From a Nobody To Trusted Authority In Record Time With Joel Therien

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“Here’s the best way that people can get over fear. You know the fear that,
“I don’t want to shoot my first video.”, or, “What if I screw up?”
is look at your fear through the rearview mirror. In other words, you know,
all the things that you were afraid of the past whether maybe it was proposing to
your wife or your husband, or asking somebody out on a date or making your first
email that you sent. You can look back on that in the rearview mirror go, “You
know, what I was really nervous when I first created that. But now I look at it and
it’s something that is just part of my day to day.”

Hi, my name is Igor Kheifets and this is the List Building Lifestyle, the only podcast
which delivers cutting edge conversion strategies from the online trenches straight to
your earbuds. Download the transcript of today’s episode and all future episodes at
listbuilidnglifestylesshow.com. I also invite you to grab a free copy of “The Wealthy
List Builder’s Survival Guide” at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com/survival and now
once again it’s time to claim your List Building Lifestyle.

Igor: Welcome back to another edition of the List Building Lifestyle, with your host
Igor Kheifets. Despite having an amazing boss, great colleagues and a great salary
of $52,000 a year, Joel Therien that walked away from his job as a cardiac rehab
specialist to start his own hosting company. Within six months, he had four hundred
clients paying him $20 per month, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. Today,
almost twenty years later, Joel stands at the helm of several companies and
MLM’s. These days, Joel’s primarily focused on growing Pure Leverage which
is already one of the world’s largest cyber MLM’s, which focuses on
powerful, yet elegant prospecting automation. Joel’s work ethics consistency and
dedication make Pure Leverage a force to be reckoned with. In fact it is on a
trajectory to become one of the first cyber multilevel marketing companies to hit
Fortune 100 list. It’s a great pleasure to host you Joel, because if there’s
anyone who can shed light on how to achieve lasting success with online business
opportunities, it’s probably you, my friend. Thank you so much for being here.

Joel: Well thanks for having me, Igor, it’s an absolute pleasure, real pleasure.

Igor: Well it’s a pleasure hosting you, trust me. I know was an easy to get you.
I mean it’s just impossible, you’re like in Ukraine and Texas and like
you’re all over the place.

Joel: While I’m here I wanted to make time, for sure. So thanks for having me.
I’m the one who has a blessed.

Igor: Alright. So Joel, as we were chatting before the show, you shared with me you
believe consistency is the key to success in business. You also shared how irritated
you are with people who get involved business opportunities helping turn a full time
income overnight, which we know it never happens. Since the vast mob of my listeners
is business opportunity marketers, I’d love it if you could help us align
expectations here. What should a rookie expect to happen when they get started with
a brand new opportunity?

Joel: Expect to happen on day one, probably throw up their hands or go, “Oops,
this isn’t for me. I thought it was going to be easy.”

Igor: [laughter]

Joel: Nothing is easy in business. Is it hard? No, but you’ve got to manage
those expectations at first. The biggest, biggest, biggest mistake before even
diving in and looking at their first solo ad or looking at an online opportunity, is
the number one thing that irritates me the most and I see it on a daily basis in our
Help Desk and from our live chats and all that kind of stuff, is a professional
let’s say, he’s a professional engineer will say, you know I was making $6000
a month, I lost my job yesterday and I have to replace that income by the end of the
month because I have kids and a mortgage and bills to pay. It’s just impossible.
It’s literally, literally impossible to do. Number one, tip number one to
everybody out there, if you’re just getting started, 100% have a backup plan. My
backup plan was to live extremely lean at the time; I was living in a 400 square
foot townhouse. My mortgage was only $400 a month and we decided to live at that
time off my wife’s income. We decided no more movies, no more going out, just
very lean dinners. That was my backup plan. When you have that type of backup plan
it allows you to think more clearly, allows you to stay more focused. If you’ve
got a $4000 or $2000 mortgage bill coming due in a week, and you know you need to
make that money in the week, it’s psychologically impossible to do it.

Igor: Yes, of course, because you’re so preoccupied with the shit storm that is
just about to happen, and all the emotional turmoil that comes with it. It’s
really… You don’t you end up not treating this like a business, but more so
you start seeking opportunities, start going for the shiny object you try this
technique or that method, and you fall for these, all kinds of scams and all kinds
of, well, just messy things, and of course later you end up blaming the scammers,
but the reality is, you didn’t prepare yourself. You didn’t pay attention
and you made a really bad emotional decision getting into the whole thing first
place.

