Alex Hormozi on Mastering Sales, Making Your First Million & Overcoming Mediocrity EP 1296

You mentioned you'd always created something from a lack. Yeah, but now it sounds like there's a different intention for why you're building something. What happens when people shift their intention from scarcity lack mindset to growth, impact, service, whatever it might be that you're coming from.

I'm so excited for this question.

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What happens when people shift their intention from scarcity lack mindset to growth impact service, whatever it might be that you're coming from.

I'm so excited for this question. So I think the biggest thing that changes is time horizon.

Time horizon. What is time horizon?

And I think the single greatest differentiator between the poor and the middle class. Middle class and Rich, rich. And the truly wealthy is how they see time. And if you think about money as simply a condensed unit of time, that's all money is. You trade it for time. I mean, you can trade time for money. So they're almost equivalent units. And the people who know how to master their time the most mean that they know how to master their money the most. And so really, if you want to master to the original question of like, how do wealthy people come wealthy? It's because they master their time. And so time horizon is just like the perspective from which we see what we want to achieve. And so if I am doing, if I'm building a company from the place of like, I believe that this company should exist. I believe this problem is worth solving. And that is where you start it from, then you build it differently. Versus I need to make money. I need to make money this week, I need to make money tomorrow.

Because what can I go make money with?

Exactly. And so I think like, I mean, you've built this amazing brand here. If people were able to not ask for 12 months and just serve, dude.

This is what I did when I launched this because I literally sold another company. I didn't make that much, but I had enough for like two years to live. I was living pretty frugal. I wasn't like, I never bought anything fancy. It was like, you know, whatever food and travel maybe, right? But I was still sleeping on couches back then, you know, just because I wanted to save, I wanted to spend it on hotels. I didn't start spending spending hotel rooms until about four or five years ago. I would always find a way. Who do I know in that town I can crash on? Anyway, side note, but when I launched School of Greatness 10 years ago, I remember saying, I'm gonna do this for one year. Cause I wish I had access to this. I wish this was a thing that I could go listen to in the world to teach me. And I'm not gonna try to make money. I'm gonna do it for a year all in. But I'm not gonna try to make money. I don't wanna make money. I mean, if the money came, great, but it wasn't my intention. It was just how can I create the best content to serve people on the things that I wish I would have learned in school growing up.

Yes, the school of greatness.

And after one year I was like, man, this thing's really starting to take off, you know. But it wasn't based on how do I make as much money there's how do I create something that could really make a lasting change?

Yeah.

And that intention is what's made me sustainable for 10 years.

Loving the process.

Totally.

So when people come from a place where I'm hearing you say, when they come from a place of that intention of service or because this needs to be in the world, it's art.

Art exists not to do something. It exists to exist. Right. It's like no one says, why did you paint that?

It needed to come out.

And you express it.

Exactly. And so I think that if people chose their businesses that way, I think, and don't be wrong, I'm all about making money. Like, by all means, go get your bag.

Learn as much as you can.

Yeah, by all means. But I think that what it does is it ends up freeing you to then make your real impact because then you can start whatever the next thing and hopefully your first thing is that thing. But realistically it probably isn't. And all you have to do is look at every entrepreneur that's really wealthy, the amount of graveyard businesses they have in their back. And so like right now, if you're listening and you're like, I'm not sure if this is the perfect business idea, let me just save you the time. It's not. Because look at every other person who has been ultra successful. They have 10 failed business ideas. So just like just start. So you can just start notching off the bad businesses. Right. But extending the time horizon, I think only happens if you do shift the intention through which you're building it or you're just unbelievably self disciplined. But I think it's easier to just like start at it with the right heart. Because small tangent, but I think it'll be worth it. Is that the reason that most people aren't successful in my opinion is that they sacrifice global benefit for local benefit. And that happens in all areas of life. You eat the piece of cake because you have an acute local benefit versus the global benefit of a six pack that lasts for a very long time or better health, et cetera. Right.

You mean instant gratification as opposed to delayed gratification.

Exactly. And I just like saying local versus global because it happens in an organization. For example, sales guys don't want to put the notes in the thing because it's a pain in the butt to put the notes in the CRM. But finance needs the notes. Customer service needs the boats. Success needs the notes. All of these other departments need those notes for all the other things that we're Going to do. And so it's a local cost, but for a global benefit. And so I think if people were able to delay that immediate gratification, which is like, this is the nature of success.

This is funny, man.

There was this study that was done. I can't remember it.

It's the marshmallow test or the other.

Okay. God. I can talk about the marshmallow test. Okay. So fun. One with that, with the marshmallow test is measuring how long they delay for the marshmallow. So at what point does it not make sense if they say you can get one? Because they, like, everyone simplifies the experiment, which is like, if I give you a marshmallow one now, or you can two later. Right. But what if two is in a year?

Yeah. You're like, I don't care. I'll take the one now.

Right. So then the next question I would have is like, if you were to test kids and then say at what point the global versus local crosses would be. And then track the kids who had the longest marshmallow waiting period, because then you could measure how long they were.

Going to wait, they were successful, probably a life.

Yeah.

Really interesting. Just total side note, but the three things that I think were in common of the ultra successful were inflated sense of self, as in they thought that they deserved big things. They wanted to go after big things.

They believed in themselves.

Right. Inferiority, never being good enough, and impulse control.

Those are the three factors of the most successful.

When they did a common factors analysis, these people think they believe that they can achieve all this amazing stuff. And then it's just. It's an amazing paradox because at the same time, they think they're not good enough and they are insecure about whether they can achieve it. And they have impulse control. And so it's like, if you have discipline. Yeah, yeah. And they just, they. And they stay focused on the thing and what I like, I'd say the biggest breakthroughs that I've had, I think that will create a lot of the wealth that we will have in the future, is really a deep understanding of how long long is. And shooting with the intention of, like, I'm only bringing this up because my YouTube guy said it, but he's like, I've never had somebody who actually started that. I was like, we'll see what we do in five years. I was like, we'll measure that. And he was like, no one has literally ever said that to me. I was like, as long as I see progress, I'm good.

Because everyone Wants results in like two months.

Yeah, yeah. Like, if we're going this way, I'm cool. I don't need to, like, that's good enough for most people if they could extend the time horizon. Because like, I'll give you another hack. You can know how wealthy someone is based on the time horizons they speak in.

Give me an example.

So if someone's talking about how they're trying to make, you know, make money this today. Let me hold 20 for today. You know how poor they are. I have to say poor. Like, you know how poor they are. Right. If someone's talking about what they're going to make this week or this month or this quarter or this year or this decade, think about how different the people are who are talking in those time horizons. And so I think that if we can shift the time horizon that we think in, then we gain more leverage over our time, which we then know we will compound into money. Because I think if you can master the time, you master the money.

That'S good. You've been married for how long?

Five years.

Five years in a relationship or six years or something?

Six years in a relationship, five years married.

This is something that I've been curious about at different decades of my life. Right. I'm 39 now. I just turned 39 in March. And in my 20s, I didn't think it was. I was like, how is it possible to be with one human being for the rest of your life?

Right. Yeah.

Like there's so much adrenaline and testosterone and just desire. I was thinking from a place of desire, not from a place of, I don't know, from a spiritual foundation, let's say.

Right.

More of a sexual desire. And I would study these different men over the years and the ones that I really respected were the ones who had amazing long term relationships and who had healthy businesses that impacted people in positive ways and had, you know, semi healthy families in general.

Right.

I'm curious, why did you decide to get married? I guess at 25, 6.

I was 20, she was 23 or 24 and I was 26 or 27.

Why decide to get married in your 20s?

Yeah.

And how has that been beneficial towards your inner peace, your health and your wealth?

