How To Create Infotaining Content With Funny Accent And Bad Hair With Crazy Russian Dad

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Hi, my name is Igor Kheifets and this is the List Building Lifestyle, the only podcast
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Igor: Welcome back to another edition of the List Building Lifestyle with your
host Igor Kheifets. Crazy Russian Dad popped in my radar last month. A friend
shared a video of this opinionated immigrant. He immediately stuck out for me
because of his heavy Russian accent. Soon however, I discovered there was way more
to Crazy Russian Dad. I got hooked on the Crazy Russian Dad’s philosophy and
became a fanboy. CRD is the epitome of infotainment. I invited him on the show to
help you study and model his approach, so you too can infotain the hell out of
your tribe and make a bundle doing it. Crazy Russian Dad, thank you so much for
being here.

CRD: Of course. Thank you Igor, for inviting me to your show.

Igor: Oh, trust me, the honor is mine, and our listeners are in store for some
amazing, amazing stuff here. So before we dive in, as I’m sure, a lot of them have
not heard your name before, do you mind sharing a little bit about where do you
come from and why did you decide to become a social influencer today or right now,
at this stage in your life?

CRD: Yeah. I will tell you. It was totally by accident. Well, yes, I come from
Russia. I’m an immigrant living here in America. Few years ago I had a bet with my
older son. He was eleven at the time and he watched a movie, Kung Fu Panda, many
of you List Builders may know this movie, if they have children, or if they
themselves like the movie. And at the end of the movie there was a bit of a hint
that one of the parents of this Kung Fu Panda lovable bear maybe survived. And so,
we had a bet, my son and I, that if this next movie comes out and if it’s a
father, I said father and he said mother, something like this, I forgot now the
specifics anyhow. But the bet was that if the movie comes out and whoever’s right,
if there is a surviving parent’s gender, then they win. And that was very
specific. We decided we’d bet 250 dollars, a lot of money. We also decided that
those 250 dollars, we have to make it like it needs to be a business. He cannot
take it out of his piggy bank, and I cannot take it out of my paycheck. I do have
a day job. And so, well, a) I felt movie will not come out; and b) I thought I
would win, even if it does come out. But a few years go by and they do make the
next movie, and somehow I lose. And now I need to make 250 dollars, and I have no
idea how to do this. And it was that very boy, who was 15 then, who says, “Well
dad, you can become a YouTuber. I don’t know, you’re a funny guy and you’re from
Russia, and maybe you can share your wisdom you’re sharing with me all the time.
And so, sort of as a joke I started the channel. And over the weekend almost, I
created the YouTube, and Facebook, and Instagram, and all that. And it started as
a joke. My goal was to make 250 dollars. So there you go. It was in my pursuit of
money, I guess. But people seem to like it, and I guess, I’m stuck with it now for
about a year.

Igor: Wow, incredible. So you started this on a bet.

CRD: I started on a bet with my son. That’s right. And I didn’t even know what
those YouTubers were. He told me some names of PewDiePie and something that
supposedly make millions of dollars. I’m not making millions of dollars, but maybe
you can make me famous, Igor.

Igor: Well, we’re definitely doing our best to get everybody on your YouTube
channel. By the way, guys, if you’re not subscribing to Crazy Russian Dad’s
philosophy, go ahead and Google “Crazy Russian Dad” or get on YouTube and type in
“Crazy Russian Dad”. You can find a bunch of material. I highly recommend checking
out the “How to Speak Russian” video. If you’re not Russian, you’re going to love
it. And if you are Russian then you’re going to just laugh your ass out. So as
CRD, that’s how I’m going to address you from now on, if you don’t mind, because,
Crazy Russian Dad is too long. First of, you don’t even fit a YouTuber’s
description. Most YouTubers are fun and energetic and they make these crazy
videos. Your videos are mostly done in a car, so you’re always driving somewhere,
and it’s just a rant. You just rant about things. So my question to you is
actually a really common question I get myself because I rant a lot through email
with my audience. How do you choose what to talk about in your videos?

