Why I Let My Competitors Spy On Me

I’m Igor Kheifets and this is the List Building Lifestyle, a podcast 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, then this podcast is for you. I also invite you to attend a free workshop at Igor.ac where I’m teaching how I made $21,779.25 in affiliate commissions by sending just 481 clicks to my affiliate link in one day. I’m also explaining why I walked away from ClickBank and I don’t promote ClickBank offers anymore, as well as the five things I look for in the perfect affiliate offer. I’m even going to show you the one page website that I used to make over half a million dollars in affiliate commissions this year. And I’ll even bribe you to attend this workshop by giving you a $497-value course that shows you how to cherry pick high-converting affiliate offers for your next affiliate promotion. In addition, I’ll even give you the three offers I’m promoting right now that are making me money as we speak. All of that and more at Igor.ac. And now it’s time to claim your List building lifestyle.

Welcome back to another edition of the List Building Lifestyle with your host, Igor Kheifets. One of the reasons why I don’t really consider my competitors to be my competitors and why I don’t really feel that anyone can take a bite out of my own pie, which is also why I’m easily sharing what I learn and I teach and basically all my competitors spy on me and it doesn’t really bother me. In fact, many of them attended our recent live event, to just go ahead and learn from what we do. One of the reasons is because a buyer is a buyer is a buyer. What I mean by that is that if you are operating in a passionate niche market, in a niche market where people just love to buy stuff, and this is probably one of the first few things you need to understand about marketing, is that if you’re trying to sell something to people that don’t want to buy or people who don’t have a passion behind their buying decisions, then you’re probably not going to get places.

But if you chose the right niche, you will most likely be able to advance forward very quickly just through the virtue of being in the right place at the right time. In other words, it’s great to have a mindset. It’s great to have all these things like tools and stuff like that. But what’s really important is that to apply your mindset and your tools and your ideas in an environment with a reasonable probability of success. And for that to happen, you need to be operating in a passionate niche market. One of those big reasons why I’m not afraid to share what I know and why I teach people and coach people and why I openly discuss the tactics that work for me, both on this podcast and within the walls of all the masterminds that I attend as well as the ones that I host, is because a buyer will buy from more than one individual or from more than one company.

I’ll give you the perfect example. I’m big on coffee. I really love coffee. I think I’m addicted. Out of all the vices that I have besides being a workaholic, I think coffee is probably the biggest one, followed by a love for Apple products. Because I tend to buy just as many of those as I do coffee. But point being is that in my home office, I have an espresso machine for which I, not only did I have to buy the machine, but I also had to get the supplies. I need to maintain it and clean it and stuff like that. I also have an espresso machine at home for which not only I had to buy the machine but I also have to get the capsules and the milk shaker. Not the shaker but the milk steamer and stuff like that.

I’m spending money on coffee all the time, even though I already have coffee, even though I already have machines. And anytime I’m in a store and they see a coffee machine, espresso machine, I’ll stop. I’ll play with it. I’ll look it up online. I’ll read the reviews and eventually, I’m pretty certain, that eventually I will buy myself another coffee machine even though there’s no logical or practical reason to do so.

Now you see, the reason why I’ve always stayed in the make-money-online space is because this is a very similar market for that exact reason. People in the make-money-online space buy because they love to. They’re just passionate about the idea of being their own boss and being free. Now, most never achieve this idea. Most never really get to that place. But they will pursue it with everything they’ve got. And even though many people in this industry are lazy, they still buy a lot of products. That’s really the key because I’ll give you the perfect example how a buyer is a buyer is a buyer and why the idea of competition doesn’t even exist anymore in this industry.

A couple of weeks ago, as of the moment of me publishing this, a couple of weeks ago, we hosted an email-marketing workshop where we brought in about 30 people in the room and we had them write emails and we had them market their products and basically discussed and implemented ideas to become better email marketers. And I remember as I was going through a talk on campaigns where I was walking people through the campaign we ran for the launch of our book and it became an Amazon bestseller. One of the attendees who was there with their laptop, all of a sudden turned on some website or video that started with, “If you’re trying to work from home or if you’re trying to make money online, then …” And then they shutdown the sound.

Now of course everyone paid attention. It’s only 30 people in the room. And the funny part is that that video was from a website owned by a friend of mine who’s also in the make-money-online space which sells a moneymaking system who was sitting right across the table from that person who was playing the video. As this person who paid 2,500 bucks a to attend the seminar, to attend the workshop, that person who flew across the world from Australia to be there, that member was already browsing the next thing during my talk. Now of course this probably tells you a little bit about how boring my talk was. But hopefully other people found it valuable.

