Raven: Well, good evening and happy Thursday to you, all of you in Vegas and all around the world. How you doing? You're tuned into Careers from the Kitchen Table. You know us, we're the show that teaches you how to cook without the cooking. Absolutely. Each and every week we bring you good old home recipes for success. I kid you not. And that's so that you can make your business thrive even in these economical times. We want your business to be booming. And you know what? It can be booming. You just got to believe that you got it. As my friend Asar Lovejoy says, you got to command it. You got to command greatness. You got to command that money, that cash just coming on in. Yes. Oh, who cares about it being a recession? Who says this has been the best year I've ever had? And let me tell you why. It's strictly because I got rid of that stinking thinking my friend. And I started just commanding what I wanted. And as Napoleon Hill says, what the mind of a man can conceive and believe. And I like to throw a woman in there too, you know, they can achieve it and I certainly believe it. And you know, speaking of achieving, oh my goodness, I have a fantastic guest that you're going to absolutely love. His story, how he got going. And he is truly, truly thriving in his business for sure. Who? His name Willie Crawford. And Willie was raised on a tobacco farm in North Carolina, living off welfare most of his youth. His family was so poor that he once wore his grandmother's shoes to school while working to earn money to replace his only dilapidated pair. Isn't that something? This felt a burning desire though in Willie to break away from the poverty and build his own business. You see, Willie worked his way through college, then joined the Air Force where He traveled to 47 different countries. Did I say 47? I sure did. He traveled to 47 different countries while serving as a navigator on a C130 transport aircraft. During that time, Willie also learned a little of five different languages. Can you believe that? Five different languages. How awesome is that? In 1996, while still still serving in the Air Force in Hawaii, Willie decided to start his own Internet based business. By the time he retired in 2003, get this, Willie had built that into a six figure part time income. Not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, but six figure part time income. Willie is now one of the world's leading Internet marketing experts, having spoken at dozens of seminars in the United States, Malaysia, Singapore and the UK he's created dozens of information products written over 1100 articles and 34 eBooks on e commerce. He's hosted seminars and now hosts his own radio show several times per week. And can you all that and he's still going to add talk show host. Isn't that awesome? That is just so cool. Willie has an incredible 1600 websites. Yes, 1600. Some of which get over 1 million unique visitors per month. Wow. He leverages his knowledge of online marketing and the connections that he developed over the years to help others launch products. Willie often serves as a middleman or a joint venture broker. And he's also executive director of the international association of joint venture brokers and co founder of the JV University at the jvuniversity.com and that's why we have this man here, because he's just all that bag of chips, M&Ms on the side. And even more. He is hot. He is sizzling. He's the man. And tonight he has come here to talk to us about joint ventures leveraging other business assets. We're going to talk about how to use joint ventures to grow your business faster even in a recession. How cool is that? The most common mistakes made in seeking joint ventures and how to increase your chances of landing a lucrative joint venture. So if you're standing up, sit down, my friend. If you're sitting, sitting down, stand up because this is one you're not going to want to miss. Go grab something to write with so you can take some copious notes because we got the man. He's here. I'm talking about the Willie Crawford. Hey, hey, Willie.

Willie: I'm here and I'm standing up because a big bill to live up to.

Raven: Hey, not hardly. How you doing? I'm so thankful you're here.

Willie: I am truly blessed. I'm truly blessed because I've just turned 50 and gone through a number of recent health challenges and stuff. And so I'm. I'm truly blessed.

Raven: I know.

Willie: And honored to be invited onto your show, show.

Raven: Well, thank you. And you know what? I'm glad that you're feeling better, my friend. And that's just a double kudos and thank you for you being here, knowing that you've gone through those health challenges. But God is good.

Willie: God is good.

Raven: Absolutely. And we're thankful and grateful for sure. Well, we're going to be talking about joint ventures today, but before we jump into that, I've given them a little bit about you. Just a tad bit really, when you think about it. But we want to hear a little bit more of your story. Do you mind sharing just a tad bit with us.

