Alex Hormozi: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No

Hey, capitalists. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Ryan Daniel Moran. I recently read one of maybe the best business book that I've ever read in my entire life. In fact, I might look back on this and say that was the beginning of a new chapter of my career. It was exactly what I needed for this stage of my business. It made me realize why I sometimes feel stuck in my business. The book is called $100 million offers, and the book is really about how to make your product, how to make your business so irresistible to the people that it's for that they would feel stupid for not buying from you. Now, most business books around this topic are about how to say things about your product that make them irresistible. It's about how to use copy and flowery words to make people feel compelled to buy from you. But that's not what this book is about. This book is about how to actually make your product and your business the best thing for your customers. So they literally would be stupid to not buy from you. I'm very honored to call the author of that book. My friend Alex Hormozi is a fellow Austinite that I met kind of by chance a couple of years ago. And to be honest with you, we don't do any business together. We don't even often talk about business. We're just friends. We've traveled together, we vacationed together. He's met my kids, we've had high protein, low calorie dinners together. And I had no idea that when he wrote this book, it was going to have such a profound impact on me. I printed it out, he sent me an advance copy. I went to Office Depot, printed it out like, you know, I was a, like I used to do back in college when I would buy ebooks when I was starting my business and I took notes on it furiously. I brought my findings, my discoveries to my team and we're changing things about my business in a way that feels so in alignment with the success and the vision that I have that I didn't feel like I could do before. This is a must read. So go grab a copy of this. It's on Amazon. It's self published. Look up Alex's name and listen to this podcast, because in this podcast we go deep into a few of the concepts of the book. We talk about positioning your business or your offer or your product in a way that brings in the ideal people who are willing to pay the most. We talk about what this has meant to his business and how he went from zero to over $100 million in sales when he was like 30 or 31 years old. The guy is insane in a good way because of the way that he thinks. And he's going to share how he thinks with you on this podcast and inside his book. One thing I want to note is if you're a member of the 1%, we're going to be having a live call with Alex just to hang out with him, go deeper into these concepts and we're going to be going through this book together. So grab a copy of the book and if you're not a member of the 1%, but you want to go through this with us, you can join us over@capitalism.com 1. You might look back on this podcast and say that was the start of a new chapter of my career. Enjoy. I'm very proud to bring this to you. When you hear me reference our mentoring group or the 1%, that's our membership, where we help entrepreneurs build businesses and invest the profits, we take them through a three stage process. The grind, the growth and the gold. The grind is figuring out what the heck you're doing in business. The growth is taking active sales that you're growing and expanding all the way to having a mid seven figure business. And the gold is when you have enough profit to invest into passive income, into growth and long term wealth. And we help entrepreneurs go through this entire journey inside of the 1%. This is ideal for people who are starting their journey and need help with their vision and to be on a path towards a 1% net worth. And it's ideal for people who are already in the middle of their journey and are looking to build passive income and wealth by going through some of our investment trainings. Entrepreneurs are so good at coming up with ways to make money, not so good at keeping it and growing it.

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So Alex, where I want to start is you said something that was a really interesting framework to me which is when somebody is at a plateau or hasn't grown, they're either missing a belief, a skill set or a habit or something. I was hoping you could walk us through that.

Yeah. So.

That'S the framework that I look at through for my own business and really just me as an entrepreneur is if someone is doing better than me. Because, I mean, at the very beginning, I lacked the character trait to even be able to do this because I was so arrogant. So I couldn't even. I'd look at somebody else who was doing better and try and look at them objectively and say, what are they better than me at that I can learn from? I was like, they're not better than me. They're lucky. Whatever. I'd get all butthurt about it. But once I was able to fix that character trait, I could then at least start the journey of, like, okay, whatever this person has, I lack something from them. And so in going through that process, and I'll give you a couple of really easy examples that I was able to see of kind of each one of them. So in the very beginning, for me, like, I had a chain of gyms, right? And so at the very, very beginning, I lacked skills, Just basic skills. I didn't know how to generate leads. I didn't know how to sell. And as soon as I had those skills, I immediately was able to start making money. Because I already had the traits of work ethic, and in terms of the beliefs at that level, I just believed that it was possible to make some money. And so as soon as I got those skills, my income was able to go up to a decent degree. But then it kind of capped for a while. And that was when I met Russell at his mastermind. Cause I just knew I needed to change something. I was the only brick and mortar business owner in an Internet marketing mastermind, which was a brilliant idea.

This is Russell Brunson.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. And so I was there. And then he immediately was like, you shouldn't be doing this gym thing. You should be showing other gym owners how you've been filling up your gyms and all that kind of stuff. And so that was an example where, like, I had a belief that was changed. I had the traits of work ethic, and I had the skills of sales and marketing. I just was applying it to the wrong vehicle. And so that's where, like, a belief change at the top kind of created a downward cascade of stuff. And so I think that it. Because it's funny because we were talking about the other day, I think that originally when I've talked about this, I've thought of them as a continuous circle, but I actually think of it more as a cascade now. So it's like you have to have the belief first, and then the next limiter will be the trait, and then the next limiter will be the skill. Because like, if I had, and this is an example I have with sales, you know, with an entrepreneur who learns how to sell or learns how to do outbound. You know, if they're like cool, cold calling or cold messaging or whatever, they have the skill of learning how to do, of knowing how to do that, but they don't have the trait of persistence.

Well, it's even. What's coming to mind for me is in our Internet marketing world, people are, they're skill obsessed.

Yeah.

So like someone will get certified in Facebook ads or they'll, or they'll take an affiliate marketing course or whatever. But, but the trait they're missing is just actually going and doing it over and focus. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. Since we both come from that Internet marketing circle, what traits do you see missing in our community of entrepreneurs? And specifically, I'm asking like you kind of balance both worlds of Internet marketers and funnel hackers and Amazon sellers and then real businesses, billionaires, hedge fund managers. You kind of live in both of these worlds. So what traits do you see the ultra wealthy doing that the community of Internet marketers that we hang out with on the weekends don't have?

