Mastering Online Marketing Strategies with Rich Schefren

Learn from the greatest marketing minds in business, media and entertainment. This is Marketing Legends. Here's your host, Matt Lights.

What is happening, friend? We have got one heck of an episode for you today, Mr. Rich Sheffrin, the man that practically put Internet marketing on the map. Somebody I've learned so much from over the years. And if you're interested in not only knowing how to market at a whole nother level, we're talking about billion dollar deal kind of level, but to be able to learn how to get more things done in less time, that you're going to want to hear this thing to the very end. And if you want to go grab some bonuses, go on over to marketinglegends.com rich so with that, let's get it on. All right, Mr. Rich Shafrin. What is happening, my man?

Nothing much, my friend. I keep getting alerts on my phone that a hurricane's coming. But other than that, life is good.

We better talk fast. Well, here's where I want to start is with a really big thank you, Rich, because I think the year was probably 2006, maybe 2007. That was one of the very first PDFs that I ever downloaded in my career. And from this, you know, I haven't stopped yet. So thank you for that. I would love, because correct me if I'm wrong, this was a pretty major breakthrough in, in your career, was it not? The, the manifesto.

Yeah, totally. You know, I, I was, I've been working with Agora like as an outside consultant for, since 2004 and did a couple of coaching programs with Jay Abraham in 2003 and 4. But, but started personally coaching in 2005 and coached a lot of names that people would know today, but just because, but those weren't well known names back then. And, and so I had a coaching program, I had maybe like 25, 30 people in it and I had a project actually that I was really excited about that was happening in three months. And I had just finished my coaching program and so I had this three month window and you know, I, the idea of not making much money for those next three months was not that exciting and I didn't really have much to do either. And so I was really kind of. My coaching program up until that point had been like a year long program. And at one point it occurred to me that maybe I could compress it down to 11 weeks so, you know, take 12 months worth and put it down into 11 weeks. And then I was hoping like I could get like maybe a dozen clients and If I could get a dozen clients, then, you know, money would still be coming in and I'd stay busy and then I'd have the Agora thing in three months and everything would be wonderful. And so I wrote that report and really had no idea what to expect. And really they're like in. If I was to have a book about my life, it's a very different book from before that manifesto to after that manifesto because, you know, it was downloaded millions of times and within a few weeks it was downloaded like 35, 40,000 times, which was a lot. Back in 2006, website was actually on Alexa, it was like 492 and Wimbledon was like 500 and something. And that was when Wimbledon was going on. And yeah, ended up bringing in like three and a half million dollars like within a few weeks. And really my whole life changed. I went from, you know, John Reese was really the well known, like top of the food chain Internet marketer. I kind of bumped him in 2006 and I'd say I held that until 2008. And then Frank Kern bumped me in 2008. But yeah, my life totally changed. I went from having like one assistant to having a team of 25. And you know, we then quickly kind of adjusted because there was too much demand and there were no elearning platforms back then. So, yeah, you know, the only ones that were like multimillion dollar platforms. So we ended up doing two versions of the coaching program. One where I was actually coaching one on one and then. And the most people I could take was 150. But by the time we took down the page, there were still a lot of people cashed on the page. We didn't even think about that. So we ended up, I ended up coaching 187 people and then we quickly created an automated version of it, but we used a forum where basically we would unlock a thread each month.

Right.

And then we went to work on building the first elearning platform and had that built like I think within four or five months. A drip content kind of thing that actually would not longer would drip out content each month for each module. And that we, when we opened up, we put a thousand people in and I guess the rest is history, right?

Yeah, and. And I just. Those kind of stories I think are so valuable for people to hear because it's so many times it's like you're doing things and maybe they're going well, but success does come in those massive breakthroughs like that, which I think is just so encouraging for people to hear that, it's like, boom, you know, to go from having one assistant to 25 employees pretty much overnight. And once you had it, you were smart enough to go, let's just drill this thing as deep as we can, right? Like, and maybe we have other plans, but it's like, how do we just monetize it? How do we serve more people? How do we do more stuff? What. And one of the things that I took away from this, first of all, it. If you guys haven't read it, I don't know if it's still online or not, but they can't find this manifesto. You can find it.

So many people also find it anywhere. So, yeah, it's totally fine. It's.

I mean, it's been. It's been reprinted, redone, it ripped off.

But it.

I think the first thing is just to really think about everything as a system, right? It's just. It's kind of gives you that way of thinking, and it. And it stops and just throws it all out on the table. It's like, hey, guess what? You know, like, you got to do all this stuff. Because I think so many of these gurus these days, Rich, are like, you know, hey, just do this one little thing. And, you know, no, you gotta do literally all of the things, and you don't have to do them. Somebody has to do them. But in order to do that, you gotta make it into a system. So do you still kind of think along these lines and how can people reprogram themselves a little bit rather than just thinking about tasks or doing things, actually building a business?

