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Episode 01

Wilfried Ligthart

Prepare Value First And The Money Will Follow

“If you think of the buyer-seller interaction as a race, the starting block is the ‘initial contact.’  What do you call the finish line? Most of my audiences will say the sale, the contract, or getting paid.  This mindset is dangerous – since this thinking conflicts with the client’s interest.

Now, imagine you are the customer. If I asked you the same question, what would you call your finish line?  After some thought, you’d probably conclude that the answer is results. So focus on the result, make the client happy and then the money will follow!

About This Guy

Wilfried Ligthart (51) is a Digital Blacksmith that specializes in driving external traffic. He is an expert in developing, engaging, and monetize digital communities. After a Master in Finance and a Master in Communication, he worked for years as a CEO in a multi-million-dollar Media Company in The Netherlands. He soon saw that the world was making a gigantic shift in how people live their lives and conduct business. Traditional means of getting in contact with your client have totally changed in the last decade. As an entrepreneur, you need to adjust, almost on a daily basis.

As a Digital Blacksmith, he advises entrepreneurs on developing an online marketing strategy crafted to meet the goals and objectives of any company. He has grown multiple Facebook fan pages amassing millions of followers and then converting these followers into paid customers.  Finding your tribe and die-hard fans is essential to making it to the big leagues and Wilfried will show you just how to do that. Last year Wilfried reached 2 billion people on Facebook on a $ 10K budget.

Norman 0:09  

Everyone, welcome to another episode of I Know this Guy, the podcast where we dive deep into the lives of some of the most interesting people I know. Before we get started, please like and subscribe to I Know this Guy wherever you get your podcasts. By the way, my kids want me to say something about ringing a bell. What the hell’s a bell?

 

Norman  0:41  

Hey guys, welcome back to I Know this Guy. Well, guess what? I Know this Guy  and he’s the CEO of a digital blacksmith and he was also a CEO of a large multimedia company. And word on the street says that he has a pretty wicked right jab. So anyways, hey, Wilfred, Welcome to the show. Thanks for getting on here.

 

Wilfried 1:02  

Yeah, well happy to be here, Norman. My gap is a little slow because of the lockdown and we’re not allowed to exercise anymore but I can still throw a punch so..

 

Norman  1:12  

Start throwing, let’s see those jabs.

 

Wilfried   1:15  

In your defenses well at a one on one cheek here and then just pressing like that, but yeah. A healthy mind to be in a healthy body. Yeah, you notice as well so yeah, that’s the way to go.

 

Norman    1:31  

Yeah, I have to say I’ve known you for a little while. We’ve been friends for a long time and I’ve never seen you with that much hair.

 

Wilfried  1:41  

My Corona haircut.

 

Norman   1:43  

Yeah, boy suits you. There you go.

 

Wilfried   1:46  

Hairdressers are opening up again so on Tuesday I will look totally fresh and clean almost like you. 

 

Norman

You’re gonna keep it tight. 

 

Wilfried

Yeah, Well, I can lose some but I still have some hair. I turned 51 the other day, so, yeah.

 

Norman 2:04  

Well, Fantastic! 51 I don’t know. See, we’re almost the same age, but that’s the difference between eating healthy, and eating Mars bars and butter fingers .

 

Wilfried  2:16  

What we did the other day and sent I think it was in Fort Lauderdale that we had to take a detour because we have to visit McDonald’s. We had to buy some, some cheeseburgers and some butterfingers. 

 

Norman

Had to do it. 

 

Wilfried

Yeah, Well, life is also about having fun sometimes. Oh, yeah.

 

Norman  2:34  

You gotta you gotta have fun.

 

Wilfried 2:37  

Cool outside the line sometimes. That’s what you do.

 

Norman  2:41  

But I couldn’t ever get you to have one of my butter fingers and thank god.

 

Wilfried   2:47  

Yeah, I’m not addicted to food. Luckily, that’s one of my good things. Yeah! Have a little down the line then. Yeah.

 

Norman  2:57  

What is exercise? I used to , I used to be halfway fit . I box, I was a martial artist, I played hockey. But now, it’s amazing like when we were talking  just when we got to meet each other yeah. I do this. I mean you’re a really fit guy  and you work out all the time and you work out with some of the best like your trainers though. World kickboxing champion or past kickboxing champion is any.

