268 – The Joint Venture Advantage: Karen Yankovich Unleashes Strategies for Growth

Karen Yankovich 0:10
Hello, and welcome to episode 268 of the good girls get rich podcast. I’m your host, Karen Yankovich. And I really wanted to spend some time on today’s topic, because it’s something that is a big part of all of the work that I do, all of the work that we do on our show is linked up programs. And I’m finding, the more that I do it, the more I see people doing it wrong. And you know, I’m not very often saying that people do things wrong, there’s lots of right ways to do things. In this case, I there’s so many people wasting a lot of time. And that is the topic at hand is collaborating with other people, other people on your LinkedIn network, other people in whatever networks, you you know, you put you hang out in,

looking to build joint ventures, right to have joint venture opportunities, affiliate opportunities, things like that, right. And, you know, way back in the day, back 2020 2012 2013 2014, I was an affiliate for Marie Forleo. And you may remember those days when Marie Forleo would launch B School, and then 65 million people would be posting about the school over the place, right? That’s not what I’m talking about here that I know, there’s some people that do that. And I definitely think affiliate marketing is still really valuable. That’s not what I’m talking about here that what I’m talking about here is the power of joint ventures. You know, you’ve heard me say on the show, if you’ve if you’re a longtime listener, that there’s three kinds of relationships, that I think we should be using LinkedIn to build one, obviously, who are the people that could buy from us, right? Like who’s gonna sign a contract? One is, who are the journalists that write about the things that you are expert in? And are you building relationships with them a podcast host that the newspaper magazines, the TV hosts, right, those kinds of things. But that third category, which I typically you have in the middle category, but it’s probably the most powerful business building wealth building category is joint ventures, who are other people that have an audience of people similar to your audience. Right. And, and using LinkedIn, to have a consistent stream of those opportunities. So that your name is getting in front of new audiences, audiences that you’ve, you’ve curated, right? Because you you’re looking for people that have an audience, similar to people that you want to get in front of? Do you have a commitment to that as you move into 2024 2025? and beyond? Right, so so, you know, maybe you have had conversations, like,

you know, Wow, I love what you do, tell me more about it. And then I tell you what I do, and you tell me what you do, and we say, okay, great, so great to get to know you. I’m going to keep my mind open. And if I think of somebody to send your way, totally going to do that. Have you had those conversations? Those are great conversations to have right, great conversations to have. But if you think back over the year, or years or decades, that you’ve have those had those conversations, what is the success rate? Of those conversations? Have you actually ever turned any of those conversations into business? Okay, confident, successful business, women have no problem saying, Great, let’s make a plan. And that’s what we’re talking about here today, how to actually how to have joint ventures that actually turned into business, because here’s the thing, I am so committed to their, to creating processes with my clients that build ease into their client getting stuff, right, using LinkedIn to get a few people a week on your calendar. So that and, and those few people being researched and targeted so that it leads to opportunities, right. This is a it’s a simple process. It’s not necessarily easy. But it’s a simple process. It doesn’t take a lot of your time every week, and it works really, really well. But if you’re doing three of those calls a week, and you’re having these great, I’ll let people know, you know, let me know if you know anybody that should, you know, I should talk to, if you’re having three of those every week, and they’re not going anywhere, you’re completely wasting your time. And I don’t want there to be any waste of time. There’s always gonna be a little bit of time, like we can’t be perfect with this stuff. But I wanted work as as I want to work as smart as I can. And and frankly, you know, the smarter I work, the less I have to work right, the less hours I have to put right here at my desk. So so that’s what I’m talking about here today. How do we create a process where we’re putting people on our calendar for potential joint ventures that leads to contracts, not just new friends? Okay, so joint venture, you know that I’m using the word kind of loosely here, because there’s so many different ways this could go you could make a joint venture partner and affiliate partner, right, you can give them a special link that tracks back to your products and services and they would get

commission, sometimes, you know, you can say just use just tell me that, you know, Mary sent you, and then you send me a thank you note or a commission, right? Sometimes you’re just kind of swapping introductions to each other, right. And there’s lots of different ways that you can, you can facilitate it, we’re gonna get to that later. Right. But I just wanted to kind of talk about what a joint venture is. So it doesn’t necessarily have to include monetary exchange, it can write it can, but it doesn’t have to the benefits of this. So So now, when you’re having these conversations, right, when the conversation is, you know, it starts out really paraphrases, I’m gonna just go really high level with this here. But if the conversation starts out with, you know, hey, Mary Taryn, I, I just came across your profile here on LinkedIn, I saw you, you know, in this Facebook group, or wherever, wherever you saw them, right.

