How To Convert Without Proof

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Jonathan: Welcome back to another edition of List-Building Lifestyle with your host, Igor Kheifets. Igor, what’s up brother?

Igor: Happy to be here, Jonathan. As usual excited about this episode. Going to break some paradigms, going to show you guys some exciting stuff.

Jonathan: Man, I can’t wait to get in to that, but at the time we’re recording this we’ve finally gone live – and this will let people know how far ahead we are – but we’ve gone live in iTunes. And so, what kind of feedback are you getting about this show, Igor?

Igor: Well, you know, I used to be extremely nervous about this. I mean, when we launched I had no idea of what’s going to happen, and although I leveraged my authority with my list as much as I could, you know, there’s always going to be people that post nasty crap about you online. That’s okay, but, you know, I’m honestly surprised out of the 20 something reviews I’m seeing here, Jonathan, there’s not a single negative review.

Jonathan: Wow.

Igor: Everybody just put down 5 stars, you know, a bunch of people, and I mean, I’m just blown away by the feedback to be honest. For example, I have one by Joel. Here it says –

‘We all need inspiring stories, fresh ideas, relevant information, and steps to action. Way to make this show happen!’
And have a show of their own, right? So that’s like a professional review if you will let people know what they’re doing.

Jonathan: Nice.

Igor: And there’s another one, just a really short one. ‘This is a fresh way of looking at email marketing. I’m now rethinking how I approach my list-building and marketing approach. Thanks!’ That’s from ‘BoldEagle90.’

Jonathan: Nice.

Igor: ‘Igor, thank you for the mazing tips. Very inspiring. Loved the show. Can’t wait for the next episode.’ There, Phillip, my VIP client. He says – ‘As a client I must say Igor is very trustful and this is no different. Listen on to hear the truth about all the myths.’

Jonathan: Nice.

Igor: Basically just a lot of positive feedback by quite a few clients here, of course, you know. They know me the best and, yeah, they’re kind of used to my stuff, but I keep trying to amaze them as usual. And, yeah, I’m just blown away by the amount of reviews people posted, because I hear that it’s not quite easy to get your listeners to show their opinion in the iTunes store.

Jonathan: No kidding, yeah. Well, ladies and gentlemen listening right now, this guy’s being modest. He blasted his email list. He practices what he preaches and that’s why we’ve got all these great reviews. So what do you have in store for us today, Igor?

Igor: Well, today I want to talk about one of the most controversial topics I believe in my industry, you know, where I work and where I earn my living, and that is basically [03.00] how do you go about selling your product? Or maybe you’re recruiting somebody to your business opportunity of choice without having made any money with that business opportunity or product yourself. And this is one of the major dilemmas I think for anybody who starts in the MMO/IM/Biz Opp marketplace, because nobody wants to buy from a person who is not practicing what they preach, you know. They always want to do business with the person who walks the talk, so to speak.

And so, you know, a lot of people starting out, they have this glitch or hiccup, if you will, that bothers them and that does not allow them to move forward with their business, which to be honest, Jonathan, just keeps them away from success for years sometimes. I mean, for me that’s exactly how it was. I started out without proof, without a clue. I mean, I was eager to take action, right, I did the technical stuff. I did whatever I could, but the truth of the matter is I did not make my first sale three and a half years into it.

Jonathan: What…?

Igor: Yeah, it was…

Jonathan: No…!

Igor: Yeah, it was a difficult journey for me, and my family made it even more difficult. You know, my dad kept on kind of hammering home that I wasn’t making any money, that I was wasting my time and yadi-yadi-ya…

But long story short, I made it and it was when I kind of accidentally almost stumbled into techniques and tactics of selling without proof, without lying or doing anything unethical. It’s only then that I started seeing results from, you know, mailing my list and talking to people.

So, yeah, that’s what I want to talk about on this show, because I know it’s a major issue that keeps a lot of people out there from making good money online.

