Tastes Like Chicken

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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.

Jonathan: Welcome back to another edition of List Building Lifestyle with, hey Igor didn’t we give you a title? Were you the Prince of List Building, the King of List Building? What was the title that we gave you?

Igor: I think it was The Big Daddy of List Building?

Jonathan: Alright. Here is Big Daddy of List Building himself, Mr. Igor Kheifets.

Igor: Thank you, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Jonathan: [laughter]

Igor: You know what I love most about recording with you Jonathan It’s the ego boost that I get.

Jonathan: Yes, I’m sure. Your head gets swollen up and then your wife has got to deal with you later on. [laughter]

Igor: Yeah, you’re my weekly ego boost and I really appreciate you for it.

Jonathan: [laughter] The List Builders like you too so it all works out. So what do you have in store for us?

Igor: Well, it’s really hard to define what we are going to be talking about today so I’ll just start with the way I was introduced to the concept. So as you know it’s really difficult sometimes or should I say more often than not, it’s really difficult to convince somebody to give you money. To convince someone to join your business and the reason it happens because we fear what is different and we are drawn to the familiar. So in other words, the prospect always find it easier to stick to what they believe and yet you know their belief system has be challenged in order for them to jump over the fence and join your business and change their life. So if somebody has been brought up in a family where they have been kind of groomed and conditioned to believe that a job, a well paying job like a CEO is where they want to be in life and all of a sudden they realize they don’t want to be that they want to change direction and they are looking into the possibility of running an online business. I mean there is a lot of conflict. There is a lot of conflict happening, a lot of internal conflict and internal tension that is going on within and that’s why it’s so difficult to get these ìcold prospects to jump over the fence and even when you do make them jump over the fence, it’s often difficult to make them go through the training. It’s often difficult to make them do much to change their life including by the way if you are part of a business that has an ascension model which means a model where your prospects have to graduate from one offer to the next one, giving you a much higher commission scale that is also is very difficult with that conflict constantly happening within the prospects heart and mind. So that is why Dan Kennedy, my all-time favorite guru and I’m a huge Dan Kennedy fan boy came up with this concept that he calls ìTastes like Chicken which means if you are and more often than not, you are selling a new concept, a concept that the prospect is not familiar with that can potentially change their life, you will have to present it in a way that ìTastes like Chicken. So it has to be different but at the same time it has to feel like something they already know and believe in in order for them to say, ìOh yeah, I understand that, yeah I would want to do that. That is why I for example, stopped completely, I just don’t do it anymore, I don’t tell people what I really do for a living.

Jonathan: Hmm.

Igor: When they ask me what I do I say that I have a couple of go to versions, one of them is I fix computers.

Jonathan: Really?

Igor: Yeah, I’m a guy who fixes computers. Yeah, I’m on a computer all day long so they can understand that.

Jonathan: So you fix them to spit our cash? [Laughter]

Igor: Yeah, exactly.

Jonathan: Just like ATMs. [laughter]

Igor: So one is I fix computers. Two is another cool one that people really don’t ask anything else about is I build websites. Right there is really nothing, ìOh you build websites? Yeah, I can get that. I can grasp that. I used to tell people that I am an internet marketer and then it would lead to a bunch of unnecessary question that just forced me to try to explain to them what the hell that means and you know after doing it for a couple of times, I realized that most people can’t understand it. They don’t understand what exactly internet marketing really means, how exactly do you make money online. As soon as their curiosity has been triggered they kind of have to know and I have to go and I have to basically go to work and explain to them what that means. Now incidentally, I’m not very good at that for some reason when it comes to the offline world. You know my parents still do not understand what I do. They just don’t. I just stopped trying to explain it so I guess my point is that whatever it is that you’re presenting, you will have to eventually find a way to explain it so even a 7 year old or should I say you know what so even your mother, your 60 or 70 or 80 year old mother will be able to understand what you’re talking about.

Jonathan: That’s funny, man. Alright, so it happened to me recently where I might be getting too personal here but Cupcake joined my business. She is not going back to work since we have our son here. And she told her mom and dad that she was going to be working with me and she is going to be doing some project management. And her mom is like working with him, does he even make any money, what does he even do? I don’t even know anything about him? I’m like ìBitch. [Laughter] Oh man.

Igor: [Laughter]

Jonathan: So does that not frustrate you?

