The Game with Alex Hormozi - Alex's Guest Spot On "Dropping Bombs" with Brad Lea

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

"Alex Hormozi. How to Launch Multiple Successful Businesses"This week, we share Alex's guest spot on the "Dropping Bombs" podcast with host Brad Lea. This is interview you don't want to miss as Alex dives deep into his story, business success, Covid-19, and how to stack life-changing skills.Welcome to The Game w/Alex Hormozi, hosted by entrepreneur, founder, investor, author, public speaker, and content creator Alex Hormozi. On this podcast you’ll hear how to get more customers, make more profit per customer, how to keep them longer, and the many failures and lessons Alex has learned on his path from $100M to $1B in net worth.Follow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn  | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube  | Twitter | Acquisition

Listen up or run for cover. The people who have it. To the people who need it. The real. Bradley is dropping. What it is, Bradley back again with another episode of drop bombs. Today in the studio, folks, I am piping in a freaking champ. You probably heard of them before.

If you haven't, you're about to. His name's Alex Harmosey. Hormozzi. He's the CEO of Jim Launch. okay he's got a meal company he's probably got more companies than i even know about but the reason i brought this cat on is one reason the dude used to sleep on the floor have no money whatsoever and then he started freaking a few businesses and now he's a multi multi multi damn near i i don't even know it might end up he might end up a billionaire smart son of a bitch folks

you better pay attention to this one we're not going to talk much about covid although i want to bring up COVID. Welcome, Alex Harmozzi. What's up, buddy? What's up? Thank you so much for the intro. Honor to be here. Actually, I'm pumped to be here more than anything. I've been looking forward to this podcast since it's been on the calendar. Well, so have I, man, because I'll tell you, dude, when me and you first started talking, I'm thinking, God damn, dude, if this dude ran light speed, I'd already be a billionaire. Because, dude, you do stats, you know, you know what you're doing, you're quick, you're still cool. Like, usually you got to to be some sort of techie nerd type to to to be like you so you've got like the techie nerd that

that I can't you seem to be and you got the cool so you're like a unique mix of things and then also you you know how to build culture you know how to build brands like where'd you learn all this shit um everywhere uh you know Google uh I mean I say that half jokingly but I say that in a lot of seriousness. I think so one of the the major beliefs that we've that I've espoused in our whole community is is knowing what the path looks like in terms of leveling up as an entrepreneur. And at least how I saw it was in the beginning, you're acquiring skills. The next level, you're acquiring character traits. And then after that, you're breaking and challenging beliefs. And I see that as a as three steps that continue to repeat themselves over and over again at each

level. And so like in the beginning, you're learning how to market and sell, right? You're trying to learn how to promote, learn how to get people to buy stuff, right? You're, you don't even know what you're selling. You're just trying to get somebody to give you money, right? And then you start and stop and your shiny object and you're like, you start doing this thing, you start doing that thing, right? You're going all over the place because you don't have the character traits that allow you to be disciplined and patient and consistent, right? And so it's like you had these skills, but you weren't applying them because you didn't have the character traits. And so first you learn the skill, then you learn the character traits. And then you change your beliefs about what you

should be doing for fulfillment. What you should be doing is the opportunity of view that you're going to use to package your skills and ultimately monetize them in. And then you kind of start all over again. You're like, okay, what skill do I need to learn now? I learned how to sell, but now I got to learn how to train someone else to sell. Then I got to learn how to manage a sales team. Then I got learn how to learn how to market. And then I got to learn how to run a graphics department and a video department and copywriting and traffic and media, right? And you're like, oh, wow. So I had to learn each of those skills myself so that I could then teach someone, but then also call someone else out on their BS if they're like, well, that's not possible. You're like,

now see right. Now see right there, dude, that that is my problem because I was about to say, why did you have to learn it yourself? Because you don't have to, if you try to be everything to everybody, you're going to end up a small ass company, which again, you've grown your company to how much now? We did 30. 37 million last year. So, dude, that's like, like, do you think it's hard getting to freaking $37 million? It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, like, go out of a bit in the first year. Then after, like, let's say 92% then after that out of the small

fraction that actually make it a year, a, a, a, a, a, a, uh, a, a, a, uh, a, a, a, a, uh, a, a, so you're reach more than $10 million revenue. Yeah. So you're against all odds and I'm telling you. And you just said it. You learned it so you could call people on their bullshit. For me. Because that's what I cannot do. I go back. I say, man, I need the system to do this. And I, you know, let's make it do that. And then like seven months later, it's like, where are we? And they're like, well, you know, it takes time. And I'm like, oh, okay, well, let me know. You know, and I'm like, dude, if I knew how to code, I could walk back there and be like, bullshit, bro. This should have been done. six months ago. You're out, you're out, you're out. You know how Elon Musk has, he's, he's an

expert at so many things. And I think that's what's allowed him, I mean, a zillion other reasons, but one of the reasons they've been able to innovate so well and create so many unique companies is because he knows a lot about programming. He knows a lot about mechanical engineering. He knows a lot about electrical engineering. He knows a lot about chemistry and plastics and materials. And he knows how to market, he knows how to promote, and he knows how to do PR, and he knows how to recruit. And so all of those things are skills that he had to lace together. And at least for me, like, I don't need to be able to know how to do every single thing. But the biggest skill that I think we, right, as CEOs, have to know is how to be able to recognize true talent. And there's

so many people that talk to talk and sound pretty and look good. But like over time, you develop the partner recognition, you're like, I think you're full of shit. They're like, I think you sound good, but I don't think, I don't think you have the grit, you know. And yeah, it gets back to the big point. It's like, I need to be able to know what's happening so that I can say whether it's good or not or how it needs to be improved. And fortunately, the areas that I don't know the most about, like finance and HR. Like, I don't really, right? Like, I never, I haven't even had the desire to learn about that.

I think we had enough interpersonal awareness to be like, this person comes heavily vetted. I talked to all of the CEOs that they worked with before. I looked at the track record. And then immediately within the first week, I felt relief. And the things they were doing made sense to me. And then I would check with other people that I know that are just as smart. And I had my other finance buddies interview that person to vet them because it's their skill set, not mine. Right.

And so that's how I try and cover the blind spots on the areas that I don't know. But for me, at least as CEO, product, marketing, or product and acquisition are the two things that I feel like I have to know better than just about anyone. And acquisition comes to all forms, marketing, sales, you know, lead nurture, the follow-up sequences, pages, funnels, traffic, buying, like, I need to know that stuff really well. And then to the same degree of the product, right? I need to know more specifically what it's supposed to do, not how the line. a cook. But what the problem it's supposed to solve is. How much time per day did you spend

getting up to speed learning? Um, so I, I right now, uh, work still, uh, 12 hours a day, six days a week. And I haven't really stopped. And you haven't really what? I haven't stop that. I still do that. I don't have kids. My wife works with me. We only need a half day, you know, to feel recharged or whatever. And we start super early. We start at four or five in the morning and we usually go until four or five. So that's kind of our schedule, four or five in the morning, four or five at night. And then we just take up, you know, the last three hours of every day. It's just me and my wife and we have dinner and, you know, just rest and hang out. And then we do it all over the next day. And that's, that's, I've done the same thing since I started. And folks,

if you guys can't see them because you're listening to the audio, you can check us out on YouTube, YouTube.com forward slash VT as in virtual training, Brad Lee, L.E.A. So you can see the dude. The dude, the dude, you have to be, you have to be working out some during part of that 12 hours. Usually I work out after work. I just recently started working out first thing. I've done all different times, usually just depends on what work I'm doing at what time. I'd say if I'm in a heavy build mode, I tend to do my most creative work in the mornings. And so I want to, like, I get out of bed and I already have things I want to start working on. And then at the end of the day, my brain's tired, but my body's fresh. And so then I'll work out. If I have to make more like strategic decisions and

like have to like talk to people in training coach, like the team, then I'll, I'll probably work out in the morning so that I'm mentally, sorry, physically a little bit more calm. And then I can go into the meetings like without my like aggressive aggressive side coming out. So bring me back a little bit. You used to sleep on couches and be just like broke where you still like fitness but just broke because I know a lot of dudes that are so into the gym. Like they always make fun of me because you know I got a little love handle. They're always like, you know, hey, why don't you do it?