 

Wilfried  3:34  

Yeah, well that’s part of my story as well, part of my quote. It’s the Law of Attraction. “Surround yourself with people that can push you forward”. And I met a guy, and that’s what the show is all about and only who will be in it as well but he did a seminar. He’s Rob Hyman. He’s a nine time world heavyweight champion of the world. He was the first white guy to win in Thailand. So if you go there, he’s like a celebrity and he said, “Don’t fill me because everyone is making money with my name and I don’t have anything.” So I took a shower and I thought in the shower he doesn’t have anything. So I went back, of course, I got dressed first but I said, “Rob, What do you say about you don’t having anything?” He said, “Well I don’t have any social media presence. I don’t have a Facebook page and I don’t have anything.” I said, “Are you kidding me? Why don’t you have anything?” BPI says, “I never met the right guy.” I said, “Well, I’m a Digital Blacksmith. Here is my card.” And I have some slides just to back up my story. And I said, “I will run your social media pages.” We did, we started on December 1st. Do you see my screen? 

 

Norman

Yep

 

Wilfried:

 

The right screen. We got into 100,000 page likes in over six weeks and the funny thing is he’s friends with Jean Claud Van Damme as well. And Jean Claud saw what he was doing and he said, “Hey, I want you in my next movie.” Unfortunately, through the lockdown we didn’t meet him. We should meet him in March and he is one of my action heroes Jean Claud Van Damme. That’s amazing and that’s part of my story as well if you keep it grow stepping out of your comfort zone, if you keep meeting awesome guys and that’s what you’re doing with your show, you will end up with the best and the highest in the industry in my opinion. So yeah, that’s part of my story.

 

Norman 5:23  

That’s what I’m trying to do with this is that it’s all about a great network and getting to know people and reaching out being sincere. You don’t have to get out there and a lot of people make that mistake, right? Like we’ve seen it when we go to our conferences and people come up and they’ll ask us some questions or we’ll ask questions. But the last questions, and then they want give, give, give, give give I don’t mind giving, but if the first thing is how can you help me? How can you help me?  doesn’t lay down a really nice foundation. I rather say, “Hey, what can I do to help you?” Then people say, “, can you help me? Can you help me? Can you help me?” and that’s the difference. Like, I noticed that with you, you go out and you, and we haven’t even gotten into your history, by the way. I mean, we just go back,so long. I mean, this is great to talk to you. I haven’t seen it in a little while. But I’ve seen you talk and you give you give you give people ask you something, you don’t hold anything back. Nothing. , and that’s what I like, and that’s why I got you on here, and that’s why you’re one of the first guests on I Know this Guy. And remember the time when you were part of a Mastermind. It was a group mentoring program that Dave Kettner and I had called the AMZ and Beyond and you were a student. I never met you before. We met up at one event, just started talking and then all of a sudden, you were at our live event in Hawaii. Yeah. I had, it was hilarious because you’re very pleasant, but you’re quiet, you’re sitting in the back and just doing your thing. And then all of a sudden, we’re talking in, I’m looking at you going. Oh my gosh, like, you’re in here as one of our members and I was impressed. I wanted to be a member of you’re like, I, you’re the teacher, I’m the student, let’s get going. I mean, that was hilarious. Just seeing what it was then and how everything has just evolved. Since that mastermind, I mean, I can’t believe how you’ve just taken off and you’re just teaching everything right now. It’s fantastic.

 

Wilfried  7:45  

Yeah, well, that’s also what I said a few minutes back is that there are no boundaries. If you have a story to tell ,tell it. If  a way that will benefit all, share it with everyone. Don’t keep it to yourself. And funny stories as well, I met Kevin there, Kevin King, amazing guy. And never forget what he said, “I’m going to sit down next to you, you’re going to teach me everything and I don’t care if I have to be on stage. I want to learn from you first.” And what happens then, Kevin knows everyone you saw before. I know it was on a lot of stages that Kevin put me on. And then I met Howard and then I went to China, and that’s how you grow and evolve yourself as well. And as I said in the beginning,  “Don’t hold back.” One of my other mentors was Travis Stevenson also from Florida with his Chatmatic. And I said, “What person do you listen to?” He said, “Well, you will never meet him. It’s Alex Becker and he’s he’s amazing but he’s unreachable.” And a month later I was in a private Skype with him. And he said, “How did you do that?” Yeah, well, there are no boundaries. Good. Go for it. You can get everyone if you have a story to tell or whatever, just go for it. And of course, you need to have some something to tell but, yeah, learn the craft. Be a master at it and everyone will want to know what I know about it. That’s, how it worked. That’s how it worked for me.

 

Norman 9:19  

Right? You got something to say people will listen. 

 

Wilfried

Yeah.

 

Norman

And be real. Right. That’s the main thing.

