The Bucket Business

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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: Welcome back to another edition of List Building Lifestyle with the King
of List Building, Mr. Igor Kheifets.

Igor: Hey there, Jonathan. How you doin’, man? Jonathan: I’m always excited to
talk to you because you take us on weird journeys that are always interesting and
enlightening so I can’t wait to see what you have in store for us today. Igor:
Yeah, that is exactly what I’m going to for, I just want to be entertaining,
useful, contradicting sometimes as well so you don’t get too comfortable. This is
the think that got to me when I was just starting out. I would listen to this guru
say this one thing and then I would listen to the same guru say something a year
later and it was completely contradicting to what he just said. I was like, “What
is he talking about!” It doesn’t make any sense until I discovered the concept of
duality which of course means that you can’t be strong unless you’re weak, you
can’t be rich unless you’re poor and stuff like that. It’s all a Zen concept.
Basically I discovered that the world isn’t black and white. There are lots of
grey areas. I don’t even know why I told you that, Jonathan. We should just get on
with the program.

Jonathan: [Laughter] Well, I’m sure there was something there that you were
setting up because like in five episodes you’re going to contradict whatever you
say today.

Igor: Okay sounds good. I’m a big Kennedy fan boy, Dan Kennedy. This is not
contradicting. I have been open and honest about being a “Kennedy bitch” for like
ever since I started this business and I believe that a lot of my success has to
do with me using the “Kennedy mechanics” in my business. So I was just rereading
one of his book and I just cut out this piece which I want to read to you which is
so profound, it is so mind blowing it gave me a boner as soon as I read it. I had
to read it to you.

Jonathan: [Laughter] A business boner.

Igor: Yeah, a business boner.

Jonathan: [Laughter]

Igor: Dan Kennedy says, “A business is a bucket in which alchemy is to occur. Into
the bucket we pour ideas, energy, work, ad dollars, marketing dollars, costs of
attracting customers, costs of pursuing sales in hope of stirring profits, maybe
wealth. Most business owners are very focused on the pouring into the bucket
process. Few focus on exactly what happens inside the bucket. That’s supposed to
take care of itself but it doesn’t. It’s important to have a full and accurate
understanding of the investments being made, it’s then important to have a
strategy in place for fully and comprehensively converting those investments to
the greatest possible gains.” They just join a program and that’s how it basically
shows in our marketplace, right? What I’m seeing is people just join a program
that’s all they do, they just join a program and they buy some tools and they buy
some traffic and then they sit there and just wait for something to happen. There
is so much focus on the buying and the tools and the resources that there is no
focus whatsoever on the person running the business and what’s going on with all
of those tools and the strategies and the resources.

Jonathan: Alright, first question, Igor, what book or what product, where did you
get this little tidbit of information?

Igor: I got it in Dan Kennedy’s No BS Direct Marketing for Non-Direct Marketing
Businesses. It’s a book.

Jonathan: Boom! Okay so books are good and the reason I’m asking is because I have
– you have inspired me, we talked about it on a few episodes ago maybe longer, I
can’t even remember but I asked if you bought info courses, if you bought any of
that stuff and you said no you invest in people so I made it a point and I’m
putting it out there to you because you will hold me accountable and to the List
Builders no new software this year and no info products for the entire year.

Igor: That’s right. Just some books and some porn.

Jonathan: Books and porn, that’s it.

Igor: Yeah. Books and porn that’s the wisest investment.

Jonathan: Business boners.

Igor: Books, porn and real estate that’s the three things every marketer should
invest in.

Jonathan: Yes. So let’s talk about this a little bit and let’s unpack it. Why do
people think that the tools and the traffic are all they need to do?

Igor: This all comes down to – have you ever heard the saying you can’t be a great
carpenter with lousy tools or something like that.

Jonathan: Yes, of course.

Igor: It makes sense when you first hear it but the reality is you can and you
will and the tools don’t make you. There is a great story about the Paganini, I
think; he was the violin guy, right? Paganini for one of his shows, he was pacing
back and forth behind the curtain and his manager walked up to him and said, “Hey
it’s five minutes left, you’re about to go on stage. Where is your violin?”
Paganini, he just turned around went into some room and walked out with a violin,
got on stage and killed it. He got a standing ovation. Everybody was excited,
women in the crowd were crying. He came backstage and his manager is like, “Well
done, well done my friend. But why were you nervous before the show?” Paganini
says, “I couldn’t find my Stradivarius so I had to use some other guy’s lousy
violin.” He was upset about it. I understand him, if I don’t get my MacBook
working in the morning, I will probably be upset, but I can easily grab another
computer and work my magic just like Paganini could grab almost any violin and
play it like a god. So people have this belief that to be a good carpenter, you
need great tools. The reality is no, you do not, you really do not. You can be a
great carpenter with lousy tools. Sure the process will be a bit more difficult
for you but you can still produce incredible work. In fact, there are
professionals in their fields that are sticking to the same tools that they
started out with simply because they are used to them and they can’t work with the
brand new digital gadgetry that all professionals use right now.