Yeah, I would say even to step back for a second, but I'll be glad to answer that. Another big lesson in that report is really that, like I said, I had no idea that it would have the impact that it did, both in the world and also for myself personally. But something that I recognized from that report and why it did so well then, and I wrote six or seven more reports over the next 18 months, was that I was writing that report to my former self. And, you know, I keep a journal, and I've kept a journal for, like, 30 years. And one of the things that I've taught ever since that is that that which is most personal is most general. And what I mean by that is that the things that most people feel they're completely alone with, that they don't ever want to talk about, are the same things that everyone else is dealing with and also not talking about. And so a lot of the manifesto came from my Journal. And so I was very kind of familiar. Like, even the diagram, like, when I was first, the first seeds of that diagram came in my journal when I was bitching in my journal about, like, trying to get all this stuff done because I had been successful offline and I was now struggling online. And I couldn't understand, like, why had I been successful before and not now. And so I started to, like, list out all the things I was doing. And you know, before I was online, I had a clothing company, I had a music company, and I had a hypnosis company. And none of those businesses that I feel the need to be doing all the things in that business. But yet for some reason when I got online, I just kind of had amnesia that I had to do everything. And so that, like, kind of shift. But, you know, if people want to figure out, like, where their strongest message is, is in marketing, they need to and they're a customer in their own market, then thinking through, like, the pain and the struggle that they went through is often the seeds of, like, great marketing campaigns. And yeah, when it comes to systems, it's more, I like to, you know, well, I'd say I did a lot of coaching on systems back back then. I, I, you know, nowadays it's much more strategy and, and marketing strategy. But with systems especially, like, people would come to me and they'd want to systematize something that they'd never done yet, which to me was always ridiculous. Like, you don't, yeah, go through all the effort and trouble to create a system until you can get the results. So the first time you get the results, it's about being scrappy, duct taping stuff together just to see if you get the outcome. But once you get the outcome, then it's about, yeah, turning it into a repeatable process. And it's also looking at every breakdown in your business, any problem, any challenge, any issue as a breakdown in a system. So, you know, it's like, I think I even talked about it in that report, but if I didn't, I talked about it in the next one that, you know, I hired this guy that was like my tech guy, Alex, who wasn't so great. And, and so, you know, one way of looking at that is that we just had a mishre and it's, you know, Alex is a moron or whatever. And if that was the way I've looked at it, then the likelihood of me potentially repeating the problem, like hiring another technical person that wasn't that great would be much higher than if I looked at it as a breakdown in the system. Like what was it that allowed us to hire someone that wasn't great, not pick up on it really fast, et cetera. And how can I redesign the process so that the likelihood of that happening again does not. And, and so I find that that's where systemization really gets really powerful. When you look at the problems in your business as breakdowns and systems and address problems that way so that when you fix it, the likelihood of it happening again is very small. And then I would say the other big thing that as it relates to systems is that once you create a system, you know, thinking through how can it be ever improving. So it's an extra couple steps, but what can we do with this system? So there's some kind of feedback loop that consistently has us look at improvement mechanisms for this process. And I think if people kind of grasp those two things, it makes a big difference long term in their growth and in the likelihood of building a business that ultimately doesn't suck their life away totally.

Especially for the things that matter the most. Right. Like some things you're going to just, hey, let's make a bullet point list. And we just have this as an sop. And one of the small things that we've always done that I'd highly recommend is any, any process that's happening in your business. We just create a Google Doc for everything and we just label it so P dash whatever it is. So you can at any point find anything very easily. And then like Rich said, I think that's brilliant. Like the most important things, if it's your sales process or your marketing campaigns, like maybe you set something in your calendar once a month to revisit. So we're actually making sure that we are, you know, not just using the same thing. Because what happens is a lot of times these systems get worse with time. You know, it's like they don't, they don't improve without that effort. They just kind of, you know, new people come in. And I'm seeing this now that I'm working with larger organizations which is like, oh, okay, they new guy number 472 didn't get the memo over here. So there needs to be more checks and balances as you grow. Yeah, totally, absolutely love that. And one thing I want to say that I want to give you credit and thanks for is in, in the, the Internet Business manifesto was the first time that somebody really introduced this concept of a magic number or really having a target. And it's seems so simple and it seems like, but if you get nothing else from. From this podcast, and please speak about the magic number a little bit, Rich, because it's been huge for me. And I just think that too many times, it's just sort of an afterthought, you know, like, what are we running after? But. But how. How big? I mean, because that really is a key element of this thing. It's like, well, I mean, design it around your target.