All right, man, I had a bunch of things that popped into mind, so I'll try and rattle off the ones like top of mind. So the first and obvious one is that the smaller entrepreneurs lack focus. They're always jumping from thing to thing to thing. Maybe this will be the thing. And they just don't understand the realization that any of the things can be the thing, but not all of them can be the thing. And so they try, like, I'm going to put three pans on the stove and see which one starts bubbling first. When in reality you only have enough fire for one to start bubbling. And so they keep switching the pans out, hoping something different is going to happen. So that's one, the second biggest one that I see, especially among the guys that I know who are much wealthier, who've crossed 250 million, 500 million in net worth. And the transition that we were able to make, it was being long term, focused thinking in decades, not in months, not even years, just thinking in decades. And it's just Bill Gates is. Everyone's amazed at everyone. I'm going to misquote it, but basically people underestimate what can be accomplished in a decade and overestimate what can be accomplished in a year. And so I think that long term, macro patience, micro speed kind of thing is a big belief or trait that the younger entrepreneurs don't have so focus. And I think those probably go hand in hand because if you have the long term vision of what you want to do, then the focus becomes very easy to attain. So it's kind of the short money mindset. And then I would say the third one that came to mind when you first asked is an overemphasis. And that's just because the worlds we live in, an overemphasis on acquisition and an under emphasis on product.

Huh.

So I think the vast majority, at least of the world that I live in, most of them are not that product focused. They're very focused on marketing. They all the analytics around marketing. And just as a gut check for anyone who's listening to this, if you know every step in your funnel and you're like, I know this is what our CPMs are, this is our CTR, you know, this is our click through rates, this is our conversion rates at each step in the funnel. This is what percentage do this and this is how much cash we collect in the first 30 days. Blah blah, blah, blah. Right. You know all those stats, if you don't know the stats around product and right now you're like what sets are there around product? Then you're probably not that good at it. Because the guys that I know who are phenomenal at product talk about product in the exact same way. It's just as quantified.

That's completion rate, that, that's activation points, you know, success rate.

Right, Totally. What percentage are going into expansion of revenue? What's you know, do we have net negative churn? Like how are we, you know, I mean all these types of things, you know, average, Average customer refers 1.2 customers, like all of those types of metrics.

And it should be noted, I mean we come from a community that is obsessed with marketing and sales and not product is what you're saying. But it should be noted that your lifetime ROI on ad spend is. What is it? 36 to 1. So you are not neglecting marketing and sales.

But the reason why your marketing and sales works is because you put so much emphasis on product.

Yeah. And that's what creates like so when you have the like, I don't know, like the best marketers can give me be like 10 to 1 or 12 to 1 at scale. Right.

But I think the only way to really get way beyond that is to have exceptional product because the product just multiplies it to an extent that the numbers don't even make sense. Which when you hear 36 to 1, you're like, that doesn't even make sense. And that's true. It doesn't. If I were a true direct response marketer. But we have enough multiplication on the backside of referrals and ascensions and all of these other things that we don't. Our bottleneck is not acquisition.

Yeah. Something that I have learned from you just by watching how you approach business is when I want to make a pivot, or if any entrepreneur wants to make a pivot from that acquisition mode into building a business that can properly scale to 20, 50, $100 million. A lot of times we talk about, well, what do I need to sell on top of what I'm doing in order to start to scale. But the real question is, what do I need to do internally to make my business better? Meaning what? Make my product better to make the customer experience better, to make the customer results better. Because when you have that really nailed, your advertising just works. And you don't have to have great copy or great upsell path. And I love that you admit that until you were at $50 million, you did not do. I don't think you did like emails. You didn't email your customers.

We built our website.

You had crazy funnels. Your upsells weren't optimized. I don't even know if you had upsells.

We built our website when we crossed 30 million a year.

Oh, my goodness.

Like our homepage, like the gymlaunch.com page.

I need to clip that statement and tell my entire community that because you went right for.

What is the best thing I can give for my customers. And then you started to complicate it and add friction from there. So that's where I wanted to go next is you talk about flow before friction.

Yeah.

And I was hoping you could comment on that.

Yeah. So the process that I have for acquisition is always. Cause we, like right now, I think we acquire customers from probably 15 or 18 different sources. So that's taken time. So if anyone's listening to this, like, oh, I need to do a lot more sources. You probably don't. You probably need to do one source really well and then go from there. But, you know, the moniker that I follow is Create flow. Monetize flow. Add friction. And so create flow is like, all right, we got to. We want to give away as much crazy craziness as we possibly can in the beginning, even if it's not profitable to figure just to get response.

What do you mean? Give away as much crazy as possible.

So just make the offer. So this leads naturally to why we wrote. I wrote the book, but is I want to give. I want to make an offer so good that people would feel stupid saying no. And so. And the second part of that is, I want people to respond who otherwise wouldn't to our advertising. So I want to get the highest percentage of people who are looking at these ads to say, like, this is nuts. This is such a crazy deal. I'll do it. So if, like, normally you're like, yeah, we'll give 25% off. It's like, let's give 90% off, like, and just. And just go crazy.

I see. So when you're starting the acquisition process, it is about creating volume. Volume, even if it is not profitable.

Totally.

It's just. It is doing whatever it takes in order to see how the marketplace responds.

Exactly. We want flow. I want respond because people like, I want to start. I want to have something to split, test against. And if I have no flow, then there's nothing I can work with. So it's like, okay, well, we know that 90% off works. And then we can start saying, like, all right, well, is there an upsell we can add to this? Then we can become more profitable.

That's beautiful. I just had a big aha from that. Because oftentimes people go to market and then they try to sell it as is. And, well, didn't work. And so it's onto the next thing. But in your mind, it's just like, whatever gets things moving.

