The Tai Lopez Show is now available on Soundcloud. Check it out here: Soundcloud.com/TaiLopezShow

“Everyone progresses at their own speed. Don’t be in too much of a hurry” - Tai Lopez

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Today’s episode is a small Q&A I did recently in Norway, while shooting hoops. I’m talking about how to very quickly judge whether or not a business is a good idea, why freemium is one of the best business models available today, and how to find the right category for you to thrive in.

If you’ve ever wondered how you can know what your focus should be, what your business, or passion, or goal should be, this episode deals with how to define that quickly, and it’s through a process I’ve been talking a lot about lately: Experimentation.

But it is a two-step approach to experimentation: Experiment initially to try to find your niche, the thing that you enjoy and are good at, and then experiment constantly once you have defined that, within that space, to optimize your results.

“Freemium is one of the best business models: give things away for free, and then charge for just a few things” - Tai Lopez

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Points to Keep In Mind

• Judge business ideas by whether they can make a small amount of progress, and money, very quickly
• Businesses should win and be a good experiment very quickly early on, and then it might take years to build
• Experiment constantly to find the initial thing you want to work in, and then experiment within that category
• Freemium is one of the best business models: give things away for free, and then charge for just a few things
• Everyone progresses at their own speed. Don’t be in too much of a hurry

The Tai Lopez Show is now available on Soundcloud. Check it out here: Soundcloud.com/TaiLopezShow

“Take care of your family, love the people who love you, and destroy your enemies” - Tai Lopez

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Running experiments separates the pros from the amateurs in the marketing world. Those who run the most experiments simply win the most. In fact, in my experience, I have to run about 18 experiments for each winner that I pick out and use again.

You will find this to be the fact over and over again in life. The people who refuse to be open minded to other things, to different ideas and ways of doing things, remain stuck in their old ways and don’t innovate, don’t create, and ultimately don’t see the success that they are looking for.

But there are specific concepts and methods to keep in mind when it comes to running experiments, and that is what I am talking about in this episode: How to run experiments, learn from them, and adapt, why authenticity is so important to marketing, how true happiness comes from memories, and why services are such a good first business for entrepreneurs.

“Authenticity in marketing is powerful” - Tai Lopez

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Points to Keep In Mind

• Look for ways to release dopamine in people’s brains through your social media
• The exact time you post is not nearly as important as what you are posting
• Take care of your family, love the people who love you, and destroy your enemies
• Authenticity in marketing is powerful
• Run experiments, and don’t be afraid to try new things
• Instead of being so sure of yourself, go try different things out
• A huge amount of happiness comes from good memories, so invest in creating them
• Lots of people put too much effort into their experiments. Instead, make them crappy, so you REALLY know if you have a winner
• The smartest marketers become experiment machines
• A lot of people tell you you need to make a lot of mistakes, but that’s only because they did. You can skip the mistakes if you can learn from others
• Service businesses are great as first businesses to learn with. Products are more scalable
• Be aggressive in life
• Get a good CPA, instead of an accountant

The Tai Lopez Show is now available on Soundcloud. Check it out here: Soundcloud.com/TaiLopezShow

“‘Trend catchers’ make even more money than ‘trendsetters’” - Tai Lopez

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Do you know how to use the VRIN formula to make sure your message, your advertising, and your content has legs and will connect with people? That is what I teaching you on this episode. If you want your message to connect and resound, if you want it to be shareable and something people want to tell their friends about, and if you want to be able to SELL, you need to understand the VRIN formula, and how to apply it to your own work.

I’m also discussing the difference between “trend-catchers” and “trendsetters,” and why one will tend to make more money than the other, why controversy is valuable and you should push yourself out of your comfort zone to include more of it, and much more!

