You Don’t Have a Lead Problem. You Have a Traffic Problem | Ep 954

Summary

Podcast Summary:

The Game with Alex Hormozi – "You Don’t Have a Lead Problem. You Have a Traffic Problem" | Ep 954
Date: March 19, 2026
Host: Alex Hormozi

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Alex Hormozi tackles two distinct business problems via live coaching conversations:

1. How a sexual health medical practice can scale from $3.8M to $10M by resolving traffic and lead qualification issues.
2. How a data consulting firm can grow from $500K to $1.2M by improving lead flow and switching from hourly billing to ROI-based pricing.

Both sessions zero in on the practical steps to create a higher volume of qualified leads, optimize content strategy, and re-position service offers for more lucrative business outcomes.

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Segment 1: Sexual Health Medical Practice – From $3.8M to $10M

Key Topics & Insights

• Problem Framing: Traffic vs. Lead Quality

  • Dr. Ann Truang describes her practice’s challenge: too many unqualified leads initially, then too few leads after adding application friction (03:12).
  • Alex clarifies the difference between percentage and absolute numbers: After filtering, while lead quality improved, quantity dropped—indicating a true traffic problem, not an application process failure (03:56).

• Solution Step 1: Increase Qualified Traffic

  • Content Audit & Feedback:
    • Email current customers with an incentive, asking which type of content attracted them. Categorize responses to focus future content on what draws high-quality buyers (04:47).
    • Add “What video got you here?” to sales call intake to collect ongoing data (04:47).
  • Notable Quote:
    • Alex: “You can have probably four or five buckets of content you currently make and they will tell you which one... That’ll start orienting what type of thing.” (04:49)

• Solution Step 2: Retargeting & Paid Ads

  • Focus on retargeting warm YouTube traffic—though recent Google ad shutdown due to medical content policies (06:29).

  • Audit pages for compliance and try relaunching; also explore Meta (Facebook/Instagram) ads, which may be easier to crack (07:06, 07:34).

  • Leverage “save-worthy vs. share-worthy” content:

    • Pay attention to the content with the highest ratio of saves to likes as that indicates higher buyer intent. Run the top 10% of these as Meta ads (08:13).

  • Notable Quote:

    • Alex: “Find the shorts that are save-worthy rather than share-worthy... those are typically going to be the ones that have the highest purchase intent.” (07:49)

• National Audience Feasibility

  • Since patients fly in for high-ticket services, apply a national ad strategy, not just a local geographic focus (08:34).

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• [03:31] Alex (blunt reality check):
  “No, no, listen to me, listen to me... That means the percentage goes up. I want to make sure we're talking about reality.”

• [05:53] Alex:
  “Figure out what type of content translates to quality, not quantity.”

• [07:34] Alex (on platform choice):
  “Meta I would say is easier for people to crack when they’re starting.”

• [08:43] Alex (pun):
  “Rock hard. Pun intended. We had to get there.”

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Segment 2: Data Consulting Firm – Growing from $500K to $1.2M

Key Topics & Insights

• Lead Flow Challenges

  • Reeds, the founder, describes a reliance on referrals, struggling to generate cold leads for his enterprise-targeting data consulting service. He is trying LinkedIn content, LinkedIn ads, and wants to start cold email outreach (09:45).

• Positioning and Messaging

  • Data services are a tough sell—buyers don’t think they need “data,” but want the results (vacation vs. plane journey analogy). Shift messaging to the results you provide: reduced costs, business growth, operational efficiency (11:00 - 12:49).

  • Notable Quote:

    • Alex: “We don’t want to talk about the plane flight. We want to talk about the vacation. We talk about Maui, not how we're going to get there... That’s the data. What the data gets us that we got to talk about.” (11:42)

• Lead Magnet Strategy

  • Instead of generic lead magnets, offer five free one-on-one sessions—with explicit qualifying criteria. Each session adds value and builds trust, leading to more qualified enterprise sales (13:06).
  • Structure the call to set clear expectations: “At the end, I’ll explain how working together may look, but for now, I’ll just provide value.” (13:24)

• CTA and Funnel Tactics

  • Make the CTA in all LinkedIn content: Apply for one of five free 1:1 ROI calls (13:19).

