Should You Be A Seminar Animal?

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Hi, my name is Igor Kheifets and this is the List Building Lifestyle, the only podcast
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once again it’s time to claim your List Building Lifestyle.

Jonathan: Welcome back to another addition of List Building Lifestyle with your
man Igor Kheifets, the Czar of Solo Ads. What is up my man?

Igor: The big great Czar of Solo Ads. (laughter). You know it’s funny because it
all started out with just little funny little name, you know as this weak attempt
to rebrand me back in the day. But now, I just came back from Funnel Hacking and I
was actually recognized in the room being the Solo guy. I was actually, I was
having breakfast, and I was staying at a different hotel from the one where the
event was because that one got sold out real quick.

Jonathan: Yeah, I mean it was a massive event. Russell put up a really good event.

Igor: And so I was having breakfast one day and this couple was eating right next
to me and they were speaking German. I could tell they were marketers because,
well first of the conversation you would always hear things like shopify and like
the lingo right? And it would come in through the language, but also because they
were wearing Funnel Hacking t-shirts, which was the dead giveaway. But anyway,
they ordered some coffee and then the woman she looked at me and I could see that
she recognized me and when I started, when I started, when I just sparked up a
conversation with them she was like, “Is your name Igor?” I was like, “Yeah.” It’s
like yeah a friend of mine told be about ________. So I actually ended up becoming
somewhat recognizable in a room with like 1100 people in it.

Jonathan: No kidding? Wow! The Funnel Hacking t-shirt; that was a good little
touch there. So then you were traveling, like our listeners wouldn’t know this I
don’t think, but you and I haven’t spoken what, at least two months right?

Igor: Yeah, because you went on a crazy lifestyle first and Igor second schedule,
which I mean made me feel like a rebound girlfriend.

Johnathan: No, no, no. Let’s talk about what you did. So, you were actually, now
was it just one event or more? I know you were in Dallas. So you were there for
Russell’s event. Tell me a little bit about your trip.

Igor: Well, it was a 26-hour door-to-door journey from the moment I step out of my
home in Israel and all the way until I literally like slide the card into the lock
in my hotel on the 17th floor. It was an intense trip I can tell you, but
traveling business class definitely makes it easy for sure. And, you know, I don’t
complain but sometimes it can get, well emotionally challenging when it comes to
these trips because on one hand I recognize the value of going out and mingling
and basically shaking some hands and taking some selfies with people, you know, to
put my face out there and to make some great new connections. But on the other
hand, the difficult part is that taking your family to an event like that is a
huge challenge. Not because its way more expensive, it’s about three times more
expensive and you can imagine how much money it costs me to travel such a great
distance business class. But, also because when, I mean I made the mistake of
taking my wife with me to a bunch of events, because you think about her. She is
stuck in a hotel room, she went out, she did some shopping and everything, but
then she gets bored and she starts calling you. She’s like, “Oh you left me in my
room, you don’t pay attention to me” and all the girly stuff. But she doesn’t’
realize that I’ve paid a lot of money and sacrificed a lot of time to be here, so
I want to make the most out of every moment. So I want to go and meet as many
people as I can. I want to grab structure, joint venture deal, or just literally
mingle and I think the word is schmoozing, and to schmooze with people, right.
Because that’s the way the business is done in the higher levels. It just becomes
an equation off who do you know and not what you know. So that’s the duality of
such a trip, not to mention that when you have a four-year-old back home and she
is now becoming conscious and you can have an actual conversation with her. When
you FaceTime with her and she says things like, “Daddy, where are you?” And you
say, “I’m in Dallas.” And she says, “When are you coming back home?” I’m like, “In
a week.” And she says, “Okay, so are you not coming back home tonight?” I’m like,
“No, honey I’m not.” It’s like, “Why did you leave me?”

Jonathan: Ah, man.

Igor: And it’s like, it’s like a knife going into my heart to which things
somebody’s twisting it. So, yeah, I mean when she cries in the phone it’s also
very difficult. And you know, I don’t know about anyone else, but for me, it’s
just too much to bear.

