New look lastminute.com.au

Lastminute.com.au (Australian JV operation) have re-launched the site. I like the look - keeps the young, activity focused feel while at the same time (finally) devoting more crucial site real estate to travel rather than biscuit boxes, magazine subscriptions and other "lifestyle" (read low margin) products. Congrats to Adam and team.

5 Steps To Successful Joint Ventures for Your Home-Based Business

I'm sure that as a savvy Internet Marketer, you have heard how joint ventures can greatly increae traffic and sales for your home-based business. Many times, these ventures can be done for free or for little cost; it depends on how you set them up with your potential partner.

Here are some tips you can use to set them up right.

5 Steps To Successful Joint Ventures

by: Raam Anand

Most Internet Marketing related ezines have carried at least one article on Joint Ventures; probably many.

JV's are THE MOST preferred and fastest way to increase sales and cash flows.

It's no longer a secret!

Everyone knows a good JV is the master key to online success.

But... why many people are failing to use this master key? Why so many website owners are not able to make use of this powerful strategy?

Here are some reasons:-

1) Other marketers are NOT WAITING for your JV offer. Before sending your JV offer, make sure to address the question "What's in it for the JV Partner?". Unless you give a compelling reason, most partners are not looking forward to your offer. No, it won't work that way...like, you offer one of your products for free and your partner will gladly endorse it to her list. No, it won't.

It takes time to craft an irresistible offer. The offer should be beneficial to your potential partner and her customers/subscribers.

Take it from me... I told you it takes time... but it's definitely possible.

2) Many JV offers are passed onto the "recycle bin" with even being read (I told you... they are NOT waiting)

Some leading marketers get about 200 JV proposals every week! May be more. Most of these JV offers doesn't catch the attention of the busy marketer.

Some are lost due to SPAM email filters.

Solution?

Follow-up is the key. If you consistently follow-up, your chances of getting the attention of your potential JV partner is very high. Usually a second email will get the response.

A mixed-mode follow-up is sure to get higher success rates. An initial email followed by another email reminder and a phone call should normally get you going.

3) Another strong de-motivating factor is NOT sending personalized JV offers. If your proposal does not "speak" directly to your partner, it's chances of succeeding are very thin.

That's why I told you earlier, it takes time to create your JV proposal. You need to visit your partner's website, subscribe to their newsletter, study their online content and read their publications and articles before you attempt to draft your proposal.

Your JV proposal should address your potential partner directly, using their name. Mentioning a few things about their website, products, ezines or articles in your offer will surely catch their attention.

4) JV partners are not your affiliates. Differentiate your resellers with your strategic JV partner. To drastically raise the success rate of your proposal, offer a higher commission than your affiliates.

For example, if you are offering a 50% commission for your affiliates, your JV partner should be offered 60% or more.

5) Targeting a large corporation for your JV is a surefire way to failure. First, try and do several JV's with businesses similar or smaller than your own and build a track record. Then you can approach bigger businesses with a record of your successes.

Large businesses have large problems everyday to tackle. They have struggled hard to build their enterprise. They have their own range of products to sell and keep their customers happy.

However, if you have a compelling story to tell, along with factual proof of your claims, it will definitely bring you windfall profits.

I'm not discouraging you to keep away from these giants. I'm just telling you the right way to approach.

You see friend, I've revealed to you some key tips on Joint Ventures. Now, it's up to you. Follow these rules and create a compelling offer and I'm sure you will succeed in making highly profitable Joint Ventures.

About The Author Copyright (C) 2004 Raam Anand With Raam's Joint Venture Manager, you could make 10.. 20.. even 30-times more money! Click to learn more about JV Manager: http://www.infoYOGIS.com/track.cgi?1

Online Travel, Travel 2.0 and More - when it there too much choice for consumers?

I had a very interesting conversation a week or so ago with the CEO of 2.0 start up Travelgator - Chris DeBrusk. Travelgator is a two year old company, their site came out of beta in August 2006 with their major release hitting the cyberways early last month (Feb).

Like a lot of the new travel services companies Travelgator are looking to build a community around travel – around helping people find out what they want to do next in travel and help them draw on the experiences of other to decide. More on the company and how they are trying to differentiate themselves from the pack in a latter post - first, the prospect of speaking to Travelgator turned me to thinking about the market history that has led to this new wave of travel companies and what inherent needs they have for success.

In thinking through this I thought back on the phases of online travel - I decided there have been three broad overlapping phases.

Phase 1 (1995-2003) – I know where I want to go, find me the cheapest price.

Expedia, Travelocity and (the subsequently acquired) Preview started the market by turning the green screen around and giving early Internet uses access to travel agent booking processes. This made visible the dark art of booking travel. The low cost carriers followed quickly as did start ups on other locations such as Lastminute in the UK and (with much less success at the time) Travel.com.au in Australia;

Phase (2000-2006) – I want to find a deal on where to stay, can you help me with rates, availability and advice.

Expedia buys Travelscape (and eventually HRN) and the merchant model goes mainstream (by the way good Expedia history here). Soon everyone is contracting directly with hotels, a pace that accelerates as the hotel industry tries to recover from the horrors of 9/11, SARS and more. TripAdvisor (soon to also be part of Expedia) adds the next piece to the puzzle with the power of group based recommendation.

Phase 3 (2005 – now) – what do I do next, where should I go next.

A global audience that has travelled, enjoyed booming economies and is comfortable sharing everything and anything with a keyboard and mouse, has bought the wisdom of crowds mantra and wants to know what the world knows. Out of this comes social networking in TripAdvisor, investments in WAYN and start-ups like Travelgator.

