July 25th, 2010
When I was growing up stores did not open on Sunday,
with the exception of a few convenience stores that
generally only opened after 1pm (when church services
were generally over).
I grew up in North Carolina, deep in the Bible belt.
we had what were often referred to as “blue laws.”
Blue laws which have been part of U.S. legal history since
the colonial period. These laws, which today are usually
referred to as Sunday closing laws, prohibit certain types
of commercial activity on Sundays.
Things have changed drastically since my youth 
Today, I noticed construction workers working in a
sub-division near where I live, lawn services mowing
lawns, and of course internet marketers sending mailings
out. I even sent out an email broadcast.
Sunday is no longer a day of rest. It’s a day when you
“might” have a better chance of making a sale since the
email volume is lower.
I don’t know whether it’s the recession or just changing
attitudes… but Sundays are now often just another
work day.
Just making an observation and reflecting.
For the biblical scholars, Exodus 20:8 is where you’ll
find the commandment “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it
holy” 
Willie
Posted in Off Topic | No Comments »
July 25th, 2010
How To Earn An Online Living As A Writer
Copyright 2010 by Willie Crawford
Since 1996 I’ve written over 1600 articles.
These articles have provided me with a decent
living in numerous ways.
Today, I want to encourage you to become a
writer, generating content for the online
world.
Here is how I’ve used the articles that I’ve
written:
1) Many of the articles were written specifically
to sell affiliate products. Most of those were
written using the “problem, agitate, solution”
formula. I talked about a problem, explained why
it really was a painful problem, and then pointed
out a great solution. That worked great.
2) Many other articles were written primarily to
attract website traffic. The big key there is
a benefits-filled title, and using the right
keywords throughout the article. I have number
one search engine ranking on many of my most
important keywords because of my articles. After,
writing the articles, I mere distributed them to
key article directories.
3) Some articles I wrote to give to my affiliates,
to help them market my products. In those articles,
affiliates were encourage to change the link in the
resource box to their affiliate link and then put
the article on their sites/blogs as well as in their
newsletters. This was very effective.
4) Some articles I wrote to market as private label
rights material. People who aren’t very prolific
writers generally bought these. I always encouraged
my customers to modify the PLR articles, putting
parts in their own words. I told them to think of
the PLR as just a “rough draft.”
5) Many articles, I have sold. There are numerous
sites where you can post articles that you have for
sale. There are also dozens of sites that will
purchase your articles directly. I found this much
more efficient than trying to track down clients.
These are the ways I’ve profited from article
marketing over the years. I’m a very prolific writer
who can write an article in about 10 minutes, so it’s
been a great way of life for. I often grab my
laptop and write while sitting at a beach that’s
five minutes from my house. It lets me really live
“the internet lifestyle.”
Now that you see how easy it can be, I hope that you’ll
give it a try too.
——————————————-
Willie Crawford has taught hundreds the art of article
marketing over the years. It’s an excellent, reliable
business model. For a list of 23 little-known places
that will actually buy your articles be sure to visit:
http://timic.org/23ArticleBuyers
Posted in Affiliate Marketing Secrets, Article Marketing, Choosing A Niche, Recommended Reading | No Comments »
July 25th, 2010
If Link Juice were people these links would be China – This is the
coolest linking trick I think I have ever seen for FREE traffic…
…from the GOVERNMENT no less!
Get the FREE “Authority Codes list here…
http://timic.org/FreeHighPRLinks
Enjoy,
Willie
Posted in Do This Today, Recommended Reading, Traffic Secrets, Web Site Traffic, search engine optimization | No Comments »
July 25th, 2010
Are you looking to make money on the Internet, from home?
Then you need to consider writing for income.
But, you don’t need to go through all the hassle of finding
clients to write for. There are sites out there now which
will pay you immediately for your writing.
23 such sites in fact.
It’s all explained in this new Special Report,
“Writing Content For Sale.”
