Igor’s 7 Habits of Highly Successful Marketers

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’d 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 a 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 giving 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 List Building Lifestyle show with your host, Terrance Lackey. I’m here with your guide, your mentor, Mr. Igor Kheifets. What’s up my, man?

Igor Kheifets:
Terrance, what’s up? What’s up, man?

Terrance Lackey:
Hey, nothing much. I’ve been looking forward to this episode.

Igor Kheifets:
Yeah, me too. Because we’re literally making Stephen Covey I think turn in his grave right now by totally plagiarizing his title.

Terrance Lackey:
Well, absolutely. This is something that many marketers have been looking for, a way to take that focused approach that Stephen Covey has put together, and apply it to the marketing world.

Igor Kheifets:
Yeah. I think aside from Think and Grow Rich, The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, is a book that lived through several generations. I remember just maybe a couple of months ago, I was sitting down with my friend who’s an engineer at a local company here, an electric company. He’s a high-level guy. He makes six figures and everything, and has a team of people working for him.

And he was telling me about this book he read, and he’s telling the story. You know how sometimes people tell you a story and their eyes are on fire?

Terrance Lackey:
Absolutely.

Igor Kheifets:
He was on fire, right? On fire. And eventually, it turned out that the book is 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. I didn’t tell him that I read the book 10 years ago, but it just shows that even the highly successful people still find that book highly effective. So, yeah, I think it’s the perfect book for anyone who wants to do anything. But today, we’re just taking it for a spin, if you will, in applying the principles to internet marketing.

Terrance Lackey:
Well, absolutely. I’m super excited. That’s a book that I think it’s on many bookshelves across the country. And I think that your seven habits here of highly successful marketers is going to be along the same things in our craft. So, hey, I’m super excited. Let’s take a look at it. What’s the first one, Igor?

Igor Kheifets:
Well, the first one, and I just want to just give a quick pre-announcement for these different principles. These are based in my experience and my experience only. So, I’m not sure if all successful marketers share these. But for me, these are definitely true. And I also wanted to focus on the concepts you wouldn’t read about in a blog post or hear about in a YouTube video, things that they don’t typically tell you.

So, some of these will be very contradicting to most advice you’re getting out there in the free information space, if you will. This is the stuff that I found to be true just basically by applying myself in the business. And the first one, speaking of applying, is do before you know. Meaning, that there’s two principles to it. The first one is, you really have to get to a zone and do things before you know fully, A to Z, how to do them.

Because most of the time, you will not have a complete A, B, C, by numbers blueprint, as to do something, right? Now, when I was starting out, I was trying to, just like everyone else, piece information together from different sources. But it was only through application, and it was only through practicing. It was only through trying things out that I was able to eventually put together a system of my own that works for me.

Even if I had more information, that wouldn’t necessarily help me. Maybe you’ve had that experience, Terrance, where you have lots of information but it doesn’t seem to be getting you the results, or it doesn’t seem to be helping you take action even sometimes.

Terrance Lackey:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I’ve gotten so much information. I think, yeah, and people suffer. I know I suffer sometimes from paralysis of analysis. I just overcomplicate things and then wait to take action. And I think I heard you even say one time, was it imperfect action is better than perfect action, or something to that effect?

Igor Kheifets:
Yeah, absolutely. We’ve seen that in action when we hosted our first seminar, and it was all about getting it done over getting it perfect. And I have to give props where props are due, even though Lonna, and Lonna was just insane. She did not sleep at night. She was meticulous about everything. Every little tiny little detail, she was on top of that. And for about a month, she did not have a life.

Then, she just threw herself into this project. And Dennis who was also a big part of that, because he was responsible for everything, user experience, on top of that. So, together, they pulled off the first ever seminar anyone of them ever done, and these were people who were coming in from all across the North America and paying us $2,500 a seat, right? So, there was pressure to have a good event.

I just had to show up and teach, so that’s easy. I do it every day. But they pulled it off. And sure, it was not perfect. Yes, we can probably write down about 32 pages worth of mistakes, but the seminar was a great success and people were happy. People are now literally begging us to release the recordings, which we still haven’t done. So, it’s just not. So, getting it done over getting it perfect is definitely a part of the whole do before you know concept.