And, you know, I really liked the work that you’re doing. And I think there’s a lot of alignment in what you do and what I do. And I think we serve a similar audience, I’d love to connect here on LinkedIn and get to know more about you. Right? So isn’t that first off, first and foremost, a connection request that you’re like, like the except versus, you know, buy my stuff, buy my stuff, right? So especially if you’re doing this, if you’re coming at this with a really strong LinkedIn profile. So let’s say Mary says, Sure, I’d love to connect your next message is, well, you know what, let’s jump on a quick call, you know, I kind of like these calls to be 15 minutes, but you know, 15 minutes to a half hour, just to explore possibilities of, of, you know, supporting each other. How can we best support each other? And I do this sometimes with people, guests that have been on my podcast after the show, or, or people that have interviewed me, right, I’ll have a follow up, call with them and say, you know, how can we support each other beyond this, and it’s not just okay, I’ll let people know if I, if I think of you, right? I want to be on their calendar, I want them to be on my calendar. And I flat out say that, I say, here’s the deal. When I talk to people about joint ventures, I really want to leave this conversation with a plan. Of course, if I think that it’s a good possibility, right? If there’s a mutual agreement, that that is a good fit to be in front of each other’s audiences, I want to leave this conversation with a plan. And you know, often maybe that means they interview me in their Facebook group, or they interview me on their podcast, or they send out an email to their email list with a link to my you know, LinkedIn marketing quiz, or, you know, something, something like that, but very, something very specific. And again, it depends on who they are, what their audiences and what I’m promoting at any given time, right? Being really specific about that, and actually almost making it a requirement, right, here’s an, you know, there’s ways to to have a higher level of success with this, and we’re gonna talk about that. And then at the same time, you need to do something for them. Right. And, you know, this is where it gets a little tricky, even for me, because, you know, as much as I have my podcast, and I can certainly interview people on my podcast, we only have a guest every other episode, which means I only do maybe 25 guests a year. And of those guests, I really like to sometimes incorporate my team or my students, right. So don’t actually have a lot of guest spots for the good girls get rich podcast. But there’s other things I can do, right? I can create, I can do a live video I can do, you know, I can interview them on LinkedIn, I can, you know, send out I can send out, you know, I can interview them on LinkedIn, and then send out a follow up email, right, with a link to their lead magnet, you know, I would typically ask to be made an affiliate, why not? Right? Like, why not? So so these are different kinds of things you can do with this action oriented approach to Joint Venture Marketing. And this is where it makes a difference, because now you can measure the success, right? It’s not just Okay, nice to meet you. Right? I hope that we cross paths again someday, right? Like, it’s, you’re making an actual plan, you’re putting it on the calendar. And you’re, you’re you’re, you know, setting yourself up for more success. So if you’re only getting on the call with one or two of these people each week, and by the way, you can easily do that, right? It doesn’t take a lot of work. And think about how the value this could bring to your business, right?

You’re likely to if you’re doing your research, right, and you’re and you’re targeting right, you’re likely to really build some powerful partner relationships. Okay, so let’s talk about identifying the right partners here. Now for a second. You know, obviously, you know, I listen, my podcast is called Good girls get rich, my program is called the she’s linked up that, but that doesn’t mean I only work with women, right? That’s who my folks who my content and my strategies are targeted for. But we’ve had many men in the program. I’ve worked with many men privately, I don’t care what your body parts are, how you identify, I just feel like women need to be more feel more included in this. That being said, I’m probably not going to want look to be grab a partner relationship with, you know, truckers of America right? Now, if there’s a women’s truckers of America, maybe I would write but you know, you want to identify the right partners. You don’t just want to get in front of any audience because what you’ll find yourself doing is spinning. And this is where like you

really start leaning into your role as a thought leader, when you are really clear on the audience’s you want to reach and you can say no to audiences that are not a fit. Because if you don’t do that, you’re gonna find yourself just spinning your wheels work with people that you don’t want to work with maybe, you know, maybe even, you’re not leaving space in your in your life and your calendar and your business for the for the ideal people, right? So you really want to be picky about who your joint venture partners are. There’s so many places you can find them.

You know, you can you can find them. Maybe there’s Facebook groups, well, first of all, in the Facebook group, who are the owners of the Facebook group, right? Maybe you want to interview the owners of the Facebook group, the people that own the group, right? If you think that that group is targeted to yours, because maybe what they’ll do is share that interview in that group, bing, bing, bing, now you’re getting value, right?

