The Anti-Viral Content Playbook with Garin Etcheberry

I’m Igor Kheifets, and this is The ListBuilding Lifestyle. The podcast is 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 www.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

[0:52] Igor Kheifets:
Welcome back to The ListBuilding Lifestyle. I’m your host, Igor Kheifets, and if you’ve been listening to the show for any length of time, you already know how I feel about social media, it’s unpredictable, it eats up a ton of your time, and worst of all, you don’t own any of the audience that you build. Basically, they can take it away anytime.

So, when I came across Garin Etcheberry, a content expert, who’s not only saying the same thing, but also showing people how to actually make content that leads to sales, I knew I had to bring them on the show.

Garin helps entrepreneurs, high ticket coaches and info marketers build simple content ecosystems that don’t rely on going viral. He’s the founder of lazylongform.com and sixtysecondshows.com, and his whole approach is about creating binge worthy content that builds trust and drives action without turning you into a full time content creator.

What I love about Garin is that he’s not here to impress the algorithm, he is here to build systems, systems that turn attention into action and content into sales. And today we’re going to dive deep into that, we got some really important stuff to cover.

We’ll talk about why trying to go viral is actually bad for making sales, and what you should do instead, how to create content that actually motivates people to buy, and how to make it work with your email list and affiliate funnels not in place for them.

So, if you want to use content to grow your income and your email list, not just to impress the algorithm or impress your friends and family, this episode is definitely for you. Garin, welcome to The ListBuilding Lifestyle.

[2:29] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
It’s great to be here. That was an awesome intro, thanks.

[2:33] Igor Kheifets:
Thank you, a friend of mine helped me write it. Actually, his name is ChatGPT, he’s from Southeast Asia. So I’ve got to say, it’s rare for someone to basically be saying the complete opposite of what everyone else is trying to do, right? Everyone’s trying to go viral. And you’re like, one of the few guys, if not the only guy, who’s like, “no, no, don’t go viral”, so why?

[2:58] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
Well, I think a good place to start with that is just, kind of a simple heuristic, look at what people do, not what they say. So, I don’t want to call anybody out specifically, but like, there are so many people on my feed that teach going viral, that their whole businesses are about going viral.

And what do they do? They go all in on long form content. It’s all about slowing it down, spending more time connecting and building relationships and binging. And there’s this massive disconnect.

Everybody’s still like, “I need to write these hooks that”, “stop the scroll” and “how do we go from a five second hook to a three second hook?” And “how do we analyze our competitors and copy what they’re doing that works?”

Meanwhile, people that are teaching that, are doing the opposite, they’re going long form, they’re slowing down. And, of course, that’s the right answer, like, I think, if you just ask yourself, If you’ve bought anything recently, was it: “I saw one ad, I jumped on a sales call, I got hard pitched, I bought”?

Or was it, “I watched one thing, I watched another, and then, I went over to YouTube and I watched a longer video, and then I watched every video that the guy had created, and then I bought from”?

Like that’s how we buy now. So, not only analyze what other people are doing versus saying, but yourself, look at your own buying habits and your own content consumption habits and be in alignment, if it works for you, then it’ll work for your clients.

[4:20] Igor Kheifets:
I don’t think many people are that self aware, with regards to their own habits and their own, the ways that they buy, plus they underestimate just how important it is to understand your own actions, habits, motivations, reasoning behind different things that you do to better understand marketing.

I think it’s only the geeks like you and me who really analyze psychology and then try to understand buying behavior, order form friction, split test, 15 different order bumps to find the one that converts to 67%

Those are the people that end up here. But I agree that more and more, like higher level, I’d say marketers, they do go long form. And I’m not enjoying the trend of everything becoming shorter.

I mean, we’ve probably seen the same thing happen with direct response marketing over the years. I’m in the email game, I teach people to email, and it’s always like, “how long does the email need to be?” “Oh, no, people don’t read long”. Of course, they read long emails.

I’ve had launches where all they did was write, like, really long, like, 1000 word emails to people. And they just get the most sales.

[5:35] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
I mean, just this today, I read an email from Mike Dillard, I used to work for Mike Dillard, and I’m sure you know him,

[5:40] Igor Kheifets:
Yeah, he’s been on the show, actually.

[5:42] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
Great. He doesn’t email a lot, but when he does, it’s like, “oh my gosh, there’s a Mike Dillard email! I gotta read this”, you know? And it’s because each one, I don’t know, I’m sure, if you made a list of all the psychology that goes into a good email, he hits every single one.

They’re like little resources. I mean, he has emails. I’ve gone back and read over and over again. I’ve saved,I gotta remember that, so he breaks the mold. It’s not a short, fast dopamine, hammer list every day. But when Mike the Lord emails you, you read it. Just today, I was walking in the park, I sat down on the park bench and I read it as soon as I got it.