Willie: Sure, sure. I grew up on a farm in North Carolina where my mother and father separated when I was about probably two or three years old. And my mother got the two youngest kids and my father got the oldest kids, and my mother went away to New England, to Connecticut, where the jobs were better. And I stayed on the farm in North Carolina and picked tobacco. And there's that saying about it takes a village to raise a child. My relatives raised me, basically, and I picked up their values, I picked up their belief, I picked up that you get nothing happens until you do something yourself. And so I learned that you had to step out there. I actually wrote a biography in 2002 called Git off the Porch, gitofftheporch.com where we talked about what it takes us to. To make life respond to you. And it was a challenge. I mean, life was not easy back then. We were in the same recession we're in now, except that it was probably slightly less challenging. But it was millions of business people out of work. And so I had a coach who said, you can share your story with people as to what you're doing and how you did it, and that would inspire and motivate people. So I wrote a book that the listeners can go to, gitofftheporch.com and grab the ebook version or the print version if they want, and I'll even autograph it for them.

Raven: That's exciting.

Willie: Okay, so gitofftheporch.com but it's git...git.

Raven: Oh, G. I. T. Okay.

Willie: Gitofftheporch.com got it. And it's not. I'm pushing my book because it's a print on demand book, actually. So when I get orders, I get 100 or 500 orders in. I autograph them and send them out to people who want copies. But it shares how I looked at life in general, actually, and viewed life largely as a season, a progression going through a natural process. And I shared with a lot of people who were struggling back then that, okay, so I went from welfare to a millionaire myself, struggling with no real role models or anything else how to do it. So that's where I came from. That's where I come from.

Raven: Yeah. Well, you know what? That is amazing because nowadays we have so many different tools. I mean, we have seminars, we have books like what you wrote. We have audios. We have just so many different things out there. So that is just amazing that you were able to come through that. And I'm going to ask you this. Where did that burning desire come from. Because it seemed like you just kept pushing against all odds.

Willie: The burning desire itself came from exposure to the fact that other people were doing well and that there was money out there to be made. I guess after I went into the military and I traveled around other countries, I saw stuff that just blew my mind. I remember the first time I was in Korea, looking at the fact that the Koreans had planted vegetables in the median, the strips between highways. It's like, wow, these people see the potential and don't give up. That just showed me that if you recognize what's there, the potential is there, and you just embrace it and don't just give up. Because so many of us just say, well, things aren't going my way, and just hang it up. I think that's where that potential came from.

Raven: Wow. Well, you know, I know it was not just an easy road because I've been through my share of getting my business going, and I know it seems like the harder you push for it, the more adversities start to come, you know, just like you might as well just already know up front you're going to be getting all kind of challenges and just be prepared to push through them. Wouldn't you agree?

Willie: I would absolutely agree. I've studied a lot of, I don't know, a lot of success principles. And one of those is that the harder you push against something, the harder it pushes back. And so you actually need to sort of let go and let God.

Raven: Oh, yeah. One of my favorite ones. Absolutely. Let go and let God. Okay, so let me ask you this. I think if I'm not mistaken, one of your first introductions or products for the Internet was a cookbook. Is that correct?

Willie: That's correct. I came online in 1996, but back then, everybody was selling products on how to make money. And even today, that's what everybody seems to be selling. But I stepped back and said, so what can I sell that I actually know what I'm talking about? And so I sold my soul food recipes, and I have a soul food cookbook. And when I started marketing that cookbook, other people started noticing the success of that cookbook. And I was invited to speak at a seminar down in the Florida Keys by Dr. Bob Silber. He noticed how well I was doing, and actually he invited me to speak because he wanted to prove that you don't need to sell how to make money products to be at a seminar. So my first seminar that I ever attended was as a speaker, and it was selling my soul food cookbook. And I was making six figures already from that cookbook.

