating some video teasers and things like that?

Yeah, so it's good to do them. But in general, if a partner tells you they're going to promote on social, nothing will come of it. It just makes everyone feel good that it's happening.

Okay, so, so no results typically from, from things like—

We're very, very limited. If, if someone tells you, oh, I've got a Facebook group with this many thousand people, cool, it's not going to do much.

Got it. Got it. What about when it comes time for the event, whatever it is, is it typically like a webinar? And if it is a webinar to promote the $2,000 digital course or whatever it is, is the JV partner expected to be on that webinar introducing the subject matter expert, the person who's selling that $2,000 course, and do they need to stay throughout and be kind of the host of the Q&A portion at the end, picking the questions out of the chat, that sort of thing? Like, how involved does this have to be?

Okay, so there's the question of have to be and best practices. So, okay, yeah, yeah, best practice, you want them as involved as possible. It doesn't mean their job's hard. It means they show up, at the top of the webinar with you, you know, welcoming people, creating a nice cozy environment, and then transferring their relationship with their audience and their authority over to you. That part's actually very important because this is where the warm traffic comes from. This is an endorsement and a transfer of authority. And the more it's built up, The better. It would be like if if I was having you present to my audience, I'd note how long we've known each other and how phenomenal you are at SEO and the fourth version of your book, and how I had to twist my arm to get you there because the more excited I am about to have you about having you there, the more excited they're going to be, and they're going to pay attention and listen more and engage more. And then. Ideally, they, they do that intro, usually just, you know, like reading your bio after they edit it. And then, and then they'll drop off camera. But occasionally they might come in with a supporting point. Or the typical thing is you go through a high-value training, you get to an offer, and then after you make the offer, they come on. And just share their true thoughts about how they feel that will support their people, or if they've worked with you, explain the results they've gotten from working with you. And that again, it's an endorsement of you and the offer itself, and that greatly increases conversion. So that's the best practice if someone's on— like I presented to a doctor's audience, Dr. Isaac Jones, and he was on vacation. And I presented in his 50K group and then his 25K group. And other than a basic intro, I ran the group and did the presentation. So sometimes that's what you're dealing with. And kind of in a, in that kind of situation, if you know someone's going to be on a flight or they're just not around, You could even have them do a video introduction that is played at the top of the presentation just again to seek that transference of authority and turn it into warm traffic versus like, who's this guy?

Yeah, that transference of authority is very important. It has to happen on stages too when we're talking about a live event, in-person event. And whether it's a pitch fest kind of event or it's purely informational, educational only with no offers being made, you have to have that transference of authority. The chairperson or the emcee of the event giving you a hug or high five or, you know, a hearty handshake or fist bump or whatever it is.

Yeah.

And also saying nice things about you that are not just kind of read off of a page, but it's like going a little off script and saying, yeah, we were just chatting in the green room and like, this guy is so whip smart. I just, I was just blown away. I asked him a question about, you know, SEO and he said, he gave me the best answer I've ever heard on that. And I've Dug for hours and Google for for answers. You know, that sort of thing is invaluable.

Yeah, yeah makes makes a big difference. And and that is one of those shifts to warm traffic. I'll give you a very simple example of a comparative example. It's let's say there's someone you're trying to get on their radar and you just ping them maybe through Facebook Messenger, you just shoot them an email, you're coming in on their radar at like a 1 or a 2 or maybe a 0. Whereas, if you get an introduction from one of their friends, I mean, then you're coming in at a 7 or 8 on their radar. One of my clients who I started working with last year, we have a meeting later today. I've helped him generate $1.5 million since working with him. Jon Assaraf introduced us and my phone rang immediately after. He's like, Jon said I should talk to you. Like, if I would have reached out to him, I probably would have still never talked to him because there's that deep transference of authority. They have a strong relationship. They're saying you should talk to this person. They can help you. And, uh, that's exactly what's happening at the top of the presentation.

Yeah, that's awesome. Now you have this, um, uh, I don't know, like, um, you have this knack for picking the right person to introduce another person to at the right time, in the right place, and in the right context. You've got a gift for that. And, and I'm curious to hear what kind of percentage of, of this gift would you equate to intuition, kind of tapping into the universal Google and getting a nudge from your, you know, higher self or angels or what? what have you. And what percentage of this is just kind of instinct? And what percentage is like research or hard, kind of practical science?