[5:40:] Igor Kheifets:
Dude! Mike, not only writes the, like they’re not only great to read, but we know for a fact he’s making a lot of money with the emails too. I remember reading some data on a promotion for a financial newsletter or something. It’s kind of like one of the subsidiaries of agora. They did something to do with Bitcoin, basically it was a financial thing

And he ran it. He sent like, maybe four emails to his list. But now his list is huge, but like you said, it comes in every now and again. It’s not like he’s mailing twice a day. And I think he did something like, I don’t want to push the numbers, but it’s definitely been over $400,000 with four emails.

I mean, that’s crazy. Crazy how not only was the copy good, but that list was full of fanboys, like you, like me. People have been following him from the days of magnetic sponsoring, betternetworker.com

Back in the day, I was still doing MLM, so when he launched the podcast, the “Sales Made Man” and a bunch of other projects, like I was following and eagerly anticipating what’s the next thing.

[7:36] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
Totally, yeah! That’s a little off tangent for this conversation. But yeah, I started off as a fan too, and then I got to work for him, and it was just kind of cool, just getting to be in that world, up close, and get to learn from him. So yeah, for sure, I’m a huge Mike Dillard fan.

[7:53] Igor Kheifets:
One thing that he said was that, I don’t recall exactly where I was, but he was there. He was in the panel, and someone asked him about, I don’t remember what they asked him about, but the answer was, “we are in the leadership business”.

So it was something about like, the way things are changing, or whatever, and they’re changing all the time. Now they’re changing 10 times as fast because of AI, and they’re going to, maybe even the tempo with which things are changing will increase, I’m sure. He said, we’re in the leadership business.

What have you learned? And I know it’s a little bit off topic, but what have you learned working with him, like observing him work, maybe, or the way he does his things, the way he builds his systems, like, what have you picked up that really had an impact on you?

[8:43] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
Yeah, so two things come to mind immediately. One is, Mike has, and this is something that’s in common with everybody that I’ve worked with. So I didn’t work, Mike wasn’t a client of this, of my businesses, no, I was on his team, years ago.

And before I built these businesses, I worked for him, I worked for Drew Canole, I worked for James Altucher. So, there’s a few guys that I got to kind of witness from up close.

And one of the things that they all have in common, and Dillard has this more than anybody else, is like, this delusional self belief, where he’s like, “I’m going to do this!” And it’s not a matter of if it’s going to work, it’s a matter of when.

And I think there’s like, “fail fast” is his real popular idea, “fail fast”, “fail forward”, “get comfortable with failure”. I think with Mike, failure is not even, it’s not that he’s comfortable with it. It doesn’t exist! He’s like.

[9:35] Igor Kheifets: 

It’s a concept he doesn’t recognize. (Exactly.) He runs a test, the test director doesn’t work, and then you’re on the next one.

[8:43] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
Totally! And it’s like, “I might succeed tomorrow. Might be 10 years from now, but either way, I’m going to succeed!” So, there’s no “hyping himself up”. It’s just once it’s in there, boom, it’s done! It’s just a matter of when. So, that was probably like, the biggest thing that I’ve learned from him, is just like, that level of self belief.

The other thing that I learned from him was giving yourself permission to kind of like, just believe in your ideas. I used to think that I’m an “idea guy”, and I used to think, “well, ideas don’t matter because it’s execution, if, unless you execute on it, ideas don’t matter!”

One day, when he was doing “Self-made Man”, the membership component to the podcast, I would fly down to Austin every month for quite a few months in a row. And he would fly in all of his successful buddies, and we would do these video lessons.

So, I was a content producer, that’s kind of one of the beginnings of what I do now. I kind of learned it firsthand from Mike. He invested in my skill set, so I’m eternally grateful for him.

But anyways, this one day, we’re sitting on set, and there’s, I don’t know, maybe a couple dozen of us. Like me, there were a couple creative live producers that I kind of studied under. There was the lighting guy, the sound guy. There were a couple of video guys.

There was the, I mean, Dillard goes all out anything he does. So there was, like, the craft services person, there’s a makeup person, there’s the set designer. And I’m in the back of the room, like I’m looking around at all these people, and I realized there’s one mic.

So I’m like, in this room, the ratio, the value of ideas versus execution is one to 24. So it’s not true that the ideas aren’t valuable. Like, that’s 24 times more valuable in this context.

That was kind of like a big bind opener for me. I was like, “wow, okay, maybe there’s something there”. If you’ve got the idea and you can build a team around it. That’s actually super valuable.

[11:39] Igor Kheifets:
I think that’s what great leaders do. I’ve never considered myself a great leader, because I’ve always gone from, my motivation stems from fear, not so much from a vision. Or, should I say, it stems from a negative vision, more so than it does from a positive one.