 

Wilfried  9:26  

Yeah, be real and it’s also funny. Yeah, let’s make it a little in the lighter tone that you were at my house in Orlando the other day and you opened up my fridge and you looked at my vegetables and my tomatoes. And he said, “Where can I put my butter fingers?” and the funny story was we were working like crazy and you look at your clock and you say, “So we go out.” I said, “We’re working.” And in Holland, it is normal that you just begin hack or whatever. It was the first time in two years. I think that you just didn’t lunch or go out to eat but you just stayed at home and it was so funny to see the cultural differences between us as a guy from Holland just working around the clock and not going out and you’re used to the fact that you you must be terrified now that you cannot go to a restaurant anymore. Just take two hours off and enjoy. How was that steak? That steak the day actually massage the cows. We had Kobe beef. Yeah, yeah, just have some Kobe beef and then go back to work again. And that was so funny for me as well. But yeah,

 

Norman  10:40  

Yeah, I remember that was absolutely hilarious. I mean, we were like, it was called The Odd Couple. It came out years and years ago. Yeah, Oscar and Felix. We made a good duo. Yeah.

 

Wilfried  10:55  

Absolutely. But that’s also what I love about my life is that you meet so many awesome crowd of people like I met you I met Kevin, I met Alex, all those  crazy guys that are plowing away and are being the top leaders in the world and actually changing the world as we go and all those different cultures and yeah, I am very blessed to travel the world twice so the last year and even now the Coronavirus in the lockdown is good for me because finally can settle down a little and, right, focus but it’s an amazing journey.

 

Norman  11:31  

One of the things I wanted to talk to you about also is that a lot of people are doom and gloom about what’s happening right now. Like at the time we’re recording this, COVID is on, and I’m hearing all these horror stories of the world’s collapsing skies falling. What are your thoughts on it? And , what are you doing about it? Are you succeeding? What’s your thoughts about the future?

 

Wilfried  11:55  

Yeah. Well, basically, a crisis is like this, separates the boys from the man because he can sit down and feel sorry for yourself and of course a lot of people are struggling. This is more for our online guys, because it’s so much easier to find your way online. But yeah, even if you have a restaurant started to have a takeout. And that’s what we did as well. Immediately we created a website. Easy livery today and restaurants can be on there for free for example, and just show what their menu is and people can buy it and that’s one of the things we did but we just started our business almost as usual as well. For example, in Texas, we do a house giveaway and you might think, well, house giveaway and of course anyone that signs up for the house will get some realtor asked him a few questions of course, but even in this day and age, we sold a home last week to people so the economy is still there but you have to find your way and be creative. You can create a facemask now or you can do all kinds of other things. You need to diversify and that’s also why I say, “Fix your roof while the sun shines” and a lot of people fix the roof while it’s raining. It’s not raining out, it’s pouring, and they don’t know what to do. And that’s also why I say diversify as well even in your online media strategy at 20% Google 20% Facebook 20% Instagram 20% Pinterest. If you have an online marketing or online store 20% Amazon 20% YouTube, Shopify, 20% Walmart because you want to diversify. If you only stick to one thing, and it will be done tomorrow then you will be done as well. And that’s what’s happening now of course, and it’s not about the people that are working in restaurants. I know they struggle like crazy and I feel very sorry for them, but yeah, for me as an entrepreneur, there are always chances that you can jump on and jump paths. So, yeah, you need to be creative.

 

Norman  14:08  

Let’s go back a step. Tell me a bit of how did you get to where you are like who? Tell me who you are. And how did you get to be that person of authority?

 

Wilfried  14:21  

Yeah, well, I said I am 51 already. And I spent my time in Amsterdam or in Orlando where I bought a home. Two amazing boys. You’ve met them.

 

Norman

They’re awesome

 

Wilfried

Nice wife as well and as I said, I was a CEO of a multi million million dollar firm in Holland, but that was on the payroll. I didn’t have a share. So it felt like I was an entrepreneur but not doing my own thing. So in 2015, I started doing my own company. And yeah, I thought, well, that’s easy. You just have a Shopify store, do some ads, amazing things will happen. But I’m also Dutch,  the phrase double dutch, so I saw those ads are very expensive. There should be a better way to do it and that’s basically what I tweaked and did in my dungeon. To find a way that the algorithms will give you an audience instead of you paying for them. And I’m not sure, can I share some slides to, to back up my story a little bit? I’m not sure on time, what normally is the time and otherwise, you can always cut it.

 

Wilfried 15:28  

So we have to remember, Wilfried, is that this is going to be audio, but there will be a video as well. So the people that are on YouTube or watching wherever can see the video, we’ll share the slides.

 

Wilfried  15:41  

Yeah, awesome. Absolutely. So what I did was basically come up with a technique to get the algorithms that give you the traffic and I reached 2 billion people in no time. 

 

Norman

And so that’s a 2 billion with a B. 