It always works. Marketing always works. It always works. It's just like, you are not working it the right way. But, like, fundamentally, eyeballs can always be monetized. Like, and especially if you're not in, like, unless you're inventing some sort of, like, artificial intelligence new technology that no one's ever seen before. And you have to explain to the marketplace what your thing is. If you're in a normal market of, like, weight loss or, like, beauty or whatever, you know what I mean? Business to business. Like, all business owners would like to make more money. So, like, you don't need to test out that concept. Of course they do. And if they have eyeballs, then there's a way to monetize them. So it's just like, how can we make something free that is attractive enough that they are going to. They're going to want it. And So I said 90% off. But I would say. I would say almost all of the offers I start in any marketplace are always free. So I'll give away something that's free. That's truly valuable. And people are like. And people are always afraid. This is kind of funny. I'll just. This is a quick tangent, but like, so many entrepreneurs are like, if I ask them, like, why are you an entrepreneur? They're like, I want to give back. I want to make an impact, whatever. And then I'm like, cool, give away a ton of really free stuff and help people out. And they're like, well, what about that? I'm like, you just said that you want to make this like the worst case scenario of you giving stuff away for free is that you learn something and you actually help people for free. And so it's like, get a ton of goodwill, learn. And then you start figuring out where you can add friction, right? So like the moniker is Create Flow. So we give away something crazy that's free that people would be stupid to say no to. And then they're like, okay, I'll take one step towards you. And now I have a huge amount of interested audience of people who've raised their hand and said, I'm interested in this solution that you have to to a certain degree. And I'm like, cool. And then we, that's where we would get on the phones or we would do whatever, you know, we, we'd follow up with people and see if we could sell them something. And I'm not trying to sell them the biggest thing. I want to see if I can sell something, anything. Yeah, right. And then at that point, so I have some level of monetization. And then the third step, even though this isn't linear, is now I have point A, I've got demand point B, I've got a monetization structure. And then that's where we say, okay, now let's add the friction and see. Do we need to add an app? This is more for a service business. But like, do we need to add an application? Do we need to add a scheduling call? Do we need to add a video series? Do we need to add a webinar? Do we need to add a vsl? Do we need to add more steps? Do we need to add a qualification call before a close call? Like, those are all different things that we could add that would create friction in the process.

And now you have something to work with, you have this volume. Whereas I've even been guilty of saying, like, what's the ideal funnel going to be? And let's get the whole team together and let's map out the funnel and let's brainstorm what pieces are going to go where and should we have an upsell here, an application here and all this? But if there was just like, let's just go get a thousand leads a day. Yeah, I don't. I don't care what we're losing. I don't care what we're spending.

Yeah. And, you know, if it's been big, you know what I mean? Like, if. I think this would be really useful to put. To watch this in practice. So I just did this, and we built an outbound phone team, right? And so I knew. So it was like, there was the belief that I believe that outbound works, period. And this is kind of interesting because, like, I think that I had some of the character traits that would make it successful, and some of the team who was executing did not. So this is kind of funny, like, to walk through this process end to end. But we hired somebody who had done that, who was an outbound caller at another company. And he was, you know, audacious or whatever the word is. You know, really aggressive. Excited, excitable, arousable. Ugh, not that one. Anyways, he was full of piss and vinegar, and he wanted to do this, right? And so he was the only person I started in the, quote, outbound department. And I said, all right, well, start making calls. And he was like, well, what do I get the leads from? I was like, you should figure that out. And so the first step of this process was like, well, where do we get the leads from? Which is like, where do we buy the list? Do we scrape them from the Internet? Do we spy them? You know, whatever. And so he figured that out, and he bought from a couple of different sources. And this was. I was like, just try them all and see which one has better pickup rates. And so he did that. And then we found the one source that had better pickup rates. It's like, okay, so let's use them. And so that's like, step one. And so then he's like, but I'm not getting. Or. So that was to get pickups. Just pickups. Some level of flow.

Cold calls.

Yes. And then the next level of that was like, all right, well, I got to get them to, like, book a call, like, from this pickup. So we had to work the script to get the. To get people to book the next call. So we worked the script, and then he started getting people to book the next call, but then they weren't showing. So it's like, okay, now we have to set. Like, is there some sort of sequence we have to put in here? And so it was like, piece by piece. And it took six months to go from first phone call to a team of six guys who were, you know, selling a comp. You know, a few million dollars.

Yeah.

Of business.

And if I remember correctly, it was like, month one, you had one sale.

Month when we had zero. Month two, we had one. Month three, we had two. Like, I mean, this is nothing. And people were like. And this is where the character trait. So it's like, I had the belief that I knew this would work. I knew it would work. Like, it's impossible that if we call the business owners who are our ideal avatar, that we cannot, like, fundamentally get them to see that we can help them grow their business. Right. Like that, that. That. I believe that. Right. So therefore, there has to be a way to do it. And so then the trait, I think that would have to be necessary. There is the patience to see it through.

Yeah.

And so I had throughout this process multiple times for the sales guys, and even some of the leadership was like, do we really want to still be investing in this? Because, like, I mean, we're making. We made one sale a week, and mind you, we have a, you know, a 20,000, $25,000 LTV. But, like, for our company, one sale a week is not really. It's not anything to write home about. And so the amount of effort that was going into it was disproportionate to the return. But that's where, like, the trait you know, comes. It's like, guys, like, it will work. Like, we like, the fact that we're making a sale means that we can put the right amount of friction in to make it make 10 sales. Right. Because when I saw the front end was unlimited because, like, when you have, like, cold calling, it's like, if you know how to get the leads of every business, like, it's unlimited and you can't be stopped. And so it's like, I want that. And so we have to just figure this piece out. And now, you know, we do 15 deals a week off of that, and it still continues to grow reliably because those. Those pieces are in place. But it takes. It took. It took seven months to get from first phone call to, like, a full team of 20 guys.

Yeah. So in. In an Internet business, the way this might be applied is, like, you don't expect to make money on a book funnel or. Or. Or you. You come up with whatever good product you can either give away for free or a dollar or whatever gets things moving.

Yeah.

And then you're complicating. The process later. Yeah, but something that you said about that was when you're starting, you might say, let's give it away for free or 90% off or something just to get, just to get volume. Yeah, if that, if, if someone might be hearing that and saying, well, then where do, where do I flip the script in the sense of do I, do I? Will I ever get to the point where I can now make that a product rather than giving it away for free? Like what I heard you say was in order to start, just go get volume.

Yeah.

