In this episode of the Book More Show, I talk with Igor Kheifets about his journey from a traditional upbringing in Ukraine to becoming a leader in entrepreneurship and digital marketing. Growing up in a family of educators, Igor was expected to follow a conventional career path. Instead, he chose a path that offered more freedom and creativity, leading him to affiliate marketing and email list building.

Igor shares practical insights into email marketing, focusing on the importance of building an engaged audience as a foundation for financial stability. He explains how a well-maintained email list supports resilience in changing markets and serves as a dependable channel for promoting products and services. Igor’s experience highlights the value of adaptability and persistence in a digital world.

We also talk about Igor’s journey to becoming an author, and how publishing a book can establish authority and credibility. He describes the unique benefits of physical books in building connections, gathering leads, and leaving a lasting impact. For anyone interested in entrepreneurship, digital marketing, or personal branding, this episode offers practical insights drawn from Igor’s story.

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

1. I explore Igor Kheifets journey from his upbringing in Ukraine to becoming an entrepreneur in Israel, highlighting his transition from a traditional path to a more creative and independent lifestyle.

2. Igor discusses his decision to leave the conventional 9-to-5 job market and his entry into the world of affiliate marketing and email list building.

3. The episode emphasizes the importance of an engaged email list as a stable financial asset, regardless of market changes or platform volatility.

4. We delve into the strategic significance of email marketing and how it helps top affiliates maintain their leadership positions.

5. Igor shares his experiences in authorship, explaining how publishing a book can elevate one's professional status and establish authority.

6. We discuss the advantages of physical books over digital ones in terms of credibility and long-lasting impressions.

7. Igor highlights the role of books in collecting valuable contact information and building meaningful relationships with audiences.

8. There's a discussion on the importance of understanding client readiness and maintaining active engagement through email lists.

9. Igor offers insights into his own experiences with the challenges and opportunities of the digital marketing landscape.

10. We explore the technical aspects of email marketing, including deliverability and system maintenance to ensure effective communication with audiences.

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TRANSCRIPT

(AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors)

Stuart: Everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Bookmore Show. It's Stuart Bell here, joined today by Igor Kheifets . Igor, how's?

Igor: it going buddy Great, Excited to be here.

Stuart: Yeah, I'm excited to share this story as well. It's one of those things where sometimes I'm talking to people who I know quite well. Sometimes it's one of the first calls, sometimes it's clients who I've seen go through the process but didn't have any reason to chat, and that falls into our camp. And the connection is actually even funnier than that because I saw the book past three, um a couple of years ago now and in fact it's still on the uh, we always order a copy to the office. So we've still got a copy on one of the desks in the front part of the office.

So every time I'm down there because the dimensions of yours yours is a six by nine, so it kind of it dimensionally, looks a little bit different from the other ones we've got. So every time I'm down now I see it on the shelf, but we hadn't connected and I actually saw the instagram ads that you're currently running and that prompted me to reach out. So it's always funny the the circle. But I'm really excited to share what you're doing with people because it's such a great crossover with with the audience. Why don't we start by giving people a little bit of a background on you, your journey, what it is that you do, and then we can jump into things from there.

Igor: So I'm like a product of the system. I grew up in a family full of teachers. My grandmother was a school principal, my grandfather was a school principal, my grandfather was a school teacher, my mom was a music teacher and my dad was a mechanical engineer. So growing up, I've got one message, and one message only, and that's like study hard, go to school, study hard, get good grades and everything's going to be okay. However, that didn't seem to pan out uh the way I was promised.

Um, I was born in ukraine and then, when I turned 12 just before I turned 12 actually we moved to israel and, um, my family had to start over because things in ukraine were really getting bad. It was about the year 2000, so when we moved to Israel, it was a new beginning, but also lots and lots of challenges. So a new language, new culture. And my parents, you know they couldn't really find themselves. But to make matters worse, my dad suffered a heart attack about six months after we immigrated and he went into a double bypass. So he couldn't really find or the jobs he could find. He couldn't stick to them uh, very long and, as a result, we pretty much were going hand to mouth every single month, um.

In israel it's actually pretty common to be in overdraft with your bank. So our overdraft was going from 3 000 to 5 000 to 10 000, eventually, at one point, actually hit 30 000 overdraft, um, which means we were living in debt. We were constantly in debt and, uh, the bank kept on making more and more interest. Uh, and you know, anytime a paycheck would come in, it would cover the debt a little bit. So it would go from minus 30 grand to minus 26, but then over the course of the month it would, you know slide back down yeah.

So, um, basically, let me just mute. My people keep calling me today. So, uh, basically, what ended up happening? Um, my parents said you know, we, we want you to get a good education, but we can't afford it. So we're gonna enlist you in the israeli air force academy. So it was an air force academy where you enroll as a cadet when you're 14 and then you're studying there while wearing a full-on uniform and they train you like a soldier, um, until you graduate. But you graduate with a great diploma and then then companies would want to hire you, which is literally the case in Israel, because Israel has a huge military industrial complex. It has a great Silicon Valley, as you know, and lots of opportunities there. So I did as I was told Again, I put on the uniform, I marched to the tune of my superior, I studied well and I graduated the academy with flying colors, straight A student.