Why don't you put a little weight on that bar? And I'm like, why don't you put a little fucking money in the bank? At the end of the day, like you can screw with me about being buff. But, but dude, I can screw with you about being broke. You've got both things covered, but back in the day, were you still into fitness? I was obsessed with fitness until the day opened my business, and then it automatically took a back seat. So you were in shape then? Yes. I've been in shape. I mean, I've been training since I was 13.

So I had a six-pack when I was 14 years old. I've never been out of shape. I think big picture, I've always seek status. And so really the things that would get me girls, And so, you know, when I was in high school, what got you girls was like, at least I thought was being in shape. And, you know, that's what I thought. So you what? It was money. Right. And in college, it was doing well and then getting a good job afterwards.

So I did super well. I did better in college than I did in high school because I didn't really care as much. But then I got a management consulting job. I finished in three years. I was president of fraternity. I did all the things that you're supposed to do to get status in that community. And then as soon as I graduated, I realized none of that matters. You just got to be rich as shit.

And so all of my focus went to towards business. But the habits of like it's hard to unlearn knowing what like I can't. I know what I'm meeting every day because I've been doing it for so long. Like I don't, it doesn't take any mental energy. And then like training, it takes so little energy to maintain what you spent years building that I can work out twice a week for 30 minutes and I can maintain like what I look like now. So you were sleeping on the floor, which basically meant you had no money. Your parents weren't rich. What were they?

Middle class? No, my parents. So my dad's a doctor. But I had a very, so he was like, hey, you should use, you should just take over my practice. What kind of? He's a plastic surgeon. So yeah, he does. Yeah, he does well.

But I never wanted anyone, and this is my own ego. I never wanted anyone to say you were successful because of, your dad. Now that being said, my dad loved me and he supported me and he put me in, you know, good school. So like, I can never really get around that, right? You gave me good genetics, whatever you want to say, right? But insofar, it's like, I saved the money for me working as management console for two years. I saved 60 grand. When I was 22, I'd save 60 grand by the time I turned 23. And that's when I opened my first facility. I spent all of the money I had and I saved $10,000, uh, left over. The rent was $5,000 a month.

And so I had two months worth of rent on a five-year lease. And I had never sold anything in my life. In fact, I was offered a job at Merrill Lynch to be on the sales side for wealth management. And I said, I'm not a salesman. That's not who I am. I'm an academic. And so, and as soon as I opened my doors, I was like, shit, I got to get people to give me money.

And so that I learned real fast. Yeah. So when you were saving that 60 Gs and you opened your business. You were basically sleeping on the floor of the business. Yeah, I slept at the gym for the first nine months. So like literally, like that's not one of those. I walked uphill both ways and carried a baked potato on the way so I could keep my hands warm. And when I got there, that was my lunch.

Right. No, that, I slept on the floor for the first nine months. But the caveat. Even though you had 60 Gs in the bank. No, I spent that to open the business. So I saved 60. And then I spent that to build the gym. And where were you, where were you sleeping when you save 60?

Just in my apartment. Because a lot of times, dude, people can't save $60,000. Like that's to me, like, dude, you save 60 freaking Gs. Like, how do you do that? When I, how old were you? 21 through 23. See, when I was 21, number one, I'd be lucky if I was making 60 Gs. Actually, I was.

But I was blowing it. Yeah. Dude, I was blowing it. Trying to, trying to chase that tail, look cool, impressing. people. How did you, was it your upbringing that or you were just smarter than me? No, my dad, my dad's first generation immigrant. And so he came here with a suitcase and nothing. And now he built his, his whole life off of just work ethic. And so like that's, and we never spent money. You wouldn't know that I was raising money because we wouldn't use paper napkins at the dinner

table because he's like, it's a waste of money. We didn't use paper towels because they were expensive. Like he's a plastic surgeon, but like he never stopped living that way. And so that that translated over like the car that I had I bought for 5,000 in cash. So I had no payment on it. I had no nothing. And I lived on $1,100 a month while I was a management consultant. And that's a really good paying job. And so I lived all in on that.

And I lived in Baltimore. But all of my work was in D.C. And or in Omaha, Nebraska at Strachcom. So I used to work space cyber and intelligence, different lines. life than now. But it was, during that contract work, I was paid well. And that's what I saved it. Well, if anyone's listening, that's the first thing you guys got to figure out is how to save money and not spend it. Not like me, dude, when I started Lightspeed, I was pretty much broke. I had child support. I had car payments. I'd lived beyond my means as a salesperson and a sales manager.

You know, I spent, I was making three, four hundred grand before I quit, but I'd spend it. So again, I was just broke at another level. And when I first started my business, you know, it was hard to get going. So, so literally I had a one bedroom apartment. No, I had a two bedroom apartment. I was, I was, I didn't have much furniture. I needed a lot of shit, car payments, all this. Problem is is when I started making 10,000 a month with lightspeed, which took a while.

I took five of it and hired somebody. Everyone was like, dude, what are you doing? And I was, I didn't even think about it. I was building the company. I wasn't thinking about getting more dialed in. I wasn't thinking about new furniture. I wasn't thinking about a nicer car, getting caught up. I was thinking about building the business.

And so when I look back, man, I basically did the same thing. I reinvested money and didn't worry about getting a nicer house. And that was the hardest thing. I think most people had to figure out is, you know, scaling their business by reinvesting and living low. And you were doing the same thing. Layla and I have one car. You still live low. Yeah. We live on less than $9,000 a month. Still? Yeah. Damn, dude. Yeah. I know that may sound like a lot to the listeners, but for relative scale, that's less than 1% of what I take home every month. Not only that, but dude, 9,000 a month.

dude is like you ain't living high on the hog then i bought my house in cash i know uncle g said no but i have no payments i have no debt uh everything i own is in cash and that's just like i didn't want anxiety so for me i'm actually really security driven ironically as an entrepreneur so like once i make the money i never want to lose it and so like i've just i just i've been broke and i did not enjoy it and i don't want to be broke ever and so that's how i well great attention to what that lesson is so so you so you save 60 G's you've opened up a gym you you basically invested all your money and we're willing to sleep on the floor for nine months did you say yeah nine months why didn't you a wrinkle to that that will make that story a little better go

ahead I increase the revenue of the gym by $5,000 a month every single month for that period of time and I still slept on the floor so I was sleeping on the floor and I was taking home 25,000 a month be just because you like to be there I think there's a little bit I've been I think there's a certain degree of like definitely internal fucked upness of like enjoying the grit and the struggle and being like, I'm going to tell this fucking story. But I also really just like making money and seeing it go up in my bank account. So you're like, it's like a scoreboard. It's a game.

