820 – The Result-Driven Principles of Business with Israel Duran

Josh Elledge intro 0:01:

Hey listener! This is Josh Elledge, CEO of UpMyInfluence.com. We are actively seeking guests for our daily commercial free entrepreneurial inspiration podcast. If you know someone who is doing six to eight figures in business, then send them our way. Just go to UpMyInfluence.com/guest. Let's get on with the show!

With us right now, Israel Duran. Israel, you're found on the web at IsraelDuran.com. I'm excited to chat about this. You work with an help some very successful campaigns, very successful, high authority individuals do their thing, make lots of great money. So I'm excited to really tap into exactly like how you do that and what you'd recommend today.

Israel Duran 0:50

That's amazing, Josh. It's an honor to be here. I've heard some great things about you. And I'm looking forward to this interview.

Josh 0:57

Yeah, for sure. And these will vary based.

Israel 1:00

I'm in Danbury, Connecticut currently. All right, good. Cause life up there. Dan Barry is a unique town, a small town, but it's good. It's cold right now. It's it should be warmer than it is. But it's, it's really cold right now.

Josh 1:13

Excellent. Excellent. What's your background? How did you get into, you know, this level of marketing?

Israel 1:19

It's very good question. So actually, the first company I ever started was a cyber security company. Right? I wanted to work for the FBI. Actually, I was going after my, my Master's in cyber security, I was able to obtain that. But then I got married, had children. So I said, You know what, let me go to the private sector. And I went to the private sector, and I started a company. And I learned a lot, I learned the principles of business, right? success leaves clues. And I understood that through my mistakes, right through my major, my mistakes are my mentors, that there are certain things that you know, if you do, you'll see the result. And I learned a lot and I lost a lot of money, but I learned a lot. So that's where

Josh 1:58

you are going. So you went from working corporate america and cybersecurity or just education. And so did was that your first company a cybersecurity you got in that space as an entrepreneur?

Israel 2:09

Yeah, I went from corporate America, and then I started my company. And then that's where I bridged into, I was actually doing some consulting on the side and also had a brand. And through that company, that's what I understood what I what we call the four pillars of business, and as you know, branding, marketing, sales and operations, and I understood that, hey, I have to start to get this. My systems in order under these four pillars to really succeed.

Josh 2:35

Yeah. So Israel at some point, right, you kind of really dive in and you learn to master these things. What What was that experience? How did you do that?

Israel 2:45

Yet, for me, actually, about two to three years ago, about three years ago, I said, I got into a car accident, Josh, in this car accident got me very uncomfortable. Right distress. Apparently, it was a second second chance, I would say maybe four chance of life. And I came out that car. And I thought a strong impression that something was was encouraging me that, hey, come on, it's time to release what I put inside of you. And I actually had a book that I was gonna write a year and a half in the future. But that book was actually accelerated, and I released it within three weeks or the car accident. I started my third business two days from that car accident. And that's where you know, israa directed associates is really birth, I was doing consulting on the side. But that car accident got me uncomfortable. So I can get out of my own way and start to serve my good.

Josh 3:33

Yeah, car accidents are not known for their comfort factor. So and So today, you've got a pretty successful organization. Tell me about the work that you do. You've worked with, you've helped manage some pretty successful campaigns?

Israel 3:47

Yes, you know, I love working with purpose driven entrepreneurs, purpose driven business owners. What does that mean? individuals that know that they're on earth because of a purpose, they have a message, they have a solution, they have a product, they have a service, and they know their target market, they know who they're called to serve. And they know that they need to go global, meaning their solution can help other individuals, not only in the US, and I love to work with them, because we partner with them. Not only do we book or funnels their integrations or copy their pixels, we do it all. We also consult them on actually how to connect from the heart, how to close from the stage. And I mean, many of our clients have already been very successful. They're already seven figure earners, but they work with us and we give them those small little distinctions with their presentations, and actually how to conduct an online event that just ultimately scales them in record time.

Josh 4:38

Okay, so when you're talking about so you're working with someone what they do they they have an audience, they not necessarily have an audience. But I'd say the differentiating factor, the person you work with, has domain expertise. They've got authority in something Is that right?

Israel 4:55

Yes, they have to have a product or service. They have to know what it could be a mentorship Ram could be a community that they're building, they have to know what they're serving, right. And they also have to know who their target market is. As long as those two things are clear, then we can help them. And the biggest distinction is it's not just about the money, like, the main consensus with our clients is it's not about the money. Yes, we help them run 567 figure events just under seven days. But that's not what drives them. What drives them is the impact what drives them as a service, they have a conviction for their product or service, and they know that it's going to change lives. And that's what they want to do. Okay, cool.

Josh 5:33

So walk me through kind of the story of someone that you've worked with in the past and how that turned out.

