How to Price High-Ticket Without Fear | Ep 903

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Game with Alex Hormozi – “How to Price High-Ticket Without Fear | Ep 903”

Release Date: June 9, 2025

In Episode 903 of The Game with Alex Hormozi, entrepreneur and business strategist Alex Hormozi delves into the intricacies of pricing high-ticket offers without fear. This episode features a series of live interactions with various business owners seeking Hormozi’s expertise on scaling their ventures, optimizing marketing strategies, and building robust teams. Throughout the discussion, Hormozi emphasizes the importance of talent acquisition, strategic marketing investments, and disciplined focus to drive substantial business growth.

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1. Recruitment and Talent Management

Timestamp: [00:02 – 10:08]

Alex Hormozi opens the episode by underscoring the critical role of recruitment in scaling businesses. He states, “I am a big believer in having, like, almost the same size recruiting team as I do sales team” ([00:02]). Hormozi explains that a strong recruiting team is essential for filling executive and leadership positions within portfolio companies. By either pulling out top performers or integrating new high-caliber talent, businesses can maintain robust growth and operational excellence.

Notable Advice:

• Dual-Sized Teams: Maintain recruiting teams proportional to sales teams to ensure continuous infusion of talent.
• Paying for Excellence: “We pay 90th percentile, which is pretty high for all of our roles because I just want the best” ([06:01]).

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2. Marketing Strategies: In-House vs. Agencies

Timestamp: [00:26 – 03:24]

A recurring theme in the episode is the debate between maintaining marketing agencies versus building in-house marketing teams. Business Owner 1 queries Hormozi about transitioning from a $100K/year marketing agency to an in-house solution without sacrificing performance.

Hormozi advises against canceling existing marketing efforts. Instead, he recommends adding new marketing flows to diversify and amplify marketing efforts. “I will typically never stop flows. Right. I'll just add flows” ([01:03]). This approach ensures that the business does not lose its current marketing momentum while experimenting with new strategies.

Key Takeaways:

• Add, Don’t Cancel: Maintain multiple marketing channels to maximize reach and performance.
• Risk Management: Avoid jeopardizing the business’s income by ensuring that new marketing initiatives don’t underperform existing ones.

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3. High-Ticket Pricing Without Fear

Timestamp: Throughout the Episode

The central focus of the episode revolves around pricing high-ticket offers confidently. Hormozi emphasizes that fear often holds entrepreneurs back from setting higher prices, but with the right strategies, businesses can justify and thrive with premium pricing.

Strategies Discussed:

• Value Proposition: Clearly communicate the unique value and ROI that high-ticket offers provide.
• Confidence in Pricing: Develop a mindset that high prices reflect the quality and effectiveness of the service or product.

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4. Case Studies: Business Owners' Challenges and Solutions

a. Nate Burkett: Deck Building Business

Timestamp: [02:12 – 04:55]

Nate Burkett seeks advice on simplifying his sales process and training his team more effectively. Hormozi identifies that the issue lies in the sales technique presentation, encouraging Nate to record and review sales calls to identify and rectify flaws. “If anyone here doesn't record their sales calls...you will want to kill yourself” ([04:11]).

Solution:

• Sales Call Recording: Enables quality control and continuous improvement in sales pitches.

b. Private Equity Firm Owner

Timestamp: [05:00 – 32:58]

The owner of a private equity firm discusses scaling challenges related to talent acquisition and operational efficiency. Hormozi advises focusing on building a strong holding company by integrating top talent from portfolio companies and maintaining high compensation to attract elite performers.

Key Insights:

• Holdco Strategy: Centralize top performers to enhance overall portfolio performance.
• Talent Investment: “I would probably never sacrifice the thing that puts food on the table” ([02:58]).

c. Anthony: Solar Sales

Timestamp: [10:07 – 13:39]

Anthony faces issues with his Business Development Representatives (BDRs) regarding performance and retention. Hormozi suggests revising the compensation structure to offer higher bases coupled with uncapped commissions, thereby attracting and retaining high-performing sales personnel.

Advice:

• Competitive Compensation: Enhance base pay to retain quality BDRs while maintaining incentive structures.

d. Sam Coleman: Luxury Real Estate

Timestamp: [13:42 – 18:03]

Sam is struggling with balancing multiple roles while aiming to transition into property development. Hormozi emphasizes the importance of focused commitment, advising Sam to prioritize long-term goals over short-term gains and consider relinquishing less critical activities to concentrate on development.

Guidance:

• Focus Over Diversification: Concentrate efforts on core business objectives to achieve substantial growth.

e. Laura Roeder: SaaS for Coaches

Timestamp: [19:31 – 23:34]

Laura seeks advice on scaling a low-ticket SaaS product with a $50/month price point and a 12-month payback period. Hormozi highlights the necessity of enhancing virality and improving M12 retention rates through data-driven onboarding processes.

Strategies:

• Virality Enhancement: Foster word-of-mouth and community-building features within the software.
• Data-Driven Optimization: Utilize customer data to refine onboarding and retention strategies.

f. Jack: TikTok Shop Agency

Timestamp: [23:35 – 32:58]

Jack is torn between growing his TikTok agency and investing in his own brand. Hormozi advises focusing on high-ticket clients to stabilize and scale the agency, suggesting a shift away from low-ticket, high-variance clients that may destabilize business growth.

Recommendation:

• High-Ticket Focus: Prioritize servicing larger, more stable clients to ensure consistent revenue streams.

g. Gri: Multi-Product Business in Norway

Timestamp: [33:08 – 50:56]

Gri contends with overexpansion and limited market size in Norway while managing multiple products. Hormozi encourages leveraging existing successful products by increasing lead flow and improving ad strategies, alongside exploring international markets to mitigate geographical limitations.

Suggestions:

• Increase Lead Flow: Scale successful products by expanding marketing efforts and entering new markets.
• Focus Consolidation: Narrow focus to optimize resource allocation and performance.

h. Jonathan: Dating Services with Live Streams

Timestamp: [50:56 – End]

Jonathan experiences a drastic drop in YouTube live stream views and sales, suspecting a shadow ban. Hormozi recommends diversifying content strategies, enhancing creative quality, and exploring additional platforms like Instagram to rebuild engagement.

Action Points:

• Content Diversification: Expand beyond live streams to include varied content types.
• Platform Expansion: Utilize multiple social media platforms to avoid reliance on a single channel.

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5. Overcoming Obstacles: Adversity and Focus

Throughout the episode, Hormozi consistently emphasizes the importance of focus and adaptability in overcoming business challenges. He encourages entrepreneurs to:

• Say No to Distractions: "Learn to say no... you have to learn to say no” to maintain focus on high-impact activities.
• Adapt to Changes: Continuously refine marketing strategies and business models in response to market shifts and data insights.
• Invest in Quality: Whether it's talent acquisition or creative marketing, prioritize quality to drive sustainable growth.

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Key Insights and Conclusions

1. Talent is Paramount: Investing in top-tier talent, even at higher costs, can exponentially increase business performance and scalability.

2. Marketing Diversification: Rather than eliminating existing marketing channels, augment them with additional strategies to maximize reach and effectiveness.

3. Data-Driven Decisions: Utilize customer data and analytics to optimize sales processes, onboarding flows, and retention strategies, especially in SaaS businesses.

