The Who, What, When, Where, Why and How of Joint Ventures

Copyright (c) 2008 Christian Fea



What is a Joint Venture?



When two entities enter into an equal partnership, this is a joint venture. The essential defining factors of this union are equal risk and equal reward. That means that each party will divide the costs evenly, and will also share the profits. The parties may enter into a legally binding agreement that covers the responsibilities and expectations of each. Later, we will discuss the different forms a joint venture can take. First, we will get a more complete understanding of a joint venture.



When is the right time to partner?



You will have to take a good honest look at your company. Consider the timeline of your success. Where did you begin? Where are you now? Where do you see your company in 5 years? In 10? After grasping that perspective, explore the key components needed to get you to your short term goals, and then your long term goals. Finally, if what is needed could be supported by partnering with a company who does or has what you need, then now may be the time to form a joint venture.



Why a Joint Venture?



Entering into a joint venture has some known benefits. The first and maybe most appealing of them is the concept of spreading the liabilities between the two parties. Most parties are willing to put in their share of equity, feeling assured that the other party is equally invested. As the saying goes, people follow their money. Because of this, entering into a joint venture is a more secure form of partnership, as both have shared the risk. Both parties' reputations and profitability depend upon their doing their part to succeed.



Where do I find the right company to align with?



You'll have to ask yourself what parts of the country or internet you'd like to reach. Or if part of your company's vision is to become international, then a joint venture may be required. Many US companies must form a joint venture with an international one in order to do business in that country. The US company must partner with the foreign one in order to be legal.



Who should I JV with?



At times, choosing the right entity to join with can seem overwhelming. After all, you have a company to run. If you have your own research and development team, they can help find the company whose partnership will help your company develop into its next level of success. However, consider that there are joint ventures brokers who can do this job for you. After collecting information of your company's vision, they can help you find the best match for you particular goals.



How do I form a Joint Venture?



A joint venture will most commonly take the form of a corporation, a limited liability company, or a limited liability partnership. Many things should be considered when choosing which is right for you. Each of these have different tax implications, and it is recommended to consult a tax professional is deciphering the best fit for both parties.

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Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A strategic Collaboration Marketing consulting firm. He empowers business owners to discover and implement Integration, Alliance, and Joint Ventures marketing tactics to solve specific business challenges. He demonstrates how to create your own Collaboration Marketing Strategy to increase your sales, conversation rates, and repeat business.

Contact: christian@christianfea.com

http://www.christianfea.com

Help Your Employees Build Their "Confidence Muscles"

Copyright (c) 2008 Pat Brill



Have you found when managing your employees that they bring different levels of self-confidence to their work? We know that the more confidence an individual possesses the more efficient and productive they can be in meeting their goals. If you view your role in managing employees as a mutual working relationship, then you would want to be part of nourishing their confidence.



I would suggest the following important points to use as a guide in providing support and guidance in increasing your employees "confidence muscles."



-Listen for your employee's current level of confidence as it may change given the specific project they are working on. Each person brings their personal beliefs about their capabilities to the job. As you monitor their level of performance, you can observe how they handle different situations. In managing employees, you have so many opportunities to be part of their success.



-Accentuate the Positive - If there is one booster that increases an employee's confidence it's focusing on their knowledge, skills or past contributions. Managing employees by their strengths build their confidence and in turn, adds more to the overall success of the department. Encourage your employees to acknowledge their contributions to the team. Try to use the 80-20 rule...spend 80% of your time with an employee addressing their strengths and 20% helping them handle any issues that are hampering their performance. Why...because you receive the most value from their strengths.



-Set clear direction and expectations around performance so your team members know what is expected. The clearer they are about what they need to do, the more confident they will be in implementing their work.



-Train - give employees the chance to succeed by providing training. Even if you hire talent with experience, they still need to learn.



-Plan - help your employees create and stay focused on their goals. Their planning skills should cover yearly, quarterly, monthly and daily. Each day they need to stay focus on what is important and not get swayed by interruptions and reactivity.



-Proactive - encourage your team members to be active in increasing their level of confidence. Some ways are to take on new projects, reading business or industry information, and CDs or lectures on self-confidence.



-Recognition - take the time to recognize an employee who has done excellent work. This spot acknowledgement adds to the employee's confidence and they will continue to perform. Don't assume they know that their work was great...tell them.



-Encourage your employees to take risks...either by making suggestions or trying something different.



-Follow up on a regular basis with your employees. It would be great if you could meet monthly, but at least on a quarterly basis.



==>Final Thought



Start the whole process over by listening. Your ability to listen will boost your own level of confidence as well as the confidence of your employees.

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Pat Brill is the author of the blog "Managing Employees" http://www.ManagingEmployees.net . You can reach her at pat@TheInfoCrowd.com.

Plan Workplace Changes

Copyright 2008 Pat Brill



Whether it's a companywide or department change, you still have to motivate your team to understand, participate and accept the required changes. In order to motivate your staff, you need to plan...plan...plan. What do you need to plan?