But in my mind, I was thinking, at what point does that become sustainable? And I'm curious, if you go to, do you add more products to the flow?

Right.

Is that friction or do you add more steps to the sales process?

Either.

Okay.

Like so, I mean, the answer is either. So with, with. If it were like physical products or even a service, you can, I call it splintering, but it's like splintering off the core piece. Because most, if you have a service, for example, you probably do multiple things. Like you don't actually do one thing. Like included in your service are lots of steps to create the, you know, the level of fulfillment that you want. So you peel off one or two of those steps and you give those away for free, even though it's the same thing as you were before. And then you can upsell the remainder of the, of the pieces of the service that are still required to get the result. And so, but it's still attractive enough that people are going to, you know, it's going to generate flow for, you know, like a physical products business. That's where like, you can add all these other pieces you and I were talking about yesterday. Like, you can add experiential pieces, you can add course pieces, you can add digital products to, to a physical product to. And you can. And the nice. What's, what's cool about that is that you could, you can give away a physical product and sell a digital product, or you can give away a digital product, sell a premium product. So like, there's different ways you can mix and match that. But either way, the point is that you can give away something that's very valuable on the front end to generate the flow. And I just want to hit this one one more time because I think it's important is that like, when you're giving this stuff away, it is because if you can't get traction on that offer, then you're definitely not going to get traction on the offer you're planning on. Selling. And so it just sa. It's actually a faster way to get to where you're trying to go. Because when you give all this stuff away for free, if people aren't signing up for it, then they're definitely not gonna sign up for the thing that you're trying to sell them. So it's like, either I don't have product market fit, or I'm not in the like, or my ads aren't being displayed right, or they're not going to the right audience, like, whatever it is. And it just allows you to circumvent tons of just trial and error by just saying, okay, well, if I give away the thing that I'm trying to for free to this audience, they should respond. And as long as they do, then I can structure all the other stuff on the back end and get it fixed.

Yeah, that makes, that makes a ton of sense. If you, if you can't create an irresistible offer out of something that is going to be free or low dollar.

Right.

It is going. And if you can't get flow out of that.

Yeah.

Then you're going to have a, an almost impossible time getting anyone into whatever. Your profit maximizer.

Totally.

Now, Alex, I know that in one of your businesses, your primary front end offer was $16,000. Yeah. So explain that to me. Like, how did you generate flow?

Yeah.

For something that was that high ticket on the first. First go.

Really good question. So I think that things, markets evolve over time too. So the offer, like the way that you can split that out and bundle it to make it something that's attractive on the front end is part of the art form. But I'll give you a couple different versions that we've had over the years. So in the very beginning, I gave away these, these really good, like, case studies that showed how we filled gyms up, which was like, crazy. So I was like, here's how we filled 32 gyms in under 30 days. And people were like, holy crap. And I would do full breakdowns of that process. And people were like, I'm really interested in that. And then after they watched that or whatever, that was valuable in and of itself to get people to say, like, okay, I want that to happen to me. That was like, version one. We've given away full courses that most people sell. We give away on the front end. Then we call people up and we're like, hey, why did you get a course on how to grow your gym? It's like, well, because I want to grow my gym. I'm like, oh, we can help you with that. You know what I mean? So it's like a really natural step. We have the book that we give away for free that's like in and of itself is really, really valuable. And people would buy that and they were like, hey, why'd you buy a book? And growing your gym? And then the offer itself. So that's kind of like the, that's like the very tip of the spear is like, what's the thing that's going to generate interest? And then from an offer standpoint of like what we're actually selling them over the phone, we've, we very rarely actually sold the thing. So for I think the first two or three years with Jim Launch, we sold, it was a 16,000 product. We sold $1,000 to start. So it was so, so easy to get started for people. And we put all the onus on the fulfillment to make sure that we were providing sufficient value that people would continue to stay in pack.

Yeah, that, that is so integral to this.

And that's been my whole business model. In every business I have just about has been that has been that model, which is, I'd rather, I think I never want acquisition to be the bottleneck of my business. I never want it. So it's just like, how much can I give away to generate the interest I want so that I have the amount of flow that I desire and then I will figure out all of the back end pieces to monetize that flow properly. And so like right now, you know, we let people, and this is crazy, kind of unheard of, I think, in the, in the Internet world that we're in. But like we let people start our $20,000 program for free. So it's just, you start for free and if you want to stay, you can. And people are like. And so many other people who are in this space are like, oh, I could never let people start for free because then they wouldn't stay or they take all my stuff. And the thing is, if you only have enough value to deliver for 14 days worth of someone being with you and you have nothing else, that if they can literally steal, quote, steal everything in that period of time. Because even if someone went through all of the information we possibly had in 14 days, which would be. I don't even know if it's physically possible from our standpoint, but if someone were able to do that, they still can't implement it that fast. Like they need the help on the implementation. So like, I just am not worried about our ability to Provide value. And so as long as you have a way to do that, then it's worth just giving away. Like, reciprocity is, like, in my opinion, the strongest, like, persuasion, force. And so if you make someone money before you've charged them, almost all humans will just say, like, I will pay you. And the people who wouldn't pay you after that, you don't want to do business with anyway. So you just get to weed them out off the front end and make the back end so much easier for your staff and your team.

That's right. We've talked a lot about digital products and agencies because that's a lot of our background, it's a lot of our community. How would you apply your mindset to a strictly E commerce or physical product brand?

So, I mean, because we have a physical products business.

That, you know, that does pretty well. And I took my whole offer standpoint and thought about the influencer as my customer, not as the end user as my customer. And so for me, that was the perspective that I took with Prestige Labs.

When you say influencer, do you affiliate?

Yeah.

Okay, that's what I was going to ask. Do you mean affiliate the people who are getting you exposure?