  • Use discovery calls to talk about what will happen for their business, not how (14:24).

  • Notable Quote:

    • Alex: “We’re going to describe it, not explain it. And that’s how you reset beliefs. That’s how you get people excited about what’s going to happen. As soon as you get into like 'we’re going to click here,' they’re gone.” (14:24)

• Pricing Strategy: ROI-Based Billing

  • Ditch hourly billing—switch to charging a percentage (up to 30%) of savings or value created (15:26).

  • Use “calculator close” at the end of the five sessions: show the total value you’ll generate and propose fees accordingly (15:26).

  • Notable Quote:

    • Alex: “The max that you can charge when you make any kind of result-based service is 30%. And so if you say, hey, I’m going to save you 200 grand, I charge 30% of what I save, so it’s 60, but that way you’re charging for outcomes, not hours.” (15:26)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:51] Dr. Ann Truang introduces her practice and challenge.
• [03:12] Alex clarifies lead qualification math; zeros in on traffic as main issue.
• [04:46] How to identify which content brings high-quality leads.
• [06:13] History and approach to Meta and YouTube ads.
• [07:43] Best practices for creating ad content and targeting nationally.
• [09:16] Reeds introduces his data consulting firm’s challenges.
• [11:00] Shifting from technical to value-based sales messaging.
• [13:06] The “5 free 1:1 calls” lead magnet strategy.
• [15:26] Calculator close; switch to ROI-based pricing.

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Episode Tone and Style

• Alex is direct, practical, and sometimes irreverent—cutting through confusion with simple math and common sense.
• He peppers advice with analogies (“Maui, not the plane”) and isn’t afraid to call out fuzzy logic.
• The sessions are high-energy, packed with actionable advice, and always centered on maximizing business growth with minimal friction.

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Make your content and marketing tightly mapped to what actually converts, not just what gets views.
• Use friction strategically in your sales funnel to improve lead quality, but address any drop in volume by ramping up qualified traffic.
• For B2B services, sell results (ROI) not process, and structure pricing accordingly.
• High-value, interactive lead magnets (like free strategic calls) can be powerful for high-ticket B2B sales—especially when clearly targeted.
• Data and honest self-audits (e.g., customer surveys, content analysis) should drive your marketing focus.

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Transcript

[Alex]

Welcome back to the game. In this episode you're going to hear two conversations. The first is with a sexual health medical practice. They're currently doing 3.8 million and want to get to 10 million in revenue. Here's what we broke down on this call. Number one, how to fix the traffic problem that was exposed when they added friction to the funnel, which is one of our first pieces of advice. Second, we unpack the easiest and fastest ways to figure out which content attracts the buyers, not just viewers. So you can create the same content that produces the highest quality leads. Now, the second company is a data consulting firm that does about 500,000 and wants to get to $1.2 million in revenue per year. Their biggest constraint, lead flow and pricing strategy. So we walk through, number one, a new lead magnet and content strategy to attract enterprise buyers on LinkedIn. And then number two, how to pivot from hourly billing to charging based on ROI that the customer is getting so they can actually double revenue of the business without adding any more customers. I hope this is super valuable for you. Enjoy.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Hi. Hi Alex. My name is Dr. Ann Truang and so I'm a medical doctor. We specialize in sexual health and currently we're at 3.8 would like to get to 10 mil or more a year. And so what is stopping us is that I use your AI and it says that we don't have a traffic problem because all my traffic come from YouTube. It's really more of acquisition problem. After talking to you a few months ago, we started putting in in our applications that we have a funnel that is an application with questions that qualify and disqualify and then through a calendar within schedule with our sales team. So what happened was that we ended up getting a lot of disqualified disqualified applicants which we then downsell supplements for an online coaching program. But that doesn't make as much money as our in office treatment which from 15,000 to 20,000 as well, which we really want to focus on. So the question is, are we doing something wrong in that application process? How can we get more qualified high ticket applicant to the sales call?