 

Wilfried

 

Yeah, with a B and I did it with $10,000. That’s even the best part and one of the things the tactics you should do, don’t think about the sale and anyone wants to sell something, and you should see this page now if you have a video. But it’s all 20% off discount buy from me buy, buy buy, people will say buy to you if you only say buy, buy, buy and that’s why providing value first that’s basically what you need to do. And  one of the videos that Rob Burns actually shot because it’s an amazing video. I will not run it now because it’s audio but it’s real people saying about the product. This is so awesome. This is quality, you want to buy it. And if people tell you, that’s amazing, they will also tell their friends and yeah, one of the biggest things the algorithm will pick up is engagement. People talking about you talking about your product, and if that happens then you do not have to pay for anything. And this is one of my best slides. We did this for a client and we got 900,000 clicks straight to the website. We only spent four and a half thousand dollars on it and our cost per click was 0005 cents. And how did we do it? Because we provided quality content, not Clickbait. Quality content of real problem solving articles, people will click on it, go to your website and every big tech firm looks at each other. I remember the story of Howard Thai  I’m not sure if he got him on but he’s the Chinese amazon seller, amazing guy, and he got a product ranked number one on Amazon without any sale without any review. We did it just by ranking number one on Google. Because if you rank number one on Google, Amazon thinks you’re amazing. Facebook thinks, “Oh, that guy must be amazing.” And if Facebook sends you traffic, it’s the other way around. Google thinks, “Oh, that guy’s amazing. Let’s send more traffic.” And I always like to promote my snowball Model, the website the Search Engine Optimization, your app your social media, everything is related to each other and if you do a fine job by posting quality content on a regular basis, people start to like you every seven steps of marketing and need to see you seven times before they trust you and they want to buy from you. And then it will lead into sales and conversions. And you see amazing things. We did it for a client as well, we got 1 million page views in less than two months. We started working with a client last year, May, saw an increase in traffic because, Yeah, if you, as I said, provide value in a content of problem solving or be funny, be interactive, be real, Facebook and Google, they don’t want your money. They say well, “We’ll get the money from your competitor. Keep doing what you do best and we give you more traffic.” And here’s an example of how not to do it. This is online then. I got this message the other day and some idiot said, “Greetings from the Tech Detective . Share and like our company page and post for exclusive updates on the latest news.” I don’t know that company at all. Why should I share? Why should I care? Why should I follow him? And that’s one of the biggest mistakes that people think. Just post something and it will go viral but that’s not how it works. It’s a lot of TLC and that’s why I’m a Digital Blacksmith. Tender Love care and also consistency. If you post regular quality content on a regular basis then you will get the like and the reach. And that’s basically the whole secret sauce of ,yeah, getting a lot of reach and just for the audience that do see the video and I will talk about it as well but I have some updates here as well. Here. This is my latest. We had one post and we reached 1.2 million. I posted it on April 30th. 81,000 Comments, 37,000 shares. We add another page that says May 1 to May 7, we reached 2 million people all for free. And this is another client base I show here from April 11 to May 7th, we reached 11 million people. And you see here it’s all organic free stuff. And yeah, what you should do then is of course, if something goes viral, when you sleep next to someone that snoring wants to sleep well, then you could put in the Shopify store wherever we reached 200,000 people with this post without any ads spent, and a lot of people will click on the link.

 

Norman

 

The people that can’t see this right now. It’s basically a funny video I’ve seen about this dog snoring that reached 216,000 people and he had about 2000 shares. 

 

Wilfried

Yeah, even if you are only on audio, this is funny. It’s a Saint Bernese dog snoring like crazy.

 

Wilfried  21:02  

And then you see a cat. It’s almost like husband and wife said a poor cat is looking at him with killer eyes. He wants to kill that Saint Bernese dog. And yeah, we work with a company that’s selling mattresses and pillows and you need to find the hook, you need to find something that’s appealing. And this is another post we did on the brand new page. It’s about proud Patriots in the US and the quote is like ,”Didn’t win the lottery, but I did wake up in the best country in the world. And that’s kind of the same thing.” In this case, you strike a nerve, and we reached two and a half million people and got  88,000 comments. So yeah, you need to be funny, instructive, authentic, interactive, and most of all, be real. Don’t think about the sale. Think about how you can entertain your clients or make a VIP. And if you do it the right way,they will come back and they start liking you, sharing you. They will be your ambassador. We had a funny story as well. We have a client and some lady attacked at that company and the client didn’t have to do anything because their VIPs took care of that lady. They say, “You’re a scammer. Yeah, go away. Yeah, yeah, this product is awesome and is the best product I’ve ever used.” And if other people say that, then you don’t have to share it yourself, because they’re doing it for you and that’s the best marketing you can have.

 

Norman  22:29  

When we first met one of the things that you said you were showing me the engagement you could get and you were blowing me away. , I sat down and I went, “Oh my gosh.” I had no idea you could do this and I asked you about one of my products and you said, “Well, I can’t do this like overnight. You have to have engagement before you get married.”