Jonathan: I want to circle back real quick. How in the hell did you go three years without making a sale and not quit?

Igor: I will tell you how, Jonathan. It is very, very simple. You see, if you try to picture a scale in your mind, there are two sides to the scale, right? There is one side, which needs to outweigh the other. And so in my case, being where I was, okay, just I should say hating, the hate…

Jonathan: Ah…!

Igor: …Towards being where I was, it just would outweigh the workload necessary or the time-frame or whatever else, whatever else I had to go through, I guess, to get the desired result, which was to get out of where I was. Like, I’m not sure if I shared this before. Well, if I did, then, you know, just a refresher – I’m a very negative person, like in the term of motivation. Like, a lot of people are motivated by the vision and, you know, a large sum of money or maybe just a great lifestyle. For most people that’s enough to be motivated. For me that’s never enough. In fact, anything that’s positive as far as motivation [goes], does not work with me, you know, just doesn’t.

And so what does work is the negative motivation and so, I hated where I was [06.00] so bad, like I really, really hated my life at the time with a passion that I was willing to go through whatever I had to go through in order to get out. And so…

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: …Honestly, Jonathan, if it took me another three and a half years on top of that to make my first sale, I’d probably be, you know, grinding and doing whatever I had to do. But fortunately, I mean, I actually feel lucky that it only took me three and a half years.

Jonathan: Wow.

Igor: I spoke to some people that tell me they’ve done it like for 12 years and they’ve still not given up, you know.’

Jonathan: Whoa! Yikes, man! That’s what we like to say at The Podcast Factory, ‘the power of negative thinking.

Igor: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I’ve got to give it to those people, like 12 years into it, not making money, 11 years, 7 years, and I have a ton of clients like that. And so what I want to say is that if you’re struggling to find the motivation at this point, then just learn to hate your place. Learn to hate your life! And you’ll have plenty of motivation and you’ll be staying up until the middle of the night burning the candle at both ends and doing whatever you had to do, reading all the books and listening to the courses and building the websites and, you know, there will not be an obstacle that can stop you if you’re filled with hate.

Jonathan: Wow, and that was kind of a sidebar, but a very interesting one.

Igor: Yeah, you’ve got to think of it like – are you a Steven Seagal fan, Jonathan?

Jonathan: I have watched plenty of his movies when I was growing up.

Igor: Okay, then do you remember the plot, I mean, it’s pretty much the same in every movie where his family gets killed and he’s like enraged and he goes in to avenge everyone?

Jonathan: Max Payne type of stuff, yeah.

Igor: Yeah, exactly. So that’s, I mean, that’s what I was. And on my way up, you know, initially I did have these limits like I did not understand how to sell without proof because I would always be confronted with a question, that pesky, uncomfortable question – ‘Oh, you want me to join your company?

You want me to join this opportunity? Okay, and how much money are you making with it?’ you know, ‘How many people have you recruited?’ and it would always get me, always.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: And eventually I learned to avoid this discomfort by just not pitching and not trying to sell anyone into anything, which was a big mistake. Now looking back and I realize that I should’ve done something else, and that something was to stop trying to sell from a place of proof, stop trying to sell from a position of testimonies and income screenshots, because honestly, Jonathan, I used to believe that stuff was making those sales.

Like I was going in and I was looking at the other, you know, guru marketers and stuff like that, like people who were making money and obviously the common theme that we all spot is ‘Oh, look at their sales page!’ There’s like a ton of screenshots of them making money. Sometimes there’s a video of them logging into their bank account or a ClickBank account, and they always boast and brag about how great they are and how many people they’ve helped.

So obviously looking at that [09.00] I was like ‘I’ve helped nobody and I make zero dollars online, so obviously I suck and I shouldn’t sell anyone,’ you know?

Jonathan: Wow.