Yes. The people who have the distribution? Those are the people who have. Who are my customer. And so for them, it's like, how can I make. How can I make their life easy? How can I give them a crazy offer to get them to want to sell my product? Because, like, they already have trust and they have distribution, which means that they don't really need a crazy offer. You know what? Let's do it. So I'll explain how this works. So for us, the crazy offer that we'll give to an affiliate, which is like any fitness professional who wants to sell physical products or supplements specifically, we're going to give them. We're going to set them up with multiple coaches who have. And this is the advantage that I have, is that I have a huge community of people who make millions of dollars a year in the fitness business. And so I say, hey, I'll pair you up with somebody who's making a million dollars in the fitness business or sold their fitness business for over a million bucks. And I will have them show you how to improve your business, and we'll do it absolutely free. And they're like, really? Like, yeah, because we make money when you sell product. And so the more clients I can get you, the more product you'll sell. And so that's where my monetization is. Now, if you like Never sell product. Then a certain point, obviously we're just going to like not be as interested, but like as long as you sell product and use the system that we have, like the average guy who does out implementation makes $14,000 in their first 60 days right. In physical product sales. So for most, you know, for most small business owners that we're working with, that's a big deal. Yeah, that's twice, you know, 7,000amonth that they're adding in revenue to their business just in the first 60 days. And they have like we have a whole three step process that we do do with them. And so for them they're like, wait, so I can start for nothing? And you guys will show me how to add this recurring revenue stream into my business that will cover my rent and probably double the profit of my business. We're like, yes. They're like, that's a great offer. Yes, I will take you up on that.

Yeah.

And so that's kind of like step one. This step two is like, okay, well then what's the offer that they give their customers? Right? And so like we have to make all these crazy offers at multiple levels in this process, right? Because we're B2, B2C. And so on the B2C level, we'll have them do a free, you know, challenge of some sort. And then to their audience and people are like, well, sure, I'll sign up for that. And then they get all of this stuff from their, from the gym for free or the fitness professional for free, which we give them all that stuff white labeled so they don't have to do anything. Right? We make it as easy as possible. And so then they put all their logos on everything. They give all that stuff away that we already gave them for free. And then they meet with every one of those customers one on one. And then they sell them physical products and they use the script and the presentation that we already give them. And so people are getting this free thing. And then we say, hey, well to go with that free thing, you should have this thing because that'll make this free thing way better than it would be otherwise. And people are like, okay, cool. And obviously we have scripting all that kind of stuff around it. And so like Russell used to joke about this. He's like, I feel like everything you sell is free and somehow you make a lot of money. And it's true. And so it's like the affiliates, influencers, whatever you want to call them, our distribution base, we serve them for free. Our success is linked to theirs. We give them tons of stuff that no one else does. And then in showing them how to sell the product to their distribution base, we give them everything they need on that side and give them an amazing offer. And then on top of that, we protect their reputation by they get a 40%, so their customers, excuse me, get 30 or 40%. I actually can't remember the percentage off of the retail price only when they buy through them. And they can't buy it anywhere else that's cheaper than through our affiliate base. And so we don't try and cut around them. And we're one of the few companies that do that. And our affiliate base respects that because they're like, man, they're not trying to screw me out of this. I can be the lowest price and still make a great commission on selling the products that I believe in. And so by doing that, they get, they're giving away a free offer to their customer base. On top of that, if the customer base chooses to buy, they get 40% off the ticket price. Right. And then they get other additional savings and bonuses that we give to them if they buy more today, et cetera.

So I just want to play with you on something. How, how would this apply in a retail business? So in a business that.

The buyer, the distributor was Walmart, Target, Costco, Whole Foods, and they don't have direct access to the customer except on their packaging. And so their primary buyer, at least like the first purchase as a wholesaler who's buying 10,000 units of something, then putting it on a shelf, that person came to you and said, how do I develop an irresistible offer in order to get more control of this? How would you approach that?

So if that were my business model, then I'd probably have a team that would do activation and onboarding for all the wholesalers. Right.

Okay.

And then I'd probably fly people out to their centers. And I'm sure we would know our process of how to sell our product better than anyone else would. And then we would probably implement that in the stores to figure out where we could display it, what the packs need to look like, are we end capped? Like I'm using terminology that I've loosely heard, you know. And you know what, what in store promotion we need to run, can we bundle it with something else to make it more valuable? And so by doing all that stuff and then packaging that for the wholesalers, like, we'll actually fly someone out. Like, if you decide to buy our thing, we'll show your team and we'll Train your team on how to sell our stuff and we'll do it absolutely free. And here's the average increase that, you know, and then I'd have the stats to back it. Like, here's the average increase that the stores who use our onboarding process experience.

Yeah. So you would have salespeople.

Yeah.

That would then fly out to the buyer, build that relationship first.

Yeah.

And then say, okay, how do we make this a win for this supplier?

And that's my off the off the cuff answer. You know, we would try that first.

Even that is way more than most people do. I mean, most people see the win is getting into the store and at that point you're just, you're just hoping and praying rather than building a real business.

Yeah. Which is silly. Yeah. I want to stack the chips in my advantage. Like I want to give myself a clear competitive advantage that no one else has. And it's just being willing to do things that other people aren't willing to do, which is silly because most people just not aren't willing to do that much anyways.

Yeah. And that's the, like, that's the trait.

Yeah, exactly.

For you.

Yeah, exactly.

That matches the belief. Yeah. I wanted to ask you, Alex, in your mind, what comes first, the offer or the product?

I think they're together. They're woven together. Because when I'm creating a product, I'm also thinking about the offer at the same time. So it's like if I made it like this, then I know I could give this away. You know what I mean? So they're co created and I think both influence one another and I think the product and the offer are inextricably linked.

Okay. So when you are selling a product for the first time, which is different.

Than the monetization structure, just to be clear.

Say again.

So there's the offer, which is like the thing which is just the marketing world word for the product. Yeah.

Right.

And then there's like. And then there's the way that we, that we monetize it. So are we going to do some sort of upfront cash offer? Are we going to do some sort of building continuity offer? Are we going to do some sort of offer to upsell or downsell customers? So like what type of offer are we using? Which is the third book that I wrote is about money models is what I call them because it's sexier than monetization structure. But you know, what's the money model that we're using to turn the eyeball into cash? Right. Whereas the offer is like, this is the big sexy that we're getting people to say yes to and show interest in, which there's some delineation. A lot of the stuff goes all at once. But I think it's important from a thinking perspective to be precise with language, because otherwise we can be precise with our thinking.

