How To Profit From COVID-19 Pandemic

Igor Kheifets:
I’m Igor Kheifets, and this is the List Building Lifestyle, a podcast for anyone who wants to build a wildly profitable email list working from home. If you like to make six figures, travel the world and help people improve their lives in the process, then this podcast is for you. I also invite you to attend a free workshop at Igor.ac where I’m teaching how I made $21,779.45 in affiliate commissions by sending just 481 clicks to my affiliate link in one day.

I’m also explaining why I walked away from ClickBank and I don’t promote ClickBank offers anymore, as well as the five things I look for in the perfect affiliate offer. I’m even going to show you the one page website that I use to make over half a million dollars in affiliate commissions this year and I’ll even bribe you to attend this workshop by given you a $497 value course that shows you how to cherry pick high converting affiliate offers for your next affiliate promotion. In addition, I’ll even give you the three offers I’m promoting right now that are making me money as we speak. All that and more at Igor.ac. And now, it’s time to claim your List Building Lifestyle.

Terrance Lackey:
Welcome back to the all new List Building Lifestyle show. My name is Terrance Lackey and I’m happy to introduce our host, Igor Kheifets.

Igor Kheifets:
Terrance, what’s up?

Terrance Lackey:
Hey man, Igor, I’ll tell you what, this COVID-19 is a little scary. The governments are trying to figure out how to react to this. And I know I’ve talked to a lot of list builders and online marketers and they’re pretty, pretty concerned about their business and the options for the future. What do you think about how COVID-19’s going to pan out with regard to your online business?

Igor Kheifets:
Well, there’s many ways to look at it in terms of what’s going to happen and what’s happening already because there are two things I’m seeing. On one hand I’m seeing worldwide panic. The stock market is crashing, the oil is going negative. I’ve just looked at my portfolio today. Actually I went from being an up by 12,000, down to minus $6 in a day.

Terrance Lackey:
Ouch.

Igor Kheifets:
Ouch. The world is going crazy. The economy’s very unstable. And to me the world outside of internet marketing is literally going nuts right now, both in terms of health organizations as well as the economy. However, in the internet marketing world I find myself, seeing more and more opportunities and the one trend I noticed is that I’m seeing lots of people reengaging me. Lots of clients who followed me around for years and years and years and maybe purchased my products years and years ago, resurface again.

And this time they’re more serious because COVID-19 became this shakeup that reminded them, hey, it’s not enough to have a secure paying job because the best thing you can do to secure your own financial future is to create your own job, is to be independent. And many of them are now flocking to the internet to do that. And I’ve seen this joke a friend of mine sent me on WhatsApp. It’s a post on Facebook from somebody and they say, “Hey, do you know where I can find all these people that inboxed me and said I could earn $10,000 per month from home? I would like to apologize to them and tell them I changed and that I need their help.”

Terrance Lackey:
That’s hilarious. Yeah. Where are they at now? They’re still there. Now they’re trying to get your stimulus check.

Igor Kheifets:
Exactly,

Terrance Lackey:
There’s opportunity here then. Is that the way you see it? There’s a silver lining around this dark cloud for the right mindset.

Igor Kheifets:
Yes. I think just like around any crisis out there, just like any volatility period before it, I think COVID-19 brings an amazing opportunity because the first of what we’re noticing is that anything that’s digital is now booming. Anything that’s now cyber is booming as well. Just the Zoom stock went up so much, because all of a sudden everyone wants to conference online. This also means that there will be a revolution in the way people do business because lots of corporate companies and entities will realize that they can conduct meetings and have chairmen of the board kind of get together over a Zoom call, which means they don’t need to fly in to the headquarters all the time. It means that more and more people will work from home. And what will happen when more and more people will work from home is more and more people will try and look for ways to make more money from home as well.

In terms of the make money online market, we’re seeing an expand and I think it will expand even more. Now another thing we can look at is in the past, in the 2008 crisis, the thing that was really significant after lots of people lost their sources of income and even lost their homes, was that in the years following, we’ve had an influx of people into the make money online space and people wanting to become digital marketers in one way or another. I clearly remember this one guy who was a real estate agent in the UK, got hurt really bad. He was a top agent making about 20 grand a month, I think it was 20,000 pounds a month. And his name is Matthew. And he approached me and he was literally broke, he could not afford anything. He had to sell this car to enroll in my coaching program even after I gave him a huge discount.

