Published by admin on 01 Nov 2009 at 06:33 pm
Home Based Internet Marketing Businesses - Joint Venture Partnership Agreements
I have been asked about my opinion on partnerships…joint ventures, integration marketing…and other arrangements where you are working with another business…do you go through a lengthy contract or is that not necessary? The first thing I am going to tell you is I’m not an attorney!
So I can give you opinions…but you are going to have to really listen to your gut and then decide what works best for you. Any business owner…including people with home based internet marketing businesses…needs to think about this question if they ever want to do a deal with anyone else…either short-term or long-term…and come to their own conclusion about what is best for them and their specific situation.
So the next thing I am going to tell you, is I’m not going to give you advice on whether or not you should, or should not, have contracts written up when you do business deals. I will however give you some thoughts on the subject…and it probably isn’t going to be what a lawyer would advise you! So just take my thoughts for what they are…just thoughts, not recommendations, okay?
If you want to know specifics about law, or you want some legal forms or advice, then your first step should be to look online. There are various sources on the internet for legal forms and legal advice. You can Google “Internet Marketing Law” and other similar phrases and find several sources…a couple places that I know about are Nolo.com, which has a lot of law books and legal forms, and Bob Silber who is an attorney who does a lot of work with internet marketers. There are others, so you can just look around. Just when you are looking, be sure you are working with somebody who is an expert in ecommerce or internet marketing law.
Most of the marketers I know, when it comes to making a short-term business deal, like a promotion of some kind, they just work out the details through email and a virtual handshake kind of deal. Writing up contracts can really slow down the process and it can add some paranoia to the process.
My goal is to be clear about what I want and be really, really clear about what the expectations are and what they compensation will be for the results. You know, who is going to do what and how much money will they get for it…you do X and get x%…and if you both agree to it, then I think you’re pretty much cool.
Again, I’m not a lawyer, but my general philosophy is you don’t want to get involved in big legal battles…you just want to be really honest and up-front about what you are doing and really, really clear about who will be doing what. And if the other guy doesn’t do what he says he would do, you just don’t work with him or her in the future.
For home based internet marketing businesses there sure may be times you want to consult an attorney…but in my experience most of the simple joint venture partnership arrangements are done more on the old-fashioned handshake…even though it might be actually through an email. Be clear on your arrangements, be sure both parties agree and then go out and do it…and always listen to your gut. If your gut is telling you that you need to have a big contract to protect yourself, maybe you do…or maybe that isn’t the right deal for you!