Yeah. So I think getting married is a great hack for making money. I have a lot of thoughts on this. First one is because at least if you're anything like me, probably 80% of my attention went to chasing tail. And so getting all of that attention back automatically just makes you more money. Right.

All your energy is spread out 100%.

If you're doing that, it's spread all over the place. And so that was. That's just like honestly, just getting into a relationship accomplishes that. Going from a relationship to marriage, though, was really surprising to me because I was, I would say fairly against marriage for most of everything. And it's by happenstance. Laila and I got married almost like as a dare. And then we're still married and it's been awesome, total. We'll get into another time. But when I, when we did get married, it was actually really interesting. And maybe this is just my own personal experience, but I felt this very sincere shift of knowing. It felt secure even the long term. I'm like, why do we need a government body? Why do we need someone? Why do we need an external party to validate our relationship?

Sign a document from the government. Yeah.

But there is some level of commitment that comes with it, that makes it more stable. And knowing that it was like, oh, she's in it with me, just knowing the barrier to exit was significantly higher for both of us, I think increased our commitment to the relationship. But it gave me so much more stability for risk taking in a lot of ways. Knowing that she was there and knowing she had my back. And I was texting a buddy of mine who was living the fast life.

Yes, girls, every other night.

And he was like, how do you think through this? And I thought about it and I think that when you get into the committed relationship or marriage, you trade novelty for loyalty. And for me, that to me, loyalty. I was trying to define this for myself, but like, for me, loyalty matters more than love or is a form of love or the one that I value the most. And then as a secondary, because I was trying to define whenever someone says, what is love? Like, if you actually start trying to peel the word back. Most people just describe activities that people who are in love do. Well, it means. And then they use a laundry list of activities. And so the best definition I have, I know this is me out there, is of how much like measuring love is how much are you willing to endure to keep it. And so if you have a relationship with someone and like, and I would say love and liking to me is the same thing because it's really difficult to differentiate between the two. If you have a relationship with someone and you're not really willing to, like, let's say wait 30 minutes later to go to dinner with them, probably have very little liking in there. Right. If you have kids, you're probably willing to do A lot for them. And so, like, I'll give you an example that a friend of mine said he was like, man, he must, like, if you have a car that you've been working on all the time, like, a lot of guys, like, tinker with.

Must love that car.

Right?

That thing's a piece of crap. He must love that thing. It barely runs because of what he's willing to put up with. And so it's kind of interesting when you think, like, you can measure love by your willingness to sacrifice or endure in order to keep it.

Do you think we should endure a toxic relationship, though, or something that's not adding value equally or putting forth a.

Level of effort to be fair? The toxic relationship. I'll use the quotes here because defining toxic would be another call, another video. Right. I think that there are moments in relationships that are negative, but if you love someone a lot because you had a lot of benefit, so going the other direction, Right.

Like, but if it's more toxic than.

It is, then you wouldn't put up with it.

Right.

So then is it worth putting up with anyone having a negative experience? It depends on what you have to gain. Right. And the more you love someone, the longer you're willing to wait for another positive reinforcement. So if I meet somebody and I have a negative experience, immediately, I'm probably done. Right. If I meet someone and I have positive the next day, positive, two days later, positive a week later, the next one, I might be willing to wait two weeks and then four weeks. And this really just becomes a question of human conditioning rather than love. Not to get, like, I love this stuff, but anyway, I can get us back to marriage. But marrying Lelo gave me a lot of the security that I needed to take the big risks. And knowing that she had my back and Layla and I have very uncommon views on marriage.

What's the, I guess, unique views on marriage you guys have?

So most people get married because they feel a chemical attraction.

Yes.

And then they just wait Right. Until eventually it's not enough and it goes away. Yeah. And they're like, I guess we should get married. Right? We had the first date. We talked for four hours about business, all business. And at the end of the day, I said, you should quit your job and work for me. I was like, was this date or.

Was this a date? Okay. It wasn't just, like, a casual encounter.

No, it was 100% Tinder date. It was bumble, but it was a date. Bumble date. Yeah. And all business, all night, the whole thing. We walked for four hours, just talking about business. And the very end, I said, you've got to like, quit your job and work for me. And she said, no, I just met.

You not quit your job and date or date me, but I quit your job and work for me.

And I said, listen, even if I don't come with the deal, like, this needs to make sense for you. Like, this is how much I'd pay. I was just like, this is how much I'd pay you. This is how much you'd make. Like, you should totally work for me. And she said no. But I kept working on her. And eventually, three weeks later, she quit her job and she joined me. And we hung out every day after that one. And we did not have a super chemically sexual. Not at all. We just liked doing the same stuff and we both wanted the same outcome. And so at least as I see it, it's like you have to have an aligned mission of what you want to accomplish in life, values of how you want to get there, man. And then ideally, this like, bonus, bonus points for similar interests.

Dude, it's so funny you say that because I say that, you know, from all the mistakes I've made in the previous relationships that are all my mistakes, it all comes to values, vision and lifestyle. And having shared. Alignment doesn't have to be 100%, but it's like an alignment in values, vision and lifestyle, not in, you know, if you have the sexual chemistry, which we do, which is great, but not using that as the main value, the sexual chemicals. Because in two, five, 10 years, they may not be there. But if you don't have the values of vision and lifestyle, or what you.

Call values, mission, because it's all business. Mission is what we're trying to accomplish. Values is how we're gonna get there. And then interests is like, what do we wanna spend our time in? Exactly.

That's so funny.

Yeah, so that's what I think. And if you have those things, you create a relationship. In my opinion at least this has been my human experience. It becomes very difficult to get out of. And I say that intentionally in that, like, the best way to stay married is to figure out how to stay married. And so, like, well, let's stack all the chips in our favors. Like, we like doing the same stuff, we like talking about the same things. And then I think in a very important way, if those three things are aligned, you will get exposed to the same stimuli. And if you get exposed to the same stimuli, you'll have the same adaptations, provided you have the same values. So if we get this exposure and we both have the same values, we'll both grow in the same way. Where I think what happens for many people is they're opposite sides and they attract. Right. And what happens is you get on this. You probably. Esther Perel.

I just had her on a week ago. I had her on a few times.

I'll just stop.

Go ahead. Yeah, yeah.

Well, now I feel silly quote her, but my understanding of mating activity is you've got familiarity. Right. And you've got. I say variety and then familiarity, because this is how I do it. And so in the beginning, everything's so new and exciting. There's all this variety.

Right.

And then you get to know each other, and it gets better and better because you're like, oh, my God, this is amazing. This is amazing. This is amazing. But then all of a sudden, you keep going, and then you're siblings and your roommates. Right. And so it's not, like she says, a problem to be solved, but a dichotomy to be managed between familiarity and variety. And one of the interesting things with our relationship is that we have so many ways to be familiar. So for us, based on that, like.

So you need to create more variety.

Yes.

How do you guys do that? Because you talk about all the same things. You do the same thing all day long. How do you create variety?

That's a great question.

Besides the multiple businesses, multiple business boards. You're not doing the multiple people.

Oh, no, we're not doing that. No. No. I think Layla would stab somebody. No. But I think the variety piece comes in through deliberate creation of room to be missed.

Space. Intense.

If you think about space, I'm going.

Away for a week.

Yes.

And you're gonna go with your friends or family, and I'm not gonna be there.

You know how much you like someone more when you see them after not seeing them for a week. So.

Good.

Isn't that weird? That's feeling right. Isn't that weird? So it's like we can create that deliberately.

The missing belonging.

Exactly. And so it's like, if we can, like, physically separate ourselves in terms of when we work. So we work on separate sides of the house. We only come together for food. So we eat and then we go back. And ideally, we're not on any of the same meetings, because the last thing I want to do at the end of the day is sit down and say, like, how's your day? Just kidding. I was there the whole time. Right, right.

Yeah.

So it's Ideally.