Like I don’t have a vision of becoming a billionaire, but I do have an anti-vision of being broken, homeless and losing everything. So that vision is vivid all the time. wake up in the middle of the night, actually thinking about it.

So Mike, though, is very different, right? He’s got the positive vision, the vision of the future, the vision where new possibilities exist, that did not exist before. I think that’s what great entrepreneurs have. They have that ability to conceive it, but then they can build a team which they will lead to make that happen. Like they really have people buy into their vision

[12:36] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:

Totally! And I think now, I mean, there’s never been a better time for that than right now, especially with AI, because I’m not gonna, I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been said already before, but information is a commodity now.

I mean, you can just (Yes) ask ChatGPT to answer any question you could ever imagine, but that’s not what people need anymore. People now want guidance, leadership, but the components of leadership are guidance and encouragement and vision and support and confidence.

You can even ask ChatGPT to give you a game plan to accomplish literally whatever you want, but that you don’t want, the game plan, you want somebody going to take you by the hand and say, “Hey, I’ve got the path and all you got, if you follow me, we’re going to get you where you want to go”, that’s what people want.

They, I don’t just want a game plan. I want the reassurance that the path that I’m going to take is going to get me where I need to go, and that I’m not going to be walking alone.

That’s the biggest premium there is today, and that’s why the coaching spaces exploded so much, is that that’s what people really want, and that’s where leadership comes in, for sure.

[13:38] Igor Kheifets:
Yeah, you mentioned you’re an idea guy. This, very interesting topic for me personally to discuss, because as a copywriter, I know that most promotions swing pretty much on the big idea, right?

It’s like one big idea, a hook, maybe that can make or break it. How do you see this translate in the socials? Like, where do you see this concept applied, and how is it being applied successfully today, by the ones who are succeeding on social networks?

[14:12] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
I just want to say, like, I am so pumped that you brought that up, because I love this subject so much, and you can tell me if i’m wrong, but I feel like I don’t hear this, almost anybody talking about this. Maybe, if we’re in different circles, you hear about more than I do, but I feel like I don’t hear this talked about nearly enough, do you? (No, not really.)

Yeah! So, same thing, I’ve gotten to work for Dillard, who’s a world class copywriter. I’ve worked for a couple different agora subsidiaries. So I’ve been in that copywriting world. And like you said, “any good copywriter will tell you, the most important aspect is the big idea”. That is the foundation that everything else is built on top of.

And I feel like, obviously, no shade whatsoever, but ever since Hormozi wrote 100 million dollar offers, everything online is the USP. I helped this person, got this result, in this amount of time, without this big objection. He calls that “The Value Equation”, but that’s just a USP, which is great. I have that for my business too. I help coaches and high tech.

[11:39] Igor Kheifets:
It’s the basics, right? Everybody has to have

[15:15] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
100% But the thing is, that’s not a big idea, that’s a USP. And there was a good period of time where the USP was enough, because it was a big promise. “Hey, I can help you get over 10k a month”. “I can help you get over 20k a month”.

But if that’s all there is, the promise has to keep getting bigger and bigger to grab attention. But the bigger they get, the more people are burned out by it. So I don’t know about you, but, like, my feet are just full of these crazy “I’ll help you book 200 sales calls. And if I don’t, I’ll work for free, until I do”, “we’re gonna get you over $200,000 a month in the next 30”. And it’s just, like, I don’t care anymore! I don’t care. I don’t believe you!

So that’s where the big idea comes in. You have to have, because, I’m probably just coming across, sounding like an amateur copywriter here, but somebody has to believe that they can get the result before they buy. Belief proceeds buying.

And the buying decision has to be the customer’s decision. You can’t force it on them. If buying is your decision, they’re gonna push back, and (they’re gonna be a push back, yeah).

Exactly! You have to lead them toward the light bulb going off, and they go, “Oh my gosh, I should buy it, because I can get this. This can work for me”. And that’s where the big idea comes from.

I worked for a company for a few years, that was in the weight loss space. It was a Keto product for Christians. It was kind of an interesting intersection.

[16:41] Igor Kheifets:
Ilike that. I think you can make a specialist product for Christians in any niche, aside from swinging. I think that that niche will not

[16:51] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
That might be a bit of a stretch, yeah. It might sound kind of hacky on the surface, but like, we did some amazing work, and we had such an incredible team. And really, it only makes sense that, like, we’re kind of on a tangent, this might be interesting for the copywriters in the audience.

But the way that we came about with the idea was that, people talk about how, if weight loss is a temporary habit, it’s gonna be really, really hard, because your natural urges are all pulling you back in the unhealthy direction.

What you do is you change literally everything about who you are as a person. You change your programming. If you can think like a skinny person, you’ll take skinny actions and you become skinny.