Raven: Oh, wow.

Willie: Teach people to cook collard greens and macaroni and cheese and stuff.

Raven: Oh my goodness. My husband is pointing. He's listening to other rooms saying, get that cookbook. Okay, honey, he would love some collard greens. Thank you, thank you. I accept and receive that. He will be so excited. He'll probably get a call from him, will he? Saying, can I get a home cooked meal in between all these radio shows up in here? Let's bring it on down to now joint venture. So let's start out, if you don't mind explaining and identifying exactly, or defining rather exactly what joint ventures are and why should we use them.

Willie: We can do that. Joint ventures are basically noticing that no matter what you do in your home based business, which is what I teach, that you've got some asset that other people can leverage. You have a list, you have name recognition, you have a reputation, you have website traffic. And other people can tap into that and leverage that. And the thing, especially with the recession right now, is that you have these assets you're not using. Say you're an ebay power seller and you're selling something on an arthritis bracelet or whatever. You may have sold 10,000 of these bracelets and you've got this huge database of customers who, you know, have arthritis and you've done nothing with them. And so a joint venture really is just saying, wait a minute, I've got 10,000 customers I can offer something else to. And what I do is I teach people to go back to those same customers and offer something else to them. It's nothing more than that. But joint venture is recognizing that you could be a Main Street jeweler. And you need to recognize that the customers who all bought from you over the past five years are probably wealthier than average and there's something there. And if you can go back and offer them something new, they'll buy from you and you can make money from that and you can leverage that. It's all about leverage, really.

Raven: All about leveraging. And so we have lots of assets. Now go over that again. I know you said your traffic.

Willie: Website traffic, name recognition, reputation. I am in the Internet marketing space where for the last 13 years I put my name out there as somebody that you can trust that teaches you how to do different things in Internet marketing. And people trust me. So my name itself is a huge, huge asset. And it's just recognizing what assets you have. Website traffic, name recognition, reputation, all those things are assets that you can leverage. And that other people are perfectly willing to pay you money to tap into. That's what I do now.

Raven: Okay, so what was your first joint venture? Just curious.

Willie: My first joint venture was. My very first joint venture was I was at Dr. Bob Silber's seminar in the Florida Keys, and a friend named Marty Foley suggested to me that we cross promote each other on stage. So on stage, I mentioned Marty's product, which I actually did use, and he mentioned my product, which we use, and we made sales from that. My second joint venture was I was on an Internet marketing forum called the Warrior Forum, and someone approached me and showed me an e book that they'd written and asked me if I thought it had any potential. I read the e book, it was called Success Alert. And the young man's name was John Evans. He's over in the uk. And I read this e book and thought, wow, this is really, really good. And so I just contacted a few of my friends and said, you guys need to look at this. And they looked at it and thought, well, how do we promote it? I arranged with John to give them 50% commission off of any sales of the ebook. And that made, I think it made like $60,000 in the first 30 days. And John gave me a percent commission. But the ebook itself is called Success Alert. Your listeners can look it up now and check it out. But. But that was five years ago. So the ebook itself is old, you know, but it. That was my first joint venture, and the first one is I actually brokered.

Raven: That's amazing. Now, who first got you into doing this? The joint ventures now introduced you to that.

Willie: There was a. A young man named Jason Cox, who. He was working with a copywriter. I can't remember his name now, but he was working with a copywriter. And he got the idea that if I can get people lined up and doing deals, I can take a percentage commission off of all of their deals. And so JJ set things up and he sent me a copy of his course, and I started testing his theories. And he tells them fairly simple stuff. He taught that you just take, say, an E book and you, instead of asking people to download and print it out, you just print it out yourself and FedEx it to them. And even showed how you place like a seal on the cover letter and you gave them all the stuff they needed to get started. And so it was Jason Cox that actually really got me started. And Jason was probably 18 at the time. He was probably 18 at the time, but he taught me how to get started with joint venture Brokering, and I am a JV broker now, which is a middleman, somebody that spots opportunities and tells people, go do this and you'll make money from it.