==>> http://bit.ly/c9K8N4
Just sign up at the right sites, write right, and you’ll be earning
money today.
The perfect rainy day income solution.
Check it out
Willie
Posted in Choosing A Niche, Do This Today, Recommended Reading | No Comments »
July 25th, 2010
Traffic is the life’s blood of any online business.
Without it, you can’t make sales!
My friend Richard is an absolute master at generating
traffic. In fact he stumbled onto the one big secret
to effortlessly catapult brand new sites to the top of
Google in 24 hours or less.
Even if you a complete newbie, you can do this.
Check it out: http://timic.org/Powerful
Willie
Posted in Do This Today, Number 1 At Google, People That You Should Know, Traffic Secrets, Web Site Traffic, search engine optimization | No Comments »
July 22nd, 2010
Many of my seasoned marketing buddies look at Twitter,
and tell me that it looks like a lot of fun, but that
they don’t have time for chit chat. They have businesses
to run.
I point out to them that while I have tens of thousands
of followers, and an incredible number of tweets, I don’t
really spend that much time on Twitter. I run numerous
businesses too!
Here are some of my time management secrets:
First of all, I use a tool call Market Me Tweet. This
piece of desktop software allows you to schedule an
unlimited number of tweets, to an unlimited number of
accounts, for up to a year in advance. So many of my
tweets are pre-scheduled.
With the latest version of Market Me Tweet, I can even
schedule the same tweet to be posted to multiple accounts.
This is a really amazing piece of software. I interviewed
the software developers on my radio show a few months ago,
and everything they do is totally within Twitter’s terms
of service.
You can grab a copy of Market Me Tweet at:
http://timic.org/MarketMeTweet
I’m very social on Twitter, but it’s also a part of my
marketing efforts, so I flow out my activities on Twitter.
If I’m helping with a product launch (or any cause for that
matter), I plan and schedule my tweets along a timeline.
That’s one great use for Market Me Tweet.
When I’m doing something like that, I may pre-schedule 25
or more tweets. Here’s one of my big secrets… When
composing those tweets, I often grab headlines from a
product’s webpage, and then just add my url
I post to over 50 social media websites, so when I post to
Twitter, I have it automatically repost to FaceBook and a
number of other places.
I blog a lot. I’ve been blogging since 2004… longer than
many marketers have been online! My blog automatically
posts to Twitter.
I’m a charter member of another site very much like Twitter,
except that it’s designed for marketers, meaning they
encourage using it for heavy promoting. That sites is called
Sokule (pronounced “so cool”) and your account can be
configured to post to dozens of other social media sites
including Twitter.
You can pre-schedule up to 25 posts at Sokule, and they can be
up to 500 characters. You can select which if any of the
social media sites Sokule reposts to. I often post to Sokule,
and have it relay certain messages to Twitter.
You can get a free Sokule account here:
http://timic.org/sokule
When I visit Twitter, I’m fairly organized and also have a time
limit of how long I will allow myself to stay on the site.
Twitter visits are almost like a reward for getting other critical
tasks done.
When I log in, the first thing I check is Direct Messages. These
are people talking directly to me. So, I need to respond. The
next thing that I check are @ replies. These people are also
talking directly to me, so I owe many of them replies. Finally,
I check my general “twitstream.” Often, I’ll find particularly
insightful posts there that I want to retweet (share with my
followers). Then I get back to work!
I schedule my time on Twitter. That is, I visit Twitter at times
penciled into my schedule.
Final tip for now… consider not responding to tweets immediately.
Sometimes it’s better to wait a while, or you get stuck in a
back-and-forth conversation that could go on FOREVER… throwing
you off-schedule.
It all depends upon how chatty a follower is, but I feel that if
you have that much to say to each other, then you should probably
schedule a phone call. YES, I did say “schedule” a phone call.
That’s because the phone is another one of those “time vampires”
that suck the productivity out of your day
Ok, so now you have a few of my time management secrets. I have
a lot more things that I do to manage my time, since I’m involved
in so many projects. I’ll share more of them with you in the future.