So you work together, but you don't.

Yes. You work in the same company, but.

You'Re not on calls all day long together, hand in hand.

Right. And we can accomplish. And so that way when we talk, it's like two business colleagues that are both after the same thing, that both believe in getting there the same way. And we're talking about our unique things that are interesting for me that she might want my perspective on. And I'm like, hey, I'm thinking about this hook or this message or what do you think about this? And we can bounce on it, but because we didn't share every moment of the day, it gives us that ability to have variety. But I think Esther said this. But the couples that do start businesses together. Maybe I'm misquoting two research things anyways. Couples that start businesses together have a 10% divorce rate if you start and make a dollar in a business together. And I think it's like birthing a child, except in order to do a business. I think it's harder than having kids. And people will be like, you don't know that because you don't have kids. It's true. But I do know that there's a lot of people who have both. There's more people who have kids than have businesses who started together. And I think that there's some magic in that. Cause it's like birthing an idea. But you both got to agree on what you're going to create. So you're not leaving up to biology, you're leaving up to choice.

Do you guys ever fight or argue?

Sure. Like I would say we don't have what I would consider like real fights.

Blow ups or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, minor arguments, but I'm sure that like the many common miscommunications that can happen as humans.

Sure, sure, sure.

Hey, you said this. That did. Is this what you meant to say?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

No, no. I was like, if there's two ways to take it and one way makes you really angry, the other one doesn't. I meant the other way.

Whatever you're angry about, round up.

That's like, just round up for me.

What thing you love about her the most.

She's made of steel. She's play is just unbreakable.

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So, like, I'll tell you the two moments in our marriage that like. Or we weren't married yet, but the two moments that like, defined her to me. So one was in. We were probably nine months into dating or maybe. No, not even maybe, like six months into. We're six months into. And I had lost everything. Again, standard Alex move, right? Just lose everything. And she had to go launch a gym and she had to absolutely crush it. And I was so stressed out because at this moment in time, I had the six gyms, I had a chiropractor agency, a dentist agency, and I had the launch business where we're actually like flying out and doing launches. I think I had one more thing. I can't remember what it was, but eight different businesses that I was owning. I made no money, obviously, because I had eight businesses, right? And I was just. I was too stressed to function. That was the only way I could describe it. It's like I was not present at all ever. I was just thin. I just. I was so spread thin. She walked in the office one day, I didn't look up, and she was like, do you want me to be here? And. And I was like, you can do whatever you want. And she was like, well, are you. Do you want to break up? And I was like, yeah, that's fine.

Really.

And so she said, okay, that's fine, you know, and she had quit her job to do this with me. So it had been five months. Like, you know, she'd quit everything. She'd built up a personal training business that was doing really well. And she got rid of all her clients so she could come do these launches with me.

Wow.

Five months in, I was like, you know, I can't, whatever. And so she went to Hawaii to do this launch, which was gonna be a really big launch. And I was betting big on this thing because so she was still Working.

With you, but not in a relationship with you.

Yeah. So we've actually like, work is the thing that is our first language. It came naturally to us. And so she went there and I had. I think I'd lost all the money for the seventh reason in a row. Right. And I had like 10 grand left. And we needed to make like $100,000 in that month or I was gonna get behind. So it was 10 grand to get her there for 30 days in Hawaii because hotels are insane. And I was like, you, you need to crush this. Even though we just broke up.

Oh my gosh.

You need to crush this. Like, you need to crush this. That's like all I can say. And she flew there and she set every sales record that we had when she got there and did 100 something thousand in cash collected. And she killed it. And when she came back, I had a coach that I was like meeting with during the time she was gone. He was like, look at the stats of your life. He's like, are you in better shape now that she's here? He's like, are you making more money now that she's here? Are you like. And to be fair, like, in general, I was still doing better because I had started the launch business. Like I was, you know, I was like, yeah. And he's like, I think she's a very good thing in your life. And I was like, okay. And so anyway, she came back and she crushed it when virtually every other person that I know would have either not gone, like, screw you, I'm out of this. Or just wilted under the pressure. Cause I put a lot. I was like, you need. I was like, this is the last money I have. Like, you have to crush this.

And I don't care about you intimately anymore.

And I know gay. And so she killed it. And then she came back. And then two or three months later, of course, I lost all that money again. Classic. And then. And so then at this point, now we're sleeping at her parents house and.

You'Re not in a relationship.

No. So we got back together when she came back. So when she came back, Got back together. Yeah. I was like, you're awesome. Like, you stood tall when everything else was crumbling.

Like, let's keep doing this.

Yeah. And so this leads me probably to probably the core point of Laila is that. And I don't know if it's all relationships, but at least the way this one is compared to every other relationship I've had is that I respected her first. And I don't think I had.

God, that's so key.

Like, I don't. And I say this not as any. I've loved a lot of people in the past, but I don't think I respected them to the same degree. And I think part of that is because it was harder for me to respect them because I didn't have a shared arena to witness it in. It would be like, maybe for me, I might not have been able to respect an athlete, maybe. Maybe because it's just not a game I understand as well as a business game. I'm maybe just saying that I can appreciate excellence, who knows? But I respected her, and her opinion mattered to me. A lot of times I would feel like someone's opinion, like, yeah, it matters, but like, I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do. You know what I mean? My opinion matters more. Her opinion I valued equally or even higher than mine in many occasions because I trust her gut. She has an amazing instinct with people especially. And so I respected her first. And the second time that happened was I'm sleeping in her parents house. Winner that I am.

24, 25, 27.

No, I'm 27. Yeah, 26 or 27. Sleeping with her parents. She's 23, 24. And they gave me like the spare kids bedroom. So I'm like in this little desk, you know what I mean? Like, the little chair, like cramped up. And I'm like, this is like make believe, except it's a real business. And we had this horrible day where we lost like $150,000. And it was. And I just saved, like everything was turning around. Everything was turning around for us. We lived there just to like, kind of save some money.

Yeah, yeah.

But the first month of getting rid of all those businesses that I had and just focusing just on gym launch, we did 100,000, we did 200,000, 300,000. So like, things were turning around and I was like, okay, this is happening. And then we got 150,000 refunds, which was pretty much all the profit I had made. And it was because a couple of the gyms that we had launched basically told all the customers to refund and then signed back up through them for half the price.

Oh, my God.

So it's like I go to a gym, we pay for everything. The hotels, the flights, the marketing, the sales guy. And let's say we sell 100 people at 500 bucks, we make $50,000, right? Just for example, they would say, hey, 100 people, now that they're gone, that's annoying. That's messed up. It was a flawed model, you know what I mean? And I could lament it, but I was not operating within the context of human incentive. There was a huge incentive to not be ethical.

Right.

And so we lost 150,000, which was all my savings again. And at that moment, I had already lost everything like three times since I'd been with her. It had been like 11 months at this point. I think at that point, 10 months, because we got married in May and it was 13 months since we had met. And so I just looked at her and I'm like, in her parents room or whatever. And I said, listen, I'm a sinking ship and if you want to get out, I was like, I will have absolute respect for you. We will be like, we're cool. Like, I will hold nothing against you because I, like, I clearly am not good at this. And that's where she was. Like, I would sleep with you under a bridge if it came to that. And so that was when.

That was before you're married or.

Yeah, that was before we were married. And so that was when. And like, you know, I think the dedication in that book says. Or actually. Well, I'm. I might be spoiling it, but I think the next book says, you saw the light in me. It's a strong.

It's my ride or die. I couldn't do this without you. Yeah, that's right.

It's a very meaningful thing. But I don't know if I would have done it without her. You know what I mean? And so anyways, all that to say she stood tall when everything else was crumbling around me. And for that she has my eternal respect. And so as a result of that, that security, knowing that she, like, even when she didn't have to, she was there and she chose to be there alongside me because she believed that we could do this even when I ran out of belief. I think for that, that's. And to be fair, that was the first 11 months of our relationship. That's crazy. And so like, since we got married, it's been super easy.