I. And tell me if you agree or disagree, and totally fine if you disagree. For me, what I thought was the most impactful part of that is that I needed a way when I was coaching clients to have them start making better decisions. And. And, you know, someone might be making. And I'm just like, let's say they're making $100,000 a year and they want to make $1 million a year. But, yeah, to make $1 million a year, you have to make very different decisions. And the problem with that is that if they start making decisions like they make $1 million today, it's often problematic because they just don't have the resources necessarily to back that up. Right. You know, and because if they were making $1 million a year, they probably would do almost nothing themselves. It would pay for them to have almost everything done by other people. But they're not making a million dollars right now. So how do we kind of, right, bridge that gap, right, between the million they want to make and the 100,000 that they're at today? And if I remember correctly, because, you know, I wrote it a long time ago, I haven't looked at it in a long time, but I suggested to people that they kind of take 10% of the difference. And, you know, if people want to be more aggressive, they could take 20% of the difference and add that to their base. Right? So if they want to make a million, let's say we are adding 20%. So they would go to 300,000 and then use that number, break it back down into an hourly number. And now anything below that number, they really shouldn't be doing anything that they can get done for.

Right.

Or less than that number, they shouldn't be doing. And so to me, I think most people have thought about, you know, the top number that they're shooting for, but you can't really make decisions based on that because it's too much of a stretch. You know, it's kind of similar.

Wrap your head around it.

Yeah, sure. You know, well, and it's like I, when I spent a lot of time coaching entrepreneurs, the Other area that I. It kind of parallels it, but very different approach to getting the outcome. And I wrote about this, I think, in the Entrepreneurial Emergency, which was the very last report I wrote that one. So a lot of times people would spend and, you know, maybe life is a little bit different now for some, I don't know for all, but definitely, maybe not as many people struggle with this. But I'm not even sure I would talk to entrepreneurs who spent way too much time in front of their computer. Way too much time, like at their office kind of working. Right. And for many of them, that led to a high degree of inefficiency because they knew that they were going to be there. So things weren't acted in a on in a way that, you know, would be highly efficient. Right. Some things would be put off. They always had time to do miscellaneous things that didn't move the number, etc. And so, you know, I'd have clients actually, you know, figure out how many hours a day are they actually productive. And it's generally pretty little. Right. Like, so let's say you're at the office 10 hours a day. Right. You get two hours of really solid work done. Yeah. Know, work that is actually advancing the business. You know, you're 20% effective. And it's almost impossible for someone who's 20% effective to make decisions at an 80% effective rate. Like, they're just, they don't even know how to operate. Right. So what I would always suggest and had quite a few clients take me up on the challenge was like, okay, you're only getting two hours of work done a day. Let's cut down your time to two and a half hours a day or three hours a day. And the first day they got close to nothing done. Right. And they panic. The second day they get a little bit more done. By the third, fourth, fifth day, what starts happening is they start making very different decisions. Because if they stay true to, like not working any more than that time.

Yeah.

Because, you know, a call comes in and they don't take it because they know that they've only got a limited amount of time right now to get their work done. Or an employee says, do you have a few minutes? And the answer is no, because I got to get this work done. And so by kind of compressing time, it kind of forces decisions to start changing. And then when someone starts operating at a much higher level, then slowly starting to add back time so that they can operate at that level long term. Different approach to the magic number but same idea that like the natural way of operating leads to the average results, which are really poor. And most people don't have the experience of what it's even like to be a high functioning entrepreneur with their time, with their goals, et cetera. And so when I was doing a lot of coaching back then, my goal was to kind of help entrepreneurs kind of get operating at that level as quickly as possible. Right. So one was the magic number one was this idea of compressing time all in an effort to, to get them to operate differently. And I'd say like, and I know I'm going on a long tirade here, but like this last man.

And you know, this is for me, this is like therapy. So I'm. Don't, don't stop. This is great.

So the other thing, the big mistake. So, you know, so many of the things I taught back then are pretty like well known now, which is cool, right? Like, yeah, you know, I mean, I taught back then, like, build a business around your strengths, you know, that's common.

Give away your best stuff. I think that was like, yeah, totally.

But one thing that hasn't, which kind of surprises me because I think it's one of the most powerful and it might be because I, because it also just resonates deeply with me, but I also saw the impact on a lot of clients, so it's not just me, is that I think most people, when they design their business, they design their business around some mythical version of themselves. Like that doesn't have the flaws, the problems that they have. Right. So I'm a perfectionist. I'm a procrastinator.

Yes.