That's a good question. I haven't had it asked that way. So it's, it's cool. What it is, and I will preface this was I was not always capable of this or like this. This was a learned skill over a window of time. And so it really has to do to start with of listening to people, listen to what they're good at, who they serve, what are the outcomes of working with them. And then it's also a matter of listening to what people are trying to accomplish. Because as they explain what they're doing, who they serve, what they're working on, it's simply connecting the dots for others. So, as an example, there's a guy I met at a mastermind a few weeks ago in Cabo, and he is a— he's a speaker, he's a webinar expert. And one of my new clients, I just onboarded a new client yesterday, and he needs to create a webinar. So there's a need. Here's someone with that expertise, and it's simply drawing that dotted line in your head and going, hey, I know who I can connect you to. So it could be a specific need like that, or As someone describes their ideal client, maybe you know someone with that exact scenario. So it's a matter of depending on who you're talking to, they will state different needs or who their ideal clients are or things of interest to them. And then you can think, I of course have this in my head, but I also have a tool called the brain. that is a dynamic mind map where I have all these different experts in different verticals of industries. So, if I don't immediately think of someone, I can simply look there because I track them. So, just as an example from yesterday when I jumped on that call with John Lee Dumas, he mentioned he's into crypto. And So I, I was like, hey, my friend Brad Hart has been— he says hi, by the way. Brad says hi. He's been headfirst into the topic and just got his financial planner certification and things like that. I'm like, you might want to chat more with him. And so not only did I tell that to John, I pinged Brad today going, hey, John would be interested to continue that conversation. So it's just connecting the dots like, like that. So it's, it's kind of listening, logic, and stepping back for a second to just see what people really need. They don't all have to be interest to people. They could be introductions to communities or tools or resources or ideas. The way I like to think of that is look at your superpowers. What are ways you can serve people? In my case, it's connections, JV strategies, and systems. In your case, it's SEO and website design and different elements to increase conversion. And it can even be things that are our hobbies. I have a client in Florida who saw a picture of me on my website. riding a Onewheel, and he's super interested in it and was asking all these questions. So, you can provide value to people in a whole array of ways from your professional skills to your passions to your connections, hobbies, any of the above.

So, you're talking about a unicycle? You ride a unicycle?

Well, I have an electric unicycle, but I'm referring to the Onewheel, which kind of has a snowboard stance. It's, it's more like, uh, there's both of them in the other room, and me and my whole family, including my wife and 2 kids and my brother and his wife and kids, we go like cruising through downtown Napa or Sonoma or wherever on those.

Oh, that's fun. Now you mentioned the brain. You're not talking about like the human brain, you're talking about thebrain.com, that digital, uh, tool for capturing kind of mind mapping connections and information.

Right, because as I meet someone, let's say you and I just met, I would add you to that as a, as an SEO expert, what communities we're both in together, like Genius and JVMM and others, because then I'm creating this web of associations. And most of that you can do in your mind. But some degree, uh, he— that will tap out. Yeah.

Now I'm curious to hear what you think about this. I have this sense that the chance meeting in Cabo with that webinar expert right before your client needed a webinar expert was not chance, that it was synchronicity. What are your thoughts?

Uh, well, then there's synchronicity going on every day, everywhere. I kind of think of it through the lens of statistics. And it can be random. I can talk to someone with a really great skill set and then talk to no one else who needs that for months. Or I could talk to someone who I send, you know, 10 referrals in 3 months because everyone needs what they have as I'm speaking with them. And I'll also raise different people up as options when I see an opportunity. Let's say someone's hiring me to get more traffic. They might be interested in additional traffic sources too. So, I might bring up you. In fact, I did on a sales call. The guy was hiring you anyway. But he carried on with that. So, it's When you see someone has a need, you look at the various ways or people that could be filled, and then I'll voice those. So as far as— I kind of see it more like the chance of who you would be talking to and what their needs are. But there is certainly some level of synchronicity because this is happening perpetually.

Yep. One thing I find happening a lot these days is getting a, I don't know, a nudge or a sense for, you know, reaching out to a certain person that I had not thought of or had communication with for months or even years. And then they turn into an immediate SEO lead, or they turn into— or somehow I Provide assistance to them that was really valuable. Like, I don't know; it just it seems like it's happening more and more. And you know, I get these emails back that like, oh, this this freakiest thing! I was just thinking about you, and this is somebody that I hadn't talked to for ten years.

Yeah, I I met a guy artist a long time ago. He called that space phone when you're like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Space phone, I like it.

Yeah, that, that stuff does happen all the time. One other technique I like to utilize, uh, and I'll just tell the brief backstory. I was at an event several years ago and syncing up with a friend for several hours, and then when we were leaving, he's like, if I ever come to mind, just ping me. And I was thinking, dude, what if you're at dinner with your kids or in a webinar? Like, it just seems weird to do that. And but for, for whatever reason, I'm like, I'm gonna do that with basically everyone. So when people come to mind, I'll shoot them a message, or I'll just— they're coming to mind for a reason. Something reminded you of them. Maybe you just talked to one of their friends or clients. Maybe, like, I'm into technology, so maybe I got a new toy and I want to mention it to someone.