4. Focused Growth Strategies: Concentrate on core business strengths and high-ticket offerings to ensure stability and long-term success, avoiding the pitfalls of overexpansion and market volatility.

5. Creative Excellence in Advertising: High-quality, compelling content is crucial for effective advertising. Continuously improve creative strategies to enhance ad performance and engagement.

6. Adaptability: Stay responsive to changes in the market and digital platforms, ensuring that business strategies remain relevant and effective amidst evolving landscapes.

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Final Thought: Alex Hormozi’s insights in this episode provide a comprehensive roadmap for entrepreneurs aiming to scale their businesses confidently. By prioritizing talent acquisition, strategic marketing investments, and disciplined focus, business owners can overcome common scaling challenges and achieve substantial growth without succumbing to fear.

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For those seeking personalized business strategies and scaling roadmaps, Hormozi mentioned a complimentary resource available at acquisition.com roadmap, offering in-depth guidance across various business functions.

Transcript

[Alex Hormozi]

I am a big believer in having, like, almost the same size recruiting team as I do sales team. And so that was also one of the big ways that we were able to basically fill in exec teams and leader teams within these portfolio companies. We bring them in. It's like there's only two winners. Either we can pull the winners out, or we can put three more winners in. And now we have a full company pest control, 8 million pacing 12 million this year running really good margins. Yep. Yes, sir.

[Business Owner 1]

Biggest constraint we have now we have a marketing agency. We're paying about 100 grand a year.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay.

[Business Owner 1]

We want to pull that out, all that marketing in house, but we don't want to lose performance. What would you do if you're in my shoes?

[Alex Hormozi]

Why?

[Business Owner 1]

I just feel like there's a disconnect there somewhere.

[Alex Hormozi]

Were they performing?

[Business Owner 1]

It seems to be doing all right. Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

But, like, why is that the most important thing?

[Business Owner 1]

I just feel like we can get a better ltv, like, in this. Like, I just don't know if we're getting a lot, a lot of quality leads.

[Alex Hormozi]

Why not just start marketing and not cancel them?

[Business Owner 1]

Could do that too.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[Business Owner 1]

Like, we do a lot of online social media stuff now. We have big YouTube channel, big TikTok.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. I'll give this as a rule of thumb in general for me. I will typically never stop flows. Right. I'll just add flows. So it's like, okay, we've got this marketing agency. It's like, cool. We can hire two more marketing agencies and they can all market. For me, I'll probably not make less money. And then, like, we also want to build it in house. Cool. We'll also build it in house. Like, more promotion almost never makes you less money, provided you have a product that has gross margin and makes sense. Right. So, yeah, I would not. I basically will never sacrifice the thing that puts food on the table. Right. Even if it's not as efficient as I want, I'm not going to risk. I'm not going to risk the whole business just because I want to gain efficiency. So I'll add. So I would suggest adding, not canceling. Now, if the added thing then crushes it and it's like, makes the other thing superfluous. I still am like, well, we're paying these guys 100 and we're making, you know, a million or making 500. If somebody gave me an investment that I put, you know, you know, 100 grand in and make 500 back, I'd still probably say yes. So just more smart. So I asked appreciate. Easy. That was an easy one. It's usually not like that. It's usually like, I've got this partner and they're not here. They don't, you know, they don't survive me. What's up, man?

[Nate Burkett]

Nate Burkett. I'm a deck builder in East Tennessee.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, you've niched down decks, niche down, made more money, do about 3 mil. I'd like to get to the point.

[Nate Burkett]

Where we're above 10. I think the biggest thing that's stopping us is really me. First of all, I was here a couple years ago and learned how to one call close from a gentleman. And I over complicated that whole thing. And now I can't train and sell.

[Alex Hormozi]

It to the people that are working.

[Nate Burkett]

For me because they don't have what I have. So I've kind of come to the point where I think the pitch is the offer is a little too much, and I want to.

[Alex Hormozi]

Kind of too much is in what?

[Nate Burkett]

As in, like, it's kind of slimy. It's. It's called an ambassador program. And basically the month that I'm building your deck, rather than me spend a bunch of money on advertising, I'd rather partner with you and in exchange for a few things. So for instance, I spend quite a bit on ad spend. I'd rather spend that in your deck. Make your backyard look like my billboard and you be my radio ad, my spokesperson in exchange for, you know, that Google review, that kind of thing. So I'll cut the bill down quite a bit. And people seem to kind of think that that's a little pressure sale, and then we don't really get anything from it. When I did it, it worked well. My guys are getting feedback that it's just not a good fit.

[Alex Hormozi]

Do you have any recordings?

[Nate Burkett]

Vague now.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, that's it, man. I. I guarantee if you heard them say, you'd be like, God, dude. No, you're just like, that's it. It's. There's no. Like, I think it's the. Dude, they're. They're sucking ass at it. That's all it is. Like, it's all it is. Like, by the way, if anyone here doesn't record their sales calls, like, listen to them for the first time and you will want to kill yourself. So, no, I don't think, like, if you had the offer, that already worked really well. They're just phrasing it wrong or they're presenting it wrong. So I think you just need to get. You need to get sales recording. So it's like, how do I do that? It's like you can have them put their phone in their pocket because you sell in person, right? Yeah, yeah. It's at their house. Oh yeah, yeah. So you can just record it and then based on laws of that area, you can let them know they're being recorded. That's what you should do.

[Nate Burkett]

Okay, disclaimer.

[Alex Hormozi]

I got you. Just want to be clear.

[Nate Burkett]

Sounds good.

[Alex Hormozi]

Thank you. But you'll be able to get that feedback. I guarantee you as soon as you listen to, you'll hear it in two seconds. Like rather like actually this is a really good one. So many times we want to change our entire business because of something that's just like, oh my goodness. Like I have, I just haven't heard the sales calls. So like record the sales calls, listen to the sales call, see what the problem is and like not change my offer, my pricing, my marketing, like all of that because we just had to avoid like, okay, I don't, I don't, I don't have any visibility. So if we're actually looking at which one this one was, it was a data one. The data was that you didn't have the calls. Man, these are light. These are light. It's normally not like this at all, Thomas.

[Private Equity Firm Owner]

I buy equity from business owners.

[Alex Hormozi]

Buy equity from business owners.

[Private Equity Firm Owner]

I run a private equity firm.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay, cool.

[Private Equity Firm Owner]

So we're doing about 25 million across the group. We want to get to over a billion EV.

[Alex Hormozi]

Do you have LPs or is this you?

[Private Equity Firm Owner]

It's family office money. Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay, so it's just you?

[Private Equity Firm Owner]

Yeah, yeah. So we can scale through institutions of a family office LP as we need to.

[Alex Hormozi]

But so you, you don't syndicate anything.

[Private Equity Firm Owner]

It's just all we do deal by deal. We'll go to family officer institutions that we need it.

[Alex Hormozi]

Got it. Okay, got it.

[Private Equity Firm Owner]

What's stopping me really is this scaled like institutional quality capability, a bit like you guys have here. So like I can go into portfolio companies, do a roll up, scale it, take it public.

[Alex Hormozi]

Oh, essentially.

[Private Equity Firm Owner]

But what we want to do is obviously build out a capabilities so that we have lots of assassins going out and doing it.