So I became a junior engineer in electronics and I was just about to enlist in the military. Because I now owed the Israeli government four years of military service because of my education, because they subsidized partially my education. My parents only paid roughly 500 a year for my education. Uh, the rest was subsidized by the government, and so when I enlisted, I started meeting all the guys that graduated years before me, which means these are the people who were on the same path that I was, but they were like a few years, a few steps ahead, right, yeah. So I almost like had a glimpse into the future and I didn't like what I saw.

They were still living with their parents years later. They were still saving up for a used, you know beat down car like a, like a Fiat or you know chevy cruze or or something like that. Um, they didn't have a place of their own. They were. They were pretty much still dancing to the tune of their superior. So their superior wanted to see them on a saturday morning. They have to put on the uniform and march and and get.

Stuart: You know go to the base so I didn't.

Igor: It didn't really sit well with me and it didn't make sense to me. Um, I didn't read like, didn't understand what exactly was I putting up with. You know, so much sacrifice, for there was no money, fame, you know, there was nothing that that I could really cling to and say you know what this is, this is it. It's worth the struggle. So I decided to exit that, uh, that path, or that industry, if you will, and I rebelled against everything that I've known at the time, against my parents, against the establishment. I went awol with, uh, with my unit. I stopped.

Stuart: You know they were looking oh, so literally you pulled the plug.

Igor: I went literally yeah, yeah, okay. At one point, mps showed up at my doorstep, put handcuffs on me and took me to an army prison where I spent 24 hours. Then I went into um, into like a courtroom, where some colonel or whatever you know told me that, look, we're gonna forgive you this time, but you need to you know you need to change.

Get together get it together. Igor um, and of course they forgave me because I was trade a student. I was already trained for the air force. I was a valuable uh unit, you know what I mean?

yeah, they invested a lot in me. So I went back, and this time I said you know what I'm still going to get out. This time, though, I'm going to get out through the system, and so I actually had a friend who graduated with me, my classmate David, and David got out. He figured out a way. So it was my very first mentoring experience. He actually mentored me on exactly what to say, what to do, where to go and how to behave in order to get discharged from the service, which I did. Following eight months or so. It took me Okay, and the moment I stepped out of the military, I already had my mindset and what I wanted to do, because years prior, I bumped into the internet marketing industry. I've discovered network marketing. I discovered information marketing. I've actually became a customer for an information marketing business in the dating space. So this company you might have heard of it it's called Double your Dating, yeah, so this company you might've heard of it.

Stuart: It's called Double.

Igor: Your Dating. Back in the day, david D'Angelo, aben Pagan, aka David D'Angelo, the guys like Mr Free and all these, and Craig Clements and all the other guys. They were teaching how to date and how to pick up women. Now, I never really turned into a pickup artist or anything. My body count is, I mean, it's not negative, but it's like really low. However, I've learned enough skills, like I've acquired a skill set to be able to actually talk to women, which for me was a big deal, and I ended up finding my future wife, to whom I'm married today.

So, basically, that industry intrigued me because I've always liked the internet. I've always realized it had the potential. I've used it a lot for pretty much everything. I was part of the generation that was growing up, and you know, with a dial-up modem and you know and all that stuff. So to me, the idea of not having to commute anywhere, not having to answer to a boss and being able to become an entrepreneur, but not having any business, education, capital or any sense of what sort of business I wanted to start or any skill set as far as like selling or marketing or anything else, um on it, because you know, uh, studying the academy, for example, I commuted about three hours a day um to and from the academy because it was located in a different town, so I had to take a cross cross town bus and then another one inner city bus just to get there, um, and then obviously going back home. It's the same thing, uh, but this time with traffic. So, um, so to me that seemed like a good feeling for what you don't want to do.

Absolutely I knew, yeah, I I had no idea what I was going to do, but I had, you know, very precise idea of what I wasn't willing to put up with, and commuting was definitely one of that, one of those. Having a stupid boss was obviously one of those too, and having a limited income. So I wanted to break the link between my time and my income. I didn't want to get paid by the hour. I realized early on that this was a terrible way to make a living. I didn't want to have a stupid boss. I didn't want for anyone to tell me where and when I need to be and what to do. I wanted something that allowed my creativity to shine, that allowed me to maybe solve problems and challenges. Obviously, I mean, I have a junior engineering degree, so I love to solve problems. I was very curious. I always love to learn, and did I mention I hate commuting? I think I mentioned that.