Willie
Posted in Affiliate Marketing Secrets, Do This Today, Time Management, Twitter Products, Where's Willie? My Schedule :-) | No Comments »
July 22nd, 2010
As I travel across the country, and around
the world, I often observe that many “children”
in their 20’s still live with their parents,
and have no jobs. I reflect upon the fact that
I had my first job when I was 7, and had no
real care-free childhood.
I’m not complaining of course. I took a lot
of pride in the fact that I helped support my
struggling family.
Here are a few of the jobs that I’ve held…
the 1000 number is of course an exaggeration:
My very first job was helping a neighboring
farmer, at his tobacco barn, when I was 7. The
farmer asked my grandmother if she thought I
was capable of doing the job and they both said
let’s see.
That job involved handing tobacco leaves to a
person who tied them on a stick, so that they
could be hung in a barn, and dried out over
propane-fired burners. I had to stand on a cinder
block to reach the tobacco
That job paid $4 per day. The job was a challenge,
but I managed!
Over the next few years I sold a lot of items from
catalogs. I noticed ads in the back of comic books,
and sent away for kits, and then sold those items
to neighbors (mostly to relatives). Those items
included:
- Seeds
- Greeting cards
- Advertising specialties
- Grit newspapers
- Clothing
Many farmers in my area grew cucumbers in the early
Spring. Almost anyone who wanted to could approach
these farmers offering to “pick cucumbers.”
The way the cucumber deal worked is that you picked
the cucumbers and put them in burlap sacks. They
took the cucumbers to the cucumber markets, where
buyers sorted and weighted them. They gave you a
check for the cucumbers. The farm owner and the
cucumber picker split the proceeds 50/50.
On a good day, even when I was maybe 10, I could pick
over $100 worth of cucumbers in a day. That was good
money for a 10 year old back the late 60’s-early 70’s.
I was often in the cucumber fields at 6am… or as soon
as you could see clearly. I worked non-stop until they
were ready to haul the pick to market.
I also picked cotton. A few local farmers in the area
grew small parcels and didn’t use mechanized pickers.
We picked the cotton, they weighted it, and paid us
by the pound.
I raised rabbits, chickens, and pigs. We ate some of
them, and sold some of them.
I did well with the pigs since they were fairly
hearty. I even had one pig that would jump the fence
and follow me around on the farm like a puppy
I did ok with the rabbits. I’d read many magazines
on the topic of selling not only rabbit meat, and
breeder stock, but also on selling the droppings as
fertilizer.
I didn’t do so great on the chickens. The chicks
were very delicate and many of them didn’t survive.
You could buy them very inexpensively at the local
hardware store, but I just never had a lot of luck with
them.
When the corn crop was ready (dried out) huge machines
(combines) went through the fields harvesting it. These
machines weren’t that efficient and left lot of corn
behind. Relatives and I would go through some of
these fields (with the farmers’ permission) and collect
some of this corn. We’d sell it to local farmers who
would feed it to their livestock throughout the
Winter.
When I turned 12, I gave my grandmother $70, and she
bought a Marlin Model-60 22 rifle for me. Many days
after school I would grab my rifle and wonder into the
local forest in search of rabbits and squirrels.
We ate most of the ones that I managed to shoot, but
every now and then I would sell some to neighbors.
Local corner gas stations would even buy them from you
to sell to their customers. This was a very rural area where
you never really knew WHAT the merchant would have
in the freezer.
My grandmother taught me to cook very basic dishes
when I was about 8, and I could cook cakes from scratch
by the time I was 10. I’d often visit relatives who, for
whatever reason, didn’t feel like cooking. They’d often
pay me to cook for them.
I enjoyed cooking, and in 2000, put many of my rustic
country recipes into a soul food cookbook which I still
sell today at http://chitterlings.com/cookbook.html
During the Spring and Summer, the local farmers worked
their farms. In the Winter, several of my uncles went
to Winston Salem, NC to work in the tobacco processing
facilities. Several often hired me to feed their livestock
while they were gone.
