The Ass-Clown Boobytrap

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Jonathan: Welcome back to another edition of The List-Building Lifestyle. I have got the solo ads master on the line, Mr. Igor

Kheifets. What is up?

Igor: Hey, Jonathan. Are you ready, man?

Jonathan: I know that were getting down today on some interesting stuff that happens to be your specialty.

Igor: Yeah, we’re going to get down. We’re going to start off with some heavy-duty psychological stuff, ok? So make sure that you’ve got some booze available because it’s going to go deep.
So I want to start by talking about our past and how our past usually dictates our future. So to give an example, I purchased a solo ad and I did not get great results. I might have got a little bit of a good opt-in rate, maybe like 20%, but I did to make any sales. And so I just now lost my money, right?
Now the way most people are, and that’s the way I used to be by the way and, man, did my life improve so much when I changed this about myself, and so most people they now dictate all future experiences that are similar to this experience just like the paste experience. So maybe we’d wind back.
Basically if I ran a solo ad and it did to work, I now believe that all solo ads I’m going to run in the future are going to be the same and they will not work and therefore I should not even attempt to do it anymore. Instead, I should just tell everybody I know that I know that solo ads are really a poor traffic source and they don’t work and I will, I believe I will help my friends by alerting them to this danger. Make sense?

Jonathan: Igor, one question, just in case – what or how would you explain to a new listener that might not already know what a solo ad is?

Igor: Oh, very simple, and thank you for reminding me. I tend to get carried away. You know, it’s a classic case of assuming as that whoever that is that I am communicating with knows exactly what I know. So my bad.
Solo ads are a form of paid advertising, a form of Pay Per Click advertising where you pay per click delivered from someone else’s email list. So if I am promoting a weight loss product and – like, let’s say I have a weight loss product. It’s just wizbang system, you know, six-pack abs in 20 minutes or whatever, some sort of magic button or whatever, right, and I need a weight loss list of magic button buying individual.
And so I know that, let’s say, you, Jonathan, have such a list and you’re probably making good money with it, and [03.00] so I approach you then and I offer you, I offer to pay you, say, a dollar per every click you can deliver rather than giving you an affiliate commission.
And what it, you know, what it creates is for me, it just creates an opportunity for me to advertise to your list knowing upfront just how much it’s going to cost me, because I can just say ‘Hey, Jonathan. Here’s the link and I want you to send 200 visitors to that link, 200 targeted visitors.’ And you say, ‘Okay, it’s going to cost you 200 bucks. You can pay for me the money over here, and I’m going to blast your ad in 3 days from now,’ and that’s how it works.
So if our listeners are familiar with direct mail, then it is very similar to how things used to work in direct mail, only there’s more certainty and predictability with this particular traffic source, because, you know, with direct mail you don’t know how many responses, clicks, conversions you’re going to get, right?

Jonathan: Yeah, good point.

Igor: Yeah, so if you had a bad experience with a solo ad, you then automatically see everything, every following experience is going to be bad as well. Now that is not true. And the people who allow themselves to buy into this sort of belief are leaving a ton of money on the table, a ton, a ton of money and just crazy amounts of targeted prospects for their business.
And that is pretty much the main topic of our show that I want to touch upon really quickly as we started, because I speak to so many people who approach me, you know, asking about solo ads and list-building and other ways to convert traffic and they always fall into that trap.
It’s not because they want to necessarily or not because they’re bad people, because they’re uneducated people. There’s a ton of educated people who fall for that trap as well. It’s just the level of awareness as to, you know, how success really is achieved are so low that it is just…you know, they’re not even aware of falling into this trap, Jonathan.

Jonathan: Yeah, and that’s the thing about being successful is you’re going to have these pitfalls and what determines your success is how you pick yourself back up, so the same with the solo ad game. You get burnt once, maybe you’ll do a little bit better research and pick a little bit better vendor, but definitely don’t want to just throw it to the wayside.

Igor: Yeah, exactly, and I think a lot of it comes down to also being able to look in the mirror and say ‘I am responsible for all the results and lack of results that I get in my life,’ because if we approach everything we do from a standpoint of ‘I am the one responsible. I am the common denominator in my life,’ rather than saying ‘Oh, life is unfair’ or ‘It’s Obama’s fault’ or, you know, ‘It’s…idk, it’s because of the bombings in Syria that my business is down here in America,’ I mean, if we approach it from that standpoint, we’re never going to get ahead.
But, you know, if we’re always taking full personal responsibility for all the results we get – and what is even more important, all the results we do not get [06.00] – then all of a sudden we start asking different questions, right? We start asking the question…

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: …That ‘Ok, what am I not doing that results in me not getting the results that I want?’ or maybe ‘What am I missing from this whole equation that is resulting in me, you know, having setback after setback after setback?’
And I believe it really goes beyond just, you know, having the ability to push through limitations and to push through failures. I believe it has a lot to do with ego, Jonathan.

Jonathan: Hmm, yeah, that a big one.

Igor: So, you know, if you’re willing to let go of that misconception, then you’re going to find this show eye-opening, because the next thing I want to kind of jump into is Facebook ads. And I’ll tell you a little, you know, a little bit about why Facebook ads aren’t as perfect as the gurus are trying to make them look right now.

