How I turned a Wedding Gigs into an Eight-Figure Marketing Empire With Paul Ace 

I’m Igor Kheifets, and this is The ListBuilding Lifestyle. The podcast is for anyone who wants to build a wildly profitable email list working from home. If you’d like to make six figures, travel the world and help people improve their lives in the process, this podcast is for you. I also invite you to claim a free copy of my best selling book, the list building lifestyle Confessions of an email millionaire at www.igorsbook.com
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00:54
Welcome back to The ListBuilding Lifestyle, I’m your host, Igor Kheifets, and today I’m hosting a wedding singer turned really big internet marketer and somebody who revolutionized the industry by coining the term conversational commerce. Paul Ace from the UK. Paul, welcome to The ListBuilding Lifestyle.

1:10 The Guest, Paul Ace
Igor, like great to be here, and hopefully we can tell some stories and add as much value as possible along the way.

1:17 Igor Kheifets
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve been going through a lot of your content, and you’re a great storyteller, So I’m looking forward to that. And I wanted to kick things off by kind of dipping the tone back into your past, because, you transition from a very creative and a totally different lifestyle, I’d say, to become a boring person that sits behind a computer all day, right? So what sparked the transition?

1:46 The Guest, Paul Ace
So, here’s what’s interesting, is when I was back in the singing days, so I was a drummer from when I was 11 years old, right! So, starting off kind of like going, oh, I want to be a rockstar! When I was 11. And then as time goes on, you realize the rockstar dream may not actually be possible, unless you really put the time and effort into it. And the amount of drummers that made a lot of money, there weren’t a lot of them! So, when I got to, like, I think it was about 20, I was like, if I want to make money out of music, I need to learn to sing, because it was just an easier path, right! So,I get to 20 years old, I went and had singing lessons before that. I sounded like the choir boy whose voice had broken halfway through, and it was just like up and down and all over the place.

So I got through that piece, and I had singing lessons for about six months, I learned to sing. And then there was this one moment when I was in a band at the time, I was actually the drummer at the time, and the singer said, “I can’t bother with today’s gig, I don’t want to turn up. ” So, he said, “I’m just going to tell him I’ve got a sore throat and we’re not doing it”. So okay, so I rang up the venue and said, “Hey, I’ve heard you’ve just missed the band that you should be having this afternoon”. And they went, “Yeah, how do you know that?” I went, “I’m the drummer in the band”. I was like, “Do you need a singer?” They’re like, “Sure!” So, that was my first ever gig, and I got a residency there for 12 months. So that was like the start of the wedding journey.

And then as time goes on, well, what do you need to do? You need to market the business, right! So, at that point, I started going, I discovered, and there’s the cliche in the modern world of I discovered the whole https://www.expertsecrets.com/, secrets, all that kind of stuff! And I think that was a catalyst for a lot of people around like that, 10 years ago, like, I think I’ve been in this game about eight or nine years now, like just doing the marketing.

So, at that point, I was like, maybe I could build a value stack around my wedding singing, right! And everyone else in the space was going, I’ll sing at your wedding. And I was like, you can get the singing, the mics for the speeches, I’ll sing your first dance song, I’ll record it for you. I’ll give you the lighting, the DJ equipment, I will give you wedding planning advice, I’ll give you this Facebook I like, let’s stack the hell out of it, right?

And by doing that, it meant I was able to charge more than anyone else, just for singing. So bands were going out with four or five people in them, and they were charging like $1200, I ended up, by the end of like five years in the industry, I was charging two grand a day.

04:24 Igor Kheifets
Wait, the weddings go on for longer than a day?

04:27 The Guest, Paul Ace
Wow! No, usually Indian weddings, but, like, my style of music didn’t really match the Indian market as much, but like these weddings, so I would do the ceremony, the drinks reception and sing in the evening all the way through, right! And the DJing consisted of me saying, Send me over the playlist that you want to play. Because, like, you can have a DJ that says they think this is what you know better about your audience unit. So basically they just send the Spotify playlist. So, I click play, so it’s a really light touch on my side, but they loved it, because it felt personalized all the way through, right!

