Podcast Summary: "You Are Responsible For Making Your Team Better | Ep 964"

Podcast: The Game with Alex Hormozi
Host: Alex Hormozi
Date: October 30, 2025

Overview

In this episode, Alex Hormozi dives deep into strategies for building, training, and retaining high-performing sales teams, with a particular focus on high-churn, door-to-door sales models. Using a real-world case study from a residential window replacement business owner, Alex unpacks why most new sales hires fail to survive the first week and offers actionable methods for improving onboarding, training, and motivation. The episode also includes interactive Q&A on business development, lead generation, and audience monetization tactics.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. High Churn in Door-to-Door Sales: A "Feature, Not a Bug"

• Context: Business owner struggles to retain new sales reps in a commission-only, door-to-door environment.
• Alex’s Perspective:
  • High churn is inherent to door-to-door sales and not necessarily a flaw—embracing it and scaling volume is one solution.
  • "Instead of thinking like, man, I think there's something wrong with our business... it might be just like we need to do way more of it." (03:00)
• Consideration: Sometimes, success comes down to doing more of what’s already working, even if numbers aren’t perfect.

2. Selecting & Screening the Right Candidates

• Parallel to Customer Avatars:
  • Just as you target the right demographics for customers, do the same for staff.
  • Key Questions:
    • What do the successful reps have in common? (demographics, age, previous experience, behaviors during onboarding)
    • “What are the demographics that have higher likelihoods of success? Is there age ranges, things like that? ...Is there any kind of past experiences?” (02:52–03:10)
• Behavioral Test: During applications and onboarding, observe behaviors that correlate with future performance.

3. Training: Simulating Real-World Conditions

• Current Gap: New hires aren’t prepared for real doorstep scenarios—makeshift preparation fails under pressure.
• Alex’s Solution:
  • Create 2–3 freestanding doors in the office for realistic knock-and-talk roleplay.
  • “You want to approximate the conditions of the sale as closely as humanly possible in the training.” (04:39)
• Roleplay Adversity:
  • Practice for worst-case scenarios—rowdy or hostile customers.
  • “I want to roleplay out what someone losing their shit on them is like so that they stop having this big fear around it.” (06:33)
• Muscle Memory: Repeated actions (knocking, script delivery, handling rejection) breed competence and confidence.

4. Gamification and Recognition

• Acknowledgement & Rewards:
  • Introduce a scoreboard, early milestone rewards, prizes for most doors knocked, most cuss-outs survived, etc.
  • “We want other ways of giving them recognition early and fast so that they could see that they're at least on the right track.” (09:45)
• Promote Fun, Healthy Competition:
  • Use leaderboards and other metrics to motivate beyond just closing sales.
  • “I want to have who did the most dials. I want to say who did the most. Who had the most pickups?” (11:13)

5. Setting Clear Expectations

• Truthful Job Framing:
  • Use honest, challenging job ads to attract the right personalities, referencing the legendary Shackleton ad for dangerous expeditions:
    • “Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages... safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.” (08:11)
  • Emphasize the value of sales skills: “This is a skill that you will use for the rest of your life and you're going to have to get good at it here or somewhere else, but you might as well get good at it here and get paid to do it.” (08:40)

6. Leveraging Internal Referrals

• Beyond Job Boards:
  • Encourage internal recruitment—current team members bringing friends, with incentives for training and team building.
  • Structure career progression:
    1. Learn to sell
    2. Teach someone else to sell
    3. Build a team and recruit
  • “If 99% of your dudes are coming from ads, you're missing out on the entire referral component.” (13:00)

7. Business Scaling Principles (Q&A)

• Real Estate Development (15:00–16:30)
  • For deal sourcing, focus on relationship-building at industry conferences and broker networks.
  • "It's not the person you meet, it's the person that person introduced you to. That's the game." (15:50)
• Real Estate with No Capital
  • Start by wholesaling—contract cheap deals, then flip them to buyers willing to pay more.
  • “You get deals under contract for less than they're worth and sell them to people who are willing to spend more.” (16:45)
• Janitorial Services (Lead Generation)
  • Use PPC ads for small clients; LinkedIn outreach for bigger buildings by targeting decision-makers (building managers).
  • Focus more on refining your offer than on fancy lead magnets.
• Athlete Monetization (Pro Volleyball Player)
  • Paths to Monetize a Following:
    • Continue as entertainer (content/sponsorship deals)
    • Become an educator (sell training, courses, or merch)
    • Seek business partnerships or equity as a brand spokesperson
  • “If you want to be ... you are a media company... What is the point of entertainment? To get people to continue to watch.” (18:00)
  • Teach, sell digital products, or coach for higher engagement and direct income.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Training:
  • “You want them to practice like they play.” (05:40 – Alex)
• On Handling Rejection:
  • “You're going to survive. If someone calls you a rodent, guess what? You can knock on the next door, baby.” (06:40 – Alex)
• On Career Framing:
  • “You're not selling windows, you're selling a skill that they're going to learn and get paid to do, which I think is pretty compelling for sure.” (12:30)
• On Job Ad Honesty:
  • “State the facts and tell the truth. The truth is very compelling.” (08:20 – Alex)
• On Internal Referrals:
  • “It's a career path ... It's another just selling, selling, selling a different opportunity.” (13:34)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:22–01:28 – Addressing high churn in door-to-door sales
• 02:10–03:30 – Defining the ideal candidate profile
• 04:00–06:33 – Realistic training and roleplaying adversity
• 07:45–08:10 – Setting up expectations and truthful job ads
• 09:30–11:13 – Gamification and multi-metric recognition
• 13:00–13:40 – Internal referral and team-building incentive structure
• 15:00–16:30 – Real estate development Q&A
• 16:45–18:30 – Monetizing audiences for athletes & creators

Conclusion

Alex Hormozi delivers a masterclass on developing resilient, skilled sales teams through rigorous, reality-based training and honest communication. He stresses the importance of selecting the right talent, providing immersive training experiences, and structuring jobs and incentives to maximize performance and retention. The actionable strategies span across industries, from traditional sales teams to real estate and online creators, with an underlying message: success in scaling teams—just like acquiring customers—is about systems, expectations, and consistent, high-quality execution.