Yeah. I got addicted. Like every time I'd think about am I going to spend something, I would be like, I really want to make sure I go up this month. And so I just'm like, I'd rather go up. And that's just like pretty much how it's always been. I mean, literally my wife right now, she's like, let's get a second car. And this has been like our discussion of the last probably two months.

She's like, get a second car. I'm like, what do we need a second car for? You know? And then she was like, the G wagon's really nice. And I'm like, I know, it's nice. I'm like, why don't we just get another? Let's just get a pickup for like 20 grand and then like not think about it. She's like, hey, when are you going to stop living like this?

And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. But then I see Warren Buffett. I see Charlie Munger, you know, living in $60,000 middle America households. And I'm like, I'm sure there's a balance. point, but I think I lean, I mean, not them, but I lean more to that side than to the Lambeau and all that. And the car I have, I got for free. I'm on the other side. It's almost like if someone, if you did have kids and they went to you and said, dad, can I borrow $30? You'd say,

$20. What do you need $10 for? Yeah. What can you work for free? It's like you're the type of dude that just likes that scoreboard. Interesting. All right. So it started doing, it started making money. And then when did it, when did it click and say, shit, I need to open up a chain? Or like, how did gym launch secrets get going? So I'll give you a shorter story as I can. Basically, I had the plan was never to have one gym. So I went into this wanting to build America's next like huge fitness facility. And I wanted it to be based on transformations and results. And like, that's what I really wanted to be about. And so. The thing that I was able to do well was I was able to open up each facility at full capacity on the first day, except for the first one. So I went to this Facebook marketing conference. I learned how to run Facebook ads in 2013. And so it was a two-day conference.

It was an intensive. It was like, what was that? What was that cost you? So it cost me $3,000 to go to this two-day, like, intensive. And this was my first thing I ever bought in the information space. And the promise was if you made you were you're going to make $10,000 by the end of the weekend Or you got your money back and I was like okay like sure and I didn't have like I mean the whole gym cost me 50 I had 60 so three was like three of the 10 that was left so like it was a lot to me And like, you know I'm cheap.

So like, I was like, all right, like I got to figure this out. And after the weekend, I did not make $10,000. But I learned how to run Facebook ads and I got it. I was like, I see how this works. I can I can figure this out. And so I was able to run ads and that's what allowed me to start filling up the facility quickly. And by month nine, that's actually when I had fully outsourced the facility. So at that point, I had all the trainers, the manager.

It was running without me being there. And so at month 15, I was able to open up my second level. location that cost me 250,000. And so I'd been able to save up just about 200 at that point from the cash of the business to open up the second location. And then every six months after that, I opened up a new facility at full capacity. And so I opened up six locations over the next three years total. And then I started going to these internet marketing conferences and things like that. And I saw this guy Russell Brunson speak. And he wasn't allowed to pitch. So he just like talked about funnels and stuff and I was like this guy knows what he's talking about this is cool and um a year went by I

never did anything and one night I was uh this is during a different period of my life I was drinking about half a bottle of Johnny Walker black every day because I had nothing to do I was bored out of my mind like all six the gyms were running and I was at home and I had I had nothing to do I would text and be like who you need anything and they were like I guess we need some like ink for the printer and I'd go on Amazon I'd buy anything else they're like no like we're good I was like all right And so I went and I saw he was like looking for inner circle members, whatever. And then I signed up for his coaching group for $25,000, which again was a ton for me at the time for still as a gym owner. Like I was I was asset rich cash poor because every time I had more money, I opened another facility.

And that was like basically I just stack, stack, stack, another facility. Stack stack, another facility. That's how I did it. But as soon as I showed up with the first thing there, he said, and the biggest thank you that I have to Russell in my whole life is that he broke a belief for me. And so that's why I think these progressions of skills first. I learned how to market and sell and I learned how to operate run a business. And then there were character trace that allowed me to do it more consistently. And then I met Russell and he's like, he said this. I'm not saying I, you know, necessarily

I say anything bad. He was like, you're too good to be a gym on. He's like, you're, you have a level 10 skill set and a level two opportunity. That's what he told. And so it like hit me like a ton of bricks. I was like, shit. And so I was like, but this guy makes more money than me. And so I will listen. And so I sold my gyms. I took his advice and then I started launching gyms. So I started going to other facilities and filling them up to full capacity like I had done mine. So I would open, I would basically take a gym in 30 days from zero to full doing all the marketing and sell stuff. And I would keep all the upfront revenue. But I was flying out. And then eventually, I scaled up to a sales team of eight guys.

And every month, we'd launch eight gybs flying out to different cities, launching these gyms. And I keep all the upfront, and then they would get the members. So they'd get 200 free members. I'd get the first six weeks of cash, and then the rest was theirs. And that was kind of the tradeoff. So there's no risk to them. I had all the risk, and that's why I got all the upfront. But then quickly, I was like, this is not a very logistically scalable model.

So at that point, I was doing about $350 a month when I started launching the gyms. And I was like, you know what? There's a number of things that happened in the period of time that the model didn't work out. I didn't have any control of the fulfillment so we could sell somebody, but the people who were coming to me were typically failing gym owners. So they didn't have good product. They weren't good. And so I would sell them and then they would do a horrible job on fulfillment. And then I was the one who's carrying the risk of the processing transaction. And so we get refunds and chargebacks and all sort of stuff. And I was like, this just, they didn't feel right. It was close, but it was wrong.

And so what ended up happening is I said, Layla, she was with me at the time. I said, why don't we just start selling online and forget the gyms? Like, we'll just sell straight. We'll sell weight loss. We'll just sell straight to consumers. And we said, cool. And so within 14 days, we're in $1,000 a day.

I was like, this is great. We'll take the eight sales guys. We'll bring them in. It's going to be awesome. We'll do $8,000 a day. This could work. And so I have eight more gyms that were supposed to launch the next month. They were supposed to.

And so I called him up and I was like, hey, we're not because I had to book these things out a couple months in advance. And so I called him up, I was like, hey, you know, we're not going to be doing this thing anymore. You know, we're going another direction. And the guys were like, listen, man, like, I need this. Like, I maxed up to my credit cards, up to my ears and debt. Like, I need like, I need these clients, man. And I was like, like, I don't know what to tell you about.

Like, I'm not doing it anymore. And then finally, I was like, you know what? I'll show you how to do it. I was like, but I'm not flying out there to save your ass if you can't sell. And they're like, no, no, that's fine. That's fine. And so they were like, well, how much? And at the time, I picked the highest number that I,

I could think of for selling something, which was $6,000. I was like, six grand. And I wanted him to say no. That's why I tried to pick a high number. I didn't want to do it. And he was like, okay. And I was like, you would have thought, I would have, if you had looked at my face when that happened, I was like, holy shit.

And I was like, okay. And then I called up the second guy who was supposed to launch for that next month. I had eight. Same conversation. He was like, how much? And I was like, eight grand. He was like, okay. And I was like, and I called the rest of the guys.

