The Path to Success Delivering on Promises (with Lewis Howes) Pt.2 Ep 661

Alex Hormozi, in a candid conversation, discusses the importance of creating value and building trust to achieve long-term success in business. He emphasizes the need to deliver on promises, particularly when asking others to promote one's work, ensuring their willingness to support future endeavors. Hormozi highlights the effectiveness of his advertising strategies, as showcased in his book "100 Million Dollar Leads," which he meticulously promoted using the very tactics within. He also touches on the significance of brand and reputation, advocating for the power of giving and sharing knowledge freely to stand out in a competitive market. Moreover, Hormozi stresses the balance between striving for perfection and the necessity to launch products that reflect one's best current efforts, thus avoiding the pitfalls of endless procrastination under the guise of perfectionism.

• Speaker A emphasizes the importance of delivering on promises, especially when asking for support, such as promoting a book.
• Building trust is crucial for future collaborations or support.
• Speaker A introduces the podcast's focus on customer acquisition, maximization, and retention, along with sharing failures and lessons.

"The goal was if I, if I ask people to promote something and I say that it's going to be worth it, that I have to absolutely deliver on that."

This quote emphasizes the responsibility of ensuring value in what one promotes to maintain credibility and trust for future endeavors.

• Speaker B discusses the importance of winning, not just participating, as continual losses can be demotivating.
• Winning provides fun and a sense of achievement, whereas constant losing may suggest a need for change.

"I hear to that and I'm also like, if I reflect back if we lost every football game, I think winning matters also."

Speaker B explains that consistent losses in any endeavor, such as sports, can lead to a lack of enjoyment and the need to reassess one's direction.

• Speaker B believes that losses and challenges are more instructive than constant victories.
• Constant losses might indicate that one's efforts could be better utilized elsewhere.
• The balance between effort, journey, and external results is necessary for confidence.

"You learn more in your losses, probably you learn more from the bigger breakdowns and the challenges you face than always winning."

Speaker B suggests that challenges and failures often provide more profound lessons and opportunities for growth than uninterrupted success.

• Speaker A and B discuss the importance of credibility through external results, especially when positioning oneself as an expert.
• Long-term lack of success can lead to self-doubt and a need for reassessment.

"The confidence comes in the effort and the journey, but also you've got to back it with some external results, I think, or some type of credibility somewhere."

Speaker B highlights the need for tangible results to support one's confidence and credibility in their field.

• Speaker A believes that working harder and smarter is key to success.
• Divorcing oneself from the need for constant wins can lead to personal pride and resilience.
• Focusing on meaningful work and effort can lead to approval from oneself and others.

"But I think that the reason that I'm going to go from 100 to a billion and 10 billion and beyond is because I do genuinely like I am working harder now than I work to get here."

Speaker A attributes their continued success and ambitious goals to an increased and improved work ethic.

• Speaker A advocates for concentrating on a few worthy endeavors to achieve excellence.
• Most people do not know how to exert maximum effort, which is why many do not succeed.
• Consistency and resilience are key to standing out and achieving excellence.

"The price for excellence has never been so cheap."

Speaker A points out that due to a general lack of persistence and resilience, achieving excellence is more accessible to those willing to put in consistent effort.

• Speaker A suggests that societal protections have made people less accustomed to handling adversity.
• Ignoring feelings and focusing on necessary actions can lead to desired results.
• Speaker A's personal mantra is to do what is required, regardless of personal feelings.

"Everyone is so soft now that to win, you just have to not be made of glass and be willing to have someone tell you, I don't approve of your life, and you say, that's okay."

Speaker A comments on the perceived lack of resilience in society and suggests that success now requires a thicker skin and indifference to external disapproval.

• Speaker B shares a perspective on life's quality, referencing a podcast where a billionaire appreciates the Italian lifestyle focused on relaxation and culture rather than wealth.
• Speaker A rejects the notion that life should be lived a certain way, emphasizing individual choice.

"What do you think about a point like that or a conversation like that where it's know, live in Europe and take three months and relax and travel?"

Speaker B questions the importance of taking time to enjoy life and not solely focusing on financial success, prompting a discussion on lifestyle choices.

• Emphasis on individual choices and rejecting the imposition of personal preferences on others.
• Acknowledgement of the legitimacy of pursuing one's passion, even if it is playing video games, as long as it is fulfilling and successful.
• Critique of changing one's lifestyle for the approval of others who may not matter in the long run.
• Encouragement of living authentically according to one's own values ("do you").

"should we? Because you prefer that, which is fine, you could say I prefer to live the same, in which case go live that way, but to then say everyone should live that way, or then now you're casting your personal preference on everyone else, and I reject that wholeheartedly."

This quote stresses the importance of respecting individual preferences and not imposing one's own lifestyle choices on others. It advocates for personal authenticity and the right to pursue one's own interests without external judgment.