Jonathan: Wow, yeah. My heart just sank a little bit when you said that. With our
son here I know how you feel. So, this is the thing, look I was at a Mastermind
last week and I got really, really uncomfortable when people were telling me that
I needed get out to more events, like the event that you were at. And I have this
thing in my mind where I don’t want to fricking go to any events. So, all that
travel you did, all that work you put in, all the hours you were out there, what
is the value you received from that Igor?

Igor: Well, you know this value thing is really subjective because each person can
bring something else from these events. Some people go straight for the content.

Jonathan: Right.

Igor: And this really gets us to a question like should you even got there. When
do you know that it’s about time you get out? Now I have to be honest and I have
to say that I’ve brought my business up to a multiple six figure level without
visiting any event, without meeting anyone in person, without getting out of my
little home town here, without literally going to a single event of meeting
anybody in person, shaking their hand in a seminar environment. Which kind of
contradicts to most advice you get online where, you know they tell you, you
should go to events. You should absolutely go. And you know, if you have the
opportunity, go. Because the first thing that it’s going to do for you, it’s going
to inspire the crap out of you. It’s going to inspire you to aim higher, to dream
bigger. Because all of a sudden you’re in the same room with people that are
making 10, 20, 30, 50 times the amount of money you’re making. And in any room
you’ll ever visit you’re always going to have about 60 percent of people not
making anything, about 20 something percent making a little bit, about 10 percent
or so doing kind of okay, or somewhat well. I’m talking like full time income and
beyond, and there’s going to be 4 percent or so, or even less, that are making
crazy money, I’m talking millions. So, just being in the same room as the
millionaires or the top performers, if you’re somebody whose not making anything
right now, that along expands your mindset and you start asking yourself the
question, “Well, I just met this person, I had the conversation with them like I
had coffee with them and maybe I invited the over for lunch. And if you can, by
the way, if you can invite somebody who’s a top performer that you meet at the
seminar do it. It’s not always the case because they get invited for lunch all the
time so they don’t necessarily get excited about that. But if you can have a meal
with that person and you have a conversation, the one thing you’re going to
recognize is that this person is flesh and blood just like you. And that
realization alone can lead to a life changing conclusion on your part saying, wow
wait a second, so here I am making less than $2,000 a month, working a dead end
job, this person who started out in the same way is now making, I don’t know, 100
times that, working half the hours I work and doing something they enjoy. If they
can do it, why can’t I do it? And this is the biggest question. This is the
question that can lead to tremendous changes in your life. So that’s one, if you
want to call it value, you can get from it. It’s the conclusion that these people
are real, they’re not some, you know not like god entities or ghosts that are
hiding behind their computer screens. They’re literally just like you and they
have the same doubts, insecurities, concerns and everything else. The other value
you could get from events, which really comes on, if you will a secondary level
for me, is the content. Because you know anytime I go to an event, me personally,
what I see is a speaker giving me content that I already know. But that’s because
I read a lot. That’s because I don’t wait for an event to get me the knowledge I
need and often times, you know Jonathan, it’s getting so ridiculous. I’ve been to
three events in the last 12 months with really, I mean, high quality speakers, and
more other than not I caught myself thinking, not about the content they were
presenting to me, but asking myself that sounds familiar, in which book did I read
that? Right? And it’s just so funny because they get their content in the same
fashion, the same way that I will get it or anyone else can get it, they just
weren’t lazy. So, when you come to an event for “content”, more often than not you
will find that the speaker is simply doing you a favor by summarizing content that
he or she learned from a different source. Now, Jonathan, I mean you’ve been to a
few events this year as well and you’ve been to some high quality ones like
Marketing Funnel Automation, so how do you feel about the content level?