Terrance Lackey:
Yeah, absolutely. You’re right, man. I can relate. I mean, that seminar turned out fantastic. I’ve talked to several attendees. And I’ll tell you what, their impression of it was really, really high. They held it in high regard and they were very happy they attended. And in my experience as well, I’ve seen taking action gives you a list of lessons learned to make it better next time. So, yeah, that’s absolutely a great principle.

Igor Kheifets:
The other side of it, the other side of this principle is, it is through doing that you become wiser for it. Meaning, that sometimes you will read about something and you will remember it. Or sometimes, you’ll study about something and you will understand it. But it is only through doing, you truly take it on and master it. So, it is by doing you become someone who knows, right?

And typically, it is where to find people who know… I’m sorry, who do, who actually know. Because a lot of times, people who talk a lot, they don’t really do it. So, it’s very ironic. And of course, it relates directly to the industry we’re in. Or most people who teach prosperity aren’t even prosperous.

Terrance Lackey:
Yeah. No, absolutely. I get that. There’s a big difference. Isn’t there a saying that those who know and don’t do teach? I think it’s been applied to university professors. And I bet you, it applies to a lot of the people that tend to teach out there that might not have the results to show for it. So, definitely, action is key. So, the first one I’m hearing you tell us is, do before you know. So, before you know the results, get it done.

So, elaborate on that one further or do you want to jump on to the second one?

Igor Kheifets:
Yeah, I think we covered it plenty. At this point, it’s like, don’t wait to know everything. Don’t wait to know the whole thing. Just go out there and do it. And through doing, you will discover more and you will gain that self-confidence, and you will get more results and learn more lessons. Now, the second concept, the second habit of highly successful marketers is, most people I know who are highly successful, I call them time Nazis. And I’m very much the same way.

I mean, you know better than anyone how hard it is to get me on the phone, right?

Terrance Lackey:
Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

Igor Kheifets:
Because there’s a reason for it, because phones eat up a lot of my time. I haven’t had a phone conversation in the last two months that didn’t last at least 30 to 45 minutes, which when I think about it, that’s 30 to 45 minutes, I could have invested in a corporate money-making activity. And that is why early on, having fallen under the influence of people like Eben Pagan, Dan Kennedy, I quickly became a time Nazi.

Even when I lived with my parents and I was still trying to build this business early on, I wasn’t making anything. But even then, when my parents asked me to help them like carry the groceries or doing something like cleaning the apartment or something like that, I would do whatever I have to do to avoid it. I would find a way to not pick up the phone when they call.

I would find a way to pretend I am not home even, like hide in the bathroom or something. I will do whatever, even confront them face-to-face, but not invest precious time into things that I don’t consider to be valuable and/or money-making activities. So, when I became a parent, this was even more important. Because now, I have to divide my time between my family and my business.

Now, in between, you also want to squeeze some workouts. You want to squeeze some maybe PlayStation time, right? You want to squeeze in some espresso breaks. So, you have to become a time Nazi if you want to be highly effective. And this is nothing new, obviously. But the people who are truly successful, they abide by the rule. They are really, really strict with their time. Sometimes even, they count by the minute.

There’s people like that. They set up a meeting for 12 minutes or 17 minutes, or eight minutes. They won’t even do like blocks of 30 minutes. They will literally narrow it down. And you know what? I remember how I was speaking to a friend of mine who used to be a coaching student, then became very successful, then became a coach himself. And he said he discovered something really amazing.

He said he used to conduct coaching calls for one hour. And the coaching calls used to take one hour where people would come in and try to get help with him. And then, he just shortened them. Same calls, same everything, but the calls were now 30 minutes. And guess what? The same problems got solved in 30 minutes instead. So, this is the Parkinson’s Law in action where the challenge, the problem, the agenda will take as much time as you assign to it.

So, you assign less time to different things and you will still be able to complete them.

Terrance Lackey:
Wow, the Parkinson’s Law. I can definitely see that in you, Igor. I see that in dealing with you. Actually, I discovered something while working with you, is that I call time, you have the normal lapse of time, and then you have Igor time, which seems to be three times as effective. So, what I mean is one day in Igor time, in a regular time, one Igor time, is actually equivalent to three days in regular. So, you’re so focused.