Joel: Yeah, absolutely. When you don’t manage the expectations yourself and
you’re obviously on a path to a certain failure, then the problem is that you
don’t give yourself the credit. You know you’re on this path to a certain
failure, failure happens, then like you said, you throw up your hands and go,
“Well I guess this online business stuff isn’t for me because I heard that
XYZ person made $10,000 in their first month.” What they don’t realize is
there’s a back story to that. While it may be true that somebody joins in MLM
and makes $10,000 in their first month, what they don’t tell people is the back
story that they’ve been online for four or five years, they have a list of
50,000, 100,000 in engaged list, and they just simply said to me out of that list.
Nobody who should get started on day one goes and makes 10 grand in their first
month. It just doesn’t happen. I haven’t seen it personally.

Igor: It’s interesting you mentioned list building. How critical, how important
is list building the whole process of building really successful six figure,
multiple six figure business from home?

Joel: My number one focus right now, everything single thing that I do is focused on
generating a lead, not generating a sale and that’s put me to the eight figure
per year, still working on nine figures per year. It’s the most important thing
that you can do. In fact, my first two years on line I didn’t make any because I
was trying to sell my web hosting. I was trying to make that sale, and we made some
sales and we’re talking about the bio at the start. I’m talking online
sales; those sales that I made were I had 400 customers that was door to door
marketing. I was literally going door to door in my home town selling people a web
presence. But when it came to the online marketing side, it was an absolute failure,
because again, I was just focused not generating trust in generating a lead, but
trying to generate a sale, so even still today every marketing funnel that I create,
everything that I look at starts only with list building.

Igor: Interesting. You mentioned that you went door to door selling web hosting and
web presence. Now this is great because, if there’s one commonality between all
great salespeople and all great marketers, is at some point either study from
somebody who’s done door to door sales, or they’ve done door to door sales
themselves. Even that the great Wolf of Wall Street, John Belfort used to go
selling, I think it was mortgages, door to door. So do you mind sharing what are
some of the things you picked up that you learned selling web presence door to door
in your hometown that you eventually brought with you to your online business, and
perhaps even used today to further develop your company?

Joel: Well how I got into the door to door sales is, my dad owned it advertised
agency at the time, selling ads and yellow pages directory. Now even back then, back
in 1998 when I got started, 97/97, long time ago, I recognized the fact that yellow
pages were going to be obsolete, a thing of the past. So my dad, I thought he was
going to show me the ropes, and he did the greatest thing that he could have ever
done for me, and so I went put on a casual suit and got in the car with him, and
thought I was going to watch him do some sales for the day, and he threw me a copy
of his telephone book, and he threw me a contract and he said, “Go see that
person over there. Go into that business and sell them an ad.” Now, he knew
whole heartedly to that I wasn’t going to make the sale, and I remember how
scared to death I was. I was literally scared shitless. So my hands were shaking, I
was literally almost ready to cry. I went in and I didn’t make the sale, but I
realized what he was trying to do for me, is get me out of my comfort zone. That
happened very quickly. First four or five times, maybe three or four days, I made
one or two sales because I wasn’t very refined. But what I did learn from all of
that was two things. One: Shut up and be a good listener, because when people have
problems in their business they will virtually let you know what those problems are,
and by be a good listener I could provide a solution. So when I was selling a web
presence, there were so many different ways. I’ll use an example of my very,
very, very first customer. He did home inspections by trade. At this point I had
learned to listen well. I said, “Well, what are your problems in your
business?” He said, “Well you know, in home inspections so many people
call. They ask me twenty questions as to why I need a home inspector, and so
they’re really curiosity seekers, so I spend fifteen minutes on the phone with
them and they hang up and I never hear from them again or some of them I sell.”
So I suggested to him, I said, “Listen. Take those top ten questions that you
get from every single person that you’re tired of repeating yourself day to
day. We’re going to put those in an eBook format.”, and I explained to him
what an eBook was. Even at that point we had our first auto responder at the time,
and even still conventional businesses thinking auto responder’s absolutely
magic. They don’t know what it is. It’s all centered around list building.
So I said, “Listen you’re going to create a title on your website. The top
five or top ten things that you need to know before purchasing your first
home.” I said, “You’re going to put an opt-in form on there. People
are going to download your eBook, they’re going to read your eBook and only at
the end of your eBook we’re going to put your phone number, your cell number so
that people are now pre-qualified. When they call you and pre-educated, now
they’re just ready to buy.” and he said it was just… “Had I not
listened, I could have said all we can do these graphics and this and all this type
of stuff, and you can put your domain on your business parts.” But by listening
to what his core complaint was centered around his business, we provided the
ultimate solution to him, and when I saw him again is actually still a customer
today. He’s name is Steve McDonald actually, and I saw him, you know, I
haven’t seen him in years now, but I saw a month or two later, he said it was
just phenomenal. Because now when people call, rather than having ten or fifteen
questions, 80% are like, “Okay, I need your services. Where do I buy?”
That was the number one thing. The other thing that I learned was it was very
difficult back then. The big core thing that I still use today, a lot of people call
it ‘The decoy method’, but every purchasing decision is based on a
comparison. An example I like to use, I used to go to Mexico a lot when I was a kid.
There would be all types of vendors, you’d be afraid to buy something because
some vendor on the street would sell you a beach towel for $40, but then you’d
go to the next vendor and find out you just got royally screwed, because you could
get it for $10. What I learned very quickly was, people who are advertising in my
dad’s telephone book at the time, it’s very, very unsuccessful my sales at
the start, trying to sell web host in 1998, because nobody knew the value of having
a presence online. They didn’t know the value of a domain name and stuff, but
they knew the value in the telephone book. So they knew that a full page ad, my
dad’s telephone book was a $1000 a year. So knowing that they knew the value of
that in the comparison, and I said look, “What we’re going to do, is
I’m going to build you a web page for free.” So I knew how to do a little
bit of web design. “I’m going to charge twenty dollars per month. But what
I’m going to do is I’m going to give you a second ad in the telephone book
absolutely free, which is going to market your website in the telephone directory
itself.” By that, because they knew the value of the book, people were like,
“That is a no brainer, sign me up.” Those are the two core things I
learned selling door to door. Be a good listener and people always make their buying
decisions based on a comparison.