Jonathan: Well, look, I’m already at a point where I don’t need any more content.
And in fact, you talked about this on a previous show and you’re, believe it or
not (I’m sure you believe it), you’re a big influence on me because I look at what
you’re doing and I’m like, “Wait a second, Igor the Czar, shit, I’m the King.
Let’s do this right?” So, look, I don’t need any more content and I almost feel
like the content could really be a huge distraction. Because if you don’t need
that, wherever you are in your business, then that’s going to take you on a rabbit
trail that’s going to keep you from the success you need and I feel like the
content is a problem actually. So, for instance, we talk about marketing funnel
automation. I went down there first of all because it was here in Florida and so
my family could come with me and we could drive down there, no big expense, no big
thing, just took a road trip. And the other thing was I was looking through my
Facebook contacts trying to meet people that I hadn’t met before and so that’s why
I want to circle back to what you were saying. Because content, you can get that
anywhere. Content is cheap in my opinion, but you talked about those big players,
those people doing 100 times what you’re doing. Are those people up on the stage?
Are they in the back of the room? How do you find those people?

Igor: Well, whenever I look at a seminar, one of the first few things I’m looking
at is the speaker list because the speaker list will tell you about the quality of
the event as well as the quality of the people in the room. So, for instance, if
the speaker list includes multimillionaires and people who are really accomplished
in their industry, you can just, you can bet that there’s going to be other top
performers that are going to come in and watch them and listen to them speak
because that’s what top earners do. They want to hang out with the ones that are
like them. So if you want to end up in the room where top earners, there’s plenty
of top earners right, make sure that whichever seminar you go to has, well at
least a few of them, in the speaker list. Now another way to determine whether or
not you’re going to end up in a room full of top earners is based on the overall
theme of the event. So for instance you went to Marketing Funnel Automation, which
is all about sales funnels and creating offers by Todd Brown. So, you can, you can
pretty much bet that there’s going to be lots of top level people there simply
because they all invest a lot of time in writing copy and creating the offer,
right? And honestly I did not come back then, but I will probably make an effort
to come in for the next one simply because I had the pleasure of watching Todd
Brown speak and once again I knew where his content is coming from. He was
actually honest about it. He wasn’t going to reteaching something that Gene
Schwartz taught a lot time ago.

Jonathan: Gene Schwartz, yeah.

Igor: Yup. But it was delivered in such a way that it was such an amazing reminder
to what I’ve done in the past that I just went, I just basically stood up, shut
down my laptop, I went back to my hotel, I sat down in the coffee shop, which is
located on the ground floor, which was actually, it was a really cool hotel too.
It had a coffee shop, a sports bar with a pool table, a restaurant like a steak
house. It was really, really good.

Johnathan: Nice.

Igor: So yeah, I went to this coffee shop. I sat down and wrote a brand new
promotion, a brand new traffic promotion, which I already tested and mailed out to
my list several times and successfully sold as a result of watching that
presentation, which basically urged you to structure your advertising, your
marketing, around one big idea. Right?

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: So again, the content was good, the speakers were good, and I also knew
that, I mean this event that I was going to, the click funnels; the Funnel Hacking
Live was all about for people who used click funnels. Now incidentally, or
ironically, I don’t which word fits better, but I don’t own a click funnels
account, but I know that many of my top customers, people who build their own
sales funnels that convert really well, like say Ryan Houser for instance, you
know they are going to that event because they use the tool and they want to see
what else is new. And so I said okay. Well this event will have many of my
customers probably because they use the tool and they all respect Russell Bronson,
they all look up to him for advice. They all read his books, etc. so I better be
there and I was not wrong. I ended up connecting with somebody I did not know,
somebody who’s an established copywriting in the MLM space, which may lead to a
JB. I ended up connecting with quite a few people that I either heard of before or
not heard of before, but who I know are in the space that allowed me to, right, to
have a reason to connect with them. Basically being in the same room right? I now
have “permission” to approach them and invite them for a drink or just chat, etc.
And again, simply because the quality of the content was going to be high and
everybody looks up to Russell Bronson, I knew that I was save to bank, right, that
Funnel Hacking Live will attract lots of high quality speakers, which would
justify the cost of going out there and the time cost, which my total time cost
for this, by the way, was two weeks.

Jonathan: Wow.

Igor: The event was three days, or three and a half days, but my total cost was
two weeks of my time.