Raven: Oh, that's pretty cool. Okay, so that's good. So you kind of bring the joint venture partners together.

Willie: Yes, I do a lot of local, even local businesses they don't recognize. And I think you've talked to my friend David Preston.

Raven: Yeah, I like David.

Willie: Yeah, yeah. David's actually one of my students. But you spot opportunities. You spot opportunities that people don't notice. I have another friend, his name is Sohail Khan. He's over in the uk. Sohil contacted a business that was selling a book, an e book, actually. And he said, you guys need to do like a video version of this book because the ebook itself is great, but it's hard to understand and to follow. Why don't you do like a video where you show people and step them through, step by step, how to do it? And they said, well, what do you have in mind? He said, well, I've already done a video for you. And he sent it over to them and said, why don't you mail your database and offer this to them? And they said, well, we've got like 400,000 customers and Sohail made over $1 million in sales of the video. Anybody listening to the call can Google the name Sohil S O H I L con and check him out. But he made over a million dollars from selling videos of a product that was already on the market. And all he really recognized was that there's these people who felt overwhelmed by just reading the book and didn't know how to do it. So he just said, let me show you how to do it. It was that simple. And he's actually a business partner of mine. Now, I'm amazed at the partners that I find come to me. But I guess after a dozen years, people do that.

Raven: Yeah, well, they trust you, they respect you, they know your worth.

Willie: Trust is something that's earned. Trust is something that's earned because I honestly don't trust 95% of the people I come across on the Internet. They say things that they make promises that they can't back up.

Raven: You know, oh, that is so big. And you get tired of that. And after a while you're like, okay, who do I trust in this? And especially nowadays, Willie, people are, you know, they're taking their money and they're holding onto it tight and they want to know that they can trust the person that they give this to. They want to know that it's not all hype, you know what I mean? That the person is being for real with them and let them know, you know, don't tell me it's going to be a piece of cake and I'm not going to have any challenges if that's not the case. And so many people feel that way. They just want to know the truth, you know. Were you like that at first when you got started?

Willie: I wasn't like that myself because back when I first got started there weren't so many people making these huge promises. But I fairly early on came across people who were ripped off. I remember a gentleman in his 80s from Jacksonville, Florida who was in network marketing and he was offered guaranteed traffic to his site. They told him, okay, we'll send you 20,000 visitors to your webpage and a certain percentage will be open to your network marketing opportunity. And what they basically did was they generated traffic to his website, but these people had absolutely no interest in what he was offering. And so as the people clicked away from the webpage, they were on a pop up would show his website. So they delivered the traffic, but absolutely zero percent of the people had any interest in what he was selling. So nobody even filled out the form. And I have a second friend, I won't mention his name, but he's an Internet marketing guru and he went to a company that promised him traffic too. And what they said was, we can get this traffic to you very fast. And what they did was they went to a pay per click company and bought traffic and took about a fourth of the money that he paid them to generate additional clicks to his site. So he saw the additional traffic very fast, but soon it was gone. And he and I talked about this and he said all they did was really just take a fourth of the money that I paid them, which was thousands of dollars, and just generate a couple extra clicks for me each hour and make it look impressive. But it wasn't really impressive because there weren't people interested in what I had to sell. I've seen a lot of rip offs over the years and I'm adamant right now about not ripping people off about taking care of my customers.

Raven: Absolutely. I love that about you. Yeah. Because customer service is a big pet peeve for me. Hey, we're going to give you a chance to sip on some water, my friend and take a quick break. And we'll be back after a few commercials. Just to let you know, you are tuned in to Careers from the Kitchen Table where we teach you how to cook without the cooking giving you some good old home recipes of success. Today our featured guest expert is Willie Crawford. And we'll be back with more from Willie as we really dig deep into joint venturing this next half hour. So stay there, don't go nowhere. We'll be right back right after this commercial break.