And then I learned how to market through that, and then there was one podcast that I listened to, and that podcast said you can have a level 10 skill set, but if you’re in a level two opportunity, you’ll never fulfill your potential, right! You’ll never make the money that you want to make. So, I was like, huh! So, at this point we’ve transitioned a little bit, and this is going to sound a little bit weird, so I went from selling singing to bridesmaids dresses. Why? Because I’ve built an info product, because I was like, Oh, I can build an info product, and then I’ll get more gigs, because I can create this self liquidating offer!

So if you don’t know what a self liquidating offer is, it’s basically you put $1 in, you get $1 back, right? So you break even on that product, which means you get to acquire customers for free. So, I built this info product, it was costing us, it was a 12 pound 95 and it’s costing us about eight pounds to sell one, right! This box, which was great at the time Wild West of Facebook ads.

And I didn’t realize what I was doing at the time, by the way, either. So I would have scaled it a lot more if I knew. But by doing that, I actually then built this community, 3000 brides, and then we just did that, the good old fashioned question of asking them what they want and giving it to them. So I said, What do you want? They said, We want bridesmaids dresses at a reasonable price, instead of paying 200 pounds for a bridesmaids dress. Okay, so I went to AliExpress, right? And I found bridesmaids dresses that we bought for eight pounds, and we sold them for 25 and then we ended up, I think, selling for 30. So that scaled. At the time, bear in mind, I was doing like 25 grand a year. So then we went up to 16 grand a month selling bridesmaids dresses. And I was like, wow, look at me, I’m a rock star now, right! So I went into a new opportunity.

So if you kind of look at the level 10 skill set, I’m not saying I had a level 10 skill set at that point, but maybe I had an eight or whatever. But I was in two opportunities, and then I went to four or five opportunities. So, then applied the same principles again, went to the next stage, which was, ah, what if I do this in other kinds of businesses? And I did coaching businesses, and then I started working in six figure businesses and seven figure businesses, then eight figure businesses, because you can double a six figure business, it’ll take you to seven, do make an extra 100 grand a year, you double an eight figure business, you make another 10 million or more. And we work on a performance basis, so we make more money if they want more money. So that’s kind of the whirlwind tour of from start to

07:34 Igor Kheifets
I’m surprised you didn’t include a bride in your stack! (Well, yeah if you’re a guy, it) But I guess for the price of one, it’s just, direct response marketing, which is what Russell really popularized at that point on the internet. Before him, of course, there were the likes of Frank Kern and before him, the likes of Dan Kennedy and Gary Halbert and the others. It really is applied to literally every industry out there.

I got a good buddy of mine back in Israel who owned a deli who applied a ton of the direct response stuff that we’ve been using online to his deli business, which is a commodity business, right? He sells like, salami and cheese and bread and milk and whatever. And he was able to overtake his largest competitor by far, and out of a small town of roughly 50,000 people. His revenues are matching those stores that are located in big cities with like, half a million people, or, which, for Israel, is actually a lot, you know? I know it’s not a lot in a normal country. (Yeah) Like (yeah) adding those processes in, right?

08:52 The Guest, Paul Ace
It’s even better when you add those processes into an industry that’s not used to it, like coming from the wedding world, where people just weren’t doing that, like, we could charge so much more than anyone else was, and people were more than happy to pay it. And the cool thing was, then we could add those value adds in because we had margin.

So for example, like, when someone bought, immediately, I would go on this site called buyagift.com, right? And I don’t know, like, if you’re not in the UK, it’s probably called Red Light days or whatever, and I would buy them a two night break away, right? So I gave them a voucher there. And then I was like, Look, wedding planning is really hard. Like, it’s really stressful. Everyone wants you to do all these different things, I want to make sure you’re looked after.

So I didn’t tell them they were going to get that in the package, but it cost me 100 pounds for that. So, that’s like, what 5% of the total cost, and my other costs, apart from petrol and accommodation, weren’t massive. So, I could create this amazing experience for him, because I had the margin to do it, because I’d reposition my offer. I think that’s sometimes when people, oh, wait, people say, just charge more. But you can’t just charge more, you have to have the positioning and everything to go with it as well, right? And it actually feels like it’s good value

10:06 Igor Kheifets
Yeah, although, to be fair, sometimes you can (well) sometimes you can just charge more. I think people have this notion that you’re not allowed to. The people that I’ve seen that have the biggest issues with that are actually barbers, they have the hardest time getting themselves to increase their price by as little as five bucks, they’re so afraid of the customer going, like, what! It’s 25 now! They think the customer is just gonna just run right over there in the barber shop and go, raise hell. But people are generally like, okay with you raising prices, anything up to 20% price increase usually doesn’t even require a reason.