Yeah, really easy.

It has been like literally nothing was harder than the first year of our relationship.

I mean, sorry. No, it's great. I'm assuming you wouldn't call yourself a marriage expert by any means, but you've been marri married five years. You've also know you have a lot of respect for older men who've been married for a long time. You've, I'm sure, interviewed them and have mentors in that space, what do you think makes a strong marriage last more Respect or love?

I mean, you know where I'm going with this one? Respect. Because I think that respect is based in logic. Love less so. And so I'll say it, I'll say it differently. I think that love has a lot, a strong emotional component. Some days, like some days you feel like you love someone more than other days. Right. But respect doesn't change as much.

Consistent.

Because it's based on facts, it's based on evidence, it's based on I. The story I just told you will not change. That happened. Right? And so when emotions fade, logic remains, which is why I'm a big fan of logical selling, which is when someone is trying to make a decision, I do want to give them the logical reasons for why they should do that. Because when the emotions do fade, which they inevitably do about the decision that they made, what will remain is the logic. And the logic will carry you through the dips. But if you don't have a logical reason to be together, then when the emotions fade, that's when you have no reason to be together because the emotions are on and there's no logic. Right. And so I think that for the long term relationship, that's why the, the mission, the values and the interests. There's a lot of logical reasons for us to stay together. We have a million logical reasons together. We're partners in business, we love the same lifestyle, we're both in the fitness. We have all these huge stack of reasons for why we should stay together. And I think that if we can stack the reasons and as a funny side note, with the length of marriage, the average married person spends two hours a day together. 45 of that is watching television. Average marriage, 35, 24. 24 minutes of that is housework. And then 35 minutes, sorry, 35 minutes is eating. And so 45 plus 25. So there's like 20 minutes that's not that of the two hours that is just being with someone. And so we have spent every hour of every day together for six years. And so I feel like in that way we've had a 50 year marriage, right? From a time time perspective. But anyways, just.

And where do you think you'd be without her or a marriage like hers that has supported you and thrived? Do you think it'd be as financially successful? Do you think it'd be you'd have more time to build your businesses or you feel like you'd have scattered energy with lifestyle choices?

I don't know, I don't know if I would have learned the lessons that she's taught me. So if I had a similar marriage to the one that I have, I think it would be the same. If I didn't have a similar marriage to this one, I think I would have figured out the money thing was too important to me for me not to figure it out. You would have figured it out. It was too important to me because.

You had the discipline.

Yeah. And the fitness thing that was always on lock. And so the missing piece, I still probably would have had that longing to figure it out because I do. Because to your point, all the people that I respect have been in 20 year, 30 year, 40 or 50 year marriages. And I think there's something about character. It speaks to someone's character when they've done something like that. And I think that was something that I wanted to have.

Yeah. What do you think you're 32 now.

Yeah.

What do you think when you hit 40 the three biggest lessons will be that you will have learned or that you, if you could go into the future because you're really good at thinking 85 year old self and your 40 year old self was looking at you right now or in a room with you, talking to you, and he said, here are the three things you really going to need to learn and try not to make these mistakes. What would those three lessons be, do you think, if you could go in the future?

Well, the first one that jumped out at me was patience works. So that would be the first. I think I would have continuous reinforcement on the fact that the longer I wait for things, the better they are. The second one would be define your terms. Socrates says wisdom begins with a definition of terms. And so a lot of people make these goals but they don't know the goal means. And so they're like, I want to be healthy. What does that mean? I want to be happy. What does that mean? We have to define our terms before we start trying to attack them or breaking them down. Which is why if you've ever heard any of my stuff, I tend to define terms a lot. So I think a definition of terms is you have to define your terms. And then third one of lessons that I think would probably still be because whenever I talk to my 85 year old, it's often my, my therapy sessions with myself, it's always just remembering to smell the flowers more because if I'm 20 years old and or 30 years old and I would trade all the millions, I have to be 20 again. Then that is the lesson. So I would trade everything that I have when I'm 40 to be 32. And so it's just like reminding myself.

Enjoy this now, this moment.

Yeah. Because I would trade everything to be here when I'm 40. So, like, if I can just even get a tenth of that awareness in the present moment, if I can bring 10% of that future awareness to the present moment, that would be a success for me.

Can you break down, really, how to sell someone or how to enroll someone in your product or service who has a reason why they don't want to sign up?

Yes. So the baseline assumption is this person wants what you have. And so that's why, like, at the beginning of every sale, you're always asking, what problem are we solving? Right? Like, why are you here? What do you want? And sometimes you have to, like, ask that question a lot of different ways to get someone to actually answer it. Because, like, if someone says, well, I just wanted to find out more, it's like, they're not actually here to find out more. They're here because they want to solve a problem. And so some just saying, well, what problem are you solving? It's an easier way to get to the core of the matter. And so once they admit they have a problem, then we can. So.

So how do you approach it then?

I'll give you the back of napkin before I give you the one that we were talking about earlier. So. So the back of napkin sales scripting process that I have is called closer. And so it's an acronym. It's easier to remember. So the first thing C is clarify why they're there. Why are you here? What brought you in today? Why'd you respond to the ad? Why did you take time to take this call, whatever it is, clarify where they're there. You keep asking until you get the right answer. If it's just information, it's like, you're not hopping on 20 calls a day taking information, are you? No, of course not. Okay, what problem are we solving? Cool. Got that. Then L is label them with a problem. So that's where you're really repeating back to them. So let me just get this straight. So you're here because you're trying to lose weight, and you are struggling to do so at current. Is that correct? Awesome. Okay, great. Then I think you're gonna like what we have. So tell me. So then we go to O. So CLO Closer. O is overview their past experiences or past pains. So it's like, well, tell me what you've done so far to try and accomplish this. I'm assuming that's not the first person you've talked to. I'm assuming this isn't the first moment you realize you wanted to lose weight or you wanted to xyz. Right. And so then we go through what I call the pain cycle, which is like, okay, what did you do?

Try this and this.