And when you become that time Nazi, it rubs off on the people that you work with and you work around. And you become more effective and efficient. It’s like an entire ecosphere and it rubs off on other people. So, definitely, you get more accomplished and more done. So, I find myself upping my game when dealing with you, just because I want to be Igor time and not lagging behind on the rest of the world time.

So, I think any marketer that took that advice is definitely setup for success.

Igor Kheifets:
As you’re sharing this, I’m thinking, maybe I should get one of these. You know how sometimes people put different clocks in their offices and want the clock for the New York time and Vegas time, or whatever, and UK time? So, I’m thinking maybe I should get four clocks, and one of them would be Igor time to always keep me on point.

Terrance Lackey:
Yeah, exactly. They say, one year in human years is seven dog years? You can say I have the same correlation between Igor time and regular time. So, in any effective marketer, I mean, joking aside, any effective marketer, that particular habit there is a game changer and it’s changing my approach to marketing as well. So, yeah, absolutely. I think the clocks are brilliant idea.

Igor Kheifets:
Now, another thing that’s going to really change things for any marketer is if they just start making more offers. That’s the third principle. That’s the third habit, make offers. If you notice that you’d rarely see somebody who’s a highly accomplished marketer or somebody who’s running a big business who’s not making offers, because they seem to be making offers all the time.

In fact, a few months back, Dan Kennedy gave a solo scare, and he was in hospice, and he was basically dying, right? So, even then, as he was basically… again, everyone thought he was going to die. I don’t think he died, but I think at that point, everyone thought he was going to die. And someone also spread a rumor that he was already dead. So, he was buried before his time. So, they put up a website, and you can go to that website.

It’s called dankennedytribute.com, where Dan would post an occasional update letter from himself. And it’s funny, because the letter he posted when he was supposedly going to die, and again, he thought he’s going to die as well, that letter ended with an offer. And that letter ended with him saying, “Look, guys, although I’m leaving, you should go and subscribe to GKIC or No B.S. Marketing Newsletter, right?
Because this is us, and we should stick together. We are entrepreneurs. We’re business owners.” And Adam Whitney, who’s now the owner, “I know he’s a great guy. He’s going to lead the way. So, don’t mind that I’m dying. Just go subscribe.” So, even then, even as he’s moving on, he’s still making an offer. And anytime you will follow in marketer, this is highly successful again. And by successful, I mean, they make a lot of money.

But in this context, you’ll see that they make more offers than their peers who make less money.

Terrance Lackey:
Yeah. Making offer is just a way to ask for the business that people can’t give you their business unless you present them with an offer, a call to action. So, it stands to reason, more offers, more success, more opportunities for people to actually buy your product or service. So, yeah, make more offers. Absolutely.

Igor Kheifets:
Yeah. It’s such a fundamental thing too, so it seems. However, it’s not, because most people still ignore it, and they don’t apply it nearly as strongly as they need to. Because it’s not just about making an offer on a sales page, it’s about making five or six offers on the same sales pitch. It’s not just about conducting a webinar. And at the end of the webinar, making a soft pitch saying, “Hey, if you want to learn more about how you can work with me or if you want to get my product, whatever, you can go to igor.cs/offer or whatever,” right?

It’s about actually structuring your offer so you can make multiple offers to the same audience, because they’re not going to jump if you make one offer. In fact, just recently, I posted a webinar. And for a one-hour, I gave value, and for the next two hours, I’ve literally just sat there and made one offer. But I made that offer from multiple angles, multiple times. And that webinar converted really well at over 10%.

And again, it doesn’t happen unless you make offers. So, you make more offers in your webinars, in your sales letters, in your videos. You make offers in your emails and you email every day. Therefore, you make an offer every day. Then, in real life, in the offline world, you interact with people, make them more offers. Always make offers, because that’s how you create transactional relationships that lead to prosperity, as simple as that.

And people have so many preconceived notions about making an offer in which of course can be asking for something or offering something. Both instances, they have preconceived notions that you just end up assuming that they’re going to get a no and they don’t make the offer altogether. And it’s actually one of those things that you have that I don’t see in many people, you’re very persistent about making offers.