Jonathan: Gosh, there is industry built on equipping internet marketers with tools
and I kind of think that they want you to keep buying tools and not actually doing
work.

Igor: Maybe would. I mean in and of itself going around and buying things can keep
you busy for awhile until you realize you’re hard drive is full of stuff and
you’re bank balance is negative $2,000 at the beginning of each month and you’re
not moving forward in your business. I started my business having very little
tools. I think I was spending money exclusively on my auto-responder, my MLM
opportunity and I think the hosting, hosting, and the domain name. These were the
expenses everything else I tried to get for free or build up with my time but the
point being that I have always built my business from a standpoint of I spent the
least amount of money required in order to make the most money and what’s missing
I will kind of fill with either my time or my skill set which is exactly what
happened. When I didn’t have money to buy advertising with or I did have some
money but really not enough I probably wouldn’t be able to afford buy traffic from
myself these days but back in the day even $80 or $100 was a lot of money to me.
Let’s not forget I grew up in Israel so every dollar hurt four times as much and
the paychecks are different here. So investing as little as $100 into my business
was a nightmare, it was not only really scary but also like to come up with that
sort of money for me was a problem. What I have done is I got so good at
copywriting that I made my ads pay me back, in other words I didn’t go around
hoping that the traffic I’m purchasing is going to be so great and so magical and
so incredible of quality that it will just make sales because it’s awesome
traffic. Never, ever, ever did it cross my mind that traffic will convert simply
because it’s good traffic. I knew even with great traffic, I still have a lot of
work to do to convert the prospect into a buyer. But for some reason many of the
customers that come buying traffic from me especially the super frustrated ones
that are going from one source to the next for literally years, they still don’t
get it. They still don’t get this one idea that you’re tools don’t make you.

Jonathan: Now do you think that it actually harms some people coming into the
business that have that extra capital because then they can just freely spend it
without getting that ROI that you’re talking about?

Igor: Well, I didn’t know what the hell is going on through their heads, Jonathan.
Honestly, we can only speculate about that. All I know is they are not doing it
right. So it doesn’t matter if you’re got large capital or small capital or no
capital at all. Whatever you’re thinking that is going to save you, whatever the
tool or resource or the traffic source that is going to save, it ain’t going to
save you. It is just not going to happen unless you work with it to save yourself.
That’s my point.

Jonathan: Yeah, it goes back to last episode that personal accountability. This is
another one of those extensions. No it’s not God but it’s the hammer. Now you’re
looking at the hammer for the answers and really it’s not the hammer that has the
answers, it’s the man swinging or the woman, Bob or Jane, swinging the hammer that
has the answer.

Igor: Exactly. This industry especially I’m not sure about other industries like I
never sold precious metal, never went to Wall Street but when it comes to
marketing online, when it comes to marketing business opportunities, when it comes
to marketing services to coach or consult, there is no one that is more
responsible for that business than you and it doesn’t come down to just making the
buying decisions in your business and refreshing your stats every day. It’s way,
way more than that. It’s in the position you create for yourself, it’s in the
offers you put out, it’s in the content you’re putting out, it’s in your ability
to create rapport, and it’s in your ability to spot opportunities and capitalize
on those opportunities rather than just sit on your ass and think what if. It
comes down to a lot of things and I think we had the episode where we spoke about
people looking for the one thing that is going to change everything, of course
there is no such thing. There is no one thing. There is no one thing that is going
to make you healthy. There is no one thing that is going to make you rich. There
is no one thing that is going to make your marriage work. But that’s the human
nature and the world is so complicated that we are always looking for the one
thing that’s why people go buying one shiny object after the next because they
hope for that next shiny object to be the one thing that is missing when in
reality the one thing that is missing is them getting real and starting taking
more personal responsibility for their successes and failures.

Jonathan: Accountability, baby. It is lost in today’s world for some reason.

Igor: Well, I think this sounds like the exact rerun of the previous episode,
Jonathan.

Jonathan: [Laughter]

Igor: [Laughter] It’s the government.

Jonathan: Well, driving the point home, right?

Igor: It’s the government.

Jonathan: It’s God, it’s the government, it’s everybody else but you. So Igor if
you were – it doesn’t matter if you’re starting out or if you’ve been doing this
for years, let’s think about the ingredients going into that bucket. What would be
– could we break it down into three ingredients that people must have? Or is it
more than that? You started your business with only a few things so maybe you can
shine some light on this for the List Builders.