“Don’t be afraid of controversy” - Tai Lopez

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Points to Keep In Mind

• “Trend catchers” make even more money than “trendsetters”
• “Edu-tainment” is going to win. The people who educate in more entertaining ways will be more effective
• Use the formula VRIN:
• • Value
  • Rarity
  • Inimitable
  • Non-substitution
• A lot of marketers and advertisers are being beaten by less-experienced people who understand better what people really want
• Value means look for things that release dopamine
• Make sure you’re doing something that’s rare and unusual in your marketing
• Your innovation and strategy should be “costly to imitate”
• Don’t be afraid of controversy
• Think about one thing you could do this year that would push your boundaries

The Tai Lopez Show is now available on Soundcloud. Check it out here: Soundcloud.com/TaiLopezShow

“Motivation is essential to success, but you need to LEARN how to motivate yourself” - Tai Lopez

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Motivation is required for success. It’s as simple as that. But while most people understand this truth, few people take the time to learn how to motivate themselves effectively and well. People learn a few of the things that motivate them, like money, or relationships, or achievement, and they put all their energy into that one aspect.

But below I’m outlining the 17 different aspects of what motivates you, and how you can use them to achieve more.

In all of this, it’s importance to have balance. Too often people get all caught up in one or two of the below, and put 90% of their effort into those things. Instead, work on spreading these out evenly in your life, around 5% or so for each, to make sure your life is as fulfilling and happy as possible.

“The secret to being able to change is understanding why things are the way they are” - Tai Lopez

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Points to Keep In Mind

• Motivation is essential to success, but you need to LEARN how to motivate yourself
• Life is about doing and enjoying stuff
• The secret to being able to change is understanding why things are the way they are
• Everything in life is a trade-off of some good and some bad
• One of the most painful things in life is not being able to make sense of what happens
• ALL 17 of the below things must be experienced to feel fulfilled
• Don’t focus on any single one of the below things. Work for a mix of all 17

17 Reasons

Ambition

• Achievement: Accomplish difficult tasks, overcome obstacles, and become an expert
• Recognition: Be recognized for what you do
• Exhibition: Impress others with your actions or words

Materialism

• Acquisition: It’s ok to have some materialistic goals. Use it as motivation
• Order: Make things clean, neat, and tidy
• Retention: Hoarding things- within balance
• Construction: Build some things, get your hands dirty

Defense of Status

• Infavoidance: Concealing a handicap or a failing
• Defense: Defend yourself
• Counteraction: Make up for failure by trying again, have pride

Human Power

• Dominance: Control one’s environment
• Deference: Admire a superior person, praising and yielding to them
• Autonomy: Breaking free from constraints
• Contrarience: Being oppositional
• Aggression: Forcefully overcome an opponent
• Abasement: Surround and submit to others, and accept punishment
• Blame Avoidance: Shifting and stifling blame-worthy impulses
• Harm Avoidance: Desire to avoid harm
• Infavoidance: Avoiding being humiliated or embarrassed

Affection Between People

• Affiliation: To be close and loyal to another person
• Sex: To form relationships that lead to sexual intercourse
• Rejection: Reject certain people and things
• Nurturance: Help the helpless, feed and keep them from danger
• Succorance: To have one’s needs met by someone else
• Play: Have fun, laugh, and relax

Exchange of Information

• Sentience: Seek out and enjoy sensual experiences
• Cognisance: Understand, be curious, ask questions and find answers
• Exposition: Deliver information to others

The Tai Lopez Show is now available on Soundcloud. Check it out here: Soundcloud.com/TaiLopezShow

“The number one thing you should fear in life is wasting time” - Tai Lopez

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Most people are too frugal with their money and aren’t nearly frugal enough with their time. But you can always get more money, you cannot ever get more time, and that makes it the most valuable asset in the world, and worth guarding extremely carefully!

This means the one thing you should truly fear in this world are time wasters. Whether they come in the form of people (friends, family, co-workers, etc), projects, habits, or anything else! It’s important to be ruthless in cutting out the time wasters in your life if you want to truly get ahead and achieve goals. Achievement takes time and focused energy, each of which you have less of the more time you waste.

Learn how to stop wasting time and achieve more on this episode of the Tai Lopez Show!