How did that work for you? What was good about it, what was bad about it? Great. What else have you done? And you go back through and each time it's like. And each time you affirm the person, you're like, that must have been hard. Appreciate you sharing that. Just affirming and giving them positive reinforcement throughout the conversation. And that's just building rapport 101, right? I understand how you feel. I felt the same way. My sister was like that too. I totally get where you're coming from. I know how that's difficult. Blah, blah, right? O S is then we sell the vacation. So now that we've exhausted all the pain, they're in the thick of the pain of remembering all the times they failed. And you're like, you know what? Given everything you said, I think you're perfect for what we have. Can I tell you about it? So then you get permission to sell. And then when you sell, I like to have three main points that I hit. And I think it's because people remember threes very well. I know you've seen Russell's stuff with webinar. Threes are remembered well. Same thing with values in a company. I think three people remember. It's easy to triangulate ideas when we sell the points. A big part of this is not actually explaining the features. This is obvious. But I like giving short anecdotes that are easy to remember. So if I would say a word, like, we offer accountability for whatever program you sell. Right? And that doesn't mean anything to anyone. So I want to give a quick story or anecdote to explain the concept. It's like, all right, well, we have three types of accountability. We've got peer to peer accountability, which is people are going to be walking with you shoulder to shoulder. You're going to have alumni accountability, which people have already finished, but they're just 12 weeks or 12 months ahead of you and they're cheering you on from the finish line. And then you have expert accountability. You have people who've helped a thousand people just like you get to where you want to go. Alright, so those are the three levels of accountability. If that doesn't make any sense. Do you have a kid or were you ever a child? That always gets a laugh. They're like, ah, I was a kid. You're like, well, do you remember when your parents used to tell you to brush your teeth and you want to brush your teeth. I don't want to brush my teeth. Right. Like, of course. But then every night you'd still go brush your teeth, even though you moaned about it. Do you brush your teeth now? They're like, yeah. Well, that's an example of external accountability turning into internal habit. And so what we're going to do is we're going to be the initial parent that's going to tell you brush your teeth, but we're going to be able to transition to getting that internal combustion engine going by the end of this so that you're brushing your own teeth. You can use the same thing with the seat belt. There's a million examples you can use. And so that would be a quick. Whatever that was. 90 second anecdote to explain point one and the same thing for point two, point three that you have of like, it's kind of like. And then you explain a little epiphany bridge or the story of how you realized it's important. And then they would say, like, that makes sense. Yes. Boom. You move to the second point. Make sense? Yes. Move to the third point. And then it's. Then you go for the close, like, well, given X, Y and Z, I will tell you, this is extremely expensive. And the reason we say that is because it's even better than a price anchor, because extremely expensive for everyone is expensive. If I said, hey, Louis, it's $500. Just kidding. It's $100, you might have thought 500 and 100 were both cheap. Right. But if I said it's really expensive, whatever I say next is going to either be actually expensive for you, in which case I braced you, which is actually more likely to close the sale, or it will be less than what you perceive as expensive. And you're like, ah, great. Because the problem that most people try and do when they sell is they try and minimize the thing they say next, but it actually has a counteractive effect. You say, it's actually not that much. It's only. Yeah, right. But when you say that, when you say only that, all of a sudden people expect low and then you rip their expectations. And so it's much better to set expectations here. But people are afraid of doing that. But that's not how psychology works. So you set expectations sky high, you anchor, and then when you say reality, it either matches the braced person or it's much lower, which most cases it is. Right. Interesting. It's really expensive.

Does that work for webinar sales to mass or is that only better with one to one sales calls having tested on webinars? Interesting, but one to one, yeah, let me know.

I'll let you know.

I'm curious if that also converts.

Well, I do know that from the infomercial world you price anchor high. So it would make sense to me that I would imagine it would still work the same way. It's like, guys, it's super expensive for guys. It's not $5,000 and you work your way down. Right? And then when we do end up saying, hey, it's expensive, we want to make sure that we're selling to goal. And the point there is that some people sell a program, but people don't buy programs about results. And so the idea is we want to, as closely as possible, sell the outcome that someone desires. And it sounds obvious, but people don't do it. You know what I mean? Like a lot of these, like, well, duh. But no one does it. Right. And so like in the weight loss example, I realized that people didn't want to buy memberships. No one's like, I want to buy a membership. Of course not. They want to lose weight. And so what we did was we shifted our selling style in the gyms and the fitness programs to how many pounds they needed to lose. So we'd say, okay, cool, you need to lose 36 pounds. Based on our calculations, it's going to take 36 weeks for us to get there and It'll take another 50% of that time to basically re stabilize you, get your metabolism back up and now you're eating the same amount at a lower weight. That sound cool? Great. And so now it's going to be a 52 week program. I will tell you it's very expensive, but it's normally, you know, whatever, $500 a week, but instead it's only 150 a week.

Interesting.

Fair enough. And then when we get into closing questions, I always prefer neutral or negative questions because if I said sounds amazing, a lot of people would be like, what does it sound amazing? But if I said fair enough, then it's much easier to get someone to say, well, yeah, it's fair. So it's like, how low can I make the thing that they're agreeing to? And then the negative version of that, which Chris Voss talks about in the negotiations.

Never split.

The difference is no base questions.

That's not so bad, is it?

Right? Or yeah, you wouldn't be opposed to moving forward? Would it be totally crazy if we moved forward today? Would it be totally crazy if we started you on Monday, like all this? Well, it's not crazy. Okay, cool, let's do it. And then at that point, let's say Lucy says no to whatever the thing we're selling now, we begin the E of closer, which is explain away their concerns. So C, clarify L label O, overview their past experiences. S sell, which is the three anecdotes that you're going to tell and then you present the price. And then at that point, hopefully they say yes. But in the world of sales, no is the job. No is the job. They say yes. Then you wouldn't be necessary. Right. And so no, like, are you ready.

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Selling is everything that you do before you present price. Closing is what you do after. And obstacles are what come up before you present price. That's when you disagree with the prospect. Objections are what happen after you present price when they disagree with you. Right.

Well, I don't have the money, I don't have the time, I don't have.

Let me check with my spouse, etc. And so obstacles, you want to resolve as many of those as you can before because they become bigger, scarier monsters of objections after you present the price. Right. And so like that example I gave earlier with the information, when someone says, well, I just want to find out a little bit more information, that's an obstacle. Like someone's presenting the first five seconds, they're already telling you an obstacle. Like, you have to confront it. And so a lot of people are like, well, you know, I think it's my potassium. Slow. Right. Like, is it, though? Because, like, you know, there's a lot of people in Africa and none of them have stubborn body fat.

Right, Right.

Because they're actually starving. Right. But so you would think that they have true starvation mode, but they're. But they look like they're starving. So what do you think it is? You know, like. And then you can get into it. Most people really offended by that, though. But you get. It's an extreme example. So once we get to that point, they say, no, or I have to think about. So there's three circles. And this took me actually a really long time to think through because I've gone through a zillion different books and things on sales, ironically, after I already knew how to sell, not before, which is just kind of funny. But different people had different. Like Grant had, I think, decision maker stall money. He's like, those are the three that you always have to overcome. Which is like, I need to think about it. I need to talk to my spouse. Or it's money. Right? Those are his three. Barry from Sage, she has five. She has time, money, time, money, spouse, fear, shame. Interesting. I was like, that's cool. Noted. And then Belfort has his. The three tens, and there's a number of different ones. And I was like, there has to be. And they may all disagree with me on this, so who knows? But there has to be a unifying truth here, right? Because everybody has their own buckets. And there's obviously some elements of each of these. And so I pulled back from Albert Ellis, who is One of the fathers of cbt cognitive behavioral therapy, he said, and originally he had like 17 and they had 11, and they had nine and they had seven. They had three reasons that people upset themselves. He just kept boiling it down. And the three that he came up with are that people blame their circumstances, they blame other people for their unhappiness, and then they blame themselves. And so when we are confronted with an objection underneath the pretense that the person has already admitted that they want the thing that you have, and the thing you have would solve their problem. So that has to be there. If we have that, then we have to walk through three concentric rings of power. And so the first thing that people do is they blame their circumstance. So they're casting their power to something else. They're saying it's because of time, the money or the money, right? And then, you know, with the money, if you were selling a B2B thing, I would say, well, what's the difference between a self made billionaire that starts at zero and you? It's not resources, it's resourcefulness, right? Then you can tell a story if you want to reinforce the point. But the end of the day, like, if you were resourceful, you can make it. So the question is, if you were to die tomorrow and you needed to come up with the amount of money for this thing, how did you know it?

You figured out.

Exactly. So what we need to do is figure out how to tap into those resources, right? So the bumblebee, you go into that thing, right? And so each of these has come.

Your insecurities, your fears, your people saying no, judging you, and you just taking action and risking.

And so underneath the circumstances, I have three big buckets, which you've got time, you've got money, and you've got what I call fit, which is actually an association with identity. So usually it might be like, well, I want to lose. I use weight loss because everybody understands it. I want to lose, I want to lose weight, but I don't eat broccoli. Your prawn has broccoli on it. But like, you know what, I don't like cardio, though. And so that's where you just go through, like, you got to change the change, right? And there's a whole script around that. It's like, you cannot change any of the variables. Because at the end of the day, like, you know, I used to have weight loss clients who would say like, well, can we make this the breakfast? Because this is what I already eat. I'm like, well, that Breakfast got you that body. So we gotta change something, right? Gotta change the change, right. And so we walk through it. I'm like, maybe you're not heavy enough. Maybe this isn't enough pain for you. And then they're like, why don't you.