[Alex Hormozi]

So how did you do it? A lot of money and a lot of time. Yeah, I mean to be like, so.

[Private Equity Firm Owner]

The like phase by phase. What I'm. If you go from where you guys started through the phases of now getting to more of an institutional scale.

[Alex Hormozi]

So I would say that. Do you feel like you can't generate alpha in bigger companies?

[Private Equity Firm Owner]

No, no, we've done I've done big. We've done like a few hundred million companies. We.

[Alex Hormozi]

So then I think that, I think, I mean, you're, you're, you're. Rather than reinventing the wheel, I think you're running into the issue that everyone runs into, which is like, we did, just for, I mean, for your sake, like, we did 24 deals in 24 months, from, let's say 2021 to 2020, end of 23, somewhere in there. And so during that process, we quickly were like, wow, this is taking up a lot of bandwidth and a lot of these are just not worth it. And so the, you know, the star performers in the portfolio so much outperformed everyone else that I actually just gave people their equity back. I was like, you can keep the money and the equity. I just would rather not talk to you. Some people took it well.

[Private Equity Firm Owner]

I mean, we've done a similar thing too, right?

[Alex Hormozi]

It's just like, this is just not worth the time. Right? And so I think the, the point that I'm making here is that almost every private equity firm just ends up raising more and more money and doing the same number of deals that they have bandwidth for and just doing fewer bigger deals. And so it's like, that's why I asked, like, do you feel like you can still generate alpha with the bigger deals? If so, awesome. And I brought that up just because if you look at Constellation, you familiar with them? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like they know their alpha is just going after, you know, $3 million deals and doing 600 deals a year. And that's their, that's their whole thesis. And so they have to build a whole model around that. But if you're like, I can go bigger than. It's like, maybe you do keep the few assassins and you slowly acquire people through the process. And one of the interesting tricks is like, sometimes you look at a company, that company sucks, but there's a really fucking good marketer in there or there's a really good sales leader or whatever. And it's like, hey, maybe we just pull you into Holdco and then we can get so much more return on this person's skill set across the whole portfolio than just in this one small deal. And so in a lot of ways it's like, there's usually, especially in the small businesses, only like one or two people who are good. And then it's just like finding who those key drivers are and then just the rest of it. It's like almost more valuable to just pull out the Diamonds, forget the business and then put it into a better business vehicle. So to answer the question of, like, how did we do this? It's just like, we are always looking for talent. And I would say that as a company, like, internally, we're in the talent business. People like, when people like, what business? Like, we're in the talent business 100%. And so I am always hiring and always willing to overpay. So we pay 90th percentile, which is pretty high for all of our roles because I just want the best. And we get so much more alpha return by being willing to pay significantly above market. It's just like for everybody. I would strongly encourage you if, let's say market for a sales director is $200,000 a year. If you have a sales director that you think is an absolute savage and they want $400,000 a year, you will make $4 million a year extra by getting the savage. And so thank you. That was a little like, amen. So I think from a. You have your core team, you have these deals. I would start basically divesting time into the deals that are small and then I'd see if I can pick off people from those portfolio companies, pull them into holdco. That's going to start bolstering up holdco. That might help you identify better opportunities that are bigger. If I can raise more capital, then I'll still do that. And then ongoing. I don't know who you have at your. At holding company, but having a director of talent who's experienced with executive recruiting. So, like the core function that we ran as basically almost our primary value driver in the very beginning of acquisition.com was recruiting, recruitment. Just very good at it. And so, by the way, that's how you scale stuff. And so we had to get really good talent in. And so I. I'm a big believer in having like almost the same size recruiting team as I do sales team. And so that was also one of the big ways that we were able to basically fill in exec teams and leader teams within these portfolio companies. We bring them in. It's like there's only two winners. Either we can pull the winners out or we can put three more winners in. And now we have a full company that help.

[Private Equity Firm Owner]

Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. Cool.

[Private Equity Firm Owner]

So go bigger and get better talent.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, Cool. Just only the unsurprising, very painful reality.

[Anthony]

Thank you, Alex.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, you bet. Solar sales, driving around. Yeah, just did. In 10 months, you did 500,000? Yep. All right. And we need to get more salespeople in the Business and the biggest lever would be selling remotely. But we're not ready for that yet because we need to get more cash flow. So let's just do more of what we're currently doing. Which means we'd have to put in a center tape shoot. Yeah.

[Anthony]

Yeah. My name is Anthony. We sell solar to homeowners, but yeah, about 500,000 in revenue. But we're operating around 78% profit so, you know, doing pretty well. We'd like to be at 3 million. And I think the biggest things that's stopping us is BDR, our BDR team's performance and retention.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. What's compensation for the BDR SDRs?

[Anthony]

Yeah, so we do a super small base, 500 bucks every two weeks. So I think we need to change that. But we do the still uncapped commission. So our industry is usually door knockers which, which has just commission only.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[Anthony]

So we thought we were being competitive with the 500 every two weeks, but yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

Are those guys door knocking?

[Anthony]

No, these guys are virtual. All over the world we've tried different people from different places. I think US base is going to be the best with just a higher base. Just not really sure how structure it.

[Alex Hormozi]

One thing you can do is do like a try before you buy type situation which is like we're going to make you a contractor for 30 days and then if you pass the, you know, pass the KPIs, then we'll, we'll roll you in. That way it's way less of a like hey, higher and fire. Higher and fire. But then that way it's like an after 30 days we'll lock in your base.

[Anthony]

So letting them like work for 30 days for kind of like a slightly adjusted lower base just to try it out.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. Okay. Or you could just pay full and just say you have 30 days to prove it. Okay. I mean we have to think about like what are you going to lose money on? You're going to lose money on. But like typically they're super padded on the upside. So the base of if you pay somebody like $40,000 a year in terms of what you'd actually pay them, call it 50 for simple math. So it's a thousand bucks a week. If you pay someone for two weeks and you don't think they're good, you lost two grand. Like you're running 75, 80%, you know, net margins. Maybe you give up some margins so that you can scale and just get better people in. Again, like the star BDRs are going to probably want some base when they Come in because they're going to like, I got to build pipeline. And so it's like, how reasonable is it for them to just immediately. I don't know. But, like, typically pipeline starts to build up usually within, you know, especially for a transactional sell. Like here is in 14 to 30 days anyways. Yeah.

[Anthony]

Would you say the comp plan is the biggest lever for this?

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. I mean, you're doing remote SDRs. They're like. You're like, we're being competitive. It's like. But you're not. The remote SDRs that are potentially working for you are comparing your opportunity not to other solar opportunities, but to all other opportunities. And so getting 500 every two weeks is like, yeah, 100%, you know, tough.

[Anthony]

So fix a comp plan.

[Alex Hormozi]

I would probably fix the comp first. So I think for you, it's like, fix the comp that gets the better SDRs. In SDRs, increase sales, increase sales, increase cash flow. Increase cash flow. Then we can start investing the extra time into getting the virtual sales so that you can go from doing, you know, four or five of consults a day to 20 plus. And then you can start duplicating that sales process in somebody else. But, like, that gets us the. Like, let's just do that first.

[Business Owner 1]

All right.

[Alex Hormozi]

Thank you. Yeah, you bet. Appreciate it.

