I’m really excited to be heading into modules 3 and 4 of my Ready to JV program this coming week.

During module two we were discussing how and why your joint venture success relies on having what I call “the stinky shoe conversation”…

A bit of back story…

One of my former VIP clients is a Home Stager. Together we created a joint venture approach to her marketing where she markets solely to Realtors™. Staged homes sell faster and for more money so, it’s in a Realtor’s best interest to gift their clients with a home staging consultation.

One clear benefit of this partnership for the Realtor is the home stager gets to have all of the awkward conversations that Realtors used to dread (or avoid totally) like “I’m not sure if you realize this but your front entrance is filled with smelly shoes, you’ll need to clean that up and deodorize” or, “Is there anyone that can babysit your cat (along with it’s litter box) during open houses and home showings?” or “Do you own a rake? A quick tidy of the leaves and weeds in the yard will give the home a bit more curb appeal”.

These conversations support the Realtor/Home Seller relationship and get the Home Seller thinking about what they can do to influence a faster and more financially rewarding sale of the home.

Would you agree that these conversations – as awkward as they may be – are in the best interest of everyone involved (including a buyer’s ability to “see” the potential of the home, or to stimulate other Realtors who may have motivated buyers…)? It’s win-win-win…

So how does this relate to your joint ventures?

It is essential that you ask your JV partners to confirm two things before they accept your invitation to come out and play:

#1) that they are aligned with the mission/purpose of the project and

#2)  that their marketing calendar can support the co-promotion calendar (i.e. they wont be heading into a bottle neck).

This conversation is essential to increasing co-promotion participation AND protects the quality of your relationships. It is designed to let your partners know that you are actively seeking partners who will be 100% committed and on board and prevents any “misunderstandings” as the project unfolds if that partner realizes (after saying yes) that they just have too much on their plate.

My best advice here is that you become unattached to the outcome of your invitation. The individuals you’ve invited either WILL or WILL NOT partner with you for this project.

Now, the remainder of my advice on this comes as a bit of a rant…

Please, don’t let anyone tell you that asking your JV team to send a solo email is a no-no or bad JV etiquette. Personally I think this kind of advice is a load of you know what (and designed to avoid the stinky shoe conversation)!

If being bold and staking a claim in our marketing is important to standing out and attracting our ideal clients… why would we not be bold about attracting “ideal partners?

Say this out loud (humor me, say this out loud):

“Please will you be my client/partner (beg, beg, beg)? If you say yes, you can do whatever you want and treat me however you like. Nooooo, you don’t have to respect any boundaries. I was just saying that he he. Yes, I know this is my business and my project but really, you can do whatever you like.”

Read it or say it out loud, either way it’s pretty ridiculous don’t you think? Neither you nor the client or partner is supported by a “door-mat attitude”. Blech!

V-8 Moment: You can set your intentions to attracting high quality, motivated joint venture partners who are 100% committed to the success of the project. You do not have to settle for what you get. The moment I realized this it completely transformed the results I was getting with joint ventures.

Just as you create an ideal client profile so you attract high quality clients, you should create an ideal JV partner profile so that you attract high quality partners. Does that profile include partners who don’t participate in the co-promotion part of the project? No… I didn’t think so.

One last thing on this to really drive it home…

If I tell my partners that it’s okay NOT to send solo emails knowing it’s the method that gets the best response, and then my partners get poor results i.e. little to no commission or list growth, do you think they’re going to be happy at the end of the JV? Nope… So it is in EVERYONE’s best interest to design a co-promotion strategy that gets results. Agree?

Here’s what I know to be true… email broadcasts play a starring role in a powerful co-promotion strategy. I teach my clients to structure their co-promotion plan around an Invite, Remind, Give communication series that serves the collective audience (not salesy at all). And yes, solo emails would be a requirement of participation (see exceptions below).

On occasion you may make an exception for a partner who:

a) Negotiates with you i.e. “It doesn’t look like I can schedule things exactly as you have planned here but here’s what I can do is this…”  In some cases, their idea and offer is better than your original co-promotion strategy

b) Is a “big name” that adds credibility or wow-factor and becomes a magnet to your target audience. In this case, if they didn’t do anything to promote, it’s still beneficial to bring them into the team.

There you have it. The stinky shoe conversation designed to increase your JV success and the success that your partners experience through the JV project that you lead… a tiny nugget of wisdom from the Ready to JV program.

Do you have the stinky shoe conversation with  your partners? If not, do you see this increasing the results you experience in the future?

And I’m curious… if you participate in a lot of JV’s, do you appreciate like I do, being part of a project where the person who invited me to participate actually LEADS it and is truly invested in seeing me benefit too?