Put on 50 more pounds and then you'll finally make it.

Yeah, exactly, yeah. All of a sudden they're like, no, no. I'm like, all right, well, then maybe today is the day. Right? So time, money, and each of those has three. So, like, time is three, which I go macro, micro. When, then. Which is.

Right, right, yeah.

And then, you know, money I could go through when they're not. I would go through too many of them.

Sure, sure.

But that's circumstances, Right? The next level. And this is peeling back an onion. So if you're a salesperson or you're selling someone and they blame money or they blame time or they blame the fit of your specific program, understand that you're actually talking to someone two steps away from being in power.

So making the decision.

Yes. And so if we believe ourselves as salespeople to be coaches first, because that's what we're really in, serving the customer. The goal of the sale is not to get the person to buy. And this is a huge thing for most salespeople. Everyone has to understand the goal is not to get the person to buy. The goal is to get them to decide. If you get someone to decide, then you have already given them power, more power than they've ever had in a very long time, probably. And I guarantee you that you will make more money and you will also disassociate success in selling from purchases. You will also get more purchases. But if you do it this way, then you won't have an ego that's invested in being right. Because it's not about you, it's about them. Right. We get them to admit that it's never been about having enough time because it's about priorities. We all have the same 24 hours. And you know what? If you're really busy now, do you think you're ever going to be busy in the future? Well, yes, I do. Well, do you want it to be permanent? Well, I do want it to be permanent. Well, if you're going to be busy in the future and you're busy today, then you might as well start now when you get the most support, because you're already busy. If you learn how to do it when you're busy, you'll know how to do it again when you're busy in the future. That way you'll stick with it. Make sense? Great. Time's overdone. Right. And so each of that's one of the three for time. Right.

We've drilled a lot of these.

And so the next one is other people with other people. A lot of times it's spouse often. Right. And so, you know, I kind of walk through a process which is, you know, are they aware of the fact that you're struggling with this? Yes. Do they approve of the struggle? Well, they don't. I mean, they're like, well, I mean, no, they're not approving of the struggle, so. Well, then why would they be against something they already don't approve of? Right. Well. And if the roles were reversed, would you be in support of them? And usually they'll say yes to that. Most times, like, well, then why would they be against you? And if they're anything like my wife, I would do everything I possibly could to support her, and I think she would do the same. Is that the same that you have there with your relationship? Yes or no? Cool. Finally I'll walk through. It's like, honestly, just listen to you, Tom. I think you're asking for permission when you should be asking for support. And the reality is, let's play this out, right? Let's play this out. Let's say that you don't do this program, whatever it is, right? Let's play it out. And 12 months from now, you're more negative situation currently, you're in more overweight, more poor, whatever. And if you keep doing that, who are you going to blame for your circumstance? Is it going to be you, or is it going to be her? It's going to be her. So is that fair to her? Is that fair to your marriage? No. So I think what we need to be looking for is support, not permission. And so what you're going to do, then tone comes up and we're like, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna take control. We're gonna take the power you have to make the decision for you, and then she will support you. And what you have to do is when you show up with her, you're like, listen, I've wanted to be an entrepreneur all my life. Who knew that there wasn't an entrepreneur school? And you go through just like doctors go to school, but no one did it for me. And Instead of being $100,000, it's only $10,000 and other people. And I'm not gonna moan about how I'M not making money because I'm actually supported with other people. And I'm committing to being more present here to be a better wife or be a better husband, be better, you know, spouse, to be better mother to our kids. And you give them the script to tell the other person. And at the very end, you say, at the end of the day, sometimes, like I said, we have our three day no sweat guarantee. So for some reason, you go home and your husband says, listen, sweetie, I want you to. I don't want you to be healthy. I want you to keep the extra weight on. I want you to live 10 years shorter. I want you to pull up those sweatpants and reach your bag into those Cheetos and get them all orange and fingery and spread it over there and teach our kids not generational health and have early diabetes. If your husband says that to me, by all means. And usually at this point, they're cracking up. You know what I mean? And that's why rapport matters a lot with selling on the upfront, which the whole goal is there is to find some similar ground. Because if you're in Paris and you find out somebody else is from the same city as you, you think they're amazing. If you're in the same city, you don't care at all. They're from Paris. Right. So it's just like, how can we find some similarities? Because people really are persuaded more by people that they find similarities with.

Wow.

And so the idea is, how can we find those? But anyways, all that to say, when you are selling first, people will confront you with time, money or fit. And you have to be prepared to know that you might have two more layers you have to go through. So you might have to peel back that first layer. And then they hit you with a spouse, which is, do they approve if the roles are reversed? And then you're asking for support, not permission. Right. And then you go three day no sweat guarantee. And then the last level here is self. Right? And what people do here is they avoid. So what we're trying to conquer is avoidance. So now, and here's the good news is that when someone says, I need to think about it, I'm not sure we're talking to the decision maker. Mm, that's amazing.

Yes, that's.

We've like, you're the decision maker.

Yeah, this is amazing. This is great news for salespeople because they should be like, oh, my God, they're not giving me a money, they're not giving me time, they're not giving me space. They're just saying they need to think about it. Well, what's your main concern? Right? Tell me what you're thinking about. What are the variables that you're going to use to make the decision? Let's walk out together. Because at the end of the day, you don't need time to make decisions. You need information. I'm the only source of information you got. So what are your questions about? And you keep going. And then from here, all we're trying to do is understanding the variables that they use to make the decision. And if they don't know them, which they usually don't, we say, do you know what it takes to make the decision about this? And then you actually physically walk them through confronting the decision. If they're not sure about it, you're like, listen, I use this all the time. It's called the rocking chair. Close. It's like, let's be real. You're not going to go and actually sit on your rocking chair on the balcony and be like, am I going to do this program? Of course not. Right? You're going to get in your car and your mom's going to call you, and you got kids, and you got the laundry and you got dinner, and you got all these other things you got to do. And then five days from now, you're gonna have some moment where you either put your pants on or you check your bank account, whatever the thing is that we're selling, and you'll be like, shoot, I really should have done that thing. And in that moment, you will have made the decision. So you might as well do it today when you have all the information, you've got all the momentum, because you're six inches from gold, right? And you don't want to be the guy who. Because like, let's think about what you've already done. I know you want to do it because you're already here, right? You saw the ad, you put in your number, you set a time, you scheduled it, you drove in your car if it was here. Or you showed up on Zoom. Even when you're in the middle of a work week, you did all this stuff, and you spent an hour on the phone with me up. At this point, you're this far. And do you think that maybe the reason that you have. That you're on this call today is because you haven't been able to pull the trigger in the past? And then usually they'll come up with something like, well, you know what? I tried a program like this before and I failed, and I don't want to fail again, which then you go into, like, burn you twice, which is. Well, totally makes sense. And I understand, and I'm really sorry they had to go through that. Well, did you ever date anybody in middle school or high school? Well, yeah. Are you married to that person? If you are, they are. Then you can still. But it never happens. They're like, no. I'm like, imagine if you had gone your first sixth grade boyfriend or girlfriend, and after that you swore off men or women after that one breakup. That'd be ridiculous, right? Well, it's the same thing here, because the thing is, if you had a bad experience, you're gonna let that person burn you twice. First time when they were with you, and now when they're preventing you from doing the thing you really do need to do, or for preventing you from meeting the person you need to meet. And so don't give that situation more power than it already has had. Only let it burn you once, not twice. And so then we walk through. We just have to confront the decision. And so at the end of the day, do you believe that the product is going to get you to where you want to go the way you want to get there? Because that's the second part that I learned later in sales, is that some people want to lose weight, but they want to lose weight their way. And I'll tell you how we learned it another time. But we found that out because we would get people who didn't want to sign up for memberships, and we'd invite them to a free Nutrition Council consultation, and they would spend four times as much money on supplements as they would on the membership because they still wanted.