Oh, the reMarkable tablet. I love that thing.

Yeah, like, this was my prep for yesterday's call with John. And anyway, just by staying in touch around things or people or topics of interest, You're maintaining relationships. You're coming up with good intros for people. You're sharing things of value, which keeps relationships strong, especially over time. And it's— forget the name of the book, but it's digging the well before you're thirsty. Maybe that's the name of the book. In any case, it It just, and also you could ping someone for just some small thing like this. In fact, my client Kane, who I'm meeting with later today, he's also into music and photography and stuff like that. So I'll just send some video I made snowboarding. And then he's like, hey, do you want to come present with Kevin Harrington and Mike Koenigs and Roland Fraser and this? thing. I'm like, sure. Like, I wasn't communicating with him in hopes of anything, but when you're in touch with people, cool things come out of it.

Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, I know we're getting close to time here, so I wanted to ask a couple more questions before we wrap up. One is, what's the difference between what you do and what you teach and, and help people with and setting up the systems for the whole JV partnership thing and affiliate marketing.

Yeah, so I'm going to oversimplify a little bit, but the way I think of affiliate marketing is let's say there's, uh, some product or promo or SaaS product, something like Mike Filsaime's Groove platform or ClickFunnels or something. Kind of anyone can go sign up as an affiliate and, and share that with people. There's, there's no relationship. You're just going to a site, grabbing some assets and doing whatever you feel like with them. Where a joint venture partnership, that's us getting on a call and strategically looking at the best ways to serve your folks, or vice versa. You're, you're designing something to be successful. You're custom tailoring it with thought behind it. You're building a real relationship with the other person or company that creates more value for each of your audiences or their audience and each other. So, there's a lot more goodwill and intention and design behind it.

Yep, yep. I definitely would agree with that. Awesome. And then my last question is, what about events where you go with the intention to meet other JV partners like JVX? And I guess JVology would be that way too. And wouldn't your event Pure JV be for that purpose too? Like, is— or partially for that purpose? So maybe Distinguish or differentiate those 3 events for our listener and how impactful it is to go to an in-person event to form JV relationships?

Sure. Well, in-person anything is by far the best every time because like, I have great friends I've never met in person. You can Absolutely build good relationships through Zoom and phone and, and all the digital resources we have today. But when you're hanging out with people in person for days at a time, you're doing fun adventures, you're going to dinners, you really bond and connect as people in a deeper way. And that's where really strong relationships are, are formed and and so forth. So, as far as events for meeting and lining up JVs, I feel like they're different pools and you want to get in the right pools. There's very transactional kind of pools and people look— kind of looking at what they can get out of it versus what they can give and lead with. And so, You want to be in communities where people are truly out looking out for each other and supporting each other. I'm a fan of JVology and Jay. Jay and I are really good friends. And my event, although it's a pure JV event, they weren't engineered for people to find partners there, but inevitably they do because we're showing them how to JV effectively. So, but you can do this at any type of event. In fact, when I go to any event, I kind of have some pre-set-up buckets of the types of connections with winning outcomes. So intros I can do for people, potential private clients, potential JV partners, potential stages or podcasts, um, and then just kind of a random other topic. And I literally have these categories so as I meet people at events, I know who to be following up with on which topics. But yeah, as far as events like JVology, I'm a fan of them. And but again, you can do this in a whole array of communities, groups. It's all jumping on a call and exploring if— or in-person conversation— but exploring the overlap between what they do and what you do, and will their people or your people come out further by putting those 2 things together.

Yeah, yep, for sure. Well, I know we're out of time, so if our listener or viewer is interested in working with you, if they're interested in attending a Pure JV event or buying one of your courses, where's the best place for them to go?

Best place to go will be charlesbyrd.com, B-Y-R-D, charlesbyrd.com. We've got— it's a new site and it will continue to be improved over time thanks to Stefan's feedback. And so that, that summarizes what we do. It also has a contact form and you can fill out a little intake and we can jump on a call and explore ways I can help you scale with joint venture partnerships in a systematic way.

That's awesome. Well, thank you, Charles. And this guy's legit. I've known him for many years. I'll do the accomplishment thing here, the transference of authority that I probably should have mentioned. that we've known each other for X number of years earlier in the conversation. But yeah, Charles is legit. So thank you, Charles. I appreciate you coming on the show, on this show. Previously, you were on my other show, which that was a fantastic episode as well. So do check that one out too. And yeah, so I hope that you, listener, are going to apply this in your business and make lots of But, uh, yeah, this is not just for entertainment purposes. You got to put the stuff into action. So we'll catch you on the next episode. Thanks again, Charles. Thank you, listener. This is your host, Stefan Spencer, signing off.