“Time-wasters are the enemy, and they come in many forms” - Tai Lopez

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Points to Keep In Mind

• The more successful you become, the more valuable your time is
• The number one thing you should fear in life is wasting time
• Time is more valuable than money, because it’s the one thing you can’t get more of
• Time-wasters are the enemy, and they come in many forms
• The best and most reliable way to get rich is to find somebody who is already rich and make them happier
• Small tweaks can lead to huge changes in income
• Don’t waste people’s time

The Tai Lopez Show is now available on Soundcloud. Check it out here: Soundcloud.com/TaiLopezShow

“Take quick trips to get our of your normal environment to increase your creativity” - Tai Lopez

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Knowing when to give up and when to stick it out on a project is one of the most difficult things. While too many entrepreneurs and people in general are spending too much time working on a dead-end job, or a business model that is clearly not catching on, a lot of people also won’t stick things out long enough to actually find the success that they’re looking for.

In this episode I’m talking about a conversation I recently had with Steve Ballmer about how to know whether a project is worth sticking out for the long run, or whether you need to give it up and work on something else.

When “stickiness” (Steve Ballmer’s term) is required, it’s important that that stickiness and dedication to a clear vision is accompanied by a large amount of creativity. Because if you’re thinking about giving up on something, it probably means that exactly what you’re doing right now isn’t the best way to approach it. Get creative, and find a better way to move forward with it!

“A lot of people try to get too much too fast with people they consider mentors” - Tai Lopez

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Points to Keep In Mind

• When you get the opportunity to meet amazing people, make sure you don’t turn it into an interrogation
• A lot of people try to get too much too fast with people they consider mentors
• Take quick trips to get our of your normal environment to increase your creativity
• Hard work isn’t the objective. Less work with more success is the goal
• A lot of people don’t have enough “stickability” to a project that has real potential
• One of the most difficult things is knowing whether to persevere and stick with a project or not
• Look for signs of potential to know whether to kill a project and move on, or to stick with it
• Listen to your intuition- you know a lot of things deep down
• Take every opportunity to learn efficiently, from wherever you can
• Be efficient in your learning and your life to have a good work/life balance
• Catch trends, and be open-minded to new things

The Tai Lopez Show is now available on Soundcloud. Check it out here: Soundcloud.com/TaiLopezShow

“If you’re product has to be perfect from the start, it’s not the right product” - Tai Lopez

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A lot of people are trying to force their customers to like their product. They think that they understand what is best for their consumers, and so they are in this constant uphill battle to make the product so perfect that consumers can’t help but buy it.

But this is a losing strategy. A product that is a good market fit doesn’t even need to be perfect for people to want to buy it. This is why it’s important to initially put very minimal effort into testing products, to see if they fit well. Then, once one of them really takes off, you know which product you should be focusing all of your energy on!

On today’s podcast, we talk about how to market and sell, how to date, why the internet is changing the age requirements for wealth, what you should focus on while you’re young, and how Caleb should go about launching his book club.

“Sell what people already like, don’t try to force them to like it” - Tai Lopez

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Points to Keep In Mind

• Launch new products with minimal effort to see if they take off, before putting a lot of effort into them
• If you’re product has to be perfect from the start, it’s not the right product
• Sell what people already like, don’t try to force them to like it
• Focus on finding the perfect lead to know if the marketing will work
• Understanding how to wrap your product up correctly to make it something people want is the most important part of marketing
• Be constantly observant to get better at reading people
• Ask people stuff. They want to tell you
• With the anonymity of the internet, you can get rich when you’re young
• When you’re young, focus on trying to figure out how to make a money machine that steadily increases your wealth instead of getting rich fast

CalebMaddix.tv

The Tai Lopez Show is now available on Soundcloud. Check it out here: Soundcloud.com/TaiLopezShow

“The person who experiments the most wins” - Tai Lopez

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Materialism motivates. It’s that simple. While everyone is different, and so the extent to which it will motivate you varies, it’s an important principle to keep in mind. Because many people feel guilty about their love of materialistic things. But use it as a tool! If cars motivate you, keep them around! If a nice house motivates you, keep that on your mind. Understand yourself, and your own intrinsic motivations, and then use those any time that you feel like you need an extra push of motivation.