And I made $60,000. from that day. And I was like, holy shit. And so I looked at Layland. I was like, babe, we're not getting out of the gym industry. I was like, we were just doing it wrong. And so I think that's interesting because you can have the same skill set, but packaged in different opportunity vehicles can create massively different results. And so over the weekend, I built the whole training system and all that stuff. And then we launched it. And all eight of those guys made 40 grand in their first month using using all of our systems. And then that was March of 17. And since then, you know, We sold now the program 16,000.

We have a yearly kind of group that we continue to coach people and improve their businesses. That's 35,000 a year. And we now have 3,100 gyms that purchased that $16,000 program, you know, across 14 countries, over 2,500 in the U.S. alone. And so it's been a ride. And so that's that was kind of the impetisive of gym launch skyrocketing. A year and a half later, I started a supplement company, Prestige Labs, because all the gyms, I sold supplements a ton at my gyms, and I never really had anything that worked well.

I just, I needed to do it as a good profit stream. But there was a ton of problems with how, like, the traditional model set up with like fronting the inventory and all that kind of stuff. And so we made a zero inventory model for the gyms, for the POS that worked integrated into their, into their back end, to track to the trainer and everything. And so we launched that first month, they did $1.7 million. and then that's pretty much stayed as a constant. That's another like $15 to $20 million a year revenue stream for me.

That comes from the supplement company. We started meals this last December, which Radd was referencing. We started that. Again, into the distribution basis. It's just solving the next problems. And then in about a year and a half ago, we started building a software, which has been pretty much the thing that I focus, at least half my time on is building that out because it's not just for gyms, it's for any

vertical. And so that's now, it did 580 last month and it's sixth month of being around. So that's pretty exciting for us. It's, it's, it's just kind of just recently hit its hockey stick. And it's just, it's getting a lot of traction because we spent so much time. Brad knows from other conversations how much time I've put into this thing. It is, it is a data machine. And it is awesome. So I can talk more about throughput from clicking. to close all the way through. But that's what it was built to do, is to optimize how many dollars a brick and mortar business gets

off their marketing. And it's really good. So that's kind of the story. The scalability of that, huh? What was that? You must love the scalability of SaaS model software. It's crazy. It is incredibly.

So to anybody who just knows Brad as, as Bradley, the guy you saw as the influencer, the guy on Instagram or whatever, like running a SaaS business is the, hardest type of business. You have the sharpest minds. It's the most competitive world. They're well capitalized. They're venture-backed. You're fighting against the smartest dudes in the game, right? Like the level of people who competed in MLM versus a brick and mortar versus online

marketing versus like you continue to go up in skill set. And I think the tip top of that, look at the biggest businesses in the world. They're all software-based businesses. Biggest ones, they own the world. And so you have the smartest, bright, the skies that you're competing against. And it's expensive. it takes time. You have to make really hard tradeoffs and strategic decisions. And it's been amazingly, it's been lots of fun because of the challenges because it's a different level of game. But yeah, so I mean, I love the, I love the software side. Because you also have something that you can show, right? Like this is what it, you can show someone this, whereas, you know, with information or coaching, things like that, it's a result that they're going to experience.

Otherwise, you're just showing them videos, portal, et cetera. But with SaaS, you can, you can show what you're doing, which I think is just very cool as an entrepreneur. So if I'm a gym owner listening to this and I'm like shut down right now, how do you help a shutdown gym right now? So we, nine months ago or 10 months ago now, I took a really public stance that I got a lot of flack for that I thought that there was going to be a recession coming and that I thought that there was going to be an event of some sort. I definitely didn't guess it was going to be a flow.

But I thought there was some event that was going to pop the bubble around brick and mortar group training. And the signs were showing, at least for the brick and mortar gym models, because there were lots of the market had slowed down in its growth, profit marvellous were dropping. Price was getting driven down towards the commoditized services. And guys are barely making it in the best economic times. And so I was like, as soon as they shake the tree, 30 of you guys are going out of business. And so the solution that I presented then is the same solution we have now, which is you need to pivot to. to having remote services, having one-on-one online services, in addition to your in-person training.

It's higher margin. It increases your scale. I believe it's more valuable because people value convenience and personalization more than anything. And that's not going to change. That's human beings. And so those are best that I would be willing to make. And so we made those videos and then I got lots of shit for them.

And then COVID happened. Then I got less shit for making those videos. So that was nice. But our guys had already, we'd already built out the entire system. And so overnight, we pivoted our whole community. And so our whole community is selling just as much, if not more now, online than they were in person. And a lot of our guys are just contemplating whether or not they even want to go back because they make more money. What's their brick and mortar doing?

Nothing. Oh, yeah. And I mean, they're closed. They can't do it. I mean, there's nothing. You can't. I mean, some of them were, a lot of them were able to transition their in-person clients to remote. But on top of that, they sell remote service.

for people that aren't currently customers. Couldn't you couldn't if you're a gym out there in your in your clothes, can't you figure out a way to become an essential facility? Like for example, doctors are essential. So bring a doctor in and consider the workout medically based. Wouldn't that work? You might.

I wouldn't say that it's like that it wouldn't work. For me, it was I had to think of what is something that they can all do? tomorrow to generate cash flow. And so converting their existing customers into remote clients, most of them are able to keep 90% of their clients. Really? And when you say remote, like I'm going to log in in the morning, do a Zoom and work out in my house?

No, so that's the way the majority of the market is doing it. I'm not saying the majority of the market is doing your job. Our guys are doing your job. And so... But is that what you mean? I'm going to log in and do fitness watching you and listening to you from home? No, I mean, that could be a component of it. But the big difference between...

So, big picture, if you're in the... I'll take a... have 90 seconds on gyms. If you're in the gym industry, you're not going to beat Beachbody at having online workouts. They've been doing it for 20 years, the better than you at it. All right?

They're huge. They're well capitalized. They can beat you at it and they're cheap. I almost close those pricks on light speed about eight years ago. Close them. Hey, Carl, if you're listening, you should use light speed.

I think Carl, again, Carl was in the room. I almost closed them, but I think they ended up trying to copy it. Well, just build their own, not copy it.

But at the end of the day, I almost close those pricks, dude. That would have been a good. Damn it, Carl. So you're not going to compete with them there, right? In the same degree, you're not going to compete with like free workout diet plans, right? Like you can Google them and get them for free. So all that stuff is free already.

So what competitive advantage can a service-based facility offer that no one else can? Accountability is making sure you do the shit that you're supposed to do. It's not the thing that you're doing that's the value. It's the making sure that you do it. That's the value. And so we sell the. accountability proportion as the primary piece. Now we have the software behind that. That one I didn't build. We just private labeled something and then custom build a bunch of stuff into it. That was

all of our systems and our messaging so that we could give people the, hey, you just had your first workout. How was it? Hey, what can I change? And so instead of having group workouts are actually individualized workouts for the person. And so think about it instead of, hey, I was paying $150 a month for in person. Why would I pay $150 a month for remote? Instead it's, I was paying $150 a month. months for group and now I'm paying 150 a month for one-on-one. And that's the key differentiators that now we're selling one-on-one service, but it's much more scalable because you're selling in a remote setting. Does that make sense? Listen up folks, if you got a gym or your, what about personal trainers? They're in the exact same boat. You're going to have to sell accountability. You're

going to have to sell one-on-one. And that's where you're going to be able to still get $200, $300 a month all day long from GenPop for that level of service. In fact, a lot of people actually prefer the one-on-one convenience of being able to have workouts catered to them, nutrition plan catered to them, and someone who's checking in on them every day to make sure they're actually doing it and tracking their progress. No gyms are doing that in group training, and that's why it's more valuable. What about leasing out your equipment? Like to me, there's a gym by my house.

