Solo Ads Quickstart Guide For Beginner List Builders

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Hi, my name is Igor Kheifets and this is the List Building Lifestyle, the only podcast
which delivers cutting edge conversion strategies from the online trenches straight to
your earbuds. Download the transcript of today’s episode and all future episodes at
listbuilidnglifestylesshow.com. I also invite you to grab a free copy of “The Wealthy
List Builder’s Survival Guide” at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com/survival and now
once again it’s time to claim your List Building Lifestyle.

Jonathan: You are listening to List Building Lifestyle show. Welcome back boys and
girls, children of all ages, here is your host, Mr. Igor Kheifets.

Igor: Whassup! Just kidding, that’s not how I great a lot of kids, that would be
wrong. I would say, “Hey kiddos, are you ready for another taste of the List
Building Lifestyle.”

Jonathan: That’s a new tag line there. I like that. That’s very sexy. You’ve been
practicing, haven’t you?

Igor: Oh yes, yes sir, every morning in the shower then in front of the mirror
while brushing my teeth that’s my routine these days.

Jonathan: Excellent, excellent. Well you know what, it’s paying off for you,
sonny, it’s paying off. You sound great. [laughter]

Igor: Practice makes perfect.

Jonathan: Igor, so what do you have for us today?

Igor: Well, Jonathan, one of the most common questions I’ve been getting recently
is like “Igor, how do I get started?” That seems to be the number one problem for
people. The overwhelm that comes from not having a clear idea of what’s the first
thing you need to do when you want to use solo ads to grow your business. I
understand that because recently I’ve been working on the most comprehensive guide
to solo ads marketing ever created. It’s in production right now. I’m going to
start teasing you about it right now because when it comes out I’m going to be
basically shouting from the top of my lungs to advertise it everywhere. In working
on this guide, I wrote over 30,000 words about solo ads. 30,000 words which means
I wrote a fricking book trying to explain how to successfully and profitably use
solo ads to run, grow and scale your business. While writing that guide, I spoke
to a lot of my clients and I asked them questions, I tried to understand what
stifles them the most, what kind of problems they were facing. The number one
thing, the number one answer that I always got to the question what do I need to
do or what’s the number one thing that bothers you about solo ads or what is the
number one thing preventing you from making money online with solo ads is always I
don’t know where to get started. I need you to tell me what do I need to do, the
first thing I need to do. That is why in this episode, I wanted to focus on that
one thing. That one thing that allows everything else to exist, that one thing
that puts a start to your journey, your successful journey into internet marketing
because everybody is already on their journey to internet marketing, they are just
frustrated and struggling. They are jumping from product to another. They are
trying methods and nothing is working. Now the reason that is happening is because
they don’t have an offer. Because the offer is the number one ñ it’s the
fundamental, it’s the cornerstone of your business until you have an offer, you
have nothing. You have absolutely nothing. Like you can even have a product but
unless you have an offer you can’t really sell it. That is why you often see
people launching offers and creating products later. Have you seen any of those,
Jonathan?

Jonathan: [laughter] I thought that was the norm. So wait, wait, wait. I got to
ask on behalf of the List Builders, this is episode #175, why are you telling us
how to start now?

Igor: Honestly? Because I had no idea. I had no idea that was the number one cause
until I started working on the guide. The more I worked, the more people I spoke
to the more obvious it became that it’s not about how to write the perfect swipe,
it’s not about even like where to get the ideal clicks, it’s not about what’s the
tracking software to use, those are just details. They are really little details.
What this is about for most people is like what is like the first thing I need to
do because they are looking at this giant puzzle and the pieces are all like
messed up and they don’t know how to get started. They don’t know the first thing
they need to do. The offer is that. The moment I created my own offer or the
moment I should say ñ wow that an incredibly annoying noise- the coffee shop is
just packed today. It’s incredible. It’s never packed. There are barely any people
ever and today there is a big celebration going on, lots of people with laptops,
kind of modeling me, or maybe mocking me or something I don’t know.

Jonathan: [laughter]

Igor: Anyway, the first thing that allowed me to truly start making money like the
first thing that put me on the map was an offer, an offer that converted, an offer
that matched with the audience I had access to, an offer that I could promote
every single day. In fact making offers is one of the activities you have to be
doing daily no matter how many products you’re selling right now. You know I see a
lot of people having a great offer, having a great product but they don’t even
tell people about it, they don’t mention it anywhere, they just assume people will
find it. Like they will send people to their blog that has no mention of it
whatsoever like it’s ridiculous.

Jonathan: Yeah. It’s that thing where it’s the field of dreams, if you build it,
they will come. People just think, “Oh my product is the best in the world, people
are just going to find it.” Not if you don’t tell anybody about it.