To eat or they didn't want to train.

They just wanted to lose weight their way.

Yeah.

So the first thing that we need to learn is these are the yeses that we need from them. So it's like, listen, if you don't want to make the decision, I'll tell you what the variables are right now. Number one, do you believe the product or service that we have is gonna get you to where you want to go the way you want to get there? Yes. Okay. Do you want to work with me or us?

Yes or no?

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're like, yes. Okay. Do you know someone who has or do you have access to the amount of money to start the program? Yes or no? If it's yes, then let's go. We just made the decision together. How much better do you feel? Just like, wow, okay, I feel much better. Awesome. What you want to use and then boom.

So a lot of it is just the ability to get them to decide.

Confront. Yes, exactly. Confronting the decision. And then if someone's like still wishy washy on it, the easiest and best questions in sales, in my opinion are, what are you afraid of if you sign up? What are you afraid of having happen?

I lose my money or I don't lose the weight.

Right, exactly. Well then what do you think would have to happen in order for that to happen? Right.

Well, I don't show up, I don't do the work.

Well then what would you need to see in order to feel like that wasn't going to happen? Because at the end of the day, you do know you need to work out and do all this stuff to lose weight. Right? Right. Okay, so that's fixed. So then what would you need to see from us to make sure that you feel good about taking the decision? Because like, you can just always just take it apart and get to the point where like, you know, what if someone just texted me, it's like, well, that's part of the program. Right, Right.

This is the weekly check in.

Yeah, totally. And we do have that. What do you know? Oh, I didn't know that. Okay, fantastic. Let's get you. Because sometimes you can't mention every single feature you possibly have on every sale, which is one of the benefits of one on one and one of the drawbacks. Right. It's like you can cater it, but at the same time you don't want to take the whole time. And I'll give everybody in the audience two really easy ones if you're starting your business. Number one is the reason close, which I use all the time, which is whatever reason they tell you that they don't want to do it is the very reason they should do it. Like, I don't want to do it because I think my spouse is really good controlling. I think the reason that you should do it is because your spouse is really controlling because you need to control of your life. I think that I don't have time to do it. I think that that's the very reason that you should be doing this. You need to get your time back. Right. Because you're trying to do this business program. Right. And currently, are you working all day? They're going to say yes, because everyone thinks they're working all day. Like you're working all day. Okay, well then obviously what you're doing now isn't working.

Right.

So the first thing we're going to do is cut out all the stuff that's not working and then you're going to have all this time to do the program that's micro. So the macro is the one I said earlier. Micro. That's the second one for. For time. There you go. For everyone in the audience. And so with the reason closed, it's just whatever reason they present with, just say, totally understand you don't have money. How long do you want that to be an excuse of why you can't do things in your life? That's the very reason you should be doing this more than anyone. Right. It's like when someone says, this is a lot of money to me. This is really expensive. And then you would normally say, this is a lot to you. Right? And they say, yeah, like, well, you know what? That's the perfect reason to do it. Because there's people every single day who come in here, they buy this thing and the money means nothing to them. But the thing that makes you that level.

Yeah.

The thing that makes you successful is that this is a lot of money to you. And the only reason that this won't work is if you don't do the work and if this means a lot to you, then you're more likely to be successful than anyone else here. Wow. And so when you say that, it's true and it helps overcome the people. Because a lot of times, like I spent a lot of money early on by percentage of my net worth on. On skills and acquisition education. And it is scary, but it's 100% what you need to do when you're starting out. It's the fastest route to getting to where you want to go is buying the lessons from people ahead of you. And so that's the reason close that you can use in all those different situations. And the other one is one that I'm working on. I'm trying to figure out like a skeleton key for closing because it's something that I just love this stuff. But it's like a hypothetical close. So whatever they present with, you get a hypothetical yes. And then you walk backwards. So if someone's like, I'm just not sure, you just say, well, if the program were perfect, would you do it? And they're like, well, yeah, I would do it if it were perfect. They're like, cool, Then what's the difference between what we've got and perfect?

Right.

And usually they can't generate many ideas anyways and they're like, I don't. A lot of times they're like, I don't know. And you're like, right, so then it's not that. So let's talk about what's really worrying you. What are you afraid of? Right. And then we can confront the real stuff. Right.

The fears, the insecurities, the doubt.

Same thing with. But like, you can use that for any of them. It's like, I don't have time. Well, if you did have time, would you do it? Okay, well, how much time would. So if you did have. So they get the yes. It's like, well, how much time do you think you need? And then they're going to say something like, did you know that it's actually one tenth of that is what you're actually going to need? Oh, I didn't know that. And we already got the yes. So they're already committed with commitment and consistency. They're already committed to the yes that they just said. And so it's really hard that if they. It's like, cool. If you had the time, would you do it? Yes. Cool. Now. Now they gave us one problem to solve and all we have to do. Especially if you sell services.

Yeah.

It's like, cool. So all I have to do is solve this one problem for you because I just got you to say yes. Because that also ties them down to not. Any other objections? They still might, but it's much harder for them to go back on that to a no. Yeah.

Now, one of the things that I've heard you talk about a lot and also you just shared right here, is developing skills and acquiring skills over the last decade. That's something that I've been obsessed with since I was a teenager is acquiring skills. Because I didn't feel like I wasn't enough. I wasn't smart enough, talented enough, all those things. So I wanted to become those things by acquiring those skills and investing in them. What would you say are the three main skills? If you could only learn three to reach your first million, what would those be?

I mean, to reach the first million is you just have to sell something to someone. So it's just sales.

Sales.

It's just sales. You can just make a million just doing sales. Like, you don't even have to sell your own products. You can just do a million dollars just selling. And in order to make more in sales, you sell stuff that's more expensive. That's it. Like, learn how to sell and then find the most expensive thing you possibly can to sell and then sell that. That's how you get. That's It And I will tell this to everybody who's like, not sure. The more expensive it is, the easier to sell. Really?

Why is that?

Because you're dealing with better people. Like, you probably had a consulting client that pays you 50 grand is like, oh yeah, by the way, I set the wire yesterday.

Yeah.

Whereas the $50 person's like, well, what exactly am I going to be getting with this program? You know what I mean? Just, it's a different person. You know what I mean? You're dealing with a different avatar. And from an actual selling perspective, almost every sale is the same regardless. So you might as well just do the sales that you're getting paid $5,000 for rather than sales you're getting $20 for. I learned. And the one thing that I will say is that if you're starting out with the intention to develop the skill of sales sell in the highest volume environment possible. That's why a lot of, I think some of the best salespeople are fitness people. Because so many people ever, you know, you work at LA fitness, you get 25 memberships a day that you're, I mean you're sitting down 25 consults a day. And I did that for five years, you know, four years every day, 20 plus consults every. I was in LA Fitness at my own gym. But like so like you get, there's just so much unconscious competence that you develop at that point. Like, and those, those, the time and the money, like those things become so.

Ingrained in how you second nature.