So I stumbled into this amazing industry that had like a gazillion different ways you could make money. But eventually, the way I made money was, first off, through promoting affiliate products, so promoting other people's products and getting paid a commission. But I specifically did it with an email list, which became the platform and the foundation to pretty much everything that I've done since, and it pretty much bulletproofed my income and allowed me to continuously grow and grow and grow and solidify what I was doing, and to this day, I still have income streams I've built this way from like many, many years ago, that continue to pay me every single month. So that is why I ended up writing a book about it and that is why I ended up working with your company to help me do that.

Stuart: The idea of building the email list and the safety that brings with it, because it's an asset that you own and you can continue to develop that relationship over a number of years.

I think the majority of people who we work with aren't necessarily in the affiliate space, but everyone is in the email space and when we think about the idea of conversation starting books versus traditional books, the majority of the purpose, if not all the purpose, is either to build the email list or to further engage the people on those lists.

So it's such a clear I almost wish that people could have more of a understanding of that history and background that you went through in the early days of the internet the likes of Craig and Eben and Dean and Frank and Ed and all of these guys who were there in the very early days Eben and Dean and Frank and Ed and all of these guys who were there in the very early days.

Yes, affiliate marketing was a means to an end for a lot of people, but those fundamental skills, those foundational skills that still applies in just the same way, whether the end product is someone else and your affiliate, or whether it's your product or service and you're trying to build something where you've got a very close relationship and investment with the people, that idea of building the list and then keeping it engaged over a period of time did you start with that in mind or did it start off a little bit more just hey, I need some names on a list in order to put an affiliate product in front of them? Did you have a the longer term view right from the start, or did it kind of morph and develop into that?

Igor: yeah, I've, definitely. I've hasn't. I haven't been like a long-term uh thinking kind of guy at the time. This these days I think a lot deeper about things, of course, but I'm much older and I want to think I'm wiser. But back in the day, um, I'm, I'm just looking to make some money, man. Um, and to be frank with you, I've tried it all. Like, if you, if you look me up and if you can dig deep enough, you'll find I've done some black hat stuff. I've done pretty much every which way there was to try and make money. I've tried it. Some ways succeeded, some ways didn't, but nothing really stuck. Um, when I got into list building, it was only after I realized that.

So, as an affiliate, there's really two ways to make money. Either you run ads or create content and you send people directly to an affiliate program, in which case you don't really you kind of start over every day. So if I've got an ad linking to an affiliate offer and I'm converting and let's say that I'm like getting positive ro which these days is very difficult to do, by the way, nearly impossible, I'd even say, you know, the moment my ad account gets shut down, my ad creative stops working. The affiliate program, you know, gets discontinued or commission, you know, structure changes. I'm done, I'm like I don't have an asset and you know I've always been risk averse. Could be because I'm Jewish. Could be because I've witnessed my family go through periods of you know, feast and famine. You know my dad losing income, my dad going through you know, sickness and illness that prevented him from being a breadwinner Like I know what it's like to literally not know where is the money coming from so we can buy food tomorrow. That was a part of my life growing up, so I was always trying to build something that would stick.

And one of the biggest frustrations online is that most things that get sold to you as a way to make money they're fads. Right, they're fads. They work today, they're gone tomorrow. You know, 10 years ago, everyone's talking about Facebook ads. Eight years ago, everyone's talking about blogging. Six years ago, everyone's talking about Amazon dropshipping. You know, four years ago, everybody's talking about YouTube.

Two years ago now, almost two years ago now, everyone's talking about AI so there's going to be something else tomorrow, but as an affiliate marketer, I obviously kept tabs on all the different people who were let's call them super affiliates people who are making big money with affiliate marketing and it's really hard not to notice them because their names are always on leaderboards. If there's an affiliate launch and you know it's it's really. You know, it's really hard not to notice them because their names are always on leaderboards. If there's an affiliate launch going on, you'd always see the same names on the boards and I was like these people must be doing something.

Stuart: I mean, it's not like they're winning one competition.

Igor: Yeah, they're winning 12 competitions a year and if they're not winning, they're in the top five or top 10 or top 20. A year, and if they're not winning, they're in the top five or top 10 or top 20. And what I've concluded is that they all mail their lists, because anytime there was a new product launch going on, I would get like 20 different emails from 20 different people and then the same names would appear on different leaderboards. So I put two and two together and I said maybe I needed to build a list. So that's how I you know that's what kind of sold me on the concept. Now, that was enough to get me in.

But later, as I further developed and started actually making money and, you know, made my own progress and my own made a splash. With it, more evidence presented itself to then reaffirm my belief. Evidence presented itself to then reaffirm my belief. And then, these days, you know, I can sit here and for the next three hours, bring you so many different examples as to why email is by far the most effective weapon when it comes to online marketing media, how it's producing the highest ry, how it's superior to social media, how it's the only media you actually control as a business owner, because if Trump could get shut down on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and you can too right? How many people got shadow banned? How many people lost ad accounts? The only thing that you actually control and have in your hands is your list. In fact, I'd even go as far as saying your product is not as powerful as your list, because your product can be easily copied. Your sales copy can be easily copied but the list and the relationship you have with it.

