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Profile
on Willie Crawford
An Einfonews Exclusive
President Crawford Marketing Consultants
Bio ~ Willie Crawford
is considered one of the black pioneers of marketing online. He is constantly
quoted and featured on web sites of some of today's top Internet marketers.
His site on Soul Food Recipes has produced over $100,000 in sales. As
host of The Annual Internet Marketing How To Workshop, Willie Crawford
has been featured in numerous media interviews. He was featured in the
June 2003 edition of Corey Rudl's Secrets To Their Success web site. This
site features people making $30,000 to $2,000,000 each year from the homebased
Internet business.
Willie is the author of "Soul Food Recipes - Learned
On A North Carolina Tobacco Farm." Willie also authored an inspirational
biography entitled "Git Off The Porch."
Some of His Recent media interviews and events include:
The Mary Goulet Show, Annie Jennings PR Radio Show, Featured On James
Maduk's weekly webcasts, on Corey Rudl's Secrets To Their Success web
site, in Horizon's Airlines Inflight Magazine, The Houston Daily News,
hosted Merchant Accounts Exposed Teleseminar, Change Your Web Host Teleseminar,
and Write A Cookbook Teleseminar.
Kamau: Willie can you tell us a little bit about your background,
like where you grew up and went to school?
Willie: I grew up in the small tobacco
town of Fairmont, North Carolina. I went to the only school in the town
which was Fairmont High School. By the time I reached 6th grade the schools
had integrated in my hometown and everyone went to the same school based
upon age.
In my senior year I applied to the only university I had ever visited,
North Carolina State University, where I had once visited during a state
livestock judging competition. Somehow I managed to earn a bachelors in
Business Management and then entered the Air Force as a C-130 navigator.
Kamau: At what point in your life did you decide you wanted to
become an entrepreneur?
Willie: In college I met a lot of
students from wealthy families and began to see how much wealth there
really is in the world. At that point I became convinced that I really
did want to own my own business… perhaps some type of manufacturing
concern. As I traveled the world in the Air Force I visited over 40 different
countries. I saw many examples of extreme
poverty and extreme wealth. Even though I did well in the military, I
constantly felt the urge to get into my own business. I wanted to feel
more in control of my destiny.
Kamau: Who were some of your role models that influenced you to
go into business?
Willie: I read a lot of books written
by business people because I was constantly searching for ideas and just
trying to get a grasp around the whole concept of wealth generation. Books
like Think and Grow Rich influenced my thinking more than any individuals.
Harvey MacKay, author or Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive
was a big influence.
Kamau: Who are some of your favorite business people now?
Willie: Jay Abraham is currently
my favorite because he built a business from nothing and learned to apply
things that he saw being used successfully in one industry to completely
different industries. All of my favorites are really copywriters because
they show me
how truly powerful words can be… and we all have access to the same
words.
It's strange but because I've observed so many powerful
people and seen their human side, I don't have any real heroes. Oprah
impresses me with what she has accomplished.
Kamau: When did you decide that the Internet is a place that you
wanted to do business?
Willie: I was drawn to the Internet
while still in the Air Force …. late 1996. I knew that it was time
to do something else… to start building my dreams, but partly due
to family influences I didn’t just leave the
military. So I looked on the Internet for a business that I could take
with me when the military forced me to move around. I decided that once
I did build a successful business I would leave the military at
the earliest opportunity.
Kamau: Was there a defining moment or turn point in your business
career when you knew you were going to be successful on the Internet?
Willie: I wrote a simple soul food
cookbook that took off. People building Internet businesses in my niche
watch for others showings signs of success. I guess that's so that we
can copy those who've figured out the puzzle. A friend saw that I was
doing really great with a few of my sites, but especially my cookbook
so he invited me to speak at a conference he was hosting. When I was invited
to speak on the same stage with some well-known marketers in my niche,
I knew that I had broken from the pack!
Kamau: I thought I read some where on one of your sites that "You
literally went from welfare to Internet marketing success. Is this true?
Willie: I was on welfare all of my
youth but success didn't happen overnight. After I went into the military,
I had an OK job, and by the time I retired, I was earning $70,000 a year!
College is what opened the
door for a better paying job, then the Internet opened it farther. I have
achieved tremendous success on the Internet once I broke the code, which
is largely that you need to get known by the right people and elbow your
way into their circles!
Kamau: How did you initially drive traffic to your first site or
soul food site?
Willie: I initially drove traffic
to my site by posting 15 recipes on my website and optimizing it for terms
related to soul food. Then I got #1 listing at many of the Search Engines
including the old Yahoo and AltaVista. As the traffic streamed in, I got
them on my mailing list to swap recipes.
Every subscriber to my recipe list automatically gets an
email in 10 days asking them to share the list with friends. This is the
source of fully 1/4 of my current traffic and subscribers to that site.
Kamau: This is a very challenging question, but if anyone can handle
it you can.
Willie, You first had great success in the ethnic food market with Soul
Food, how were you able to leverage that knowledge into becoming a top
marketing guru in the general market?
Willie: Friends that I met at my first
workshop taught me that you can take any knowledge or training, and leverage
that into an information product empire. They showed me how this was possible
with my simple cookbook and that this same methodology could be applied
to any niche. All I really did was take a few chances and apply what I
was taught.
The principles I learned and apply now are timeless, proven direct marketing
principles such as drawing lots of prospects into your funnel, selling
them an entry level product, and then progressively upsell the ones who
are properly qualified.
Kamau: How much of a challenge is overcoming racism in becoming
a successful Internet business person?
Willie: I had a friend back around
1999 tell me that it was very important to let people know who you are.
She explained the not everyone was going to like you and that that was
OK. So, at her encouragement, I
put my photo on most of my websites. This instantly led to a lot of people
connecting with me on a deeper level and these became many of my best
customers.
I taught myself to ignore much of the racism that IS everywhere. We all
prefer being around and dealing with those who are like us and that we
think we understand. Racism and all of other ism's still exist, but I
don’t let that slow me down.
People get over or ignore the racial issue when they see that you can
actually do something for them. It is a matter of proving yourself, and
you may not get as many chances at first, but when people see that you
take yourself seriously, and that you get results, they realize that they
probably can't afford to let their biases get in the way.
Kamau: What are your top suggestions for people looking to cash
in on their expertise by developing profitable infoproducts?
Willie: First of all, don't undervalue
your knowledge. There are many people who want your specialized knowledge
and will pay handsomely for it. Too many people underprice their infoproducts
and services at first.
Don't be afraid to approach big-name people in your industry to suggest
project you can joint venture on. The worse that they can say is "no"
and you'll be no worse off than before. Just make sure that your offer
is framed to show them how THEY will benefit from
the arrangement.
If you are just starting out, you need the leverage provided by having
a big-name on your side. The principles of success by association kick
in and people naturally attribute many of the positive characteristics
that your partners/sponsors have to you.
Kamau: Thanks Willie for taking time out of your busy schedule
to share some inspirational insights with Einfonews' audience. I read
your newsletter every week, and also other ezines from other top Internet
gurus. But quite frankly, I think yours is one of the most usable, for
the average person getting their feet wet in Internet marketing. Willie
Crawford can be reached at www.WillieCrawford.com
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