How to work your ass off and get zero sign ups

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Jonathan: Welcome back, ladies and gentleman to another edition of The List-Building Lifestyle. With me is the master list-builder himself, Mr. Igor Kheifets. What is happening, sir?

Igor: Hey, Jonathan. Excited, you know, we’ve done 4 shows now. It’s been awesome. Great ride and I just can’t wait to dig in. today we’re talking about ‘Anti-Social Media.’

Jonathan: Anti-social media. I feel like I’m going to like this topic, but since I know it’s coming up I know better.

Igor: Yeah, and you know while you know this topic, so many of our listeners have no clue what social media is really about.
And you know if we really go back to the reason why we started business online, which is to make money and to help people along the way, you know, social media doesn’t even make sense as a marketing mechanism, because I mean how many people do you know that actually go on social media to buy stuff?

Jonathan: I don’t know anybody that goes on social media for anything other than to distraction and entertainment.

Igor: Yeah, and I often find myself browsing my Facebook news feed only when I’m procrastinating about getting an important piece of task, you know, some sort of like important work done.

Jonathan: Right.

Igor: Right? And so, yeah, I discovered that the hard way that nobody actually buys anything on social media because starting out in GDI, Global Domains International, which is an online MLM company where you basically recruit your friends and family to buy a website for 10 bucks a month and then you get a dollar in passive income. And, you know, they made a lot of sense when I first saw that, but obviously the day I went and joined.
But anyway I started on that company and so what I’ve been taught is that I could, you know, at the time I code go ahead and start getting people up in social media and that was an easy way to get free traffic. And it seemed kind of logical at first, and you know, back in the day when I started that was back in two thousand…man, I don’t even remember now, 2008, 2009…

Jonathan: Okay, really?

Igor: Yeah, yeah, that’s my, you know, going back to my MLM days. I was barely, by the way, I was just barely 19 or 18 years old. It just…I was still going to school.
So I started out and Myspace was really hot at the time, and so I got and I started creating all these fake Myspace profiles, not so much fake as in, you know, fake persona.
I would still put my name on the profile and my real pictures and everything and I would actually write like a long story of how got into the business and everything, modeling after guys like Jonathan Bard and Mike Dillard and, you know, all the powerful MLM players and, you know…[03.00]

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: …Killing it at the time. And I created like 50 profiles,
man, I kid you not I bought software that would automatically help me create profiles, so I would just input my information and it would automatically start new profiles so long as I kept on putting new emails in.
And, you know, I spent about a year doing that, because I was like, you know, it should get me results and then after a week it did not produce any results, and then my mentor said, ‘Okay, just build momentum, just create more profiles,’ and I kept on doing it for about a year until I gave up, because, you know, results just didn’t show up.
Now eventually I tried the same thing with Facebook and I tried the same thing with Twitter. And I, I mean, honestly, I spent so much money on, you know, auto-profile creation software, a lot of Tweeting software.
I even had a software that would…I would just send something to the software and it would feed it into all of my hundreds and hundreds of social media accounts across all the different platform, you know, my most if…my main ones were Twitter and Facebook at the time. Eventually, because eventually I did drop Myspace completely, because everybody moved to Facebook.
Long story short, it never resulted in actual signups even for a $10 per month product. I mean, honestly, just how hard can it be to sell a $10 per month product? It’s…I mean, people pay more for coffee today than 10 bucks and I couldn’t, I just couldn’t, and I tried every social media trick. I approached strangers. I asked questions, and, man, it’s just…I even developed a whole script of how I’m supposed to behave. And it’s just besides an occasional weirdo that wouldn’t mind spending an hour, you know, chatting with me, I would always miss.
So anyway, I learned the hard way that social media just doesn’t work. And eventually into paid traffic which worked like a charm and, you know, it got me to where I am today and pretty much built a name for myself through that and built a huge customer-base as well.
So I’m here to tell you, Jonathan, that our listeners should not be investing 4-6 hours a day hitting people up on social media and then sharing and liking and posting inspirational stories. And that’s coming from experience and years of failures.

Jonathan: No doubt, man, no doubt. It reminds me in real estate the big gurus tell agents that they need to spend 4-6 hours making cold calls, and it’s the same thing. It’s just not effective. There’s like a 1% success rate.