Igor: Yeah, they won’t find it, not today, look at the competition, and look at
the intensity of the competition that you’re facing. Whatever you’re selling,
there is at least 100 people out there selling the exact same thing. So if you
just put up a sign that says, “I got something you can buy it here.” It’s never
going to happen because it’s no longer the question in the prospects’ mind. We
used to be in the economy and when it comes to the internet marketing space, it’s
probably about 15 years ago, you just figured out what problem they were facing,
you said, “I got this thing that solves this problem.” That’s pretty much it.
That’s all you’ve done. But today, it’s not enough because you’ve got this thing
that solves the problem but you’ve got at least a good ñ I mean maybe not 100 but
at least a good dozen people out there selling the exact same thing, making the
same exact claim, having social proof, you know with a gorgeous looking website,
with a VSL and everything, hitting on the exact same pain points, doing the exact
same thing and it’s really not that simple to come in and just say, “Hey, I got
this whiz bang thing over here, you can buy it.” People will not even hear your
message because of all the noise.

Jonathan: Yeah, it reminds me of Eugene Schwartz, I’m sure you’ve read it because
Ben talks about it all of the time but the levels of sophistication, market
sophistication, market awareness, where are they and before like you said it was
just like get leads, this is how and now it’s get leads through this extraordinary
system that’s sifts and sorts and pumps them up. Actually that’s your system. But
yeah, it can’t be just get leads anymore. [laughter]

Igor: Yeah exactly, I mean ñ when I was choosing the person to work with when it
came to podcasting. Let’s face it, Jonathan, you have competitors. You have
competitors some cheaper than you, some pricier than you, some offer like a bigger
bundle of stuff, some offer a smaller bundle of stuff. But I went with you and the
question in my mind was not do I do podcasting. I kind of stepped over that edge
and I was sold on the concept. But I needed to work with someone I knew that would
be reliable, that would show up on time, would keep me on my schedule and toes as
far as getting the content published regularly, and all that stuff. I had to get
referrals and I reached out to you because you worked with Doberman Dan, with Ben
Settle and a bunch of other people. So reaching out to you, my level of buyer
awareness was really, really high but again like the questions I was asking were
really high quality questions that any consumer asks about anything these days.
Like you can’t even go and buy diaper wipes these days without kind of checking ñ
is there alcohol in them, maybe there is some cinnamon flavor to them ñ you’re
kind of going crazy. Now there is diaper wipes that you can flush in the toilet
and the ones that you can’t flush in the toilet and the ones that you can throw
into garbage and the ones that you recycle. There are so many levels of
sophistication that we are addressing when it comes to our consumer habits that
you know the whole philosophy of you know “I’m going to create the perfect product
and people will just buy it because it’s the perfect product.” It doesn’t work. To
bring this around to the whole concept of making offers, the amount of offers
you’re making actually it’s the other way around ñ the amount of money you’re
making is directly proportion to the amount of offers you’re making. That’s not a
reason why I always say that you should mail every day, even twice a day, or three
times a day. Because unless you are, unless you’re mailing every day, unless
you’re kind of hammering that home constantly and even you’re taking one product
but you’re making several offers around it which is what I’ve been doing recently
kind of taking one core product and then positioning it in several different ways,
right, and if they didn’t buy from this angle, I’ll come in from this angle and
then I come in from this angle till something happens. Trust me, Jonathan, the
results have been incredible. We have seen as much as 20% increase in conversions.

Jonathan: Wow.

Igor: By simply having the same thing packaged in many different ways which is ñ I
mean essentially that’s what happens in our marketplace but nobody is actually
talking about it. They sell the same exact courses but through different media.
Like Anik Singal, he wrote a book, and then it wasn’t a book, he turned it into an
hour and half webinar, then he took it out of the webinar and put it in the
members area with 15 videos. Same thing with Frank Kern, he comes out with an 8
week webinar course, then he takes the core of it and puts it in a small book and
he gives the book away for free, just pay shipping and handling and then upsell to
a coaching program that’s a “done for you” or whatever but again it’s the same
thing that he taught in this other webinar only through different media with
perhaps a slightly different angle. So making offers, if there is one activity
that all top earners share in common that all marketers share in common, they are
making lots of offers often to their tribe.

Jonathan: I want to give you credit, though right, because you did 174 shows
before this one before you’re telling people where to get started and that’s
actually credit to you for saying, “I know all of this shit already and I’m
teaching at this level” then going back to your market and realizing their
problems are on a different level where you weren’t thinking and you have to go
back and reframe the offer, reframe everything you’re doing to where they are at
so that you can work them up into where they really need to be. So that’s a lesson
for anyone listening, you never stop studying your market.

Igor: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. When I was working on this guide, I’ve had so many
epiphanies regarding the kind of stuff that is stifles my market that I personally
moved way, way, way, way past that point, right. So what it inspired me to do as
well is to make a mini-training that’s a 30 minute training where I kind of go
into some core material regarding solo ads and I went as far like as far back as
basically explaining why email traffic is better than Facebook traffic, even
better than SEO traffic and so on and so forth. Right, I did that because the
level of awareness of the market is so low in spite of this strategy being around.
I mean I’ve been successfully selling solo ads since 2010.

Jonathan: Wow.