• Discussion on the recent book launch and the strategy behind it.
• Explanation of the purpose of the book, which is to answer the question "who do I sell it to?" after determining "what do I sell?" from the first book.
• The book focuses on advertising as a means to generate leads and make offers known to potential buyers.
• The author's first book, "100 million dollar offers," was successful and remains in the top Amazon charts.
• The new book, "100 million dollar leads," was named based on split testing various titles to determine the most appealing one.

"So my first book, 100 million dollar offers, was a book that answered one question, which is, what do I sell? And so now that has 17,005 stars and... It's a great book, actually, it's still on Amazon charts, top 20 of all Amazon, and so is that one. So it's two of the 20."

This quote provides context on the success of the author's first book, which focused on what to sell, and sets the stage for the new book, which addresses the next logical question in business: who to sell to.

• Definition of advertising as the process of making an offer known.
• The necessity of advertising to sell a product or service because unknown offers cannot be purchased.
• Introduction to the value equation from the first book, which includes problem-solving, likelihood of success, risk reduction, time efficiency, and minimizing effort and sacrifice.
• Explanation of how to operationalize value by manipulating these four variables.

"Advertising is the process of making known, period. If no one knows about your stuff, no one buys it."

This quote succinctly defines advertising and highlights its fundamental importance in commerce: without awareness, there can be no sales.

• Detailed breakdown of the advertising cycle and the "core four" methods of letting people know about a product or service.
• The "core four" consists of warm outreach, cold outreach, posting content, and running ads.
• Introduction of the "lead getters" which include customers, employees, agencies, and affiliates.
• The author used all eight methods described in the book to advertise the book itself, demonstrating the effectiveness of the strategies outlined.

"And so what happens is most people have an offer and no one knows about it. And so you have to make it known, you have to advertise it."

This quote reinforces the need for advertising to make offers known to potential customers, which is the central theme of the author's book on lead generation.

• Use of various channels and strategies to promote the book, including leveraging employees, agencies, and affiliates.
• The author's approach to the book launch involved using the same strategies detailed in the book to ensure authenticity and provide proof of concept.
• Discussion of the results of the book launch, including the number of people who attended and the methods through which they were reached.
• Explanation of the costs associated with advertising and the rationale behind the promotional strategies used.

"I used all eight methods in the book to advertise the book itself. So I could have just emailed my list and just done a presentation or just released it, and I probably would have sold a lot of copies, but I wanted to use everything in the book to advertise the book, to demonstrate that everything, proof that everything that I do here works and that it'll work for them, too, if they just follow the steps in the book."

This quote explains the strategic decision to use every method from the book to advertise the book itself, serving as a live case study and proof of concept for the strategies outlined within.

• Discussion on the use of affiliate marketing to promote the book launch.
• The author had a large number of affiliates who promoted the event without receiving monetary commissions.
• The strategy was based on goodwill and the reputation of the author's previous work.
• Instead of monetary rewards, top affiliates were offered a live Q&A session with their audiences, adding value to the audience and the affiliate.

"What I made, rather than saying, hey, the top ten affiliates get lamborghinis, which only benefits the affiliate, not their audience, I said, the top ten affiliates, I'll do a live q and a with your entire audience."

This quote illustrates the author's innovative approach to affiliate marketing, which focused on providing value to both the affiliates and their audiences, rather than just offering financial incentives.

• The speaker discusses the importance of creating a win-win-win situation in affiliate marketing.
• A win-win-win scenario benefits the marketer, the affiliate, and the affiliate's customers.
• Most affiliate marketing strategies result in two wins and one loss due to high costs and lack of trust.
• Trust and goodwill are essential before asking for something from the audience.
• The speaker had spent two years providing value before making an ask.

So the official count was we had 542,000 people who registered for the event.

This quote indicates the success of the speaker's approach, showing a high level of engagement and interest in the event they organized.

We sold 100,000 in like ten minutes or something.

This quote highlights the effectiveness of the speaker's marketing strategy, resulting in rapid book sales upon launch.

• The speaker launched a book with a unique sales approach, avoiding large bundles.
• Incentives were offered for purchasing multiple copies, such as a hat for buying three books.
• The strategy was to make business education accessible and encourage sharing the book with friends.
• Half of the customers chose to purchase three books to receive the incentive.

And that was with no large bundles.

This quote emphasizes the speaker's strategy to drive sales without relying on bulk purchase incentives.

We had 50% of people who chose to get three.

This quote demonstrates the success of the speaker's incentive strategy, with a significant portion of customers opting to buy multiple books.

• The speaker emphasizes the importance of word-of-mouth marketing.
• The speaker asks listeners to share the podcast as they do not run ads or sponsorships.
• The goal is to create a cycle of sharing and recommending content, contributing to organic growth.

My only ask is that you continue to pay it forward to whoever showed you or however you found out about this podcast that you do the exact same thing.