And it would be foolish for me to design a business that pretended I was not right. Like, and one of the reasons why I always like wrote reports and then sold a program behind it, first live and then automated it is because I couldn't be trusted to create a program like by myself and then bring it out. Yeah, yeah, longer. So I'm also not that money motivated. And so like, it would be wrong, but a business needs to be money motivated. Right? Like a money, like money is like, you know, it's like Monopoly, right? When there's no money, the game is over. Right. And so, so, you know, I always would help my clients, but anyone can do this, is get really clear about what their flaws are and then ask themselves the question, how is a business going to be successful when the person on top has these flaws? So like, you know, with the money thing, since I wasn't money motivated, it was like, how Do I get my team to pick up that slack? And so I had very aggressive profit sharing. Everyone got the financial statements every week. There was, you know, the. The profit sharing was paid the month after, so very soon after, right? Every month and every week. Like, the team got together on Fridays. I was mostly not at those meetings. And they were looking at, where do we stand this month? And how do we boost profits? Because it made a big difference for them, you know, with the products. I had to put myself in an environment where there was public pressure and the risk of, like, having to refund millions of dollars in order to get the stuff done. So I find that most people don't do that, that they design this business thinking that their problems are going to be somehow magically resolved. My therapist back then told me that that's an escape than it. To not have to change. But I know how difficult personal change is, and I'd rather bank my business success on who I am today than who I'd like to be someday. And I still am somewhat of a perfectionist and procrastinator. So I think if I had waited, maybe I wouldn't have succeeded.

You know, I. I think that that is brilliant advice. And the only way, in my opinion, that it works, and this is something else that I heard you say once, is you hear the advice. Think of it as a marathon. As a marathon. Like, but. But I think you and I are similar, that we look at it as a series of sprints. You know, it's like. Like, if there's not a gun in my head, you know, I'm not going to get it done. And I try to tell, you know, it's like, you're going to give me something else on my to do list. I'm going to get it done in, like, 2026. Like, I don't care. But, you know, if I got to come onto a podcast, you better believe that research is going to be done. Or if I, you know, if we're going live, you know, when the. When the curtain goes up, you got to dance. So I think anything that. Because, you know, you. I appreciate you calling yourself a perfectionist and a procrastinator, but I think that that's a pretty general tendency of most people.

Yeah, I would.

And unless you've got to have a reason, like, why does it have to happen? And it's. I mean, it's. It's. It's the same thing in marketing. It's the same thing as sales. You know, like, nobody does something at their leisure. It's Got to be a reason why does that happen right now? So I, I hope that everybody goes back and listens to what Rich said two times or three times if needed, because that is an absolute game changer.

Yeah. And I also just. The compound on what you said, like, yeah, I definitely have always approached work as a series of sprints as opposed to a marathon, which means I'm willing to work really hard, but then I'm also going to take a bunch of time off as well. And that's just what works for me, like, being an ADD brain and stuff like that. But it's also, I think, more necessary today than ever before because it, you know, in order to at least reap the maximum rewards, you have to stand out. You have to, like, gain attention. And, you know, if you're running a marathon and everyone else is running a marathon, it's really easy to just be a part of the pack. And what you want to do is you want to, like, be a blip up. You want to stand out. Right? Like, yeah. And so for me, like, 2006 to 2008, that was my time to sprint. Right. Like, run like a. You know what? Right. And, and really stand out. There wasn't a pace that I could keep forever, but I didn't need to keep it forever. Right. And I had other moments in time after that where I would do something big and then disappear. But I find it a lot easier to jump into something, make a lot of noise, and then, you know, collect a lot of money and then retreat back into a more, like, comfortable pace. And least my business does, because it, you can't. It's a whole nother level of complexity to be able to keep that pace for long periods of time. And if you don't burn out, you'll burn out the people around you.

No, it's. It's going to happen. And, and I think what you said is so. And even the analogy of thinking of this marathon, of just this big gaggle of people, what's brilliant about business? So you have, you know, and you've had many successes since then, clearly, right? But you, you, you have these moments where you just pour it all on. And what that does is now people see you and they know you, and when you come out the other side, for example, right now, and it's probably too late, but if you have a chance, you have the opportunity to get coached by a legend. You just opened up this coaching program for the first time in years, and just because of the reputation that you had built, it's like, you don't even have to try to sell it. It sells itself because you had that moment of shine. And. And I think that that's so powerful. Like, whatever that thing is, whether it's your free report or whatever, you've got to get that moment. Because when you get on the other side, even if you do have to kill yourself for. For 90 hours a week for a little bit, but you make magic now. You know, instead of going out and struggling, now people are coming to you because you've gotten attention. You've separated yourself from the pack. And you don't have to do it forever because every. You will be valuable forever. Rich, like people like you could literally. And I know you're not the kind of guy like you're always going to be doing some major project, but if you wanted to, at this point, you could go live wherever the hell you wanted and people would pay you high dollar amounts of money just because you had that moment. I think that's powerful, man.