Israel 5:39

Sure, I'm going to I'm going to use an example. That is what that perhaps everybody can relate to, right? A recent one of our recent clients or they was Shay, she had a company called KDP. And she was already doing well, she already had a, you know, mentorship program community, but she was struggling and how to get more people in at a reasonable amount of time, if you will. And we can't we partner with her because we believe in partnership, he partnered with her and we decided to do an event together. And we put our funnels, we aligned your copy, we put our auto email integrations. And we did a five day event within that five day event. And I believe it was a 4500 ad spend that we spend with her, because Facebook was actually limiting the spend that we could do per day, because they do have a limit if you have a new account, but she was able to do around 26k in that five days, which may not seem like a lot of money to many people, but 26k in just five days. And she brought in about 118 people into her mentorship community. Now that also added about 10k a month on her bottom line because it is a mentorship. And we were able to help her and the reason I use her as an example is because many people could relate to her she didn't she didn't have funnels, but she didn't have email integrations, didn't have all the technical stuff. But she just knew that she had a product. She had a message in her heart, she knew who she was called to serve. And she felt it was time to take it to the next level. And those are the people we love to work with.

Josh 7:09

So Israel, I think we've all talked to someone or maybe we've had this experience of you know, doing a launch and it's not worked out well. Right. We didn't ROI. You know, we didn't get the sales that we hoped. And I think that that's the scary thing, right? We don't want that to happen. And so, um, what do you see as some of the key differentiators from a successful launch versus one that? Yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, you spent the 40 $500 in ads, and, you know, you made two sales. And so you ended up losing money on the thing, because that I think that's the thing. That's scary.

Israel 7:45

Yeah, yeah, I think it this is amazing, Josh, in the question is very important. I think it has to do with mindset. I mean, I've been able to work with, I mean, some of the world's most profitable authors, speakers, coaches, but I also been able to work with people just getting started. But the main consensus that I see that separates people from successful events in terms of monetizing is the mindset, it's being in it for the long term. And you know, this, to make this might seem ironic, it might seem almost contradictory. But to make short term money, don't think about money, right? Like, you got to be in it for the impact, you got to be in it for the service for the value, right? Because the bigger the problem you can solve, the more money you can make. Right? And I think when people focus on that they focus on the service, how can I? How can I truly bring results to the individuals that I'm working with their businesses I'm working with? That's what will make the difference with Oh, gosh, yes,

Josh 8:39

yeah. Well, okay, so let's say that they've got that. Still, I think it's, you know, we might look at the tactics, and there are tactics that might not work real well. And there are tactics that do work well. And so, um, you know, what would you say in terms of tactics work pretty well, with campaigns like the kind that you talk about.

Israel 8:58

I love what you love when you use the word tactics because success leaves clues, right? And principles has to do with tactics, right? We believe in structure, we have a structure we typically there's nine events that our clients run with us, from retreats to masterclasses to workshops, primarily right now, the biggest event that people are doing right now are master classes and challenges. And what we do is we simultaneously use Facebook groups, and zoom primarily to run these events. And we have a whole strategy in the structure, that we nurture the audience because as you know, marketing, the message that you get to a cold audience is very different than the message you're going to get to a warm or hot audience. So on online, people have disbelief. They're You know, they're judging you from day one. So you have to write in a way that you have to destroy disbelief for either for lack of a better phrase, and you'd have to warm them up, you'd have to build that trust. So we use space for groups with let's say, a three to seven day event to be able to take that call. traffic and turn them into a warm audience. And that warm audience are individuals that are going to be more prone to invest wants to hear about your proven solution.

Josh: 10:08

So are you talking about when you talk about it, like a three to save a seven day event? What what's happening during those three to seven days?

Israel: 10:15

Very good question. If I can just break it down right now I just give people the system here, I can give that more or less structure. So let's say you're doing a three day event, right? Typically, what we do is we have to build out the front end, to get people to sign up for that event. And what we do is we put them into a Facebook group, why a Facebook group, because a Facebook group allows you to nurture them to interact, to get to know your, your audience, the people that are signing up, right? You can incentivize them by giving them giveaways and raffles by having them go live in the group. And that creates community. And what happens on Facebook groups, when you have a new group, and you actually you're actually getting new, more people inside of that group, Facebook's algorithm. And this is one thing that we use to grow our one of our our groups that has over over a quarter million people right now, Facebook, our algorithm will say, hey, a lot of people are joining this group, put this in front of more people for free, so they can join as well. So with that interaction along with Facebook's algorithm and nurturing them, you're able to really get organic traffic, but also the paid traffic. And that's what really makes a difference online. That's why we recommend Facebook groups. It's about just communicating your message, right? just telling your story, not trying to sell right like you teach, not selling, you got to sell without selling, you have to just communicate and the people that will relate to you, they're going to connect with you. And that's what's going to increase your conversion. And I can share more, but I just wanted to Yeah, no, no, no, I hope I

