Special Guest Articles

These professional articles written by industry leaders.  Adlandpro.com has a free article library you can learn from here.

The 900-Pound Monkey On Your Back
Copyright 2006 by Willie Crawford

Many years ago, I was a young, U.S. Air Force major, working
an office job Hawaii. This "seasoned," gruff-but-fatherly
colonel peered over my shoulder as I worked, and asked what
I was doing. I explained that I was writing a paper to
help another major document a problem for the general. He
asked why, and I explained that I was the expert on the
topic.

The lesson that colonel taught me that day changed my
life, and continues to help my online business grow. You
see, I had allowed the other major, who had a big
challenge, simply pass it along to me because it was
something I felt very comfortable with. I had TONS of other
things I needed to get done, but I had allowed a co-worker
to get me to do his work.

What that colonel explained to me that day was that all my
life I would have people come to me with "900-pound monkeys
on their backs." He explained that often there's nothing they
would like better than to take the monkey off their back
and put it on someone else's. He went on to explain that
it's nice to help people, but often DUMB to just let them
dump their work on you.

As I look around me in the online world everyday, I
witness people allowing others to take 900-pound monkeys
that are on their backs... and place those monkeys on other's
backs. I see this as a PROBLEM many times because in the
process of agreeing to take on someone else's problem,
the "volunteer" often puts his own projects on hold.

I often hear those who've taken on others' problems
complaining about not having the time to finish their
own projects. I sometimes politely point out that it's
their fault.

Let's look at a few concrete examples...

Often, I see people on discussion boards ask how to
fix an html problem, modify a graphic, or perhaps
improve on a webpage. Sometimes, those of us who are
very comfortable with doing these things volunteer to
take a minute and quickly fix the problem. This only
becomes a "900-pound monkey" when it takes longer to
do the favor than expected, or we get talked into
making additional changes or revisions. Then a favor
can quickly turn into a JOB that you should be
charging for!

I often see us volunteering to do these favors for
others as a means of procrastinating. We have a major
project that we really should be working on, but it
seems so massive that we look for other things to do
to prevent getting started. Any convenient excuse
will do, and that excuse is often that someone else
needs our help. The fact often is that OUR projects
are what need our attention :-)

I'm NOT saying that you should not do favors for
others. However, you do need to fully define the
scope of what you're volunteering for. You need
to confirm that you're not offering to transfer that
900-pound monkey onto your back so that the other
person can go sit around on the beach.

Examples of things Internet marketers often
volunteer for that turn into 900-pound monkeys...

- Fixing an html or script problem
- Rewriting a salesletter
- Designing a graphic
- Fixing up a PDF file
- Editing some audio

The list could be a lot longer.

Now here's the really strange thing about the
things we often volunteer to do for others. They
are often things that we have personally grown to
consider "not the best use of our time." So we
have started outsourcing these things when they
need doing in our own businesses. Yet we often
volunteer to do them for others.

As you go through your day, and find yourself
feeling overwhelmed with so many things to do, stop
for a second and consider... if part of the problem
might not be that you're simply taking on too many
problems that aren't even yours. If that is the
case, learning to refuse that monkey, from time
to time, takes a lot of weight off your shoulders!
(Pun intended)

--------------------

Willie Crawford serves as a consultant, mentor, and
confidant to some of Internet marketing's top income
earners. You can tap into his 9 years of online
experience and million-dollar, success-creating advice
at: http://BlueprintToInternetMarketingSuccess.com

Can You Really Make A Fortune Off Of Reprint Rights?

Copyright 2004 by Willie Crawford

Visit Ebay or any of ten thousand other websites and
you'll see people offering reprint rights everywhere.
They all tell you that with their great reprint rights
you'll be in business instantly with "your own product"
and that you get to keep all of the money.

By can you really make money selling reprint rights
and is it worth your time?

Let me give you a few examples from my personal
experience, and then you be the judge....

I'll start with the most recent rights I bought first.
After reading Paul Hancox ebook "Small changes:
Big Profits - How to quickly and easily make more
sales from your website," I saw that he offered reprint
rights for only $149. This product had a suggested
retail price of $27, which I had gladly paid and I was
very satisfied with the product.