Igor: Well I actually picked up another secret out of this example you provided with
the home inspection person, Steve. Right? Steve’s the name.

Joel: Yes.

Igor: So first graduations on having such an amazing service, where you’re able
to keep a customer for almost 20 years.

Joel: I’m aging myself. I’m going to be 44 next month. I used to be a young
punk like you years ago, but any way. The longevity is another key we can talk about
too, I guess.

Igor: I guess, yeah. That can be a whole other episode of and in itself. But that
alone, my hat is off to you for doing that because it’s not easy. Especially
today when competition is so fears, the marketplace is so volatile and it is so easy
to get on your cell phone and look and the other place of business or you can just
leave so obviously doing something right if somebody just sticks with you for 20
years. But the other thing you see you mention was that he was getting these phone
calls with a bunch of questions. People who were asking him all these questions, but
they were never committing to purchase. Now this is actually a very, very, very
familiar situation for anyone who ever marketed business opportunities. I hear
people complain about this all the time. The solution which you suggested to Steve,
was info marketing. In other words, instead of just being a service provider or just
selling a product, Steve has now become an educator and he educated his clients why
they should buy from him, and not some other home inspector.

Joel: Absolutely. He became the authority instantly.

Igor: Yes. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take the conversation to this
direction now, because so many marketers… I mean first of, there’s a ton of
business opportunities out there right now. Like a million, and there’s a new
one popping up every day, if not every hour. So there are so many people out there
who are like in their 50’s and 60’s and even 70’s sometimes get online,
they want to make a full time income. Six figures, five figures, doesn’t matter,
who want to make money. So obviously, they come into this niche or industry and they
got zero authority. Nothing.

Joel: Absolutely.

Igor: They’re as far from being an authority as you can possibly get. So info
marketing, as I find, and as you know is very fast way, an extremely fast and easy
way to become an authority. So let’s discuss exactly the kind of process, or
kind of thinking that goes behind creating an information product, either free or
paid that allows a newcomer to become an authority.