I would run down there. It was Fitness 19. They're closed. Like I didn't know the owner, but man, I'm telling you, I was like going, shit, dude, I wish I had that piece of equipment at my house real quick. Like, I'd have kept paying and I'd have gave him a hundred bucks a month just to say, hey, let me use that for a while. Like, you're not using this son of a bitch. Get to my house. I'll give you a hundred bucks a month to use that, those pieces of equipment. Yeah, they're definitely, they're definitely a bunch of gyms that did that. Again, when I come up with solutions for our community, I have to think, what's the, what's the lowest what's the lowest hanging fruit that everyone can execute without a lot of operational drag?

And that's going to feed them. All right. Now let's take a little abrupt turn only because I know you like data from talking to you offline. Like, dude, you get freaking excited about data. I don't know if you call it data or data. At the same time, you like numbers. So here's my question. What the hell is going on with this COVID?

shit, dude. Is it blow? Are you in LA? Are you in California? No, I'm in Austin. I'm in Texas. Oh, thank God. Dude, I'm telling you, like Washington, the state of Washington, California, there's there's states, certain states that are just like going, they're just stupid. But the whole country is stupid. What do you think's happening? I really liked that you framed this question with data because that's how I talk about it. I think this is like, what's happening right now is a perfect example of having people interpreting data differently. Right. the quality of the data. Because ultimately, if everyone believed that the data, like in this, this extrapolates to business decisions, this extrapolates to how you run companies, all of this, why people who have the same values, most people in this country have the same value.

Why would they, if presented with the same data, make different decisions, right? And so right now, the question, the thing that's being brought into question is the validity of the data. is are these deaths really COVID, right? Like, or are there alternative incentives at bed? Right now, hotel, excuse me, hospitals are going out of business. Doctors are getting furloughed because there's no one who's going to hospitals. So the idea that they're overrun massive, like across the country is pretty much a fallacy. Like that, I think if you talk to doctors, like my neighbors in the yard doc, like you talk to them like they're empty, right?

And so then you have the economic incentive for them, which is that you get $13,000, for every person who's COVID. Well, shit. If I have no more revenue and every death that I have has the potential. Now, in order for you to, this is my understanding. Isn't that fraud? That's fraud. Right.

In order for you to mark, to denote someone as COVID, they don't need to be tested positive. They just need to show symptoms of COVID, which could be a cough or signs of weakness. Now, I don't know about you, but most people before they die, who does not cough or showing a sign of weakness. Oh, yeah. So you're putting good, good intentions people, and then you're creating a situation where it would make almost logical sense economically, where you're being permitted to get funding where you can no longer generate revenue by marking something because you made the requirements for that. You must mark anyone who shows these symptoms. Now, we've always seen, we've seen the dramatic decrease in pneumonia deaths and tuberculosis deaths and heart to these deaths.

but I looked at the deaths from last year. So I did dive a little bit into this. And mind you, just for everybody, I've never voted. I don't care. But I just like to look at what is, right? And so if you look at the deaths from last year, same time, to deaths this year at the same time, from a statistic standpoint, they're the same.

And so the same amount of people are dying right now is we're last year. And so just from COVID now. Right. But like forgetting how we're coloring it, the total deaths, because you'd think if there was a pandemic that was most, murdering people everywhere, right? That there would be an increase of deaths. That would be natural, right? An increase of people would be dying if there's something that's worth shedding the whole

country down. But we're not safe. The same total number of people are dying. Now, whether we're allocating it to COVID or not is less my, I'm not, I'm not the one checking the boxes, right? Well, we are. We are doing that. And you already hit it. It's because they get paid. Now, my question is, if they said no more money for COVID, we don't care if they're COVID or flu, no more money for COVID. Do you think all of a sudden the COVID-19 pandemic would end? I think hospitals would go out of business. What do you mean?

Because the pandemic would end, wouldn't it? Right. And I, as the downstream effect of that is that the whole point of flattening the curve was to not, or at least what we were told, or at least my understanding was, we were trying to flatten the curse. We don't overwhelm the healthcare system. Yeah. The healthcare system is underwhelmed.

They are going out of business getting furloughed because no one's there. And that's a fact. That's not a theory. Right. You're not conspiracy theorying? I have the powers that be I have no statement on. It's just that so yes, I think the incentives are misaligned. I think that you fundamentally like that when you made the rules that way, the game was going to be played this way.

Whether it was intentional or not is another discussion. But like I can see why someone would say, yeah, well, if they if they have COVID, then we want to give them funding. That makes sense. Well, we don't have any tests. So we should just say if it looks like COVID. That makes sense in theory. But in then in practicality, it means anyone who shows any sign of weakness before they die, I can get $13,000 for them.

Then human incentives is going to kick it. That's just my two cents. And not making it a felony to be wrong. So at the end of the day, again, I wouldn't blame a hospital. If I owned a hospital and the government came in and said the same thing, dude, I don't consider it fraud. It's like, dude, if they have an indication that they might have COVID, you can get 13 Gs. I'd be going, dude, that dude was coughing.

He looks like COVID. Doesn't that guy smells like COVID doesn't he? He was sniffling and that's the COVID thing. So COVID COVID COVID, COVID. Well, now these numbers start piling up and all of a sudden it's like, see, I'm just wondering, though, is it, is it all coincidental and accidental? Or is there some seriously sinister motherfucker somewhere doing this on purpose? Like in other words, it was all a master plan. They knew offering money for COVID patients would cause all these people because those doctors, you know,

they were talking, which they get deleted all the time, saying, hey, why are we being pressured to put COVID? They said they're being pressured to put. Why? Probably because of the funding. Like if you don't do it, we don't make $13. Yeah, but oh, well, who is pressuring them? It was the question. Because if it was the hospital owners, well, then that would make sense.

What if it's the politicians? What if it's the government? That, I don't know. I don't have the, I think that most people, a lot of times and take this with a great assault. But I think most conspirators typically aren't right. And that's just people attribute, they just, they worst case scenario of it.

I think the amount of coordination it would take to make something like this happen and the level of prediction that it would take to know all of the human incentives that are going to kick in at every level with this much panic seems unrealistic to me. But I can describe the current scenario, you know what I mean?

And I can say that it doesn't really make sense now, at least from where I'm sitting, You see it ending soon. From an economic standpoint? No. Do you see someone coming out going, all right, frick, we were wrong. Go ahead. Go back to work.

Right now you've got to wear masks. We're rolling it out in phases. They're worried about the second wave. You know, it's all this like, dude, the governor in Washington is like putting together National Guard to go door to door and testify. To remove people or whatever, yeah. And then you got, and then you got Governor Newsome and California, he's basically saying, well, we're going to lock down until August. Here's my question.

Based on what? Like, when, when laws get made, man, there has to be a bill introduced. Then it has to get past, I think, the Senate or the House. Then it goes to the Senate. Then it goes to the president before it's a law. You remember the old, you know, sitting here on Capitol Hill. Remember that cartoon? Well, you can Google it because, yeah, you're a young man. I'm an old dog. But there used to be an after-school cartoon that would be like there'd be a rolled-up piece of paper, but he had a face. And they'd be like, I'm just a bill sitting here on Capitol Hill. And basically was teaching kids how laws became laws.