Raven: Welcome back everyone. We are so glad you're here. Joining us tonight as we are with a true, true expert and a guy that speaks from the heart. He's definitely someone you can trust in and he knows the Internet game. He also knows about joint ventures and that's what we're talking about tonight. His name is Willie Crawford and you just hang tight. Willie's going to give you some more websites that you can plug into him and to find out more by his book books and really learn from this man. Study this man because he is just awesome. I do want to take a quick moment and say to. Well, let me just. This will probably be heard on the recording, but we are having a little technical challenges at KLAV so you are not able to listen online. But no problem because Lauren and the rest of the staff will get me the audio so that you can listen to this by going to careersfromthekitchentable.com I'm quite sure we'll have it up there by sometime tomorrow or Saturday. So just stay plugged in and Willie will let you know. Right, Willie?

Willie: I certainly will. And technical challenges are part of doing business on the Internet.

Raven: Absolutely. Yeah, that's one thing for sure. And I'll definitely let everyone know as well. So we're going to jump back in because this next half an hour is going to be pretty quick. So both Willie and I are tightening up our seat belts here and we're getting ready to really, really, really talk about exactly how you can begin to start doing some joint ventures like Willie has. And I know Willie, I've done some and it has been incredible. Just a great pleasure to joint venture with people like Alex Mendozian and Stu McLaren, Jeanette Cates, Terry Levine are just been some of the ones. I guess I have to come your way next, my friend. Okay, now you're primarily an email marketer. What's involved in setting up joint ventures in email marketing? Willie?

Willie: Well, the thing with email marketing is that the large list owners have spent sometimes years building up their database of subscribers of customers. So we are very protective of our databases because I think that is probably my most valuable asset. And so when you approach me and want to do a joint venture which basically which often is just you asking me to do a mailing recommending your product to my customers, you have to ask the what's in it for me question. You have to ask them why would I promote your product over competitors products? Why would I promote your product over my own products? For example, I personally have over a dozen pieces of software that I sell, so why would I stop promoting my software, stop promoting my e books and things. To promote your product, you have to answer that question. And that's the big one. It's the what's in it for me? Why your product over something else? That's what you have to step back and look at. You have to look at it from the perspective of your joint venture partner and ask that question, what's in it for me? Why should I promote your product over something else?

Raven: Good question. That's a big question too.

Willie: It's huge.

Raven: People are protective of their list, regardless. Well, of course, the bigger the size, more so. But regardless, because you're promoting to your list and you don't want to be promoting to them every single day with somebody else. So you have to be careful. And you got to know that you can trust the person that you're letting your list know about, right?

Willie: Absolutely. In fact, the biggest shortfall that I've noticed is customer service. A lot of people will sell products and as soon as I send my customers over to you, often I've noticed that the list owner doesn't provide adequate customer service. And what really happens is I have a friend, for example, John Reese is a friend who sold a product called Traffic Secrets back in 1995, sorry, 2005. And he made a million dollars in 18 hours. So what he did was he sold 1,000 copies of a thousand dollar product in 18 hours. Basically, I think a thousand times a thousand. It's a million dollars. And what happened there was he had made friendships over the years and he got enough people to have their best customers raise their hand and say, yeah, I'm willing to spend $1,000 to grow my business. And those 1,000 customers all went over and got off my list basically and joined John's list.

Raven: Oh, that's not good. Okay.

Willie: It's okay as long as I don't have a scarcity mentality. They went over and they, John joined his list. But I have you as a potential joint venture partner have to acknowledge that I'm asking my big spenders to raise their hand and say, okay, I'm one of your big spenders on your list. And I'm going to go over and you're on this other person's list by buying his product. And at that point I become that person's customer. And that's the way I look at it now. I sell huge products. Actually, if your listeners look up the name Bill Bartman, Bill's a billionaire.

