We all know and hopefully do our best to practice The Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It is simple even for the youngest child to understand, and when followed, creates a special kind of lubricant that allows relationships to flow easily with minimal grinding.

What happens however when in our minds this Golden Rule goes something like this: “Do unto others only if they do unto you as you would expect them to do based on all the doing you have already done for them.” <Insert crossed arms and defiant posture here.>    And before you begin thinking that this could not possibly be you, think again because this is the not so golden attitude I hear on a regular basis from disgruntled business owners who genuinely believe they have given more than they have received in their affiliate and joint venture relationships.

These business owners genuinely feel entitled to the promotional support of those they have promoted previously. Perhaps you would agree – after all, if you mailed for me, shouldn’t I mail for you?  Maybe. Maybe not.  There is more to consider and that is why I have established the 4 Golden Rules of Affiliate and Joint Venture Relationships:

Golden Rule #1: Say “yes” to mailing for a friend, colleague, or new business associate when and only when your “yes” can be unconditional. An unconditional “yes” reflects your belief that the product or service you are being asked to promote is rock solid and in alignment with the purpose and mission of your business.  You are excited to be a part of the promotion and you WANT your list to have access to it.  The only reason to say “yes” to promoting is you believe the product to be highly valuable and in service to your peeps.

Golden Rule #2: Respect the “no”. In order to receive the kind of big “YES” that will provide your campaign with the enthusiastic boost that will significantly up levels sales, you must be respectful when someone says,”no”.  No one owes you promotional support – not your good friend with the big list, not your coach, and not the business you mailed for so enthusiastically last month.  The reason for the “no” is none of your business and it likely has nothing to do with you or your product.  Accept it with an open heart knowing the “no” to be in your best interest and move on to the next potential partner.

Golden Rule #3: Know the difference between an “affiliate” relationship and a “joint venture”. Put simply, in an affiliate relationship there is no obligation for the  affiliate to do anything for the business.  If the affiliate chooses to promote and their promotion results in a sale, the business sends the affiliate a check.  Happy end of story.  Anything over and above a simple affiliate relationship, including reciprocal mailings, moves the relationship into joint venture territory (stay tuned for much more on joint ventures in future posts).   Which brings us to Golden Rule #4

Golden Rule #4: Never assume! I’m going to say that one more time: NEVER ASSUME.  It seems so simple yet over and over the conversations I hear behind the scenes where an business owner is peeved because so and so did not reciprocate could have been avoid if the parties involved had treated their business relationships as business relationships instead of star struck new lovers.  You honor your friendship and your business when you communicate appropriately to the situation and then put that communication in writing.

How does this look in action?  Consider:  if you agree to promote for a colleague (see Rule #1), and you choose to ask them to promote for you (see Rule #2 and Rule #3), and both parties say “YES!”, there must be absolute clarity on what each party will do.  Mail to their list 3 times in February for your Live Event Launch? Put it in writing.  Host a call with you to their list in December?  Put it in writing.   Put every detail including number of mailings for each party, dates and other seemingly minor details (Will you tweet for each other? How frequently?) put all these seemingly obvious, even “silly” details in writing (Rule #4), in an agreement, and have each party sign it.

If you adopt and follow these 4 Golden Rules, I can promise a significant improvement in your results both subjection (like how I feel about my relationship with Sue) and objective (how many sales Sue referred in my last launch).   It can also go a long way towards keeping your business legal fees to a bare minimum – and THAT is a good thing.

Mary Kay Morgan is founder of AffiliateWealthPartners.com the only affiliate and joint venture resource exclusively serving the needs of the conscious business community.  Sign up now for our FREE membership into our Affiliate Community and gain access to our library of affiliate tutorials and to our approved list of high integrity, proven affiliate opportunities.

Tags: affiliate marketing, best products for affiliate promotion, business agreements, business relationships, how to promote affiliate products, joint ventures

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 1:10 pm and is filed under Joint Venture Marketing Success, affiliate marketing success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.