[Sam Coleman]

My name is Sam Coleman. I sell luxury real estate here in Vegas. Oh, sweet revenue. Last year I did a million three. This year I'm on track to do a million five.

[Alex Hormozi]

Amazing.

[Sam Coleman]

I would like to get to, ideally, in my world, about 10 million. And what's stopping me is focus. Apparently the ascension plan for most successful people in real estate is by rentals. Whatever. So right now I started the fund. A lot of my clients who have cash.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[Sam Coleman]

Have just given me cash because they believe in it. And I want to be a developer as my end game. So my question is, you know. And I also started doing paid ads. I know that I started doing paid ads for more.

[Alex Hormozi]

What do you think I'm going to say?

[Sam Coleman]

I started doing paid ads on my real estate business and then I started paid ads for.

[Alex Hormozi]

As an agency, of course, Teaching agents. Why wouldn't you? Don't leave money on the table. Yeah. Right. Do you want to. We should draw out this org chart. Shall we? So we've got. Hold on. We've got. This'll be fun. So we've got the. Your realtor. Right. So you got this business. And then we've got. Agency. Right. Yeah, over here. And then we've got fund over here and then your goal is to be a developer over here. Okay, cool.

[Sam Coleman]

They're all in real estate though.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, all of my businesses are businesses. Isn't that like. Same, same. I hear you. I'm trying to make myself feel better. No, no, no. As long as you feel better. And like, let's play. Hold on, I'm gonna play a fun game. And you have one person on your team who's kind of like your right hand. You underpay her, but you're gonna pay her a little bit more because she's great. And then you have like two other people who are irrelevant and you do most of this yourself.

[Sam Coleman]

I got rid of the other two, but.

[Alex Hormozi]

So just you and your right hand.

[Sam Coleman]

And I have two showing agents that show all of my listings and admin staff.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay.

[Sam Coleman]

The other two that were irrelevant, I got rid of those.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay. Okay.

[Sam Coleman]

I was trying to replace myself so I can like go do the other things.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[Sam Coleman]

And then I was losing clients, so I.

[Alex Hormozi]

With low skill labor, you're like, yeah. What I do so easy, I can train somebody who gets paid nothing to do it to these luxury people who would be like, why would I go for this person?

[Sam Coleman]

50% of a lot is a lot.

[Alex Hormozi]

50% of zero is zero. Correct. So you've got one business per person who works for you right now. Roughly. So what do you want to do, man? This makes you money and this is a distraction, obviously, but you have to figure that out. What do you want to do?

[Sam Coleman]

My end game is to be a developer.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay. What stops you? Yeah. Okay.

[Sam Coleman]

The challenge that I'm having now is that amount of focus that is required to get into development and all the systems and processes and people. And we're going to actually raise money. It would take me away from my everyday. That actually makes me money. And to go raise capital and schmooze and do all this stuff is what I do now for my current business. So I thought originally that like, oh, I can just do both.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, but.

[Sam Coleman]

But I'm not able to do both.

[Alex Hormozi]

So you want to do fund into development. Right. That's what you want to do.

[Jack]

Correct.

[Alex Hormozi]

You might have a lifestyle issue. Like you make a million plus a year. Right. So like you could stop doing that and then hit your base up and say, this is what I'm doing now. Give me money. I'm going to go develop properties now. Yeah. So you could just do that. So why don't you do that?

[Sam Coleman]

Golden handcuffs, I guess.

[Alex Hormozi]

Lifestyle. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, it's just how Bad. Do you want it. Do you want it enough that you would live in a different neighborhood, drive a different car? Sure. Okay, well then do that. I don't have a. I don't have any pain. Yeah. I think I don't have any payments. Yeah. I mean, like, it's a light. It's a lot like you. You can't. You're like, basically, I'll. If I stop being a realtor, I'm gonna stop making money being a realtor. It's like, yeah, yeah, but you'll do the other thing that makes you more money. Long term. Yeah. So then you have to give up short term for long term. Correct. And so we have to give up short term for long term.

[Sam Coleman]

I'm married.

[Alex Hormozi]

She's gotta get. Dude, I get it. I get it. Also, best response of the day. Which is. Right. It was awesome. Yeah. Honestly, it's a conversation. It's like, sweetie, I know you love all this stuff. What if we had 10 times more stuff in like five years?

[Sam Coleman]

I can text you a number.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, no, but that's it. That's the rockin hard place. I gotta give up this to get that real quick. Guys, I have a special, special gift for you. For being loyal listeners of the podcast. Layla and I spent probably an entire quarter putting together our scaling roadmap. It's breaking, scaling into 10 stages and across all eight functions of the business. So you've got marketing, you've got sales, you've got product, you've got customer success, you've got it. You've got recruiting, hr, you've got finance. And we show the problems that emerge at every level of scale and how to graduate to the next level. It's all free and you can get it personalized to you. So it's about 30ish pages for each of the stages. Once you answer the questions, it will tell you exactly where you're at and what you need to do to grow. It's about 14 hours of stuff, but it's narrowed down so that you only have to watch the part that's relevant to you, which will probably be about 90 minutes. And so if that's at all interesting, you can go to acquisition.com roadmap R O A D map. Roadmap. These are fun. These are good ones.

[Laura Roeder]

Hello.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yes, ma' am.

[Laura Roeder]

My name is Laura Roeder. I sell industry vertical software to coaches. Like executive coaches, life coaches.

[Alex Hormozi]

You sell software to coaches?

[Laura Roeder]

Yeah. So it's an industry vertical. Run your business tool, payments, scheduling, clients, CRMs. Yeah, yeah. And we make A website for them also as part of it. So a theme that came up a lot this morning was how to scale low ticket SaaS because it has been a struggle and I thought you might have some relevant experience with school. So our price point is about $50 a month. We don't have anything higher or lower at this point. Our ad payback period is 12 months, which is impossible, right? Impossible and terrible. What has worked for scaling school?

[Alex Hormozi]

It's your viral. So what's your viral coefficient?

[Laura Roeder]

I mean coaches, you know, no, other coaches hire other coaches.

[Alex Hormozi]

So how many, how many, how many customers come to you every day and sign up for $0?

[Laura Roeder]

For $0, we have about like 2,000 free trials a month. About like 6,000 leads a month.

[Alex Hormozi]

That. With no marketing?

[Laura Roeder]

No, no, we do lots of marketing.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay, so if you did no marketing, how many customers would sign up?

[Laura Roeder]

About half.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay, yeah. So then your payback period on those is immediate. So basically, if you want to scale a low ticket software, it's all about virality. It has to be able to compound on its own based on word of mouth, based on quality of the product and based on the growth factors that you'll put into the actual software and customer experience. So like school obviously has ones like you start a school community, then you invite 200 people. And then of those 200 people, a couple of those people start school communities. And they've told me by 200 people. And it kind of continues onwards. And so that is what you have to solve for.

[Laura Roeder]

So yeah, how do you do that? It's like we're doing that very slowly. How do you do that? How do you make that happen faster?