Always love to get a conversation rolling. Please take a moment to comment and share

A few weeks ago Kimberly Englot, CEO of The Center for Authentic Self Development invited me to write a chapter for her Dump The Junk and Be Happy ebook.

I said yes right away and once I discovered her motivations for doing this, I got really excited to be involved! This FREE eBook is really going to spark some breakthroughs!

Here’s the scoop…

Kimberly gathered an extraordinary team of women who live and do business according to their authentic self. Each share candidly and from the heart, our experiences with: Living authentically, the crossroads that made us finally decide enough was enough and follow our hearts, how living this way has created more opportunity, and allowed in more happiness… All from the perspective of how you can “Discover Your Authentic Life” too!

We’re sharing our own experiences, lessons learned, and mistakes made, and cross-roads we had to meet first. As well as what works best so that YOU can discover your own authentic self and live your authentic life!

This book is heart-warming, genuine and humorous too. You‘re really going to love it! And that’s not even the best part… The best part is you can get it absolutely Free! http://www.ginabellinc.com/dtj

Here’s the thing… You don’t have to stay unhappy. Life is too short NOT to be happy and feel fantastic! You can have wealth and success, AND still be a great person! This is going to help empower you to see challenges on the horizon and navigate them with ease, because you’re doing it from a success mindset, not fear!

Be sure to claim your copy of this thought-provoking ebook now.

I’ve been busy writing my forthcoming book “Equity-Rich Women Online: Learn to Leverage and Leap Your Way to Wild Success” and I’m SO excited to be able to share my business philosophies in a bigger way that I’m celebrating by sharing this excerpt:

Dress for Success – On the Inside Too!

“Dress for Success” is common advice.  And if acted on, its advice that supports creating and experiencing long term success.

Dressing for success is an approach to being in and doing business that fuels great first impressions, boosts marketing confidence and more.

But, there’s a catch that not a lot of people talk about…

The phrase has become so common that it carries along with it a preconceived definition which can ultimately take our focus away from the big picture.

Think of it this way…

It’s like a coin sitting on a table. One side is facing up, that’s how we know it’s a coin but without the backside, the part of the coin that’s not visible, the coin holds no value.

The “other side of the coin” I’m referring to is your INNER image of success.

The common knee jerk reaction is to focus on the external stuff…

Hair, clothing, eye wear, handbags, website design, business cards, brochures, and on it goes…

But the reality is that there is a synergy that exists between our inner and outer image. One without the other impacts our success experience.

Synergy = the working together of two or more people, organizations, or things, especially when the result is greater than the sum of their individual effects or capabilities. The “things” in this case are inner image and outer image.

So the external stuff IS very important but becomes diluted if our inside isn’t dressed for success too. I’m referring to our thoughts, intentions, goals, authentic definition of success and so on.

The typical entrepreneur invests major resources (time, energy, money) into the external image probably because it’s the easiest to take action on, heck some of it can even be delegated… and even better, set it and forget it.

And avoiding it isn’t the solution either because if that synergy doesn’t exist and if one image is stronger than the other there’s an imbalance that often manifests in the form of self-deception and sabotage.

You’ve either experienced it or witnessed it… the person who looks amazing on the outside, their marketing materials and website rock but they don’t seem to be experiencing much success. And it’s likely due to an imbalance because they neglected the other side of the coin.

So, here are five things you can think about and do now to make sure you have a balanced image (inside and out)…

1. Define what success means to you. Often we adopt other people’s definitions unknowingly (usually the result of comparison) so it’s really important to check in with yourself on this frequently.

2. Clearly define where you (really) want to go. What are YOUR goals? What are you striving for? Write down what you really want… both short term and long term.

3. Commit to Self-honesty. It’s astonishing how good we can be at self-deception. Pay attention to your self talk; to the excuses you make and to any discrepancies between what yous say you want and what you’re actually doing to get it.

4. Check in with your attitude and intention. Whether we are discussing life or business, coming from a “what’s in it for me” attitude is a relationship killer. Instead, think about how you can add value and increase to the lives/businesses of others. What goes around comes around.

5. Nurture positive thoughts. Similar to #4 and a message worth repeating. Most people don’t like to spend time with negative people; chronic complainers or bullies. Did you now that up to 80% of self talk is negative? Learn to recognize the truth in your self talk. The negative self talk is a natural reaction to fear – an attempt to keep you safe. Unless the fear is justified this natural tendency doesn’t serve our quest for success.

To your success (inside and out!)

~ Gina xo

I’ve been having a blast hosting the Equity-Rich Women Online Pilot Program. Just the right women have stepped up to be involved (they are saying so too!).