And here’s the most interesting part. On the break, when I got back into the room, I saw this person sitting next to the buddy of mine who owns that opportunity and my buddy walking him through the sign-up process. And so this person ended up signing up with him and going on to operate within the system and stuff like that. As this person was on our seminar, they ended up buying additional thing. I mean first off this is a classic symptom and classic case of info marketing. I’m sorry, of shiny-object syndrome, right? Because the moment you are consuming one thing and you can’t really keep yourself from buying the next thing, that’s the shiny-object syndrome. And that’s what most people in the industry suffer from. And that’s one thing.

But the other thing is is that the desire to buy other products is so compelling that the moment they come across a sexy offer, they’re buying. And that is why I was never really concerned with launching a product when other products are launching. I was never really concerned with launching an offer knowing that there are other similar offers in the marketplace. Now obviously there’s ways of positioning so your offer doesn’t seem the same. But I guess the reason I was never afraid is because I know that the buyer is a buyer is a buyer. For the same reason I was never really afraid of promoting affiliate products to my list. And I was never really afraid of running joint ventures with people. And I could do it every week because a buyer is a buyer is a buyer. Especially in the make-money-online space these buyers are rabid. They’re just rabid.

And again, I say they are, and I share this with a note of judgment. But the truth of the matter is I’m the same way. When I was getting ready for the seminar and I was working on my voice, I purchased three programs. Three programs about how to have a better, more confident voice. I subscribed to a bunch of YouTube videos. I really went in. And even though I had enough content, I would still end up buying additional training and coaching. I reached out to a speaking coach, somebody who can help me refine my talks and refine my jokes and critique my previous talks and tell me what I did wrong.

Yo, it’s Igor. If you’re loving the content, hop on over to listbuildinglifestyleshow.com for more free training and a free transcript of this episode. Oh, and I’d really appreciate if you logged into iTunes and rated the show. It really helps. Thanks.

So all of a sudden it didn’t really matter how much money I had spent previously, I had to get the next thing. It almost reminds me of how if you’re breathing, the next breath is the all-important breath. Everything happened beforehand, just it doesn’t exist anymore. Then when you take a breath, you need the next one. Even if you took a thousand breaths before, it doesn’t help. These buyers, these people, again, me, probably you if you’re listening to the podcast and everyone else in this industry, we’re like that. We’re very much like that. We do not care how much money we … I mean we say we do. We justify it. We talk to other people and we say, “Oh, I spent this much money. I spend that much money.” But the truth of the matter is we do not care how much money we spend because all we care about is that next thing that we’re going to get.

That’s a huge, huge, huge, huge truth to recognize about our marketplace. It is that it really doesn’t matter how many things they bought in the past, they will be looking for the next thing. And so you better be coming up with the next thing too. Because the other part of this lesson is sure, you will make money when you release a product or when you market something. But you will make way more money if you market something new and exciting every now and again. Which is why in this business, the more offers you have, the more money you’ll make. The more offers you’ll make, the more the customer is likely to give you money.

And for those of you who do not currently operate a successful business, you don’t know this, but for those of you who do, you probably learned this to be true. How a handful of your customers ends up becoming the largest spenders with you. For example, an average customer with our agency, Igor Solovich, spends about $4,000. Now that’s decent considering they started out with a transaction somewhere between 357 and 800 bucks. That means that they come back and they buy again and again and again.

First off, it means that we delivered a great service, which is why they buy. But also it shows you that the people who buy, the people who find it in themselves to learn to trust you and like you and want to do business with you, it’s easier for them to say, “Yes,” again and again and again for as long as you keep presenting exciting things in front of them that help them improve their situation in one way, shape, or another.

And for those of you out there who had success in the past when you released something and it worked and then you noticed stagnation, it’s probably because you did not release more. It’s probably because you had one successful product and it sort of reached its shelf life. If you’re planning on playing this game longterm, you almost need to get rid of the idea that whatever you create now, will keep working for the next 10 years. Because honestly, there’s no such thing. I don’t think in our industry there is a thing that’s been working for 10 years. I’ve seen things that worked for five years. I’ve seen people like my friend Richard Legg who created an asset like five or seven years ago. Now, all they had to do from that point forward is to just maintain it and maybe change the sales presentation every three to four years or so. But for the most part, it didn’t change. The product delivery didn’t change. Nothing about the back end change. It was just the front end that was tweaked. And so it’s rare. It happens, but it’s really rare.