Within the author within these Facebook groups, especially business, Facebook groups, there’s like a, hey, let’s all connect on LinkedIn today. I love those posts, it doesn’t mean I connect with everyone on those posts, I absolutely do not. That being said, I will cherry pick through it. And if I see this is a way to kind of, you know, curate some possible joint venture partners, I look at their audience size, I look at who they are, who their audience is. And if I think it’s a fit, then my outreach will be Hey, I just saw your, you know, posts on the LinkedIn feed on the blah, blah, blah, Facebook group. And then again, it looks like our audiences are aligned, I’d love to be connected here on LinkedIn. But you want to actually follow up with these people. I actually, if I have a, like, we use Asana for tracking stuff. And I have an Asana project for my joint ventures. And if it’s somebody that I think would be a great joint venture, I will put it into asana and I, I have a personal commitment to doing a lot of joint ventures every year. Right? And you don’t always see that right as, as somebody that’s, you know, on the other side of of this microphone, because, you know, sometimes I’m just a guest in their group, right? So I have a and maybe you’re not in that group, right? So you don’t always see that. But it gets me in front of a ton of people, right? So do you see there’s so many I could talk, we could do a whole show on just ways to find these partners. All right, but then let’s talk a little bit about how you can structure an action oriented joint venture, okay, action oriented being key element number one, put it on the calendar, make an actual plan, make an actual plan, typically, I if I think it’s a good fit. And if let’s just say if one of the items is that I’m going to my pieces of this is going to be I’m going to interview with them on this show, what I might do is what I would probably do is send them the application to be a guest, even though I’ve invited them, we have an engine that starts with the application. So I would then I’d ask them to please complete the application. So that starts the engine, but I’ll fast track it, I’ll fast track it, I’m gonna make sure a fast track the approval of it, because we get a lot of applications, right. So and we don’t approve, you know, probably most of them because again, I don’t do that many interviews on the show. So I would start with that. And then I would but I would put it in a sauna. And then I would follow up don’t gotta get the application back did I send them the calendar to book their spot on the show. And once they booked their spot on the show moves rather project right on in Asana so that we can start the engine rolling for the Podcast, the podcast interview, but at the same time, I want to know like, Okay, if you have a group and you want me to speak to your group, let’s put it on the calendar.

You know, and then having an actual plan for this makes gives you a higher percentage of success. And when you talk, when you’re talking to people, like if you wanted to do one joint venture a week, that’s 50 a year, right, you can easily do this with just a little bit of outreach doesn’t take a lot of time and think of the hundreds or 1000s of people you could get in front of if you’re doing this, right. So you want to make sure that they’re that you are looking for people specifically in your niche. And then of course, I use LinkedIn to build these relationships. There’s a couple reasons I do that, obviously, I think LinkedIn is the place to do this. But you know, if I’m reaching out, like, let’s just use the Facebook group owner, as an example, if I think I want to do a joint venture partner with a Facebook group owner,

if I message them on Facebook, I don’t have the same credibility I have when I message them on LinkedIn, because LinkedIn, I get that I have the power of my profile that’s joining me in this conversation, right. So they if they don’t really know who I am, they can check my profile out. Right. So this is really why I want to use LinkedIn to do that. Not everybody’s on LinkedIn. Right? So. So it may or may not be the, you know, be the place for every joint venture partner but but that, to me is the place that I want to start these relationships. I want to start these relationships on LinkedIn. And you know, think big, who’s got an audience of people that you want to get in front of, right? And you want to make sure there’s a couple things you want to think about. You know, for me, especially in this kind of crazy world we live in, you want to make sure your values and goals align, right, like you want to make sure they’re not going to be on your, you know, in front of your audience, talking about things that don’t align with your goals. Right. So so you’re you’re now structuring this this action oriented joint venture plan by picking a topic picking a couple