And, you know, it's. It reminds me that, like, so the very first time I sold the coaching program, right. My own right. So this is pre. The manifesto. I had done a bunch of coaching programs with Jay Abraham and this other gentleman, Steven Pierce. And then. And I was the low man on the totem pole, like, based on the three of us. And. And it was a great. It was great. Like, we made a ton of money and eventually Stephen and Jay didn't get along anymore. So the ride was over. And. And it came with, like, when people bought the coaching program, it came with a live seminar. And the first couple seminars were no pitch. It was just me, Jane, Stephen. But now there was this, like, break in the partners. And so the very last group we were doing at Steven's event just to fulfill. And that was a pitch event. And so that was the very. And so my money train was ending and so I needed to do something else. And so that was the first time that I actually pitched coaching. And I threw out, like, so I, you know, I gave a presentation and I made an offer. And it was the very first time that I ever, like, pitched on stage. And those that know me know that I'm not a great pitch person. And so I was scared that there. And this was like a pitch event with real pros. So I was like, very scared that, you know, if I had. If people were going to have to run to the back of the room and no one ran to the back of the room, I would be embarrassed for life. So I made it by Application only. And so you just had to apply. Right. And then the question was like, okay, what's going to get people to apply? So I made an over the top guarantee. And so the guarantee back then was, you will, you know, by the time we're done working together, you will be making double what you're making now and you'll be working half as much as you're working now or I will give you a complete refund. And so I have like 47, 48, I don't really remember, but less than 50, more than 40 people apply. And I accepted the, I only accepted 25. And those were the 25 that I thought I could actually accomplish that with. Yeah. And then for the next year I was doing one on ones like every other week with them and two lessons a month, like you know, group coaching. And there was no program like I, like this was my first coaching program. So I worked my ass off like that whole year. Like I was like, I figured out what content to create based on the one on one calls. And I made it my mission to make all 25 of those people as successful as humanly possible, knowing that if I could do that, like, if I could just work through this year and help those people. Right. Like at the end of the year, I'd have all the content that I needed. I'd have all the case studies I needed. Right. And so by the time I wrote the manifesto, all that stuff was already locked in. The case studies in the manifesto came from that original group. So it was really like putting in that one year of hard effort. And it was hard. Like, you know, it was, I, you know, I, the last thing I wanted to do was after talking to someone twice a month personally and really work on their business, have to give them back all the money. Right. But, but you put yourself in that.

Situation, like, you got to do it. That's it. You got to force yourself. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, I love it.

And you know, but, but that one year, really like it. My life didn't change after that year. But then after, but it, it wouldn't have allowed me to write the manifesto and have that success. So everything compounded from that. Right. And, and every time I wrote a report that like launched a program, you know, most of the time those programs didn't exist and I'd have to work my ass off during that time. But there was always that, once I get through this, I'll have another automated, you know, program that we can sell indefinitely and I'll reap all the rewards then. So like, hence the sprint. Hence, like the payoff. Like, right there. Click. Close enough so that, like, I, I would work my. I just worked really hard to get there.

I. I think that is the best story. And, And Rich, just for a second, can you brag about some of the names that you've coached through that process? Like, who are some of the people that came into this world that at the time, they weren't who you know them as now, but.

And the. The roster, like, of those people. And, you know, then it quickly grew, but, like, yeah, Russell Brunson of ClickFunnels. Ryan Dice of Digital Marketer. Todd Brown of e5. Right. Talman Knudsen, Alex Jeffries. Mike Phil Same, Telman Knutson. There were really, like, there were tremendous amount of people then a lot of people I traded time with, like Jeff Walker, Kern.

Yeah.

And the Onyx Singal was another person, Todd Herman.

And it started.

I mean, you.

You might not have gotten all of these if you wouldn't have had this idea of, how can I make this so damn irresistible. Because I think right now there's a common thing where people are going and wanting to work for other people for free, which I respect. Right? But. But look at what he did, right? He made rich, took it and said, hey, I mean, who's going to say no to an offer? Like, you work half as much, you'll make twice as much. So basically, you have the risk of working for free, but now you have this motivation for getting the payoff because it's not the money that was the value. Right. It's like, you know, for you to be able to come on here and say, yeah, you know, I trained Ryan Dice and, and Russell Princeton. I mean, you have that forever. And it's just because you forced yourself and you got creative and you thought outside of the box, you're like, how am I going to make this work? Like, I love it.

Yeah, totally. And, you know, there's some people say, I. I once heard, I was listening to this podcast on Procrastination, and, and. And the guy had a reframe because a lot of people say I work best under pressure. Right? And he was like, do you really work best under pressure or do you only work under pressure? And I am more the latter. Right. Like, you know, getting me to do work when I'm not under pressure is somewhat difficult. Right? And that. That was actually, you know, I had a midlife crisis in my 40s because now I'm in my 50s. I had my midlife crisis in my 40s because what drove me for so long was actually running away from things. Not, you know, not responsibility, but like, I worked hard so I wouldn't be a failure. Right. I like, yeah, I got in shape so I wouldn't be fat because I used to be a fat kid.

Sure.