Igor: Oh yeah, absolutely. So the first ingredient is going to be your offer. The
offer has to be the most incredible, no brain offer this marketplace has ever seen
and it also has be a bit different and there is a whole science behind creating
offers that work that you should look into but the offer is about 30% or so from
the total equation for success with your business. When I say success, I mean
making a full-time income because if we want to take it from a four figure to a
six figure income, we have to talk about a bunch of other elements but right now
let’s just focus on taking somebody who is not making anything and has been
struggling for awhile to making something. So the first thing is going to be an
irresistible offer that is not only so good but also seems like not the exact same
thing that the prospect has been pitched yesterday. The second element is of
course the market, exposing your offer to the right people, to the exact match for
the customer. Thirdly, I would say it is positioning. Positioning that you’ve got
in the marketplaces so that by the time the customer wants to join you in
business, they can research you and find out that you are a respected and
creditable authority in that field either you are or at least you appear to be
that way which is pretty much the same thing.

Jonathan: Wow. That’s it, that’s all I need?

Igor: Well, I wanted to keep things simple. Of course if you give me the
permission to we can sit her for the next 13 hours, I can lay down the blueprint
but of course that is not going to help anyone because it’s going to be
overwhelming and by the time I’m done describing the first of the thirteen or
sixteen elements people will get bored and leave. Because they are going to buy
from somebody who says no it’s just one thing.

Jonathan: Yeah. [laughter]

Igor: But if you got to bring it down to just three things, you can narrow it down
to having a great offer, putting it front of the right prospects and having that
right positioning for the prospects to feel comfortable to make the buying
decision. It could come down to just three of those to start making money. If you
wanted to take that to the next level of course we can talk about systems, we can
talk about hiring the right people for the right positions, we can talk about
creating the up sells and the cross sells and so there is plenty to talk about but
the point is there is no one thing that will ever make you successful and there is
no combination of tools and resources that you’re purchasing right now that in and
of themselves is just going to magically create a business for you. It’s not going
to happen. You need to put way more focus into using and connecting all of these
tools, resources, and software that you’re purchasing right now into one giant
ball or entity or mess if you will that will create the results that you’re
looking for. Just pouring stuff into the bucket doesn’t help; you have to make it
work in the bucket. So in other words, here is a great example; if we were going
back to the alchemy example we can take all the right ingredients from the list
but then we have to prepare that thing in the bucket according to the recipe in
the right sequence, with the right amounts, with the right timing and if we get
one of these things wrong it won’t be exactly what we are looking to create.

Jonathan: So Igor you mentioned it earlier and I just want to circle back. There
is so many different directions that the List Builders could go and you mentioned
that you really studied copywriting and that was your basis for everything; now
would you recommend that’s where the List Builders start out? Would it be
copywriting? Would it be direct response marketing? What would be a place where
they could focus their attention on the underlying strategies so that they could
get those three components they need?

Igor: The reason I went into copywriting because I understood that every dollar
that I will ever make in this business will come from another person which meant
that I had to get really good at understanding people and manipulating people if
you will. I know that a lot of people don’t like this word manipulation but that
is exactly what you’re doing when you’re selling, when you’re trying to get your
child to eat broccoli, when you’re trying to get your wife to lose weight, when
you’re trying to even get yourself to get out of bed and get your ass to work. You
are always manipulating something or somebody and if you’re not then being
manipulated by something or somebody. So I realized that if I wanted to become
successful in this business and most other businesses I had to get really good at
people and the one I guess area of marketing that focuses on people or in other
words the prospect, the ideal customer you want to attract is copywriting. It
taught me the basics of how I need to communicate to get people to like and trust
and just buy from me. Of course, later on I took it to the next level and to the
next level by getting a deeper and deeper understanding of the human psychology
which of course translated into better sales, better offers but of course this
podcast is based entirely on that. I mean the reason that we started the podcast
because I recognized that people are not where they want to be, people are not
where they should be and to kind of bring this information to the light. So yes,
copywriting was the skill set that I went for because I knew without it even if I
had the best product I couldn’t necessarily put the best offer together. The one
that is the most no-brainer, the most exciting, the one that makes the most sense
for the customer and from that point forward everything was governed by direct
response marketing and copywriting even to this day every dollar I spend I make an
effort to make sure it’s a measurable and testable dollar that is producing me
some sort of return and not just throw money at a wall hoping that something
sticks.

Jonathan: Alright so we’re coming close to the end but I’m going to ask one last
question on behalf of the List Builders. If there was one copywriting book that
they should read right now what would it be?

Igor: Dan Kennedy’s The Ultimate Sales Letter System.

Jonathan: Boom! I knew it was going to be Kennedy.

Igor: Of course it’s going to be Kennedy, come on.

Jonathan: Come on what are you thinking?

Igor: Come on. [laughter]

Jonathan: So good stuff, Igor. Thank you as always for sharing your insights with
us. Thank you List Builders for tuning in and we will be back with you next time.

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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