You Don’t Need Authority to Start (Do It Anyway)

Most people think they need authority before they can start, but the truth is, you get authority by starting. In this episode, I’ll show you why you don’t need anyone’s permission to build your list, launch your offer or share your message.

[0:21]
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 Lifestyle.

[1:07]
A common mistake I see when it comes to list building is that many list builders think that they need a lot of authority, like people who really just start with list building or with really any kind of marketing strategy, they think they need authority to go and do something like that, to go build a list, to start emailing their list.

In fact, this is very common, not only with list building, but in general, people have that around anything entrepreneurial. A great example to this would be to write a book, most people believe that to write a book, they have to be somebody.

Like they believe that they want to write a book about math, they have to be a math teacher or math scientist. If they want to write a book about marketing, they have to be a marketing genius. If they want to write a book about, parenting, they have to be a parenting expert.

If they want to write a book about, whatever, name a topic, and they’ll think they need to be an expert in that topic first before writing a book.

And not I’m not saying that you can write a book about anything without knowing much about it, even though that’s actually true. But you don’t really need to be a world renowned expert at anything to go and do that thing.

[02:20]
And of course, list building and sending emails is one of those things where you don’t need to be an expert at all and have no credibility at all, or no street cred at all for you to be successfully doing that.

In fact, the mindset here, the logic here, is exactly reversed. I believe that when you get into list building as a beginner, you end up building your reputation through the act of building your list and sending emails to your list.

Because the assumption by the people on your email list will be that if that person, if they’re emailing me, if they have something to say to me, and if I signed up to their email list, then they must be somebody, that would be the kind of thinking.

[03:14]
It’s a very similar thing to how, you know how like, you can be browsing and shopping for a product, and you could be in Walmart, and you can be looking at a shelf with different products, and you’d see like, a cheap version of a product, and you’ll see an expensive version of a similar product under brand name.

So classic example would be aspirin. There’s the general aspirin brand, and there’s the Bayer aspirin. Now, Bayer Aspirin is always going to be more expensive, and for some reason, because it’s more expensive, people trust it more.

Now the assumption is that, “Oh, it must be better if it’s expensive”. But the reality is, these products are identical. General aspirin and buyer aspirin exactly the same, okay? They have the same effect, they have the same both positive and negative effects, they’re the same. They’re all it’s basically the same thing.

But a lot of people look at the expensive brand and they think it’s better because it’s expensive, for no other reason but the price.

[04:28]
Well, the same thing is true when you start building your list, you can’t wait until you become somebody, because the way you become somebody is by building that list. The way you become somebody like, when I was publishing my book, sure, I had some results I could talk about that were my results. But at the end of the day, I became an author, just because I decided to become an author.

And the first time I did a webinar, I was not a webinar expert until I did a webinar the first time I sold coaching. I wasn’t, quote, unquote, “a coach”, I became a coach when I sold coaching, right? When I got my first coaching client.

Who actually was roughly on the same level of knowledge about marketing as I was. I was just maybe a little bit ahead, maybe 30 days ahead of him, but that didn’t stop me from helping him reach a $10,000 per month income.

This was a guy’s name was Jason, he was from Australia. Now, and I’ve been honest about who I am to him, and I said, “Hey, this is what I know, this what I can do, and this what I’m gonna do for you, and this is the price”.

So, what I’m saying is, most people, most list builders, think they need authority, they need to be somebody, they need approval, they need credentials. But actually, they don’t need any of it at all. They don’t need any kind of quote, unquote permission or paperwork or accolades. They should just start building the list. And that’s a very common mistake.

[06:04]
Now, there’s another mistake, that’s a little bit more technological, I think, that most list builders make, and they get tied up in, “oh, what software should I use? What landing page builder should I use? Should it be Click Funnels? Should it be, GetResponses built in thing? Should it be GoHighLevel? Should it be this, should be that?

Like, ever since I started coaching people, I’ve seen, at the very least, I’ve seen about, I don’t know, maybe 20 different top-class landing page building platforms come and go. I’ve seen the rise of Thrive theme in WordPress, I’ve seen the likes of ClickFunnels come around, the likes of GHL and a million other things.

Trust me, guys, it’s not about the technology, it’s really not. If this was about technology, then out of, let’s say 10 or 20 top marketers, you would ask them “what do you use?” what software they use to host your pages, and they would unanimously say, “Oh, I use ClickFunnels”, right? But that’s actually not true.

You line up 20 badasses, 20 marketing badasses or business owners, that they’re making a lot of money. And you ask them, “What do you use to host your pages?” And you’re going to get a million different answers.

One of them will say, “Well, we custom build our pages, in HTML format”. Another will say, “Well, we use WordPress. We kind of built a WordPress theme, or we use a WordPress theme and we use that”. Another will say, “we use ClickFunnels”.

Another will say, “we use InfusioSoft”. Another will say, “we use GoHighLevel”. Another will say, “we use ThriveCart”. Another will say, “we use . . “, fill in the blank. And it’ll just go and you’ll get from 20 different people, you get 10 different funnel builders, or page builders that they’re using.

And so, that’s a common experience, not only with page builders, but also with email sending tools, but also with hosting companies where they buy their domain names, everything in between. There’s really no one unifying piece of software or a software stack that you absolutely have to have.

Same thing with shopping cards, same thing with affiliate networks. Somebody will say, “Oh, ClickBank is the best”. Somebody will say, “Oh, did Digistore is the best”.

Somebody will pray to the heavens and be like, “No, no WarriorPlus is the absolute best”. Somebody will say, “JVZoo is the best”. Somebody will say, “Rakuten is the best”. Somebody will say, “Oh, the CPA network, called Cash network, is the best”. Like, you’re going to have a million different things.

But the truth of the matter is, there’s no “the best”, there’s just a bunch of them, and you can make money with all of them or with none of them, it’s really up to you.

[09:09]
So, don’t get caught up with technology, don’t get caught up with any one particular item, technologically speaking, simply master the fundamentals, master the 80/20 of what we’re doing here, build your list, email your list and learn to identify good offers.

It doesn’t matter if that offer is hosted on ClickBank or it’s hosted on JVZoo, it doesn’t matter. Is it a good offer? Is it a hot offer? Is it an offer that’s selling? Can you tell? Do you know how to tell? These are the right questions to be asking.

[16:18]
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 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!