0:00 – 0:52 Show intro and host welcome


0:56 – 1:28 Guest introduction and Chris’s roles (Agora Financial, Moby)


1:31 – 2:21 How Chris got started in direct response marketing (first website, early events)


2:21 – 4:25 What Agora publishes and why they do not teach sales courses


4:25 – 5:42 Avatar definition and how the audience is shifting younger


6:03 – 7:26 Compliance, vetting, and why it is hard to do business with Agora


7:26 – 10:13 Crypto discussion, shakeout risk, and the blockchain vs crypto distinction


10:33 – 16:21 Dealmaking process, trusted advisor framing, and value-first networking tactics


16:21 – 18:10 Where to find Chris, location, and closing

1:38 “I launched my first website in 2000…”

2:30 “So yesterday… we’re doing about a million dollars per hour in revenue from that launch.”

4:25 “We’ve done a lot of Avatar definition on this… it makes it a lot easier to write your copy.”

6:03 “We’ve got a lot to lose if we were to promote things that we hadn’t vetted thoroughly.”

8:11 “I do have an opinion on cryptocurrency. I don’t hold any. I wouldn’t have my mom hold any right now…”

8:11 “Where… we do have investments… is with the application, the underlying technology of blockchain.”

10:33 “Jay Abraham’s got this concept of strategy of preeminence… I’m a trusted advisor…”

16:35 “Honestly, look for me on LinkedIn… My name is Chris Daigle.”

Announcer 0:00
Welcome to the Sharkpreneur Podcast with Kevin Harrington and Seth Green. Kevin Harrington is the inventor of the infomercial, one of the original sharks from the hit TV show, Shark Tank, and has generated over $5 billion in TV and digital direct response sales. Seth Green is the world's first trusted authority on cutting edge direct response marketing, a best selling author and the only three time marketer of the year nominee on the podcast, Kevin and Seth interview shark banners, who share straight talk on what it takes to explode your business.

Seth Green 0:39
Welcome to the podcast. This is your host, Seth Green, I am joined, as always, by our co host, the inventor of the infomercial, the original shark on Shark Tank, the amazing original. Kevin Harrington, Kevin, thanks so much for joining us.

Kevin Harrington 0:52
Fantastic to be in here today. Thank you. Seth, let's have some fun.

Kevin Harrington 0:56
Let's have some fun with our very special guest today is Chris Dr Daigle, Chris is got an incredible background. He is the Director of Business Development at agora financial, which is the largest newsletter publisher in the world and one of the most brilliant marketing companies as well. Before that, he's got an incredible background. He was also Director of Business Development for our good friends over at Moby, my own business, business education, along with quite a few other stops along the journey, Chris, thank you so much for joining us.

Chris Daigle 1:28
I'm really happy about the invitation. Thank you,

Seth Green 1:31
Chris, you've worked with some amazing in our world, household name companies. How did you get started?

Chris Daigle 1:38
I launched my first website in 2000 to the industry was a lot smaller back then. When I say the industry, the direct response, digital environment was a lot smaller back then. My first website was a moderate success, and it allowed me the ability to travel to a lot of the events to support people that were doing their first events, or second events. So I got a chance to meet people who are now have graduated to very big business that back in the day, were having their first go at a live event, or just having their first successes online. So that was how I got started.

Seth Green 2:21
So Christy agora, financial, what other kinds of information are you guys publishing right now?

Chris Daigle 2:30
So yesterday, we had a very successful launch with someone who, I guess you could kind of call it biz op, but it's, it's a very legitimate it's Timothy Sykes. Is his name. He was when he was in college his first year, got started investing in penny stocks. He's really Tim I love you, but he's somewhere on the spectrum as far as like when it comes to being a data driven person, and has gone on to make 10s of millions of dollars. So we launched his product yesterday, and we're doing about a million dollars per hour in revenue from that launch. We publish James Altucher, who is kind of a thought leader. He's going to be a guest, I hear a future guest on the

Seth Green 3:14
show, Bitcoin guy right now, right according

Chris Daigle 3:18
to Mashable, Yahoo Newsweek, everything? Yes. So we've, we've kind of been the catalyst for taking James from the the awareness level that he had to being the face of Bitcoin, whether that's a good or bad thing for him. So we're all, we're directly responsible for making that, that big splash with him, right? We publish health as well. And we publish preparedness, self reliance. We publish and then when you talk about finance, there's, you know, all these equity classes that we cover, from Angel investing all the way through to very stable stuff, income investing. We work with world class celebrities as far as finance goes when it comes to the analysis of macroeconomics, blah, blah, blah, I'm not a finance guy. I'm a Business Development guy, but we have the best, fantastic.