And especially when your initial offer gets rejected, you seem to be like what Bruce Lee says about, “You have to be like water.” That famous video, “You have to be like water.” You’re like water when it comes to making offers, because the moment your offer gets rejected, you’re immediately adapting that offer somehow and you’re basically creating a hybrid.

And you’re re-offering it again and again until you find the right one for that person you’re talking to. So, that’s been my experience with you.

Terrance Lackey:
Yeah. Well, I think that my personal philosophy and offers is that only two things will change. Every single answer to an offer is time and circumstance. If time progresses or circumstances change, or you present that in a different way, in a different light, that offers can be taken. Actually, I used to recruit for the military. And if you think selling something is hard, try to convince a young man or woman to join the military and serve their country at the time of war.

So, that’s a very difficult thing. And a lot of times, it’s about overcoming objections and showing them away, a different offer, a way for them to enhance their life or serve their country, or whatever their motivations may be. So, you might go from one angle, and that’s completely wrong. You just, like you said, water, go around to do it to a different way. And a lot of times, different framing will resonate with them.

So, there we have it. Habit number three, make offers. Make offers all the time, constantly, every day. Love it, love it. I can’t wait to hear number four, for sure.

Igor Kheifets:
Number four is very basic, but it is so important. It’s, build funnels. And if you’re building a list, obviously, you can build one without a funnel. Unless, you manually add people into your autoresponder, which is not the most effective way to do it. But funnels are basically like storefronts. I got this friend, a good buddy of mine, his name is Alexei. He’s my neighbor and our daughters are friends.

So, he owns a restaurant back in Russia. So, he lives in Canada now. He owns a restaurant in Russia, and it’s like a very high-end sushi restaurant. And then, he owned it for a long time. And then, he figured out, “Look, if I wanted to make more money, I can squeeze more money from this restaurant. We’re already very high price. We’re already packed every single day.

We’re already known in the whole town. So, we don’t need to advertise. So, how do we make more money?” We open more restaurants, right? So just like in the restaurant business, you having more restaurants leads to making more money. Typically, if you got the system figured out for restaurants, having more funnels will often, if not every time, but often, will lead to you making more money.

Because each and every single funnel is quite literally an alchemy machine, for me personally. Because it takes traffic, turns that traffic into money. And if it doesn’t turn the traffic into money right away, then at the very least, it turns traffic into email subscribers. And as far as I’m concerned, email subscribers are basically a prerequisite to having more money, because that’s just a natural progression from click to subscriber, to sale, to repeat sale, and so on.

So, build funnels. If you’re wondering what should you do today as a marketer, like how to best use your time, build more funnels.

Terrance Lackey:
Build funnels, yeah. You know what? Something that jumps out of me at some of your previous podcasts when I listened to way back in the day, I don’t know if you coined the term, but I know I first heard the term from you, it is something called funnel vision. I try to teach my kids marketing, and I try to point things out to them like, “Look at this commercial. This is a funnel. What do you think they’re trying to do here?

They’re trying to get you to call a number. What are they going to do next?” And I try to talk them through it. Yeah, no, absolutely, if you’re going to have an offer, they need to go somewhere after the offer. And that’s going to be the funnel. And build more funnels is habit number, let’s see what we have, four. So, what’s the next one? Where are we going to that?

So, for building more funnels, making offers every day. We’re doing before we know, and we are becoming a time Nazi, for sure.

Igor Kheifets:
Yes.

Terrance Lackey:
That’s a big one.

Igor Kheifets:
Yow, 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:
So, where are we going next, Igor?

Igor Kheifets:
Number five is build the list. I mean, again, an obvious one if you’re listening to this podcast, but so many people don’t do it, building a list is far more important than even having a product. Because if you built a list, you can promote affiliate products, right? In fact, that’s how I got my first affiliate check, the proper check that came in the mail and I could buy stuff with.

And with that specific check for $124.37, I did go out and buy groceries. A list is everything. A list is a backbone to your business. In fact, you take everything away from me. Take away all of my products. Take away all of my websites. Take away everything, but let me keep my lists. Let me keep those people who are getting my emails or reading those emails. I will be back on track in 30 days making six figures again.

Oh, man. I mean, you know how much I believe in list building because there’s a whole podcast that I started around the topic, right? So, building your list is my number one daily habit. I wake up in the morning, I don’t check my sales. I check how many new people are joining my list, and have they opened that first email? I mean, build a list is by far the most important habit of highly successful marketers.