It cannot be copied, it cannot be stolen from you and even if you lose your email sending software account or your mailing IP gets blacklisted, it's only a matter of time before you take the same records, you communicate with them and you build yourself back up. So if tomorrow I had to start over and you allowed me to pick just one asset in my entire business that I could take with me, it'd be my list. It wouldn't be my team. It wouldn't be my products. It wouldn't be my graphics. It wouldn't be my products. It wouldn't be my graphics. It wouldn't be my ads or creatives or anything. It will actually be just the people, the email addresses on my email list. If I could keep those, I'd be back making six figures before the end of the week. I'd be back making seven figures in two months.

Stuart: It's such an interesting point because we see so many businesses or talk to so many businesses maybe less so now, although I'm not entirely sure where. They've been in business for a number of years. They've got records of clients, but have zero records of leads, even if they've collected them over the years. Still talk to people who have got records on paper, still talk to people who share stuff, but the only emails they've got are maybe in Outlook or their exchange system. It's.

With all the technology that's around today, I think it's now somewhat easier for people to collect leads. It's not quite such a burden that it was before, but still the number of people who don't or do it at a superficial level or collect but then never stay in touch with people it's it's. It's such a an opportunity that's. That's getting older and older every day, and if people just did a small amount towards it, it would be that incrementally bigger step every time. Why don't we share the book idea, then? Because the book is specifically around email and that list building and the power that's in there. Obviously, the story in the background is why you wanted to share it, because it's got such a profound impact on what you've done. But what was the thinking behind, kind of what ideas to include and the premise what are you really trying to share with people as much as possible?

Igor: so we're talking about this book that eventually I called lisbonian lifestyle Confessions of an Email Millionaire, and actually this title, believe it or not, is a winning subject line split test.

Stuart: Ah, interesting.

Igor: Yeah, just kind of FYI, in case anyone listening is still trying to decide how to call their book. This is how you can know If the subject line is getting more open, then use it as your book title because it's probably going to get more attention on the bookshelf. But the idea for the book came as a result of well, first off, I always knew I had a book in me, that's for sure, because, having been a big student of personal development and I mean having read as many books as I have and recognize that books are the source of knowledge, that it's easily available to you, it's very cheap, so it's probably the best. You know. Dollar for dollar mentoring, you can ever get in any topic, and I continue to read books. Today, obviously, like right now, I'm reading a series of books on back pain, because that's like the issue I'm dealing with for the last few years and kind of trying to better understand, you know, the structure, the pelvis, the different exercises, lifestyle changes I need to make and all that stuff. It comes as a result of someone else's experience. That's in a book.

So I always wanted to publish a book. I never knew how to do it and, to be frank with you, I've always procrastinated about writing it because I didn't feel like, like who am I to publish a book? And I think I think my thinking was backwards. Because you know, you look at the likes of Tony Robbins, robin Sharma, dean Graziosi or a number of other experts. Doesn't matter who they are, they all have books. You know, some of them have 20 books, 30 books, 40 books, 50 books. You know guys like Dan Kennedy, who I'm a big, big, big fan of. You know he's got like a gazillion books, half of which he didn't even write, and I always thought that to write a book you need to be a somebody.

But the reality is you become somebody after you've published a book. By publishing a book, you go from being nobody or a guy with a service or a guy with a skill to being an author. So that in itself transitions you from here's all the mortals, here's all the other plumbers in your area, and you're a plumber who actually published the book. So you're an author and that puts you socially speaking. You know that puts you in a different class. Now, if you can also sell lots of copies of your book, then you're now a best-selling author and that's like the best. Because if you're a best-selling author, automatically everything you say and do becomes impressive, becomes legitimate, becomes attractive. And this is why celebrities get paid lots of money to just show up at a club and drink some vodka because they're celebrities. So in your niche market, publishing a book and selling lots of copies of that book makes you important.

Stuart: People listen to you, people take you seriously that credibility and authority that comes from having it. It still surprises me that, just because you've got these exact same words are printed on a dead tree. Those same words in this format are so much more credible than the exact same words in a YouTube video, on a blog post, in an article. Even the electronic version of it, it still carries a lot of that weight and, just as you said, trying to differentiate yourself in your own niche, it's not like you're trying to compete with Tony Robbins. It's that you, as a plumber, are trying to compete with Tony Robbins. It's that you, as a plumber, are trying to compete with Bob, the other plumber down the road, and to have that thing that separates in something that's relatively straightforward to create, particularly using the process that that we've got. We're trying to streamline that as much as possible.

But, uh, break away from the the confidence thing, as you said, and understand that. Your knowledge you don't have to be a celebrity in order to write, particularly when we're dealing with real world businesses the knowledge that you've got from being in business for any time more than a year. You've got so much helpful stuff in your head that the reader would be delighted to have that understanding. It really shouldn't that that confidence or credibility gap comes afterwards. It doesn't have to come before in order to do something yeah, and so, uh, to me there was also practical.