Okay. So who says that there's a law that you can't go outside? When did it go to the Senate and then the House and then the president signed it? Yeah. We're in agreement. I think it's ridiculous. I try not to think about it because I end up just getting angry. And then it doesn't help my, it doesn't help my state, doesn't help me operate my business.

So I try not to engage in it too much because it's very frustrating. Because most entrepreneurs, most people are listening to this, our entrepreneurs are aspiring to me. We all seek freedom, right? Like even more so than general population, right? Like we're in America, which by its very nature is a more free country than anywhere else. And then of that cream of the crop, the craziest motherfuckers want the freest freedom, which is

entrepreneurs. We want no one to tell us what we have to do. Like, I still get bothered, have, getting told to put a mask on when I go into public because I'm like guys come on like this is the flow I have to get into some places like to get groceries well you don't go get oh you must I was gonna say I was five dollars to fucking deliver them so that that's out of the question Instagram's like six days to late that's that's out of the question for the hormone I want to talk to Layla and see if she likes it or hates it oh she hates it yeah I would too do my wife would not put up with that shit

Yeah, she hates it. So, but I'm a big believer in controlling the things we can control. And so right now, these are the cards that were dealt. I'm going to just play the hand. Well, here, let me just see if I can help you a smidge. Yeah. Spend some fucking money, dude. I'm serious.

Like, dude, you got one car and your wife wants another one and you're like, why do we need one? You don't need one. You don't, you can have two more and nothing's going to happen. You won't lose one ounce of sleep. You won't make less of an impact. Nothing's going to happen except for you make your wife happy. So now. I said okay.

I said okay. Okay, good. But 20 grand's their limit. You guys are doing 37 million here. But, you know, hey, go get a Camry. Ain't no fucking Mercedes happening around here. Which is great because then we can drive it without worrying about it. Like somebody tries to cut me off in my lane.

We're like, you're going to hurt the camera. I'm good with it. Dude, you can do that with any car. I had a 4-8-8 Ferrari and everyone kept going like, dude, I can't believe you park it right there. I can't believe you drive it like that. I can't believe you give it to the ballet guy. Guess what? Number one, it's insured just like a fucking camera.

Number two, if you own your possessions, then they don't own you. But most people buy these things and then those things actually end up owning the person. Because they won't do that. They're worried, ooh, someone might scratch my car. Would you care if they scratched a fucking Camry? Well, it's just a Camry. Dude, it's just a car. It's just a fucking expensive car, but it's still a car.

That's a funny story about that. I rolled up to my first mastermind. So this is like we just started Jim Lawson. This may be 90 days later. We're doing maybe 250, 300 a month. But now, 250, 300 a month by like an information. So I'm taking home like 250 to 300 a month. And I at this point, I'm a scratch millionaire.

Cash millionaire in my bank account. after taxes like it's there. And we roll up in a Prius with a crack in the windshield and the dent on the side to the mastermind. And I swear to God, there was a lady outside who was one of our clients. And she said, I thought you were supposed to be like,

rich. She literally said this to me. And I was like, I am. You should see my bank account. But at that point, it was like, we should get another guy. It looks bad. So. Well, if I have any influence on you,

which I'm sure I don't. Spend some money, dude. What if you got hit by a car or something? What if you get COVID? What am I getting COVID? I probably, I've already had it. I'm sure I've had it.

Yeah, but you said you don't have any kids. So what do you do with your money? Well, Layla can then spend it on whatever she wants. What if you die together? If we die together, then my dad can spend it or whatever he wants.

Why don't you? My dad doesn't spend it on him. Is he tight, too? Yeah, he's the one with the paper napes. He's the one with the paper towels. Oh, whatever. So let's go back to the drama and the conspiracy just for a minute. So step one,

the whole plan was to flatten the curve. Man, we can't overwhelm our hospitals because if we do, man, we're all going to die because we won't have enough beds. Okay, so that's already been accomplished. We flatten the curve. Why are they not letting us get back out there? I think it transitioned to politics at that point. So that's my, that's just what I would observe. It's like, what's the money? Where's the motive? But who you think is the fault? Democrats or Republicans? Well, I think that the Democrats would have the most to gain from taking the economy

because the only way that Trump would get unelected is if they can attack that. I mean, that makes sense to me. So on some level, it's like, well, maybe if we hold out, if we can take the country until then, there's also some state incentives, right? Like California is so so bankrupt as a state, right? That maybe if they further take their economy, they can blame it on. COVID and then they can get a bailout from the federal government, federal government, and then balance their budget. That's exactly what's happening. Right. That would make sense to me as an

incentive. Now, is that horrible? Does that mistreat everyone in your state? Absolutely. Like, it's horrible. You're the first one that I've talked to that actually, you know, identifies with that. I've said that three times that these states that are seemingly being more restricted than the rest all seem to be the states that were financially not doing as well as the rest. And when you think they'll give $13,000 for a dead body, I mean, or a COVID patient, $39,000 if you put them on a ventilator. Yeah. How much are they paying if you fucking tank your whole state's economy?

Like, they'll just bail you out. Right. They'll just print money. I mean, it's not backed by anything. So the Fed can just, I mean, they can write a check to whoever if they want to. Well, that's poor leadership. Poor leadership. I think that's horrible.

But we're kind of witnessing it. So again, I try not to, it's what can I control? I can control how much we can market and how much we can sell and if we can solve the problems. Like that's what we can do for now. If I was in California, I feel really bad because, you know, most small businesses can't, can't sustain for six months. You know, because they're close through August, right? Through August, average small business owner is 21 days of cash on people. Wouldn't you move if you live there?

I would, I mean, I already did move away. I used to live in Sokowl. So I totally would move. I did. For taxes? Yeah. Yeah. Anybody would see, that's my point.

Like anybody that's smart, like even semi-smart, would not live there just because of stupid-ass taxes. Now you introduce this strict COVID bullshit. Dude, I'd be so fast out of SoCal, it'd be over with. Like, I'd already be moving. Many or no money. I'd be out. Yeah. What's scaring me is that I don't see any, you know, leadership, if that's what you want to call it, stopping it. Like I think if I were Trump, I'd tell Newsom, hey, Newsom, okay, stop.

Anyone that did this, I'd be like, dude, Nash, we're taking over. Feds are taken over. This is leadership. All 50 states are going to listen to me right now. Boom. Do you have no more independence right now? We're 50 and we're going to act as one. Here's the leadership. I'd get rid of. to Fauci because he's a freaking scared tactic. Some of the bitch that has ties to gates and all that. And then I just freaking tell people, listen, there's a virus that can kill old people with comorbidities. The data is this. Now make up your own mind because this is a free country. If you want to open your restaurant and somebody wants to come in and eat at that

restaurant, then freaking you both are adults have at it. If you're scared, stay home. The last thing I'm going to talk about. If you want to have unprotectic sex and you're in an HIV hot zone, you should know it's an HIV hot zone. Probably don't do that in sub-Saharan Africa. Yeah. And why aren't they shutting down the world for that? So my question, last question when it comes to this COVID shit, because I want to get back to the marketing. I want to pick the brain real quick on marketing. We're almost out of time, but I want to pick it a little farther. But what about masks? Yeah. I mean, I think I don't,

I don't know anyone who's like, I'm fairly sure from what I have heard. her. A, the masks that are being required, I'm not saying masks don't work in general, but the masks that are being required are not the ones that work. And so, and if I pull my shirt up or I put a bandana on my face, right, to go to the supermarket, like, what am I, what am I? And then some people wearing gloves, some people not wearing gloves. Most people don't even know how to put a mask on right. They put it on their head. They put on the forehead. They touch their face again. It does, like it doesn't, it doesn't do the prevented measure. What I would argue for masks is that it makes people aware of germs while they're wearing it.