10:51 The Guest, Paul Ace
Or you flip it the other way and you go, Okay, well, to add to your point, now you charge more immediately, this perceived value that it’s better anyway.

11:01 Igor Kheifets
Yes, price itself can become the indicator that it’s of higher score.

11:07 The Guest, Paul Ace
Oh, a 100 pounds for a haircut, that must be good, right?

11:10 Igor Kheifets
Yeah, I actually got one that was really expensive, like 60 bucks in LA. I was out there for a seminar, and they had a cocktail party, and I’m not much for parties or cocktails. I didn’t know what to do, so I figured I’m gonna go get a shave and a haircut and end up paying like $60 or $65 US. And I was used to high prices from Toronto, although over there you pay Canadian dollars, which is a little bit different. But man, I was going in, I was thinking, Man, this barber shop chart is like the most expensive out of all of them on Google Maps, they must be good! (Yeah) I was wrong, I mean, maybe it’s the shape of my head, but they weren’t very good at all! I wasn’t happy with that purchase.

But the point being is that when I was making a buying decision (yeah) I actually went by the price. And I figured, know what, I’m not gonna go cheap on my looks for this party, so I’m gonna go for it. Now I do, I can appreciate how price itself can become an indicator of quality for you.

12:11 The Guest, Paul Ace
And you can, when I say, add more value, sometimes that gets misinterpreted, right? Sometimes people say, Well, just put the kitchen sink in it, right? But actually, as you put the price up, it’s not about adding more stuff, it’s about just ripping away anything that’s not important and just giving the stuff that people want. And it becomes more about the experience.

Like that haircut, it’s like with the, like, I watched a YouTube video of someone the other day, and these barbers, like, they came in and they did all the kind of the usual stuff, like all the ears and the nose and everything like that. But like, at the same time, they give them a foot massage and a face massage and, like, all that stuff on top. Now the actual cost of that might have been maybe 10 pounds of labor, for maybe a five minute massage, and, well, we’re going to put some creams in there and all that kind of stuff.

But they were like, top end. And then on the way out, the person comes out, and then they’ve got like, six staff members, and they’re all like, Thank you, thank you, right? And it’s a full journey experience. Where they make you feel like a celebrity. Now you can charge like, 100 pounds, 150 pounds for this haircut, because now it’s not a haircut, it’s an experience!

13:25 Igor Kheifets
During COVID, there was a big boom in Toronto, where I lived at the time, for barbers who were coming to you. Because it was difficult to get into a place of business, you had to maintain social distance. But then a couple of barbers figured it out, and they were like, well, I’ll come to you. So they’ll drive up to your house, they’ll give you a haircut, clean, not the whole house, but just the area where they would cut your hair, and they would leave, and they would charge slightly above the going rate. And I know a barber who was making, I think, some like, $12,000 a month doing that, during the peak of COVID.

And thinking about that, I’d gladly pay double the going rate of a haircut if I didn’t have to leave the house, if the barber would come to me. In fact, for most things in life at this point, I would gladly pay more if I didn’t have to go get it myself, because the cost of breaking focus from work or from spending time with my kids or anything, and maybe playing video games, doesn’t matter what it is like, whatever I’m doing in the moment that I want to do is probably more important than anyone else’s agenda.

So breaking focus from that, having to leave the house, having to get in the car, dealing with traffic, which can be, you know, here in Bulgaria, it’s not really insane, but it can be stressful to drive around, because their streets are really narrow. When people in the Balkans, they drop like crazy. So, I’m always stressed out, and if I didn’t have to deal with any of that, I’d gladly pay extra.