Igor: Besides the authority that will come with the book, there was a practical application, and that is you. People ask me what I do all the time. People ask me to teach them what I do all the time. So when you have to tell the same story and teach the same stuff over and over again, at some point you ask yourself is there a better way to just deliver the message, because I'm like a broken record, saying the same thing over and over again just to people change. So you put it in a book and next time somebody asks you what you do or if you can teach me, you're like yeah, here's my book.

Go buy the book and read the book. At the very least it sets great groundwork, great foundation for a discussion later. Now, from a business standpoint, having a book made a lot of sense because it's another way to generate leads, it's a way to win authority with people and it's a way to create like a new pathway or doorway into my world, which is exactly what I've done with that book. It became one of my funnels, so I don't know if the audience is familiar with the word, but I'm assuming they are.

So it became one of the funnels, so I don't know if the audience is familiar with the word, but I'm assuming they are. Yeah, yeah, um, so it became one of the funnels and, uh, for several years now it's been one of the go-to funnels in my universe. That continues to bring, uh, high quality clients I think as well.

Stuart: Like you said, there's so many options to use it as the jumping off point to get access into your world. So, meeting people, cold traffic, email list landing pages, podcast appearances anytime where you get the opportunity for people to say, tell me more. That tell me more can be answered within a book that starts to deliver value and move the conversation down a path that you want the conversation to go down. Obviously, there's a structure and a narrative to the book that leads people from a question at the beginning to a next step at the end. So the job of work that it does, of predisposing people to take that next step, there's just so many positives for it. In that use case where you want to move people from a tell me more to a let's do business with each other, where you want to move people, from tell me more to let's do business with each other.

Igor: Yeah, I think if we can sum it all up in one sentence, your book is just a great business card. You know, when somebody sticks you a business card at a seminar, you just put it in your back pocket and throw it in the trash later.

Stuart: If somebody ships you a copy of their book, that that tells a different story, you know. Yeah, actually the physical copy is in the the gift giving element of it to amplify that beginning part of the conversation. It's one of the use cases that I love most when I hear people saying that they had a list of the 10 people that they'd really been trying to get in touch with and the book was the door opener sent a copy, followed up with them, made it personal, made a connection between you, the business, and the author and them and what their challenges are. It just accelerates that conversation so much faster than than anything else I can think of, because even things like gift giving and the kind of you talk about, dan kennedy, before the kind of bulky mail type, get past the gatekeeper approach. I mean all of those things have some degree of effect, but there's nothing as personal. I mean there is a.

It's crazy because we always say the book isn't the product, the conversation is the product. But as far as the the book goes, there is a reverence still around books. Don't drop books on the floor, don't crease them and bend them. Put them on the shelf like the book goes. There is a reverence still around books. Don't drop books on the floor. Don't crease them and bend them. Put them on the shelf. Take care of these things. What else could you send to someone without getting crazy on the budget? But what else could you send to someone that would have the same amount of care taken around it than a book and then?

Igor: it was your book. There is an argument to be made about that. For example, one of my joint venture partners, uh, last month I've sent him a set of whiskey glasses and uh, but that's because I knew he likes whiskey and I'm very pleased with that. Um, however, like you said, like a book is the great door opener, especially if you're trying to land more appearances, like podcasts and whatnot. They might want to interview you if you have a skill or something interesting to say, but they will most definitely like to interview with you if you are an author, or especially a big author, or at least sold a few thousand copies of your book, or maybe your book caught their attention for whatever reason. You see it all the time. And there's also the practical application, once you've landed the interview, to actually give away a copy of your book to the people in the audience. So, if you're making a speech at a seminar, you're making a web appearance, a summit. Making a speech at a seminar, you're making a web appearance, a summit. You know, a book is just a great way to establish that relationship and say hey, if you liked to talk today, you know, go check out the book, grab it here, and you send them to a page where they can, you know, get the book. And, of course, we mentioned this earlier.

For me, everything that I do, no exception, like every move that I make is the first goal is to make to generate a list to get that subscriber right. So, with the book I have, I get the email address, obviously unless they buy it on Amazon. If they buy on Amazon, I get nothing. But you know, I'm getting the email address, the physical address, the telephone number. I get a lot of information the email address, the physical address, the telephone number. I get a lot of information about my customer, which allows me to then establish a relationship with them, which is why, you know, when I do advertise my book, I never send people to buy it on Amazon. I send them to buy it on my website, because, even though I'm pretty sure that if more people knew about my book on Amazon, it would benefit me in terms of exposure and publicity, it's only when they buy it through my website, and actually my website, they'll get it for free. They'll just chip in on shipping and handling this is when I'm going to quote unquote, get a customer.