CRD: Yeah. Great question. Well, I should probably explain because therein lies a
little bit of advice. I do what works for me. The reason I’m always driving and
people think I drive a cab, I don’t drive a cab, I drive to work. I have a long
commute. It takes me an hour to get to work, sometimes more, and then I go home.
And in the morning is when my brain is working, and that brain is wasted for the
one hour-long commute. So that’s where I make videos, that’s where my videos come
from, and that’s why I make videos in the car. That’s why people think I drive an
Uber or a taxi cab. I’m not trying to cut it out; anybody can do that in the car.
But I’m saying, do what works for you. If your best ideas come, I don’t know, at
2AM in the shower, that’s where you should do. You should not film yourself in the
shower probably. But I’m just trying to say you need to do what works. That works
for me. As for the ideas, yeah, they sort of come. I have a teenager and another
boy, so they give me plenty of things to think about, life happens, and also,
again, just sort of what works for me, I try to force myself to come up with new
ideas. I literally force myself, at least weekly, if not daily, to say, “Okay, I’m
going to write down 10 things I might possibly talk about. Because I do a daily
video. I have published, in the year, over 350 videos. That’s a lot. I live in
this constant fear of like, “What if I have nothing to say tomorrow? And the only
way to combat that fear is, for me, to create this practice where, “Okay, I’m
going to write down ideas. Okay? Even if they’re stupid ideas I will still write
them down because, at least for me, I think, magic happens when you write stuff
down and when you force yourself because the more you practice that, at least for
me, the more it comes. If I start thinking about those ideas, then tomorrow
creativity… muse will not visit. But if I do write it down… For example, I
always have about 15-20 videos ready to go, just because I have thought about them
and then I can decide what to publish tomorrow. I don’t know if I’m answering your
question, but…

Igor: Yeah, you absolutely did. First of, there’s a few things that we have to
mention. First of, the principle of consistency, you shot and uploaded 300, and
probably shot more than that, but you uploaded 350 videos in a calendar year. That
is incredible. I preach email daily and I doubt that even 1% of my clients email
their list every day. I myself, we email our list in like three times a day. But
publishing 350 videos a year is in and of itself a huge accomplishment. So that
alone, my head is off to you CRD, for sure. Next up, writing down the ideas. I
actually follow the exact same practice. I use Evernote. And in Evernote, I have a
special note that’s called email fodder, where I put down my ideas. So right now
it contains 600 and something ideas, which is just things I write down. For
instance, yesterday I was holding a webinar for a group of people and the host of
that webinar, I was invited as a guest and the host of the webinar said, “You’re
only as good as your last campaign in this business. Bam. I wrote it down, and you
can rest assured that it’s going to be an email or a podcast episode or video
coming out with that as the primary theme. So writing things down is absolutely
critical because these ideas, they’re so elusive that you should always keep a pen
and paper in the shower, maybe write it down on your phone that doesn’t carry?
Like iPhone 7, for instance, I got iPhone 7, so I can take it with me to the
shower. And so that’s also really, really good. And next, you said you got two
teenager sons?

CRD: Yeah.

Igor: Yeah. So they give you plenty of ideas and you drive to work and you get
ideas when you’re driving to work, so what I’m hearing is your basically able to
pick up ideas and get inspired, if you will, and if you want to call it that way,
simply observing the world around you.

CRD: Not to sound too philosophical, but yes. Stuff always happens. Maybe there’s
a holiday, Thanksgiving, okay. That should be plenty. There are guests, there’s
turkey, there is all kinds of things. There are religious holidays, there is
election, you may have heard, in the United States. I think there are plenty of
ideas, especially for a blogger. But I think for any business, I think there are
plenty of significant and near-significant events that people can take advantage
of, you make them significant by providing your point of view to your tribe.

Igor: Absolutely. And as far as I know, one of the more recent videos you
published about the election collected, I think, a million views. Is that right?