And it kind of shows by my daily patterns at this point, I haven’t gone grocery shopping in a long timeو I have it all delivered, even if it means not getting the exact type of salmon that I really like and settling for this sort of like salmon that I’m okay with, but not really in love with fine, but I didn’t have to go and get it, we haven’t gotten to a restaurant in a long, long time, just we ordered takeout, have them bring it over here, then I’ll just watch my Netflix show and eat at home. I don’t really care! So, for a buyer like me, that’s the biggest value proposition you can possibly offer me. It’s like, “do you want this product?” It’s like, “yes, check mark”. “Do you want it delivered to you?” “Yes, I absolutely would”.

So, I think you’re sharing an incredible lesson in understanding your buyer, knowing your customer, because I think it’s one of the most undervalued areas of direct response marketing. Most people focus on the tactics, on the tricks, on the hacks. And these days, of course, on the AI software that’s going to make it all work. But I think what they miss is understanding what the customer actually wants.

I was just talking to a good friend of mine who owns an email marketing company where, like an email marketing software, and we were talking about interface and this and that. And when we were chatting, I realized, and I told him, “Look, man, just get the email delivered, everything else is like a bonus, like the 80/20 rule, for me as an email marketer, with any email marketing software, it’s like, does the email inbox with the customer? Does the customer see and open my email, click the link and buy the product? If it doesn’t inbox, I don’t care about your interface, I don’t care about your bells and whistles, I don’t care about your automated AI segmentation, I don’t care about your AI Content Builder, I don’t care about anything at all until the damn email gets delivered. If you, if you do that, you got me, that’s it!

17:11 The Guest, Paul Ace
That primary purpose (yeah) that’s the thing! Like we work with a company that does more polite figures, and that was one of the exact conversations we’re having yesterday, is, hey, we’re noticing more things like hitting in promotional tabs and stuff like that, with all these updates and stuff like that, if literally, you can increase deliverability by 10%, that’s another seven figures a year for that business. So, I think what people look at a lot of the time is when you run in a business, whether it be like a local service business, whether it be a small online boutique or whatever, the thing is, you judge price and offers and everything from your own perception, rather than the perception of the customer. And that’s one of the biggest things that stop people from growing, whether it be price value or whatever is, they’re looking at it and going. “Wow, I wouldn’t pay that”. It’s like, well, yeah, because that’ll make you an extra 10 pounds if, but if that company does it, it’ll make an extra seven figures a year. So, like charging 500 pounds a month for that software, if you just worked with companies or eight figures, right? It makes a lot more sense.

The problem is, your haircut thing, the price needs to match the expectation. That’s different at eight figures, because you have to cut all the BS, right? You have to cut all the BS at that level because people won’t take it. So, like to work with those kinds of people, it takes a different kind of delivery experience. However, if you can master that part and the communication, the expectations that are set there, everything else becomes a lot easier.

18:52 Igor Kheifets
Yeah, I think anyone listening who’s really interested in raising prices or understanding what it’s like and how to do it, should read Dan Kennedy’s The No B.S Price Strategy for Entrepreneurs, where he gives a ton of examples of all sorts of industries, not just the B to B space, where you’re at, where you work with an eight figure business, and for which, it’s all about the revenue, the profits, streamlining, etc. But also, where they sell consumer goods for outrageous amounts of money. I remember he gives as well as a coffee lover myself, I have to admit that I’ve bought on more than one occasion, coffee for $40, $50, $150, $250 for a package. Now, I’m sure I’m overpaying, but I’m going for it! I love coffee, right? How much money have I spent on it! Just yesterday, I spent 50€ on a package in a game, like a video game, right!

So, people who buy certain types of products and are willing to pay extra, they just buy the products and they’re willing to pay extra. And you can’t really truly appreciate it until you’ve seen them in action, spending that money. And what’s interesting is that people will pay expensive prices, even for products they can get cheap elsewhere, and even if they don’t have the money, even if they have to put it on the card and break it into a bunch of payments.

So, the way people manage their money, let’s put it this way, is extremely counterintuitive, and all of our preconceived notions about all we can, what we are allowed to charge. You know, most people, when they decide what price to set, they just look at all the competitors and kind of just set the price that sort of in the middle for that, which I think is the absolute worst thing you can do!

