JV Proposal Turns Into Threats and Tough Guy Contest

How would you have handled the following situation?

I work for a reasonably high profile clickbank merchant, and as a result of this we get frequent requests for Joint Ventures. A lot of these fall short of our requirements or just don't match the direction our business is travelling. One of my job's is to act as an affiliate and JV manager for the company.

We have had a couple of JV requests from a reasonably high profile affiliate and Internet marketer who has started to make a name for himself lately. I won't mention names and I don't even know if they are a member here. This marketer JV's and works with a few of the typical Internet marketing names you often see in the Joint venture lists etc, so if this person got their pitch right to us, it'd be a no-brainer for us to promote.

The problem is on their application they said they were business partners with another marketer who has not paid our company affiliate commissions they have owed us for the best part of a year. We said despite this, we would give them a mail out if they promoted for us. They said would, and did not. We didn't mail for them as a result and we didn't hear from them.

I got an email and so did my boss from the same person again asking us to promote. I wrote back to them explaining we were really unhappy their business partner was totally ignoring us and not paying us, and even more disappointed that after saying he would promote, the JV proposer did not. On this basis, I posed the question "why should we partner with you and do business with you?"

I was direct with this person, and maybe a tad laconic but made clear in a polite but firm manner we were unhappy that they thought it was acceptable to ask us for a mail out given the past events.

The email I recieved in response basically just asked me to get my boss to get in touch personally with them, and also told me (very colloquial English) to watch how I speak to them because I didn't know who they were etc, and I would not dare speak to them like that face to face. It was written like it was a line out of one of those gangster rap songs.

This from a person who in the past had gone to great lengths to tell me what an excellent business person them and their business partner were, with good reputations. I didn't feel his email to me today was evidence of this.

A few mistakes I think this guy made:

1. Thinking because he knows a few "names" in the industry and has had a couple of largeish product launches, he was a genuine business person. Selling a couple thousand of ebooks doesn't in my opinion make you a skilled, competent or professional individual. Entrepreneurial? Yes, but then again, drug dealers are entrepreneurial.

2. Believing that after breaking promises that were effectively contractual he deserved a mail out to our lists? Despite our doubts about his business partner, we gave him a chance, and he took that opportunity to break a bond of trust.

3. Believing his tone was an appropriate response to genuine business-based concerns.

4. Believing that issuing implied threats to a potential JV's affiliate manager is acceptable and would lead me to recommend him for a promotion or to help him in this matter.


My boss checked all my emails before I wrote them and has backed me to the hilt. They are not interested in doing business with this guy and my email communicated that. I also invited the individual to ring my personal landline at the office and made clear if they were going to email me thinly veiled threats I would have no issues with handing our emails over to the authorities inlcuding the police. I also made it clear I was not really intimidated by his Internet tough guy approach. I kept it professional, but I have to admit I did snap back a bit.

My question is, how would you have handled it? Would you have ignored it? Do you think this is the kind of behaviour we should be seeing from the business partners of some of the bigger players in this community/industry?

I am really keen to get some opinion on this and learn from others how I might have handled this.

Dealing with these kinds of people really reminds me that there is such a thin line between genuine professionalism and business in Internet Marketing and opportunists and "hustlers". Dealing with these kinds of people really makes me question whether I should even be in this industry.