[Alex]

Okay, two things.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

So what we had trouble in the past was that we had too many in the sales call that weren't qualified. Now we don't have enough and you

[Alex]

know, how do you say you don't have enough? But so you added friction and you got and you have disqualified people who are booking. The percentage of qualified people go up when you added friction or down?

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Oh no, go down.

[Alex]

The percentage went down. So you got More unqualified people by adding friction to your process.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Yes.

[Alex]

That makes no sense.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Yeah, we. Well, we just put in filters that's like, as you know, this is not insurance covered. You know, this is the price. And they click. No would, you know, mean that they don't want to move forward. So that would disqualify. That was the only two disqualifiers we had, so.

[Alex]

But those people got disqualified, so you didn't have to talk to them.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Well, they get disqualified. They don't get to this. They don't get. They don't see the calendar to schedule.

[Alex]

That's good, right? That means the percentage of qualified on the calendar went up, right?

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Well, you know, compared. No, not necessarily.

[Reeds]

How?

[Alex]

Hold on, hold on. What are we talking about? No, no, listen to me, listen to me, listen to me. How is that possible? If you say there's 100 people, half of them are disqualified, hit the disqualified button. Then half of them that come through are not disqualified anymore. That means the percentage goes up. I want to make sure we're talking about reality here. Like, are we on the same page? Percentage went up. Not absolute percentage. Yes, I want to help. You're just making my job hard. So percentage went up, correct?

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Yes.

[Alex]

Okay. Percentage went up. So are we saying that the absolute amount went down?

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Yes.

[Alex]

Great. Now, of the people that did show up to the call, were they more qualified than before?

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Well, you know, our close rate were better.

[Alex]

Okay, so the quality went up.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Yes.

[Alex]

Okay, so the reason I'm orienting you is so that we can actually solve the input output problem. So you had too much flow, we added friction. That increased the quality of the throughput, but then it decreased the amount of. Which means mission accomplished. The next thing we have to do is drive more in the front end so that we can have a higher absolute amount of throughput. That's all quality, right?

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Yes. That makes sense.

[Alex]

Two options. You can do them both. Option number one is that the type of content that you're making needs to cater better. Cater to the avatar that you're looking for.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

How do I find that out?

[Alex]

Well, one, the easiest thing you can do right now is email all of your existing customers and give them some sort of prize, some sort of giveaway, something to get them to respond and say, hey, what piece of content you come in on or what type of content, if that's easier. And you can have probably four or five buckets of content you currently make and they will tell you which one it was on the sales call. You can also add a question what type or what video got you here? Because that'll start orienting what type of thing. Now you're also in person. So, like when I ask people who show up at a workshop here in person, I say, hey, what type of content do you like? If I say, hey, do you like a brutally honest video that's about mindset things like that, there's a certain percentage that are there. But if I say, hey, do you like the Cash Guys video where I do a breakdown of the businesses, the entire room's hands raised. And that's a room where the average person's doing $4 million a year. Those videos do less views than me. Talking about general mindset stuff because it's just a smaller audience.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Gotcha. I know what they're talking about.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

So number one, email the list.

[Alex]

Yes. To figure out what type of content translates to quality. Not quantity.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Quality.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Okay.

[Alex]

That's thing one and then thing two. And you're YouTube. Mostly YouTube, correct?

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Yes.

[Alex]

Okay, got it. How big is the following you have on YouTube?

[Dr. Ann Truang]

150,000. Okay.

[Alex]

It's probably big enough. Have you run meta ads before?

[Dr. Ann Truang]

We did. We ran meta ads and the applicants weren't qualified, so we kind of stopped doing that. We're trying to do YouTube retargeting ads to the people that watch my video and then we got shut down by Google in three days.

[Alex]

Because it was sex related, right?

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alex]

So I think that if you audit your page to make sure that it's compliant and try and relaunch it, that's probably a good idea. The retargeting is going to be kind of the low hanging fruit because these are people who already clicked over there. And so that's just going to nudge them along the funnel. But the real unlock for you is going to be paid ads on either meta or YouTube or both. I think that meta will be easier for you to crack even though you have a YouTube audience, because those people also have Instagram and Facebook accounts. And I'm going to bet that when you ran the meta ads before, was that before you did this process of adding friction?

