2 Things That Made Me a Super Affiliate

Igor Kheifets: I’m Igor Kheifets and this is the List Building Lifestyle, a podcast
for those who want to build a large profitable email list and make six figures from
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Welcome back to another edition of The List Building Lifestyle with your host,
Igor Kheifets. I got my start in affiliate marketing after failing miserably with
MLM, multilevel. And when you think about MLM, it’s a lot like affiliate
marketing. You still have to refer people through your link. You have to basically
get people to buy a product that’s not yours. The only difference is you have to
motivate people to take action to build passive income because they have to be
getting that product again and again and again every month. And not to mention
that unless you teach them how to bring more people, they won’t really build that
passive income that you truly want and desire.

In affiliate marketing, there’s no passive income element like that. In other
words, your income pretty much depends on your own effort and it starts and it
ends with how many customers you can bring on your own. For some people,
especially the ones who are really excelling in MLM, this could make more sense
because they could make more money by not having to manage a team or whatever.

But at that time for me when I failed at MLM, I thought, “You know what? Let me
try affiliate marketing.” This seems to be a much easier thing to do, and people
don’t seem to have as much negativity towards affiliate marketers as they do for
MLMers. Now, I wasn’t really great at it or anything like that. I really, really
sucked actually because it took me a couple of years to get my first commission
check in the mail. Now throughout this time though, I was always looking up on the
marketers who were ranking high on the leaderboards and launchboards. It’s those
leaderboards where they posted affiliate contest and basically showed off who’s
making most sales.

At the time when I was starting to do it back in 2009 or 2008, names like Mike
Filsaime, Frank Kern, Andy Jenkins, the StomperNet guys, and a lot of these people
that no longer do affiliate marketing. Actually they shifted completely away from
it, Ryan Deiss, I don’t know, Alex Jeffreys, Michael Koenigs. Many of them who
again don’t do affiliate marketing anymore. They were the ones who were raking
high on the ClickBank leaderboards.

Now, I on the other hand, I was not even close to the leaderboard itself. I was
probably in a whole different league in a really bad way because, at best, I could
refer maybe one sale. But the thing about it though is that today, I can probably
say that I am a super affiliate. In other words, I am desired, so people approach
me trying to convince me to promote them because they understand the kind of
firepower I bring to the table. They’ve seen what I can do.

It’s not uncommon for me to make as much as $100,000 a week in sales in a
seven-day period for an affiliate product, for product that I don’t really own
just because I mail it to my list. And so I want to devote this episode to talking
about how to become a super affiliate if you’re just getting started, giving you a
couple tips on that. But most importantly address something.

I’ve been researching this topic before deciding to do this episode. I’ve been
looking on YouTube. I’ve been looking on Google. I’ve been reading some articles,
some blog posts and most of the advice, like the vast majority of the advice I’m
seeing with regards to how to become a super affiliate is just bullshit. It really
doesn’t affect like some people say, “If you want to become a super affiliate, you
need to cloak your links or you need to use a pre-sale page or whatever.”

No, these things are good. They can increase your earnings, maybe give you a bump
but if you want to truly become a super affiliate, you must do what all super
affiliates have in common. You must have the one asset that all super affiliates
have in common. And so, when I was getting started and I was looking up on all
these super affiliates and I was still a really shitty affiliate to be honest with
you, and I couldn’t refer sales, I couldn’t do anything. The one thing that they
had that I didn’t, actually, the two things that they had that I didn’t which are
intertwined with each other is authority. Their word meant something and an
audience, a list. They had authority and a list.

Anyone who has both of these things down path, you’ll always make money like a
super affiliate. It doesn’t matter what you promote because your audience will
simply trust your recommendation. Now, of course, with great power comes great
responsibility. If I paraquote Spiderman movie, I think it’s Uncle Ben who said
that when he was dying on Peter’s arms. Basically, you can’t just recommend
anything because if you start recommending crap, the authority you think you have
will vanish very, very quickly.

But the one thing you do need to have if you want to be a super affiliate is a
list. And not just any list, you actually want to have a buyer’s list. Now, how do
you go about building one? To build a buyer’s list, you need to sell something of
your own or if you’re selling other people’s products, you need to clearly and
accurately segment the buyers on your list into a list of their own so you can
give them much better treatment, sort of like I’ll roll out the red carpet next
time [inaudible 00:06:18] something because a buyer is a buyer is a buyer.