Yeah, Okay, I got you.

Yeah.

So when you sell a product for the first time, are you thinking about it like an MVP or are you developing the whole thing first? The reason I ask is because when somebody, A lot of times when people will hear you talk about product quality or putting all these metrics in place, they hear that, like climbing a mountain, there's, there's, there's a, A lot of time that goes into that. So do you create products the same way you create offers where it's like, let's get flow and then let's improve over time? You don't. Right, Tell me more about.

Right, so there's like. So I would say, like, you have your core. Like, so there's the core. Core offer, and then there's like, everything that you wrap around it to enhance the offer. Right. And so in that, in the book, I break it down like that, but, like, there's the core thing, which is like, what's the biggest, baddest thing that we can deliver from a value standpoint to a customer? All right, like, this is obviously our. This is what, you know, this is what we're best at. This is what we know better than anyone. This is what we're passionate about. This is the core thing. There's a lot of people who have the core thing, but they don't have the thing that's going to get someone to buy it. Right. To make it more attractive, to enhance it. Right. And so that's where. That's where we think about what bonuses. And the bonuses I'm using as a loose term because it can be a massively discounted thing, or it could be something that we're giving away for free. We give it away on the front end, we give it away on the back end. You know, what kind of guarantees are we going to structure? Can we layer multiple guarantees on top of this? Like, what ways can we make this more limited so we can have some sort of scarcity involved in the, in the buying process? You know, is there a way that we can generate true urgency by leveraging, like, our, our real cadence of doing business? So, for example, if I had an agency, because you mentioned that earlier, like, I find this interesting because a lot of people don't use scarcity and urgency when they're selling services because they're like, I would take more customers if I could. Right? But the reality is that right now, if I said, cool, I have a thousand customers for you, like, can you start them all tomorrow? You'd be like, no, I can't handle that. Which means that your business has a natural limit. So you might as well advertise the fact that you're like, well, I can only really take on six clients a week. That would be like my true max. Then tell the people that you're on the phone with that you only take six clients a week. And then they're like, oh, okay. Then that's natural scarcity, right? And that's completely ethical. There's no lie there. You're just saying, this is what my actual cap is and this is what I can take. People are like, oh, well then. And then the buyer or prospect is like, oh, I should probably get in. Because, like, they only have six per week. And what might sound like a lot to you doesn't mean anything to a prospect. And so you. How you deliver that information will make it seem like more or less anyways, right? And if you wanted to, you could say, I only have X amount of places. Like, if you have three, you don't want to say you have six. Like, is your capacity, you can say, I only have three left. That would be another ethical way of saying the exact same thing that would make it relevant. But anyways, all of that stuff is stuff that you'd wrap around the core value that you're trying to deliver to just make it either more attractive or try and, you know, just get more interest than you otherwise would.

So what I heard you just say is rather than try to.

Create like an MVP version of the product, you are using whatever version of the product you have to best get the results of the customer before you add additional systems and processes to the product.

So for us, it's just like, just.

Take less customers and do really well by them and then go ahead and create scale within the product.

So for us, like, we separate the, like, the whole MVP process. I don't even consider that part of the. I mean, it is, but I just don't even think about that as part of the business. Because if we're like, for example, we're creating a product for getting into another vertical within. Sorry, we're creating another product to go within another vertical of kind of like the fitness space. And so, you know, the steps there is like, well, we know what's going to work for those businesses. We're going to take on 20 or so of those businesses, prove that it works, continue to refine the product until we're really happy in that those customers are telling other customers about us. At that point. Now we have the core value that we're going to deliver. Now that is completely different from how I'm going to promote it to generate demand for that thing. Yes, that might be the front end product. I might use it as an upsell, I'm gonna use it as a downsell. Like I'm not sure where I'm going to put it, but I know that that's the road. All roads will eventually lead to that core thing. Because if all roads lead there, then it means I'll be able to make the most money because that's where the most value is.

Yep, got it. So, Alex, you are now switching gears or adding another eight figure business to your portfolio. Which is. Am I allowed to say the name of it?

Yeah, you can say it.

Okay. Which is acquisition.com.

Yeah.

And acquisition.com you're advising seven figure businesses, sometimes eight figure businesses. Seven and eight figure businesses. But a lot of times you're taking them to eight figures by using your model. I know you've only worked with a handful so far, but where do you see those entrepreneurs struggling in the context of what we've talked about? Is it a belief they're struggling with? Is it a trait? Is it a skill? Is it an offer? Like, what piece are they usually missing? Where you're coming in and say, and I'm asking because you're working with a variety of different businesses within that, but yet your framework is still helping them all. So what missing piece do you see most commonly?

That's a really good question. So for context, you know, we're, we're in a wide, wide variety. You know, we're, we have one business that has a, is a physical product. Sorry, sorry. A retail chain of services in like the children's space. We have one that's a publisher, which is totally random. We have another business that's, that's in the, in the certification space. So like they're all, all over the place. Some are B2B, some are B2C. Anyways, and so right off the bat when we're looking at companies. So like right now we're getting about a company a day that reaches out to us. That would be a qualified business which is doing between 5 and 50 million a year. It's like a qualified business. For us to take on. And the first thing that we're actually looking at for me is the traits of the entrepreneur, because the beliefs I can change quickly because I already have the beliefs. So I can break those within the person very quickly. And then the other is. And the skills I can teach or show them how to learn. Interesting, right? So, like, if I have someone who has the right character traits, then I can change their belief and then give them the skill. That's easy. But if someone has the wrong traits, then it's very difficult. It just takes a tremendous amount of developmental coaching. And if that is the. If that's the bottleneck, then it's gonna be really hard to grow the business.

I'm really glad I asked this question. So what traits are you looking for? And which ones do you see missing the most often?

Humility.

Humility is the one that's by far that's missing.

Yeah. Interesting. I mean, of the guys that. I mean, when I'm seeing people, and then I would turn them down like that, the number one reason I would turn a business down is because the guy doesn't have humility.