This is the second part of my conversation with 14 year-old Caleb Maddix, and we’re talking about why good parenting is one of the best ways to make the world a better place, why most people are working far too hard and training far too little, why critical thinking is an essential skill, why the person who experiments the most wins, and much, much more!

“Materialism motivates, so use it for motivation!” - Tai Lopez

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Points to Keep In Mind

• You’re born with some talent. But when it comes to business, a lot of it is dependent on how much you train and practice, less innate talent
• Parenting is one of the most effective ways to make the world a better place
• Most people understand that learning is essential, but they don’t realize that humans learn faster under other people
• Original ideas are very rare. Almost everything is recycled
• Every time you meet haters, be thankful for them, they make it easier for you to succeed
• Hard work is not especially correlated with success. Hard training is
• Hours only count if they’re in a good training program
• Critical thinking is an essential skill
• Materialism motivates, so use it for motivation!
• The person who experiments the most wins

CalebMaddix.tv

The Tai Lopez Show is now available on Soundcloud. Check it out here: Soundcloud.com/TaiLopezShow

“Positivity is essential to good parenting”

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Caleb Maddix stopped by the house to talk about success. He’s 14 years old, has already made $100,000, and on today’s episode he’s talking about the key concepts and ideas that brought him success at such an early age.

We’re talking about how to motivate kids to succeed, why people need to stop planning to do things “someday” and instead do them now, how to develop a hunger to learn, why curiosity is key, and why completion is the most essential part of anything you do!

“Develop a hunger to learn”

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Points to Keep In Mind

• Motivate and incentivize your kids to succeed and continually improve themselves
• Kids shouldn’t be paid for chores, because adults aren’t. They should do that as part of the family
• Positivity is essential to good parenting
• Put emphasis on reading the right books in parenting
• Stop saying you’re going to do something some day. Do it now, take action
• Focus on a specific dollar number you want to make
• Develop a hunger to learn
• You can learn a lot by studying history
• The fastest way to learn is to click every button. Curiosity is how you become smart
• People tend to not be curious enough about the things they see and interact with everyday
• Completion is one of the most important parts of any task, and the part too many people skip
• Succeeding in life requires a diverse skill set, not just focus on one thing
• Focus on practice: Reps and sets, continual repetition and practice

CalebMaddix.tv

The Tai Lopez Show is now available on Soundcloud. Check it out here: Soundcloud.com/TaiLopezShow

“Work less, and READ MORE!” - Tai Lopez

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Understanding and getting good at reading people is one of the most essential skills you work on. It gives you instant insight into whether or not you should trust someone, what you can expect from them in terms of their character, their level of responsibility, and their tendency to come through for you on promises. Developing this skill is essential toward taking dramatic steps towards living the good life.

Today I am talking about reading people, why it’s important, what the “Dark Triad” is, why there are downsides to wealth and fame, how to know immediately if a new employee is going to suck, why bullying has such an affect on people, and why you should work less and READ MORE!

“Knowing how to read people will help you get ahead like nothing else” - Tai Lopez

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Points to Keep In Mind

• There are downsides to the things people often desire, including wealth and fame
• Practice and learn how to read people. It’s one of the most essential things to get good at
• Knowing how to read people will help you get ahead like nothing else
• Reading people translates into marketing skills
• Let new employees have the opportunity to fail early, to show you if they will perform well or not long term
• Be very careful about people who have been bullied. It tends to turn people machiavellian
• Social esteem is built by age 16, so those early years are extremely important for development
• Work less, and READ MORE!

The Tai Lopez Show is now available on Soundcloud. Check it out here: Soundcloud.com/TaiLopezShow

“You will almost never build wealth through passive investment and income” - Tai Lopez

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Passive income, and the power of it, is one of the most pervasive myths in modern culture. Many people think that passive income is what is going to eventually bring them real wealth. But look at the Forbes list! None of those people created wealth exclusively through passive investment and income. Those who make the most and become the most wealthy are those who are willing to be active in their investment, and to put in the time and effort required to build the kind of wealth they are looking for.