This quote reflects the speaker's reliance on organic growth through word-of-mouth marketing rather than paid advertisements.

• The previous book sold 500,000 copies with zero advertising, demonstrating the power of an exceptional product.
• The speaker's goal is to create products that drive customer advocacy and organic sharing.
• Building trust with affiliates is crucial for long-term partnerships and promotion.

You make the product so exceptional that you get that lead getter bucket of customer telling other customers and affiliates, telling other people.

This quote underscores the strategy of creating products of such high quality that they naturally encourage customers to become advocates.

• The speaker emphasizes giving away value as a means to stand out and build a brand.
• The event was designed to demonstrate the book's concepts and was not monetized through upselling.
• The speaker's focus is on delivering value and building goodwill to enhance their reputation and brand.

And so I made a huge pitching presentation to stack all the value that I gave with this book.

This quote illustrates the speaker's approach to providing immense value as a way to create a memorable event and reinforce their brand.

• The speaker offers their book and course for free on their podcast and website.
• Free content is used strategically to dispel myths and build trust.
• Giving away valuable content for free is a tactic to differentiate oneself in a marketplace full of takers.

The book is free, too. So the course is free. The book's free on my podcast.

This quote details the speaker's strategy of offering high-quality content for free as a means to attract and retain an audience.

• In a world of increasing content and decreasing trust, personal brands and authority are becoming more important.
• The speaker predicts that companies will partner with celebrities to build trust due to rising customer acquisition costs.
• The brand is becoming increasingly important, and the speaker's strategy is a long-term brand play.

I believe that personal brands and trust and authority are going to be increasingly important.

This quote highlights the future significance of personal branding and trust in marketing strategies.

• The speaker produces a high volume of content, with 300 pieces a week across all social media platforms.
• The growth from 10,000 to 5 million followers in two years is attributed to the quantity and quality of content.
• The speaker would not advise their younger self differently, as they would not want to risk altering their successful path.

We put 300 a week out.

This quote shows the speaker's commitment to content creation as a key component of their marketing strategy.

• Quantity of work fosters improvement through practice.
• Feedback is crucial for learning and improving.
• The cycle of doing, receiving feedback, and adjusting leads to better quality.
• Quantity with quality is the ultimate goal for growth.

You learn how to do things better by doing more of it.

This quote emphasizes the idea that practice leads to improvement.

You want to do tons of volume with tons of feedback because quality is better than quantity, but you only get quality through quantity, and the only thing better than that is quantity with quality.

The speaker is highlighting the importance of not only producing a large amount of work but also ensuring that it is coupled with feedback to achieve high quality.

• The speaker is proud of their book and the effort put into it.
• A disciplined and rigorous writing schedule was maintained.
• The book was refined through numerous drafts and rewrites.
• The speaker balanced writing with other professional responsibilities.

I did 19 drafts. I had four or four rewrites. I did 6 hours a day for two years.

This quote details the intensive process and dedication behind the creation of the book.

On the book? On the book.

Confirming the focus of work was solely on the book during the specified time.

• Perfectionism can be a disguise for laziness or fear.
• Shipping a product at its current best level is better than endless tweaking.
• The speaker advocates for matching personality to work style and the necessity of hard work.
• Defining the problem clearly helps narrow the focus and scope of a project.

I think a lot of people hide under the guise of perfectionism when it's really just laziness and fear.

This quote suggests that what some call perfectionism is often an excuse to avoid hard work or facing fears.

It's tension between two extremes, right? You've got the MVP, which means minimum viable product. Ship it as fast as you can.

The speaker discusses the balance between shipping a product quickly and taking the time to refine it.

• Iteration is key to product improvement.
• Simplifying and enhancing existing features can be more valuable than adding new ones.
• The speaker's book focuses on a specific part of the customer acquisition process.
• True product innovation often involves making existing features work better.

They got louded, praised by like Tech magazine or Crunch or whatever it is for Dragon 2.0. And in Dragon 2.0 they literally added zero new features. They just made it work better.

This anecdote illustrates that significant improvements to a product can come from refining what it already offers rather than adding new features.

• The speaker's business focus has shifted to brick-and-mortar chains.
• Specialization in a particular area can lead to significant success.
• The company seeks to work with businesses that meet certain profit thresholds.

It's really like if you're doing 2 million or more in profit. And we have actually narrowed our focus a little bit more to brick and mortar chains.

This quote outlines the business criteria and niche focus for investment and partnership opportunities.

• The speaker encourages learning and applying knowledge regardless of experience level.
• The book provides actionable insights for both beginners and established businesses.
• Sharing knowledge and learning from others is part of the growth process.

Even though I've mastered through a certain level, there's so many different things that I was pulling out from. And I was like, okay, cool. I can steal like an artist here.

This quote reflects the speaker's recognition that there is always more to learn and apply, even for those who are experienced.