They think they have it all figured out. They think their business is awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. You're a special snowflake. And like, these. You know, these systems. Processes don't apply to you. Right. So that's one that's like a big red flag that's easy to spot early on. Another one is stress tolerance. A lot of them. And again, that one's probably in a 50, 50. Like, if someone's really humble and they're like, man, I'm totally stressed out, then it's like, all right, well, let's put this stuff in place. But if someone. If someone. Yeah, I guess humility is still probably the number one thing. Like, just humility is everything. Like, if you can't. Because if someone's not humble, which is just. So many entrepreneurs have some level of success, and because they are the wealthiest person they know they think they are the wealthiest person. There's a big difference. Which. There's a big difference there. And so it's just very difficult to deal with that type of person. And honestly, probably a lot of the entrepreneurs listening right now, it was probably you. You probably are that way. And I'm not trying to say that in the hard way, but, like, we take on 1 to 2% of the businesses that reach out to us, and the vast majority of them, I turn away not because I don't like the business or the model, but I just don't like the entrepreneur.

Yeah, yeah. What's interesting is I'm processing as you're talking. I wonder if a lack of humility is based in fear. It's like, you don't want your business like you. You don't want to be wrong. You don't want to change. You want to protect the empire. And so you create a story that you have things figured out when in reality the marketplace is always changing.

Yeah.

And you have to be humble enough to recognize that in order to grow.

I think, I think a lot of people feel like if they get help or they get advice that they are somehow less than. And so it's like you have to. You're admitting some sort of deficit.

That makes sense.

Right. You have. You're meeting some sort of deficit by, quote, asking for help or asking for advice. And so that's when it's like, well, I think, you know, the first thing we should do is look at this kind of pricing change or we should look, you know, X, Y and Z. And they're like, oh, we did that. And that didn't work. Like, all right, well, do you think it's possible that you did it wrong?

Fuck.

Right. You know what I mean? And it's just like, it's not about, like, I mean. Cause business from a big perspective is really simple, like get more customers or make the customers worth more. That's it. That's all you have to do. So if you want to grow, you either need to get more or make them worth more. And then there's lots of sub buckets to do each of those things. But those are the big pictures. And if you're like, well, I've already tried both of those things.

That's where I would look at an entrepreneur and be like, then I guess you're not going to grow. That's it. I guess your business is done then. And then I have to usually get them to say, well, no, I don't mean that. So it's like I have to get them to admit that there's a deficit. But I don't like having to do that because I. Obviously if we're here and you're not growing, there's a problem. Duh. Right. But if you can't admit that there's a problem. Cause there always is one. Cause there's a bottleneck for what? Cause if your business isn't just scaling like crazy right now, then there's a bottleneck. There is. And that's okay. It's normal. But to not be able to admit reality Means that I can't, like, deal with you in objectivism, which is just a pain in the ass.

You mentioned that you can change someone's beliefs very quickly. What type of beliefs are you focusing on when you're working with somebody?

Oh, it's anything. I mean, it could be the beliefs around, like, phone sales don't work for us. Or it could be. It could be a belief around, like, oh, our customers won't pay that much. Or it could be a belief, you know, around, like, we don't think email is important. Or like, I mean, there's just so many beliefs that are. Or we've collected.

Or you can't charge 50 grand for something. You can't be a premium price in the marketplace, or you can't sell a physical product for $200 or all of those things.

Yeah, there's a zillion of them. But I love finding limiting beliefs because those are, like, the easiest things to just immediately make someone more money.

That's beautiful.

Yeah, those are the easiest things in, like, they're the best.

And would you. Would you give me an example of that? Like when. Because that does. That doesn't make sense on first listen.

Yeah.

How does changing a belief make somebody more money right away?

So easy. So. So I'll just give you an example of one that I just heard about. So from of mine. He has an app, and he made exercise programs in his app. That was it. And he wasn't. Just listen to how ridiculous is it? And then you'll understand what I'm talking about. He did not win the CrossFit tournament nationally. Came in like, fourth or something. And so he was like, I'm not good enough to make a workout app. That was his belief.

Yeah.

And so his app was growing organically and was at like 20,000amonth in MRR.

And then finally, he was getting so many reviews of people saying his workouts were awesome that he finally was like, okay, this is good enough. And so I can actually start announcing that he even had it. He didn't even tell anyone that he had this thing because he was so embarrassed of the fact that he wasn't the champion. Right. But this is an extreme example. But the thing is, if you met the guy, you think he's a smart dude, obviously. And now his thing does like 150,000amonth just because he decided that it was okay to talk about it now.

Yeah.

And he still doesn't like, run a ton of ads or anything like that for just based on how good the product was. It's grown to that level, and it's almost all margin because it's.

Yeah, that's beautiful. Well, what I'm processing as you're saying that is one of the reasons why I think you've scaled so quickly is because you believe know that your product is the best thing that your customer can do for themselves.

Yeah.

So that gives you the confidence in front of an ad to be very bold and what you state to the prospect and to what you give away and how you follow up with them and how aggressively people pick up the phone and call them, Whereas a lot of people are so thinking about the cash flow for themselves that they know subconsciously that their product isn't good enough to serve the person. And so they're showing up as a salesperson rather than just going and giving the offer to the prospect.