On this episode I’m talking about the confusion and misinformation around passive income, how strong a motivator status is, why traditional schooling is holding so many people back, why you should set up multiple bases around the world for your business, and why life is a set of battles you should be willing to lose in order to win the war of having the ultimate good life.

“Focus on winning the war of living the good life. Battles are insignificant. Withdraw if you need to” - Tai Lopez

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Points to Keep In Mind

• Status is a strong motivator, and social media is playing a larger and larger role in status in the modern age
• The earned respect of peers is powerful
• If entrepreneurship and business could be integrate in traditional education, it would prepare people far better for the world
• Traditional schooling can really hold people back
• Consider setting up bases around the world for your business if you are at that level
• Couch surfing and visiting short-term is often not as enjoyable a way to go to places
• You will almost never build wealth through passive investment and income
• Focus on winning the war of living the good life. Battles are insignificant. Withdraw if you need to
• If you’re testing products, you need to be willing to give up very quickly if it doesn’t convert as well as you would like it to
• You want to get to the point with your business where you only need to put 3-4 hours a day into it

The Tai Lopez Show is now available on Soundcloud. Check it out here: Soundcloud.com/TaiLopezShow

“If you can master rewards and motivation, you will make a ton of money” - Tai Lopez

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If you want to be successful in life, whether that means making more money, doing more good, achieving more, or anything else, you will need to master the skill of persuasion. Today, I’m talking about why reward is the strongest persuasion technique, and how to use it.

In addition, we go over how you should play the “versus” game to find out what truly motivates you. Compare two common motivations, such as fame and money, and ask which you would rather do without in order to have the other. Once you’ve honed in on what truly motivates you at the highest level, make sure you have a lot of that thing around you, to keep you in a state of constant motivation.

“Find out what motivates you, and then fixate on it” - Tai Lopez

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Points to Keep In Mind

• There is almost no persuasion technique stronger than reward
• If you can master rewards and motivation, you will make a ton of money
• Testimonials are extremely persuasive, and a powerful tool in selling
• Get testimonials that tell the whole story in detail
• Play the “versus” game to find out what motivates you
• Find out what motivates you, and then fixate on it
• Service businesses are great starter businesses

The Tai Lopez Show is now available on Soundcloud. Check it out here: Soundcloud.com/TaiLopezShow

“What you’re selling matters far more than all the best practices, tips, and hacks about how to sell” - Tai Lopez

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We’ve been over why there is not a correlation between working hard and having more money. The idea is disproven time and time again, even though it continues to be put forward is a reputable concept.

I would even put forward that, unless you’re in a flow state where time seems to slow down (and fly by at the same time) and it basically doesn’t even feel like work, even 8 hours a day is too much! If you’re consistently working 8 hours a day in a non-flow state, you need to look into how you can decrease your input (hours worked) while keeping your output (money in) the same or increasing it.

We’re going over all of that, as well as the skill of hiring the right people, why it’s a fool’s errand to try to predict outcomes, and why Dan Bilzerian might just be smarter than Coca Cola...

“Hiring is a talent and skill that take time to develop and practice” - Tai Lopez

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Points to Keep In Mind

• Work much smarter than you work hard
• You need turnover in your business. If you don’t have that, it means something is wrong, people aren’t being let go who should be
• Hiring is a talent and skill that take time to develop and practice
• If you have to train your employees too much, your input is too much. Try training less and see who makes it
• The only time you should work more than 8 hours a day is when you’re in flow
• In social media, simply post and compare results constantly
• It’s a fool’s game to try to predict outcomes. You almost never can!
• What you’re selling matters far more than all the best practices, tips, and hacks about how to sell

The Tai Lopez Show is now available on Soundcloud. Check it out here: Soundcloud.com/TaiLopezShow

“You MUST know what motivates you. This is the most important” - Tai Lopez

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Almost everybody would like to be making more money, if they’re completely honest with themselves. But there are so many mindset problems that people have around money, how it’s made, and how you can get more of it.