Kevin Harrington 4:18
Do you get in? Do you have sales training or sales courses anywhere in your in your network,

Chris Daigle 4:25
we don't. We primarily teach tactical investing and like, again, like the the analytical side of how to evaluate an investment, usually an equity that most people are familiar with, which would be a stock, an option, a bond. We don't really have a whole lot of information about real estate. Specifically, we don't do sales. So our client, our typical avatar, is going to be we've done a lot of Avatar definition on this, which, if the people watching haven't done it, it makes it a lot easier to write your copy. To craft your message and everything. But our avatar is typically 55 year old, plus a dentist living in Florida has about $250,000 a year in or $250,000 in liquidity in which they want to protect, grow, invest, that sort of thing. That's our typical reader, but with the introduction of James and the blockchain and cryptocurrency and Tim, who certainly appeals to a younger crowd. When I say younger, I mean 20 to 40, our avatar is starting to shift from what it's traditionally been to a more diverse audience, which is awesome for us, right? So I've

Kevin Harrington 5:42
seen these, some of these investing apps like acorn and stash, what's, what's, what's your opinion of those? And have you ever been like a lead generation funnel for those kind of guys, or just trying to understand how you do business, too.

Chris Daigle 6:03
So with agora, one thing like we might have some sensational copy. I'll give you a for instance, with our division, we have 25 roughly 25 full time copyright. So there's a lot of direct response copy getting generated on a daily basis. But one of the things at this point agora, it's it's privately held, but we have, we're way beyond 10 figures in annual revenue at this point. We've got a lot to lose if we were to promote things that we hadn't vetted thoroughly. We hadn't sent through a compliance process from our legal team in house and out of house. So most of the stuff that you see coming from us is going to be internal, things, very rarely. If anybody that's in your audience has attempted to work with agora, maybe they've got a great fit of a product or message match of message to market. The challenge is it's hard to do business with us because a we've got so much internal offers, copy talent that we're ready to push out we don't have the bandwidth for and B, unless you are operating at a level of like, extreme, extremely, like vetted ethics, it's going to be hard for you to get in the door with us, Because, and it's not even like a we're better than you think. It's just, it's really, it's covering our ass kind of thing more than anything.

Kevin Harrington 7:26
Yeah, gotcha. Gotcha. So, you know, when I look at the industry, you know, you think, you know what's the next big thing? Seems like crypto and ICOs are fit that category. But certainly, you know, you know, James is can't open up the internet without seeing it one of his ads, right? You know. So where do you think that world is going? Is there? You know, just kind of been up and down and around. You know, do you think there's gonna be a little shake out here eventually? Or

Chris Daigle 8:11
that's a great question. And the thing is, I certainly don't qualify myself as an investment expert or an investment advisor. I'm very good at what my core skill is, and that is identifying opportunities between businesses and creating that rapport and synergy. But I do have an opinion on cryptocurrency. I don't hold any. I wouldn't have my mom hold any right now, like I'd let things cool down. But where, where we do have investments, Me, personally and as an organization, is with the application, the underlying technology of blockchain, right? There's a difference there. So I'm not gonna I just had lunch with somebody that is a now a DECA millionaire from his Bitcoin investments that he bought in 2013 and just passively sat on doesn't mean he's a smart investor. Again, if you're listening to this John, I love you, but he didn't have to do a lot of work to make that happen. He's been able to ride the enthusiasm for a like a smoking hot asset of cryptocurrency. I wouldn't tell people that it was too high to invest again. I don't. I'm not, I'm not an analyst or an expert on it, but I have seen enough business cycles. For instance, I was heavily invested in real estate, from 2002 to 2008 and when the taxi drivers in Miami were telling me how many real estate investments they had, when I would go to any city and would see a dozen sky cranes, I don't have a finance background, no MBA, but I could recognize that some. Something didn't add up. My personal position on cryptocurrencies is that I would be surprised if we continue to see a meteor rise, as we've seen over the past 12 months.

Seth Green 10:13
Yeah, that was an excellent tap dancing compliant disclaimer to answer you've done some amazing deals while at agora and Moby talk a little bit about how you develop such an acumen for seeing the big where the pieces fit together.