20:47 The Guest, Paul Ace
I don’t know if you’ve read the book Richie Stan. My son’s two years old, and that was his bedtime story for like, three months, and he loves it. Like, every night it’s like, “what do you want to read?” Is, “that business book”, “Which business?” “Richie Stan!” Richie Stan is basically about how, and it was written about 10 years, 15 years ago. But I think that part has grown even more, right? Essentially, there’s this whole different economy, this whole different world up there.

And the challenge, as you go, kind of like down the economic layers is everyone’s competing to get to the next status symbol, and the richer that the rich get, the more people take out credit at the level that they can’t afford it. Because they want to try and keep up with the rich. And that’s like going even further and further now. And it just creates, you know, they say the gap between the rich and the poor is bigger than it’s ever been. Also, people don’t pay for ownership anymore, they pay for access, because of social media and everything like that. It’s like, “Oh, I’ll put it on my credit card, I’ll rent it”, right? You look at how many people actually go out and buy a phone and it is painful, like, I do, you may be, maybe you are this sort of guy!

22:12 Igor Kheifets
Yeah, I’m sort of guy who wants to, but that’s because I’m like, I mean, and I’m gonna say without bragging, it’s because I can afford (you’ve got the cash flow to do it) yeah! Like, if I go buy a phone, like, if I go buy a gaming laptop for five grand, if I’m buying, like, the recent car purchase, which isn’t like a super rich car, it’s a Volvo XC90 T8 but it’s like a high end version of a Volvo SUV. And I bought it, like, second hand, I like to buy my car secondhand. It cost 42,000€ , and I got it in cash. I just paid cash for it!

22:45 The Guest, Paul Ace
Yeah, and it makes sense, like my car, I bought it on lease. And the only reason I bought it on lease is because it’s electric and because of the tax implications, right! (Yeah, it makes sense) we start to, we look at things as, I think the perception of the way that we look at money is from an investment standpoint, like, how can I utilize that money in the best way? Like, for example, if I go and buy a phone, I could go and buy a new iPhone, like, for I don’t know, I don’t even know how much, like $1000 plus, or whatever! But I don’t see the point, because within 12 months that depreciates in value that much it halves in value.

So I’m like, why would I spend that much on a depreciating asset when I’d rather buy a phone that maybe is, like one model down or two models down, that maybe you’ll depreciate in half as well. But if you bought it for 250 and it goes down to 25, I’ve lost 100, so yeah

23:40 Igor Kheifets
Like cars, where they do depreciate in value, because they release so many of them (yeah) so quickly, with very little difference in between. Like, Oh, this one’s got a three megapixel extra on the camera, but it’s essentially the same damn phone!

23:57 The Guest, Paul Ace
So, when, and I did this, I think I kind of, first figured this out when I was doing the wedding singing, right! I bought everything secondhand, and the reason I bought it second hand is because, number one, I couldn’t afford it new. And number two, I actually looked at everything as free rental. So, I never bought anything, I just bought it, used it for two years, and then went, because I’ve already bought it second hand. What is the going rate of that? How much is it depreciating over time?

So, for example, I bought this Bose L1 line array system, that’s the technical name of it, but basically it was a really frigging good speaker, right! So, it was like two grand for this speaker, which was like 10% of what I was earning, right! So, that was a big purchase at the time, two years, three years later, I sold it for the same price. So it cost me, actually nothing! It was just all it cost was the limit of that cash flow at that period of time.

So, I think when you look at anything that you buy in the business, anything you buy personally, if you look at it, in terms of, actually, quite often it’s better to buy things second hand and get a higher standard of the thing that doesn’t depreciate to that level, or then look at the offset like, same thing with cars, is it? So, if the car is going to depreciate 20 grand over the course of a three year period, but it’s only going to cost you 15 grand for the lease, we’ll lease it. And I did that exact calculation when I got my last car, for the same things over like, Okay, well, when I do that, and then I offset the tax that I cannot write off, and then I now offset part of the VAT, I was like, Well, wait a minute, it saves me like eight grand by releasing it. So, you just do.

25:37 Igor Kheifets
Now we’re getting into a whole other territory, it’s like, what do you do when you have a running business, a profitable business? How can you work with the write off system?

25:44 The Guest, Paul Ace
Yeah, that’s not how we ended up at this rabbit hole, but it’s quite good.