Terrance Lackey:
Yeah, holy cow. You hear that? I don’t know how many times I’ve heard it in the past, build a list. You got to have a list. People have assigned $1 value I think to every person on their list or something like that. And I’m ashamed, but I’m not the only one. But I’m ashamed to admit, maybe the first couple of years that I was trying to be more serious in marketing, I had an AWeber account for two years that I paid for every month.

I had zero people on my list. And someone mentioned, “Oh, hey, it’s a good idea to build a list.” And I said, “Okay, let me get the tools.” But I never really funneled people into my list and build that list. And by time I did get some people in there, I let them go stale, in the context, go stale. And I didn’t keep that list warm. And then, I stumbled across List Building Lifestyle, and I started to understand the importance of it.

So, that’s going to be number five, build a list of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Marketers. What’s our next one? I’m on the edge of my seat.

Igor Kheifets:
Well, the next one is, write every day. And that’s the one that I think most people will never do. But writing every day has been a habit for me for, well, over 10 years. And it started out by me having to do article marketing, which meant I had to write my own articles. It has to be 300 to 500 words per day. That was really difficult first. But eventually, writing became a big part of my life.

And I’m not just talking about writing emails. I’m talking about writing everything. So, I write emails every day. I write VSL scripts. I write Facebook post and inside of our Facebook Mastermind. I write a diary. For example, anytime I maybe write a story for my daughter, I write as well. So, writing has therapeutic effect as well as it is where your best ideas are going to come from. So, some people say, “Oh, you want to keep a pen and a bed in the shower or something,” right?

Because when you take a shower, the best ideas come to you. But for me, best ideas come to me when I’m just putting my thoughts on paper. And sometimes, I mean, I even use writing as anxiety managing exercise. Because if something makes me very anxious, I would sit down. I would write it, write it down. I would print out the piece of paper, right? So, I would write it in a Word document and then I print out a piece of paper.

And bam, I feel like the physical weight of my thoughts have been transferred into that piece of paper. So, whether it’s reducing anxiety, whether it’s coming up with new offers or with better marketing ideas, whatever the case, writing every day is going to pay off big time. If you want to be a marketer, that means you have to produce marketing materials. They all start in writing.

They all start with, even if you’re doing VSLs, even if you’re doing Facebook lives, or whatever, it always starts with an outline or a script. So, writing every day, especially if you do it first thing in the morning, is a highly, highly, highly recommended habit of highly successful marketers.

Terrance Lackey:
Wow, writing every day. So, you do yours in the morning, first thing?

Igor Kheifets:
First thing in the morning, yup.

Terrance Lackey:
first couple of hours of the day or how do you do it?

Igor Kheifets:
Yep, I wake up. I have my espresso. I don’t have breakfast. Usually, I wake up before everyone else. My wife is still asleep. My daughter is still asleep. And hopefully, my one-year-old is still asleep. I go down to the kitchen. I grab my espresso, and I write. Now, it could be an email that I need to write for the day. It could be a VSL script I’m working on. For example, just before hopping on a call with you.

I was working on a brand-new VSL. And the last I checked, I think I’ve like 520 something slides on it, which means every slide has a statement or some written thing. And if not, then, it could be a diary that I’m writing, maybe organizing my thoughts for the day. Although, I like to do that in the evening actually. If you want to prepare for the day, for the next day, if you organize your thoughts in writing the day before, the night before, you’re waking up with a purpose already.

So, you’re getting a head start in the day. Or it could be maybe a letter that I wanted to write to someone. Maybe there is an email that I was delaying to respond to because I need to respond on a lengthy way. So, whatever that is, my day starts with writing rather than checking the news or checking my Facebook. By the way, if there’s any habit that I would recommend getting rid of that would make you a lot more effective and a lot more successful, that’s checking your Facebook first thing in the morning.

That’s just the stupidest thing you can do, because it makes you start your day with instant gratification and with feelings of anxiety and chasing the Joneses, because you just look at everyone else’s life to start your day. That doesn’t make sense. Your agenda needs to be the first on your agenda list for the day. You can’t make other people’s agendas first on your agenda list. Otherwise, your day just goes to shit.

