A JV is the entity created when two businesses, individuals, companies or other legal entities enter into an agreement. The joint venture benefits both parties by combining skills, customer bases, capital or other products or services.

The concept behind a joint venture is obvious if you have a product to sell. You would simply want to find a partner who could help you increase sales. Maybe you would look for someone with an established set of regular customers who could sell to them for a portion of the profit. You might also find someone who sells a product that offsets your own to sell together in a package. In this scenario, it's clear that both sides benefit from the partnership.

But what if you don't have a product to sell? That might make it a little tougher to see how a JV could benefit you -- or how joining with you could benefit a potential partner. If you aren't selling a product, you're probably selling a service or skill. If this is true, you are called a "dealmaker."

The first step is to find a company with a product that suits your skill set. For example, if you're great at marketing and you know how to make money online, look for a company that needs help in those areas. Comb the Internet for excellent products with weak advertising. Look over all available aspects of their business, such as their website, order forms and other sales materials. Think of ways you can improve them.

Once you've figured out what you can offer, determine what you want in return. Use this information to develop a good proposal to present to the company. If they accept your joint venture proposal, be sure to take all the important steps in creating the JV, like writing a business plan, joint venture agreement and exit strategy.

Still another way you can use joint ventures when you don't sell products is by using them to actually obtain products. Traditional methods of obtaining products can be very costly. However, when you use JVs, you can get products for free.

Joint venture marketing, or JVM, is a new trend that has become popular with the growth of the Internet. JVM partners obtain free e-products, like e-books and e-zines, that they then sell on their websites.

Many e-products are available for free online. Many of them are Private Label Rights or Master Resell Rights products, and that means that they are ready for distribution when you download them. They come fully loaded with graphics and packaging -- all you do is add your contact information so people know where they got it. Then you can add them to your site and offer them for sale.

You benefit because you receive products to offer on your website, and the provider of those E-products gets some free advertising, since their ads are often included in the products. They may also receive a portion of your profits for marketing the products.

There is also a growing crowd of people joining what are known as joint venture collaborative pools online. These groups of Internet marketers' policy is: "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine." They all advertise on each others' sites, thereby giving each other access to everyone's visitors and customer base. If you joined one of these groups, you might add a link on your site where a customer could sign up for an email list or newsletter in which members of the collaborative would advertise. These subscriber boxes help to build a large subscription list -- which means more potential customers. Plus, any e-products you sell can include your ads and links as well.

Whether you have products to sell or not, you can pad your bottom line and increase your customer base by leaps and bounds by entering into a joint venture. As always, the most important thing is to understand the legal ramifications before entering into any business deal. If you do your research and enter into a JV armed with knowledge, your business may never be the same.