-Understand what needs to change. Describe in detail the issues and include your key staff as part of the process. It may be helpful to use a mind-mapping tool that can help you break out all the potential issues. Check out www.mindjet.com for a simple solution to mapping out a problem or a solution.



-What are the objectives of the change? Need to be specific here...create a list of outcomes or values you want to implement during the change. Whether you are changing a brand image or introducing a new product, you need to create a vision. Even if the change is small, include the objectives. This is what drives the change.



-Plot out the risks of not changing as well as changing. Risks are always part of business and to implement change the risks of not changing must be greater than changing.



-Design potential solutions that will correct the problem. It's important that the solution match the culture of the department or company. If it doesn't then you will have a two-tier change, which could potentially create more resistance to the change.



-Don't move forward until you fully understand what the change entails. The more steps in the new process or the greater the number of people involved in the change, the more complex the change will be. Use the mind-mapping tool to flush out all the different parts of the change.



-Include the individuals who will be impacted by the change. Allow them to be part of the process...either in uncovering all the different components of the problem or as part of the solution. It really depends on the people involved. If you have professionals on your staff, they may have strong analytical abilities and could add a lot to the planning process.



Note: Keep in mind that most employees will react...no matter what their position is within the organization. Sometimes managers fault by thinking that professionals are more mature in their reactions. They can be, but I've also seen individuals who were in management or professional roles react negatively to change. This happens when the employee feels they or their position is in jeopardy. So...don't make assumptions about people...instead do your research about your staff and create a plan that includes a whole range of potential reactions.



-Stress the benefits - include in your planning all the benefits the change will provide to the people and to the organization (department).



-Plan for training...as with any change, you do have to train individuals how to perform the new process. The more complex the change, the more extensive the training needs to be. Training is continuous until the change is fully implemented. As part of your planning, include different ways to present the information. Since employees absorb information in different ways...include in your training program reading materials, visual aids and interactive exercises to offer the information in different ways. If you have trainers on your staff, they can be instrumental in building the training plan. Otherwise, you can get outside support for this part of your planning.



-Your communication plan....this has to be a robust project plan. If you think that you have created enough communication message and different mediums of distribution...stop and add some more. Communication is critical to the success of any change.



The above points are provided to start you thinking. If your change is small, then this information is enough to guide you. If the change is big, you will need a professional to drive the project. Keep in mind that change occurs at the employee level, so consider not only the business objectives but also how to include your employees in your planning.

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Pat Brill is the author of the blog "Managing Employees" http://www.ManagingEmployees.net , "The Secrets of a Successful Time Manager" http://www.SuccessfulTimeManager.com and "Manager's Guide to Performance Improvement." http://www.GuideToPerformance.com . You can reach Pat at pat@TheInfoCrowd.com

The Milkshake Moment

by Steven S. Little

The story I’m about to tell you is true.

A few years ago I traveled to Baltimore, Maryland, for a speaking engagement. Anyone who travels for business knows that it is hardly glamorous. After 9/11, however, it became even more frustrating, and it keeps getting worse. I don’t think I’d be overstating it to say that business travel today is horrific: irretrievably lost luggage, annoying security searches, perpetually oversold flights, infuriating rental car policies, frazzled counter staff . . . I think you get the picture.

Despite all the traumas of travel, I decided a few years ago to always keep a smile on my face. The way I look at it: if the business travel industry gets the best of me, they win and I lose. I just can’t allow that to happen.

I keep a smile on my face by keeping my eye on a prize. My prize at the end of every business travel day is a vanilla milkshake . . . a thick, gooey, luscious, indulgent vanilla milkshake. I’m talking a hand-dipped, old-fashioned, malt-shoppy kind of milkshake. I don’t just like ’em; I love ’em. Both my career and my mental well-being literally depend on them. The image of that milkshake is the proverbial dangling carrot that gets me through even the worst travel day.

It had been a particularly difficult day of planes, trains, and automobiles. I was to arrive at the Baltimore/Washington International (BWI) Airport at 7:00 P.M . for dinner with my clients at 8:00 P.M . Unfortunately, I arrived at midnight. In other words, there was nothing out of the ordinary so far.

I grabbed my bags and stood in a long taxicab line to take the 20-minute ride to Baltimore’s beautiful Inner Harbor. I was cold, wet, tired, and hungry, but smiling, because I was going to get that vanilla milkshake.

When I finally got to my room an hour later the first thing I did was call room service where I was greeted by Stuart.

"Good evening, Mr. Little, this is Stuart in room service. How may I help you?" Stuart’s voice brimmed with enthusiasm.

“Stuart, I’d like a vanilla milkshake, please,” I said. A seemingly simple request, right? Well, not quite.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Little, but we don’t have milkshakes,” Stuart replied regretfully.

I was crushed. Quickly I regrouped.

“All right, Stuart, let me ask you this: Do you have any vanilla ice cream?”

“Yes, of course!” he responded with renewed enthusiasm.