25:48 Igor Kheifets
That’s the reality of running a business! That’s the things that like, I don’t know about you, I get really excited about writing off taxes and writing off expenses and stuff. It’s almost like a sport, like, can I find a way to do it, within the legal framework of the tax code, can I, in some way, shape or form, shave off a few dollars off my tax bill, given how high it is in Canada and I’m assuming in the UK, it’s very similar. That is literally something that makes me like, wake up in the morning and Get excited about my day. You know what I mean? So, because one thing, it’s one thing to make the money! It’s one thing, It’s like the first few years in the business, when you start growing the business, you finally get some momentum going and you get revenue coming in, etc. You’re so excited with just the money hitting your bank account, you don’t even think about the taxes.

But then a few years into it! I had this happen to me several years into my online marketing journey, where I went for a few years making, I think I was making multiple six figures at a time, I still wasn’t hitting a million. And then my accountant called me up and she said, “Well, did you know that there’s a deadline coming up, they’re going to increase the corporate tax in Israel”. And I said, “Okay”. Said, “Well, maybe it’s a good time for you to pull some money out from the company”. And I said, “Sure, How much can I pull out?” And she says, “Well, you have over $200,000 in built up profit that you can pull out”. I said, “Oh, that’s awesome! So, let me take a look”. I log into my online banking and I only have like $20,000 there, cash. And I say, “wait a sec! How can I have all this profit on paper? But then, Where did the money go?”

And then I started looking into all the paperwork and all the annual reports I was signing, where I would literally just get a thick report like that, and I would just not even read it and just sign it. And I realized every year I would be paying insane amounts of money in taxes, insane and, in the first few years leading to that point, I didn’t even manage to save up much money at all. I thought I was rich, and now I wasn’t actually rich! I just had a big income, like time, you know what I mean?

28:14 The Guest, Paul Ace
Yeah! I had the same thing when we were selling the bridesmaids dresses. So, like, we hit this big block where I was going, Oh, wow, look, we’re scaling, we’re scaling every single month. And it was going great. And then we start getting a few more returns back, and a few more returns back.

Now, I don’t know, the industry rate for returns in the fashion industry is like 30% right? Sometimes even higher, depending what kind of (it’s address, right. It has to fit perfectly or you get return) It has to fit eight people perfectly, right! Imagine what that’s like (at the same time) I do remember I did get an email once, it says, “I need to send it back, because one of our bridesmaids stood in a window, standing on the coffee table, and it was see through when she stood there”. I was like, “well, you’re probably not going to stand there normally, but okay!” So, there’s always interesting quirks that come up. But what happened, basically, is, I thought our returns were 12%, because we were scaling right?

So, bear with me on the numbers here, I’m going to try and explain it in the easiest way, let’s say we’re at 10 grand a month, and 90 days ago, we were at two grand a month, so maybe we got a grand back out of that two grand, right? So we technically were at 50% return rate. But because I’m not now making 10 grand a month, I’m thinking I’m at 10% return rate, because I’m actually not looking at when the sale occurred.

So, as you scale that problem gets worse and worse, and then when I actually did the numbers on it, I was like, “Oh crap!” And I didn’t know how to get out of it, so I couldn’t switch off ads because they didn’t have the cash flow, because I hadn’t separated any of the money. So, personal and business were all tied together. So, never do that, by the way, never do that! It’s never a good idea.

So, I was like, “Oh, crap!” So we took out two loans. We had to borrow money from friends and family just to keep going. And I said, I have post monophobia, which is that every time, every morning, the postman will come to the door, it slides that van door open, right? And it gets the parcel out, and he’d and he’d beep it. And every time I heard it beep, it was like, 250 pounds coming out of my account. Deep . . another 250 pounds coming out of my account, right! So, I was counting the beeps, it was like dings right on a clock. And every time it beeped, another 250 pounds was gone. (Dude! That’s terrible scarcity conditioning, right there!) It was hard, man! It took six months to (talk about an easy way to develop anxiety) It was, yeah!