Joel: Well there’s a lot of ways of doing it, you can borrow credibility. What
people don’t realize is, you can be literally on one webinar and you can learn
something so revolutionary, and it can seem like a baby step, but you’re now
more educated than 99% of the new people who are getting on board the following day
after you do. I think that’s a real mental block for some people. There’s a
lot of, you know, I’ll do a webinars, too. People say, “What do I talk
about?” I said, “Talk about what I just taught you tonight.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea.” “Yeah. You now have the information
that that people behind you, one day behind you have no clue. When you educate
people in that, way you become, you create that instant trust because it’s law,
one law of reciprocation. People are like, “Man, this guy’s just giving me,
or this gal is giving me all types of information for free. They are not asking for
my credit card.” So on and so forth. That’s number one is, realize that
you’re one day smarter than everybody else, even if it’s your first day
online, that creates good, good content. Two, my favorite and not everybody is
willing to do it right away, is video. My daily method of operation now, Igor, is
obviously build the list, but build the list using video as my main source of trust.
So all of my follow up emails, all have a call to action to a video, and video
marketing which is a form of info marketing I find has been the best conversions for
me, because it just inherently and subconsciously creates more of know who I can
trust. I’m not out here to bad mouth anybody, but there’s a lot of people
outside of network marketing, in the CPA space who create these products and they
hire actors and actresses, and create fake names, and all that kind of stuff to sell
something, and I believe if you’re a big believer in your product… I was
actually, I sent you an email. I don’t know if you saw it. I was watching your
video the other day. It was very informative. You were sitting at a Starbucks or
something, and that’s the type of information that’s just amazing.
You’re selling without selling, because you’re providing people one with
managed expectations, two so my point on that is, I could, I’ve watched that
video and there’s one part that you said about why we inherently skeptical which
is, well our parents told us not to talk to strangers. I actually borrowed that and
used that on my last video that I shot yesterday. I thought it was just a great
piece of advice. So another way people can do it…another thing that people, as
their business grows, it’s very hard to not be in the business versus working on
the business. So I’ve learned over time, very often I work from home. I’m
not always at the office, because I get involved in too much the day to day. But
what people can do as they start to build their income, follow the best people. Get
on it as many newsletters as you can get on of good information marketers, and
you’ll have your next topic in hand for yourself and to create your own
authority figure very quickly. Again, people think it’s hard to find information
to tell to others. It’s not, it’s quite easy.

Igor: Oh yeah, the internet is just a wash with information. By the way, I’m
happy that you’re able to borrow my tip, actually makes me feel really good.
Just so we’re clear, I borrowed it from somebody else. I actually don’t
remember who I stole it from.

Joel: But that’s the whole thing. The perception is, you’re the authority
that was your information, but really the transfer of information if you look at the
industrial age that we’re in, we didn’t build jets, and we didn’t build
the iPhones magically. It’s from the transfer of information over the past
hundred years. Right? Einstein learned physics and based on some of that physics,
probably some of those parts went into our iPhones. So you look like the guru, but
let’s face it, it’s all transfer of information.

Igor: Oh yeah, absolutely. My first successful product, which was a list building
product, it was a complete rip-off of Ryan Dice’s product, which called
“Underground List Building” where I just took a segment of information, and I
retold it in my own words. Here’s a secret guys, actually it’s not even a
secret, but the real reason why I believe people struggle with information
marketing, although this is by far the best way to promote yourself and business
without coming across as ‘salesy’, and being a used car salesman person. The
reason is because people won’t give themselves the permission. You see, ever
since we’re grown up, we’re being told what to do. We have authorities, we
have teachers, we have politicians, we have policemen, and we have parents,
whatever. So we’re always being told what to do. We’re asking and seeking
permission. But online, the beautiful part about the internet, obviously there’s
a bad part about it, which is you know, it’s kind of like the Wild Wild West. So
you can get burned real easily, but at the same time, there’s no one out there
that can forbid you from becoming the authority. That’s why you see all these
YouTubers and Instagramers, instant celebrities kind of pop overnight, because
there’s no barrier anymore. So you can be an authority simply because you have
the audacity to believe that you deserve to be one.

Joel: It’s the audacity. You said the exact right thing; the audacity and the
willingness to absolutely come out of your comfort zone just a little bit. I just
want to talk about that just for a second. Here is the best way that people can get
over fear. The fear of, “I don’t want to shoot my first video.” Or,
“What if I screw up?”, is look at your fear through the rearview mirror.
In other words, all the things that you were afraid of the past, whether maybe it
was proposing to your wife or your husband, or asking somebody out on a date or
making your first email that you sent. You can look back on that in the rearview
mirror and go, “You know what? I was really nervous when I first created that,
but now I look at it and it’s something that is just part of my day to
day.” Without continued education, you’ve got to have that audacity to keep
learning. So just look when you’re fearful of something, think of something that
you were dreadfully fearful in the past, and you’ll probably laugh at it and
move forward. Just fail forward fast, perfection creates procrastination and just
have the audacity to do it, like you said.

Igor: Oh yeah, absolutely. I was speaking to John Carlton the other day and he’s
like, “Dude, the best thing I could ever do for my business and my success, was
to make as many mistakes as I could possibly make, as fast as I could make them.
Because that’s how you learn.” The whole concept of taking other
people’s or other expert’s information, and feeding them back to the
marketplace as your own, is actually a concept that Ray Higdon talks about an
instant expert, the three minute expert, it’s called a Learn, Do, Teach or
Invest, Do, Teach, where you learn something, you implement it immediately, which is
great for you and your business because then you get results faster, and then you go
teach it to other people, which is another way it solidifies the whole concept in
your mind, a well as of course, it solidifies your presence in the marketplace.