Johnathan: So, a couple things now, you said you might be going to Todd Brown’s
event. I know those are down here. So, I would go to that event just to meet you
in person. That’s exactly what I did for the last one. I just thought about it.
The only reason I went was because one of the speakers was Joe from Agora
Financial and I wanted to take him out to dinner. So I planned the whole event
just to go meet one person, and I would do that again. That’s one thing that I do
like about events, meeting that one person, whoever it is, somebody that you might
have worked with, somebody that you know of, whatever it is, I like that part of
it. So tell me, Igor, are you planning on going to more events or are you backing
off of that? Where are you at? Because I know you’re missing your daughter when
you do all this. So, where’s your head at on that?

Igor: Well, I tell you Jonathan, I’m pretty much in the same space as you are. I’m
always looking at the scale, right? And so, if you asked me right now if I’m going
to go out to an event next week, I will probably say no, I will not because I just
came back and I cannot bear the thought of being away from Erica for another two
weeks. But, there is an event that’s worthy of coming out for, right, just like I
said. For instance, Final, Marketing Funnel Automation, or the Traffic and
Conversion Summit which just happened in San Diego, I will probably plan to be
there for sure, especially if I get to meet people I really look forward to
meeting, you know like both experts and friends, etc. Sometimes I’ll go out to
meet a friend. The reason I stayed for two weeks is because I came back through
New York so I went Tel Aviv then Dallas, then from Dallas I went to New York for a
week because on way back I met up with a bunch of people that I already work with.
So, I met up with my copywriting mentor, Ross Bowering, who actually wrote a bunch
of my promotions, which I still use to this day believe it or not and it’s been a
couple of years and he’s the guy who taught me how to write really good copy. He
took me from good to great, if you will, or maybe should I say from okay, right,
to pretty good. And I don’t think I’m a great copywriter by any means because I
haven’t wrote for anybody but myself for the most part. Unless you count the Done
For You email service that we’ve got going on and that’s for another amount of
time. Now, so I met up with him, I met up with Alex Zubarev, a longtime client and
a well-established top earner in the industry. So if you’re in the Digital
Altitude or you used to be in an Empower Network you probably heard the name.

Jonathan: And a bunch of other people.

Igor: Right, and so by doing so again this is a way to maximize the trip. And the
common thing of all of this decision making, if you will, is the people.

Jonathan: Right.

Igor: It’s definitely the people. So if the people are worth it, then I will
definitely come and see them, but I doubt that I’ll get out on, you know to more
than a couple of the events every six months or maybe even once every six months,
because it really takes a toll. Unless I decide to take my family with me, which
again is not a battle, right? So, it’s always a question of what are you willing
to sacrifice you know if you’re going there. The time or the quality of the effort
that you’re going to put in because if your family’s stuck in the hotel room
you’re going to think about them and that’s going to…

Johnathan: Yeah.

Igor: …diminish the quality. You would be able to stay up. Like, I actually on
this trip, I stayed up until like 2:00 a.m. in the morning every single day.
Because once the seminar’s over everybody wants to go party. And that’s one of the
ways they do business.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: There’s even a thing called the Internet Marketers Party…

Jonathan: Oh yeah.

Igor: …which is hosted by David Gonzales every year right?

Johnathan: Yeah.

Igor: So people just go to party and you know if you party hard they want to do
business with you for some reason. Now I’m not a party animal by all means, but
you know I make an effort to stay up as much as I can because it’s when those
people that you want to meet are drunk and tired…

Jonathan: laughter. Giving away sales secrets right there.

Igor: Exactly. Exactly. It’s only then that they end up being real with you.
Because until then, let’s face it Jonathan, I mean I’m sure you’ve had this
experience yourself, everybody’s kind of nice and they’re smiling, but you can
also sense the distance and nobody’s revealing anything. Like, they’re really
afraid to be vulnerable. It’s really rare for me to meet someone at a seminar
who’s being real with me within the first couple of hours of communication. It’s
only if you take them out for dinner or go grab a drink. It’s only then that you
start having, like start forming a real relationship with that person.