Most of the time if you look at the timeline of marketing, you need to be coming up with new things all the time. That’s why you see people like Ryan Deiss and Frank Kern and Mike Filsaime and others who were big gurus back in the day and who you’d think have figured it out and who said everything that they needed to say. I mean how many ways do you spin this? How many ways can you really say, “Have an offer, drive traffic to an offer, followup with the people who join your email list, and you’ll make money.” There’s only so many ways, so many versions of this statement that you can figure out. But they continue to come back again and again and do things that allow the market to pay attention again.

That’s why in Hollywood they release new movies all the time, right? That’s why authors write new books because that’s what’s required. Because people need the next shiny thing. And if you don’t believe me, look at the kids. If you have kids, you’ve probably seen this happen. Like my daughter, Erica, she’s the biggest shiny-objects seeker I know you. You buy her a Lego, she needs another one in two minutes. I actually had to go through a whole conditioning period where I made her appreciate the things that she has by taking them away. And anytime she wanted a new thing, I told her, “Okay, but we have to donate two toys for every new toy that we get.” And it’s sort of put a stop to this craziness that we would buy a new toy every day.

But then, in addition to that, they can be tricked, right? Kids can be tricked by having two sets of toys and one of them being hidden in the attic. And so just switching them up every now and again so the old appears new. But it’s also how the marketing industry works. The old appears new a lot of times. For example, Ryan Deiss, on a recent mastermind, announced that the next big thing in marketing is email newsletters. All of a sudden email is sexy again. I mean first of email never stopped being sexy. Email was always sexy, especially for people who know how to write emails and build lists. But it also tells like, “Okay, so apparently there’s a cycle.” Because the first time I heard Ryan Deiss talk about this was about eight years ago, where he came out of the product and he told a story about how he emailed his way to a $2,000 set of golf clubs for his friend.

Now he comes out and he says, “Okay, the next big thing is email.” Well, email was always great, but now we need the next thing. We need the shiny new object. Again, lots of lessons in this, but I’ll send you off with this one. There is no shiny object and there is no new thing. Whenever someone steps in front of you and tells you that, “Here’s the next big thing. This is going to be blowing everything else out of the water. This is where you need to park and stay for the next three years and yada, yada, yada.” Whenever they come out and say that, here’s the newsflash. It was always there. It’s not new. It may be new to you if you’re brand new to the industry, but for the most part, nothing is new under the sun.

Almost everything is still the same as it was 10 years ago. Technology changed a little bit. Well maybe not a little bit, maybe a lot. Technology did change, but the principles are still there. You still need to drive traffic to an offer, build your list and follow up, and then have a backend as well. That never changed. That concept was always there and will always be there because that’s how business and marketing work. So next time you’re thinking of buying the next shiny object, remember this. Remember nothing is new under the sun. Now it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy the shiny object you’re looking at. Maybe that shiny object at that point in time for you and your personality and your situation is exactly what you need.

If you feel compelled to get it, go get it. But what I’m saying is this. This market buys. The make-money-online market is one of the best markets to be in because it’s never, never ever going to stop buying. We will need to make money. We will be pursuing the idea of freedom and independence. We will always be thinking about the day we die and leaving the legacy. There’s no escaping that. And so don’t worry about your competition. Don’t worry about being one of one of the same or producing content that’s more of the same. Don’t worry about that because people will continue buying. All they need is an excuse to buy.
Igor: With that said, thank you again for tuning in for another episode of The List Building Lifestyle. I’m your host, Igor Kheifets. And until next time we chat, have a good one.

Thank you for listening to the List Building Lifestyle. Get access to previous episodes, the transcription of today’s show, as well as other exclusive content at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com. Also, don’t forget to claim your free seat at the workshop I’m hosting this week where I show the two-step system that made me the top affiliate for people like Matt Bacak, John Crestani, Richard Legg, Michael Cheney, and many, many others. In fact, on this workshop I’m going to show you the exact approach I take whenever I promote an affiliate offer, the exact offers I promote, as well as how I was able to make over half a million dollars in commissions using my small list of just 18,000 people, promoting a weird type of product that almost no one else promotes. All that is yours at Igor.ac. So go ahead, claim your seat right now and I’ll see you there.