Raven: Oh, yeah, yeah, I know Bill. I know who he is. Anyway. Yeah, absolutely.

Willie: And his biggest price product is $100,000. It's his Billionaire University Course for businesses. And I sell Bill's product, but I'm taking my very best customers and saying, go join this other person's list. It's acknowledging that I'm taking my very best customers and sending them to someone else. And that's okay, but I actually would like to be paid a commission off of every sale that person makes. I want a lifetime commission. I want commissions off anything they purchase.

Raven: Oh, yeah, absolutely, for sure. And is that like one of the rules of thumb, so to speak, or. No.

Willie: My friend Rich Shefren, he taught me that when a major product launch is done, that you actually do need to make sure you tap into the stream of the new customers generated, the customers who are spending the most money. All these large list owners have basically asked their best customers to raise their hand, stand up, line up and go over and buy something and, and that you need to somehow have access to that list. So yes, that is rule of thumb. It's not a. Your listeners are hearing something that probably they'll hear nowhere else. But yes, you want to have access to the database, to the list of buyers.

Raven: Well, I gotta ask you this because I got a feeling that a lot of the listeners are absolutely wondering this. When someone is brand new. Brand new. And they just did their first product, they really don't have a whole lot of subscribers. Willie. Is this something they should even consider or should they just sit back and wait until things get better for them?

Willie: When they're launching a brand new product, it's a challenge for them. The challenge is credibility. If they have a product that is unlike anything else that's already out there, that potential joint venture partners can look at and see that their customers buy, yes, it is something they should look at. But if, if it's just a me too product, what happens too often is that somebody will read two or three ebooks and go, well, I can write an e book on this topic. Now, that's not the right thing to do because these people, those people aren't really experts. So it's about authenticity too. It's about offering the world and sharing with the world what you are a real expert on. And that's a challenge. That's a challenge because you can't go out there and say, well, I'm selling an e book on lower back pain and I've read five books on it, but I don't know anything about it. No one's going to buy from you. So it's an authenticity issue.

Raven: Okay. So number one, people really, really should consider what niche they're doing and then really get out there in Facebook, Twitter and Meetup groups and just really get their name out there as the person that knows about what they're doing. Huh. Or at least they're interviewing. Maybe. Like me, I know when I started out, you know, I. I was just a telemarketer. So I knew. And I learned this from Alex Mendozian and taking his course Telecimar Secrets, that if you're not an expert, you interview other experts, you know, to help build your expertise.

Willie: Right, right. Alex, I think, called that being a reporter, you're not the expert, but you share the knowledge of the expert. And Alex is a friend of mine. Yeah, you have to actually pick a very narrow space that you are going to be the expert in. And it doesn't matter what it is. It can be teleseminars, it can be email marketing, it can be lower back pain or raising orchids or whatever, getting rid of mole crickets in your grass or whatever. But you have to take a very narrow space and then you have to prove to the world that you are the expert on that. That's not always easy. Not always easy.

Raven: Okay, so let's talk about that for a moment because it really isn't always easy. So you say you've got to prove to the world that you are an expert so that when you go to these joint venture partners, if you don't have a huge list, they can see at least you build up a credible name. Right, right. So what are just off the top of your head Maybe two or three things that a person can kind of go from zero to hero as being an expert in there.

Willie: Getting content out there that has your name on it. You know, if you're saying you're an expert on lower back pain, then you need to have articles or video or interviews that you've done on the topic so that when somebody types in a phrase in the search engines that describes a problem that you're teaching them to solve, that your name pops up first. So it's search engine optimization. It's getting your name out there. I mean, if anybody on the call right now were to type in joint venture expert, I have absolutely, positively no doubt that my name would pop up in the top three on Google because I am a joint venture expert. But it's because I've written so many articles, I've done so many interviews. There's audio, there's videos, there's probably 50 articles. Out there on joint ventures that I've done. And that's one of the secrets, I guess it's. Creating content would be the biggest key there. But it's when people start looking around at who are the experts and they see who's written the most on the topic. That in itself makes you an expert. Number two would be other people saying that you're an expert. You know, it's like you can all day yell and scream, I'm the world's leading expert on creating pizza. But until somebody else starts declaring you're the world's expert on creating pizza, and especially if it's some leading pizza expert, then you're not the expert. So that's social proof. Social proof. So you need to somehow figure out how to get other people to say things about you that you want to say about yourself. It's not really that hard, but it.