Joel: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, I’d agree with you. It’s wise advice. It
comes back to what you’re saying about Ray Higdon, the three minute expert, is
you can be, like I said, on a webinar watch YouTube video, and regurgitate. Now
that’s not to say if you see a blog post you copy and paste the blog post, the
article itself, no. It’s now transfer of information, and as long as you say it
in your own words, it’s perfectly; it’s a good thing to do.

Igor: Well you could actually even take it one step further if you really feel
comfortable about this. You can actually say, “Hey here’s something to
learn from X.” Alright? Like I just mentioned John Carlton. Whatever I just
dispense, right, I said, John Carlton was the one to say it to me. Whenever I share
email marketing advice, most of it comes from my friend Ben Settle. So I kind of I
just say, “Look, this is something I learned from Ben Settle. Here’s what
he says and here’s how I implemented it in my business.” So there’s no
shame to admit you learn from someone else, in fact this honesty only gives you
additional points. Because let’s face it, most people out there, they lie. They
are dishonest. They try to put if a set a facade. They’re trying to hide things.
We come across as this being a really honest, straightforward person, it’s very
easy to learn to like and trust you, and that of course, will result in more sales.

Joel: Absolutely. I agree 100%.

Igor: So Joel, you keep mentioning the comfort zone. It’s obviously a big thing.
I mean in your life story, which I was able to pick up before the show, you
mentioned that one of the biggest mistakes that you’ve ever made was to not play
big enough from the get go.

Joel: Yeah.

Igor: So do you mind sharing what’s the reasoning behind that?

Joel: Looking back now, I’m not quite sure why I didn’t play big enough
right away. I think as you see results, every little result creates a new
breakthrough. I think it expands your mind more. I think probably, actually you know
what, thinking about it. Here’s the key component of why I didn’t think big
enough. I did have a billionaire mentor; I was doing his personal training at his
home. But I only saw him once a week and we became actually quite good friends, but
still there was always that intimidation factor. I was driving like this shitty
little Eagle Vista, and I’d pull up to his doorstep he’d have a Rolls Royce,
a Lamborghini and a couple other cars like 4 million dollars’ worth of cars. So
there was always that intimidation factor, even though he was very pleasant, very
kind, and very good with me. So I think that I didn’t think big enough at first,
is because I didn’t start seeing the value and centering myself around like
minded people. When I first got started, it was more, “Oh, I can do this
myself, I can do this myself.” In fact, the video I shot the other day, which
is very true, there’s no such thing as a self-made millionaire. What I mean by
that, is there’s people that make great money, but it’s through JV’s and
associations and networking. I think as I started to hang around more people, I
started you know, that doesn’t mean drop your friends and family who don’t
think like you. It’s not that. When I’m at dinner with friends or family, I
just don’t talk about business. I talk about what they want to talk about,
whether it’s their kid at hockey or whatever it might be. But as I started to
hang around and choose my friends wisely, I think that’s when I started to
expand more and more and more. Of course, those little breakthroughs so my first
sale after two years was online, not the offline door to door, but online it was
$9.97 after two years. Why? Because again, I was trying to sell people, not help
people or generate a list at the time. I was jumping up and down. The sale happened
at 3 o’clock in the morning and it was the first time ever in my life, because
before that it was door to door. The amount of money I was making was a direct
effort of the work I was putting into it. This was the first time that I actually
made money while I was sleeping, and I was just absolutely ecstatic. Once that
breakthrough happened, even though it wasn’t very much money, like I was
bragging to my wife, and I was bragging to my father. “I told you so, I told
you so. I told you, you can make money. Blah, blah, blah.” They’re all
scratching their head like, “Well, listen $9 is not going to pay your
mortgage.” But to me it didn’t matter at that point. I knew I was heading
in the direction. It was, “How do I go from $9, replicate that 100 times, 1000
times, 10000 times. Because of that breakthrough, I think my mind really, really
expanded to what was possible. When your mind expands, you take more and more
action. Because of those bigger actions steps that I took, I think the next month I
made like $2000 then a month after that $15000. Then it jumped to like $30000
exclusively online. So yeah, I mean I think if people are thinking small right now,
I get it. I was there. I’ve been there where my first goal was to pay my
mortgage, and my mortgage at the time was $400. I think just if you get yourself to
events, like you shared with you, you want to move to Canada for a couple of
reasons. One of the reasons for you on a business level is so that you can get to
more events. What do more events do? It gets you around like minded people. When
you’re around like minded people, your mind really expands quickly.