 

Wilfried 22:56  

Yeah. 

 

Norman  22:57  

, I tell it to so many people because it’s so true. If people just think, “Oh, I’ll go and put a promotion out there promotion, promotion, promotion, promotion.” They don’t think about that engagement with somebody commenting and understanding or trying to follow them and  it’s kind of selfish they Oh, just,, they’re gonna buy and nobody cares. 

 

Wilfried

No, nobody cares. It’s me, me, me. And I’ve had a Chinese client as well as a very big firm and I was talking to the CEO and he’s one of the most funny stories ever. He said to me, “Why are you always posting fortune cookies?” That’s basically what we’re doing with a meme or a quote that’s in the eyes of a Chinese. “It’s a fortune cookie.” I said, “Well, if you are in a Chinese restaurant, one of the biggest highlights of the evening is that fortune cookie and that’s also what’s going on when you post stuff online. You’re funny, you’re real authentic and instructive. So do something like that and it’s pattern interrupt. When people scroll down in their Facebook feed they need, “Oh, this is funny. Let me check it out. This is amazing.” And if they like you now, Facebook will show it tomorrow. And if again like you then, you will be a top fan and every time we post something, it will be shown to that particular person because they like what you’re doing.” And I say, “Provide value first and the money will follow.” And it may sound strange, but those big companies are the same. Because if Google sends someone to a website with a horrible experience, they do it twice in a row. People go to Bing. They know they don’t go to Google anymore. It’s the same with Facebook. If I want, if I go on Facebook and I want to have a good time, I want to see good posts. If I only see garbage, I will find another way to get my Yeah, my entertainment going and, yeah, that’s one of the biggest things. Oh, absolutely.

 

Norman 24:48  

And that leads me to your actual quote. So this quote is going to be shown not only here, but it’s going to be on our Instagram and on our Facebook. But we always reach out and say “What do you live by or give us some words of inspiration” and let’s touch on that right now. So let’s go back and discuss your quote. So I reached out to you about a week ago, and I said, “Give me a couple of words of wisdom.” And you came back with,

 

Wilfried  25:18  

Yeah, provide value first and the money will follow. That’s what life’s all about and that’s what the business is all about, and that’s also what your product should be about. If you’re only here to make money, then you will have a poor life. If you’re here to help people solve their problems, then they will be your biggest fence and that’s basically how things work and it’s also in the relationship phase. That’s also how I met Jerry, that’s how I met Rob, that’s how I met you as well. If I only care about me, me, me, you think, “Oh, okay, get rid of this guy.” But if I actually solve your problem, you come back to me and say, “oh, Can I help you as well?” And that’s how you become stronger and become a better person as well. That’s totally something that I live by everyday.

 

Norman 26:12  

Now, that’s something you’ve preached from day one. So , that’s incredible. So if we take this a step further, living by that principle. 

 

Wilfried  26:22  

Yeah, yeah. Sorry to interrupt you. But that’s also a very funny story because a lady reached out to me and said, “I don’t have any money but I’m struggling on Amazon and can you help me with my social media? I cannot pay you.” I said, “Well, I don’t care about your money. I care about your success.” Because whatever, I get repaid. I truly believe in the Law of Attraction. So I sat down with her on a couch for an hour and she said, “Oh, I’m so grateful and it’s so awesome” and a few months later, she made $10,000. But the funny story is after the call, and again, she said, “I don’t have any money” and I said,  “I don’t care about your money.” I got a call from a guy. He’s an 8 figure Amazon seller and he said, “I want to work with you.” Out of the blue, and I don’t believe in coincidence, that’s just my reward out of the universe for helping that lady. And that’s also part of providing value first and the money will follow, maybe not from that lady, but somehow you will get your rewards and that’s why I say, “I care about your success and not about your money.” And that’s very, in my opinion, is very powerful that they are actually creating a sequel now on The Secret, the very popular movie that sold 35 million books. There will be an updated version soon but everyone that didn’t watch that video or didn’t read the book, start with it, because it will change your life.

 

Norman  27:46  

I agree. Yeah, you’ve been preaching that for a long time,  and you live it, like you said. So this is our Real or Fake News Segment. So I’m gonna ask you a couple of questions and also statements and you’re going to let me know whether you think they’re true or fake. All right, Elon Musk and Grimes have decided to name their baby X Æ A-12. 

 

Wilfried

That’s true. 

 

Norman

You’re right.

 

Wilfried  28:13  

Yeah, and the funny thing is because we’re on lockdown and our local pub has now those quizzes on YouTube so that was one of the questions so that’s why I knew it so even now you can learn some stuff and that’s funny.

 

Norman  28:31  

There you go. All right, number two Digital Blacksmith announced that they’re releasing a calendar with their star model Wilfried ligthart. True or false?