Our mastermind forum is buzzing with aha’s, breakthroughs and priceless feedback. If you’ve never been part of a group coaching program or mastermind before I highly recommend it.

Call #3 last week was about creative thinking versus traditional thinking and one of the participants posted an aha moment in the forum which led to further conversation around developing products and programs.

During that conversation the topic of going deep versus wide to address the core problem(s) and/or desire(s) of your ideal client came up. To me, getting this part right is what really differentiates the experts from less-than-ethical marketers. Let me explain…

Have you ever purchased an information product only to find that it was totally not worth the money because the content was “wide” not deep; barely scratching the surface with any one topic to be of value?

I’ve been there… The package arrives; you rip it open anxious to devour the information; you dig right in but each time you think the “expert” is going to dive into a topic… whoosh, they’re right back at the surface again.

If you can relate, you “get” the idea of going deep with your content (because you’ve experienced lack of depth first hand!!). It’s frustrating as a consumer (feeling ripped off like this) and for the ones out there creating content like this it’s a really fast way to get a bad reputation. Pssst… people DO talk.

A number of the pilot program participants shared similar stories of disappointment over information products they had purchased in the past. And one of the gals summed it up perfectly by saying “fluff is for pillows”. Oh I couldn’t agree more!

Unfortunately this has happened to me a few times. I paid a LOT of money not once but twice to end up with products that had no real depth at all (and both were from women that most would consider “celebrity gurus”. And yes, I was shocked.)

It’s kinda frustrating that effective marketing can lead to the sales of crappy products… well at least until the reputation catches up with the creators that is. And for the record, I do not advocate the creation or sale of crappy – fluffy – products ever!! Just because you “CAN” doesn’t mean you should.

Action Advice: The moral of this story is that THIS is exactly why gaining clarity around who your ideal client really is becomes so darned important. And I find that most entrepreneurs don’t spend nearly enough time on this. By gaining insight into what their core problem(s) really are (i.e. their 911 scenario) you can then go deep to solve them… one problem at a time.

Pull out your calendar right now and set a date with yourself to address (or re-address) further clarity around who your ideal client really is and what their most burning problems and desires really are. KNOWING your ideal client intimately well is the key to long term success.

And remember… Say no to fluff!

Q. What do you think about the idea of going deep with your content to address one problem or desire at a time for your clients/customers?

Q. Do you have a fluffy product or program experience? If so, share it below (just the story/experience though i.e. don’t divulge WHO created the product you were disappointed with okay).

Share your comments below. (Comment section not showing for you? Click here.)

Woohoo! We had SO much fun on The WOW of Happiness Tele-class tonight!

We shared (more than) 10 Surprisingly Simple Ways to Boost Your Happiness So You Can Experience More Fun and Fulfillment in Every Facet of Your Life!

At one point during the call I was inspired by one of my favourite features of Success Magazine. In each issue they share simple things you could do in a minute or less to improve your life.

In a minute you could…

So, I gave it a happiness twist and the challenge was for listeners to think of 10 ways they could boost their happiness in less than 60 seconds.

Kim and I rose to the challenge and immediately began to share ideas like:

• Catch a snowflake or raindrop on your tongue
• Hug someone
• Snuggle a pet
• Watch a funny video
• Read an inspirational quote
• Call a friend or loved one
• Put on your favorite perfume
• blow bubbles
  

And so on… (you can read Kim’s post about it too!)

>> If you are reading this and didn’t sign up, but want access to the recording, you have until Wednesday night (March 24) to listen. You can grab the info by going to http://snipurl.com/wow22 <<

The big lesson of the night (I think) was that happiness is more about the little things. It doesn’t take massive effort to increase your happiness, just a renewed awareness of the happy moments we encounter every single day.

I’d love if you commented on what makes YOU happy.

What are the happiness boosters you can think of that can be done in a minute or less? Please, share them below… (Or, if you feel compelled to write a blog post too – please link to us and/or post where we can read yours below)

Here’s some really exciting news…

I’ve teamed up with Kimberly Englot, Founder of the Center for Authentic Self Development for a one-time-only FREE Teleseminar…

The Happiness & Harmony Makeover
How to release inner baggage so you can be more free, happy and relaxed than you have in years!