So it’s kind of a paradox, where the more you transform literally every last aspect of your life, the easier the result is, because it’s a natural outcropping of your new identity.

So if that’s true, and we’re going to 180 our entire life, wouldn’t it make sense to lean on the most powerful tool that you have in your toolbox, which is your faith? And when you do that and when you can use that to realign your identity? (I love that) Yeah! So yeah, we had amazing testimonials in that company, for sure.

[18:03] Igor Kheifets:
That is awesome! All right, man, I got a really long list of questions that I’m supposed to ask you, by the way, but I’m really terrible at it, because I keep pushing us into a totally different direction.

[18:15] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
But it’s really quick to interrupt. I don’t think that we’re going off on a rabbit trail here, because I really do believe that the big idea, it’s so incredibly important. And, if we are correct, which we are, that is the under, that’s the foundation that your marketing is built on, social media is your marketing.

And I really, I push back when people treat me like these silos. “Okay, well, I do email and I do short form and I do long form”. The most effective form of marketing is when you create an ecosystem where all ties together, where somebody sees an ad and then they binge a little bit of short form, it pushes them over to long form, now they binge a ton more, then there’s some kind of call to action, they get a lead magnet, they buy a front end offer pushes, get it on the email list . . It all works in concert.

And if you do that, then the foundation underneath all of that is the big idea. And if you can lock it on the big idea, and then you share that in your short form and in your long form and your email copy, that’s when things really, really work.

Because I won’t get into the whole story, but one of those companies that I worked for, I created all of our back end products. So we would sell an e-book and get people on our list, send them into back end offers.

I would create it and then hand it off to our copywriter, he’d write an email series for it, and he would try to think up, just like what you said, “what’s the hook? What’s the idea here?”

Well, there was this disconnect where the product was built, and then he created the idea to sell it, so people would come in on this emotional high that we, there’s a trigger, but then there’s a letdown, because there’s no connection to the product itself.

And then we realized he and I have to work in conjunction with each other. I come up with the idea, I give it to him, he comes up with the hook, he gives it back, I bake it into the product, we go through a couple cycles like that.

Now you’ve got your big idea baked into the product itself, into the messaging, and then you share it in your socials, you share it in your ads, you share it in your emails, and then that’s when you become one of one.

Because it’s not just a generic product with clever marketing on top of it, it’s baked into every aspect of it. And that’s, I’m repeating myself, but that’s what you gotta do.

[20:18] Igor Kheifets:
Well, it’s good to repeat things that work, every now and again. Because, I mean, for me, at least, like, when I’m getting into a new thing, I have to read like, five, seven, ten books on the topic. And have like 10 different authors repeat the same exact thing, but in a different way for it to finally hit you.

So you gotta go from like, reading about it to sort of memorizing it, to then be like, “yeah, kind of get it!” But eventually, when someone really says it in a unique way that really fits into your neuron acceptance protocol, you’re like, “I get it now”, right?

So, yeah, the big idea, it’s so underestimated, it’s absolutely underestimated. So many people spend so much time on tactics, on platforms. “Oh, are you on Tiktok?” “No”, “you got to be”. “No”, “you’re missing out on millions of dollars”. it’s like, “come on!” There’s different principles at work when all combined together, in tandem, in concert, like you said, that’s where the results come from.

And the concept of the ecosystem that you talk about is absolutely spot on, creating an environment, a planet, a world, a universe, where they engage with you over several different platforms,

[21:44] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
Totally! And then you combine that with the big idea where, like with our clients, what we do is we do online filming sessions. So, I always say messages over medium. So medium is the format in which we’re sharing our message.

So, just like what you said, people are like, “Oh, now, it’s Tiktok”. “Now it’s Instagram”. “Now it’s stories”, whatever it is, that’s the medium, that’s the delivery mechanism. I want to focus on the message itself, and that’s where the big idea comes in, okay?

We got the big idea. Now, how to express that in the messaging? How to say the right thing to the right person at the right time? And once we capture that, we do that with producers. So, I’m the main producer of my business.

So, we get on a filming session and we just ask questions. We try to go as deep as we can. Everyone else is trying to go up. How do we grab attention really fast? I want to ask questions that are going to lead to the content that nobody else can share. I want you to share something that people can’t hear from literally anywhere else.

So, my clients will say something. I’ll go, “hey, there’s something in there. Let’s pull on that thread”. Let’s see where that goes. Let’s just dig down deep, and once we get that, okay, cool, now, video format.

Now we share in every medium, we’ll share that in short form, long form, email, quotes, tweets, stories, everything else You provide that message, and then, we repurpose that into every medium. Most people do the opposite!