Igor: Yeah, I mean, I personally believe that most people have social media figured out backwards, because hitting up random strangers, and even if those strangers did like somebody that is supposedly like make some targeted.
So if I liked Brendon Burchard or if I liked Tony Robbins, the I’m supposedly targeted for a self-help MLM, which isn’t the case, right, because there’s so many other factors that we have to consider.
But even if that was the case, it’s [06.00] just, you know, first no one really buys anything on social media, and second imagine how desperate you seem, you come across to the other guy. I mean, he doesn’t know you. He doesn’t even you exist. All of a sudden you hit him up and you’re like ‘Oh, tell me about your family? Oh, tell me about what you do. Oh, and I’m…’

Jonathan: Oh, creepy.

Igor: Yeah, and ‘I’m so interested in what kind of person you are!’ and it’s like ‘What’s this person’s agenda? Why are they hitting me up all of a sudden?’ because it’s just not normal right, it’s just not normal.
And I would say social media is kind of like hitting, it’s kind of like opening up the telephone book, just the yellow pages, and randomly start calling people up. Like you said in real estate it was cold calling. But, you know, right now it’s so vast and huge all social media stuff that it’s just the same as randomly calling people up out of nowhere. It’s just, you know…

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: It doesn’t make any sense. There’s better ways, Jonathan, to make a living online.

Jonathan: I hope you can tell me, because I have totally given up on social media and I think that you might be ringing me back around with your new angle.

Igor: Well, yeah, I believe that social media is a slave to your business. It is not the king to your business. Like most people try to use social media as a way to get new customers, right, they believe…

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: …That their job is to get somebody from their Facebook account to join their list and now they start marketing. Now in reality, the opposite is true or should I say at least it is what works, you know, it just works for me this way.
I get them on my list first and I start mailing them every day, right, every day there’s an email with a pitch, but in my signature file there’s a link to my Facebook. On my website when they go in to buy my product on the footer of the website there’s a link to my Facebook. I would sometimes even tell them to go look me up on Facebook just so that they can follow me around on social media.
Now why don’t I want to do that?
Because I treat social media as my own little talk radio, because nobody goes to, you know, nobody gets on Facebook or Twitter to buy anything. That is true. But people do get on Facebook and Twitter to stay up-to-date. So what better way to have your clients stay up-to-date with you than not through social media? And once you’ve got them there and on your list, now you have a second media through which you can indoctrinate your making into their life.
So for example, I would want to be tweeting, you know, 6 times a day to anyone who’d either heard of my service before or who considered to use my service before and might not even consider to do it right now, but I would still be tweeting to them 6 times a day or posting to my Facebook 6 times a day in a way that first up does not allow them to forget about me, and second that is as we discussed ‘infotaining.’
So I would almost treat my ad as a mini version of my email marketing and I would basically try to deliver the same ideas with a different punch if you will. And occasionally I [09.00] would always, I would always plug something.
Like if you go on my Facebook right now, if you just Google my name or just go on Facebook – and you’re already probably following me around, if not then you should – then you’d see that I would mix, you know, a philosophical post and not just, you know, not just the whole motivating quotes from other people, like I would make my ow philosophical statements.
You know, how I would…you know, the other day I made a statement that speaking to my clients I keep…I’m reminded that I don’t need to learn anything new, but I need to be reminded of the old and tested stuff that works.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: Because I tend to get carried away and then start jumping on their feet, bight shiny object that’s related to email marketing instead of just honing my chops and getting better at what already works for me. So that sort of post positions me as a leader and helps my market to resonate with me.
And, of course, by the time they make a decision to finally drop whatever it is that they’re doing and get into solo ads or paid traffic or email marketing or whatever, they’re going to come and they’re going to come talk to me without even realizing that the reason they’re coming, you know, they’re talking to me is because I have not allowed them to forget about [me]. Because today with so much noise it is so easy to forget you. If you’re a service-provider or a leader, right?
I mean, it’s just so easy to allow your clients to forget you. All you’ve got to do is just not to anything for a few day. And the vacuum – you shared with me, Jonathan, I think yesterday. You shared the concept of the vacuum, which I would love for you to share with our listeners again just in case they didn’t know. But the vacuum gets filled up, right?

Jonathan: Yeah, so in nature when there’s a void, the vacuum as you’re saying there, something has to fill that void and we talked – actually it was last week, but it feels like yesterday…

Igor: Oh, yeah.

Jonathan: We’ve got the time warp going. Now you’ve got to get into the time warp.
But, yeah, when we talked about the creation versus consumption, when you stop creating or you stop consuming and you start creating, but the same thing here, filling the void.

Igor: Exactly, and, you know, it’s just been such a hectic week that I just keep losing track of time sometimes.
But, yeah, you’re totally right, when there’s a vacuum and you’re not actively filling up that vacuum in your prospect’s world, it gets filled with other crap.