I remember meeting in 1999 the founder and members of a company called TravelDonkey. Now little more than a traffic page – at the time the business model was to capture the experiences of travellers from the entire world and share them. People would be able to write in with their trip notes in real time. Search and matching algorithms would match like minded travellers and enable them to interact and build community. The CEO of the time (Sally Meecham – side note I had forgotten Sally’s last name but Googled “Sally Travel Donkey” and naturally found it) shopped this story throughout Europe – door-to-door and conference-by-conference. No-one bought it but looking back it was simply out of phase.

The big question for Phase 3 (and something I will discuss in the context of Travelgator in a later post) is - when does the provision of options, choice and possibilities confuse customers. In Phase 1 and 2 I sat through usability labs and customer surveys that showed that the more choice you gave a customer through buttons, links, options etc, the less they did. There are famous surveys in old school retail proving that a point is reached when you give a customer so much choice that they choose nothing. Each of the phase 3 business models therefore have an near impossible challenge – how do you provide choice, how do you meet the need from the consumer to find out “what to do next” without either providing too much choice or (to go to the other extreme) targeting in on a niche that is so small or focused that there is no money in it. Don’t know the answer but am looking forward to thinking on it more, watching others and finding out. What do you think?

Will target this thinking in tighter with comments on Travelgator soon.

The T-List - Travel & Tourism Blogs

Mathieu of the Radar blog has started an interesting idea to have travel and tourism bloggers generate a bit of buzz for each other through creating a T-List - a list of the favourite blogs of travel bloggers. A list that builds on the lists of others.

Here is current list (drawn from additions by Travolution) with my contribution:

Hotel Blogs
Radar
Social Media on the Fly
Les Explorers
Chrispitality Media Blog
A Luxury Travel Blog
Travel Rants
Travel Weekly Blog
BootBlog (Bootsnall)
Erin Julian
My Travel Backpack
Happy Hotelier
The Travel PR Blog
Travolution
Online Travel Review
MegustaleTurismo.es (Spanish)
InFlightHQ
HotelMarketing.com

If you are a blogger and would like add to the list then

• Write a post.
• Copy/paste the link list from the post you’ve discovered the T-List into it.
• Make sure the links are active and correct.

If your blog is on the list, remove it. This is not a self-promotion post. As Tim Fehlman (Z-List) said: “Don’t worry, because if your name is on mine, it’s on others and will spread.”

• Add your favorite tourism and travel blogs on it
• Add the url of the blog where you’ve discovered the T-List as well.
• Publish the post.
• People will notice the T-List and continue it.

Tithing or God's Grace. Which Prospers You?

A lot of preachers are dogmatic about biblical tithing but most of what is being taught in Christian churches across North America about a believer's prosperity is just flat out erroneous. This is a huge topic so I am going to address one false doctrine to the next and make this a series. The words of the prophets are subject to the prophets so I invite you to scrutinize what I say with the word and God's holy spirit in you.

The church keeps wanting to find little formulas for prosperity when God is looking for relationship with us. If I told you there is no curse on you if you don't tithe and no automatic vending machine blessing if you do you'd probably say that flies in the face of everything I have been hearing. The truth of the matter is there is a ton of false doctrine floating around out there. It is time for the church to grow up and stop feeding on baby food. The problem is we seem to want to lift bible verses out of their setting. When we do we can make scripture say anything. "Judas hung himself" and "go and do likewise" are 2 verses in the bible. You get my drift.

So there you are in church and it comes around to offering time. Johnny from bible school has been asked to take up the offering. Up he bounds to the podium like a gazelle, opens his bible to Luke 6:38 and blurts out " Give and it shall be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." The worship team bursts into song as Johnny smiles proudly having finally enlightened us all.

There is only one problem. Luke 6:38 has NOTHING TO DO WITH A CHURCH OFFERING. It never has and it never will. Just try to find anything about an offering in the preceding verses. What it is talking about is loving your enemies and forgiveness and the beatitudes which start over in verse 20 and end at verse 50. It is talking about how to treat the guy who hates you and is trying to take your stuff. As a child of God who understands his or her position in Christ and that he has given us everything we need to be Godly we are to give to this person what he is demanding of us. Why? Because we care about his eternal destination more than our stuff. If we do this then God will give back to us what went to this guy pressed down, shaken together and running over. It is not referring to the money you plunk in the bucket on Sunday. If you think you can continue hating your neighbor, treating your spouse poorly, ignoring Jesus daily and whatever other secret sin you may be involved in and somehow God is obligated you'd be mistaken. God does not bless us according to our puny little tithes he blesses us according to the cross. Make 2 Corinthians 8:9 your new foundational scripture. We can add nothing to the finished work of Calvary.

In the old testament you were under the law. There was no salvation in the law and God basically said you do this and I'll do this. There were curses and blessings in Deuteronomy according to what Israel did. Today we are "Born Again" and we have the holy spirit within us. We have the covering of the blood and God sees us just as he sees Jesus. That's why paul said in Galatians 3:25 "now that faith has come we are no longer under the supervision of the law". Earlier in the same book he says Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. Right and wrong is written on our hearts. Now we are sons of God not just servants like the old testament saints were. God treats his Sons a whole lot different than his servants. We are joint heirs with Jesus. Salvation, healing, relationship with God, and prosperity on every level has been restored to us this side of the cross.

Yet preachers are still trying to marry old testament law with new testament Grace and invent formulas. Everything from the plastic wallet that supposedly never goes empty to holy water from the Jordan to silly little pieces of cloth they prayed over. It is all so ridiculous and they will say and do anything to get your money.

As I said earlier I am going to do this one false doctrine at a time so that is enough for now. Stay tuned for part 2 and next time anybody uses Luke 6:38 at offering time you can now walk up to podium and shout "THAT'S NOT TALKING ABOUT A CHURCH OFFERING" and then open your bible and properly WHACK him across the ear!