[23:04] Igor Kheifets:
All right, well, I have a question, it’s a little bit more specific, like a hypothetical scenario, which I’m sure is happening millions of times a day. Let’s say, we’ve got someone listening right now and they’re thinking, “okay, cool, I’m posting in reels, I’m reposting that same thing on Tiktok and whatever, every day. I’m posting every day like a madman or woman, but nobody’s buying. What am I doing wrong? What would you tell them to do differently? Where would you tell them to start?

[23:31] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
Yeah, so, man, a bunch of ideas. The first is, I would start with just kind of like a reframe of what our intentions are here, where we want to get as many views as possible, and then hope that somewhere in those views, we might have some buyers.

So, the way I look at virality is, virality is like, I want to create one piece of content and show it to as many people as possible. I want to do the opposite, I want to find one person and show them as much content as possible.

So, like for my business, I think about, “Okay, how many clients do I want?” If I had 200 clients, I would have an eight figure business and well, but beyond. So my goal is, I want every piece of content to get 200 views, that’s it! But if there are 200 people that are going to buy, that’s all I need!

So don’t think about, how am I going to get somebody to stop the scroll, like we’re talking about not you know what’s trendy right now, but how do I go so deep that only 200 people are going to tune in? But those are the 200 people that are going to grow my business?

And Hormozi said the same thing. He said that there was a period where he decided “I’m only going to make content for the top 1% of my audience, the people who are over eight figures, that are going to make me 10s of millions of dollars”. And when he did that, not only did he attract those people, but his whole audience blew up, because that was content that nobody else was talking about.

So that might be a long answer, but that’s my first answer. Is just like, “Okay, let’s get really deep on that, just the small group of people that we actually want to do business with”.

And then after that, the next thing I would do is, I have a bunch of frameworks, I probably don’t have time to walk through all of them, but I have some frameworks that are designed to dig really deep. So the same thing, not short attention, but visceral connection.

[25:21] Igor Kheifets:
Can you, let me cut in real quick. Can you give us an example of a project you worked on, where you went deep, and like, an example of, like, a surface level idea/claim, and an example of how you went way deeper and what it became?

[25:37] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
Yeah, I mean, I’ve got a ton of examples like that. So, it’s really funny, because sometimes my clients will come to filming sessions and they’ll have what they want to talk about, and I’m like, “Yeah, sure, we can do that”. And when you do theirs, not always, but a lot of times, it’s kind of rigid and robotic, because they’ve thought about it a lot, you know.

So, let’s get to that as fast as we can, and I want to get to my questions, and I can kind of open them up a little bit, because they’re a little bit because they’re a little bit off guard. They didn’t, they haven’t had time to think about it, you know. And I love going off script.

So, one of my favorite ones, I was working with a personal trainer, and he’s Samoan and, or no Polynesian, and he said that a lot of people in his culture are, like, kind of morbidly obese, actually, and there’s a lot of heart disease, and people tend to kind of die early because they’re just very big people.

And he said, “I wanted to show my people that we weren’t doomed by genetics, but we could be in great health”. So that’s why he got into fitness, and that’s how he became a trainer.

So, I said, “Hey, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but would you agree with the statement if I said I didn’t start a personal training business to make money? I started it to change the future of my people”? And he goes, “yes, that’s exactly it!” So, we did that as a piece of content, and it felt so good to like, help him, kind of unlock that.

[27:00]
Another one, I was working with another personal trainer who, she had won miss olympia in the bikini competition, and she said that when she won that competition, she had such an unhealthy view of her physical appearance, that she wouldn’t go to the beach because she was embarrassed to be seen in her bikini.

And I said, “Okay, we have to dig into this”. Like, “just tell me that story”. Here, I literally was the number one bikini body in the world, I wouldn’t be seen in a bikini because I was so self conscious.

And she goes, “Do people really want to hear that?” And I’m like, “yes, they do, because that resonates so much” Like I’m uncomfortable with how I look and I’m not the number one in the world, how could you feel that way?

So, there’s something deeper here, and that’s not a message that anybody can hear from literally anybody else on the planet, you know. So, that was a fun one.

[27:52]
This is a random one that pops into my head. I’ve worked with a guy for a long time who is a CEO of a big company, and he’s really into operations, just the microscopic, day to day, little things.

So he said that they do a, it’s an E-comm business. They do tons of shipping and receiving, so they have this big warehouse, and by the loading dock, they have a cooler next to the door.

So the drivers will show up, they’ll knock on the door, they open it up, and everyone that works in the warehouse is trained that they, before they open the door, they grab a cold drink out of the cooler, they open the door, and then they greet the guy, and they say, “Hey, hope you’re having a great day, here’s a drink”.

And they said, the way that they treat the lowest person on the org chart, the way that they treat the people at the very top of the org chart, the most important people in the business.