Josh: 11:41

hope you don't mind me like asking you to, you know, kind of share all your secret sauce here. But that's what we're here for. Yeah, most folks, I think the listeners program generally pretty sophisticated. You know, we've been in, you know, a lot of folks that are, you know, are full time business owners. So, you know, usually we're talking a lot about, you know, leadership and tactics and marketing. And I'm certainly one thing that I think you see is, you know, folks that are successful in business, they like knowing generally how to do things, they're not going to do it themselves, right? I don't like I like learning principles. But I like hiring people that are masters at doing what they do. So you know, but just kind of getting a general feel for the strategy. So the idea here is we want to promote into a Facebook group, when we're now that we're in that Facebook group, you know, so for talking about, you know, a three to seven day event, are we doing lots of live stream content, then to kind of just teach and bring value, a lot of video based content?

Israel: 12:42

Very good question. We also do live events in person as well. But for the Facebook online event, we primarily like if you're doing a three day event, let's say you're doing what they want on Monday, day two, on Wednesday, day three on Friday, we like to have the gap in between because what happens is this just for the people that will join not everybody will be there live to watch and live. Oh, right. If you have that day in between, you get the opportunity to have on watching the replays. So I mean, yesterday, one of our clients she was on, she had about over 3100 people signed up for the event, she had live around 450 people watching her live, right but I just checked this morning, and she had over 500 some replays on the video that she did yesterday. And that's because we haven't there's a day off to that. So when you have this, you it's like a community you build instead of just sending someone an email and we still use emails but instead of just sending them the email and waiting for them to go and find the video when they're in that Facebook group. It's easy because they're already in there. And when you can give people easy steps to take they tend to take it versus trying to go around the hoop if you will.

Josh: 13:49

Yeah yeah. And and sorry for all the dings and all that some of those decisions some of those are Israel some of those are mine. I apologize for the listeners like probably checking their own phones Is that me? It's me. No, it's us. We just forgot to turn on our notifications off and then I had my my little note taking app kind of come in and out zoom here. So okay, so Israel, I think I get the general idea here. When are you what do we usually because, you know, I'm you're very, very good at the high ticket, high touch, you know, kind of typical high level consultant like, I love that world. I am not very good even though I made $6 million in selling $20 a month memberships with my other company, I guess I'm it's a little outside my comfort zone to the masses, right? I'm not a very good selling from the stage kind of person. I'm usually too afraid to do that or, you know, kind of do afraid to to ask for that, you know, because I you know, just like I just want to be the good guy, right? I just want to give away all the value. But But in this model that we've been talking about what types of programs use work really well? How is that ask eventually made?

Israel: 15:05

Yeah. And I would encourage you to say you, are you because you just said what you said, that's the ingredient that you need to actually close to the state is just to be you and just communicate and when you add value people will connect. But to answer your question, really, if anyone has like, typically info products worse, work best, you can scale services, you can definitely do that. But obviously, you're limited on bandwidth because you only have 24 hours in a day. But if you have a mentorship program, let's say like, a course or a four week accelerated program, or maybe it's a monthly subscription, it works very well when you bring in, you know, 100 200 people into your mentorship programs at a time. Yeah, right. The record that we have, we had one guy he had over, he brought in over 800 people in just a five day event. And the reason that that we did during COVID. And that that has been generated for him over 480k and expected to generate about three quarters because there are people that have that monthly payment. So

Josh: 16:04

so he products and then price point like where do you What? I don't think that? Well, I don't know, I'll let I'll let you work.

Israel: 16:13

I mean, based on data, or I'm a marketer, but I'm also a numbers guy, I'm a systems guy, right? I have data to prove this. We have spent hundreds of 1000s on ads, running events, different types of live paid, right? Typically, this is this is based on data here and trends. Typically, when you're doing a free event, like a free to paid program, what optimizes very well as a 997. Right under 1000. Right? 997. But if you're doing if you have like a paid event, well, let's say they're paying 4797 117, right? There's no limit. I've seen up to 7000 15,000. And people will monetize. In person events, though, I will tell you that in person when you have an in person live event. There's no limit. Oh, right. We're there. You're adding value that they're connecting the human element. Yes, but I love in person events. That's i will i can't wait until this thing start to be cleaned up by COVID. Because Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah.

Josh: 17:14

No, that. So let me ask you this. Um, you know, I've heard you know, that, you know, and again, kind of looking at consumer behavior, if it's only an E course or digital course, just by itself, right. So you're going to, you're going to pay me money, and I'm going to give you access to these 1520 videos. Yeah, I my understanding is that's a little tough to get good conversions on that. Am I wrong?