It doesn't actually have any functional thing, but psychologically, people are wearing it and they're going to be more cognizant of germs in general. That would be the really. What about hypoxia? What about breathing in your own carbon monoxide? I don't know how about it. I mean, I think there's a lot of workers every day

that breathe through masks, painters, nurses, surgeons who are in, in surgery all day. I think they do okay. That's where I would look if I was the full data. You say, oh, okay. See, now this is why I asked you because, dude, I knew I'd get intelligent, common sense, logical, data-driven answers. Serious. Like, dude, I can ask some people, they get all emotional and shit.

Like, fuck down. They're trying to control us all. You know, and I'm one of them a little bit. Like, I'm getting pissed with this mask shit. Okay. Fuck you in your mask. Okay. I don't want to wear a goddamn mask, period.

Okay. Now, again, if I had COVID and it prevented people from getting it, Of course I would wear a mask voluntarily. But number one, I don't have COVID. And then they're like, well, how do you know? There's people with COVID that are asymptomatic. And I said, how the fuck do you know that there's people with COVID with asymptomatic or they're asymptomatic? Guess what?

The news said it. Exactly. You're fucked nut. You ain't out there performing fucking test and verifying people have COVID, but they've got no symptoms. This is crazy. This guy is testing positive for COVID, but yet he has no symptoms. This shit can be asymptomatic. Who says that?

I'll bet you 50 fucking bucks. That's bullshit if you ask me. Like, dude, have the flu asymptomatic. Dude, if you got the flu, you got some fucking symptoms. Okay, period. Now they're saying COVID is asymptomatic. No, no, no. That's so they can claim things.

That's what I believe. Because, again, how do you know if someone has COVID? took a test. Okay, what's that test testing for? How do we know that test is even testing for COVID? That's a, that's a whole other, I would say there's two, there's two points that I would have delineated on what you were just saying. We talked about how we're marking deaths. Another part of data quality is how are we marking positives, right, in terms of cases. So now this is, this is 100% anecdotal, so this is me speaking off conjecture. But my closest, my closest friend is a PSC biochemist. And he was explaining to me that, you know, coronavirus is a family of viruses.

And it's not just COVID-19. It's, and the tests that they have right now are testing, this was from my understanding from he said, it tests for a certain protein, but that belongs to the whole family. And so it's not just that one that they've isolated. It's just the whole thing. And then that automatically makes the tests kind of invalid. And they're not accurate. So then you have false positives or, you know, whatever.

So it's like both data sources that we're using to make the decision. decisions if you were actually making decisions as a CEO if you're making decisions about your business and your salespeople got commissions for marking people as showed up for their appointment but not closed all of a sudden you'd have so many showups that be showing up to what you didn't close them right well I just marked that they showed up right I still get paid if they show up right and so you know what I mean that's kind of the the teeter totter there the the second piece was what you're saying about the asymptomatic I actually see it in a different light with asymptomatic. I think that a ton of people have already had it.

They just didn't show anything, which then means that we have a lot more herd immunity that's already been encountered. Because big picture with germs, in my opinion, if there were something, we'd all be fucked. Like that's just, like, that's my actual belief. Because the amount of times we touch things, touch our face, we get boxes in the mail where someone drops them up.

The driver touches the wheel. Like there's too many times. And what do they do? They keep their glove on. They touch their face. or they touch their cell phone, they take their glove off, and they touch their phone again. It doesn't, you know what I mean? Like there's too many ways.

There's too many ways to spread germs that a glove and a mask is going to prevent it. Maybe you could say it cuts down on it, but the transmission, in my opinion, would still happen either way. So I think a lot more people have been exposed to it than what otherwise. And they were. They got it. They have an immune system. Immune system reacted, created any bodies, and they didn't need to show anything. Maybe they were short of breath for a little bit, but they barely noticed it.

And then all of a sudden, you might have. 20 times the amount of people who have gotten it compared to what they're even saying, even the inflated numbers, because that's a separate issue, the testing. But if 20 times the amount of two people or 10 times the amount of people have already had it, then half the country's already had it. And just nothing happened, right? So I think there's some layers to it. Big picture, we've dealt with the flu or our whole fucking lives, like whatever.

So, sorry, that's just, that's my two cents on both those two things. intelligent data-driven answers thank you mr hormosi now let's get back to some some marketing discussion to wrap this up i want to know if i'm a business out there a business owner regardless of what business i'm in if i decided to follow in the footsteps of alex harmosi hormosey should i am i pronouncing that right hormosi ormosi yep so so so so so so So if I followed in the footsteps of Alex Hormozi and said, fuck it, I need to learn how to market first. Would that be a wise step for every entrepreneur on earth to learn it themselves rather than rely on someone else? Yes.

Even if it costs money, even if they don't have the money, even if they got to go spend some of that hard-earned capital that they don't have. So I have a fundamental belief that you cannot be broke and have time. You got to pick one, right? You either have time and no money or you've got money in no time. You can't have neither, right? Because if you're broke, you can always trade more time for dollars. You can always do that. As I've leveled up as an entrepreneur, I've always had a plan B that was $100,000 a year, even with zero.

So when I had my gyms, my plan B was I'd drive Uber during the day and I'd strip at night. That was 100% my plan B. If this failed, that's what my plan B was. I'd make $150,000 a year doing that. I'd make $75 as an Uber driver working 12, and then I'd probably make another 75, maybe 100 stripping at night. I don't care. Zero.

Like, I have no shame in that stuff. Like, that's how I operate. And so if anyone, if someone's like, well, I don't want to strip it night. I know. It's like, cool, then get another job. Whatever. You can drop shift. You can go e-comber.

Like, there's a million things you can do. But the point is, if you work for 16 hours a day, like, you will have enough money to buy the things that you want to level up your skill set. But your investment, in my opinion, I think you should be consistently investing in skills until you can't even find somewhere to put the money to invest in more skills. And so I had a talk that I gave a while ago, where I got quote, I was like, unless you're making $100,000 a month take home, at that point is maybe when I would maybe consider not spending as much on it, but still, like, you just, it's just hard to spend $100,000 a month in education, to be honest with you. But if I see something, I buy it instantly.