CRD: Yeah. Total accident, I think. But it was literally, I think, the morning
after the election at the United States, and I think the nation was somehow
stunned and divided. And, I don’t know, I just, instead of my usual trying to
produce a video with music and intro and outro and all that stuff to be a
YouTuber, I just kind of said, I don’t know, 50 words into the camera about like,
“Listen, life goes on. This is America. Whatever, I’m not trying to be political,
I just kind of said what I thought, and before I knew it, well, I didn’t even know
it, they could collect a million views on Facebook. And I don’t know, maybe
because it was authentic or maybe it was something else which is also a part of
the advice to people. Like some of my, I guess, most successful videos were almost
an accident, almost like, “Sure. Okay. I guess, I have to say something. Again,
back to “You have to force yourself. And force is maybe a strong word, but you
never know which one will be “most successful. And kind of, the more lottery
tickets you buy, the more emails you send, whatever it is you, List Builders do,
because you never know what will touch people. You never know. And so, that’s why,
I think, you have to be regular and you have to come up with something, even if
you have nothing to say.

Igor: Absolutely. And I believe that just forcing yourself or putting this
discipline in place until you kind of, for me, it’s writing an email a day. And
the more you do it, actually, the more ideas you’ll have, because emails beget
emails, videos beget videos. So the more you do, the more you have to say, the
more ideas come to you. It’s like a muscle. If you exercise it every day, you’ll
have things to talk about. If you don’t, you’ll be out of ideas really quickly.
That’s why you kind of have to treat this like an exercise regimen. You have to
get into the daily discipline of exercising your brain or your creativity. And
that’s how you truly get to the point of always having something interesting,
exciting to say to people. Now, you mentioned earlier Thanksgiving. I did happen
to watch your more recent Thanksgiving video, but the other video, where you spoke
about something that’s fairly mundane, like going to the grocery story that was
just hilarious. I mean, I literally was just waiting for to pick up my daughter
from preschool and just was listening that. I was laughing my ass off. How do you
as mundane as going to the grocery store and talk about that? It’s not like you’re
doing some sort of a funny segment or whatever, where you wear a red clown suit
and walk into the store, you just literally talk about your experience of going to
the store, and it just turns out to be very entertaining and informative at the
same time. How do you do that?

CRD: That’s a great question, Igor. I guess, well, let’s dig into it together, you
and me. I would give two answers to this. I mean, there is the obvious answer;
there is the less obvious answer in my opinion. Obvious answer is sure, okay,
maybe I’m funny, and maybe I’m authentic, people like it. Again, I’m a blogger.
I’m only selling what they see on the video. I don’t have a product to sell, I
don’t have anything else. So people like that, people like that sort of feeling,
first of all. Keeping it real. They tell me, “We see Zac Efron, we see plenty of
pretty people and everything photoshopped, TV. We tune in here just to see
something real, something very authentic. So there’s bunch of characteristics they
like, like I don’t swear, but I doubt that your listeners swear either.

Igor: I swear man, I do. [laughter]

CRD: Listen, you invited me, I’m not going to criticize you. [laughter]

Igor: [laughter]

CRD: So there is that side of it. There is the objective, like okay, they like it
because people like positive people, they like this goofy teddy bear with weird
accent and bad hair. But I think there is a more profound side to that. Anyway, my
opinion, I might be wrong? Who knows? And there is, when I started out, I was
totally clueless. The whole YouTubeing and videos, I was totally clueless. Maybe
still, to logic then. But I looked at other people; it’s good to do at least a
little bit of research. I don’t know if you tell your people to do research, but I
would. So, here’s what I found, and that was quite interesting. I looked at many
YouTubers and some of them were verifiable awesome. They’re either attractive or
hot, or they have such an amazing message. Maybe they play instruments. I think,
true, okay, I don’t care what they do. They can read yellow pages to me; I will
still find them great. Others will not at all. Other will, I saw people… Again,
to me, I surf people who are like, I don’t know, some lady in her basement telling
a lie, “I went to Marshall’s and I bought this T-Shirt, and look, this was on
sale. I would shoot myself if I had to watch, and yet she had hundreds of
thousands of followers. I read the comments and they say, “Oh my God, Maria, you
are member of my family. I live to watch you T-Shirt commentary.”

