Joint Ventures in Digital Marketing: Elevating Your Agency’s Growth

This is the 7 Figure Agency Podcast. Discover the strategies and techniques to grow a highly successful and profitable digital marketing agency with your host, Joshua Nelson. What's up, digital marketing agency owners? On today's video, I wanna talk about one of my favorite strategies that could absolutely propel the growth of your digital marketing agency, and it's one of the highest leverage plays you can run. So if you're excited about growing your agency and kind of tapping into a strategy that's a little more advanced, you're gonna wanna watch this video. [MUSIC] All right, so one of my favorite strategies that you can implement in your digital marketing agency to really accelerate your growth is leveraging joint ventures, also referred to as JVs. These. And, you know, when you think about how to, how to land clients and how to grow your business, there's lots of different strategies you can use, right? You can do cold outreach, and you can do Facebook ads, and you can do webinars and inbound marketing. But one of the most powerful plays is to connect with other people that already have the relationship with the clients you want to do business with and get them to refer their business to you. I was interviewing Shane Simmons from Crimson Tide Media, and Crimson Media, and he was telling me, like, as he's grown his agency to 7 figures and had great growth within the dental space, I was like, well, what is it that's working best for you? What's the, what's the approach? What's the strategy? He goes, you know what, Josh, referrals from joint ventures has been kind of the number one strategy that we've leveraged. And I know that a lot of our agencies in the 7 Figure Agency have been really, really effective at tapping into joint ventures. So I really wanna unpack this strategy for you and help you be a little bit more intentional on how you can grow your agency through strategic joint ventures. One of the great minds in the business world is Jay Abraham, and he's famously quoted as saying, "You're only one joint venture away from a million-dollar business. And I really believe that to be true, and I found it to be true with a lot of the agencies that we've seen go to 7 figures and multiple 7 figures in their business. A great example of this also is Jimmy Nicholas from Jimmy Marketing, agency working in the orthodontic space, grew to over $3 million, wound up selling the business for a great exit. But his number one play, the number one thing that kept his pipeline full, help them continue to land clients, and retain those clients was he aligned with a couple of really good strategic alliances that brought him into their world and just filled his appointment flow. So I want you to be thinking about how you can tap into these types of joint venture opportunities within your agency. 'Cause again, there's lots of different things we can do to land clients, right? We can do cold outreach, inbound marketing, marketing lead generation, we can speak in industry events and associations, but at the top of the hierarchy because its highest leverage is seeking out joint venture opportunities. So let's talk a little bit about practically how you can do this, how you can kind of align with joint ventures and how you can create these types of opportunities. Number one is you've got to conceptualize the win-win, which means there are people that already are doing business with the clients you want. Like in my world, there are coaches, there are consultants, there are industry groups that have hundreds and hundreds of plumbing and HVAC companies that we'd love to do business with. Now, why would they want to give their clients to me, right? Why would they want to pass that business? It's different in every situation. For some people, the win-win is they just want their clients to be well served, right? And if you can come in and show yourself to be a value-added provider, and you can help their group, their members, their customers, their clients, if you can show them that you can help them win, then that's enough of a win-win. They're like, "Hey man, I'm just gonna pass you business because when our clients win, our group wins, and it's a win-win for everybody involved." In other cases, they need a little bit of meat on the bone, right? In some cases, they're looking to create new additional streams of revenue. And so if you can say, "Hey look, let me talk with your customers and kind of help them, and if they wind up signing up with me, I can pay you a percentage of the residual. I can pay you a percentage of that first month fee, and this can create a new stream of revenue for you. In some cases, it's just a matter of, look, I'm gonna send business to you, you're gonna send business to me, and it's a reciprocal business relationship. But what you really have to do is figure out what the win-win is. And again, recognize it's not always just about the money, right? Sometimes it's more about the, the solving a problem for their member base, that's the key. So really conceptualize what that win-win could be for your joint venture. From there you wanna profile the partners, right? You think about your niche, whatever your niche is. We work with plumbing companies. Maybe you work with roofing companies, you work with healthcare providers. Within your niche, get clear on who is already working with those companies, right? And a couple of examples, it could be industry consultants. People that, like, in every industry, they will pay a consultant to come in and look at the problem that they're having and coach them through it. And those consultants have a very trusted relationship with their clients, right? So naturally, if you can align with those consultants and they refer you, that's going to be very low resistance. They're almost going to say, hey, my consultant said to do it, I'm going to do it, right? So there's consultants, there's coaches, which are more like group-based coaches typically. Software providers, think about the, the big software, could be the CRM, the dispatch system that everybody in your industry uses. They've got access to your customer base. Marketing services that are non-competitive. So, like if you run a digital marketing agency like most of us do, and there's an agency in your space that does like traditional, maybe TV ads or radio ads, that could be somebody that's already got the attention of your clients. But doesn't provide that service, so non-competitive. Mastermind groups, industry buying groups, there's like