It’s a concept they keep on kind of hammering under pretty much each and every
single episode that I still don’t see most people getting. People who buy
something, they will buy more of the same again and again and again. Let’s take my
business partner, Dennis Ray. Dennis has a thing for Marvel comic but specifically
not just for the comics themselves, not the comic books. I never saw Dennis
actually invest a lot of money in comic books. What Dennis invest a lot of money
in is a memorabilia.

For example, he’ll invest in a custom painting of all kinds of Marvel superheroes.
He’ll get a wall art with Superman or Batman or the Green Lantern or something
like that. So, he’ll get a Wolverine statue taking on The Hulk. He’ll have that
like a giant statue the size of, I don’t know, human being. Like he’ll get
something like that and he’ll continue to buy that stuff because it makes him feel
good.

You think, “Okay, Igor, but how does it relate to promoting make money online
stuff or how does it relate to promoting my crypto course, or how does it relate
to promoting my business opportunity or how does it relate to getting my webinar
out there?” Well, the thing is that as I am somebody who’s a self-proclaimed
biz-up junkie. I’m a self-proclaimed information junkie. Any problem I’ve got, I
usually go and I will get information about it. It doesn’t matter what kind of
problem, I’ll go and I’ll look up a book about it. I’ll get a coaching about it
like I solve most of my problems in my life through coaching, mentoring, guidance
through information.

I’m the child of my surroundings. I’m the product of my society, I guess, and I
just go to the internet and I find the product resource, the information resource
to help me solve my problems. Rather than doing the traditional way and neither
consult like a professional or whatever like I’ll go and I try to just handle it
on my own.

And here’s the thing, I’ll go and I’ll buy information from multiple sources that
all claimed to have a solution to that problem. Now, if you’re listening to this
podcast and you’re a podcast listener, chances are you’re subscribing to my
podcast about marketing. You’re subscribing to some other people’s podcast about
marketing and you’re probably also checking out content and getting emails with
content about marketing.

That also makes you an information junkie and that what it tells you is that
whatever you enjoy consuming or whatever you enjoy buying, you’ll be consuming and
buying all the time. When you think about it is that’s why it makes sense to
segment your buyers because you’ll be able to clearly know exactly where your best
customers are. You’ll be able to talk to them directly. You’ll be able to give
them a better deal. You’ll be basically giving yourself a huge advantage rather
than starting from scratch every single time you want to promote something and go
looking for them again and again and again and again.

I got to say though, most people think, “Oh, I need a ginormous buyer’s list.”
Most people are like, “Oh, man, I wish I had a list of 50,000 buyers. I’d make a
lot of money,” but you really don’t need to have that. You really don’t. I have
this 300 theory that most people simply can’t really … They can’t confirm it.
They can’t challenge it. They’re just something that only the people who truly
make money online can understand. And that the 300-buyer theory says that you only
need 300 buyers, 300 hardcore avid buyers or avid fans on your list for you to
make a six-figure income working from home.

Because 300 buyers with, say, an average customer value of $500 each means you’ll
be making $150,000 a year. Same 300 buyers with an average customer value of
$1,000 each will make you $300,000 a year. 300 buyers is pretty much where it’s
the line that you cross that line, this is it. You’re in the money. So when you
think about it, when I say, “You need to build a buyer’s list or you need to
segment your buyers,” don’t think about thousands upon thousands of people that
are supposed to give you money. No. You only need a couple of hundred of them to
make really good income.

And that’s how you become a super affiliate. The one thing I noticed about pretty
much everybody who was landing on the leaderboards back when I started was that he
always did well promoting other people’s products, sure. But they also had their
own products. For example, Frank Kern had the Mass Control and Mass Control 2.0
and the Underachiever program. Anik Singal, he was really big at that time as
well. He had this PPC Academy. Jeff Walker had the Product Launch Formula. Ryan
Deiss had a bunch of products like he had the Underground List Building Formula.
He had the Traffic & Conversion Summit. He had a ton. Of course, they have more
now digital marketer but he had a ton at that time.