One uncle had me feed his pigs and his mule for example.
I fed and watered them every day before going off to school,
and again in the late afternoon. I often trudged through the
snow to do this.
I traveled around with one uncle visiting sites of abandoned
or burned down houses. We picked up the bricks, and even
nails that were left behind. We sold those and earned a few
dollars.
I worked with another uncle who would pick collards, turnips,
sweet potatoes, butter beans and peas from his garden. We’d
drive from the farm into the nearby city where we’d slowly
drive through neighborhoods, yelling out what we had for sale.
People would come out and buy from us… much cheaper than they
could get these vegetables at local super markets.
Many of my neighbors had wood burning stoves. I’d often go
into the local forest and cut down trees, and harvest firewood
for them.
As I got a little older, one of my uncles taught me a little
carpentry, and I often helped him on carpentry jobs… usually
building tobacco barns.
Around 13 or 14, I discovered the world of mail-order. I sent
away for all of these “big mails” where flyers and newsletters
shared different ways that people earned money in mail-order.
One of the first methods I tried was selling used books through
the mail. You could buy the books dirt cheap. I’d often read
many of them before placing ads to resell them.
There were many newsletters, very similar to today’s ezines,
and advertising in them was fairly inexpensive.
… to be continued…
Willie
Willie Crawford is one of the world’s leading internet marketing
experts as well as a consultant to local offline businesses.
With 14 years’ experience, he can teach you tactics and techniques
few others can (both from his experience and from that of his
contemporaries). Sign up for his free newsletter today at
http://WillieCrawford.com
Posted in Off Topic, Recommended Reading | No Comments »
July 22nd, 2010
That’s a question a lot of my students ask. The
real question is what are your list members more
likely to buy.
I will tell you that on most lists there ARE people
who routinely buy big ticket items. If you don’t
offer them these items, then they buy from someone
else.
If you don’t know how to sell bigger ticket items,
I teach you how here: http://SellMoreBigTicket.com
If you need to find bigger ticket items to sell,
you need to join this FaceBook group:
http://timic.org/bigticket
That FaceBook group is where I tell members about
big ticket launches early. I work as a JV broker,
and many of those launching products turn to me to
find affiliates. I also “keep my ear to the ground”
and learn about product launches earlier than most!
At the same time, I do sell a lot of inexpensive
items. I “sub-list” dividing my database into
numerous lists. Over time, I’ve learned what to offer
to which lists.
I find that many inexpensive items DO offer excellent
information, and that my customers often buy them
almost as impulse purchases.
So, my answer is sell both
Notice what sells best to your list members, and offer
that most often though.
Willie
Posted in Affiliate Marketing Secrets, Do This Today, General | No Comments »
July 18th, 2010
I’ve been on Twitter for a while now, and have a
ton of followers. Every time that I make a
post numerous followers check out what I post
about.
It’s sort of like having another mailing list.
It’s an easy way to get instant traffic to a
website or blog.
If you don’t currently have a ton of Twitter
followers, here’s a easy way to fix that:
http://timic.org/TwitterTrick
Enjoy the rest of the weekend
Willie
Posted in Affiliate Marketing Secrets, Do This Today, Marketing On Twitter, Twitter Products | No Comments »
July 16th, 2010
There are as literally hundreds of Internet marketing
business models. If you are just selling ebooks, you
are probably not tapping into the most lucrative ones.
Spend some time looking at what others are doing.
Some models are very creative. For example, one of my
friends who sells web hosting does it by building simple
websites. He puts these sites on the server where he wants
to sell the hosting. Then, when he sells the site, he also
sells the hosting creating a recurring income stream
Here’s where I currently focus my efforts:
http://timic.org/OfflineSecrets
Willie
Posted in Do This Today, People That You Should Know, Recommended Reading | No Comments »