Igor: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean my first event was a big revelation. I was like
coming back home. Going to the event, I was like, I was feeling like I’m about,
I almost stepped out the marketplace. But coming back and seeing all these people
making ten times more money than I was, it was like, “Man, there is so much
more to this.” There are things to do. I came back fired up, and my business
partner, he was looking at me as if I was crazy. Like as if I came back on drugs or
something. But it is. It is intoxicating to discover that there is a whole new world
out there, and there are people just like you, normal people who started out with
nothing, just like you, who are just getting ridiculous, ridiculous results.

Joel: Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. The thing is, what’s really cool, I used to
share. You know, my mom passed two years ago, but she came from the conservative
mindset. We had a very, very tight knit family. So naturally, I would have an idea.
First when I told her that I was quitting my job as a cardiac rehab specialist, she
told me I was ruining my life. Not that she was trying to be cruel that was how she
was brought up; get a good education, get a good job. Naturally, when you first
start out, you want validation from the people you love the most. So my mom would
give me her advice, but it wasn’t based on experience. It was only based on a
gut instinct. It was only based on her belief, and her belief may or may not be
factual. When you get to these events and you talk to somebody, I know you’re in
the list building industry and solo ads, and you talk to another person that’s
doing solo ads, they might say, “Hey Igor, try doing it this way, because this
is where I got a better result.” Then when you know that you’re getting
advice from people base on experience itself, then you’re going to get a better
result. There’s nothing worse when I see time and time again and another value,
it’s funny how we’re getting around getting around like minded people. But I
see a lot of people, Igor as well; they don’t realize that network marketing is
a learned skill. It’s an absolute learned skill, recruiting is a learned skill.

Igor: Wait a second. My daughter was born a million dollar network marketer.

Joel: There you go. Exactly, exactly. You know. [laughter] But it’s a learned
skill, and I see so many people have massive passion, but you watch them from afar
obviously, and you see the mistakes that they’re making. They’re heading
down the wrong path. So even though they’re putting all their passion and all
their energy, will they see some results? Yes, but you’re like, “Man, if
they just turned a little bit, maybe 20, to the right and change things a bit,
they’d see ten times the results.” And you only get that when you get
surrounded by like-minded people that have done things based on experience.

Igor: Nice. Well here’s another tip. If you are by any chance, you’re like
living in a cave like I am for example, out of Israel. Hick town, 25000 people,
really, really small. Now they have the opportunity to go travel or get out of the
house often, and you don’t have a billionaire mentor. A good place to start
would be to read books. So Joel, here’s my question to you. I know you’re an
avid reader, I mean you have to be. Anyone who makes eight figures a year, or it is
just impossible not to. So what would you say are the top three books every internet
marketing or business opportunity marketer rookie should read?

Joel: One, you’re going to be shocked at this, but it’s true, but not true.
I don’t read. I use Audible.com, and there’s a specific reason for that. Is
I was born with a very weak ocular muscle on one side on one of my eyes that’s
not fixable. So when I read I get headaches very quickly. That’s just a side
note, but the point of that is, there’s always a solution to a problem. A lot of
people say, “Listen, I don’t have time to read.” Well my favorite is
Audible.com. I use that because I can listen to the books while I’m on the road,
I can listen to books while I’m working and doing stuff on my computer. There
are a lot of good books. The ones that helped me specifically in business, one was
Michael Gerber’s, The E Myth. As your business expands that was the biggest
challenge for me by the way, Igor, as it is. Once the business became bigger than
me, and I started having to hire other people to share that vision with, people are
motivated by different things. Again, that’s another whole interview.

Igor: Been there, man. I know exactly what you’ve gone through.

Joel: Yeah. We’re right over a hundred, a full time staff now. That was big
uphill battle for me. So that was a good book. If people are starting to hire
people, The E Myth is very good. It talks about the three different hard wires of
mindsets, which is that technician, the manager and the entrepreneur. A technician,
just as an example, and the manager, they like to be very organized. So if they know
that they’re coming in on Monday to do a specific task and then the entrepreneur
like myself comes to them and changes that task they get very flustered, very
frustrated. It’s not the way they are specifically hardwired, whereas if you
look at entrepreneurs like ourselves, if I’m not changing things up on a daily
basis or trying new things, I feel like I’m getting stagnant and we’re going
to fail. So that was one really good book for anybody who’s getting past the
‘Me’ stage. In other words, you’re running your business yourself,
you’re starting to hire other people that was really good. Gary Vaynerchuk had a
lot of good books on social media, which I’m really starting to pay a lot of
attention to. That helped me a lot as well. For those who are having a hard time
taking action because of fear, there’s another book called You Are a Badass.