 

Wilfried  28:42  

Unfortunately, false. Should I say well unfortunately. But I assume you mean my incredible picture of my Digital Blacksmiths and attire and I got a very funny story of that because I reached out to a few lawyers in LA to do some SEO work for them. And one lawyer really happened. He called me and she was so pissed off. She said, “Why are you sending me your spam email with a pose where you look like a serial killer?” I didn’t know what to say so I said, “Well, that’s because I am” and then she hung up. That really happened. I should have recorded it but that’s the only way to get rid of her I guess. But yeah, having brand recognition is so important that whenever we see people on LinkedIn, they say, “Oh, I love your Black Digital Blacksmith phrase” or “your picture.” Yeah, having a branded authority is very important so yeah, I love how it looks.

 

Norman 29:45  

Fantastic. Alright. The third one. Five year old boy stopped on US Highway wanted to buy a Lamborghini, police say. True or false?

 

Norman  29:56  

Yeah, probably true.

 

Norman  30:00  

You got it. There’s a five year old kid out on the highway wanting to buy a Lamborghini.

 

Wilfried  30:05  

Yeah. All right. Did he have any money with him?

 

Norman  30:09  

I don’t know. But  what, I got one rule for this podcast. Anybody standing in front of a Lamborghini is not invited.

 

Norman  30:19  

Yeah, there’s also a funny story about some paperclip that turns into a plane or something like that. When you just trade it, you trade up. You should look it up. It’s a trade up story that I have a paperclip and now you have a pen and I say, “you do you want to trade your pen for my paperclip?” And then I will trade into something more valuable and I am not sure if it’s a true story but it’s a very funny story I read the other day that’s from a paperclip to a plane. Yeah. That’s something to do with providing value, well, not really, but basically, you can go anywhere you want. If you have the mindset for it, then there are no rules. So no, no boundaries.

 

Norman 31:08  

Okay, Wilfried, so the other thing you talk about a lot is building authority and building trust. Can you tell me a little bit more about  how you achieve that?

 

Wilfried  31:19  

Yeah, absolutely. Well, the first thing you do is learn everything there is to learn about the topic you want to be an authority in then find role models and be like them and try to be even better. And then you need to reach out and I wasn’t a speaker on stages before I started this whole journey, but as I said, grow by stepping out of your comfort zone. And one of the biggest ways to show authority is being on stage. In November, I was in China speaking for two and a half thousand Chinese. If you only show that video, it’s a 32 second video with all the people in the crowd there and I’m on stage. That’s enough for you to get credited authority. And when you also then post stuff with what’s also problem solving for other people, and you help them out that way, and you’ll be in a podcast like this, then yeah, that’s the best way to grow your authority and be seen as real. Be seen as someone that actually is selling stuff. And yeah, share everything you got. I don’t hold back. I don’t sell any courses. I’m not pitching. I’m just telling it the way it is and I always say bring you the bad news. The good news is anyone can do right. The bad news is a lot of work. And that’s what people are always looking for. And there is no shortcut in life or in social media. You need to be there every day, and it’s a lot of work as well, but the rewards are incredible.

 

Norman  32:48  

One of the reasons why I put together this podcast, everybody was looking at people with Lamborghini standing in front of Lamborghinis, flashing money or hearing , all the time basically get rich quick, especially now like there’s so many bloody courses out there. And it just got to me everybody’s just oh yeah, it’s so easy to make a million bucks. It’s so easy to do this. And people were just throwing their money away wasting their money with these fake gurus. I wanted to go at it a different angle. I want to know about failure. And everybody, I believe any true entrepreneur has had to go through their share of failure. So I’m going to throw this at you. What was your biggest failure? Why and what did you learn from it?

 

Wilfried  33:37  

Well, yeah, the biggest failure is, it’s always failing forward. And I love a quote from Winston Churchill. He says, “Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” That’s basically what it is. And I have big failures. I’m not sure if I was to blame on that time but I lost all my Facebook pages. I lost my Facebook account, I got kicked out of Google twice. That’s just how life is. And another thing that’s what I also see happening a lot with people is they don’t start, they want to be everything needs to be perfect before they start, but I love a quote of Richard Branson. He says, “If someone offers you an opportunity, and you’re not sure you can do it, just say yes and learn how to do it later.” And of course, you will fail along the line. Life is about failure. And that’s what I said, if you go from failure to failure and don’t lose your enthusiasm, you will be successful. So I wasn’t happy when I woke up and all my Facebook pages were gone because as I said, I had 2 billion reach.