Jonathan: What…?

Igor: Yeah!

Jonathan: Kidding…you’re kidding!

Igor: Yeah – no, I’m not kidding. I am, you know, serious as cancer as our friend, Doberman Dan, likes to say.
So Facebook ads, especially if you’re in the internet marketing space and you’re in the make-money-online niche, if you will, are getting tricky, Jonathan, because they’ve recently changed their terms of service multiple times and they’ve started slapping people, kind of like what Google used to do back in the day. Remember when everybody was doing AdWords?

Jonathan: Oh, yeah.

Igor: And all of a sudden overnight – bang! – people lost multi-six-figure businesses. I believe Ryan Deiss reported that they were doing $20,000 per day in AdWords and they just had to kind of shut down and Google didn’t even explain why.

Jonathan: Wow…! That’s scary.

Igor: Yeah, man, they…it’s just not scary. Look, it’s life-altering. It’s just…it’s deadly. Because I’ve spoken to people personally, they weren’t doing paid ads, but they were doing SEO. That’s also why I don’t like SEO, by the way, Search Engine Optimization, if you don’t, if anyone listening doesn’t know.
So in SEO you can get what’s called Google-slapped and then you lose rankings. You go from being number 1 on page 1 to being number 37 on page 59 or whatever, like overnight and without notice and without any chance to redeem yourself in the eyes of the almighty Google.
So going back to Facebook ads, Facebook really just changes the rules of the game. You could, back in the day, you could go in and promote anything you wanted and target anything you wanted. You could target the age and the location, the profession. You could even target by what kind of movies your target prospects liked.
But today while you can still do all that targeting, you can’t promote make-money-online products. And not only that, you can’t promote weight loss products that make claims. You can’t do dating anymore. You just can’t. It’s not allowed. You can’t do forex. That’s why you don’t see forex advertising on Facebook. And you’re really, really limited in what you can and cannot say. [09.00]
Plus, they can shut you down anytime and the moment you’ve been shut down once, you can start unlimited accounts, you can, you know, find new credit cards, you can do whatever you want to do, they’ll pick up on you again and they’ll shut you down again. And this is me sharing my experience, because I’ve attempted this thing three times.
I used to do a $1,000 a day on Facebook ads every day for about a year until they changed regulations and they kicked me out. And then I came back in and a month later I was kicked out. I came back in again with a different credit card and a different name, and they kicked me out again a month later because they picked up on me.
So unless you’re willing to go into Facebook ads knowing upfront that you’re going to get shut down, now that’s cool, but for the most part if you’re looking for a long-term strategy that allows you to have a hassle-free lead generation system in place, solo ads are no longer viable option for you.
But more so, even more so, Jonathan, is that people actually do not buy on Facebook ads.

Jonathan: Yeah, that’s becoming harder and harder, right? Because they’re there for the entertainment.

Igor: Yeah, exactly. Entertainment, communicating with their loved ones and their friends and just sharing like…
And for the same reason by the way people don’t by on Twitter, right? I mean, how many people do you know that, you know, they got a plumber on Twitter or something?

Jonathan: Yeah, right.

Igor: Now, this just doesn’t happen. So the mindset is different. So the only way to convert Facebook ads really, and that’s how I used to do it, is to get them off Facebook and out them through a really intensive 7-day to 14-day sales funnel that just is really aggressive.
And that was kind of weird to me. I couldn’t even accept it at first, because first everybody’s preaching Facebook ads, right, ‘Facebook ads is the shizzle. Facebook ads is the most amazing thing in the world. Facebook ads is the best thing since sliced bread.’
But, you know, it turns out people don’t buy on Facebook ads, and people on Facebook ads for some reason, and I don’t know why, but it’s true for me and my clients, they’re even more skeptical than the people you get from, say, Pay Per View traffic or SEO and so on and so forth.

Jonathan: Isn’t that interesting?

Igor: Yeah, and again this is not something that you read or hear about in the Facebook courses you buy, you know, for $997. They just don’t tell you that. It’s something you’ll learn by putting your own money and my putting skin in the game, if you will.
So on the other hand with solo ads we’re able to close people right away. We’re able to get, you know, 2-3 sales on every 100 clicks putting through the funnel on the frontend and it’s awesome. Now if we only achieve 50% upsell conversion, then we’re making money.
So that is why I believe Facebook ads are not ideal if you’re marketing make-money-online products, and that’s why you should be looking to make the shift to solo ads and your list – not so much, you know, given Facebook with the control because even if you can make it work which very few people can, what happens eventually they [12.00] pull the rug from underneath you and it can get nasty.
I mean, what had happened to me – and remember I was making a lot of money on Facebook ads. If I was spending a 1,000, I was making at least 3 back every day – and I went into a deep state of depression for about 2 weeks.

Jonathan: I bet.

Igor: I literally found myself avoiding phone calls, avoiding emails, doing nothing but playing PlayStation, because I did not know – that’s my way of, you know, that’s my way of getting away, man. You know, some people have booze. Some people have drugs and I have my PlayStation.