This is like, this is the core of everything, in my opinion. And like, we're talking about business stuff on this podcast, but, you know, in other podcasts, people talk to me just about sales. And so sales is a transference of belief. And if you lack belief, then you cannot transfer it. Trust is the vehicle that makes that transfer from one person to the other. And so you cannot be trustworthy if you know that your thing is not good enough. You cannot believe that your thing is good enough if you know that it's not. And the only person who really knows is you, because you know the level of effort that you put into the creation of the product. And so my saying for this is, you have to outwork your self doubt, because it's good to have self doubt because it means you have a conscience. And so people are trying to like, no, you shouldn't doubt. Like, you should 100% doubt, but you should get to the point where it would be unreasonable for you to believe that it doesn't work. Yeah, right. And so, like, I use the gym launch example because it's extreme, but it's also like, what we did is like, I flew out for two years in person, two gyms, and did turnarounds myself before I sold the system on how to fill your gym. And so, so many guys buy a course on how to sell, you know, how to sell Facebook ads and then start selling. Like, I'll just, oh, I heard gym launch makes a zillion dollars a year. I'll just do what they do. I'll just take a tiny piece of that. You're not gonna beat me. And that's because you didn't do what I was willing to do. Now, if you Said, I flew out for two years and did 33 different turnarounds and I spent 21 to 24 days in every single one of those markets. Then I would say, yeah, you're a dangerous competitor. But if you were that type of person, you would never say something like you do, like I just said. Right. And so because you'd have the character traits that would be, you know what I mean? That would probably be, that would show more humility, et cetera. So, like, the biggest thing is if I can outwork myself doubt by making it unreasonable for my self belief that the product is exceptional, then I now know and believe that it is. And the easiest thing is that like from a persuasion perspective, all I do now is just communicate what I did. Like I don't have to sell you at all. I just say we turned around 32 gyms. We learned a lot in that process. We actually figured out there's five steps to it. These are the five steps. If you'd like us to help you, click here.

It's not that persuasive. And so we just use data to do our persuasion for us. The average gym that joins our thing on the service side makes $15,000 in their first 14 days. That's the average. We also have half that are below that. Because it's the average. We also have half that are above that, but that's the average. And so if that's something that sounds reasonable to you, then sign up. And if that sounds low to you, then don't sign up. That's it. Yeah, like we don't have a lot. I don't have to tell stories and copy. Like, I don't have to. I can say, this is what it is, take it or leave it.

Yeah. I mean, and something I've learned from you is a lot of people, you are good at copy and sales, but a lot of people will use copy and sales to overcompensate a lack of fulfillment product.

Yeah.

And you flipped the whole thing on its head. So, Alex, normally in a podcast at this point, I would turn it over and say, hey, you have a book coming out, you should talk about it. But I'm gonna take it differently because it's just always an awkward transition. And I will say that I've told you this privately. I think you used it as one of the endorsements on your book.

Yeah.

I divide in my head my career into two chapters. I have 15 years before I read your new book. And then I have chapter two, which is, oh, my goodness, I see the Matrix now. And I, it has completely changed my perspective on how like the next chapter of my, of my career. And I've also, I've also told you this, that when I started my career in 2006, I think I was in high school. I was in High School, 18 years old. I bought my first ever ebook about making money online. And I went to the library and I printed it out and I had this whole stack of papers and I would sit in my bedroom and I would read this ebook, hardcover, now, take notes in it. And I just had this belief that if I take this serious, it will change my life. And I haven't had that same experience again until you gave me the advanced copy of your book where I went to Office Depot again, printed it out and like reserved time to go through this book, took notes and it is, I know, like it just hit Kindle this like last night or something, right? And I've already forwarded it to my team and said this is single handedly the best business book I've ever read. So thank you for bringing this book out. It's an irresistible offer.

So Alex has a book out, it's called $100 million how to make Offers so good. People feel stupid for saying no. And it's really, really good. And the thing I like about it the most is that hundred million dollar offers. This book is not about how to persuade people to buy something. It is how to make your product so good and your business so good. And then your offer so good and honest to a customer that you get the entire market. People literally can't say no. And that requires you to take a look at your business and say, what do we need to change or adjust so that our customer experience is better so that our product helps people on their journey. I have said over and over and over to my people that you have to make your business customer centric instead of self centered. And most entrepreneurs, that is a big aha for them, which is kind of silly. But we all got into this game because we wanted a different life. And the minute that you can change the business so that it's in service to them, the minute you get unlimited flow of customers. So I personally think that this book.

It may be the best business book I've ever read, or maybe I was just ready for it, one of the two. And this is my call to action. Go buy Alex's book. And you know how this works. Buy it, then forward it to your entire team, to your partner and say let's read this together and go through it together and then go review the thing, give it five stars, say it's the best book ever, because it is. And then forward it to everybody else. You know, that's my call to action. Alex, you want to add anything to that call to action?

I feel like Charlie Mungraft or Warren Buffett, like, no comment. Nothing to add. Right. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, it's everything that we learned And I think $100 million offers. So I'm writing a 10 book series on acquisition in Jim.

It's 10 now. First it was three, then it was five, now it's 10.

Yeah. All right. I'll just go say, well, the first book broke into three and the first step of that was $100 million offers, which is like we can't even talk about lead generation until we get the offer. Right. Like, what's the point where we're going to initially transact for the customer? Like, what are we literally going to give them in exchange for their hard earned coins? And under what terms is that agreement based on? And so it's like once we define those terms, then we can build everything upon that. But like the offer is really like the tip of the spear. And I think it's usually like the easiest lever in any business to transform it overnight is just changing what they are, what and how they package the thing that they are delivering. And it's how you can stand and create your own category of one, it's how you can have premium pricing. It's how you can have 2, 10, 100 times the response rates to your advertising or your reach out methods or whatever it is simply by shifting how you get the prospects to perceive what it is that you are selling.

Yeah, beautiful. So I just decided this in the last 90 seconds, but if you're a member of the 1%, we're going to go through this book together. So we'll have some sort of live coaching calls where we're going through this or talking about this. What's that?

It's like, I'm happy to hop on one.

All right, cool. And Alex is gonna hop on and go through some things.

So if you're a member of the.

1%, go ahead, like make sure you grab this. And we're gonna be going through this together. I think it is a game changer for entrepreneurs. I also, I'm so glad we got you on this podcast now. Cause I'm pretty sure that as soon as this book comes out, you're gonna be a very in demand man. If you weren't already. I think, I really think that this is going to create a lot of noise in the marketing space. Cause it's exactly what the market right now. This is like, this is a shift from being a marketing focused business to actually being a really good business. Alex.

You'Re the man, man. Thanks for being here.

Thank you for having me, Ryan. Appreciate it.

Oh, and also, Alex is the only person on YouTube who does better content than me. So. So go find him. Go find him on YouTube.

The only one, the only person in.

The entire world who does better content than me. So go. Go find him.

All right.

Thanks, Alex.

Appreciate you. Thanks.

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