Well, like, but once I made considerable money, right. Like the risk and had the rep now, like, there was, there was no possibility of me having that failure. That was the driver of like most of my success. And so it took me a bunch of years actually to kind of reset myself to then move towards things as opposed to like move away from things. But, you know, got it. Most of the entrepreneurs that I meet that have been uber successful have been the initial driver is to move away. Like, you know, like they, and they never want to have that again or, you know, whatever it is. Right. And that's a really powerful motivation strategy until it isn't.

Right?

Right. Yeah.

Once you quit your job, then what? Yeah, then, then you got to figure out a way to manufacture it. I want to plug your stuff really quick. Steal Our Winners is. I don't even want, I don't know how you can't call it a training program or a membership. It's, it's something truly unique. What you've done is you've taken, and I want you to add on to this. You've taken the best minds in the marketing world and you said, give me your one best thing, your one game changer, and I want to, I want to put you on the spot. I hope it's okay here. Of all the people, all the names that you've dropped and all the people that you've worked with, I don't know if anyone have gone on to bigger and better things, at least monetarily than, than Bill Bonner. And I read a, a testimonial along the lines of, he said he didn't help me make an extra million or an extra 100 million, but he helped me do a billion dollars in sales with, in his, in his words, a tiny innovation. Right. So I was, when I saw that, I was like, I need to know what this billion dollar tiny innovation is. So talk about stealing our winners. I want to steal your winner.

Right.

What was that billion dollar innovation?

I'll tell you that in a second. So the what, though? Because it, like, I'll tell you the story leading up to it. What occurs for me and why I created Steal Our Winners is, is that when I looked at all the successes that I've had, when I look at the successes that my clients have had. It's something that most people don't realize about marketing and marketing strategies and marketing tactics. And that is, is that there is a life cycle to every strategy and tactic. Most people are familiar with the phrase marketers ruin everything, right. And we do like we beat the crap out of anything that works until it doesn't work as well. And so what I found, like, you know, when I like, like the manifesto, when I released that PDF and gave away some of my best ideas for free, that was a novel idea at that moment. If someone were to release the same thing today, it would not have the same impact. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't have a lead magnet. You should, but, but you're not going to get the same benefit, right? We invented the automated webinar in 2008. We started live streaming in 2007. And each of those like each time we did something that was radically new, like huge success, right? Like when we first started with automated webinars, we had like an 80% show up rate and we didn't have to work like we didn't use any of the tactics that are around today. I mean if we did that, we might have had 100%. So the same with what happened in with Agora. Like I saw John Benson's VSL and I brought them the VSL back in like I think like late 2007, early 2008. It might have been a little bit earlier, but I don't think it was. And John invented it at the end of 2005 and as soon, and I told Clayton Makepeace about it too the same time. Because Clayton has always been like a, was a father figure to me before he passed away. And as soon as Agora did it, what happened was sales went up 400% in the US. They went up 3,300% in France, 250% in Germany. And all they were doing at that time was copy and pasting a sales letter into like a PowerPoint. There was no high production, right? But that version of a VSL like was completely flat against the sales letter by 2017, right? So it helped the go 200 million to like 1.2 billion. But you know, that is the innovation curve that happens with all strategies and all tactics, right? So it doesn't mean that you shouldn't have a VSL today. You should, but you're not going to get any added benefit because you're doing a vsl, right? So what I wanted to do for the world, like is what I'VE done for my clients. And you know, when I work with clients individually, one of the things I'm always trying to figure out is what is going to be that innovation that's going to cause this rapid spike. Because, you know, you run a business, I run a business with like one of the best things that happens in business is if you have a lot of momentum, which, you know, which like another way of talking about momentum is no increase of inputs and all of a sudden there's a massive amount more coming in, right? Because then that feeds growth. Then you can expand your team, you can do all the things that you wanted to do without like being confined and what causes that is some kind of hopping on early on on some significant element in your marketing process that's early in the innovation cycle. Now the good news about that is, is it doesn't have to be everything. Like you don't need. Like when I did the reports, everything else I was doing was exactly what everyone else was doing. Right. When we did the automated webinar, same thing. Like, you know, when I did the reports, I had a blog, everyone else had a blog. I had an autoresponder list. Everyone else had an autoresponder list. The one thing that caused all the difference was the reports with, you know, with aura, it was the vsl and so Steal Our Winners. What my goal is is, you know, we publish twice a week are, and I wouldn't say that every single thing that we, we strive to, every single strategy to be something like that. Right. It's impossible for it to be like that. So sure, you know, what we're doing though is where twice a week we're presenting winning strategies generally towards the front side of the innovation because we're not taking stuff that's already out in courses for the most port most part and stuff like that. But the goal with Steal Our Winners is to give people broad access to those types of strategies that can really move the needle and then cause that shift in momentum so that the wind is at their back and really like they can start to grow the business that they want.

