When you’ve chosen a guru to stalk and are on the trail, be careful not to put on blinders to other joint venture opportunities that may arise. Taking those opportunities may even help you in your chosen quest.

For example, if you go to an offline event to meet your guru, don’t just sit at the next table boring a hole through the back of their head the whole time. Talk to the other people who are attending the event. See if you can throw together some joint ventures with them or even just join each others’ affiliate programs.

These “smaller” contacts may seem like the consolation prize, but there are a number of important reasons for developing them as contacts. Here are a few that come to mind:

• Just like you, others who are attending offline events are proven to be more committed to their business than the average internet marketer, so they’re likely to be above average value contacts.
• Are you really going to say “it’s all or nothing — either I land the big fish and get rich, or by gum! I’m staying poor!”? If your big goals don’t pan out this time around, you’ll still be ahead of where you were.
• Practice: the lessons you learn doing smaller JVs will help you prepare for when the big opportunities arise.
• Establish a track record — if you can point to past successful JVs, you’ll have better luck setting up more.
• The person you set up a JV with may have better luck setting up a JV with your target guru or some other valuable contact than you. If you do a successful JV with them, you may get access to their contacts later.