And same thing, I said, “This is content! We got to do this video”. And he was like, “Who wants to hear about FedEx drivers?” And I was like, “that’s not a message you can hear from literally anybody else on the planet”. So anyways, I’ve got tons of those, but those are little stories.

[29:06] Igor Kheifets:
I think those are amazing examples, and they made me want to kind of revisit some of my own stuff, because if you can get your audience to truly resonate with you or with your story, or with part of your story, or part of your personality or something happened to you, something that you wish would happen to you, it’s tremendous, the connection it creates, the long, lasting connection it creates, is incredibly valuable! (Totally) What’s your take on AI generated content?

[29:42] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
I mean, like I said before, my goal is to spread a message that people can’t hear from anywhere else. And if you’re using AI generated content, it’s the definition of the exact opposite, right? Like AI is a predictive machine. My understanding how it works, it kind of predicts the next logical word in the sequence. It’s as unauthentic as it can possibly get, you know.

So, I actually use ChatGPT a ton, but the way I always say is you can either use AI for the idea and then you execute on it, or you provide the idea, it executes on it. I think most people do it the wrong way around, where they go, “Hey, give me 10 ideas for whatever it is”. If you do that, great, you are now a freelancer who works for ChatGPT. Your job is to be the mouthpiece that is spreading ChatGPT messages into the world. You cannot do that!

And I think a lot of people lie to themselves. They say, “Well, I’ve trained it on my voice”. That’s such a big thing! “I’ve trained it”. What you should do is, if you make a GPT for yourself, go into, because there’s the two panels, there’s the configure panel, and the conversation, whatever it is. Look into the instructions, where it logs, it saves the prompts that you’ve given it like, it’s kind of shocking how simplistic it reduces you to.

So I took, like, I have literally hundreds, if not thousands of pages of my own transcripts, because as part of our process, we have a spreadsheet for all of our clients, where we just log everything, and one of those is the transcript. So anything that they’ve ever said that we’ve recorded, it’s logged in text format.

So I took mine, dropped it into a GPT, and said, “Learn how I talk”. So then I was like, “Well, how do you know”, like, because I ran out of saved memory. So I said, “Well, if I ran out of memory, then how are you still drawing on this stuff?”

So, I look in the instructions, and there’s, like, three lines. “Garin likes to talk about no nonsense, short sentences”, and I’m like, “I give you a thousand pages, and it’s these three lines, and that’s what it means to talk like I talk?”

So, anyways, that’s a long way of saying, that’s a complete farce, in my opinion, that I can, like, really speak the way that you speak.

[31:59] Igor Kheifets:
Yeah! Well, it has its flaws. I think it’ll get better over time. I think they’ll add more memory. I believe recently they’ve added more memory, like last week. I think I got a message saying that now there’s a little bit more capacity, but, yeah, you can tell, like, whenever you either watch a video, read a post, you can tell

[32:19] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
Well, big thing too about it, like I said, I use it all the time, and I try to be very conscientious of, like, not being delusional that, like, I don’t want to be biased and say, “well, it’s no good”, because I’m trying to protect my niche here, you know.

But what I will say, it has gotten way better from when I first started using it, when I first started using it for content, and the capacity was horrible. Now I do use it for more stuff. It’s getting good fast

But it’s not even about the quality of it. It’s about just blending in. So I think this is a perfect example, I’m always hiring. So just the other day, I put up a job post, and I only had to read three or four proposals before I realized that they all sounded exactly the same.

It was like an introduction, one sentence that connected to what the post said, like one paragraph about their resume, headline, five bullet points, summary, it was like this outline every single, and the thing was good, it was really good. But every single one, I was like, “oh, wait a minute, they’re all using ChatGPT” because it has, like the formula that it follows.

And the first person that broke the mold, I can’t remember if they were better or worse than the other ones or not, but the fact that it was different, it was like, “ah, the sun just broke through the clouds, you know!”

So that’s what you need to do with your content! I think a lot of people, they’ll ask ChatGPT to create content for them. They go, “Hey, this is pretty good!” But they don’t take a step back and think about, “okay, well, if I didn’t use that in the first place, what would it look like, you know, and it just blends in?”, so whether it’s good or not, it ‘s not even important. It’s just, that’s not unique, you have to be unique.

[34:03] Igor Kheifets:
Yeah, I agree with you. I think more people need to realize that they need to stand out, rather than try to be like everybody else. All right, we’re getting close to time, and we have something that we do here, I had a million other questions, unfortunately, but something we do here is called rapid fire questions segment where I just shoot a bunch of questions at you, and you’re supposed to enter them with like, a sentence, maybe two, right? So would you be open about it? (Yea) okay! cool. So first, first question: Content you hate seeing in your feed?

[34:41] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
I’m trying not to be long winded here. I hate content that is just “look how rich I am”, “look how fancy my car is”, I hate that!