Igor: So how to deal with that? You know, I wanted to kind of touch upon how do you get your fist sign-up without proof? How do you recruit your first rep without shoving a paycheck in their face saying ‘Hey, I made this money and let me show you how to do it too’? Well, the fist thing you could do is basically start getting more attention with your marketing. So once you’re active and you’re getting more attention, proof becomes less relevant, because you’re out there, because you’re active, right, because you’re showing up places.

So sort of like if I wanted to become, you know, accepted in the social circles of Hollywood I need to start hanging out with the people of Hollywood, right? I need to go to the parties and all the hotspots where people hang out and then I’d start, you know, they’d start recognizing me eventually. So I’d be becoming like famous by association or accepted by association, if you will. Does that make sense, Jonathan?

Jonathan: Yeah, almost like osmosis. It rubs off on you.

Igor: Yeah, exactly. So the first thing I’ve done which really got me my breakthrough is I started interviewing experts. I literally started reaching out to as many experts as I possibly find and usually that mean going for product owners, Warrior Forum members because I was a Warrior. You know, I shared that I got my big break on the Warrior Forum, and so as a fellow Warrior to fellow Warrior, a lot of them said ‘Yes,’ so I interviewed a lot. Like I think I’ve done about fifteen interviews in 2010 with different experts. I didn’t even like sell the interviews. I oftentimes just gave those away.

Jonathan: Sure.

Igor: But me being out there and me like being on the call with this guy and that guy and this dude and that dude eventually, you know, just their credibility rubbed off on me, and not to mention that it opened the doors as far as like content, leveraged content, right, where I would just show up to the call. I’d be the one asking questions, but they’d be the ones ding all the heavy-lifting and giving me their best content.

Jonathan: Yeah, man.

Igor: For free.

Jonathan: Yeah, I love it.

Igor: Yeah, and this tactic still works by the way, folks. I mean, you can get an expert and you can get them to sit down for a 20, 30, 40-minute interview and just promise them to give their recording and transcribe it for them, and that’s pretty much it. You know, you’re going to have…well, I can’t say everybody will say yes, but the people who are just building themselves up and who are like medium/high-level experts will oftentimes say ‘Yes’ even if you’re just a nobody, you know. It really does matter, because every experts realizes that syndicated content and guest appearances is one of the easiest ways to get great customers.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: Have you ever done this, Jonathan? Have you ever interviewed the experts? I’m just kidding! [12.00]

Jonathan: My whole business model is built around that! Yeah.

Igor: And automatically people think you’re smart like me.

Jonathan: There you go.

Igor: I’m just kidding. No, but seriously, I found you, right? I mean, I approached you to help me do the whole podcast thing, because you did interviews with Ben and Doberman Dan and turns out with a whole bunch of other people. So, you know, I didn’t even check for credentials. Like I didn’t come asking you ‘Hey, Jonathan…’

Jonathan: ‘Prove it.’

Igor: ‘…How many podcast downloads have you got?’ right? I didn’t say that. I just said, ‘Hey, Jonathan, just tell me, yeah, how it works and tell me how much it cost? And if it’s a good fit we’ll do business in that,’ and that’s pretty much it.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: So, yeah, it’s one of the easiest ways to get credibility. Just have it rub off on you from other experts.

Now another element of selling without proof is being sort of outrageous, Jonathan. I think that it’s really, really important. Like if you see everybody in your marketplace preach one thing, then you can strategically choose to say something that’s the complete opposite of what they’re saying.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: So if everybody in your marketplace says ‘Email your list once a month,’ you say ‘Email your list once a day.’ Or if everybody in your marketplace says Facebook ads is all the rage, you say solo ads is the rage. And so just by being different to most people out there automatically you get attention and the whole proof element of it is – how do I say this, Jonathan?

Jonathan: It dissolves.

Igor: Yeah.

Jonathan: Because that whole thing is going to be, there’s a subset of your market that doesn’t want to believe that bullshit, and when you say the opposite they are automatically going to come over to you, because you’re more like them.