[Alex Hormozi]

It's a data question. Okay, so basically what you do is you look at something called M12 retention. So, so month 12, right? So you're like, okay, let's look at all of the people who have stayed for 12 months. Now let's reverse that to the present. What did these people do? Actions. And then what do they look like? Demographics that increase the likelihood that that M12 retention occurs. And so when you do this correctly, you'll say, okay, if someone gets their site live, that 4x is the likelihood they make it to M12. If they add a custom URL to their site, it 8x's the likelihood to get to M12. So you'll basically rank order all of the things as they correlate to M12 retention. And then you'll say, cool. How do I build this into the front end onboarding flow so that I increase the likelihood These things occur and then it's like, okay, how do I decrease friction for each of these steps? And so this data problem first and then it becomes an engineering issue for how you do onboarding. Once you do that, then basically the people who are coming in, then it's like, great, now that we're not, we're losing people. Now we can look at the basically virality of it, which is how can we encourage people to, you know, bring more friends? So, like, for Facebook, like, growth in SaaS looks like this. 100 people sign up. That's what growth looks like. You're like, how does that look like growth? These 50 people never leave and then you just can't stop growing.

[Laura Roeder]

Mm.

[Alex Hormozi]

That's how. That's how it actually looks for growth.

[Laura Roeder]

So would you reallocate? So now we're spending 30k a month on, you know, our super long payback period ads. Would you reallocate that to onboarding engineering?

[Alex Hormozi]

I actually don't think this is a money thing.

[Laura Roeder]

Okay.

[Alex Hormozi]

This is a. I have to do the math and have a good data engineer who can basically plot out looking at all customers and software. So you should be able to see what actions they're taking within the software. If you don't have that, then you have to get the tracking in place so that you can basically make the correlations based on the actions they've taken on the way in to M12. And if you're like, man, this sounds complex. It's like there's a reason that billion dollar companies don't get out of the sky. Yeah, it's hard.

[Laura Roeder]

Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

But that's, that's the reality of it. That's the real answer.

[Laura Roeder]

And how do you think about. So I imagine it would be similar with school. Most of our turn is just people being like, I didn't make any money coaching. I'm not coaching anymore. Should I think of that as a problem to be solved or something that's out of my control?

[Alex Hormozi]

Part of that's marketing.

[Laura Roeder]

Okay.

[Alex Hormozi]

If you frame it as if you use your software, you're going to make money. You will get people who, if they don't make money, they will think that your software failed. If you say, this is the thing that helps you build communities and you can build a community for free, then they were successful if they got 20 friends to do skateboarding in an online community.

[Laura Roeder]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay.

[Laura Roeder]

Thank you.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. Congrats on the business.

[Jack]

My name's Jack. I sell TikTok shop agency services to Ecom Brands. We do two and a half million in revenue. I'd like to be at 12. And what's stopping me is a woman in the red dress who's with me today. Yeah, she's. There she is.

[Alex Hormozi]

That's stunning.

[Jack]

So I started at the same time hedging my bets. I came out of a very sour partnership and both have grown really nicely since. Since last year. I'm very good at growing the business like kind of both sides. Theo is. There's a supplements brand just for a bit of background. Supplements brand growing like crazy on TikTok Shop. Obviously the agency kind of services the growth, which is great and FIO is great with content and product knowledge. Right. I can't do both because obviously now we've hit a point with the agency service where we're bringing on like a lower ticket and I also kind of want to. And you're probably going to. I know what you're going to say, but on the higher ticket or like done for you service that, you know, our kind of main sell to for the agency, Econ brands that what size. It's a tough one because like the top two brands we have are completely different avatars and hence is why. A reason we also wanted to bring in a lower level service because like we don't know what they're going to be like till we get them the other side. Hence why we can kind of like incubate them for a lower level service and cherry pick. Hopefully econ brands have a good appetite for risk and throw money at it. So it works. So the question is, the question is I want to. So I know typically it's like one or the other. I kind of want to merge it because we can also invest in these brands that look good at the third business. They look good.

[Alex Hormozi]

We could solve our two business problem by adding another one and investing on.

[Jack]

Yeah, yeah. Well that's, that's the thing. Like we have opportunities daily coming to me like saying, you know, I've got this brand jump in and I'm like, we could smash it. I just need like that extra little department to clean up the brand and then it becomes a good client for the agency.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[Jack]

And then, yeah, that's two places making most money. One with a big brand, so whale and one with the brand we own, which is also the next whale. Which is why it's like it's fucking 50, 50. I don't know which way to go.

[Alex Hormozi]

I'll tell you this. First off, there's, there's no right answer. It's going to be what you want to do. Second thing though is that I, I like to, I like to think about things from like what's the end state going to look like? And then kind of reverse it into the present. And so the end state of your TikTok agency, there's going to be two. There's two issues with your existing model that will decrease the likelihood that you have a very big agency. Number one is that you service small customers. Small customers are inherently volatile. Their volatility will relate back to your volatility as a business, will make your business unsellable or not valuable and definitely not very fun to run. Problem number one. Problem number two is that TikTok shop for now is a hot arbitrage opportunity and will not be here forever. And so in three years the likelihood that it has the same returns is low. And so you basically have again an arbitrage opportunity that exists. There's two kind of big long term issues there. You're selling to the wrong people and you're selling to short term people or short term opportunity. So it doesn't build a long term business. What I do like is that you have this good infrastructure for marketing. I don't think the idea of the whole merging thing is as I think there's a tweak on it that would make it better. So if I were you, I would take my existing very large infrastructure on the agency side, cut all my clients and then take all of that marketing horsepower and put it towards Theo and then own a big ass brand.

[Jack]

I see.

[Alex Hormozi]

What stops you from doing that?

[Jack]

It's volatile. It's Tik Tok shop only that brand. We're slow on meta etc. We're getting there. We've got an agency on board. We're going for it. So that's, that's the only reason I would say like not sure Theo's vor. No, no, no.

[Alex Hormozi]

He gives moody vibes.

[Jack]

Theo. Great. It's cool. Careful. No, no, it's good. And I love the agency side and I think okay, I love it. But also I do see a huge opportunity in the info product model with it because it doesn't exist in the UK and a lot of people would buy it.

[Alex Hormozi]

Well, yeah, but what do you want? What do you want to have happen?

[Jack]

So I would like that to go. I would like the info.

[Alex Hormozi]

So you want to get to 12 million? Either those could get to 12 million. Coaching business gets a 12 million. You could sell socks and get to 12 million. So what do you want to do?

[Jack]

Okay.

[Alex Hormozi]

Would you prefer to be an Agency owner.

[Jack]

Yeah, I would, what I would like to do is bring in a big hit of, to make sure that, that, that the growth and stability of that side can go so field can keep marketing the out of it. That'd be great. And then agency side, I would love the lower ticket like 3k. Learn it all, et cetera. And buy pieces of the agency model as and when you kind of need to is much more scalable for us. And rather than doing like everything, sell that to masses and then cherry pick like the ideal clients out of that when we see them performing. In an ideal world.