Igor: [laughter]

CRD: Which to me it meant nothing. And yet, here’s the lesson that I understood
from there. So listen up, that’s Crazy Russian Dad wisdom, or just my discovery.
My discovery is this. I think every one of us, people of brands, I guess, we have
our own list of people, your tribe, your whatever you call. I guess you call it
tribe. I don’t know how many that is. I don’t know if it’s 10,000 or 100,000, if
you are Justin Bieber, maybe it’s 100 million, but you have a number, and that
number is enormous for any one of us. These people will find us fascinating. They
will find your business fascinating. They don’t care what you talk about, they
don’t care what you email about, they cannot get enough of you of whatever you
are. Your goal is to find those people, and you find those people by sending out
messages, it could be universal, in my case daily videos. Because it’s like a
commercial, every day I do the video, this video. This video’s a really commercial
of me. Those that tune into that commercial, what ever those people are, maybe
you’re one of them. Usually your face, you’re speaking with probably my target
audience. In Russia…

Igor: I am.

CRD: I am too, and you find it fascinating. Maybe somebody from New Zealand who
grew up in a bush will say…

Igor: [laughter]

CRD: “I don’t even know what he’s talking about. Anyway, sorry if I digress, I do
think there are two sides to this. There is what you are, and then is the sort of
how do you find viewers that like whatever you’ve got.

Igor: What you’re saying makes perfect sense, and I believe that being who you
are, and just being that is enough, because that is the only way to stand out in a
really competitive marketplace. You might not necessarily feel that as a YouTuber
because you guys don’t compete as much, but for example my listeners, the List
Builders, they compete against people who promote the exact same business
opportunity in the exact same marketplace, so now they have to build a team, build
a tribe and essentially they’re offering the exact same product. So it’s kind of
like going to a food court in a shopping mall and instead of having McDonald’s and
Burger King and Five Guys Burgers and Sushi place and whatever, you have five
McDonald’s. Where do you go, which one do you eat at? How do you know which one is
the better one? In my opinion, being who you are is enough, and your contest, you
started recently where you had people submit videos to you, and basically follow
the Crazy Russian Dad’s lead, it proves, it points so well. I was just watching
this video by this lady, Helena who shot a video and she introduced herself as the
Crazy Russian Grandma, and she was talking about how back in Soviet Union when she
grew up, where he grew up… I was born after, I think it fell apart. No. Just
before it fell apart. I was born in ’88. She was saying how in Soviet Union you
could only wear one T-Shirt. Every single day, no matter what weather it was and
where you lived, you only wore one T-Shirt, which is true. I remember wearing same
T-Shirt for like a week. “Here in America”, she says, “every citizen has a right
to buy as many T-Shirts as they want and change them every day. I love this
country”, she says. First of, that’s true. She just picked up a very obvious thing
to her and her reality back in the day, and she just took a mundane thing as
something as wearing a T-Shirt, and spoke about it from the perspective of an
immigrant, and that is what made that so interesting. She isn’t a professional
YouTuber or anything. She wasn’t well spoken or anything like that. I mean she
wasn’t bad either. But she was just a normal person, just like you, just like I
am. Just being who you are being authentic, and just having, I guess, the guts to
speak your mind and just tell it like it is. It goes a long way, it goes a long
way.