“Okay, Stuart, I’d like a full bowl of vanilla ice cream.”

“Yes sir, right away, sir! Is there anything else I can do to serve you?” Stuart asked.

“Yeah . . . do you have any milk?”

“Yes, we have milk!” he replied confidently.

“All right, Stuart, here’s what I would like you to do. Please send up a tray with a full bowl of vanilla ice cream, half a glass of milk, and a long spoon. Could you do that for me, please?”

“Certainly, right away, sir,” Stuart responded triumphantly.

I hung up the phone and a few minutes later there was a knock. Sure enough, at my door there was a tray with a full bowl of vanilla ice cream, half a glass of milk, and a long spoon—everything needed to make a vanilla milkshake. But of course they didn’t have vanilla milkshakes.

Now let me ask you an important question. Is Stuart stupid? Or is the system stupid?

Stuart’s behavior is not unique. Like the vast majority of employees everywhere, Stuart wanted to do a good job. To this day, he probably still thinks he did.

Out of the 100 or so hotel rooms I stay in every year, I run this experiment approximately half the time. It’s not every night, as some hotels don’t offer room service, while others specifically offer milkshakes. I conduct this experiment only when a milkshake is not on the room service menu. More often than not, they do have all the ingredients to make me happy. Yet I usually end up with the same full bowl of ice cream, half a glass of milk, and a long spoon (some assembly required).

Why does this keep happening? Why can’t individuals like Stuart deliver what I asked for? I’ve had plenty of time to ponder that question now that I’ve received over 200 do-it-yourself vanilla milkshakes from America’s leading business hotels. Let’s take a look at some of the underlying causes that lead to these systemic breakdowns.

Stuart is standing at a point-of-sale screen popping in orders with his company-issued plastic access key. If his screen doesn’t say “milkshake,” then a milkshake simply does not exist. The supposedly foolproof system is designed to ensure that Stuart can’t make the organization appear foolish. Yet even a casual observer can see that the system has pushed the organization well beyond foolish. It is now sitting squarely in the land of lost opportunity. How’s that for irony?

Think about this. I represent the mother lode for the business travel industry. I stay in over 100 hotel rooms a year and I’m not exactly price sensitive. Stuart could have charged me $25 for that milkshake and I would have been happy to pay it.

I actually feel sorry for the major business hotel chains. In an effort to standardize their systems, they’ve taken individual judgment out of the equation. They spend billions of dollars in marketing to get people like me through their doors and billions more in staff training to make my brand of traveler happy. Yet they continually blow it, due in some part to a stupid point-of-sale system. But that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. It goes much deeper than that.

Despite my feelings to the contrary that fateful night, Stuart’s inability to deliver a Milkshake Moment is not the end of the world. It is, however, symptomatic of a much broader organizational malaise.

This story is not just another example of bad customer service. It’s much more than that. This is a larger tale of lost opportunity. Invariably, the root cause can be traced back to factors that are much more fundamental. Peel back the bureaucratic layers of any organization and you will find a broad range of self-imposed limitations, from antiquated hiring practices to poor workspace design to short-term financial myopia.

Consider your organization. When are you saying no when it would be much better and just as easy to say yes? Are you really putting people in the best position to grow? Do your current policies, procedures, and systems enable you to truly deliver?

So what is a Milkshake Moment? It’s certainly not a full bowl of ice cream, half a glass of milk, and a long spoon. Instead, a Milkshake Moment is a brave individual action, be it big or small, that furthers the cause of growth in an organization. Milkshake Moments materialize when individuals understand the organization’s true purpose, honestly believe it is their job to fulfill it, and are given the tools and the freedom to make it happen. When a would-be growth leader managing deep within the bowels of a stagnating organization has the guts to stand up and say, “This idea is contrary to everything we say we believe,” that’s a Milkshake Moment. When a thinking person is given the freedom to seize an opportunity afforded by change, that’s a Milkshake Moment. When a small business owner consciously puts purpose before profit, that’s a Milkshake Moment. When the executive director of a nonprofit foundation challenges the status quo views of her tenured board members, that’s a Milkshake Moment.

Members of twenty-first-century organizations need to realize they are allowed to do the right thing—to serve the interests of others in order to grow the organization—instead of following arcane, arbitrary rules, processes, and procedures that actually hinder growth. Only when we remove our own self - imposed barriers can we seize new opportunities in structured settings. A Milkshake Moment can only be realized when growth leaders clearly communicate an organization’s true purpose and grant individuals permission to do whatever can be done ethically to achieve it.

But it takes guts to do this. Growth requires persevering, creative, even courageous individuals who aren’t afraid to mix it up. Are you ready?

Copyright © 2008 Steven S. Little

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Author
Steven S. Little is a much sought-after expert on the subject of growth and the future of opportunity. A former President of three fast-growth companies, he now advises thousands of leaders of growing organizations and communities each year. To learn more about Steven, his new book The Milkshake Moment, and growth, please visit his Web site at www.stevenslittle.com.