Terrance Lackey:
Yeah. So, your day has to be your priority. Yeah, I get that. That makes a whole lot of sense. Also, I’m actually trying something now that I haven’t done in the past. Well, I did do it a long time ago when I was in a situation where I was socially isolated back in the military. But something I haven’t get done is, and I’m starting to get to now, which I’m finding tremendously helpful, is the journaling at night. Just spending some time writing about the day and what I want to do.

And like you said, plan for the next day. So, I think the thread, it sounds like the thread between all the habits is just writing and getting that content and your thoughts down. So, that’s tremendous. That’s going to be habit number six, write every day. All right. Well, we got one left. So, do you want to roll right into number seven?

Igor Kheifets:
Yes, sir. So, number seven is build systems. I have a rule in life where I avoid doing anything that’s not sustainable. Anything that’s not systematic and anything that’s not scalable for me. Have you read Robert Kiyosaki’s the Cashflow Quadrant?

Terrance Lackey:
You know what? I know what it is. I think I read it or I read partially, or some reference to it. It’s the four quadrants, right? And then, there’s urgent, not urgent thing? Is that what you-

Igor Kheifets:
Oh, no, no. That’s a different quadrant system. I think that’s one by either Zig Ziglar or Brian Tracy. That’s about activity. So, it’s like you’ve got not urgent, not important. And then, you’ve got not urgent important. And then, you’ve got urgent not important. And then, you got urgent important. So, that’s the productivity quadrant that you can use in order to find out what should be next on your to-do list.

And we can maybe talk about that some other time. The Cashflow Quadrant book, the primary idea of the book is this. You move from employee to business owner, from employee to entrepreneur. So, it’s I to E, and then to B, business owner, and then to I, investor. That’s the evolution that you need to go through in order to truly make passive income. And that’s what’s Kiyosaki’s old spiel is about in the Rich Dad Poor Dad.

And so, this book builds on Rich Dad Poor Dad. It’s the second book in the series. But what was truly profound to me, because when I first read it, I didn’t really accept fully the Cashflow Quadrant. Although, I now understand fully what he meant by it, what truly changed my paradigm completely at the time was the story he tells to start the book. And the story goes something like this, I’m going to butcher the story.

I’m going to shorten the story a little bit, but I will try to get the point across as much as I can. Basically, imagine this village. In the village, they don’t have a water supply. So, for many, many years, there was this one guy who volunteered that he’s going to be going back and forth to the well or to the lake and bring water. So, when he was 30-years-old, his wife stayed home with a baby, and he just went back and forth between the lake bringing water for the people in the village.

And they paid him each time he would bring them, let’s say $1 for some water. So, that was his job. Every day, he would do that. He was the only one to do that. And he got relatively well to do, like he got relatively rich doing that, because he found a demand in the marketplace, and he was the only one fulfilling the demand. And then, around the time when he started doing that, there was another guy, and this guy was all about systems.

And he started asking himself, “What system can I build that wouldn’t require me to go back and forth to the lake to bring the water?” So, he spent the next 10 years building a pipeline. So, he built a pipeline from the lake to the village and initiated, after 10 years. All of a sudden, he’s bringing water to all the villagers, tried charging them one-tenth of the cost, just 10 cents per bucket or whatever.

And he doesn’t work. He’s just chilling back and he’s just watching the system, making sure the system keeps working correctly. While at the same time, the guy who’s manually bringing water back and forth, he’s got a son now helping him. They’re now trying to get more water in each serving and during each trip. So, he’s working so hard, he doesn’t take days off. And eventually, he burns out.

And he just gets injured or something. But the guy who has the system continues to supply the water into this village, eventually expands the system, supplies the water into a neighborhood, in every village. Do you see where I’m going with this? System. So, he had a system. And in the long run, he built a comfortable life and got richer, and also supplied more people with water, therefore, created more value.

Terrance Lackey:
Absolutely. So, yeah. So, it’s the system. And I see that in a lot of different applications. I too myself, I did own a little restaurant at one point myself. And I knew that in order to run a restaurant, you’re going to run around either with your head cut off, reacting to things where you’re going to have a system in place, same thing with the military. Same thing with a lot of different things.