Chris Daigle 10:33
Okay, so I I'm actually here in New York, as I mentioned earlier, Seth, because we're hosting a debate between James Altucher and a gentleman named Jim Rickards, who's a world known macro economist, to discuss the merits of Bitcoin versus gold, should be very interesting. Now, on the train right up here, a friend of mine joined me, and he is. He's a lead developer for blockchain architecture for Deloitte and touch, working on projects for Department of Defense, huge natural gas and energy companies that I'm not going to name, but his main interest was, how do you get these same question you asked me? And oddly enough, his background is in the dating space. He was not gonna say was a nerd, but didn't have the best luck with women and relationships in general, and studied that craft of rapport building, and it was And so basically, it was very easy for me to translate to him, because it's not even about, how do I like do I have a secret sauce? It's about, how can I deliver value to individuals? How can I build rapport with those individuals? And Jay Abraham's got this concept of strategy of preeminence, and how do you position yourself as somebody who genuinely comes across as I'm a trusted advisor, and I'm not in this for me, because what I found is that on a metaphysical or vibrational level, if there is, if it's more about you, there's going to be micro actions or something that happens that people become aware of that this is not necessarily in my best interest. So my secret is, somebody told me, If you want to catch whales, put out whale bait. Okay, so for me, I ran him through a deal. There's a relationship that I have with one of the largest bullion dealers in the country, personal friends with the with the founder. And again, it wasn't because I wanted something from him. There was a relationship that was established. Also have a relationship with one of the founders of one of the largest self directed IRA companies in the country with about $40 billion and assets under management. And so for me, it was a situation to where more bullion sales would come from Ira rollovers. I need to introduce my friend here to this friend here, because this friend needs the relationship with a credible custodian that has a good relationship. So that deal took me about not counting the relationships putting together, but from initial introduction of idea to either party to telephone call where it was, please send over the paperwork for the transfer of $150 million that took four weeks the skill to be able to the relationship, to be able to build a relationship where both parties knew like and trusted me, that was something that took a lot of reading, a lot of really paying my dues kind of thing. But it doesn't have to be like that for everybody. If you see an opportunity to create value. And if your audience are there a lot of marketers in your audience, people that study, marketers and entrepreneurs. So if you understand even the basics of direct response marketing, that's that's a value that you can contribute to huge multinational enterprises that really don't get the value of measurement of results. A lot of the tactical things that you might see on some of the even some of the wackiest message boards out there that are, you know, marketing related, those tactics don't just apply for selling, you know, how to get rich overnight. The same thing would apply for how to sell an equity instrument to a nation, to moving more vehicles in, you know, a developing country. So for anybody listening, you don't have to spend your 10,000 hours learning how to I'm not gonna say manipulate a conversation, but be strategic in your communication with folks, all you have to do is get yourself in a room with somebody who where what you've learned you could say, Hey, I've got a couple of ideas on how you could grow your business. Would you be interested in hearing them? If they say, Yes, they've given you permission to share your ideas and. If it's something as simple as if you're not capturing names of people that are interested in your product online, here's what could happen. You could capture their names if they don't buy today or they haven't requested more information. You can follow up with them via email that covers, you know, fear, gain, logic, us, against them, whatever the messaging is, and some of those people will actually call into your sales team or come visit your sales floor. So the basics, please, for those of you listening, please don't underestimate the value of or take for granted what you've learned, even in the most basic sales training or internet marketing or digital marketing. Course, that stuff is not being discussed at the highest levels of industry, the tactical things like that. And if you were to sit down, find yourself in a seat on an airplane with a CEO or something and share even basic things, boom, you'd blow their mind. And that opens up the door for you to say, look, I'd love to be able to show you some of these ideas in practice. And what I do that works for me very, very effectively is say, Look, I'm not looking for anything from this, because I know that once I provide the value, it's very it's a very simple jump to say, for them to say, Hey, can you do some more of that form?

Kevin Harrington 16:21
Yeah, absolutely, Chris, that is great advice, and we really appreciate your time. We know how valuable it is. Good luck, obviously, on the event tonight as we record this for folks who want to learn more about you and everything that you're doing, where is the best place to send them?

Chris Daigle 16:35
Honestly, look for me on LinkedIn. I don't spend a ton of time, and so you'll find me on LinkedIn. My name is Chris Daigle. I guess my my brand is Dr Daigle, because I tend to come in and fix a lot of businesses. Also Facebook. I'm not on Facebook a lot, but it's an opportunity for you to see, hey, look, I got a family. I'm a real person. I'm not posting pictures of Lamborghinis and private jets. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm, I'm a very accessible individual, and would love to be able to answer any questions that your audience might have. All right, Chris, thank you.

Seth Green 17:07
Where are you based? Chris,

Chris Daigle 17:09
I'm based in DC. Okay,

Kevin Harrington 17:11
great, super. Well, listen, look forward to seeing you soon, and good luck tonight. Gonna be a lot of I wish I could be a fly on the wall. There. Be there, but I'm I'm in Orlando, but hope to run into you at a conference soon.

Chris Daigle 17:26
Okay, it'll absolutely happen. Drive safe, and thanks again for the invitation. Guys. See you later.

Kevin Harrington 17:31
Thanks so much for listening to this special Productivity series of the direct response marketing podcast. I've interviewed hundreds of the most successful entrepreneurs, thought leaders and CEOs all over the world, and I want to share with you one of the biggest ways I've discovered to triple your productivity that I've learned from these amazing people. Even better, I'll pay you $500 to test drive it just go to take the 500 challenge.com that's www dot take the 500 challenge.com to learn more. Thanks so much for listening.

Seth Green 18:10
This show has been produced by market domination LLC to discover how you can have your own show completely done for you and turn it into a real published book and become the authority in your marketplace. Go to www, dot market domination llc.com/podcast,

Announcer 18:27
offer this episode. Yeah, we made it the voice you just heard. We helped put them there. And right now, someone's out there thinking, I should have my own podcast. You should not because it's trendy, not because content is king, but because your voice has weight, your ideas have gravity, and the right people, they're waiting to hear you, we build shows that don't just sound good, they work for your brand, your business, your audience ready to step up to the mic to see if you could grow your Business with a podcast? Apply at your dream fifty.com/seth-green gr, R, E, E, N, E, because your story deserves more than just ears. You.