[34:55] Igor Kheifets:
Okay! Number two, One thing you wish for everyone marketer knew about content?

[35:02] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
I wish they knew that it’s a gift to be able to spread a message that you’re passionate about with so many people.

[35:08] Igor Kheifets:
That’s a very positive outlook!

[35:13] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
And I mean that 100% like, my wife and I were in Key West a couple years ago, a few years ago, and I was kind of thinking to myself, if you could go, like most people today, kind of look at content like, social media is a necessary evil. You know, “I hate it. It’s toxic, but I gotta do it for my business”.

If you could go back and tell Ernest Hemingway, we went to his house, “Hey, there’s this magic box you carry in your pocket, you got an idea, you can just write it down and the whole world will see it”. That would be like, the most mind blowing thing!

I don’t need to get my typewriter out and then send it off to the publisher, then a year later it comes out. What a gift!

[35:51] Igor Kheifets:
True, until everyone does it. One platform you drop tomorrow, if you could?

[36:00] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
I hate to say it, but maybe Instagram.

[36:03] Igor Kheifets:
Good, I hate it. Who’s one creator in our space that you love watching and think is doing great?

[36:12] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
Right now, it’s this guy named James Smith. He’s kind of a good example of, he mostly talks to personal trainers, which I am not, but I watched, I think I saw, like, I can’t remember what I saw at first, something on Instagram, a short form thing that pushed me over to YouTube.

I like, watched 10 or 20 of his videos. I’ve watched so many that now I’m just like, I just started at the top of his feed, I’m like, “I’m just gonna watch every single YouTube video until I’m done with all of them”. It’s so good! So he’s somebody who’s doing it right, for sure.

[36:39] Igor Kheifets:
What’s your guilty pleasure content, the stuff you watch but never admit it?

[36:48] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
Okay, I’m trying to think about what I watch. I will admit that I listen to a lot of music on YouTube, and for some reason I’m like in this, Peter Gabriel, Steve Winwood, like 80s music zone.

I listened a big, like 5000 times over the past month, so it’s not watching exactly, but that’s probably the content that I’ve been consuming the most, is 80s pop music.

[37:14] Igor Kheifets:
Okay! Most common mistake you see on a content strategy call?

[37:18] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
I’m trying to make it like, living a little deeper than what we’ve already talked about. but like, only, not system, only doing reels. I think that’s probably one of the biggest ones.

I just want reels! I just want to go viral, going viral only doing reels, not doing a full ecosystem. And like I said, copying, I hate that advice so much. I’ll just copy what your competitors are doing, not being authentic, true to your own message.

[37:45] Igor Kheifets:
Biggest lesson entrepreneurship has taught you?

[37:49] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
Oh, man! I mean, you’ve heard this advice a million times, or those quotes, a million times: Entrepreneurship is the greatest vehicle for personal development, right?

Yep! So, I’m not going to tell you anything that you don’t know, but, yeah, perseverance, trusting in your dreams, being a little bit crazy, kill to eat, (being unreasonable), being unreasonable.

[38:13] Igor Kheifets:
Friends and family who are trying to convince you to stop doing what you’re doing because you’re wasting your time?

[38:17] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
Totally, I’m a big believer in challenging assumptions and rewriting the rules of the game. It’s like checkers and chess. They both use the same checkerboard, kind of the same pieces, but you change the rules of the game, and all of a sudden you can go across the whole board.

So, that’s what entrepreneurship has taught me. It’s like, okay, how do we take a step back and just rewrite the rules to get what we want faster, get whatever?

[38:44] Igor Kheifets:
Yeah, the walls that have been put in front of you are usually just glass that you can break! (Totally) A book or a podcast that changed how you think about business?

[38:57] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
James Altucher, I mean, he changed my life, because I used to listen to that podcast, and then I ended up working for him. That was kind of my first foray into this world. So, that’s the easiest answer, is the James Altucher podcast.

[39:12] Igor Kheifets:
Give us a book?

[39:13] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
Yeah, a book? I’m trying to think what a good business book is. Oh, you know what it is?

[39:19] Igor Kheifets:
Doesn’t have to be a business book, it can be any book.

[39:22] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
Okay, in that case, I’ve got two. My favorite book is slightly out of focus by, yeah, it’s a guy, he was a contemporary of Ernest Hemingway, and he, I won’t recount the whole story.

He was a photographer in World War Two. They called him the man that invented himself, because he was a photographer in Hungary, and no one would buy his photos. So he said -I always get the names mixed up- Frank Capra was the famous movie director. (right)

And he made up this character named Robert Kappa. And or no, no Frank Kappa, and he said, he’s a famous photographer from America. “I’m the only guy in all of Hungary who has his photographs”, and all of a sudden he couldn’t sell him fast enough.