Who else? Andy Jenkins had some kind of product, I don’t remember exactly what.
Mike Koenigs had a software that was syndicating video across all kinds of video
networks like YouTube and Vimeo and Dailymotion, stuff like that. I actually owned
it. I think it was called the Traffic Geyser. The StomperNet guys had StomperNet
which was an SEO product. It was teaching people how to get search engine
optimization going so they can get free traffic. The list goes on and on and on
and on. I think Mike Filsaime had the Butterfly Marketing Secrets at that time.

My point is that anyone who was a super affiliate, he was making a ton of money
promoting other people’s products always had products of their own.

Yo, it’s Igor. If you’re loving the content, hop on over to
listbuildinglifestyleshow.com for more free training and a free transcript of this
episode. Oh, and I’d really appreciate if you logged into iTunes and rated the
show. It really helps. Thanks.

Now, there were some exceptions. There were some exceptions but for the most part,
in order to become a super affiliate, people launch their own products. And that’s
actually how I got into the super affiliate scene. I did two things correctly.
First, I started to build my list and then, the first thing I’ve done was I was
offering a mini course on how to build a squeeze page, how to upload a squeeze
page to your domain because at that time we still didn’t have things like
ClickFunnels and teaching people how to do that.

Now, the second thing that I’ve done correctly was I built a product that I was
selling for $9.97 called Crossing the Free Line, which I later on rebranded as the
Ultimate List Building Formula or something like that. Definitely, there was list
building in the title for sure, but I really don’t remember now. But at first, it
was a $17 product, then I rebranded it and made it a $37 product. I’ve created a
$67 upsell to that and eventually, led all the way up to a $500 upsell where I
sold one hour of my time which, of course, I wouldn’t do it this way today knowing
what I know.

My point is that having a low ticket front-end product on the topic that around
which I was hoping to promote affiliate products later and building a list at the
same time as well as building my buyer’s list … So any time somebody purchases
my product, I would put them on a separate list … allowed me to do something I
never thought I could do until it actually happened. It allowed me to refer about
13 sales in the span of just one month which to me at the time was a lot, like you
have to understand. To me at that time, making one sale was a lot and my ultimate
dream was to make $30 downline because if I made that, I’d make a thousand dollars
a month and that would be enough to cover my bills because I was still living with
my parents at that time.

I am starting to sell this product and building my list, and I referred 13 sales
of another product. That was also a $10 product, $9.95 I think, that was paying
100% by Richard Legg who is now, at that time that I know him, I was really
looking up to him as one of these gurus but right now, of course, we’re buds and
we hang out. But back then, I referred 13 sales of that product and to me, that
was a huge win and it allowed me to work up the courage to email Richard and say,
“Hey, Richard, your joint venture page, the one where you’re inviting people to
promote your product says that if I refer a lot of sales, then you will consider
reciprocating my offer to your list. What I’ve done is here’s the offer I’ve
created,” and I literally send him a link to my product. And I said, “I’ll also
give you 100% commission if you promote me and I’m really hopeful you’ll honor
your word,” and he did. He did.

Consider this: I think over the course of a month at the time, I already started
using some paid traffic, some ad swapping. I was getting up there. I think I had
like 20 sales of my own product and 13 sales of his product which was great
conversion as far as cross selling is concerned because there was a match, because
my product was a list building product and his product was a traffic product. He
was teaching people how to build sniper blogs.

I think it still exists, like if you Google instant traffic shortcuts, I think
you’ll find at search. It’s pretty good product. I’m not sure if how up-to-date it
is and whether Richard kept it up to date. Knowing Richard, he probably did but my
point is that it was really good match as far as the product is concerned. List
building and traffic always go well together. And Richard mailed for me. He
actually mailed. I was on his list. I joined his list because I actually bought
the product, so I knew what he was mailing and what he wasn’t and he responded and
he mailed, I think, a week later. And Richard referred 16 sales with one
promotion.

Now to me, again remember, I just made 20 sales in a month, and that was a lot of
hard work. And he goes and he mails one time and he refers 16 sales in a day, like
16 sales. Not only I make like on paper of course, I make 16 times $9.95 which of
course he got all the money for that. I also gave him … I think I had an upsell.
I think it was a squeeze page building software that are rebranded for $27 to $37
and I gave him 100% commission on that as well because I really wanted him to say
yes.