Jonathan: I’ve got Xbox – I’m with ya.

Igor: So I literally did nothing for a couple of weeks, because I did not know how to handle it, because a big chunk of my business was pulled away and taken away from me and I really don’t wish for it to happen to anyone listening to this show.

Jonathan: Yeah, that’s scary, man, and that’s another reason why I’ve always been of the same school. SEO is a joke. Any of that stuff is a joke. The only media I believe in is paid media.

Igor: Exactly, and that’s the only scalable media too. I mean, we know lots of people that do product launches, and when I started out online it was really, really popular. You know, Frank Kern put out, you know, puts out Mass Control and Ryan Deiss puts out the old…his Funnel Blueprint. And every day there’s somebody launching something, and everybody’s making millions and millions of dollars. But, you know, it was kind of like the Wild Wild West and eventually what happened is this fad disappeared.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Igor: I mean, I’ve worked with Frank Kern one-on-one and the guy is doing paid advertising, believe it or not.

Jonathan: That’s right.

Igor: And, yeah, he’s not doing product launches anymore. He’s not relying on affiliates anymore. He pulled the Mass Control brand off the market. He doesn’t have any information products left on the market that he sells, and instead, you know, the dude’s doing consulting and doing pretty well, doing like, I don’t know, a couple of hundred thousand dollars a month. The last time I read his emails, that’s what he said.
But so, what happened was we learned the hard way that the product launch model was not consistent.
And I believe that’s the same thing about Facebook ads that we’re learning right now, and you need to protect yourself and not rely on that one media that is really, really shaky, because it’s kind of like, you know, if you’re building your business on Facebook ads alone it’s kind of like building a table with one leg. Imagine what happens if that breaks. You just, you know, you ain’t got a business anymore. You’re just kidding yourself.

Jonathan: Yeah, yeah, I saw some guys, I don’t know, they’re still out there, but the social media ad genius guys have built a big business consulting and with their Facebook products, they’ve got…they’ve gotten into trouble and got banned from Facebook for a year. Now how do you regroup from that? If your whole business is Facebook, there’s really no coming back.

Igor: Exactly, and you see that’s why I always loved solo ads and I believed in this traffic source way before the market picked up, because I was the only one besides perhaps one other guy who also happens to be my mentor who preached that solo ads were awesome.
And that was, you know, when solo ads were really cheap, when it was just getting started when you could only buy a solo if you [15.00] were a member of a secret skype chatroom, and it was really, really on the down low back in the day. And so, you know, I and a few other people, we took it mainstream.
So anyway what I love about it, what I love about solo ads to this day is that there’s no regulations because the person controlling the list is the only person who’s making the only decision on whether or not to take your offer on, and if they made a decision to take it, you have nothing to worry about.
So, you know, there is no regulations to worry about. There is no red tape. There is no officials or geeks that are going to come in and inspect your offer who don’t really get marketing in the first place.
That’s where I really hate it too when, you know, some douchebag with a college degree who’s really just a geek whose job is to write code or something or just a support staff member goes in to review your sales funnel.
Now, honestly, no offence, but what does this dude or dudette, you know, know about marketing? I’m spending my money here. I’m basically putting my wellbeing on the line to generate customers, to build a business and here she comes and says ‘Nope, you can’t do it this way.’
Well, you know what? If you tried to build a business, then you’d see that there is no other way of doing it, but the way I do it, because, you know, at the end of the day, if you’re not selling, if you’re not marketing hard in today’s busy, busy society full of clutter and where the clients and the prospects have developed insane levels, just dragging level ad-blindness, then, you know, you’re not going to stand out and you’re not going to pay the bills.

Jonathan: No doubt, man.
So I feel like we should just kind of throw in where people can find out more about doing business with you on solo ads. Would you be open to sharing that?

Igor: Oh, yeah, for sure. You can just igorsoloads.com [Igor solo ads dot com] or you can just Google that. Just Google ‘Igor solo ads’ and you’ll find plenty of information. You can just…I’m everywhere, man. I’m like cancer. I’m spreading across the inter-webs very, very fast right now.
But, yeah, if you want to get some solos and if you want to get a free consultation as well with my staff about what’s a good practice, what’s not a good practice if you want to get your sales funnel reviewed, if it’s a good fit for solo ads, just head over to igorsoloads.com [Igor solo ads dot com] and you’ll find your ways around the website and, you know, you’ll know what to do.

Jonathan: Very cool, Igor. So what do you have coming up for us next time?

Igor: Oh, well, next time we’re going to do a great show for anyone who basically feels that they don’t speak English well and that they can’t write great emails and build a great business online in this industry, because English is not their first language, because, you know, starting out I was that guy.
I started out with a ridiculous accent, you know, and even doing something as simple as writing an email was a huge challenge for me.
So next time we’re going to talk about that and how to overcome [18.00] all these pesky challenges.

Jonathan: Alright, looking forward to that.

So that’s a wrap for The List-Building Lifestyle episode number 2 on solo ads that convert. We will see you guys on the next one, and thank you, Igor, for sharing your insights with us.

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