If you don’t like your results, the thing I like about systems is that you can go in and find out the step in the system to tweak in order to fix the end result. Or you can find that someone didn’t execute the system correctly and then… so, you have a guidepost. This is what I think you’re saying is that you got to have, instead of trying to build those offers and build that funnel, actually, have a system by which you follow to do that.

And then, if it’s not going well for you, you can go back and you can fix it, tweak it, replicate it. You can even sell this system, right, Igor?

Igor Kheifets:
Well, yes. And it doesn’t have to stop there. Because just like the other principles we shared today, this one can be applied to deeply into every part of your life. It doesn’t only have to be a marketing system that you build to generate leads. It doesn’t always have to be just a system for writing emails very quickly. Although, I do have one like that. It also doesn’t have to be a system for building your webinar, which I also happen to have it, because I just apply systems everywhere to be efficient.

But you can also apply the exact same thinking and the exact same approach to every other area of your life. For example, why don’t you build a system for your day and break it down so you can actually stick to a diet, right? So, the way I stick to a diet systematically is, first, knowing exactly what I’m going to be eating in the morning. And the way I structured my system is I eat the same thing in the morning every day.

No matter what, no matter if it’s Sunday or Saturday, or it’s Easter, it doesn’t matter, I’ll eat the same thing today that I ate a month ago. That’s the backbone of my system. So, all I need to make sure I have is one… actually, two ingredients. It’s salmon and avocado. That’s it. I don’t need anything else. So, my day will always begin the same way. Then, in order to have my diet kept in the middle of the day, I have to make sure I have one of three selected foods.

And I’ve got a person who I ask to cook those for me, which doesn’t have to be my wife. It’s somebody who was helping us out. So, I always make sure she knows ahead of time that she needs to pick from one of the three, and she’s basically putting them on rotation. So, I don’t need to think about food. In fact, Terrance, here’s what I found out about myself in case you’re curious.

I mean, you tell me your experience with stuff like that. I found out that if it takes me more than two steps to prepare the food, I will not actually go through the process and will not eat it. Example, I can take broccoli out of my fridge, put in my plate, that’s one action. And then, put it in the microwave. That’s a second action. Two steps, right? Take it out of the fridge, put it in the plate and put it in the microwave.

Then, I will eat the broccoli every day, for as long as I have broccoli in that fridge. But if I have to take the broccoli out of the fridge and go boil it first or fry it, or whatever, and that’s one extra step. Even though, it takes maybe what, 10 minutes, the chances of me eating broccoli that day go down significantly. And that’s true for everything. It doesn’t matter what it is. Two-steps is what I can bear.

So, I created the system what I know for a fact that the food I want to eat in order to stick to my diet will not make me, will not force on me more than two steps.

Terrance Lackey:
Wow, that’s a great one. Yeah. I tend to shy away from cooking. I like doing it but I just, like you said, I look at things that have multi-steps and I just get intimidated. I figured it’s easier with my two steps would be pick up the phone and call Uber Eats. And then, it’s the end of tour.

Igor Kheifets:
You see? But that’s a system too. And it’s different from person-to-person. For example, I know for a fact that Dennis has been cooking two meals a day for himself for the last couple of months. And that seems to be working out because he lost a lot of weight. He looks great right now. He’s in a much better shape right now than he was exactly one year ago. And that became systematic.

So, he figured out how many calories he needs to eat per day. He figured out what meat he wants to eat every day. He figured out the type of salad that he’s willing to prepare by hand every single day, right? The one thing I know that I don’t think he’s the one doing the grocery shopping, because I think he finds that boring. So, that part of the system, he figured out, he outsourced it. But besides that, he figured a system out that is sustainable for him.

Now, that’s also by the way why I don’t like travel. I know you’re big on travel, but I personally hate it. And the reason I hate travel is because it messes with my systems. The reason I love my routine is because if I control my environment, I can set up my systems to serve me. But if I have to travel and my whole schedule breaks, and I have to basically… like if I fly out today, I know that my meals are ruined.