Raven: Takes some work, though. You do have to get out there and find out, you know, Google, find out what you need to do, find out as much as you can on the topic and, you know, maybe have a webinar or teleseminar and invite some people there so that you can start building up your name. Huh?

Willie: Yeah. I flew C130 transport airplanes. You mentioned that in my intro for a while. And when I first started, there was a major. That I was a young lieutenant and everybody was bragging about how good he was at getting an airplane around thunderstorms. He could look at his radar and see ahead of the plane and pick your way around them big, huge cumulonimbalous clouds and. And not get struck by lightning and stuff and get around it. And the only reason that that happened was because he was always telling people how good he was. So I learned from that that you actually do have to toot your own horn.

Raven: And not be shy about it.

Willie: Not be shy about it. And I learned from that a lot because I was probably every bit as good as he was at what I did because he was one of my instructors. And yet nobody talked about how good you were unless you put the word out and got people talking about you. It's that way online, too. You need to put out press releases. You need to get the word out that you are one of the world's leading experts on whatever.

Raven: And now that we have blogging, you know, it's easy to do that. We do have. What, articlewriting.com. So actually nowadays is a lot easier than it used to be because you have so many different ways, you know.

Willie: Yes.

Raven: Different things you can do you can go to your local meetup groups and say, hey, you know, can I be one of the speakers here? This is what I teach, you know, so the people just have to be willing to do. Do the work and. And also do the research.

Willie: Yeah. I am one of the world's leading Internet marketing experts, and people talk about that all the time. But I go to the local Glazer Kennedy Inner Circle Group where I'm often hear the founder of the group often says, so here's Willy Crawford. He's a multimillionaire who does this and that and that's okay. But I also host my own radio shows. I also do 100 other things that say I'm one of the world's leading experts. I help the founder of JV Alert to launch his site. And so every time he does a seminar, he pushes me. And I mentioned the Warrior Forum earlier. Alan says has 160,000 members now. I guess he mentions that I'm one of the world's leading experts in Internet marketing. So it's more about getting other people to say how good you are at what you do than you saying it. Because it goes further. It goes further. Yeah. It's social proof. It carries no weight for you to say that you do it or your mother to say you do it. But if you can say you do it, if you get others to say you do it and say how good you are, then that's huge. That's huge.

Raven: Absolutely. Absolutely. And always, like you said earlier, and I'm a big, big, big advocate of that, always make sure you give great customer service, because that's going to take you a long way.

Willie: Well, I just witnessed so many people struggling to build online businesses who didn't really have a lot of money in the first place, and they invested money in things that didn't work out for them. So I wrote out the saying, no man has a right to play with another man's dream. And I have that above my desk right now.

Raven: I like that. I like that.

Willie: It's like if I know somebody's only got an extra $200 a month to invest in a business, then I have absolutely no right to take their money, knowing that what I'm taking it for isn't going to work. So I don't sell anything that doesn't work. I'm a joint venture broker, so I help a lot of people to launch products. But before I even touch a product, I look at the product inside and out. I look at their advertising, I look at their websites, I look at everything involved and ask is this going to can this work? And it's my personal ethical system, you know.