Jonathan: Right.

Igor: And, you know, I assume that you’re offering a great service, a great opportunity, a great way to improve their life and therefore, you know, everything else in comparison to you as carp and therefore, you know, your competitors will fill that vacuum, trust me, if you don’t do it.
It’s kind of like what – who said that? You know, for evil to win, all we have to do is just, you know, sit and not do anything?
Jonathan: I’ve heard that before. I don’t know who said it, but I have heard that.

Igor: Yeah, I promise, next show, I’m coming with, you know, a set of quotes and names attached to them.

Jonathan: Their names.

Igor: Because I keep doing that again. Yeah, so for the evil to win the good have to [12.00] just sit there and do nothing, and the evil will automatically win.

Jonathan: Idly.

Igor: Yeah, therefore, guys, really just don’t let your prospects forget about you, because it is extremely, extremely easy for them to do it.

Jonathan: You know what it reminds me of, Igor, is that did you ever see Inception?

Igor: Yes.

Jonathan: Yeah, so that’s what it…the way you’re describing it to me, it’s kind of making me picture that, because they don’t know or they don’t realize that you are hitting them from multiple different angles. They’re already interested in you, but you’re hitting them, hitting them, hitting them from different angles multiple times, and then it becomes their idea.

Igor: Oh, yeah, for sure. And then you’re getting all their virtual head nods with agreement. And guess what? We like to buy from people who we agree with.
And even better, something to remember is that if you feel that if you like hit them up from multiple angles like email and social media and maybe YouTube video every now and again then you might be like spamming them or being too much. Then trust me when I see this, you’re probably not anywhere near close to a spammer. You’re probably not doing this thing enough.
You know, it’s the same advice that I got from my mentor when I said ‘Hey, man, I’m still in this thing and my refund rate, you know, is 5%,’ and I’m like ‘Well, people are refunding. They probably don’t like the product,’ and, of course, I’m ignoring 95% that didn’t ask for a refund.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: You know, that’s like me being a newbie, and so he’s like ‘Well, look, if you’re not getting at least 20% refund rates, you’re not selling hard. So sell hard. You know, don’t be…don’t be a wussy. Don’t, you know, revert back now to safe zone. Instead, sell harder and get that refund rate even higher, because you’ll reach more people help more people and the ones who are going to refund are going to refund it anyway.’

Jonathan: Gosh, think about that. You were getting a 5% refund rate and you had all those people that weren’t refunding and he’s telling you to multiply that four. So imagine the windfall of cash.

Igor: Yeah, but you see that’s the counterintuitive nature of our brain where we tend to look at just the negative stuff. It’s kind of like we talked about on one of the previous shows where, you know, having just one poor experience with a solo ad all of a sudden makes all future experiences bad as well, because that’s what our mind chooses to focus on.

Jonathan: Yeah, that’s right. I do it all the time with bad iTunes reviews.

Igor: Alrighty, cool! So what do you think, Jonathan?

Jonathan: Well, this kind of encourages me because I gave up on social media a long time ago and I’ve like followed the Ben Settle school of thought of just getting them on your email list and hitting them every day.
In fact, at the time that you and I are talking, I’m about to finish 365 Days of Emails, but with that email thing going on I like the idea of hitting people angles, and I think like you’re doing is smart. You’re hitting with a podcast. You’re hitting with the social media post. And you’re hitting with a tweet. And so I think that [15.00] multi-channel approach is probably the way to go.
But really I like idea of getting them on your list first. I think that’s key and then kind of, like you said, indoctrinating them or cross-pollinating, so if any one site goes down or anything goes down, you can hit them on other sites.
And I also like the idea of different media. So you’re talking about email. You’re hitting them with a written word. Some people like that. Some people don’t.
You’re talking about a video once in a while, so it’s visual so they can hear you.
You’re doing this podcast show, so you’re in their earbuds when they’re driving or at the gym.
So you have all different angles for all different personality types and you’re able to keep hammering your message away without seeming overbearing, because they get to choose which ones they pay attention to.

Igor: Yeah, and having the choice is a big thing, because, for example, you know, I keep mentioning the people I follow around and people I studied. So Doberman Dan is one of them, now, Doberman Dan, God bless him, but he writes really long emails, like you know ridiculously long emails and there’s nothing wrong with that, you know, it works for him and the copy needs to be as long as it needs to be.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: But sometimes honestly in the midst of a workday people just don’t have the time or the desire to read a long email. So guess what I do when I set out to drive to a local friend’s house? He’s about 2 hours away, something like that, so every now and again we meet up. So in these 2 hours going to my friend’s house and the other 2 hours going back from my friend’s house, guess what I do? I listen to Dan’s podcast.