Igor: Exactly, and we all like to buy from people that agree with us and people we like. Not to mentioned that, Jonathan, did you notice that a human being cannot experience to emotions at the same time? Like you can’t be skeptical and curious at the same time.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: Like you can’t be skeptical at my proof and at the same time wanting to learn more. It’s like either this or that. So once you’ve got people curious and wondering about you, the skepticism, at least for a short, brief period of time, it kind of fades away allowing you the necessary, the time-frame, the window of opportunity to capitalize and deliver your pitch or presentation or whatever. And that’s a big thing, you know. That’s a really big thing, because a lot of time I see sales not happen simply because initially there is no trust and there is no willingness of the prospect to give you that privilege, right, of their attention.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: And looking at your stuff without prejudice or without, you know, preconceived notions. So these two strategies, interviewing experts and being polarizing in the marketplace by saying different things to what most people are saying right now, most experts in your field are saying, that alone can get you a long way, you know, as far as selling without proof [15.00], recruiting people without proof, and just, I guess, making people fall in love with you on some level, right.

I mean, I’ve seen a lot of times where a client who was not getting anywhere, right, was doing the wrong thing, and I would tell them to do the right thing in my opinion and change their marketing a certain way, and they would tell me ‘But this guru here says I should do it this way.’ And they’d be like ‘I have been following this guru for years and blah, blah, blah…’

And I’d be like ‘Okay, well, how much money are you making right now doing what this guru is telling you to do?’ And it would be like ‘Well, I’m not making anything. I’m just losing money.’ I’m like ‘Okay, so, don’t you think you should test something else, you know? Nothing changes until nothing changes.’

And they say ‘No, but I, you know, I believe that guy. He’s the real deal. I believe him, so I’m going to do what he tells me to do.’

Jonathan: Wow.

Igor: So in other words, like, people can go on for years doing things that don’t work for them simply because they like the person that told them to do these things. And it’s definitely not based on rationale or proof elements.

Jonathan: No way.

Igor: Because there is no proof and there is no rationale in their action. It is based on affinity, on emotional affinity and this feeling of acceptance, I guess, and whatever else.

Jonathan: Cognitive dissonance – have you heard of that?

Igor: Not really, no.

Jonathan: Well, it’s a psychological thing where they’ve gone so many years following this and they don’t want to be wrong, so they just continue following because they’ve already invested too much time into it.

Igor: Oh, yeah, I’ve seen that happen with money. I’ve seen how people draw up a bunch of money into the stock market and into the same stock, like waiting until the tide is going to turn, because they’ve invested so much into it.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: But, yeah, it’s a great example, and I think that’s exactly what’s happening there. But the point being is that the proof is not there, like there is no proof that they’re actions are yielding results and think there is all this proof that they’re losing money, but still they’ll go against the proof, against common sense, against logic.

So if you think that people will not buy from you or will not join your team because of these logical reasons and proof, then you’re just not appealing to their emotional side, which is really how people make every single decision in their life, you know.

Jonathan: Yeah, good stuff, Igor. So what do you have coming up for us next time?

Igor: Well, next time we’re going to talk about a Japanese suicide hotline, which is a really cool concept I learned when I travelled to Paris a couple of years ago and I think it can tremendously change the way you do business and the kind of profits you can extract from it.

Jonathan: Wow, I just can’t wait. Alright, so that is a wrap for List Building Lifestyle, episode #9. Thank you, guys, for tuning in. and thank you, Igor, as always for sharing your insights with us.

Thanks for tuning into the List-Building Lifestyle show. If you’re digging what your hearing, your next step [18.00] is to go to iTunes and in the search bar type ‘List-Building Lifestyle.’ You’ll see Igor’s face smiling at you. Go ahead and click on that. Subscribe to his show and if you’re feeling really generous and you want to help us out, then give us your rating and review to help other smart people like you find this show.

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