Jonathan: That’s a secret that the sales reps use, like the Pharma Companies, for
instance, wooing doctors and stuff like that. It’s about getting them drunk,
getting them out to dinner and getting their guard down to make a real connection.
I’m doing air quotes. But you’re right, that’s where the real stuff comes out,
where you hear the best stories and where you make the connection where you’re not
hanging out necessarily on a business level, but you’re hanging out more on a
friend or a social level. And if you think about the pickup artists, that’s one of
their routines, right? They want to take a girl, wherever they meet her, and then
move her to two or three different locations so that it seems like they’ve known
them longer. So, you meet at the conference, you see each other a couple sessions,
you hang out in the hallway, have coffee and then you go out and have drinks.
You’re escalating the relationship there.

Igor: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I don’t remember what the technique is
called, but you’re absolutely right. It really speeds up the relationship forming
process. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re not going to be best friends or
anything, but it does create a feeling of going through a common experience
together and that leads usually to a stronger bond. I felt it; on my own I felt it
when I was in the Army, when I was going through my boot camp. And so, I was in
the same, I was sharing a tent with six other guys who were like just so different
from me. None of them were Russian. I was older than all of them. I was 21 at the
time because I spent some time running away from the Army. That’s why they put me
in jail at some point.

Johnathan: laughter

Igor: You know…laughter. Yeah, I was MIA. But then I was older than they were. I
had different goals in my life. I actually had goals with life, right. None of
them had. They’ just came out of high school and were recruited into the Army. But
after about a week we went through so much shit together, like we got shit from
our superiors, they sent us to like on runs and marches and we went out to the
desert. We shot our rifles together. So by going through all of these experiences
together, I felt like these guys were my best friends and the first weekend that
they allowed us leave the base, you know to just go home for a couple of days, I
felt so bad. I honestly felt so bad. So when I arrived then being in a stage where
we were living on our own at the time already, we went to see my parents. And I
remember clearly stepping out of parents’ home after a really good meal, and I was
really sad. And Anastasia asked me, you know what was wrong. At first I couldn’t
tell her what was wrong, but then when we got into the car, my dad’s car, I said
oh wow I realized I really miss the guys. Now, she took it the wrong way. You
know, she…

Jonathan: laughter

Igor: …we ended up having a fight because she was like, “What? You haven’t seen me
for two weeks and all you can think about is the guy and blah, blah, blah?” But
yeah, I was genuinely missing them. I genuinely wanted to see them, especially
this one guy. His name was Maton, who was a Jew from Morocco, a really young kid.
He was 17 and a half. I was 21, but we connected. We connected really well because
we ended up doing a lot of things together like sharing those chores that they
give you at the boot camp together and kind of helping each other climb over
fences and stuff like that. Yeah, so going through this common experience it
bonded us real bad, even though we had zero things in common. I’m talking zero. No
language, no interests, nothing. Well, actually there was one interest, there was
football or soccer, but we cheered for different teams. I was a _______ in spite
of their really bad streak in the recent years and he was a Barcelona fan like
most people here in Israel and like Dennis is. So, I mean we really had almost
nothing in common. And we bonded over this experience. So, back to my point about
seminars, you want to deliberately create those experiences with the people that
you plan on connecting or that you want to do business with because by doing so it
immediately puts you in a different box. You’re no longer somebody who they met at
a seminar, you’re no longer another marketer; you now become a friend or somebody
who’s at least a step above that. Like somebody who’s considered to be much closer
than just an acquaintance and that allows you to form joint ventures that last.
Boom.

Jonathan: I just want to point out you thought we weren’t going to be able to talk
about this too much and we are running over, so let’s wrap up this issue of The
List Building Lifestyle and we’ll be back next time List Builders.

Thanks for listening to The List Building Lifestyle Show, make sure to subscribe on iTunes
or Google. Play to never miss an episode because who knows just one conversion tactic
we share on the show might double your list and double your business. Download the
transcript of today’s episode and all future episodes at listbuilderslifestyleshow.com and
don’t forget to claim your complimentary copy of “The Wealthy List Builder’s Survival
Guide” at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com/survival . This is Igor Kheifets until next time we talk, have a good one.

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