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Yes.

[Alex]

Right. So it makes sense. So you ran basically open targeting to something that had no funnel for friction. We now have fixed the sales process, so we fixed that problem. Now we have to fix the traffic problem. So we're going to increase the quality of the traffic with the type of content you're making and we're going to increase the quantity of traffic by soliciting the audience more times and more places by running Ads on meta and YouTube and running them through our now better converting process by percentage.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Okay, so you feel that meta is appropriate?

[Alex]

Yeah, 100% people who are there. Well, I think it'll be easier. Meta I would say is easier for people to crack when they're starting.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Okay, got it, yeah.

[Alex]

And then run them through the same font and let me tell you the type of content that you should use. So do you make shorts?

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Uh huh.

[Alex]

Okay. Find the shorts that are save worthy rather than share worthy. All right. So the type of things that are like lists of processes and steps, stuff where you really teach, stuff that, that did medium well, those are typically going to be the ones that have the highest purchase intent. Do you have an Instagram?

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Yes, we do.

[Alex]

Do you make, do you post your reels there?

[Dr. Ann Truang]

It's really repurposed.

[Alex]

Yeah, that's fine, that's fine.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

My long form content to Instagram.

[Alex]

That's fine. I want you to look at the last year. Look at the one that has the highest saves to likes percentage, so the most saves and run the top 10% of those as ads on meta and then direct them down the funnel that we just fixed. And if you want, do people fly in for your services or no.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Uh huh.

[Alex]

Okay then fine. You can run it national.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Yeah, they, they come from all over. Great.

[Alex]

Then yeah, you can run it as a national play. Yeah, Yep, run as a national play.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Okay, great.

[Alex]

Yeah, we fixed one problem, now we have the next one. Yeah, perfect. You got this.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Thank you so much.

[Alex]

You bet. All right, I'll talk soon. Good luck. I'll see you on the inside of the group. All right, that's it. All right, let's roll. Rock hard. Pun intended. We had to get. We had to get there. We had to get there. All right, caller, what's your revenue?

[Reeds]

This is Reeds.

[Alex]

Am I up reads? You're up, man. Give me the rev. The rev, the pro and the business.

[Reeds]

Alrighty. We are a data consulting company that sells services. We do about 500k. I'd like to get to 1.2 million.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Reeds]

Our biggest issue is leads, leads and leads and then making them, you know, see the message and reflected a business problem that they recognize.

[Alex]

Okay, how are you getting leads right now?

[Reeds]

It's been 99% referral till about. It's still 99% referral but I have now turned on. I'm doing content on LinkedIn, I'm doing LinkedIn ads. I'm doing a cold email that I'm trying to start. It's not started but I'm trying to do that as well. So right now, for the last 12 years, I've run my company off referrals. Yeah, I haven't really sold anything. So my question is really around the best way to generate leads from a tech source that the message is really hard. I mean, selling data services, no one thinks they need it. Everyone thinks they need AI now, luckily, I think a couple webinars ago, you had said, somebody asked you a question about AI and you said you need a good.

[Alex]

You need a data infrastructure.

[Reeds]

And I was. Yes.

[Alex]

You were like, can I clip that? We were like, no, you can't. Yes. Okay, so what size companies are you selling?

[Reeds]

I'm trying to do mid. Mid tier. Around 500 people I worked for.

[Alex]

It's all enterprises, so it's all enterprise.

[Reeds]

Enterprise. But it's so hard. It's so hard to actually make a difference there. There's so much overhead and trouble.

[Alex]

Okay, got it. So, functionally, what is the dollars and cents output of what you do? Like, I pay you money. What money do I get back and how do I make it back?

[Reeds]

Some of the stuff, like, we can help you with cloud. Reduce your cloud cost. So you can reduce cost. That can be pretty great. But I mean, it can be from, I don't know, 10,000 to 100. Couple hundred thousand.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Reeds]

I mean, how do you charge your systems around. Say that again.

[Alex]

How do you charge hourly? Hourly. Oh. Oh, dear me. My God. Let's just get you to 1.2 million and get you no more customers and just change how you bill. How about that?