Stuart: Because that's the real purpose, Right, and that's our exact approach as well. It's so much more about the opportunity to start the conversation with someone, which is caption details in order to be able to follow up, rather than sales on Amazon, because who cares if you're the? I mean not who cares completely, but relatively speaking, if you could only pick one, you could get someone's name and email address, or you could get another check in the box that would put you to be a bestseller in some subcategory for five minutes. The email address is going to be more valuable. You were talking about getting a copy on the website. Do you have a take on the difference between just allowing someone to download the digital copy in exchange for an email address versus a physical copy for name, physical address and phone number?

Igor: name, physical address and phone number. Yeah, I always insist on sending the physical copy. However, with it, I'll still email them the digital copy of the book if they don't want to wait until it arrives. And the reason is, even if they don't read my book, um, if there's a physical copy somewhere in the house, I don't care if it's, even if it's in the toilet it's something they know, it's there that gives me credibility points, that gives me authority points.

I'm not just some guy, right, I'm a guy they bought a book from and that's that's. That's different. Um, you know, when I started, uh, you know everybody was giving away ebooks. So over time it sort of got devalued. You know everybody was giving away eBooks, so over time it sort of got devalued. You know how many times did you download an eBook and you barely flipped it open. You said, yeah, I'll get to it, and never got to it. You know, with a book you still you may get by the book, not read it. I mean, I'm guilty of that as much as anyone else I have tons of books that the shrink wrap is still on.

But I know the name of the author and the author is elevated in my in my universe actually that's a great point and something.

Stuart: So we're for simplicity, mainly because the physical fulfilling of of stuff is difficult for people to get a handle on. So, for simplicity, we're usually talking to people about the digital versions. Funnily enough, you said that everyone gave away e-books and that was devaluing it. Right from the start we've always told people to never call it an e-book. An e-book is not quite a derogatory term, but it's unnecessarily devaluing giving someone the digital copy of the book, which psychologically positions it different.

But to your point, the fact that someone actually physically receives something and that it is there, taking up space in the house and it physically exists in their space, there is an extra level of psychological anchoring to that. And someone receiving an email from you, having received a digital copy, is one thing. Someone receiving an email and the book is sat on a shelf somewhere, even if they don't read it, that's something else. So it is an interesting. There is definitely, I agree, an anchoring element to the the physical part of it that you don't get in the digital sense. And it might be worth, as we're talking to people talking a little bit more about because, practically speaking, now fulfilling orders is easier than it used to be years ago.

Igor: Yeah, but this was a big fear of mine because I had no idea how to physically fulfill and when I started doing my research I would reach out to different printing shops and whatnot and it would scare me and they would say, yeah, we can fulfill it. Six dollars and 27 cents per book, plus three, you know 55 cents shipping posting, and if it's outside of wisconsin, then it's, you know, three dollars and then they would say like but you have to pre-order 2 000 books, right?

I have no idea if I'm going to ever sell 2,000 books. You're kidding me. What am I supposed to do? But that was back in the day, meaning it was hard and you could go that route. But today you don't have to. I fulfilled my book through Amazon. They have a great I would call it publish on demand service. Through your author profile you can log in, send out author copies anytime you want and you will go through the Amazon's distribution network, which is very fast. But you can also use other services. For example, right now we're using a service called lulucom and they print, they ship it.

I don't touch it, I don't like. I have only one copy of the book here, just so I can show it off when I'm getting interviewed like this. Maybe a few copies for friends and family. If I look somewhere behind me, there's a little cupboard there, but other than that I don't really have books.

I don't have a warehouse full of books. You used to have to have that. You don't have to do that now. You print on demand. It's a little bit more expensive to print on demand as opposed to pre-order 2 000 units, so your cost per book goes from like six dollars a book to eight dollars a book or nine dollars a book, uh like in my case actually over 10 bucks, because I choose to print it on a really nice like with a really nice cover, high quality paper. You know that's just my preference, but you know it's still very cheap. Like it's not. It doesn't require millions of dollars. You don't need to rent out a warehouse. You don't need to sacrifice your garage and fill it up with like stacks of books, and it's all remote all automated.

You don't have to do anything yourself. It's all fulfilled automatically through established channels that already exist, because you're just piggybacking on the same services that thousands of other authors are using right now yeah, it's such a great point, isn't it?

Stuart: it's very difficult to keep abreast of things when you're not involved day to day. So that concern that I mean we've spoken to authors that we've worked with who've done books elsewhere, and then they've been locked into buying a thousand at a time and then they're the example you used of sat in the garage and doing nothing. So it's difficult to stay ahead of the, the technologies that change it, but that's definitely not. Um, things move on and it's it to be able to fulfill things where it makes sense that a physical version is going to do a lot more of the heavy lifting than a digital version. There's, yeah, so many more options now.

Um, I want to make sure that we get a chance to dive into the, the ideas behind the book itself and the things that people can uh, the ideas that you're kind of sharing. So this approach of the money is in the list and staying in touch with that list and understanding what the opportunities are. If someone's saying, hey, you go, what do you do? And you point them to the book, what are the kind of things you really hope that they're going to take from it in order to take that next? Well, get something for themselves and take that next step with you.