buying groups where they all sign up and they get a discount on services because they use that organization. Subgroups within your primary organization. Figure out who's already doing business with your clients that already have those strategic relationships that could potentially plug you in, and then make a hit list, right? Spend some time and energy on this. Finding that dream joint venture partner isn't just gonna fall into your lap. You gotta think about, recognize who they are, and then you wanna make a list. Who are the top 3 consultants? Who are the top, the top software providers? Who are the top marketing services? And make a list so that you can start to target those. Another great thing is if you go to industry events and conferences and you're exhibiting, ideally you put a booth out there, Ideally, you look for opportunities to speak. The other people that have booths at those organizations are typically great potential joint venture opportunities. So make a list of those. Walk over to the booth, say hello, start a relationship. But it starts with recognizing that these opportunities exist. Then it goes to making a list of who they are. And then from there, we want to map out our approach. We want to figure out how we can connect with these people. How we can get them to know, like, and trust us. How we can find that win-win. And then how we can structure the relationship where they happily and confidently introduce us to their clients, right? And so you wanna map out your approach. One of the best people I know at doing this is Matt Platt from America's Best Restaurant. He actually did a session on this called the Dream 100 Influencer Approach for our member community. And when he kind of explained how he structures these types of relationships, it's not reaching out to that JV partner and saying, "Hey, Mr. JV, you work with a lot of our ideal clients. You work with a lot of restaurants. Why don't you refer them to me?" Right? That is a recipe for failure. These people are getting approached all the time. And so what you wanna do is take a backdoor approach to develop those relationships. And what he recommends is, Buy their book, subscribe to their podcast, get on their list. Enter their world. Most of these organizations and consultants have books, they've got podcasts, they've got email lists. Become a consumer of their stuff. And then let them know about it, right? If you bought their book, take a picture of yourself with the book. Post on social media, "Hey, I just got this book and it's amazing." Tag them in the post. Send them a video, "Hey, I got your book, it's amazing," right? Let them know that you are an advocate. Let them know that you're a fan. Let them know that you're a consumer of their stuff. And then connect with them everywhere, right? Go connect with them on Facebook, connect with them on LinkedIn, connect with them on Instagram, connect with them wherever they happen to be putting out content, and like their stuff. The fact is, people that put out content don't ever get enough accolades, they don't ever get enough recognition. And so, like their stuff, comment on their stuff, try not to just throw the fire emoji, right? Unfortunately, so many other agencies have used this, you know, like somebody and then drop the fire emoji on their stuff. Post meaningful follow-up comments on their post, so they know that you actually saw it and you perceived value of it, you're trying to align with them. And then figure out ways to feature them. I'm a big fan of running webinars and running podcasts. And if you're doing that on a consistent basis, you have your own platform. And so you can bring them on and say, "Hey, listen, I'd love to interview for the podcast." "Hey, I'd love to do a training session where you can explain what it is that you do, and I'd love to get you out in front of our ideal customers." This is a great way, and I hope you can see this is different than just sliding in their DMs or sending them a cold email saying, "Hey, Hey, you work with restaurants, I hope that you can refer me to your restaurants, 'cause I can do their marketing, right? That's gonna fall flat. But if you connect with them all over the place, and then you engage with their stuff, and you buy their stuff, and then you invite them, and you feature them, you start to develop a relationship. You start to develop know, like, and trust. And eventually, maybe they'll have you on their podcast. And then they'll start to say, hey look, You've got some smart resources here. You've got some smart ideas. You've got some smart solutions. Let's have you come and present to our client base. Let's have you maybe— let's start to introduce you to our clients. Right? And that's what you want to do. Right? You create that hit list. You align with that hit list. And then as they start to ask and as they say, "Hey, how can you help? How can we work together? I see some synergies here." That's when you can start to formulate your promotional plan. And lots of cool things you can do from a promotional plan perspective. Maybe you run a webinar for their group. Hey, I'll put on training on how they can generate more leads and sales. Right, would you like me to do that for your group? Or templates and resources that you can share. Maybe if you've published your book, you could say, hey look, why don't I mail a free copy of our book to all of your members as a free gift from you guys? Send them a lead magnet or cheat sheets. If they run events, ask if you can sponsor, ask if you can come speak at their event. And then set up soft introductions as they get new clients. So most of these consultants, groups, softwares, they get a client, they bring that client on board. If you can anchor every time they get a new client as an introduction to you at some point in that relationship, whether that's triggered at the first week, the first month, after they've been with them for 90 days, you can have a perpetual pipeline of new clients flowing into your world. So just a couple key note, like, concepts here on how you can leverage joint ventures to accelerate the growth within your agency. Again, you're only one joint venture away from a 7-figure agency. If you got great value from this video, hit the like button, hit the subscribe button, be sure to hit the notification bell so you can hear about new videos. As they come out. And let me know, will you go after these joint venture opportunities? And how are you going to take this to take your agency to the next level? Thanks so much for watching. I'll talk to you soon.