[Reeds]

I could handle that.

[Alex]

Okay, so. Okay, so a couple of things. So number one, I think you making content on LinkedIn is a good idea. I think that you should. You should talk like data no one cares about. I mean, yes, people care about it, but no one's like waking up in the morning being like, oh, give me my data. I mean, I'm that way, but, you know, I'm an oddball. What we want to talk about is the benefit of data, right? We don't want to talk about the plane flight. We want to talk about the vacation. We talk about Maui, not how we're going to get there. The TSA checking our bags, taking our shoes off. That's the data. What the data gets us that we got to talk about. So your content needs to be taught. Like, what you should be doing in your content is the demonstration of what occurs as a result of your services.

[Reeds]

And that's where a lot of the content is, around roi. So I'm trying to drive that because for the longest time I targeted tech people, but tech people never have buying power, so it was always impossible to go. So now I'm trying to talk at a higher level of return on investment because so many people do so much tech stuff that just doesn't, doesn't provide any value to the business because they don't think they have to the tech side. That's why I'm trying to not talk to those guys.

[Alex]

Yeah. So ROI content number one. I think that you should have CTAs in the content that generate inquiries that should get people to like, do you give away a widget or an assessment of any kind on the website?

[Reeds]

I'm trying to do a data ROI meeting so I can kind of give you that kind of information.

[Alex]

Let me give you a really sexy thing. Let me give you a really sexy thing. I want you to give away five. Oh yeah, no, this is gonna be sexy. I want you to give five one on one calls away for free as the offer.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Okay.

[Alex]

Now there's an asterisk there that it's only for companies that meet your criteria.

[Reeds]

Okay.

[Alex]

And you probably have to take those calls anyways for a qualified lead. But the fact that the thing is for you to have a very high value lead magnet, I think so many of these are going to be so specific to the tech stack they're using and all the other nonsense that we have to come up with something that people can appreciate as valuable. And so we say, hey, I'm going to give away five one on one calls. Everyone understands that five hours or five 30 minute sessions is value. Even at the most basic manual labor level, there's value there that someone can get. And so I think the CTA of that will be a great way because then it'll give you five conversations. You can tie in multiple stakeholders and, and you can actually look at an enterprise style sale and it all works. All you have to do is set the frame at the beginning of this. It's like, hey, to be clear, are you good with me? As we walk through these five calls, at the end of the fifth call, I'll explain kind of how we're working with us might look like. In the meantime, I want to just provide you a lot of value. They're going to say yes and it's great. And that sets up the conversation so that you can't break their beliefs around it. The big step here is that we want to take those calls to talk about what is going to happen, not how to do what is going to happen. Do you get the difference?

[Reeds]

Yes.

[Alex]

Yes, right, exactly. We're going to describe it, not explain it. And that's how you reset beliefs. That's how you get people excited about what's going to happen. As soon as you get into like we're going to click here, they're gone. They don't give a shit. Right.

[Reeds]

So number one, I've got that with my LinkedIn ads.

[Alex]

Yeah. So number one, ROI Content CTA is five 101 calls, only for people who qualify. The second thing is that I think your offer needs to be around the ROI and you need to use something called a calculator close. So calculator close basically says here's all the things that you're currently doing which you can do at the end of the five 101s and say based on the whole assessment that I have, here's all the areas that you're losing money or that you could have efficiency. This is what I expect you to make. You add it all together and say it's $200,000 is the savings, improvements in efficiency and effectiveness, whatever, say $200,000. The max that you can charge when you make any kind of result based service is 30%. And so if you say, hey, I'm going to save you 200 grand, I charge 30% of what I save, so it's 60, but that way you're charging for outcomes, not hours.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Okay.

[Alex]

And that'll break it. And that's what's going to allow you to really. I mean that alone might triple or quadruple your income independent of the ROI stuff. Those would be the two next steps that I would do.

[Dr. Ann Truang]

Okay.

[Reeds]

Thank you.

[Alex]

You bet. Thank you, man. Congratulations on the business.

[Reeds]

This has been very helpful. I really appreciate it.

[Alex]

You bet. Thank you for being part of the group.