[Alex Hormozi]

Of course. Yeah. An ideal world where great people fall out of the sky and immediately know what to do and just run everything for you for a fraction of the compensation. Oh, so you're 50, 50 on this brand. Yeah. Okay. And it's so elegant. If you were like, you know what, I'm just going to go all in on this da thing, it would be so nice. But you're like, no, I want to be an agency owner. Uh, it's, it's, it's really just, it's, it's limited by your ambition. So if you want to do $12 million a year, literally any of those things will be 12 million, which actually doesn't serve as a really good filter. If you were like I want to build a hundred million dollar thing, then I would say it's going to either. Well, I mean you could, your existing agency model wouldn't get you there. You'd have to service higher end customers. You find like hexclad and you know, whatever. You know phi yay, that's the yogurt brand, whatever. Just naming consumer brands and you find big brands and then you probably wouldn't sell TikTok shop for yogurt. But you get the idea right? You, you'd find those big brands and be like, okay, we're gonna build this whole thing out for you. We'll do some sort of rev share on it. And I think rather than trying to invest in the brands, just do a revenue share. It'll be much easier, it'll be much cleaner and most of these brands will never sell anyway, so you might as well just like get the cash because that's the only thing they're really going to produce.

[Jack]

Makes sense. Yeah, that's, that's the model now. We, that's our main done for you. Service on the agency side is like we rev share and fix costs.

[Alex Hormozi]

But you sell to small businesses. Yeah, you sell bigger businesses. A mixture stop selling small businesses and you'll build a bigger business.

[Jack]

So would it be, would it be reasonable to say like, okay, so main service, that takes a lot of the manpower. Like big businesses only price raise, high ticket. And then the, the info product a lot of people might be interested in, we can just sell that and then.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, or you could just not sell it. You just, you could just live your life and just service the high end customers and make more money. Cool. You like it? So last year was the first year that I noticed in my life that I didn't have fomo. It was weird. It's been a lot of years that I've had FOMO where I'd see somebody doing something really cool and I'm like, man, I really want to do that. I should stop what I'm doing and I should do that. I don't know what happened where FOMO disappeared for me, but I can tell you that it is the worst, is the worst drive as an entrepreneur is really fear is the driver. It's the first letter. And so this fear of missing out or like, and so there will you. There will always be more opportunities than you can possibly do. It's just the nature of life. Life's short and you like. And the more skilled you are, the more amazing opportunities you have to say no to in order to do one opportunity all the way. Because if you just do one thing really well for the rest of your life, it'll get really big. But if you do two things for the rest of your life, you won't either do either of them really well and neither of them will get big. And so it's like you have to just learn to say no. And so you're like, but there's also this other. It's like, you know what I also thinking, like all these small guys, they also need a little software and we could, I could put this together. It's like, dude, stop. Like, why not sell them newspapers, right? Want some orange juice? They drink orange juice. I mean, you know, like, like what are we doing? Right? So like there's always something else you can sell, especially if you know how to sell and promote. But like you have to like this is a discipline thing. Like you have to learn how to say no. And you have to think about what's the most valuable version of this business. The most valuable version of this business seem to be big brands who you have big rev shares with. And they're, you're just their Tik Tok guy. They don't even think about it. You send them a check Every month they're happy. Those are the right customers. Everybody's like, hey, do you think you can make it big for me? Wrong, Avatar. They're going to turn out and. And you're going to be their savior. Which also means that you're their villain the moment it doesn't work.

[Jack]

Makes sense.

[Alex Hormozi]

Right. And there's volatility. And you have an arbitrage opportunity. Does not make it a very stable business. So go big. Go big companies. Make your rates appropriate. Change the marketing, the brand. Like I'm saying, you wanted to have a big agency. That's what a big agency looks like.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

If you're like, you know what? I have the skill set of knowing how to do these things, then you can build a big brand and you'd be like, the agency. I'm really good at this.

[Jack]

Okay.

[Alex Hormozi]

But you. But, like, you can also ignore my advice entirely and make a few hundred thousand dollars a month and like. And feel cool.

[Jack]

Makes sense.

[Alex Hormozi]

Appreciate it. Just being real.

[Jack]

No, no, I hear it. Thank you.

[Alex Hormozi]

Appreciate it. They're more like that. That's usually how it is. Just whelmed, you know, Just hard. It's a hard decision. Yes, ma' am.

[Gri]

Hi, Alex. My name is Gri. I'm from Norway. I sell three different products to three different clients.

[Alex Hormozi]

And I've been telling myself, this isn't Pokemon. You don't have to get them all. You know what I mean?

[Gri]

So my issue is focus. I am at the revenue at a.

[Alex Hormozi]

So you're over expanded focus and avatar. Okay, got it.

[Gri]

Exactly.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. And probably under price, but we're going to find out. Keep going.

[Gri]

I have a business that's been making a million the last 10 years.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay.

[Gri]

And revenue about 500. Sorry, five minutes. Yeah. Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay.

[Gri]

50. 50%.

[Alex Hormozi]

Got it.

[Gri]

I put that revenue into another business, which is Airbnb business. So now I have four different avatars.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay.

[Gri]

Yeah. And what's stopped? So the issue is that I want to grow my business. And I've been at a million for the last 10 years. I wanted to grow it the last four years. So that's what's stopping me. And need a focus. And I don't know which product to focus on because I tell myself that Norway is the smallest market in the world, only 5 million people.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay.

[Gri]

So it is a small market.

[Alex Hormozi]

Do you speak Norwegian to your customers?

[Gri]

Yes, of course I.

[Alex Hormozi]

You speak English. Great. So that's why I asked.

[Gri]

I would.

[Alex Hormozi]

You could sell to Americans if you wanted to.

[Gri]

Yeah, that's what somebody told me. And then I'm like, yes, I want to do that, but that would be a fifth.

[Alex Hormozi]

One fifth. So.

[Gri]

Yes.

[Alex Hormozi]

So why not?

[Gri]

I want to do that too.

[Alex Hormozi]

Why not?

[Gri]

But then again, I like to take a day off once in a while. Not like you.

[Alex Hormozi]

So I'm going to introduce this because this already came up. I think that entrepreneurs need to think about investing differently than most people do. And this is called a barbell strategy. I'll move this way so you guys can see it. There we go. So this is called a barbell strategy, which is basically you have your business, which then produces cash, which then. So this is active and this is passive. And this is, you know, gets your 10% per year. Whatever. Whatever you want here. I'll just. Whatever you want that to be. The problem is that we, because we know how to do business, we know how to sell stuff, we're like, man, I could get such a better return if I did this other thing, which is just starting another business. And so the highest returns you're going to get is if you can find ways to actually take money in your existing business and reinvest it. That's the best case scenario. Like if there's another building that's across the streets or buying the building across the street, because it came up, and it didn't really come up. I went to the guy that said, I'll give you a million above, and then he said, fine, but I'm buying that building across the street because my team's growing. Right. And so, like, that's a phenomenal return. Now, I just overpaid for real estate, but I'm going to make a hell of a lot more on being able to have more of my team in person than if I didn't have that. And so that's going to be a really good return. But I have to analyze it differently because that's going to be in my active income. If after you've reinvested every dollar you possibly can in the thing that you control that you know better than anyone else, which is your business, if you still have extra cash, then you put it into something that doesn't take any of your time at all. Zero. And you have to accept the fact that you're not going to get a better return on that than you are over here. But the key is it has to be passive. And it's not like. Well, it's, you know, it's sort of as soon as you start hedging, it's not passive. Yeah. Like, if you can't forget about it. For a year or two. Year or two. Then it's not passive. So that being said, you have this business that does $1 million a year, $500,000 in profit. You want to grow the business. What are the. So you, you name. So what do you sell?