And he just became that guy people don’t remember what his real name was. They just remember he is Kappa. And he became one of the most famous photographers of all time. And he just had Balls of Steel.

When the D Day happened, all the photographers, the journalists, they would pick two numbers, and it was what wave of the invasion you could go in on. And he was the only guy that went in, the only journalist that went in, in one of the first three waves, he was on the first wave.

He was on one of the very first boats that dropped that gate on the beach. And there wasn’t another journalist until wave four. He went up the beach, took all of his film, got back on a boat, went out to sea, got more film, came back in, did it again.

Got crazy stories, but he’s such a, he was like a larger than kind of Hemingway character and talking about challenging assumptions and doing, blazing your own trail, such a cool guy.

It’s an amazing book. It’s a great read (amazing) And then, the business book is “The Science of Getting Rich” by Wallace Wattles. I don’t know if you can see this in the camera, you can render to God in humanity, no greater service than to make the most of yourself. It’s a fantastic book! I’ve read that book so many times.

[41:20] Igor Kheifets:
If you could automate one part of your life forever, what would it be?

[41:26] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
Man! I don’t think! I have a really funny answer, if I could automate cooking or cleaning or something like that!

[41:34] Igor Kheifets:
Okay, what’s annoying you the hell out of you, but you have to do it all the time?

[41:42] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
Yeah, I’m trying to, I want to give you a good, juicy one. I don’t know, driving? I hate driving so much. It blows my mind how hard it is to buy good cards for your wife, I’m like, you go to the store? There’s, like, 5000 cards, and they’re all horrible, like, can’t anybody? Maybe that’s a business! Just go buy 10 cards, and then send them to me once a month, you know? And then I can just give them to my wife. And I don’t know!

[42:12] Igor Kheifets:
Okay, it’s wife card automation! Then there you go!

[42:15] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
I don’t want to think about that.

[42:19] Igor Kheifets:
Cool! So, I’ve had a great time hosting you on the show. One question left, and that is, Where can we go and find out more about you? Who do you help? And how can we get in touch with you?

[42:34] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
Yeah, definitely! So, the most important thing is, I always want to just provide a lot of value, so I hope that I have today, and if we left any stones on Turner, if there’s anything that we didn’t cover, or any ways that.

[42:48] Igor Kheifets:
I just have to get you back on the show.

[42:51] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
I mean, this is fun! Hey, and we talked the other day, we talked for twice as long as this. So, obviously, we don’t have a problem chatting with each other. So yeah, if there’s ever anything I can do to provide value, to solve problems, whatever it is, I’m more than happy to do that in any way that I can.

So, the easiest way is just, look me up on Instagram at sixtysecondshows, sixtyseconds is all spelled out. If you have any questions, just shoot me a DM and you and I had talked about this earlier too.

I like to kind of give a free gift. I have a bunch of GPTs that I use to come up with ideas and kind of, I know I gave my whole spiel about that, but I’ve got a few that I usually sell, but I’ll give away one for free.

So, there’s one called -I’m trying to think which one I want to give to everybody- The Domino Droppers. So, what I like to do is to think about, what are the 10 Things going back to belief? What are the 10 things that somebody needs to believe about your business before they’re going to buy?

And then, we’re going to make a piece of content for each one of those things, and then we can either show that in short form or long form, but it’s great for retargeting too. So, you run an ad and if they buy it, great! If they don’t, we retarget with those 10 things

And now, one at a time, we’re both knocking down those objections and also instilling those beliefs, until finally, they’re like, “oh my gosh, I gotta buy from this guy!” So, if you DM me the word Domino, I’ll set up my mini chat to send you over that that GPT for free.

[44:17] Igor Kheifets:
Awesome! That’d be great. So, that’s said, it’s sixtysecondshows on Instagram, (yep, that’s it) Okay, guys, so go to Instagram, look up sixtysecondshows, it’s all spelled out using words, not numbers

And send Garin a DM with the word Domino, so you’ll get his trained GPT that will help you come up with 10 beliefs that your target market needs to believe in order to buy from you. It’s amazing.

[44:46] The Guest, Garin Etcheberry:
It’ll adapt it to you and give you some content ideas too. So, here’s the belief, here’s what the headline is going to be, here’s what it’s about. So, kind of map it all out for you.

[44:54] Igor Kheifets:
Awesome! Well, Garin, it’s been a pleasure, and I’m definitely getting you back on the show, real soon, because we have so much more to cover. Guys -sorry about that- Guys, thanks for listening. That was another episode of the show.

We’re gonna get more of Garin later on, I promise. And I want to make it a public promise, so I’m held accountable. So Garin, again, Thank you so much. (Thank you!)

[45:23]
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 www.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 buildings 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!