Yeah. And your language patterns that, and it gives you power in all different areas of your life. So sales is number one. You might want to develop the skill in a high volume environment, but understand that that's not, you might make some money doing that, but the goal will then be to sell massive buildings, sell super expensive cars, sell yachts, sell jets, you know what I mean? Like sell huge software packages to enterprise software. Like all of these are roles that you can make 400amillion dollars a year doing. So that's where you know you want. And that's a million income. Not even gross, that's a million income. But if you just want to like make a million dollars, just reverse out a million dollars and just do it looking at daily. So it's, you know, 3,300 a day, whatever, roughly. And so at that point it's like, okay, well I can sell three fifteen hundred dollar things, you know, and I'll be over it. Right. I can sell one $5,000 thing. I can sell, you know what I mean and, or you could sell $3,300 things and it's just which of those sounds easier? They're different, you know. And I will say that I have this desire maybe in the future to like look at some sort of entrepreneurial personality type where like I do believe that businesses are an extension of the entrepreneur in terms of like their personality. Their thumbprint is on it based on just how it works. And so like I've met guys who do super high volume, really low ticket transaction and they, they're a little different than the guys who sell ultra high ticket like service based stuff. And so it's. And so I think, and I've seen people really successful on both sides. But I do think that the more expensive the ticket in general, the less operational complexity there is. You still have to take, if you're going to take 10 sales calls, you might as well make them worth all.

Exactly right. I have two final questions for you, but before I ask them, I want people to get your book. It's really inspiring. $100 million offers. How to make offers so good people feel stupid saying no. It's a great tagline as well. So make sure you guys get a few copies of this. And also go to acquisition.com right. Which is the main business that you're running right now, acquisition.com and so when's the right time to acquire a business?

If you're a small, it depends on whether you're going for majority or minority. That's the huge, that's the huge lever here. So there's the what you're trying to buy and then there's the life cycle of the business. So it's like if you're trying to buy a majority then you want to get it before it's peak. Right. And you want to have it when it's already established with a good leadership team and you want to make sure that you can pull the entrepreneur out and still functions. Like that's how we're able to sell the companies that we had. And that's what we do with acquisition.com companies that we actually. So we buy minority.

Minority.

Yeah, exactly. So we buy minority. What's minority?

10, 20, 30%.

20, 30 is usually the, is the stakes that like we need to be invested enough to care. And usually the companies are between 3 and I think 36 million is the biggest one. So 3. We don't really have any threes. I think the smallest one we have right now is 6. But 6 million to 35ish million is kind of the range and we have seven companies in the portfolio and so for those companies, you know we buy them because we think they can get better, we think that we can grow them and we think that we can put a team in place and we can transition from face based branding to a brand based business so that it is sellable. And then what happens is interesting there is that we might triple the revenue of the business but we might 30x the enterprise value because it's not valuable if you're just you know, Johnny teacher or whatever which we do mostly Internet businesses because we know how to transition from being the personality brand who teaches some sort of niche skill like we talked about earlier into teaching the same thing but being like salon University or being plumber U or gym launch, you know like those are all like very specific niche skills that provide real value to people. So we're almost the entire portfolio except for one is elearning and that's because we're huge education people. I like the business. I also like the impact, the margins. Yeah, I love the cash flow. It's a low capex business. It's very inflation responsive in that we can always adjust prices very easily. There's real impact on people's lives. Compared to a four year degree you've got a great price anchor and alternative. And I think that education, my thesis is that education is becoming increasingly fragmented just like media has and it's just catching up. The fact that all of these quote gurus exist is a telltale sign that more and more people are not going to college because they don't see the value. And I think they're right in that, in that assessment. And so Rather than spend 100,000, $200,000 over four years or $50,000 over four years, you could spend a quarter of that and get that way more tactical training that can replace your entire income. And so in terms of for us we look for companies that are growing, that are cash flow positive, that are typically E learning or Internet businesses that have, that have really good products. So ideally somebody who really knows who is good at the thing that they teach which sounds silly but you also know that there's lots of people who don't have that and if we have those things we on average triple the profit of the business within a year anyways. So we're very like when we have our very narrowly defined avatar which is doing 3 million or more, so 250amonth or higher that's just to be considered. Usually they're at like the usually like five to A million a month. Five hundred thousand. A million a month is usually when you take them on, that's our sweet spot. And then we can ramp them. And then with regards to majority it kind of goes back to like I personally, I think long term we're going to try and figure out a way to maybe raise a fund so I can help all of the founders take some cash on the table and maybe do some sort of conglomeration thing because it's all elearning which would be cool. Or we might have them sell off individually. It's really up to the founder because we're. And this is kind of cool for me because like I'm really just there to support them and we recruit the key players for them and because we have the reputation we have and we have so much more reach and leverage we can find the people that will help them so much easier than they can. And so that's how we can build these things into enterprises so quickly and we can get outsized returns. And so that's, that's what we do.

That's cool. And do you guys teach also how people can acquire a company on your site as well?

We don't no. The courses on the site correspond with the books. So the book has a free course that comes with it. It's on the site you can go through. It has all the downloads, everything. The book, the ebook is 99 cents on Kindle. I think it has 5,000, I think five star reviews on Amazon, who's counting? But it's 99 cents. I wanted to make it for anyone. I think that the hard copy is a little more. But I wanted to. I've got people from Nigeria and India being like I could afford forward this thing so much. So that's. And I know they're probably never going to be on macquist.

Right, right, right.

But yeah, if you're a UA space company and you're e learning we're always happy to see how we can.

We'll have to have you come on another time. If you guys wanted to come back on to talk about how to acquire a smaller company and teach that process then let me know in the comments below on YouTube if you're interested in learning that. But acquisition.com AlexHarmozi on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Your YouTube's blown up your Facebook as well. But you're doing what daily? Almost daily.

YouTube now new shorts. Shorts daily. Yeah, we do the shorts daily on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. We're on Twitter. We have a podcast that's actually grown a lot. Oh, wow. Yeah.

What's the podcast called?

I don't even know the game.

The game.

Okay.

I see more your YouTube stuff.

So.

Yeah, it's the game. Yeah. The game is the podcast. It's just me. Just me. Just talk about whatever.

Check that out.

They're same style as YouTube in terms.

Of short, 15 minute stuff.

Yeah, exactly. And yeah. And then we also have LinkedIn.

We're everywhere now.

Trying to be Lewis, how the Twitter's everything. Yeah, the Twitters. Yeah. The Twitterverse and the Metaverse.

I love it. Yes. Make sure you follow you everywhere. We'll have it all linked up. This is a question I ask everyone at the end called the Three Truths. So imagine it is your last day and Maybe you've surpassed 85. Maybe you're 120 or something. Extended the life as long as you can, and you've lived your life. You've accomplished the things you want to, even though they don't matter anymore. You've made all the money, but you've given it all away because it doesn't matter anymore. And no one has access to your content or information for whatever reason. It goes with you. Everything, the books, the videos, all this stuff goes with you. This interview, gone, and you can only share three things with the world. Three lessons that you've learned from your entire life.

Yeah.

What would be those three lessons or three truths that you would share?

Give first and without expectation, and you'll get more than you can imagine in all aspects of life. One, if you can't do it forever, don't do it for a day. And probably something to the extent of if nothing matters, then you get to decide what matters. So use the power wisely.

Mm, that's good, man. I want to acknowledge you, Alex, for your growth and your. And your ego death and the constant journey of that death. You know, I'm on the same journey. And it's. But your acknowledgement of it, your ability to look yourself in the mirror and see, okay, here. What's working, what's not working, and how do I continue to develop that? And now you're this stage where it really feels like you're trying to create, to add as much value as possible to as many people as possible through your books, your content, and your information. So I really acknowledge you for the example you're creating, for your really uniqueness. You're being 100% who you are. I mean, you're in like the basement with your wife. Just like you don't care necessarily about what you look or whatever, you just want to add the value and not think about what are people saying about me but how can I make it about others which I think is really inspiring example that you're leading from. So I want to acknowledge you for that man and hopefully we'll have you back on for more times. But final question, what's your definition of greatness?

When reality exceeds expectations.

My man Alex, Thanks. Good stuff, good stuff.

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full link rundown of today's show with all the important links and also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out.

There and do something great.

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