Jonathan: How about that.

Igor: And so in, you know, 4 hours in just one day, I consume information Dan that I can’t help but not think about him, you know…

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: That, man, it just doesn’t come to right sometimes!

Jonathan: That’s funny!

Igor: My point is very simple just like you said, you know, you’re driving…they can, you know, when they’re driving they can listen to your podcast. And when they’re at the computer or maybe they’re at work and they get an email on their cell phone, they’ll read the email on the cell phone. If they’re browsing their Facebook on their lunch break or something, they’ll see an update from you. Doesn’t mean they’re going to pay attention, but you’re there.
You know, you’re like slowly but surely getting through their skull and into their subconscious, so whether they want it or not, they’re going to be thinking about you and that’s good. That’s what you want to have. You want to be everywhere.
That’s one of the secrets to truly great marketing. It’s not just hitting them from one channel. It’s hitting them from multiple channels and being everywhere.
I’ve had this happen to me quite a few times when I had a conversation with somebody who wanted to purchase my $15,000 coaching program, and I’m like, you know, one of the first questions that I asked is the same question that you, Jonathan, asked me is ‘Okay, so why did you decide that you wanted to work with me?’
And so then oftentimes they would tell me something along the lines of, ‘Well, I first heard about you about a year ago on this webinar and I didn’t pay attention. [18.00.1] And then, you know, 4 months later I’ve seen you being the recommended traffic guy or the recommended coach or whatever on this website, and you know, I just signed up you list. And then all of a sudden I noticed that you’re everywhere. You’re on my Facebook. You know, you’re in my inbox and almost every leader, every other leader I follow talks about you, so this is like this Igor guy…’

Jonathan: Wow…

Igor: ‘…Is everywhere. There must be something to it that I’m not seeing’ – and so, that alone pushed them towards investigating into how they can work with me.’

Jonathan: Yeah, one of the other things that I just want to bring back before we wrap this up is the idea that you talked about keeping the message similar, but hitting different angles so that even if you didn’t get them, even if it was the medium that they liked, whether it’s reading or listening or whatever, keeping the message the same but with different angles gives you new hooks to bring people in. And I really like that idea of doing that.
And it’s also easier for us as marketers to do that, because we just need a couple of different angles on the same idea.

Igor: Yeah, because you never know. You never know which angle is going to work. And, you know, I was explaining this to a VIP client earlier today, we had an early call this morning, and was explaining to him how do you go about selling an anti-smoking solution or how do you go about convincing somebody to stop smoking. Now telling them they’re going to get cancer doesn’t quite work anymore, because everybody knows they’re going to get cancer, but…

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: People keep smoking, right? But if you’re talking to, say, a woman just show her a picture of someone who smokes for 10 years and how her, you know, skin has gone really pale and shriveled up and how the teeth are looking now and how the nails are looking now, like just show an appearance, how the appearance is now horrible compared to what she has right now, the appearance she has right now.
Or if you’re talking to a guy, you know, don’t tell him about cancer, tell the guy that if he doesn’t stop smoking, you know, by the time he’s 30-something he couldn’t get an erection, because cigarettes actually affect all that, you know, funky stuff in you prostrate and you know, by the time you’re closing on 40, you’re likely to experience inability or dramatic like drop in the ability to get an erection. Now…

Jonathan: Yikes.

Igor: …When I first heard about this, I was already not smoking. You know, I’d stopped smoking at the time but, you know, the mental picture I got of me not being able to get an erection by the time I’m 40 – and for me sex is a really important part of my life – I was like ‘Thank God I stopped smoking a couple of years ago.’ I was like…so I couldn’t ignore this.
And therefore, it just brings us back that you can deliver the same message from multiple angles from multiple markets for multiple personalities, and again it’s just a way for you to make more money and reach a wider market and help more people.

Jonathan: Good stuff, man. So what do you have coming up for us next time?

Igor: Oh, I have something coming up that I believe is going to be extremely interesting for anyone who is currently buying traffic. Right, so, it is actually the big reveal of the reason why you’re probably [21.00] not able to break even with you solo ads.
And we’re going to top that off with the big secret as to how to make money on your promotions, no just break even.

Jonathan: Nice. That’s like the holy grail of internet marketing, right there good, man, I’m looking forward to it.
So that is a wrap for The List-Building Lifestyle, episode number 5. We’re all using social media backwards, and no we’ve got a game plan to fix that. Thank you, Igor, and thank you everyone for tuning in.

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