So, what we actually did is we went and sourced a different dress, sold it at a higher price, right? And we were doing Facebook live every single day. We would essentially be building our own little shopping channel on Facebook. We were sending out bunches and bunches of emails. I remember once I sent out 14 emails about a car close and someone emailed me three weeks later and went, “is this office still on?” So, it just that also made me go, do you know what? You can have a market too, because you never can’t (No) So, we did that, built all that out, and that actually allowed us to manage the cash flow a little, but because we were getting from China, we couldn’t return the dresses to China. So then I’ve got this stockroom, right? I’ve got a tiny little 2-bed house, at the time where I’ve got, shelving floor to ceiling all the way around this, and my desk is getting smaller and smaller, just covered with dresses. And I didn’t know what to do!

And, yeah, eventually we got through it, and that was the point where I put a graph. So, I put a line across the middle, right! Like a little crossing, and it said, What do I enjoy and what do I hate on the horizontal, and then I put what I am really good at and what I am rubbish at on the vertical. And then I mapped everything that I’ve ever done in business. And that’s where it came with the whole Oh, I’m good at the marketing piece, let’s go do more of that! And that’s where it all kind of began, you know!

32:19 Igor Kheifets
Right! We’re actually getting close to time, but not exactly there yet. So, I wanted to try something with you. It’s a segment we have here, it’s called rapid fire questions. So, I just fire some questions at you, and your goal is to answer them fairly quickly, just go through, like, a sentence, maybe (I can do quick, It’s okay!) All right, cool, because some guests struggle, Just letting you know! I did this with a really good friend, and somebody who’s like, I respect in the game, and he went on tangents. On every one of them we can only manage to get, like, three.

So, All right! (How many questions will we get through?) One to 3, tenish (Cool! Let’s do it. Yeah, let’s go) What’s a book, podcast or resource that has had a big impact on your business?

33:07 The Guest, Paul Ace
So, I would say, “Built to Sell” was a really interesting book. I highly recommend that, because it shows you how to start to systematize your business. It’s actually a really fun story to read as well.

33:20 Igor Kheifets
Okay, “Built to Sell”. What’s the most underrated skill for entrepreneurs to master?

33:27 The Guest, Paul Ace
Pigheaded discipline, to keep going when you want to give up.

33:30 Igor Kheifets
How do you develop it?

33:34 The Guest, Paul Ace
You remind yourself why you’re doing it, and have a strong enough “why” to keep going.

33:44 Igor Kheifets
What’s the biggest ROI you’ve ever generated for a client?

33:44 The Guest, Paul Ace
Biggest ROI! Probably one of “the working with” at the moment, started at 14 million. Within 15 months, they’re on pace for 50 million.

33:53 Igor Kheifets
Damn it! What sort of industry is that?

33:58 The Guest, Paul Ace
Coaching.

34:00 Igor Kheifets
In what nitch?

34:02 The Guest, Paul Ace
Can’t say too much! Because we got non-disclosure agreements.

34:07 Igor Kheifets
What’s a habit or routine that’s been key to your success?

34:14 The Guest, Paul Ace
Writing down the night before exactly what I want to do, and then taking that and then writing in the time windows of what each one of those things are. And then also, quite often, I’ll do a delegate dump. So, like, who can I actually delegate that thing off to? And then I go through it in order the next day. So, instead of just going to do this in this order, I actually put the time window to make sure I get the stuff done.

34:39 Igor Kheifets
Nice! Okay, what’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

34:44 The Guest, Paul Ace
I’d say that you can have a level 10 skill set and a level two opportunity like that just opened up so many doors.

34:54 Igor Kheifets
What’s one thing you wish you’d learn sooner in your journey?

34:58 The Guest, Paul Ace
To “who”, not “the how”, to find the right who’s who are great at what they do, and I can stick in my zone of genius. I think you spend a lot of time in early entrepreneurship trying to do everything, and sometimes that’s because of cash, but also sometimes it’s because we have a fear of letting go of things, because we think other people can’t do it as well as we can. So, the more I’ve let go of some control and find the right who’s, the better the business runs, and the happier I am with life.

35:28 Igor Kheifets
Okay, if you could have dinner with any entrepreneur past or present, who would it be and why?