Igor: So it’s at least seven years going on eight and still the market is so huge
that most people are not aware of anything and to even introduce the concept that
we have to talk about first why email traffic is better than all of these other
traffic sources because you know the customer, the target market, they are
wondering about ñ for them it’s not about who is the best solo ad provider at that
point; it’s about is it solo ads, is it Facebook ads, do I do some free social
media, do I SEO, right? So the level of awareness is so low that we have to go
back and match ourselves with the market. This is a huge lesson for anyone selling
for example business opportunities because most people they come in and they sell
business opportunities to the crowd that is supposedly understands business
opportunities already, now that is big mistake because most of that crowd, most of
the people who are going to join you and stick with you and go all in with you,
they are not the ones that already members of several other business
opportunities, they are the ones that are just coming into the game because they
recognize that their job is boring, they hate their boss, or they haven’t saved up
enough for retirement. So if you’re starting to sell or market from the point of
comparison between one opportunity to another, you’re actually doing it wrong. If
you’re talking about the shiny object syndrome you’re doing it wrong. What you
need to be talking about is how making money from your home is so much better than
working at a day job. Now that’s the awareness level that market is at for you to
hit those blue oceans that will allow you to make a lot of money where there is
less competition and less confusion.

Jonathan: Wow. So let’s circle back here. I think we went really deep like we are
supposed to be talking about how to get started with solo ads. So you said that
the offer is the core of that and then we went into market sophistication and that
kind of stuff so can we bring it back down to the lay person’s level? [laughter]

Igor: Yeah, right, well we definitely went sideways I’d say for sure. So
basically, here’s the best way to explain it. I’ve studied the people who
approached my traffic agency to see what’s common between the people who did not
necessarily feel comfortable buying solo ads yet and people who felt comfortable
and went in and succeeded. So one of the core things that stood out, there were
two things; either these people did not have an offer that they were certain about
to promote, in other words, they were kind of researching different offers and
they were coming to us, I want to promote this and we were like, “Yeah, it seems
okay, let’s do it.” They were like, “Nah, you know what no, let’s do this instead”
or they would just disappear because they didn’t have this one solid offer. The
second they may have had an offer but they were so uncertain about that offer
because either something that somebody said about, because the opportunity itself
didn’t match with what was originally sold to them and they felt bad about it. I
actually had a call with a client two weeks ago where they wanted to promote the
opportunity, they invested a lot of money into but then they refused to do it,
they switched the links before their campaign began because they felt this
opportunity was no longer like it didn’t stand for what it was originally sold to
them for. You know what I mean? They gone in under some premise that was no longer
honored and they just did not want to promote it. So the offer is where your
business begins. There is a great book by Mark Joyner called “The Irresistible
Offer” where Mark goes into detail about what makes a great offer, like what makes
it tick. He also goes into the buyer awareness stages. He actually shares 10
different things about what the buyer is wondering at that point in time allowing
you to determine the layers or the levels which you need to address as a marketer
when you’re creating your content.

Jonathan: Alright Igor, we’re coming on the end of this. Any closing thoughts for
the List Builders out there?

Igor: Yeah, absolutely. You know there is this “The One Thing” philosophy. I think
we have done an episode about it where people just looking for that one thing and
I intentionally positioned the offer as the one thing. Now realistically speaking,
of course there is more to it than just your offer but we really strip it down and
try to simplify it as much as possible, the moment you decided what you’re offer
is, whether it’s your own that you’re going to create or working on right now or
an affiliate offer meaning an offer that somebody else has created and you feel is
really in tune with what you stand for and you really feel like this is for you
and you go ahead and promote like that is the first step that opens up all the
other steps. That is the door that opens up all the other doors for you to be able
to continue and start asking questions such as who is the best solo ad provider,
what is the best tracking software, how do I best write my email swipe and yada,
yada, yada. So if you’re at that point where you’re still considering solo ads or
you’re still confused about solo ads maybe you under list building but you’re not
sure what traffic source to use. I assure you even if that traffic is not solo ads
then you still need to really invest the time as much time that is necessary to
determine your perfect offer and only then you will be able to hit the next step
in our business where you’ll be able to advance and get some leads and see some
conversions happen and you know get some customers. Until that happens, nothing
happens.

Jonathan: Bro, there’s like 100 more questions I want to ask you but we’re coming
up on the end of this episode. So the only question I will ask you is what do you
have for us next time?

Igor: Well, next episode is all about affiliate marketing and specifically that
was another really common question I got when I was working on the guide was,
“What is the best way to promote affiliate products using solo ads? Like what is
the most profitable way to do, what’s the correct way to do it?” And I recently
released a program called “The Ultimate Bridge Page System” that focused on
affiliate marketing so it’s really hot right now for me, this really hot topic so
I decided to devote the next episode to sharing the two correct ways and of course
the wrong ways to using affiliate offers when you’re doing solo ads as your
primary traffic source.

Jonathan: Alright. That should be fun. So another List Building Lifestyle show is
in the can, we’ll be back in your earbuds next time. Thank you for tuning in List
Builders.

Thank you 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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