I, I, I think that's great advice. And so there's things that need to be done. It's just this day and age. You know, you got to have a landing page, you got.

But I just want to, right, like, you know, exactly.

That's, that's what we're all about. It's that unique thing. You just need one unique thing that people go, oh, what is that? And then they're in your world. And that's why, you know, when bots came out, everybody's like, they're going to kill email. I'm like, hell no. They're going to save email. They're going to revive it. They're going to give you a way to collect because now you got something new and unique. And, and I, and I just.

They're still early in their innovation cycle, but there's no doubt that, like, people who got on it two years ago absolutely crushed it. Right? Like, it was insane. Just like, you know, the people that were on Instagram four and five years ago blew up, like, certainly accounts, but you cannot blow up an account today on Instagram. Like, that's just not going to happen.

I'm trying right now. It's tough because, yeah, like, literally giving it all I have, and I'm like, it's difficult.

Timing is different. Like, now you gotta be on TikTok and that's where you can, like, have this compounding growth. So it's about picking your spots.

You know, I, I think you're right. And really that's what this podcast is about so much. And I'm glad, you know, as we're getting ready to wrap this up here, it's, you know, we're, we're talking to some of the most genius marketers, and not just marketers, people in other industries. And one thing that I found is that nobody's coming on and has the same style. You know, like, everybody does their own unique thing. And I think that, you know, everybody wants to sell you this course where just do this and then it's going to be good. But I, I really think that everyone needs to discover their own unique twist, their one thing. Like, like you said, everything else can be the same as everybody else is doing. But you, if you want to be a legend, you got to have that thing that's going to set you apart from the pack. So you're not running in this big marathon pack and you can't even. What is there anything that you can just kind of share in terms of like, I don't care if it's inspiration or strategies to help people kind of find that inner legend within them.

I'm reminded of something. So Gary Vaynerchuk and I used to be really close a long time ago, right? Like, and he used to speak at my events, like back when you could get him to speak at your events for free. Right, like, yeah, this is like, you know, so we did an event in 2008, actually, we did a court. He was me, Jay Abraham and him did a course together in 2008 on how to be like the authority in your niche. Because, like, Jay and I thought like that was the next trend, that every niche was going to need authorities because that was kind of a novel idea at the time. And so anyway, Gary was talking on stage and I remember this because, like, I just thought it was powerful then, I still think it's powerful now. He said, I don't care if you live in your parents basement, you hate people and you only wear green socks. This is what he said exactly. Because it just like I remembered, he's like, the Internet and the world is a huge place and there are other people out there that hate people that live in their parents basement and only wear green socks. And it's like it's there for you, for the taking, and all you have to do is claim that spot. So that's what Gary said back then, and I would imagine he'd agree with it. And the other thing that I would say that is a little bit different than that, but is something that I believe wholeheartedly and that. And it doesn't apply to everyone, but I think it applies to a lot of people and it certainly applied to me numerous times. And that is, is that like everything I sell, everything I've ever sold, are things that I truly believe in, right? And, and like I don't. I sell it because I believe in it. I don't believe in it because I sell it. Right. And, and. But there was a time when I didn't believe in it because I didn't know about it or et cetera. Right. And so one of the ways of looking at really successful and effective marketing is to look at what experiences did you have that led you to the belief that this is something really powerful, this is something I believe in. And then how can you replicate that like for your prospects so that they have that same belief? Right? So I consistently brought programs into the market, right. Like I believed. You know, I think I was the first online business coach. And the reason why in Internet marketing there were no business coaches is because no one was interested and learning about business because they didn't see the value in it. But I knew the value in it, especially because I struggled at first online and I then remembered what I knew about business and then I was successful and I was like, okay, so how did I get convinced? Right? Part of it was like a U diagram and stuff like that, and seeing the idiocy of what I was doing and how do I bring other people to that same realization. Right. And when I brought, like, theory of constraints to the market, like in 2008, it was the same kind of thing. No one knew theory of constraints, but I was convinced it was powerful. And so I, like, had to reflect on, like, okay, well, what. What was the sequence that convinced me? And then this is right.

And like, yes.

How do I, like, take people through an accelerated version of that? And I'm not saying that that's easy, but, like, there was a time when you knew nothing about the thing that you now believe is the best.

Yeah.

And so what were those experiences? Your prospects don't have that experience. That's why they're not buying it. Right. Like, so how do we. How do we convey that? Right. And I used reports early on, then I used webinars, and I used live streams. And, you know, now I do a lot of different things, but that message is what I tap into. Like, how did I get convinced of this? And it makes. What makes it easier? And I'm not trying to sell people on writing, keeping a journal, but it makes it a lot easier when you do keep a journal because you have a record of, like, your exposure to things and what it. What you were thinking. And so it makes it kind of easy to dissect things going backwards of how you got here.

