Teaching Tuesday: How To Manufacture Green Products

Tara Kelly submitted this question to our survey:

What is the best way to manufacture a product in a green way and what is the best way to know if JVing with a manufacturer would be in the best interests of all involved?

I decided to bring in a natural (green) business expert, Carrie Lauth of Natural Mom Business Guide, to answer this question.

She suggests several ways to ensure that your product is manufactured and distributed in a way that is not harmful to the earth.

Carrie’s recommendations include:

• Use organic ingredients in your product.
• Package it with recyclable packaging. For beauty products, there is nothing like good old glass for aesthetics - and glass is infinitely recyclable. If you’re using plastic, be sure it’s a type that can be recycled and it should also be BPA and phtalate free.
• You can buy packing peanuts that are compostable and biodegradable.
• Use recycled or reused paper for your packing slips and tags.
• Another fun idea would be to include eco living tips with your product shipments to help raise awareness.
• Consider creating online FAQs and reports to answer customer questions instead of printing out customer instruction sheets.
• Buy energy offsets and advertise the fact that you do this on your website (This is what I do!).

My response: Now, for your question on creating a joint venture partnership with the manufacture. This would depend on the terms of the agreement. If the terms are beneficial to both of you, then I say go for it!

If not, then you might consider another relationship (perhaps you can buy at wholesale or become an affiliate) or find another vendor.

Do you need answers? Submit your question to our Product Seller’s survey!

How Joint Business Ventures Can Increase Your Profits

When two or more people work together on a project in order to promote their services together, they form what is known as a joint venture, also known as a JV. This can be on a digital product, such as an e-book or MP3 recording or it can be on a tangible (physical) product. Joint business ventures are a great way to increase your profits and gain new customers.

Benefits of joint ventures include:

• You will be able to offer your current customers a new product
• You can also attract new customers with your joint venture product

For instance, if you have a website targeted to people who want to carry their babies in a ring-style baby carrier, you can team up with a virtual assistant and create an information product that explains the different ways you can hold an infant or toddler in the sling.

Your current clients may never have known how to use that particular style of baby sling; and people who were specifically looking for a ring sling, but didn’t know about your website, may now find you, simply because you are offering that product. Plus, you can become an affiliate for other products parents who carry their babies might be interested in, and offer those products to your customers as well.

For instance, someone who is new to baby slings may not know very much about attachment parenting. You can create a small report that explains the benefits of attachment parenting for the baby and for the parents. Perhaps you can form another joint venture partnership with someone who runs an informational attachment parenting website and they can help you write the report, or possibly offer you a commission per lead affiliate program.

Using the above example, if you wanted to create an information guide on becoming an “attached parent”, you could seek out well-known attachment parenting proponents and send them an email with some information about the project you are seeking a partner for and ask if they would be interested in working with you. You can also find message boards and forums that are devoted to the attachment parenting community and post a message letting people know what kind of joint venture you are seeking a partner for and ask if anyone is interested or knows someone that may be interested, in partnering with you.

Once you have a list of potential people to work with, you can start interviewing them. You’ll want to make sure that your personalities mesh, as you’ll be spending a bit of time working together. You’ll also want to make sure that they are competent and serious about their business. You will be relying on them to meet you half-way; you don’t want to get stuck doing all the work.

When you find the right person to team up with, joint venture benefits can include fun and profitable projects that bring your business to a whole new level.

JV (Joint Venture)

Although joint venture is not exclusively an Internet term, the concept is an important part of any Internet marketing program. At its most basic level, a joint venture is a business move that is made by two or more entities to the mutual advantage of each. In the Internet world, this process can take one of many forms.

-Person A can offer Person B’s product on Person A’s mailing list. This is done when Person B has a great product, but few means of distribution. Person A will normally receive a percentage of the profit from sales made on the mailing list.

-Person A and Person B collaborate to create a brand new product or service. Both parties will promote the product on their mailing lists. This normally happens with information products, and can include 3 or more collaborators.

-Person A can interview Person B for an article, short report or audio program. Person B will get promotion for their current product, and Person A gets exclusive information that they can use to sell Person B’s product as an affiliate.

Joint Ventures are a driving force in the Internet marketing world, and savvy marketers find ways to make JV deals part of their long-term success strategies.