Igor: Oh yeah, I’ve had the same thing happen with me and my girlfriend at the time who today is my wife and she is also the mother of my child. Her mother at the time and her friend, her best friend that is the real bitch, trust me, told her to just drop me, just leave me because I was ñ they didn’t understand me. First off, I did not want to go into the Army. We already spoke about that Army adventures. I really did not want to go because I realized I would lose three years of my life to something that I was not important to me and that like this rebellion stage of my life a lot of people were kind of were against that. As far as like money, I wasn’t making any and when they asked what I was doing; my wife just said he is an internet marketer. Again since they couldn’t understand it, they felt that she was with a bum loser that has no future that makes no money that has no vision and basically is going nowhere and pretends to work on the internet.

Jonathan: Uh GRRR I get angry thinking about it. [Laughter]

Igor: Yeah, I did. You know it’s funny is that a lot of the people that I talk to go through similar experiences and again it just goes to show you that people are really resistant to change because change requires like physical change, change in life or lifestyle requires a change in belief system and asking someone to change a belief is like asking them to cut off their arm because beliefs are a part of our identity. I realize that we are getting super deep and I don’t want to overwhelm or complicate this but here is what you need to understand. People don’t like change even if they talk about wanting to change. In fact they prefer for the change to be super gradual and super slow than abrupt and life changing. So ever heard the stories where people won the lottery like became mega-rich overnight like literally and then two years later were back exactly where they were financially?

Jonathan: Yeah, sometimes even worse off.

Igor: Yes, because that feels so much more familiar than being a millionaire and multi-millionaire.

Jonathan: Yikes. [Laughter] It feels good to be broke. I don’t want to be rich. [laughter]

Igor: Yeah, it’s counterintuitive and it sounds weird but it’s true. In fact, I remember reading a news story about this lady who broke back into prison after being released because she said, ìI just don’t feel comfortable outside.

Jonathan: That is freaky.

Igor: Yeah, because she spent a lot of time ñ she spent most of her life in correctional facilities and penitentiaries so when she was finally released she just did not know what to do on the outside so she broke back into prison. She asked them to keep her there first of course and they said, ìNo, come on. You’re just being ridiculous. She broke back in. Of course that was a felony so she was put back in prison.

Jonathan: [Laughter] She got exactly what she wanted. Good for her for making it happen. [laughter]

Igor: Yeah so again my point is this, you want to sell somebody on the idea of joining a brand new business and changing their life make sure you present it a way that tastes like chicken for them so it’s something that they cannot only understand themselves but they can explain to their loved ones so their loved ones don’t go and say something like, ìAre you an idiot, sounds like a scam or I still don’t understand it but it sounds like a scam. Everybody has to understand it even people who don’t have any understanding of the internet whatsoever in order for this to fly and check off all the I guess all the circles or squares on their list before they can make a buying decision.

Jonathan: Hmm. Sounds like some work. [laughter]

Igor: [Laughter]

Jonathan: Alrighty. Igor so what else do you got for us on this?
Igor: Well, I couldn’t really stress enough the idea of course that change is difficult. Change is extremely painful to people and the counterintuitive part about this whole process is people telling you they want change.

Jonathan: Right.

Igor: It’s people who sign up for the gym and say I really want to lose weight but they don’t stick to the diet. It’s the people who say they want to be a better parent but they spend more time in front of the TV and not with their kids. It’s the people who say I want to advance in my workplace and then do absolutely nothing to advance their skill set to become more valuable to the company. We see these people all of the time and we say, ìThey are crazy. But the truth is that we are all guilty of that and almost every single prospect that you’ll talk to will be like that. In fact, less than 15% of the people you’ll ever sign up in your business will be the ones who are just like you taking action, are being super aggressive. Most of the people you are going to talk to are going to be complacent and lazy, making up excuses and complaining, saying they want one thing but then showing a completely different set of beliefs and priorities in life with their behavior. So if you are to sign anyone up, you have to show whatever the action you want them to take is aligned with who they already are.

Jonathan: Now Igor, some people think that just the fact of signing up or saying they want a difference is enough but is there a way to actually motivate these people really motivate them or is there a way to spot out the people that 15% that is going to be really active and focus your energy on them?