[Gri]

I have a marketing course for those who hate their jobs and want to start their own business. So from zero to clients, that's a $3,000 course.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay.

[Gri]

And then I have a mastermind that I call a mastermind, but it's really a group coaching program at 12,000 right now. And, and then I have a VIP that is at 25.

[Alex Hormozi]

Well, those aren't three businesses. Those are products. So is that what you're saying, is the three businesses?

[Gri]

Well, I thought so after.

[Alex Hormozi]

No, that's not three businesses.

[Gri]

Okay.

[Alex Hormozi]

That's just three products. Okay. The same avatar and you upsell them other things. Yeah, that's, that's one business. So that's fine. Okay. So the issue is that you feel like you're limited. I mean, I don't think that Norway with 5 million residents is limiting to a million dollars a year. So I don't think that's true. Could you, if you had twice the leads, would you be able to make twice the money?

[Gri]

Yes.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay, so your demand constrained. So you need, you need more lead flow. So what are you doing to get customers?

[Gri]

Right now we're just doing ads and we do just two launches a year from the. For the 3K course.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay.

[Gri]

Twice a year.

[Alex Hormozi]

What stops you from doing it four times a year?

[Gri]

Just that launching is turns.

[Alex Hormozi]

Pitch is pitch.

[Gri]

It's a. Oh, it's a. English is not that good.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, no, I think you, I think you, I think you nailed this. I think you nailed the English. I think the English was right. But the thing is, you said, I want to grow my business, but he said, I was like, okay, let's just do more of that thing that works. And you're like, but that's hard.

[Gri]

It's not hard. It's just that. It's just, it's just me. So it's hard.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, it's hard.

[Gri]

Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

Right. So it's hard. And it's like, how do I make money easy?

[Gri]

It's not that it's hard, actually.

[Alex Hormozi]

I, I, well, then why not do it? I'm gonna win this.

[Gri]

I'm telling myself, I've been, I've been telling myself. So there's just 5 million people, so the, the, the ad goes up.

[Alex Hormozi]

That wasn't the question, though. Yeah. So why don't you do it four times. Yeah.

[Gri]

Just because that when you do ads in Norway, it's just the ad cost just explodes from 50.

[Alex Hormozi]

Has anyone else seen that in the United States?

[Gri]

Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

Wild. It's not a Norway thing. It's a bad ads thing. Okay, so. So if you were hitting a ad ceiling, right? So raise your hand if you've had an ad ceiling. You can't get past a thousand a day, ten thousand a day, whatever it is. Okay, cool. So this applies to you. So the ways that you can solve this, you have a superior offer, conversion and optimization, better ads, none of them are Norway. And so right now it's. So is anyone familiar with the Old Spice guy on the horse, that ad? Okay, so cool enough. The creative director designed that. Actually came to this, like two months ago. It's kind of fun. So when Old Spice did that, they were like, they had like 10 or 20% of the market of men's soap, whatever post that campaign, they had over 70% of the market share, which is one of the most successful advertising campaigns of all time. And it was one ad. And so when I see that, that's what I consider the hypothetical extreme of advertising, is that if you make an ad so good, it converts fucking everyone. And that's what they did. And so right now, you're limited in terms of your ability to scale your ads based on the quality of the creative you have. Do you make content?

[Gri]

Yes.

[Alex Hormozi]

How good's your content?

[Gri]

Mediocre.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay, thank you for being honest. What's really interesting about now, I came from the direct response side and then started making content, and my content has made me better at direct response. If you get really good at content, ads are easy because content's so much harder than making ads, because ads, you get the reach no matter what, because you pay for the reach. With organic, you have to earn the reach so you learn what actually makes excellent creative. And so it might be actually a really good exercise for you to get better at your creative so that when you run ads, you can actually know what makes a good ad, which is the same as what makes a good creative. The only difference is that at the end, you make a call to action. So, like right now, you guys may have seen them. Some of my highest converting ads for acquisition.com are just my organic videos that are our top performers. And then I put five seconds at the end, it's like, hey, by the way, this.

[Gri]

Would you run ads to the online.

[Alex Hormozi]

Course then, or the 12,000, whatever's your current acquisition process? I'm not going to break it, but I still prefer do four times a year as the most obvious choice for doubling the business. It's every 12 weeks. It's once a quarter. It's not that bad.

[Gri]

You don't burn out your list then.

[Alex Hormozi]

Well, you're marketing to cold, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you might just have more cold and less. Maybe you hit your list twice a year and you still do cold launches four times a year. Okay, but that would be like. If I were, like, I had to go and make sure that your business doubled, what would I do? I would do that. Okay, but this is probably why you're hitting the ceiling.

[Gri]

Thank you.

[Alex Hormozi]

You bet. Long term, go international. Alex, this is your last question. Ooh, better be a good one.

[Jonathan]

Hi, Alex. My name is Jonathan. I sell dating services to single men and help to get their dating life together. Revenue, we range between 250 to 900. I would like my revenue to be at 1.2 million, because I like to net a hundred thousand a month. Ideally, what I believe is stopping me is that the metrics on all my social media have gone down and my fans have been telling me you're shadow banned your shadow band. I'm not getting notifications.

[Alex Hormozi]

So you do anything political?

[Jonathan]

I mean, I was endorsing Trump, so maybe that's probably it.

[Alex Hormozi]

I mean, might be it, Honestly, passively.

[Jonathan]

Not like a whole stream. I'm like, why? Not like, why you should vote for him? Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

Was that when it stopped?

[Jonathan]

No way.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay, well, then I have a theory.

[Jonathan]

It was like when Andrew Tate went to jail in 2022 December, I noticed, like, a big change in my viewership, and I. I don't know if my fans just really like me and they're, like, just lying to me. Like, you've been shadow banned. Yeah, but I don't know.

[Anthony]

I just.

[Jonathan]

This is a problem because I like my.

[Alex Hormozi]

Do you have some videos that do better than others still?

[Jonathan]

So I just. I don't do videos. I do live streams. But, oh, yeah, I consistently livestream. That's how I do everything leading up to launches.

[Alex Hormozi]

All you make, like, videos?

[Jonathan]

Not really. They just. It's just the live streams kind of like, you're in. My personal theory, like, live streaming is, like, to a degree, indoctrinating your following and then lowering resistance, and then eventually they buy in. So like I said, I've been able to do. All my business has been organic. My best launch was, like, quarter mil in five days, which is like, you know, 90, 85% profit, but nothing has really changed in what I do, but I'm seeing all metrics shrink and it's like, yeah, I'm freaking out.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, no, I hear you. So I mean, basically at the simplest level, one of two things changed. Either you change something unknowingly, which is the content's not as good or it's not as compelling or whatever. Or something else changed, which is either the environment change. So like maybe it sounds tone deaf now, or the algorithm changed in terms of how it's pushing out lives, which not. I don't know. You're actually the only person that I know that does lives as their primary organic strategy.

[Jonathan]

Yeah. I've yet to meet somebody to replicate my numbers. I'm also one man business.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, no, no, there's tons of people who do. Your numbers are bigger with one man business. No, not with live streaming, but with making content on a regular basis. And so I think, I think it's like we just need to. You just need more views, man. Like this all really comes down to. And so it's like, I, I'll say this, if you keep doing what you're doing, it will continue to stop working and get worse. So let's not do that. I think you're gonna have to do kind of the gentleman I was talking to earlier with pest control, he's like, I've got this agency and it's working well. It's like, let's do the live streams. Can we also clip that and make that into content? Like the best moments at least?