And eventually he, it took him about a year and two months or so, but he built a thriving successful business and became an online marketing coach. And he still does that for a living. That was one of the many, many cases, one of the many, many clients I’ve had as a result of coming out of that crisis. Be it a builder, be it a real estate agent or anyone else who was involved in that, in the mortgage industry. Lots of mortgage brokers too. Lots of people who work for banks.

Another thing that happened after the 2008 crisis, and this is something I only learned recently, is that the digital ad spend that year doubled, which means more and more businesses and more and more digital marketers spent money on ads. Probably because demand went up or something like that. Another thing I’m seeing is Shopify stores making more money. Shopify owner or the CEO said they’re now seeing the Black Friday level traffic everyday. People are shopping online all the time, which means there’s more opportunities to get in front of them. Overall, if you’re involved in internet marketing, whether you’re building a list or not, whether you’re driving traffic in some way, shape or form, even, I’ll even say that even if you have a social media following, even though I’m not a big fan of that, you’re still positioned to profit from this change. And I think it’s a long time coming. Don’t you? We’ve been waiting for the world to go digital for such a long time and I think COVID-19 is really accelerating that change.

Terrance Lackey:
Yeah. Heck yeah. The world is never going to be the same. This is going to change our society and the way we do business and interact and everything. It’s going to change forever. I think it’s going to be to the benefit of the digital world and for those of you who can actually capitalize on that and wrap your arms around it, I think it’s going to be a tremendous opportunity. Let me ask you, COVID-19, everybody has a lot of time on their hands. Most of the world is now locked down, with the exception of some areas of the world that they’re venturing out. I’m in Florida, so they opened the beach up and within the first hour of opening the beach up, it was wall to wall people.

I’m not sure how long that’s going to last, but I’m a guy, I lost my job. I have a lot of time on my hands or I’ve been laid off. What do you think? I have no idea where to go and get started in this whole online marketing thing. But I got plenty of people trying to tell me to make $10,000 a month. What’s your advice about someone who wants to jump into this scene?

Igor Kheifets:
I will answer that question in a sec. First I would like to point something else out, which I think is a great added benefit to the lockdown. And that is this, the side effect, which I did not expect from not feeling like I have to rush somewhere, is incredible because it added clarity and it added mental bandwidth for my decision making ability. Right now as we’re shooting this, we’re in lockdown at least where I am. I’m in Toronto, My ability to make critical decisions and do actual thinking, which is the hardest I think thing ever because that’s why most people try not to do it. They would much rather watch Netflix. My ability to do that has grown. I can handle more information incoming than I used to because I don’t have to think about a trip there or a trip over there or a meeting over there or having to drive over there. It just released lots of that stress that was sitting as a layer in my mind.

That’s great. And that’s why I think you’re wondering what should I do? Because all of that increased mental capacity has got you thinking about the things you kind of think about everyday anyway, but you’re always able to push back in favor of the more urgent stuff. To answer the question, there’s only so many things you can do that you can start with immediately. The first thing you can do is you can start an Amazon drop shipping business. If you already have contacts in China and you can source the product real quick and if Amazon is actually shipping your product, because I know they’re shipping some products and they may not ship some other products and there’s been shipping delays because they want to get the essentials out. You can do that.

However, I just spoke to a customer today who purchased a one on one consult with me and he tried that. He just built an Amazon MBA store where he would drop ship products and he said something I did not expect to hear from an Amazon guy. And he said, “It’s a headache to manage and operate and even, especially if you want to start it from scratch, an Amazon store.” The products, the shipping, returns, inventory, a lot of that stuff, it’s not easy. It becomes a job. And he said what he was most disappointed about is that he was looking for passive income and Amazon is really positioned as this passive income because you’re leveraging this giant, but at the end of the day, it may not be the case. Amazon is one avenue.

Another avenue you may want to develop your own odd eCommerce brand. For example, if you’re into cosmetics or you’ve got a tool you wanted to manufacturer something like that, or you want to sell custom underwear, whatever the case, whatever rocks your boat, you can do that with Shopify. Not my cup of tea, personally. I’m, you know me, I’m all, I’m into digital products, so if you want to do that, definitely ask someone who does it. I don’t know. But I do know that Shopify stores are absolutely killing it right now because everybody is shopping from home. Besides groceries, I think most things can be gotten online right now.