35:35 The Guest, Paul Ace
I quite like Keith J. Cunningham is an interesting guy. So he (Is that the guy who used to teach in Tony Robbins’s business mastery?) He was like, I think Tony Robbins is a mentor. (Right! He lost everything in the real estate crash in 2008, is that the guy?) Not sure on that one, but, he talks about thinking time, which is really, so one of those (Yeah, he’s the guy) So, one of the key things that he says, “if you were to take back the three biggest mistakes that you’ve ever made, how much more money would you have?” (Okay) And there’s just a lot of thinking tools, like that really help on the overall journey. And I’m quite interested in what Alex Holmes is doing right now as well. The way he’s documenting the journey. So, I’m sure I’ll get a chance to connect with him at some point.

36:33 Igor Kheifets
What’s a mistake you made early in your career that taught you a valuable lesson?

36:40 The Guest, Paul Ace
Not knowing my numbers well enough, which actually made it one of our core values is data, and we have facts, not feelings, right! Because I didn’t calculate my returns correctly, and doing those miscalculations that almost cost us our house, our marriage, everything!

36:58 Igor Kheifets
If you could master any skill overnight that you don’t already have, what would that skill be?

37:03 The Guest, Paul Ace
The soft answer is always the idea of juggling, that’d be cool! The more serious answer is, I think mastering hiring. So, the one of the hardest things in business is finding the right who’s, as much as how finding the right who’s has helped us moving forward, but to be able to know who is the perfect fit for that role in advance, and be able to find the perfect person to grow the business, that is a skill that I quite often get other people to do because I’m too nice, and go, Oh, I think they’re great! And then hire people.

37:46 Igor Kheifets
Okay, what’s the one thing -this is the last question- what’s the one thing most people don’t know about you?

37:53 The Guest, Paul Ace
I’ve got an astigmatism. So, they go up pretty blind. Oh, and I’m learning to fly right now.

38:06 Igor Kheifets
Yeah, you were telling me, you were learning to fly a helicopter. (A plane!) Oh, plane! Okay, yeah. Again, I’m with that helicopter. It’s like, (yeah, he was like, helicopters, one of the planes! That’s okay) Yeah. How do you like it?

38:20 The Guest, Paul Ace
I love it! The thing that I really like about it is, when you go up there, it reminds you how every decision you make is really not that important, because you just look at the world, right? And you go, Oh, wait a minute! I’m just this tiny little speck in the world. And you’re like, you know, really, if I make a bad decision, it’ll be okay! It’ll work itself out on the other side.

So, I think it just gives you, you know, people say, oh, “big picture thinking”, well, it gives you a literal big picture thinking, being awful when you’re flying. And it’s probably been one of the most challenging things outside of work that I’ve ever done!

38:59 Igor Kheifets
Yeah, what’s the most challenging thing about it?

39:04 The Guest, Paul Ace
The flying part is the easy part! (right!) Knowing where to fly, and like, turning at the turning at the right times, and the navigation piece, but also all the radio pieces at the same time. So, it’s kind of like rubbing your head, patting your tummy and stamping your feet all at the same time. And that’s where it gets difficult, as we’re just at the part of the moment where we’re navigating back into the circuit, which is basically when you do the kind of go around to land. And learning all the different things that I need to say before I get into the circuit, I’ll write it down, wait a minute! Now I’m descending, right? So, bit crazy!

39:46 Igor Kheifets
Cool! All right! Well, I hope you master this and you really kick ass. I’m sure you will! (So, I realize it’d be very dangerous for other people) especially the ones in the plane.  All right Paul, well, thank you for being here. Before we wrap up, where can we go to find out more about you and what’s the best way to get on planets, Paul?

40:10 The Guest, Paul Ace
Yeah. So go to amplifyccom.com, and so that spell amplifyc, the letter C, com.com, and you learn a little bit more about conversational commerce there. And also, like, our nine step amplify your profits roadmap, there’s a video on there that walks through a load of case studies of like, really breaks down how you go and scale these businesses to eight figures over and over again. So, that should add some great value. And sorry, we don’t get into more conversational commerce, but, I think we went deeper a lot over.

40:40 Igor Kheifets
Yeah, I guess we kind of kind of hooked them in, with the teacher, and then it’s like, you just have to go to the website to get the full thing. All right! Well, Thank you for being here, I really enjoyed the conversation! It was easy, It flowed well. And I wish you all the best, and hope you scale even more businesses to eight figures, nine figures and beyond, and until next time we chat, have a good one!

41:09
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