 

Norman  34:42  

People don’t understand when you say Facebook pages, we’re not talking about a page or two with a few followers, I was with you that day. I was with you in Orlando and you just looked up and you went, “I’m blocked” like they and I remember your expression like it just looked like somebody kicked you between the legs. And it was like, I can’t like what happened to my pages. We’re talking about a ton of pages. We’re talking about pages that were, I think there were some with three to 5 million people in the group. Yeah, there was the one page that had 5 million people, there was another with 3 million people. I mean, these pages were worked. You did a ton of work for them. And all of a sudden, your year or two worth of manual labor was gone. One of the things I thought was hilarious, we should have done it at the time. You said Facebook took away your pages because they say that they were automated and fake. And you had that idea of going out to Facebook with a picket sign and saying, I’m not fake. That would have been a brilliant campaign, the “I’m not fake campaign” but , they can just take away your life. Just like that. Yeah, there’s nothing you can do.

 

Wilfried

It’s artificial intelligence, there is not even a person looking at it and that’s why I say those companies are really scary. And that’s also what I read is that those companies survived the crisis and they made even more money than it did before and they’re now making so much money that finally there will be some regulation because you don’t want it. And I don’t want to talk about politics and we don’t want to do that. But there was also a case study, if you look at Hillary Clinton’s fake email, thing, what’s going on, four years ago, you will not find any search on Google. If you go find Trump you see 600,000 things that guy did wrong. But that’s how Google is changing the narrative. They just force you into believing something that’s not true and that’s very scary. And they just can kick you off like they did with me. They said you’re fake because then you were in China, then you were in Hawaii and you’re in Orlando, then you’re in Amsterdam, you must be fake. Yeah, well, that’s just what I do and that’s why I say diversification is the utmost important because if you put all your eggs in one basket, then yeah, you can be, they can be gone instantly. But yeah, you need to pick yourself up and start all over again and that’s that’s how those big firms work. And that’s also a little bit scary about those big firms because they basically control the narrative and we didn’t talk about that in this setting but that’s why we created now and broadcast organization flicks.net where everything is real and authentic and everyone is being heard. Because we talked about fake news a few minutes ago, but yeah, the mainstream media is all about fake news, in my opinion, and they don’t care about the narrative. They care about their shareholders or some things. There’s a lot of going on now with Michael Moore’s movie about the green environment lobby, what’s going on? It’s all about the money. And that’s very sad. And yeah, what about failures? Yeah, I have small failures everyday.But pick yourself up, learn from them and don’t make them again and that’s where you need to go and it’s a lot of work as well. I will have my Lamborghini, Well, I’m not, I’m more into the Aston Martin guy. I will have an Aston Martin in a few months. But that’s because I work 16 hours a week or sorry a day. And for me, this isn’t working because I’m building my empire and I’m so excited about it and if you do something that will give you passion and you love what you’re doing, then it doesn’t feel like work and especially when you can help clients or or change people’s lives along the way. That’s why I think, yeah, keep doing what you do best and do it with all your heart. That’s the best way to do it.

 

Norman  39:08  

So if I could sum it up in one word, would that be resilient? Or resilience? Yeah.

 

Wilfried  39:15  

Yeah, don’t let anyone stop you, especially people that don’t want to do it themselves say, “Oh, I think it’s very hard to or why should you do it” and you on stage , yeah, of course I’m on stage why not? Anyone can do it. Just go to Jerry for some tips. But he will tell you straight up what’s wrong. But the first time, you will be shaking like a leaf. The second time, it will be better. The third time, you control the room. That’s how you grow. And yeah, don’t mind failure. It’s part of life. It’s part of your process of becoming an entrepreneur and financial freedom. But don’t let anyone say you can’t do it. I’m not sure if I can give it away already, but I just got a text from the guy I know. And that’s also an awesome story. He said, “I’m in.” And just to show you who we’re talking about, It’s this guy here at the bottom, Jerry Robert. He’s an amazing gifted speaker. He’s one of the top 20 Highest Paid speakers in the world and he came to Amsterdam two years ago in a conference and I said to him, the friend of mine, “I want to meet him and I want to work with him” because it’s all about mentors. You should surround yourself with people that can push you forward. And if a guy says, “Jump,” I say, “Ally” because you can only learn from guys like that. So I went in there very confident. It was Friday evening and I was sitting there 500 people and I looked around Oh, it’s got to be a little bit difficult to get to know him. But Friday night, he said , “You have 8 seconds to impress me.” So I went home and I thought, “How can I impress him?” So I did a little research. I saw he gave away an Ebook, but it was the old fashioned way, sign up with everything, your name, your address, telephone number and the Ebook ended up in my spam folder. So I built them a messenger bot. Friday, Saturday morning, the conference went ahead, and I knew I needed to get his attention so I saw the mic was passing by and I said, “Give me the mic.” And that’s why I say grow with stepping out of your comfort zone because grabbing a mic with 500 people is a little out of my comfort zone. But I said, “I’m so honored to be here and Jerry is the best” and something like that. So I caught this attention. And a few hours later there was a break and I went to him and there was a long line of everyone saying you need to make me a millionaire or wants your picture taken and then finally I was on board and I said, “Can I have your phones?” and he said, “Why do you want my phone?”, I said, “I want to show you something.”, he said, “It’s okay. This is my phone.” And with two seconds, he said, “that’s my e-book.” I’m not sure if you can curse in this show, but I’m sure they curse. But he said, “Are you kidding me?” with the F word, “How did you do that?” I said, “Well, here’s my card, contact me tomorrow.” And he contacted me and the rest is history because he’s my mentor in speaking engagements. And I help in any way I can with social media. And that’s also I went through him with a solution for him. I got his attention. We met the other day, and halfway there, he said, “I’m sold. I want to work with you.” And that’s also what you do. That’s what my quote is all about. We come to that later, “Provide value first and the money will follow.” I can say to him, ” Can you help me out? I have this problem.” and I’m one of the many. It’s better to say, “Hey, I can help you out because I see this and this is that you’re not doing it right.” And that’s actually amazing. And one of the funny stories is we were on ASGTG this year. I was on it last year. And I got the video recording of it. I was very confident. I said to Jerry, ” Can you take a look at my video?” because I thought Oh, I’m so awesome. And the next day he called me and said, I said to him, Jerry, “did you like my video? Did you like my performance?” He said, “How coachable are you?”