I in, as crazy as this sounds, I'm introducing people on a regular basis to chat bot something they know nothing about or maybe they've heard misinformation about. And I'm not doing a good job of conveying the story because when I first heard about them, I was like, we're a customer support company. You know, we don't want it. You know, like, we're not working now. We're not into it. And I don't, I don't really go into then what I discovered. Oh, my gosh, I had my mind blown. We changed our business. It like, literally led to an entire world. So I'm immediately taking that one rich, and I'm going to put it into action. So I. First of all, I just, I can't thank you enough because this is. I, you know, I've gotten so much out of this. I know everyone listening is going to get a tremendous amount. There is one thing that I know is on everybody's mind that they're wanting to know that I have to ask because you, you shared that. You're in your 50s, dude. You are so fit in such good shape, man. Like, I mean, I'm sure it's not a, you know, that, that You've worked your ass off to get there. But if there's anything that you can share, this is off the marketing track. This is just right, pure, like, how the hell are you doing it, man? Because I. When I've seen you over the years, you're getting healthier and healthier every time that I see you, man.

What?

Yeah, I know there's no secret, but. But what would. What would you share with people?

So I'd say that, like, what was game changer for me? So I always had low testosterone. And what changed that? And, you know, people respond differently. So. But were two supplements that Andrew Huberman recommended, Tonga Ali and Fidosias Arrest Us Agrestis. But. So those two supplements were game changer for me. They boosted my testosterone, and all of a sudden, like, I started getting muscular. The other thing is really only for people that are over 45. And when you get to 45, my doctor shared this with me, this research study that was insane, like, about two years ago. And when you get over 45, your. The amount of glutathione in your body plummets. Yes. And. But there's a problem with just getting glutathione because your body keeps a ratio of oxidants and antioxidants, and too much glutathione is almost as bad as too little. And so there are three precursors to glutathione. And one, your body has in total ample supply, so that's never an issue. But the other two, your body produces less. And so high dosages of glycine, which is an amino acid, and N acetylcysteine are. Those are the two other elements that are the precursors to glutathione. And, you know, the. The first research study I read about, but it's high dosages. Like, the minimum dose is 100 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. So someone like me who weighs about 195 pounds, right. Let's just say I weighed 80 kilos. That would be at least 8 grams of glycine and 8 grams of NLC a day. The research that I read back then was off the charts. It reads like a research. It reads like a direct response headline. Like, how many things? It improves, like, everything. Cognition to, you know, cognition to pretty much just like. I can't even summarize all the different things. And I'd have to list, like.

I mean, that's.

Yeah, research has come out recently that it extends life like 25%. And when they give it to people in their 70s their gait, like, after six weeks, starts to increase again. Right. Like, you know, people, when they get older, their gait shortens and shortens. You see them taking these little feeble steps, like it's mind boggling that a supplement all of a sudden starts extending their gate back like they're taking, you know, longer steps. So the. You can re. You can find the research by just typing in glynac, G, L, Y, N, A C. And that's the combination of glycine and nlcysteine. And I'm just trying to think if there was anything else that really was. Those were the biggest game changers for me. I go to F45 almost every day and I jump rope like a fiend. And those are the two things that I do on a consistent basis. I also do. We. We saw each other, I think, at Grant's thing. And I've been doing that protocol, the superhuman protocol, for about two years as well. I don't have any of their equipment. I. I pieced it together over time, but. So I do eat lot, but I. I don't know that my body has responded as much as I've seen some other people respond on that. But I'm a big fan of red light. I'm a huge fan of E exercise with oxygen therapy, and I'm a big fan of pulsed electronic magnetic frequency, too. Yeah.

And you thought you were coming for marketing, folks. Dude, that is amazing. So thank you for. I mean, just for not only your time, but you. You put a lot of love into this. A lot. Like, we've, we covered a lot of ground. I mean, everything from ebooks to, to fitness. And Rich, I'm just, you know, I'm very appreciative to. To be connecting with you and, and anything I can do to support you and help you and, you know, well, let's, let's. Let's make some more money together. Everything we've done together has been successful. Let's keep rocking it.

Cool.

All right. Appreciate you, Rich. And guys, marketing legends. This is the kind of caliber we're going to continue to bring. We got obviously a big. Some big shoes to fill here, but appreciate you being on and we'll catch you next episode. And there you have it. Hopefully you've got as much from this as I have literally listened to somebody like Rich Sheffrin. Whatever they got to say, just take it, put it to action, and this will work. At the end of the day, we're gonna help you find your legend. Keep on tuning in, make sure that you share this with a friend, Give it some love. Give us a review. And if you haven't done it yet, make sure you go to marketinglegends.com rich again. Marketinglegends.com rich. Where you're gonna find $867 worth of sweet, sweet bonuses waiting for you all to support the Special Olympics. So go check that out, and we'll see you on the next episode.

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