bullet point, all this can be done on that first call, you might have to book a second call to do this, right. But all this can be done on that call and you can get creative, there’s lots of different ways that you can create an action oriented joint venture. The most important point, though, is that it’s action oriented. Okay. So, you know, I want to just take a break here for one second and talk about the fact that this is a big part of what we help you with in our shoes, linked up programs. You know, I am so anti spam on LinkedIn, I do not want my clients banging on doors cold calling, I mean, that is so unnecessary in this market, cuz you can see the process I’m talking about here today are such a huge, such a huge way to gain traction and gain success. I would much rather you doing that. So we have we custom design these lists for you in our she’s linked up program, you know, you get a custom design list of how you can curated partner potential partners for you, that you can then go after, and then we help you with the scripts, we help you build the relationships, we help you put it on the calendar, we help you maximize the profitability of it, because I want every single person on your calendar to actually be leading to profit in your business. The strategies we teach and she’s linked up are not just here, do these couple things. And you’re gonna have a great LinkedIn strategy. Oh, no, no, no, I want them to put money in the bank, I want to track the money it’s putting in the bank, right? Like that is the piece I want there to be more wealthy women in the world. Okay. So when we’re, when we are coming together as a community, like our she’s linked up, beautiful, amazing community. And we’re supporting each other, and introducing each other maybe to some of these joint venture partners. Like magic happens, magic happens and money is made. So if you want to know what it looks like to be a part of this amazing, amazing community, just go to Karen yankovich.com/call. There’s links below, grab a spot on the calendar, and we can chat and see if one of our programs is a fit for you. But this is the kinds of things we’re talking about on the show today are exactly the kinds of things you are going to have a working strategy for on the other side of your time with us in our shoes and accelerator programs. All right, moving forward. I’d love to sit here and tell you that it’s all sunshine and roses, right. But sometimes there’s challenges. Sometimes there’s challenges. Sometimes maybe, you know, the person that you’ve created, the joint venture with maybe isn’t as

prolific as you are, maybe in putting content out or the email, you know, maybe they’re not, maybe they’re not quite sure how to explain what you do. Right? So there’s, you know, or maybe they’re just maybe they shouldn’t do it, right. So I mean, listen, at the end of the day, we can’t force people to take to hold up their end of the bargain. I’ve honestly never really found that to happen. But I acknowledge that it absolutely could happen. Right.

One of the ways that I like to navigate challenges is to help avoid challenges. And one of the ways we do that is by actually creating like a joint venture media kit. So having a media kit that’s got a couple of emails that your joint venture partner can copy and paste to, to promote your products and services, having some content that they can send out some social media swipes and images, right.

You know, having a kit that literally has in there things like your bio, and your headshot and some topics that you can you can talk to their Facebook group or their audience or you know, their private community about right, having like, make it easy for them, right, take a little time upfront to do this. Again, these are things we do for you on our choosing up community in our accelerator program, and take the time to do this and you will have a higher, you’ll eliminate a lot of the challenges. So you will be navigating challenges, you’ll be eliminating challenges, right, the better job you do up front with creating like a specific media kit for joint ventures. And again, it was more energy there, the universe starts to show up and deliver it’s just win win win win win. Because the reality is the key to a successful joint venture is very clear communication, and very clear conflict resolution. Don’t be afraid Don’t like if they say they’re gonna send out an email on the 15th. And they don’t send out an email on the 15th reach out to them and say, hey, you know what I was checked, I signed up for your email list because I wanted to I didn’t want to put it on you to prove you know, your that you’re sending out the emails or anything like that. I wanted to take that responsibility myself. But I saw I didn’t you know, I didn’t. I haven’t seen the email that we discussed yet. Is there something happened? Is there something I can do to support you to make sure that that gets done the way we agreed, say something like that instead of like bashing them all over plays? Well, I had this plan with Mary and she never, she never did like no clear communications. We are grownups. Okay, I am all about eliminating drama. Right. So clear communication also helps eliminate the possibility of there being challenges. Obviously, we want to live that leverage LinkedIn for this right. LinkedIn can be such a powerful tool for finding and connecting with potential partners. You know, doing research using Sales Navigator finding people even in your community, right maybe

even going into a group that you already belong to, like, for example, maybe there’s a conference that you’re attending, and maybe they have a LinkedIn group, go through the members of their LinkedIn group, you know, and see if there’s any members there that, that you think would be a potential joint venture partner for you. And now your outreach can be, you know, hey, I just came across your profile, I see, we’re both members of this group in that group. I know we don’t really know each other yet.