CRD: I think you’re right, and I think… I would expand this ‘being who you are’.
Maybe video is not for everybody, it works for me. Here’s what I would say. You
look around your business, what makes you who you are. Maybe it’s you. Maybe you
have a dog. Maybe you have a mascot. Maybe you want to show your place of
business, how you make the sausages and the sushi and whatever it is you do.
People will find it fascinating. In fact I would say the more real it is… People
love my mistakes. Sometimes I spend a week. I’ll tell you. I went to New York City
to watch US Open, tennis tournament, and I literally spent three weeks editing
this perfect video. “Oh my God, this is me there. I go, I’m on train”, whatever it
was. I spent three weeks sweating over it. Then it barely got noticed. At other
times I just upload video of myself and just kind of say, “This is me and my son
doing something.”, and people love that. I think there is hunger for true,
authentic details. You?re famous, you probably can explain better, but being who
you are is not just some synthetic motion. I think it’s just about look around and
show all of that to people. If you’re doing it in writing, talk about that.

Igor: Yes, yes, absolutely. Being who you are, it’s how you come across. It’s the
energy you put out there and when you are real, coming from a true place, people
will accept you as you are. As far as talking about your mistakes, I’m really
happy you mention that because I can tell it is a little bit difficult for you to
articulate the success that you’ve experienced, and at first it is like that. You
are up in comedy or rising to top, and I’m actually honored to be the first one to
be interviewing the Crazy Russian Dad, but you will see more and more of it now
that we started kind of breaking this down. My mess is my treasure, is what my
mentor taught me, Tom Biel, who I’m actually going to be getting on a call with
after we’re done here. He said, “Look. The best thing you can do is to think of
all the ways you’ve embarrassed yourself, mistakes you’ve made, the failures
you’ve experienced and talk about that because this is for real. This is the kind
of stuff that love because this is where your authenticity really shows, and by
talking about your mistakes you automatically gain credibility. It’s not the hype,
it’s not the rah rah that gets you those fans. It’s not the rah rah that builds
the tribe. It’s the mistakes. It’s the stories of the hardships you went through.
It’s the stories of the challenges you faced and how you either overcame the
challenges or the challenges overcame you. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the
authenticity which comes with that. And so you should never hide, I would say, the
embarrassing side of you. The more you can do it, the more you can allow yourself
to release this truth into the world, the more the world will be inviting to you.
So Crazy Russian Dad, we are coming towards the end of this interview. Is there
anything you would like to say to the List Builders who are listening right now,
who have never done a video before, who are just about to and they got inspired by
seeing someone like you, who’s a normal guy with two teenage sons and a day job
becoming a video blogger phenomena, what can you tell to these people?

CRD: Well, I guess I would say, I know this will sound like a clichÚ, but if I
can it, you can do it for sure. If a guy who is not photogenic with bad English,
with bad hair, with bad talk, surely you can do this. Slightly more serous now.
Just start somewhere. Make your first video. Show it to your family. You don’t
have to publish it right away, there is a certain hesitancy, but please remember,
I will repeat myself, please remember there’s people out there. Tens of thousands
of people. You may or may not know them. Maybe they’re your customers, maybe
they’re your prospects, maybe they’re strangers for now who will find you
fascinating. You are the star of their show. Use it. It’s absolutely out there,
and the more you do this… Maybe it’s not daily. Start with weekly. Start with
something. Start with one and see what kind of response you get, show it to your
friends. As Nike says, “Just do it.”

Igor: [laughter] Beautifully said. So guys, go ahead, just do it, and definitely
subscribe to Crazy Russian Dad updates. Get on Facebook, search for Crazy Russian
Dad, like his fan page so you can get videos on Facebook, and also go on YouTube
and search for Crazy Russian Dad and subscribe to YouTube channel because it is
not only infotaining, he’s also now a great model for the kind of content you want
to be putting out to your list and to your audience to make more money in your
business. So Crazy Russian Dad, thank you so much once again for doing this, I am
honored to be the first one to interview you, being the crazy Russian dad myself.
Maybe not crazy, but definitely Russian dad myself, and immigrant as well. I live
in Israel, originally from Ukraine. I extend my hand for a virtual handshake.
Until the next time we talk, have a good one.

CRD: Thank you.

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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