Raven: That's what you have to stick with. I like that. I like it. You're giving us some really good golden nuggets. And we are speaking with none other than Willie Crawford. And Willie is here talking to us about joint ventures. You're listening to KlLAV out of Las Vegas, baby. We're in Las Vegas, Willie. How exciting. Listen, I'm going to go ahead and throw one more question at you. Then we're going to take a couple, just a quick break and come back and wrap it up with the last two. Okay, we just have a quick minute on this. But who promotes these product launches and why would they.

Willie: Well, who promotes these product launches are people who have built up large email lists for the most part. And the reason they would promote it is that they know that they'll make more money from promoting that and promoting our own products and services.

Raven: So it's got to be a win win for everybody.

Willie: Got to be a win win for them, for their customers and for the product owner. And so it's having a product that there's absolutely no question that the market wants. First of all, you know, that's the biggie.

Raven: Well, you know what? We're going to come right back and another chance to sip on some water. How cool is that? I think I'll grab me some this time. In fact, I think I'm going to get me some. Oh, mocha. Yes. Go to sippinghealthycoffee.com so next week you can have you some mocha or some latte or if you like it, chocolate, you can have it that way. Nice and strong and hot. But you know what? It's not just coffee. It's healthy coffee. Go to sippinghealthycoffee.com My name is Raven Blair Davis. I'm visiting with Willie Crawford and we're going to be back right after this commercial break.

Raven: Okay, welcome back. And we're glad you're here. And we are talking to Willie Crawford and he is just, oh, he's the man when it comes to Internet and joint ventures and getting products and selling them. And you know, Willie, our time has flown by. We actually got a chance to ask you one more question and then I want you to share with people real quickly how they can find out more about you. Okay, so my final question to you is, okay, we've built our name up. We've got our niche, we've got respect out there. We're walking the walk and talking to talk as an expert. And we have other people saying we are the expert in this. But now we're trying to convince list owners with lists of 5,000 to 400,000 to email and promote our products. Is that correct?

Willie: That's correct.

Raven: Okay, so what can we say to these people when we email them real quickly?

Willie: Well, you're asking the what's in it for me? Question. You're answering, why should they? A lot of these list owners actually have access to programmers, to writers, to people who could create a product similar to what you're trying to sell. And you're trying to get them to promote your product. So you answer the question, why should I promote your product over my own product? And the answer has to be, I'll take better care of your customers. I'll make you look better to your customers. My product is superior, my customer service is superior. And those are all things that you have to bear in mind and convey to them. And often you also have to offer them a decent percentage commission. It's not uncommon in the world of digital products to offer a 50, even 60% commission to these list owners. So you just have to bear that in mind. You have to acknowledge that they have lots of other options. And a lot of people that I deal with don't seem to acknowledge that. These list owners could. They don't need your product, they don't need you or your product. They could promote other things, including their own products or services. So you just need to bear that in mind.

Raven: That's a good thing. Okay, one final one, and that's what mistakes do people make in seeking email, joint ventures? And after you answer that, go ahead and give us information on how we can connect with you.

Willie: The biggest mistake they make is just assuming that it's all about the Money. It's not about the money. When I promote a product, I'm asking myself, okay, so I've spent 13 years building a database of customers, and I want to know what are my customers going to think about me a year from now and what's going to cause me to lose list members? And so it's not about the money. It's about taking care of my customers. It's about delivering tremendous value to my customers.

Raven: All right, well, I don't want to cut you off, but I definitely don't want to leave here. And I'm hearing that we just got a matter of seconds. Where can they find you, Willie?

Willie: They can find me on Twitter. Twitter is probably the biggest one. Twitter. Twitter.com/WillieCrawford Twitter.com/WillyCrawford they can also find me at willycrawford.com/blog and either places they can read my rambling.

Raven: Okay, well, you know what? We're going to make sure we have it on our site, too. At careersfromthekitchentable.com a couple links so they can find you. I want to thank you from my heart for being on, especially since you weren't feeling well and wish that you just feel fabulous from here on. I appreciate all of you for listening. I definitely appreciate you, Willie, for being here.

Willie: Thank you.