[Jonathan]

So yeah. My shorts are like my largest traffic source back then doing like 16, 15.

[Alex Hormozi]

Millions and do not do shorts anymore.

[Jonathan]

The hit has been pretty big. They've gone down to like 8, 900 sometimes. I'm happy if it gets to a thousand views.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yes.

[Jonathan]

Per short.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. So I mean, maybe you did get shadow banned. I don't know the question, just how.

[Jonathan]

To fix it if I am theoretically shadow banned or how do I do.

[Alex Hormozi]

If you are shadow banned, it's like you probably need to start a new account. Yeah, okay. That's like Daniel, the good news about, about, quote, shadow banning is this. If you start a new account because of how social media has changed, it has been largely democratized, especially for short term, short, short form content. So somebody who has a brand new account that has zero followers can make a clip that gets 10 million views. So like I would. It's not nearly the death sentence that it used to be because it's based on interest graphs now far more than it is followership. So you can keep doing your lives on one channel. And I think that's like, again, that's the big if here is like, are you shadow banned? I don't know. Do you have a rep that you can reach out to? Because usually they'll tell you.

[Jonathan]

Now they just like, it's just some guy in Paraguay who doesn't give a shit.

[Alex Hormozi]

I don't like. I don't like pointing to things that I can't control. So I'm like, is there anything that I can do to make these shorts better? It feels unlikely that you went from, you know, 5 million a clip to a thousand a clip. That feels like a pretty tremendous drop.

[Jonathan]

15.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. Or 15 million clip. Sure. A big drop, regardless. And so if I were you, I probably, like, I would be in hyperactive mode right now, which is. I'd be trying to find a new. A new way to promote. And so you keep the thing because you have to keep the lights on. But I would strongly consider. Is it. But are you only YouTube?

[Jonathan]

I'm. I mean, I have 58,000 on Instagram.

[Alex Hormozi]

And does it happen there?

[Jonathan]

No, it does not happen there.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay, so can we double down on Instagram in the short term and then, like, create a new account on YouTube?

[Jonathan]

I'm here to do what you say.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay. Appreciate it. Do you monetize Instagram at all?

[Jonathan]

No.

[Alex Hormozi]

Well, dude, I mean, Instagram is one of the easiest ones to monetize. Of all platforms, Instagram is, like, the most monetizable because you can directly message your customers. Like, every person who follows you. You can dm. Are you. You're selling to webinars, right?

[Jonathan]

No, no webinars.

[Alex Hormozi]

Well, you sell to lives, whatever.

[Jonathan]

I'm sorry, you sell to.

[Alex Hormozi]

You sell via live? Yes. Right. And you do that how often?

[Jonathan]

My show. I've been running it.

[Alex Hormozi]

How often do you pitch?

[Jonathan]

Once a quarter.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay. So it might be advantageous to. Okay. I mean, it's leaning more towards that. You might have gotten shadow pinned. And if that's the case, let's walk through this. So for Instagram, I think you do a manychat integration and then DM new followers and replies and then send them to lives when you go live on YouTube. Also go live on Instagram. Very easy. Just get a second phone if you need to go live on both.

[Jonathan]

I do that.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay, so you do go live on.

[Jonathan]

Instagram, and I get like four or five people walking.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay. So when we have this, you can add them to the broadcast and then let them know when you're going Live, because you should get more than four or five nasty. It's just because we have this big question mark of are you bad at content now, or did you have the gods of social media tell you that you're not allowed to promote anymore?

[Jonathan]

There's a group of people I kind of like.

[Alex Hormozi]

Instagram does tell you if you're Shadowbann, though, so you can look at it in your client settings. So I would check that. And if they haven't, then it just might, like. I would so much prefer to know that, like, the content's just not that good, because that's super fixable.

[Jonathan]

There's a group of people I'm associated with, and they've all kind of been throttled as well. Like the Fresh and Fit podcast. And some of these people, they're all like. We've all kind of been uniformly kind of flatlined from 23ish, you know, because, like, they have a huge podcast and they've been stuck at 1.5 mil. Fresh and fit.

[Alex Hormozi]

You mean on Instagram?

[Jonathan]

On YouTube.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay. And they just don't get views there either?

[Jonathan]

No, they get views, but we're all like, our subscribership and whatnot is not necessarily growing. And their views have massively taken a hit. They used to do like 3, 400. Now they're like 1ish.

[Alex Hormozi]

1Ish thousand.

[Jonathan]

A hundred.

[Alex Hormozi]

Oh, a hundred.

[Jonathan]

Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

That doesn't sound like shadow banning. Okay. Going from like 300 to 100 just sounds like YouTube has shifted over time.

[Jonathan]

Okay.

[Alex Hormozi]

And like, we just need to adapt to what's. What's working. Now.

[Jonathan]

The crazy part about my views is, like, my views have usually typically range between, on the live streams, 1,000 to 5,000. And then the money just kept growing. So I was like, great, I have fucking money. Printer.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[Jonathan]

But now the views are still same, maybe slightly dropped, but the sales have just, like. It's just like, abysmal. It's so terrifying.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, that's why I'm here there. No, I hear you. It's like you have this one trick that worked, and so I think you might just need to learn another trick. Okay. But at least you have second platform. So it's like you've just only done live streams, and that's how you've done it. It's like you might be able to just like, push people to a phone call. You could push people to a webinar. Like, you could probably do more than once every 12 weeks, do a pitch. Like, there's. There's plenty of levers that we can look at.

[Jonathan]

And I have high tick, invert immersion stuff that's like 10k. And those are easy to sell, but I just need more eyes and views that when you teach a guy how to date, he doesn't come back because he's out dating.

[Alex Hormozi]

Outdating. Yeah. I mean, to be fair, it's education and, like, there's no continuity program on Harvard. You just graduate and then it's that, and then they get you in the endowment and there's all that. But, like, I think we have to focus on the controllables, which is that the content needs to improve and you probably need to make more content and make more diverse content. Probably start using tools like one of10.com. If you're not familiar with that, you.

[Jonathan]

Know that is one of ten dot com.

[Alex Hormozi]

So one of ten dot com is basically the. It's like YouTube repository where you can just search for topics and it will show you the highest outperformers in terms of headline packaging and thumbnails across all channels on YouTube. And then from there you can basically create ideations of, okay, how can I apply this to my niche? And so I'm guessing that, like, the fact that the other guys went from like, 300 to 100. Like, to me, that's not shadow banning. That's just like, their content wasn't as good as it used to be, or it's just like, it's not as relevant it used to be. Like, people aren't, like, bitching about Red Pill as much as they were before. And so it's like, maybe part of any. Like, your content might have to adapt. So I would honestly prefer it just be that, which is the content's not good enough. Fine, then let's look at topics and let's look at headlines and let's fix that. Let's make it something that people want. We've had to change our stuff all the time. And I think it's just like, you learn a trick, it worked. It was a great ride. Now you have to change again.

[Jonathan]

Okay, thank you very much.

[Alex Hormozi]

No, I appreciate you.