To digress a little... one of my criteria for buying
reprint rights is that I have to have actually used
the product FIRST. I won't offer my list something that
I have not seen, read, touched, experienced, and enjoyed.
I suggest that if you are going to offer your list a
product that you adopt the same rule.

Anyway.... I reasoned that if I invested $149 in Paul's
reprint rights I only needed 6 sales to break even. So it
wasn't a very big risk. Therefore I went for it! I sent
a mailing to my list but before I even did that, I began
mentioning the book in personal emails to clients and
friends. In less than a day I had tripled my money. After
sending a mailing to my I list had multiplied my money
by some embarrassing number of times!

This product was the type of reprint rights that I like
to buy. It's a product that I know is needed.... I
can put up a simple sales page and I know that the
product will sell itself for years to come. I know that
with very little effort I'll earn over $1000 a month in
profits from that simple product. You can check it out
at: http://TheRealSecrets.com/thebook/ to see how
simple my marketing is for this ebook.

Another product that I market the same way is a $19
interview on how to host your own seminars and teleseminars.
Fred Gleeck (who has done over 1350 seminars) was interviewed
by Jim Lanford and they recorded it. When Audrey Lanford
decided to sell her business at WZ.com she offer reprint
rights to Fred's interview. The rights were less than $150...
if I am not mistaken.
 

I run ads for this interview/ebook in various targeted
ezines and mention it on a few of my sites. It routinely
earns me $500 to $1000 per month. All this with very little
effort on my part because the product sells itself.
You can see how I have this set-up at:
http://TheRealSecrets.com/your-own-seminar.html

A third example of how simple it can be, is that I purchased
the reprint rights to Bob Serling's Power Copywriting For
The Internet from Corey Rudl's Internet Marketing Center.
These rights cost me just under $1000 and the suggested
retail price for the course is $147. It took me less than
a month to recoup my investment, and every month I do very
well with that product too. You can check it out at:
http://PowerCopyWritingForTheInternetByBobSerling.com

Notice with that last example how I got a domain name that
had my keywords in it and that it's fairly easy to remember
... if you know the copywriter? That domain name costs me
less than $8 per year and my hosting is only $5 per month.
That's for something that semi-automatically generates over
$1000 per month :-)

I could give you numerous other examples, but won't. You
get the point. I put on a teleseminar on buying and selling
reprint rights a while back and recorded that teleseminar.
I then turned the teleseminar into another income stream
as well as offered reprint rights to it! Do you see how
easy this can be? That teleseminar with myself and
internet marketing expert (and lawyer) Dr. Bob Silber took
less than 2 hours to do, and also generates an embarrassing
amount each month. You can check it out at:
http://AmazingProfitsBuyingAndSellingReprintRights.com
... another clever name :-)

I mentioned that you can grab domain names for as little as
$8 per year and host them for as little as $5 per month. I get
my domain names through my own registration service at:
http://williecrawford.com/domains/
I host many of my sites at Host4Profit. You can check them out
at: http://WillieCrawford.com/myhost.html

So now I've convinced you that you can do well with the
correct reprint rights! The key again is to know and love
the product. Know that it will provide your customers with
genuine value. Check out my teleseminar for more tips on
both buying and selling reprint rights at:
http://AmazingProfitsBuyingAndSellingReprintRights.com

I did come across some terrific reprint rights this week that
I will recommend. They are offered by Rebecca Hagel. She is only
offering 20 licenses total, so you won't face crazy competition.
I really love her material! You can check out Becky's reprint
rights at: http://TheRealSecrets.com/becky.html

To answer my question, "Can you really make a fortune off of
reprint rights" ... that depends upon your definition of
"fortune." However, I generate several very nice income
streams from reprint rights, as I've just shared with you. I
know many others doing the same. I don't see why you can't too.


Willie Crawford has been teaching others how to build an
on-line business since late 1996. Frequently featured in
radio, magazine and newspaper articles and interviews, Willie
teaches the average guy what the top marketers are doing but
seldom talking about. For example, Willie demonstrates the
power of automated residual income through his system at:
http://ProfitAutomation.Com Discover the secret now!