Lessons from David DeAngelo

Greetings listeners of the list building lifestyle show. This is Adam West, and I’m thrilled to be here with you today. Well, sort of, I’m actually the virtual voice, but let’s just roll with it. And in this episode today, Igor is discussing a fascinating topic that’s crucial for anyone looking to thrive in the digital marketing world, the art of crafting a persona. Now, you might be wondering, what exactly is a persona? And why does it matter? 

Get ready, because Igor is about to guide you through personal building. It’s not just about faking it with a cool name and picture. It’s much more than that. Igor will break down personal building, revealing how it’s about understanding your audience. Using his expertise in email marketing, he’ll explain how a persona that connects with people can expand your subscriber base. Get ready for valuable insights into building a persona on the list building lifestyle show, don’t miss out, stay tuned.

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I’m Igor Kheifets and this is the list building lifestyle, the 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, 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 igorsbook.com. Get the free book plus $3,000 bonus package that includes my best capture page templates, email swipe files, and traffic blueprints, visit www.igorsbook.com for details. And now it’s time to claim your list building lifestyle.

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Not many people are familiar with the whole idea of having a persona and what that actually means. Most people think when it comes to having a persona is like coming up with a fake name, using a fake picture. And kind of like building a whole other life. 

But in reality, it actually just comes down to talking about a different set of benefits, fears, frustrations and things that mark that particular market relates and maybe redefining the origin story, which can either be completely made up, or it can be just you focusing on different parts of your life. For example, I know you guys hear me talk a lot about dating.

And the reason I talk a lot about dating is because I got my start in the info marketing business or in the whole online marketing slash affiliate marketing business. When I started, you know, the way I discovered it was originally by being a customer to somebody named Evan pagan, but he had a persona, so even picking his real name. 

But the persona he had was David DeAngelo. Now, David DeAngelo is basically a dating coach that taught guys how his brand was double your dating. And so I was a customer. You know, I was downloading reports, I was reading them, I was going through these long form sales pages selling seminars, I was trying to get my hands on recordings of different seminars and private masterminds. 

I was like, really into that stuff. Because growing up, I was very socially awkward. I emigrated when I was 12, which means I found myself in a new country where I didn’t speak. The mentality of the kids around me was completely different from the mentality that I had when I was growing up in Ukraine. I was also chubby. So naturally, by the time I was 16, I was a chubby year, and I was really uncomfortable about who I was. 

And therefore, once you hit that age, and you go to school, and there’s girls and everything, like you just don’t know how to talk to them. And you know, I really needed help. So the only place I knew where to get help was either my dad, who wasn’t very helpful, because he was always a natural as you call with women, he really didn’t seem like he ever was trying hard.

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And so he kind of expected me to be the same, which I was not. And the other place was the internet, which at the time was like already getting some momentum, most households had it. So I just kind of dove deep into that. And so I spent a couple of years going through all that material. And so the reason I’m bringing this up is because, you know, if I were to do something in the dating space, I would simply focus on that part of my story, the story I just told you, that would be my “persona.” 

David DeAngelo, for example, was like a pen name or persona name. And he also spoke a lot about dating, about, you know, not having success with women, not knowing what to say, where to say, et cetera. And then the other part of his business was actually on the business side, like teaching businesses how to market because the end of the building WD into about 10 million a year, which is insane. And, you know, as soon as he did that, he brought in a CEO to run that company. 

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He decided to teach business, which is his real passion. From what I understood, he only really got into dating advice and pickup only to find his soulmate, which he eventually found. She’s also like an info marketer these days, she’s like a relationship counselor or something like that. And so they have a family and a daughter and everything. So it was very much of the same mindset. And so he started a different brand called ignition. 

And in that brand, he was just teaching businesses how to properly market their businesses. And he was just in that, you know, in that aspect of his business, he was just focusing on the business part of his story, he did not mention the dating life, he did not mention anything related to dating, just focus on the business side and about, you know, acquiring customers, and everything that’s related later on, by the way, which was, I believe, some, so it was right around when I moved to Canada. So maybe about five or six years ago, he launched yet another one, he launched something called Six Figure coach, something like that. Basically, it was all about helping coaches.

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So it was either about taking somebody into coaching and teaching them how to sell coaching as a way to make money and impact people, or taking an existing coach and helping them scale. Or it can escape the whole hours for dollars trap, and scale to the next level, like six figures, multiple six figures and beyond. So again, in that persona, or in that sort of like part of his business, he simply focused on his experience as a coach. 

And he spoke to coaches in the language that the coaches understood, you know, he, and the way you want to think about it is people resonate with people in businesses that have a very similar experience, or at least a past experience, meaning that if you’re selling dating advice, you talk about your dating failures, right? 

If you sell business advice, you talk about your business failures. If you sell getting you know to learn how to play guitar, or some advice, you have to talk about your experience with that, and that makes you relatable. And that’s what having a persona really is. Changing your name is not even a requirement. Although, from what I know, from what I’ve seen, most people who go into markets, such as dating advice, for some reason always end up changing their name. Very few of them operate under their real name. 

I don’t know why. Maybe because they want to sell the brand later, maybe because they just don’t want their friends and family to find out that their yucky sleazy, you know, dating coach or something? I don’t know. I’ve never really had that prejudice about virtually any industry. Obviously, there are a few exceptions. But you know, I never had an issue of using my real name. And we do have, we do get this question a lot from people. 

It’s like, should I use my real name? Should I include my name in the domain name, you know, shoot, should I tell people about what I do? And you know, to each his own sometimes if you still have a full time job, and you’re like by contract are not allowed to start anything else might be a good idea to do so it might be a good idea to use a pen name. Other times it comes down to privacy. But other times, there’s really no other reason than your personal preference and what makes you comfortable or uncomfortable.

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Thank you for listening to the list building lifestyle, get access to the previous episodes transcript of today’s show, as well as other exclusive content at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com. Also remember to claim your free copy of my best selling book at www.igorsbook.com. It explains how I made millions with list building starting from scratch. Plus, I’ll give you $3,000 worth of free bonuses, including my best landing page templates, email, swipe files, and traffic blueprints. Go to www.igorsbook.com. Now to claim your free package.