We are SO excited to invite you to this free tele-class on MARCH 3, 2010 at 7 pm CST (8pm EST / 6 pm MST / 5 pm PST. Check http://time.gov for other time zones)

Ladies, are you:

• Feeling stressed, tired and overwhelmed?
• Worn-out trying to live up to other people’s expectations?
• Desperate to rediscover the real you, but unsure how?
• Unhappy with some of the relationships in your life?
• Drowning in clutter, disorganization and a growing to-do list?
• Afraid of what others might think if you make a change?
• Terrified that when you start to make changes people will judge you, make snide comments, or avoid you all together?
• Constantly comparing yourself to others, feeling inferior or than you have so far to go to catch up or keep up?
• Longing for “me time” but between the kids, your husband, community expectations and your work you don’t seem to find the time?

If you have answered YES to any of these points and you don’t want to feel this way one second longer – BE ON THIS CALL. http://snipurl.com/2010hh

Here’s a sneak peek at what we’ll be sharing with you on this call:

• Six primary LIFE TOXINS that you MUST IDENTIFY if you want to experience Happiness & Harmony in your life INCLUDING barriers such as: Toxic Relationships; Automatic Negative Thinking Scripts; Underlying commitments; Resistance; Guilt, Worry, & Resentment; When trying is bad and working on yourself doesn’t work; Money Clutter; Comparison traps; Tolerating Good Enough; and more!

This is a content-rich 90 minute teleseminar where you will learn actual techniques to help you identify the toxins at work in YOUR life and how to “cleanse” them and make room for the growth, happiness and harmony you deserve.

Join us for the LIVE call for a special bonus gift too!

So, register now at Kim’s site http://snipurl.com/2010hh and mark your calendar for March 3, 7 pm CST (for about 90 minutes) and get ready to being your own Happiness & Harmony Makeover!

In Love & Light,

Gina & Kim

Call #2 in this 5-part series is ready! It’s filled with content that you can leverage immediately! Here are some of the hightlights…

1. Don’t just do it… REALLY do it.

2. Do you over think your marketing? Use a K.I.S.S. method to Keep it Strategically Simple

3. Develop an Equity-Rich Marketing System

a. Active strategies

b. Passive strategies

c. Relationship (Keep in Touch) Strategies

4. Place your marketing under a microscope and begin to develop your equity-rich system… active, passive and relationships strategies.

5. Apply leverage where possible to create catalysts and accelerate your success.

6. There are six seats left in the Equity-Rich Women Online Platinum Tier… Platinum style program with unPlatinum pricing. Essentials “virtual” program starts at $187/month (and ALL tiers include one-to-one coaching). All the specifics of what the programs involve are on the application here: http://snipurl.com/erw-2010

Call #1 Replay: http://www.AttendThisEvent.com/?eventid=10780464

Call #2 Replay: http://www.AttendThisEvent.com/?eventid=10948674

Remember to share what you enjoyed most and any a’has you experience on the blog below

~ Gina xo

One of the benefits to being a Mom is exposure to animated films. Two of my absolute faves are Finding Nemo and The Bee Movie.

The Bee Movie stands out for me because of the lessons within… and here’s a line that leaped out for me:

“According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway. Because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible.” ~ From “The Bee Movie” by Dreamworks Animation

I love this quote so much because it challenges the impossible. And the movie itself reminds us that it’s okay to be different, it’s okay to be authentic and it’s okay to follow our dreams (rather than doing what others expect of us).

The movie follows one particular worker bee, Barry B. Benson who’s career path in the hive is … MAKING THE HONEY. Every bee is assigned to as specific area with the overall goal of… MAKING THE HONEY. They don’t get a choice. (Oh the horror!)

But Barry is disillusioned by this career path and declares that he’s “leaving the hive”. (High five Barry!)

Okay seriously, Barry’s desire to “leave” reminds me of that knowing I had that there was so much more for me than just being an employee. And the reaction of Barry’s family and community to the idea that he would “leave” reminds me of that deer in the headlights stare that I used to get (still do) in reaction to the fact that I’m an entrepreneur. Too funny! (Watch the video – you’ll see what I mean.)

Thankfully there is something we can do about this outside influence which is to avoid time spent with Negative Neds and Nellies who seem to be on a mission to burst your bubble. And then begin to surround yourself with other entrepreneurs… people who understand.

Whether you create an informal mastermind on your own, join an association or get super serious and step into a high level coaching and mastermind program this environment supports the very fact that YOU have the courage to reach for your dreams.

You left the hive baby! Woohoo!

~ Gina xo

Now, run don’t walk to your nearest video store. I promise The Bee Movie is worth watching! Barry’s voice is none other than Jerry Seinfeld which totally adds the the experience.

Entertaining the idea of a mastermind this year? Check out my FREE five-part Equity-Rich Women Online tele-series, I’ve got great content lined up and you’ll discover some very cool options for success-driven women in business online who are serious about taking big leaps in their business this year.