Then you’ve got affiliate marketing. Now affiliate marketing, you can do for physical products. You can do it for digital products, but I think that’s one of the easiest way to start because you don’t have to build or source of product. You can get a ready made product that’s already on sale with all the sales material and you just have to get targeted traffic. I think that’s a really good way to do it.

Another way, although not as sexy, if you will. You can become a freelancer. You can just do jobs and treat hours for dollars in the same way you did it with your day job, but do it online without leaving your home if you have a skill set of some kind. Again, I don’t know if too many people listening to this will be excited about that because what we all share in common is the desire for freedom and therefore, being a freelancer, I guess it’s not the best way to go. For me, affiliate marketing is probably the avenue where most people will find it easiest to get started with.

Terrance Lackey:
Well, there you go. That’s excellent advice from a man who’s lived through the last great downturn in the economy. That’s definitely good advice.

Igor Kheifets:
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.

Terrance Lackey:
I could tell you right now that you add some clarity that you got from being locked down. I noticed a lot of people also, myself included, the days tend to meld together, so I’m looking to actually be more productive each day and to make sure that yesterday is not the same as today and today is not the same as tomorrow. Those are excellent, excellent opportunities and affiliate marketing is definitely, definitely something that folks should look at. Well, going forward, COVID-19, let me ask you there Igor, COVID-19 is here. It’s a tragic time in our country’s history, in the world history. But going forward, what do you see down the road? If you had to put your fortune teller hat on and look into the crystal ball, six months down the road, a year down the road, it’d be great to kind of get your thoughts about that and then see what it turns out to be down the road. What do you think?

Igor Kheifets:
No pressure at all. You’re not putting me on the spot at all. All right, well, so where’s my crystal ball? Oh, here we are. Here’s what I think is going to happen. I think first of all, I think COVID-19 in and of itself as a threat will not just disappear. I don’t think that people will easily forget about it and I don’t think that there will be a vaccine developed in the next six to 12 months. I think it will take much longer to develop the vaccine. And I think the media has scared us so much at this point that even if they announce that the COVID-19 season is over, we’re still not going to be able to go back to things the way they were. For example, did you notice that people don’t shake hands anymore?

Now even if I meet with my friends and I do meet with them, just so we’re clear, I do get out of the house in my neighborhood over here or when I need to go and fix my car. I do get out of the house, so I’m breaking the quarantine rules. But when I meet with people, I’m not able to shake their hand, which is the most basic thing that I was always able to do. And I’ve heard Trump give a press conference couple of weeks ago and he said that one of the reasons why COVID-19 may be kind of so contagious is because we shake hands. The doctors recommend not to shake hands with other people and he finds it to be sound advice and maybe it will stick, he says. All of a sudden the government is telling us, “Hey, don’t shake hands because it’s safer this way.”

Now that is a symbol to how disturbing things may become. And I don’t want to get too gloomy because again, it’s not what this show is for. But I really think that COVID-19 will lead to this spike in control. For example, did you know that people who are now using governed websites to process data about their COVID-19 testing, they are automatically letting their medical data to Google?

Terrance Lackey:
Holy cow.

Igor Kheifets:
Yes. If you get involved in that way, Google gets your data. Now how about Bill Gates? Bill Gates goes around and he’s this pandemic activist, if you will. He’s working on the vaccine. He’s saying that, “I don’t care if I’m not a billionaire anymore, I’m losing billions of dollars. I want to find a vaccine.” Fine. But Bill Gates, you see, if someone develops the vaccine, what’s going to happen is first that Bill Gates is going to be the richest guy, richer than the richest people. He’s going to get ultra rich, mega rich, uber rich, any way you want to call it. But in addition to that, how easy it is with the vaccine to inject a chip of some kind into you so they can look at your heart rate, et cetera.

In fact, you’d be asking them to do so. You’d be asking them to inject you with a chip so they can track your wellbeing at all times so in case God forbid something happens to you, they can fix you or whatever. But it’s also another measure of control. This whole social distancing thing, I don’t think it’s ever going to go away in the next six to 12 months. And it’s another way to divide us as a nation. I honestly, Terrance, if I’m honest with you, I don’t like where this is going. I don’t like what it’s doing to us and it’s in terms of business for me personally, looking at it right now, it’s good for business because the more people have to stay at home, the more likely I am to get in front of them and help them build their own little economy for themselves. But I don’t like what it does to us as a species.