Igor: That’s a sweet title, man. [laughter]

Joel: It’s a really good book and it’s actually the author of that does the
audible version. Jen Sincero is her name. That was a really good book where I took
tips on. She really talks about fear in life. So if you’re a real introvert
individual and you know that you need to grow, but something is just holding you
back, whether it’s talking to people or you’re just stalled out of fear,
that was an excellent, excellent book to read. It really changes your perspective
and it changed my perspective to realize that your perspective is just that it’s
only your perspective and how other people see you can be 1000% different then how
you see yourself. So that was an excellent book as well. I don’t know I’ve
listened to well over 150 books, so there are lots of them. But the most recent ones
here, like I said Gary Vaynerchuk has some great books out on social media. That one
was what I listened to. Eric Worre’s book is very good, Network Marketing
Pro, learned a lot from that. Those who are specific about recruiting and network
marketing that was a good book. But, I mean, you hit the nail on the head, Igor. The
key is definitely read a lot or do what I do, listen to a lot of audible books.
Because again, what you’re doing, it’s like you said, “If you can’t
get to a specific event, well as long as you’re educating yourself from the
people that have the experience, it’s a big difference.”

Igor: It is a game changer, my friend. I agree with you completely. So Joel,
who’s the ideal person that you’d like to see join Pure Leverage?

Joel: I use a test. I use a test. Because a lot of people say this as well and
it’s part of that, again like I said, network marketing is a learned model,
it’s a learned skill. So a lot of people come to us and they say, “Okay.
Well, who do I work with? Who on my downline do I work with? Who do I not work
with? How do I build my downline? And that kind of stuff. And I always use baby
steps. So in other words, if I give somebody a specific task, so here’s what you
can do whether you’re a member of any network marketing company. One is give
them a very simple, specific task. So Eric Worre talks about it as well. “If
I… would you?” In other words, “If I give you this task, would you
please do it?” It’s a big task to see because it’s very, network
marketing is very independent. Now, of course, do I want all the big wigs out there
that have less than half a million people to join our team? Absolutely. But to the
average person, you never know who the new shiny star is going to be. So I give
people specific tasks and I rate them based on that task. So if I can tell somebody,
“Hey, go watch this compensation plan video.” and I say, “Listen, if
today is like Wednesday,” I say, “Can you watch this video by Friday
morning?” If they call me back Wednesday, like a half hour later or e- mail me
and they say, “Fantastic video.” they’ve exceeded my expectations. I
gave them a deadline of Friday, they did it right away. It shows a massive passion
and they’re coachable. So those are the key people, whereas on the other
opposite of the spectrum, I ask somebody to watch a very simple video and I call
them or I send them an email, “Hey, did you watch the video?” Friday, and
they come back, “Oh, well my daughter was sick.” or “I got called
into work.” or whatever. Listen, we’re all busy. We’re all busy. It
doesn’t matter. Those are the people that I just stop working with and I think
one of the biggest mistakes that people make in recruiting is they believe too much
in somebody else’s potential. So let’s say your uncle is the best car
salesman in your town of Israel and you’re looking at him because, “Hey
man, he sells 25 cars a month.”

Igor: Dude, we don’t have cars in Israel. What are you… [laughter]

Joel: Well, you know where I’m going with this. Okay, so let’s say New York
City. He’s the best car salesman in Manhattan. He sells a car a day. He’s
the best salesman. You’re trying to recruit him because he’s your uncle and
you’re like, “Man, this guy is so good at sales that he would just do so
well in my opportunity.” But the reality is what you’re doing is you’re
believing in that person’s potential, whereas that uncle might be shit. “I
love selling. I love my job. I love selling cars.” and they’re not looking
for anything else. So network marketing is about talking to thousands, literally
thousands of people. Now, you can do that with the internet and there are clues left
everywhere. So a lot of people say, “Well, put a post … the other…
It’s really almost bastardization. You’ve seen this on Facebook, at Facebook
groups, “Join my team. Click here. Click here, make a million dollars. Click
there. Click there. Click wherever.” And I tell people, “Tell a story.
Tell a story on your fan page, tell a story on your personal profile, and if one
person, even one person likes your story, that’s your next lead. Those are the
people you want to work with because they took action on their own. So I give people
these baby steps and if they don’t complete those things I literally drop them.
Too many people fall. They focus on that uncle for 45 days and then their uncle
joins but does nothing, or their uncle doesn’t join, and then what do they say?
“I guess this industry isn’t for me.” That’s why it’s a
learned skill. It’s about talking to thousands of people because people can talk
a good game. “Oh, I can do this. I can do this.” Okay. Well, then put it
into action.” “Did you watch the video that I sent you? It’s only five
minutes long.” “Oh, no. My daughter was sick. Blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah.” versus, the person who calls back five minutes later, said,
“I’m on board. Let’s do this.” Big difference.