But I knew at that time that I was really winning here because I got 16 new buyers
on my list. Of course, from there my business started booming, like it became
short of started growing exponentially because I figured that the secret to making
more sales as an affiliate is to keep growing my list, is to keep coming up with
more offers and have deeper funnels.

And since then, that’s been pretty much the motto I’ve been living by, like
anytime I am not happy with my income, it’s a matter of either getting new offers
to promote or having my buyers like giving them an opportunity to buy something
new, something that they haven’t purchased from me before, or add another offer
into my funnel stack, into my offer stack and see my average customer value
increase.

But if we circle back to the whole idea of being a super affiliate, the really two
things that put me on the map as a super affiliate are building my list and
creating my own product even if it was a cheap product in order to create that
authority and get really good traffic and really good buyers.

From there, I started winning some affiliate competitions like, for example, Dan
Brock’s Deadbeat Super Affiliate competition. I went in #7, like I was actually on
the same leaderboard as the people who I was looking up to. I didn’t win it. I
think by the end of the contest, I dropped to #15 or #16 or something out of 20
but I still got a small cash prize, I think it was $50 which wasn’t too bad for
me. And I finally believed that I could mail my way to a full-time income.

Now from there, I launched my own coaching program and that coaching program
resulted me being able to promote services that made me lot of money. I also ended
up building the traffic business, of course. And now many years later, I get back
into the affiliate scene and so now I started to promote other people’s products.
And if you’re a customer of mine, you’ve already seen me do that multiple times
this year and that has become a multiple five figures per month income stream for
my business.

Again, it feels almost effortless now because of the amount of authority that I
built with my list and because of how many products I’ve got out there and how
many buyers I’ve got is just, I don’t want to say it’s like too easy. No, there
are some intricacies to that but if you now pair me up with somebody who doesn’t
have anything going on for them and they are starting from scratch, like by the
time they are done building their website, I’m already in a five-figure profits
from that campaign. It’s that unfair.

The best thing you can do right now if you want to become a super affiliate is to
start building your list and to build your own information product or a software
product or a service product that would then allow you to refer buyers to the
affiliate offers that fit them.

Now again, it’s really important I stress this out again. With great power comes
great responsibility, so you can’t recommend shitty products to your list. You
can’t promote shitty products to your people. If you do, very quickly, you will
lose that authority. You will lose their respect. You will lose their affinity and
they will move on. They will not reward you with a repeated purchases. You will
probably hurt yourself more and hurt them as well in the process than if you were
to sporadically promote stuff you’re really picky about.

Like example in the last two weeks, I’ve actually declined four different
affiliate offers because I didn’t feel they were a good fit. Two of them were
e-commerce, one of them had to do with books and the last one was crypto. At that
time, like I didn’t feel it was a good fit.

Now, the crypto one, I’m still considering it, I’ll be honest with you. And maybe
by the time you’re listening to this you’ve already seen me promote it. I’m still
considering the crypto because crypto tends to fluctuate and I am not sure whether
is it something I would recommend. I’m still looking into that offer. I still need
to go to the product which is very interesting. It’s a software product actually
which allows people to make money regardless of where crypto is going.

But other than that, the other three, it’s a definite no. And again, I only do
that because I know what my list likes based on how they vote with their wallets
and I don’t want to give them things they don’t like. That’s it. Not only I won’t
make money but I will also not give them something they’re looking for. It’s not
of value to them at this point.

Again, with great power comes great responsibility. And if you want to have this
power, if you want to become a powerful affiliate, then you need to, A, be
building your list and B, either building your buyer’s list with your own product
or segmenting your buyer’s list so you treat your buyers differently when you’re
promoting all kinds of different offers.

With that said, this was all about how to become a super affiliate. I shared with
you my journey into the affiliate marketing world, how I got into it, why I got
started, how I succeeded, how I moved away from it and then came back onto the
scene, and of course, how you can become super affiliate by following these two
golden principles: Build your list and build your products so you can build a
buyers list. And that will lead you to big profits, big leverage and big freedom.
This is it. This is Igor and thank you so much for tuning in. Until next time we
chat, have a good one.

Thank you for tuning in to the the List Building Lifestyle. Get access to previous
episodes, the transcript of today’s show, and exclusive content at our website at
listbuildinglifestyleshow.com. Also, don’t forget to claim your free seat at the
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