Most importantly, you MUST know what motivates you, and be very clear about it. If you’re motivated by fast cars, great, use that! If you’re motivating by doing good, great, us that! With the correct motivation, you could do a lot more than you are doing, so the reality is that motivation is often a major missing piece of the puzzle.

In addition, don’t make the common mistake of equating hard work with money. The hardest workers in the world are not the richest. There’s simply not a correlation. Learn how to use tools effectively, be smart, and be willing to put in the hard work. But look at the hard work as just one aspect. The input (hard work) should be minimized and the output maximized.

Learn how to upgrade your mindset around money to make more of it on this episode of the Tai Lopez Show!

“Retrain your mind to see hard things as how hard they ACTUALLY are, and not more” - Tai Lopez

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Points to Keep In Mind

• You MUST know what motivates you. This is the most important
• Think of yourself as an investor, and study investing
• You can always find reasons why you don’t think you can make money, but there are also always examples of people in your circumstances that are making money
• The people who make the most money are simple about their motivation
• You will get paid according to the difficulty of the problems you solve
• Train yourself to keep things absolute, to keep from turning something small into a big problem
• Retrain your mind to see hard things as how hard they ACTUALLY are, and not more
• Working hard does not correlate with wealth
• The goal is not to maximize input, but rather to maximize output
• Better tools beat harder work every time
• If you are feeling burnt out, it’s a sign that you’re doing it wrong

The Tai Lopez Show is now available on Soundcloud. Check it out here: Soundcloud.com/TaiLopezShow

“As a marketer, think in terms of experimentation, learning, and then tweaking” - Tai Lopez

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A lot of people want to be an influencer, but not very many people know how to do it well. In fact, not very many people or brands know how to leverage and build social media effectively. If you look at top brands in industries, for instance people like Tony Robbins or brands like Coca Cola, their social media platforms have far too few followers and far too poor engagement for how wide and broad their reach is. Yet, having strong social media is so important that it could be argued that it won the presidency in the last election!

The problem is that most people are not actively creating experiments, measuring, analyzing, and then tweaking their strategy to be as effective as possible. They think they already know what to do, but most people don’t. This episode is about how to set up effective experiments to grow your social media and influence.

“Brands tend to be way behind in advertising, and they’re wasting a lot of money” - Tai Lopez

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Points to Keep In Mind

• Building apps are a huge business opportunity, even if you can’t build them yourself
• Brands tend to be way behind in advertising, and they’re wasting a lot of money
• Use your brainpower to build good experiments and learn from them
• As a marketer, think in terms of experimentation, learning, and then tweaking
• In social media, keep it entertaining

The Tai Lopez Show is now available on Soundcloud. Check it out here: Soundcloud.com/TaiLopezShow

“Focus in on a niche to differentiate yourself and build influence” - Tai Lopez

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A lot of people want to know how to become an influencer. It’s a sexy thing to do these days, with the bragging rights and fame that come with large numbers of social media followers and influence. But how do you build yourself into an influencer?

This episode is about how to use social media to growing your following and turn yourself into an influencer. I’m talking about which platforms are ideal for what types of influence and demographics, how to approach different platforms, and how to win on any of them.

“A lot of people simply won’t take the steps and do the work” - Tai Lopez

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Points to Keep In Mind

• The influencer field is getting crowded, and much more difficult to stand out in
• Focus in on a niche to differentiate yourself
• Pick something that is authentic to you to hone in on
• Don’t be afraid to have a small following, because smaller niche followings can be very active and powerful
• You’re socials don’t need to be all about your business
• A lot of people simply won’t take the steps and do the work to see success
• Be very responsive to what the customer is telling you
• Research other people’s social media to see what’s working for them and learn from it
• Over time, you can broaden your niche
• Facebook ads are one of the most important skills to have
• The opportunity of social media is only getting bigger