“If the TV ads do as well as we hope, you’ll get a big payoff,” said the company’s president as she handed me a check.

I didn’t even bother to ask how much the “big payoff” might be. That’s because the “small money” she’d just handed me was a six-figure amount.

Why was her company paying me so much? And why was she willing to pay me even more in the future?

You see, I’d made a deal with her company to market a product I had the rights to. This - obtaining the rights to a product and then selling those rights to someone else - is a cash-cow of an opportunity that many entrepreneurs ignore.

It’s a great business for two reasons:

1. You can earn unlimited income.

2. It’s possible to start with little to no capital.

For the purposes of this article, let’s define “product” as anything that can be assigned the right to market it. That can include physical products, information products (like instructional courses), or even ideas.

In the deal I described above, I had acquired the rights to a line of natural health supplements. I had crunched the numbers, and they looked very promising. Plus, the supplements had a very marketable USP (unique selling proposition), so I thought there was a good chance they would be a hit with consumers.

Why didn’t I just market the supplements myself?

For one thing, in order for me to fully implement the marketing plan I had in mind, it was going to take a few hundred thousand dollars. Although I had confidence in the product line, it wasn’t a sure thing. And though I could have come up with the money on my own, I didn’t feel comfortable risking that much on a relatively speculative investment.

Besides, my business philosophy is to pursue opportunities that require little to nothing in the way of capital. In this case, some money changed hands when I obtained the rights to market the supplements. But my out-of-pocket expenses were still under $500.

So I felt it made sense for me to sell my rights instead of the supplements themselves.

You may be wondering why a person or a company would be willing to part with their rights to a product. There are several reasons:

• They may do it because you’ll have to buy the product from them - which means they can make a profit with it without having to do any of the marketing.

• They may think the product is a dud, and anything they can get by selling the rights is better than nothing. (That was the case with the supplements.)

• They may grant you the rights on a revenue-sharing basis, where you’ll split any profits you earn.

• They may simply have no idea how to monetize the product.

All of these reasons give you the opportunity to acquire the rights to a highly marketable product - and then turn around and make big money with it. Here are the basic steps:

1. Find an interesting product with rights that you can control.

You can create the product yourself (a book, video, song, formula, etc.). But it will probably be easier to find an existing product and acquire the rights.

Search the Internet for websites that are old and haven’t been updated recently. What you’re looking for is a great information product that hasn’t been promoted for a while. You can also search manufacturer listings for physical products. Another way to find good physical products is to check inventor chat rooms and sites.

2. Make the deal for the rights.

When you find an interesting product that has potential, approach the owner of the product with a proposal to acquire his rights.

There are essentially two ways to obtain the rights to a product. The simplest is to offer to purchase the rights outright. Once you’ve paid for them, you own them, free and clear.

If you don’t want to shell out the money up front, you can option the rights. In other words, you can agree to buy the rights at a later time for an agreed-upon price. What this means is that if, for example, you option the distribution rights for a patented invention for $5,000 and then sell those same rights to a manufacturer for $100,000… you’ve just made a killing!

3. Monetize the rights.

Once you’ve got the rights to a great product, decide how you want to make money with it. You could sell the product directly to the public. Or you could sell your rights to another company that would then market it. (That’s what I did with the supplement deal I told you about.)

To find a company that you might be able to interest in your product, you’ve got to do some research. Create a list of a dozen prospects, and contact them. If you’re not afraid of personal selling, simply pick up a phone and make some calls. But if you prefer, you can create a sales letter and send it out. Either way, it’s helpful to do a little investigating first to get the names of the people in those companies who are in charge of considering new products. (Those are the people you address your sales letters to or ask for when you call.)

How you structure your deals with those folks depends on the way you negotiate them. You might want to sell your rights outright - or you may prefer to go for profit-sharing.

Either way… you can’t lose.

[Ed. Note: Acquiring and then marketing the rights to products is an amazing way to make a lot of money without much capital. Paul Lawrence reveals his detailed strategies for making money with this business opportunity in his "Getting Rich With Rights" program. Get the details here.

And for a crash course in selling practically anything, check out this book from a man who was directly responsible for over $2 BILLION in sales. Get your "PhD" in persuasion right here.]

Similar Articles:

• The Secret to Selling the Rights to Products - Obtaining and selling the rights to products can be very profitable for entrepreneurs, even those wi…
• How Do You Know Which Products to Sell? - When it comes to the products you offer, if you stick to two guidelines, you’ll never want for satis…
• A Fundamental Fact of Entrepreneurial Growth - Getting your business started is a matter of breaking into an existing market by selling some new pr…
• An Antioxidant That Can Help Prevent Prostate Cancer - Wine lovers are probably already aware that red wine contains a powerful antioxidant: resveratrol. A…
• Are There Only 2 Ways to Be Successful in Business? - I was browsing through the Robb Report recently while in a cigar shop in Denver. One article caught …
• The Skill That Can Make You Rich - How’d you like to make $1.49 million a year… or more? There is a way, and it’s simpler than you may …
• How to Break Into the $20 Billion “Look and Feel Younger” Market - Aging baby boomers, who are retiring in droves these days, are fueling a $20 billion mega-market bec…