Igor: Well, there is a two-sided answer to this question. First off if we were able to find the answer to the question how to motivate people, we would solve almost every virtual problem in the world besides perhaps cancer and even then we can just motivate people to live a healthy life, right? I’m sorry but there is no one specific and great way to motivate people to change. It’s a work in progress at all times. However, what you could do in order to spot the people with whom you really want to spend more time with, people who will follow through, people who will take action, and people who will commit themselves is by putting more barriers in place between yourself and them. So the ones that overcome all these barriers, the ones that are willing to go through the trouble of getting to the top of your mountain will probably be the ones that are going to be way more likely, I mean again it’s not guaranteed but they are going to be more likely to take action on everything you tell them. Of course you also want to charge money, in other words if you’re a coach or consultant, if you actually control the offer that you’re selling because it’s not the case if you’re promoting a business opportunity where the offers are kind of set in stone, you’ll find that if you increase the amount of money you’re asking for your services with it you’ll increase the quality of the people you’re signing up. So when forced to pay more money for something, people take that thing more seriously. I remember going from charging $2500 for coaching to five grand without changing a single thing in my deliverables immediately I noticed that the caliber of people joining went up and when I say went up people got on calls on our weekly calls, people implemented, I actually had more work to review as a result of signing of people up at a higher price so just the higher level of commitment alone forced people outside of their comfort zone and I’m assuming what happened was they were sitting late at night at the kitchen table saying I just paid five grand to this Russian dude in Israel and I have to make it work. I can’t just sit here and let five grand go to waste.

Jonathan: No kidding. That’s so interesting. So they paid way more money so they are way more engaged. So is that really your way of telling the List Builders to raise their prices?

Igor: Yes, of course that’s my way of telling List Builders to just pay me more money and not make me work harder which is a benefit for them. But no, let’s be serious for sec, people only value things that they have to sacrifice resources to get so the more they have to sacrifice to get in with you the more likely they are to take things seriously and it’s a simple ñ I mean it’s a very simple psychology not to mention of course you can use deadlines. Deadlines are extremely powerful. You know I remember when I signed up with you, Jonathan, you were kind of laying down the plan for me and we were launching I think it was before New Years, right?

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: And you’re like okay the deadline I want to launch this by is what was it January 14th or something like that and we have exactly six weeks to put this together, here is the checklist of everything I got to do. You gave me this enormous checklist, like normal people should not be forced to work that hard.

Jonathan: [laughter]

Igor: Like go and give me your avatar and enter a gazillion questions here and record this thing and that thing so anyway, at first I felt scared, scared as hell because there was a lot to do and I had to do it while running my business but eventually the idea of a deadline and the fact that I paid you money so as far as I don’t give you this stuff, you actually getting paid for free, forced me to complete this within I think it was 10 days. Right?

Jonathan: Yeah, you were pretty quick. I actually thought I needed to give you more work because you got it done too quickly.

Igor: [Laughter] Well, yeah, I was really driven because I realized there was a deadline and not only had to do the work, you had to take all this work I’ve done and do your part, right? You had to produce it, and put it together, ordering the setup and transcribe it. I mean you had a lot of work to do as well. So knowing that I just forced myself outside my comfort zone and did this thing in overtime, I just every single day, when I finished with my day to day stuff, I quietly literally took an extra two hours to do everything else that had to do with the podcast. Simply because A. I was committed financially, B. there was a deadline that you clearly set for me because you said the show goes live on this date and we got to make sure everything is ready and your email is written and everything. So again I’m talking about psychology, I’m talking about tricking the brain into following through so it’s a higher level of commitment and it’s deadlines and it is basically making people jump through hoops because let’s face it I had to jump through a few hoops with you as well.

Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah that’s right. You’ve taught me actually more about the power of deadlines than anything because I wasn’t doing it as strongly as I am now in my phone consultations but just having that inspiring bonus, sign up in the next 24 hours and stuff before I started talking to you and doing your show with you I didn’t realize how strong that was. It’s just worth mentioning again. The power of that deadline really motivates people get off their asses.

Igor: Oh yeah for sure. You should definitely check out, Sigmund Freud School of Marketing was the episode that we recorded about deadlines where we explained in detail how deadlines work.

Jonathan: Yeah, yeah that’s right. The psychological motivation.

Igor: Yes, exactly. So it’s like when he discovered how just by putting a deadline before starting to work with a patient would miraculously help the patient cure their condition just before the deadline. Patients that never had a deadline kept on going and going and going for years treating the same condition.

Jonathan: Yeah, good stuff. So Igor anything else as we are coming to a close on this edition of List Building Lifestyle?

Igor: Nothing else but recap everything that we’ve talked about today. People fear the unfamiliar and people cling to the familiar so not only will they resist the idea of change, actively resist it meaning they will go and take action to know change but they are going to be super reluctant to change so that’s like two battles you’re fighting not only eliminating the fear of change but also getting them to want to change, right so getting them to realize that the change is congruent with who they are, with their identity, their belief systems. That is extremely important. Without it, nothing really happens. This is a fundamental requirement for influence to happen.

Jonathan: Good stuff. So that is it. That’s a wrap for today’s show and we will be back in your earbuds next time. Thank you List Builders for tuning in. And as always Igor, thank you for sharing your insights with us.

Thanks for listening to The List Building Lifestyle Show, make sure to subscribe on iTunes
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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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