Igor: You know I was creating this, so this book is the third book I've created, meaning that it's the third version of this book that ended up getting published because the first two weren't good enough. The first version of the book that I wrote was over 35,000 words and it was like a practical, technical manual on doing what I do. I basically took the courses that I teach and put them in a book with screenshots and links and everything, and I realized it wasn't good for a book, because all the books that I've appreciated, that I've read in my life books like Never Split the Difference, books like 80-20 Sales and Marketing, dan Kennedy's books they weren't necessarily dry teaching, practical sort of books. They were story-based, principle-based creations, creations. And so I had to go and sort of I took the initial manual I created and I actually turned into a digital product that I sold and I still sell it to this day, actually at a price more expensive than the book. But the book, I had to sit down and rewrite it and actually tell my story.

Now, for me it wasn't very difficult to do because by that time I've already done lots and lots of public speaking. So I've appeared on webinars, seminars, podcasts. I have my own podcast under the same name. So I'm used to telling my story, expressing ideas, and so the book is the expression of that. It takes people through my journey and the lessons I learned along the way, and eventually it puts them in a position where either they like the journey and they want to make the same journey, in which case they can dive deeper into my universe through additional resources that are in the book, or they read it and they and they don't want to dive in, and they just, you know, stay on my email list to kind of stay up to date with what I'm up to, but other than that, they don't necessarily take a step forward and escalate further yeah, and it might be that today is not the day for them, but six months, two years, five years down the track.

Stuart: Yeah, that's actually really true.

Igor: We ran a promotion last week for a program we have for the cost, like let's put it as high you know, five figure fee. And what's really interesting, I've had lots of people who bought my book three years ago, four years ago, two years ago, actually apply. It's like they were sitting on the list for a long, long time before they finally decided to put the trigger. I once spoke to a friend of mine who I consider to be one of the best direct response marketers of our time right now, my friend Caleb Adowd, and he wrote actually a great book recently and released it which I highly recommend, called Monetization, and so he talks about how the buying cycle, or the buyer's interest or the client's interest, resets like a clock, like a 24-hour clock.

Now, for people it might be different. Time frames could be three months, six months, 12 months, 10 years, but you have to imagine it like a clock that basically goes from cold, warm, warmer, hot, red, hot and then cold again, so it's like resets every 24. But 24 hours can mean different things to different people. So if somebody ain't ready to transact with you right now, it doesn't mean that six months down the road, three months down the road, two years down the road, they're not going to be ready to pull the trigger, which is again brings us back to the power having an email list, because all this time, throughout the last, you know, let's say, four years, these people were getting emails from me. They were getting promotions from me. They were, you know, being kept up to date with what I'm up to. They were apparently just waiting for the perfect offer that would come in at the perfect time. That would correlate with the perfect time in their life for them to take action and that our personal experience is exactly the same.

Stuart: So, because our business isn't, um, we're not plumbers where the pipes are leaking and someone needs it fixing, today, writing a book even from a marketing perspective, there's no, every day that passes by is a missed opportunity, because it's it's like a river of possible clients. They're always passing by. You don't get a chance to refish in the same spot again, but it's not like there's a leak and the water's coming in the door so people can. The thing that they're losing out on by not acting today is opportunity cost, not actual physical cost. So we've got many, many, many people who five, ten years later now, because we've been doing this for so long people on the list for that period of time.

I always enjoy telling the story of a good friend of ours, kenny, who's kenny mccarthy. He's a realtor up in in boston area and he purged his list because he's impatient sometimes and he purged anyone who hadn't. There was no sign of life, so no kind of open signal in the crm, purged them off for no good reason whatsoever, um, and then six months later got a phone call from a guy. He had the voicemail. Uh. So when he was down in florida a couple of years ago and was playing it. He played us the message and the message read something like hey, kenny, it's bob here. I'm sorry, I don't know what I've done. I must have done something to get off your list. Anyway, we've been receiving your messages for a few years now.

Unfortunately, my sister passed away earlier this year, so we're we're going to sell her house and our house and then we look for another house to buy. So this transaction turned into two sales of beachfront homes like multi-million dollar listings each of them and the purchase of a new home. And if it wasn't for the diligence of this person digging, it gets even funnier because they actually had to phone another realtor in the area to get kenny's number. So I always laugh because I imagine that story. It's the real transfers the phone and oh hi, it's bob here, I need to sell a couple of my houses, and it really says oh, fantastic, how can I help you? Well, do you have kenny's phone number?

Igor: oh, yeah, so anyway it wasn't for, oh, kenny died, oh, he died, and I took over, you know we call them we call them upstream, leads, you know, like salmon who swim upstream to go swim and swim and swim.

Stuart: Yeah, exactly, but for every one of those, how many wouldn't go through that step? They try oh he was that guy again, and then it's just gone, so that long term you never know when the time is for them. There's on investment and treating building a list rather than a marketing expense, treating it as a capital investment because there is some future value in that list that's quantifiable.