Israel: 17:45

Well, it's a little bit tough. If you don't have the system up front, it's all about the nurturing. But what I typically we have a lot of clients have come to us and they and they had okay is your this is a course I just want to sell it, I want to make it evergreen, there's two choices, we can either do an evergreen option, and just, every single day, set up some things that you get sales every single day or every single week, or we set up an event where you sell that, but you also do like maybe a four week q&a upfront. So they get access to the course, but they also get you for life support. Once a week, you're going in there and answering questions, because you want to connect people want that value. Yeah. And it's once a week one at one or two hours just to deliver answer questions q&a session. That's what I normally recommend. Yeah, I

Josh: 18:30

was hoping you were gonna say that, because I didn't I didn't want to say too much. But that's my understanding as well, is that, you know, that folks don't want to be like sitting alone in the library, you know, just kind of like, because I think that there's many of us that have, you know, maybe purchased a course didn't finish the course didn't get immediate value. And then it's like, Okay, well, you know, that 1000 $2,000 investment. You know, did I try that? Not? Not really,

Israel: 19:00

you hit it right on the head. And this is why under our program, our SOS platform services speaking, we believe that speaking is the highest one of the highest levels. Yeah, right. We use your words to empower others. But what we do is we give people the principles we build out there, we do it for them, we do it with them. But what what connects is the consulting, it's being able to sit down there and meet people where they are holding their hand, right, taking them inch by inch, so they can go ahead and go for it. That's what we that's what will get the results right. And you know, this having to work with amazing entrepreneurs, it's those little distinctions that typically make a big difference. Hmm,

Josh: 19:36

yeah. Israel, this is pretty great. Um, you mentioned something about partnering with your clients and and I am a huge fan of that. So when we, you know, we work with very high authority consultants, usually, you know, they're selling. They're usually selling 10,000 25,000 quarter million dollar type of engagements, I'm with you. When you take when you have that much potential, and you know your stuff, right, you, you know, you're good at doing what you do. Why would you not ask for a little slice of the action, right? If you can truly deliver the results, tell me more about how you partner with your clients? Well,

Israel: 20:20

there's really three requirements that I have, when I partner with somebody we that we that, you know, God's grace, were in a position where we choose who we can work with. But really, it's, I've already said, the first two, number one, you got to have a product or a service, if it's a service, you have to be at least open to at least automated fulfillment or systematizing fulfillment. Because if you want to do an event, and you want to scale, you got to systematize that side, right? Those are the first two, right product or service or a need to have your target market, you need to know who you're working with, you need to have a community maybe that already raised for you have to know what you're working on. And then number three, it can't just be about the money, there has to be a higher purpose behind there has to be a greater why, oh, you're why needs to be more than just Hey, is there I want to launch a seven figure that there has to be, hey, Israel, I want to impact I want to, I want to bring changes I want to I want to serve, solve more problems, because really, quite frankly, who we decide to partner with? Are those individuals.

Josh: 21:18

And it's smart to make that a requirement. We you know, for us culture fit is like number one, because you cannot fake it with people. And you know, if if, you know, I'm you're visiting with a client, and you want to know what's in their heart, and if all it is, is just making a quick buck or, you know, getting the two comma club award or whatever, and that's it, forget it, right? It's you're always going to be bummed, you know, crashing into that wall. Because you can't fool audiences, you know, you, you just, you know, audiences have never been more sophisticated. They've never been more cynical, right? They don't want to be sold to, you know, they want everything to so you can enroll people into your vision. But it's really hard to just enroll people into breakout your credit card and buy this thing. Right. And so it's it's all about the impact. It's all about the mission purpose values. So yes, I get you.

Israel: 22:25

Yeah, that's what it comes down to. I mean, we I mean, we literally worked I you know, tracks probably have clients that money is no concern to them. It is, you know, the way I see money, and most people see it this way as well. It's there's a limited amount of money out there. Yeah, there's unlimited there's more money than there is water and air, like money is theirs. Money is not the issue. What's the issue is leadership stewardship. Administration, having the skill to manage resources and, and typically what I have seen is when someone is in it just for them, when things get hard, they'll give up when someone has a y that's greater than them, the their endure, to see the joy because it's not just about them. And those are the clients that we want to partner with. We want to support we want to help them continue to bring the message out there.

Josh: 23:14

Your website is IsraelDuran.com. Where should people go? What should they click on? What's the next step?

Israel: 23:21

I have free trainings available for all on IsraelDuran.com you can go in all we ask is for your email. We won't spam you. But it's an 18 minute training and you can learn more about what we do. And our team has made some slots available to speak to you if you're looking for assistance in growing your business. Awesome.

Josh: 23:39

All right, Israel Duran again, the website IsraelDuran.com. Israel, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Josh.

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