 

Wilfried  43:24  

So there was something going on there. I said, “How coachable? Well, I say, if you say jump, I say ally. But why do you ask?” , “It was horrible. It was the worst I’ve ever seen.” And I said,  “Really?”, “Yeah, see, It was horrible. But that’s why I say how coachable Are you because I can help you make it better.” And I say, “Of course, by all means.” So we had five pieces of paper lay down with everything I should do better and I said, “I will make it up to you next month I’m in London” , “You will be on one of my seminars and, Yeah, let’s see if you’ve improved.” So I was at one of his seminars and he did everything he possibly could. You have to smile more, he has to ask a question. You need to be a little silent. You have to look everyone in the eye and make him feel special, that kind of stuff that he’s an expert in. And he gave me a 7.6 after that one. So that’s why I say learn from the best. Yeah, if they say this is not good, you need to do that. Yeah. They know what they’re doing. You can shave decades in today’s world just by listening to the real gurus. There are so many fake gurus out there. If someone says you need to do with that just check them out and what he did in the past to make him legitimate. And yeah, guys like that are amazing. So he just said I’m in so he will be my I Know that Guy in the next year. So that’s a good, good bridge to the next episode.

 

Norman  44:58  

It is and , It’s amazing that you were able to get Jerry. So this is the first time hearing of it so thank you. That’s exactly what we wanted to do. It’s that getting to the next person gets to the next person who they know. And just understanding how people tick so thanks Wilfried.

 

Wilfried 45:16  

Yeah, I mean three leaders. That’s why I’m so happy that I can ask my neighbor but every five minutes people will be bored. But if he starts to talk, I’m all ears.

 

Norman 45:28  

Yeah, no, and I’m almost nervous because this is brand new. I’ve not done podcasts before. I’m stepping outside of my comfort zone. Like you said, when you were on stage. So right now you don’t know you might see it, but I am shaking on the inside just trying to keep this together. 

 

Wilfried

I don’t see it.

 

Norman

Oh, yeah, that’s good. That’s being kind. I just wanted to thank you for coming on I Know a Guy. This has been great. Your journey’s fantastic. You’re so authentic and real. But anyways, I just wanted to give a shout out and say thank you. How do people get a hold of you? How can they get a hold of your wisdom?

 

Wilfried  46:13  

Well, I’m very happy that I’m not John Smith. So if people just type in Wilfried Ligthart, there are only a few of them in the world and if you see the one with a nice Digital Blackness geared, then that’s me. So just Google my name and I will be in the top results. That’s being of having a incredible name like Devin.

 

Norman  46:36  

Yeah, and a guy that knows how to play the system, too. I’m sure you can find anything that you do is number one on Google so thanks for being on.

 

Wilfried  46:46  

Yeah. Thank you for having me.

 

Norman 46:48  

All right, everyone. Thanks for listening and remember to like and subscribe to the podcast. You can also follow me Norman Farrar, aka The Beard Guy on all social media platforms. I Know this Guy, and now you do to Hey guys and gals. Thanks for listening.

 

Norman  47:05  

For more great content. Please like, subscribe and follow me. I Know this Guy on all social media platforms. I Know this Guy relies on listeners like you. Please visit our Patreon page to find out how you can help

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