Because I want that broccoli with me and eat it on the plane. I’ll eat whatever they give me on the plane, and that messes with my whole system. So, that’s why when I set things up, I tried to create that environment that doesn’t disrupt it.
Terrance Lackey:
So, I hear you say that you’re creating a system, but also a system that is sustainable system that you can easily execute that has steps that are like electricity. I used to joke when I used to be in electronics, electricity likes the path of least resistance. It’s going to go the easiest way. So, I guess if you create a system that you find sustainable and you understand your strengths and your weaknesses, and you’re able to then execute that system, then it’s sustainable and it’s something that you can replicate and get consistent results out of in the future.

So, yeah, I definitely get where that is. And that’s definitely something that has to be a habit. It has to be something that you continually do to implement and achieve your desired outcome for. So, definitely, create systems. Well, there you go, Igor. That looks like seven habits to me. Do you want to recap them or shall I?

Igor Kheifets:
Go ahead. And I may chime in, and we’ll see where we go.

Terrance Lackey:
Yeah. Well, absolutely. Just to recap for everybody’s knowledge, the covering from number one to number seven, The 7 Habits of Highly Successful Marketers, do before you know. Do before you know. Action speaks louder than words. Get it done. Take initiative right away. Become a time Nazi. Don’t forget Parkinson’s Law. All right. Control your time. Zealously control your time as Igor said.

Make offers. Offers are key. And make them often. You email every day, offers every day, offers at everything you do. Build funnels, right? Don’t forget Alexei in the restaurant, build funnels. Make sure that you have different… In order to have those offers, they’re going to have guide your prospects to a way to fulfill those offers, to fulfill that funnels. So, have those funnels built. Build them constantly.

Build a list. Number one, across all these habits, is making sure you have that list. That list is key to your marketing success. And habit number five, write every day. Number six, write every day. Write in the morning. Write in the evening. Write whenever you’re most creative. Guard that time zealously. And make sure that writing becomes a part of your habits. That’s going to be something that’s overlapping all of the other habits.

And writing is key, especially when creating content and communicating with your audience. And finally, build systems. Igor gave some great examples of building systems. And he mentions the Cashflow Quadrant as being an example of that. Building systems is also something that you can tweak those systems and get used to systems. So, that’s another one. And Igor, do you need last thoughts in the 7 Habits of Highly Successful Marketers?

Igor Kheifets:
Yes, absolutely. It may seem intimidating trying to have all these implemented at once. So, I highly recommend you applying each one of these habits for 30 days at a time singularly. What I mean by that is don’t try to do before you know and become a time Nazi at the same time, right? Don’t try to write every day, and at the same time, think about how can I build a system? So, that gets really overwhelming really fast.

Instead, I highly recommend you simply take on a habit, and for 30 days, religiously execute. For example, let’s take the whole idea of writing every day. Anyone, and I really mean anyone can wake up in the morning and write for 30 minutes. You know what? You can’t do 30 minutes? Wake up in the morning and write for 15 minutes. You don’t know what to write about? Write a letter to your mother. You don’t know what to write about?

Well, write a letter about what you’ve done yesterday. Recap your day. You know what? Do a success diary. I mean, do a recap of the good things you’ve done in the last 30 days you consider to be small successes. Whatever you do, just write for 15 freaking minutes. That’s it. That’s all I’m asking. And do it every single day, even on the weekends.

Or maybe if you’re already writing and you don’t have a problem with that, you can start taking on the habit of being a time Nazi, which is a habit that’s going to be very hard to implement, because it will involve you saying no to other people. So, challenging yourself to becoming a little bit of a time Nazi every single day, and thus, changing the way you treat your time and your interaction with other people and other tasks.

That will take some time as well. So, all of the habits that I mentioned, these have formed for me over the course of last 10 years. So, I don’t expect you to, all of a sudden, take on each every single one of them. So, choose one that makes most sense to you and try and implement it for the next 30 days consistently. It doesn’t have to be huge implementation. It just needs to be a very small but consistent imperfect implementation.

Terrance Lackey:
Wow, that’s a great place to end this particular episode. Thank you, Igor, for sharing those. That was a lot of content for everyone. And thank you listeners for tuning in. We’ll be back in your earbuds on our next episode. This is Terrance Lackey and Igor Kheifets, thank you.

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 showed the two-step system that made me the top affiliates 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 promote 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. So, go ahead, claim your seat right now. And I’ll see you there.