Igor: And you know, if any of the listeners are experiencing the same issue, where they don't see the list opening clicking, then I have a network of people actually who are specialists at email deliverability, email campaigns, who can help bring it back to life.

Stuart: So you know hit me up, I'll connect you.

Yeah, actually that's a great point as well. It's in the weeds, but the technical changes that have happened even this year, I mean it's pretty dramatic and if you don't keep up on them, if your software provider doesn't keep up on them, it's not the case anymore that hey, I've got a list and I've seen that every email is going to be received. You actually do have to do some care and maintenance and jump through some technical steps. So, yeah, I think actually that's a great point, as people are listening, if it is worth saying check your delivery system, if you've seen that the delivery start to fall off, it is a sign that there are some technical steps you can take to kind of relive and that and reach out.

Um, that's probably a great point. I just glanced at the clock as we were talking and every episode I tell people it goes way faster than I always think it does. Um, that's probably a good point to make sure that we can get people connected with you and and share where they can find out more. So what's a good place for people to go?

Igor: yeah, you can go to my website. It's igorkfedscom. Or you can just google my name, I'm sure a lot of stuff will come up, or and or you can also check out my book list building lifestyle confessions of an email millionaire. Um, and this book, you can either get it on amazon uh, you can actually get it with kindle unlimited for free because it's part of that whole hub um, however, I would love for you to go to egordsbookcom and get it there. Uh, chip in on shipping and handling. If you're in the us, it's going to be 10 bucks. If you're're outside of the US, anywhere outside of the US, it's going to be 20 bucks, and I will ship you a physical copy of the book. I will give you the digital version of the book, the Audible version, professionally narrated, which you can obviously get this book on Audible if you wanted to as well, and also, in addition to all of that, $3,200 of bonuses that include landing page templates, email training, traffic training and so on, just to help you build your list better. And again, the reason I'm doing that is because I'm ethically bribing you to get it off of my website so I can put you on my list, because if you get it on Amazon.

Unfortunately, they don't share your email address with me. Now guess why? Because they know how valuable it is. If you ever got emails from amazon, be like hey, but you know this is in your cart, but did you know that people who buy that thing also buy all these things? You know? Or you know you bought this but goes well with all these things. So amazon knows. Amazon emails every day, sends me specific emails with books recommendations, sends me emails with my shopping cart suggestions.

Amazon knows better than anyone else that email is the way to go. By the way, when you think about email, if you're still not convinced that email is king, think about it. If you're doing any real estate transactions, the contract you sign it in your email. If you're applying for a visa in a different country, your appointment set is set through email. Amazon will send you shipping notification via email. It'll send you a receipt via email. Anything that's important, anything that's transactional channel, it goes to your email. A government notification, a bill from from some company, like a utility utility bill, it can. It all goes to your email, uh, so keep that in mind next time you're thinking that you should be building your tiktok following instead of I mean the interesting thing going forward as well as that becomes so much more of a repository of your life.

Stuart: I mean, my first email address was 1996, probably. So what's that? Coming up on 30 years of email history, predominantly in the same mailbox? That as a source of your life and your history. Going forwards, all of the social media interactions you've got disappear. Text messages are difficult to mine.

The fact that you use email, or people use email as a repository to go back and find information if I remember I was talking to someone about a list building book. What was it? Let me search my email. That's the power of having being able to deliver your message into that, that box, both on the long term and the short term. So, yeah, I completely agree.

There's so much of all the activities that you could do making sure that you get the email game down and start the conversations with people through that channel, by far the most valuable. Um, I'll make sure that I put links to the website in the show notes so, as people are listening to it, they can just go to the show notes on the on the podcast player or on the website and just click straight through and, as you say, the benefits are twofold. There's the bonuses that are going to be specifically useful for people, but also just to get on your list and see what you're sending as a way of kind of modeling behavior and getting inspired to do more of the same. That's where the real return is going to come yeah, a lot of people do that.

Igor: You'd be surprised. A lot of people spy on me and get my before that, which you know. I guess it's a form of flattery. And also I encourage you, if you're an author, go through my book funnel, because the actual book purchase is just the start of it. You know you want to have a full funnel behind it, so check it out. I've put a lot of work into it, so it's not nothing about that. Funnel is accidental right.

Stuart: Actually, that's such a great point. It's the be inspired by good examples of what you see other people do and then be classy about how much you copy it.

Igor: Steal like an artist.

Stuart: Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah. Do it enough that you get the laudits for it and not the criticism? Time goes so fast, as always, igor. We'll have to do this again sometime and dive in a little bit deeper. Thank you everyone listening. I'll put links to ego's book down in the show notes, so definitely recommend clicking through ego again. Thanks for your time, really appreciate it and look forward to catching up on the next one my pleasure.

Igor: Thank you for having me.