Terrance Lackey:
Yeah it is, this is a very scary time. I think that what you meant, which you actually referenced with regard to that little economy is probably the only thing we can really control right now is what you do, how you interact and how you try to generate that economy to give yourself some independence. I think that it’s some scary days. We’ll see. We’ll circle back on this and hopefully this thing pans out much better than the chips in the vaccine scenario. But that definitely makes people, I have a feeling that the vaccines, will actually be something that will be hard to get people to take, coming and coming up in the future just because there’s going to be that apprehension. But man, what an episode. We talked about COVID-19 opportunities. We talked about the, you broke down some definite opportunities that the people can take a look at getting into to help create their own economy. And you gave us some predictions for the future. Anything to add to this episode there, Igor, with regard to where we are as a country and a species with regard to COVID-19? Any final words?

Igor Kheifets:
Yeah, absolutely. I want to remind you guys in the context of in the economic financial context of what we’re going through right now. This is for something that for the first time I heard it from Tony Robbins, but the first time I heard it I was like, yeah, right. I didn’t believe it and I really didn’t appreciate it for what it truly was, but I think whenever you see the world, the world goes up and down like that. Whenever you see markets go up and down, when things change dramatically, there are two types of people that you will typically see in that sort of environment. One type of people is people who are paralyzed in fear and they just wait. They’re so paralyzed by the uncertainty, which is something that scares most people completely and I’m not immune to that myself. I’m not saying I’m better at it or whatever.

But being an entrepreneur, you get, you learn to live with it. You learn to roll with the punches. But most people are so paralyzed by the uncertainty that they freeze and they do nothing and they wait. And I think that’s a big mistake. The other type of people, and there are way fewer of those people than the ones who are paralyzed in the fear or the people who recognize that this is a call to arms, that this is an opportunity to act. This is an opportunity to recognize and demand in the marketplace and go start your own business. It’s the opportunity when people are most receptive to change. If they ever wanted to make a change, to make a difference, that’s the time. The time is right there. And I’ll give you the perfect example.

I mentioned that after the 2008 crash, there was an influx of real estate agents, mortgage brokers, builders, and a bunch of these people out of those professions that were hit by the crisis of 2008 that went on and seeked ways to make money, be it Forex trading or making money from home using affiliate marketing, whatever it was. Now I was getting into affiliate marketing at the time, completely unrelated to the crisis. I was I think, I don’t know, 19 or 18 years old. I had no idea that there was a crisis going on. I wasn’t even watching, I didn’t care about the news. I cared about chasing pussy. That’s what I wanted at the time. Money and that’s it. That’s what I wanted. I had no idea it was a crisis. When I got in and I’m a kid, no money, by the time I matured in the market and I was able to lead people and I start producing my own products, it was the perfect timing because we still had that wave of hungry people who are used to making lots of money looking for these greener pastures.

Right now is the perfect time to get started. It’s the perfect time to get started on whatever it is that you want to do. Whatever your dream is. And especially if your dream is to be independent and be financially free, I think you’d be stupid not to use this opportunity to get started right now regardless whether or not they lift the quarantine restrictions, the world ain’t going back to what it was. The world has changed forever. And if you don’t recognize that, then you’re blind.

Terrance Lackey:
Well said. What a great close. That is awesome. The time is now and the world ain’t going to change for the better so you have to control your own destiny. Thank you Igor. What a great episode and we look forward to the next one. And what do you think? I think we’re going to talk about next time. I think there’s some financial setbacks, right?

Igor Kheifets:
Yeah, well, since we’re talking about money on the show all the time, I figured it’d be great to tell you about some of my poor decision making with regards to what I’ve done with the money that I’ve made over the years. It’s going to be a really fun episode. We’re going to get up close and personal, so I really look forward to sharing that with you.

Terrance Lackey:
And that’s a wrap. Thanks everyone and we look forward to the next episode.

Igor Kheifets:
Thank you for listening to the List Building Lifestyle. Get access to previous episodes, the transcription of today’s show as well as other exclusive content at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com. Also, don’t forget to claim your free seat at the workshop I’m hosting this week where I show the two step system that made me the top affiliate for people like Matt Bacak, John Crestani, Richard Legg, Michael Cheney, and many, many others. In fact, on this workshop, I’m going to show you the exact approach I take whenever I promoted an affiliate offer, the exact offers I promote, as well as how I was able to make over half a million dollars in commissions using my small list of just 18,000 people, promoting a weird type of product that almost no one else promotes. All that is yours at Igor.ac. Go ahead, claim your seat right now and I’ll see you there.