Igor: What I’m hearing is repulsion marketing. This is a big, big secret for
almost anyone who’s a top performer, anyone who makes seven figures a year. They
all have these barriers, myself included. I strategically put barriers in front of
the people who want to work with me, because the ones who are going to make it all
the way through to me, through ten different barriers, are going to be the best ones
to work with. They’re not going to argue about my prices, they’re going to
follow through with my guidance and homework. So that’s actually the secret why
I was able to start a coaching program within just two years have almost 100 success
stories, because I quite literally cherry picked the ones that were willing to jump
through all my hoops.

Joel: Absolutely. You have to cherry pick. It’s sad, but reality here
at GVO the ones that pay us the least are the ones that expect the most.
“Do it for me, do it for me, do it for me.” Those are not the people you
want to work with. The ones that scream, “Help, help, help, help, help.”
It’s like, “Okay, those are not the people I’m going to help unless
they prove to me through, like you said, through these barriers or tests that
they’re willing to put in the work. Because I think the other biggest
misconception is centered around this easy button that’s one of the biggest lies
in network marketing, especially, “I’ll build your downline for you.”
I’ve never seen anybody successful in this industry have their downline go by
their upline. It just doesn’t, again, it doesn’t exist as well.

Igor: Wow. So far this has been a tremendous call. I think anyone who is in a
company, just joined recently, or been struggling for a little while, this is
eye-opening stuff. In fact, I urge you guys, urge you List Builders to listen to
this a couple of times because not only things we voiced, but also the things that
were said in between the lines are really, really powerful. So Joel, how can my List
Builders work with you?

Joel: Probably… You probably hear the reluctance in my voice, because one,
you’re a very high-quality marketer, and two, combined with our website and our
fan page and everything, I probably get about 400 emails a day. The best place to go
is just to go to joeltherien.com and that will actually redirect to my blog and
then on there there’s a JV with Joel, and yeah, I’m willing to work with
anybody who’s willing to put in the work. But they won’t hear from me
personally. They’ll go through the test market too. “Do this, do this, do
this.” I think the longevity we talked a little bit about the 20 years I’ve
been here, well one of the few network marketing organizations that I’ve always
focused on value before anything else. So that’s why I think we’re,
“Hey, if you need an auto-responder, give us a call. If you need web-hosting
give us a call. If you want to build Pure Leverage as one of our opportunities,
that’s great too. So I appreciate that sort of plug. But the best way to contact
me directly is off my blog at joeltherien.com I would say. Give me a couple days,
because I get about 300 requests a day there, but I do get back to all those people
personally.

Igor: Wow. Well guys, you’ve heard. So now you have an opportunity to work
with just somebody who is tremendously successful now for a couple of decades
online. So you got to go to joeltherien.com and when you land there you’re going
to see a big blue banner at the top and then below it you’ll see a button that
says “JV with Joel” and get ready to be tested. Because this guy just
ain’t got time for tie-kickers. Plain and simple.

Joel: Yeah.

Igor: So with that said Joel, just a huge thinks from my Jewish heart for doing
this, for sitting down with us. We usually, by the way, if in case you don’t
know, our episodes are about 20 minutes long. This one…

Joel: Those are ideal, actually. I think beyond that it’s… Well, I mean,
anything’s good. But it’s good to know. I think in 20 minutes you can learn
a lot. You go much beyond that and it’s maybe too much information sometimes.

Igor: Well hopefully, you have been entertaining enough to help our listeners
stick for 40 minutes, because we’re going on 33rd minute now.

Joel: Uh-oh.

Igor: [laughter] But anyway. Thank you so much and until next time we talk, have
a good one.

Joel: Yeah, you too, Igor. Thank you very much, and thank you to all the
listeners. I really appreciate your time and yeah, just take it whole-heartedly.
There is no magic button. Put in the consistency and you will see the results.
Again, massive passion, immediate action and a constant education are the three
core components that I live my life round still now. So massive passion, immediate
action and a continuous education from the right people. So thanks, Igor. Have an
awesome day, my friend. Pleasure talking to you, and I’ll see you again soon.

Thanks for listening to The List Building Lifestyle Show, make sure to subscribe on iTunes
or Google. Play to never miss an episode because who knows just one conversion tactic
we share on the show might double your list and double your business. Download the
transcript of today’s episode and all future episodes at listbuilderslifestyleshow.com and
don’t forget to claim your complimentary copy of “The Wealthy List Builder’s Survival
Guide” at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com/survival . This is Igor Kheifets until next time we talk, have a good one.

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