But I really liked the work you do, if possible, by the way, I would, if they have a podcast or a blog, like reference, something you read, or listen to listen to episode 27 of your podcast, I love this, this or this, I’d love to connect here because I think there might be opportunities for us to collaborate, right? That word collaborate on LinkedIn is, is the beautiful is a beautiful word, such a powerful such a profitable word. So you can do things like that, right? Again, you’re initiating these conversations just by using the word collaborate. But remember that, especially if you’re doing this, and I’m calling this cold outreach, but it’s not really cold, because you’re doing so much research before you do this outreach. Remember, though, that the the, I’m gonna go the less hot it is because I don’t really want to refer to what it’s called, the less hot it is, the the better your profile needs to be, right? Because you need to show up as somebody, they’re like, Heck, yes, I want to meet this person, right. So it’s important that you do that when you’re leveraging LinkedIn to do this. And remember that when you’re creating these joint venture opportunities, you don’t have to have a podcast or anything like that. To do that. You can simply do a LinkedIn life with them. Right? Like, there’s lots of ways you can email your list, you can, you know, I mean, you there’s so many different things you can do, you can market them on social media, you don’t have to have anything fancy, like a podcast to be able to hold up your end of the joint venture bargain. When I first started marketing, Marie Forleo, I made my money back on that program. And the first year that I started marketing her I had almost no lists. Right. But I you know, I mean, I was, you know, I reached out, I did, I did some warm outreach to some people. And you know, it, I had almost no social media following and no list at that point. And I probably quadrupled my investment in B School in that first year that I was an affiliate for her, right? So. So there’s ways that you can do this without, you know, you don’t have to be seasoned, I guess is the point here. All right. So I want to just kind of recap a little bit here. So we talked about, you know, identifying the right partners, making sure that you are really getting really, really clear on who your audience is. And who else has an audience like that. structuring a joint venture that’s action oriented, not, hey, I’ll let you know if I think of anybody, right? Those words are the kiss of death, navigating any challenges that might come up, right, by create by by proactively creating assets for them, or, you know, being really clear with your communications, leveraging LinkedIn for these joint ventures, because we know that that’s where the most powerful relationships are built in the inner on the internet and in the world, right. And, you know, do this today, do this, I think some people that you could reach out to today for a joint venture, and start putting these on your calendar, if you have not, if you took our marketing, planning, free training that we did in the fall of 2023, you will have a spot on your marketing plan for joint ventures, right? How many? How many? What’s your commitment, once a month to month, three a year, whatever it is, start filling those spots, right, start filling those spots.

Obviously, this is stuff we’re happy to help you with. In our shooting deaf community, we hold you very accountable to filling your spots on your marketing plan. Because that’s what builds your business, right. And we help you do that. We hold your hand through it every step of the way. In fact, as we move into 2024, we’re incorporating meant we’re incorporating done for you assets into our she’s linked up program, which is huge. We’re just doing it for you like we’re done. I’m done. I want to make this as easy for you as possible. So we’re doing a lot of this for you, which we’ve never ever done before. So if you want to know what that looks like, absolutely grab a spot on the calendar, Karen yankovich.com/call get you to the calendar. And you know what, if we’ve talked before, maybe it’s time to talk again, if we’ve never talked, let’s talk I am you know, I’m really clear about who I can help. And we’ve actually come up with some new ways to support people this year that might not necessarily be ready for our full choosing to accelerator program. The only way to find that out is to book that call. Alright, so even if you’re not sure if you’re ready, don’t worry about it. Let’s chat. It’s we’re looking forward to getting to know you. And getting to know a little bit about your business and helping you make the next 12 months the most profitable 12 months of your life. So you know that I’m always here to support you. My you know, we are talking about 21st century marketing here. This is not spam. This is not reaching out to a million people. This is just timeless marketing, human to human marketing. It’s the foundation of everything we do in our shoes linked up programs. My goal is for them to be more wealthy women of influence and

The world. And I am so blessed to get to hang out with so many of you in our shoes linked up accelerator programs.

I want to I want you to see what this amazing community is like as well. So if you loved this, what you heard today, if you listened before, if you love what you heard today, you know, I love to hear from you. So make sure you’re following the show on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen, I love your reviews, if you can leave a review, that would be amazing. And that gives me a sense of what kinds of topics you’re interested in, right? There’s a link in the show notes to speak pipe where you can leave an audio message. That’s another place, you can leave me some feedback on what kinds of things you’d like to see me talk about, or maybe I guess that you’d like to see me interview. And I love those messages because I get to respond to every one of them personally, we get to have it makes this podcast more of a two way conversation, right? If you again, if you love the episode, share it on social media, use the hashtag good girls get rich tag me, because I want to make sure that I see your post so that I can share your posts with my audience. So just go to Karen yankovich.com/ 268. You’ll see all the information for this episode, you’ll see the link to speak pipe.

And you’ll see you know any links we talked about here today. As I move into a new year, I am so committed to building deeper relationships with you. So that’s why I love to see your name on the calendar. That’s why I’m talking about things like joint ventures and that’s the kind of work that I want to help you with as well. So I am here with you every week. I look forward to seeing you back here next week. And let’s kick some business booty. See you then.