And when it was in the beginning of my career, it might have been half of my paycheck or 100% of my paycheck was going towards learning how to market, learning how to sell, because everything, at least for me, is sequential. So you have to solve your first problem. I don't have customers. I need to learn how to get demand. I need to generate demand. And then you're like, well, shit, how do I get them to show up for these appointments? And then you learn how to nurture leads. And then shoot, these people are showing up for their appointments, I don't know how to sell. Then you learn how to sell. And then you're like, well, shit, what am I selling? Obviously, you should have some idea what you're selling before you start. But typically, you can sell services. You can sell information or services, both of causes zero money to

start. And I think that those are the best businesses to start for people who are starting out because they don't require capital to get going. Just prior knowledge. And knowledge is easy to attain. And a lot of knowledge you can get for very little money. You can go on Udeme, you can go on YouTube. And you can Google right now, how to run Facebook ads. It's not Google, how to run Facebook ads. You'll learn how to run a landing page. Would you learn well though? Was that? Would you learn well? Is there free how to run Facebook ads that you've witnessed that are like, dude, that is how you do it? Great question. Because you, when you're starting, you don't have the perspective from which to make a judgment on what is good and what is bad. Yes, I can identify what a good Facebook ad training would be

on YouTube, but somebody who's starting may not. So what's the solution? You got to start. right or just ask you what's a good one what's a good one oh i think if you look at um john loomer he's got great stuff um you look at justin brook he's phenomenal at traffic in general you look at john belcher um j on belcher uh he's got great stuff on traffic um i mean if you if you look for it they're there you know go like there but everybody everybody says oh those are all scams those fucking online courses are all ripoffs well they're not you took spanish in high school you You speak Spanish? Is Spanish a rip-off? No.

Right. You just weren't good at it. Okay. Now, that being said, sure, there are people who aren't. So my belief is that most people are not intrinsically bad. I don't think people have bad intentions. There are some people who are better at teaching than others. And I will 100% give you that. There's some courses that don't do a good job at teaching the thing. That's usually not the intention of the person.

It's probably an earlier on entrepreneur. It's just not as good. Right. It's being real. And so I think that the best way to do this, if I'm looking at, if I'm starting out, where am I going to invest my money, I'm going to look at the most proven business, the one that has the most reviews, the most five stars, whatever. I'm going to look at that business and I'm going to say, okay, this many people got results of this.

There must be enough here that if I work it, it will work. If someone's got no reviews, then I probably wouldn't load there. They've got two. If you get on the phone with someone, they're like, well, I've got two customers. You know, maybe because you have the option. You can go to someone who's got 100. You can go to someone who's got 500. So go to the people who already have proven it out and go.

Now, one of the hacks that I've had in my life is that when I really want to acquire a skill, I pay for one-on-one training. So I got, this is earlier on, this is when I had my gyms. I learned enough about Facebook ads to, I learned enough to be dangerous, but not enough to be like an expert. I just, you know, I learned enough to get the job done. But I knew that I needed to level up my skill set. So I walked around or asked people, I said, who are the best guys? And one guy came up. And so I called him up, I said, hey, man, I'm like, I need to learn Facebook ads.

And he's like, well, I don't, he's like, I've got a course. And I was like, no, I don't want to go through your course. I want to, I want you to teach me how to run these ads for my gym, though, you would run them. And he's like, why don't do that? I'm like, it's America. Everyone's got a price. What is it? What would it take for you to go one on one with me?

He said, seven 50 a week. And I said, done. Like, why didn't you just say that? Right. And so one of the big beliefs that I had, even in the gym space is, you should always have a one-on-one price because someone is willing to pay it, right? And make it a price that you'd be actually happy to say yes to. Like, I still sell personal training services for $500,000 an hour. You want to come to my house? I'll trade you. Half a million an hour all day long. I'll do it. No problem.

Right. I have that price. Most people aren't willing to do that because there's an alternative solution that's just about as good for probably 100,000th of that. But the point remains that if you can, you'll much more rapidly learn. And that person in a one-on-one, one setting will be forced to cater the context of the content to what you're looking for. And so I was like, I don't want to general. I was like, I want you to teach me how you would run my ads for my gym. And then he showed me. And I was like, great, now I know how to do this stuff.

And then. Was he in the gym business? No, he was just a traffic guy. And so it only took. What if I called him and I said, I want you to teach me, well, not me, my guy. I want you to teach my guy how to run light speed ads. Yeah. I do that all the time for my team.

So for my traffic guy, I have two guys that I pay one-on-one consulting fees for to teach him. And he already knows. Any course that you want, I will buy it for you. Here's the contingencies. You have to go through it. You have to take notes and you have to tell me exactly how we're going to use it. And then you have to show me once you did. Otherwise, I won't buy you another one.

And he's been doing that every time. And that's why I've got one of the best traffic guys on planet. No one even knows who he is. It's okay. Because he's done. But it's because I invested in him. Because what better are you? Same thing with the sales guys.

You want a sales training? You want it? I'll give it to you. You got to go through it. You got to show me how you're going to change the scripting up. You got to show me how you've been implementing. Or you're not getting enough. If somebody's listening to this says, man, I can't afford these courses.

What's the, in your mind, the best marketing book to start with? I actually think that dot com secrets, Russell's book is a really good starting place. It's not going to teach you how to run ads. because like, okay, so for people who are starting out, the fundamental problem with everyone who's starting out is that they're thinking that there's one question they can ask that's going to make them money. And that's not the truth because there's not one skill that will make you money. Like learning how to market like we're saying, like Brad and I are saying, is not one skill. It's learning how to write headlights. It's learning how to write coffee. It's learning how to

make creative, learning how to make videos, it's learning how to make landing pages that convert, learning how to build an opt-in page, learning how to build a text and follow-up sequence. Like, those are all fit, learning how to link all those together, learn how to place the ad on a traffic platform, learning the different nuances between Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and Twitter and whatever, TikTok, who cares? Right. So there's a lot of many skills that encompass marketing.

And that's why guys were starting out are like, man, I bought this course on copyright and didn't make any more money. It was like, well, yeah, you don't know how to place an ad. You don't know how to build a landing page. You don't want to make an offer. You don't know how to stack value. You don't have that yet. You have to have all those things.

And unfortunately, people who are starting out mistake making zero dollars is a lack of progress. But the reality is that you have a lot of steps that are underground that you have to step up below ground zero. The moment you make your first dollar that goes over the bridge from you marketing and selling, the second dollar comes right afterwards. It's not as hard to go from dollar zero to dollar one as it from dollar one to two. Like it's just getting the first dollar across the bridge that's the hard part. And building the bridge has a lot of breaks. Dude, smart. Smart man.

Alex Hormozy folks, if you guys want to follow them at Hormozy, H-R-M-O-Z-I on Instagram, Alex dot Hormozy on Facebook, Twitter, your gym launch. and if I were you guys, I'd go, especially if you're in the gym business, but listen, you can learn a lot, even if it's not a gym business you're in, I'd go get his book. You buy that at Alex'sbook.com. Alex'spodcast.com. You'd be hearing all kinds of shit like this on a regular basis. And the meals, dude, prestige meals or prestige labs started this done for you meals.com or Alex's Meals.com or Alex's Meals.com. Dude, if you go there and you, you know, order meals, basically, in my mind, every gym on earth should have fucking meals. Why? Well, because that's, don't they say, like, 80% of it is how you eat? So, so why are you going to the gym every day, six days a week, then going home trying to figure out how to eat healthy? When for a chump change amount of money, you buy the meals too. So that's, that's the last thing I want to talk about. dude those meals what what like i don't know how you seal them but when they show up and they're

all freaking easy as shit it tells you exactly the freaking micros and the macros and you pop it in a microwave for two minutes 30 seconds four minutes if it's frozen and you got some freaking good ass nutritious meals instant why wouldn't everybody on earth do that so most people don't think rationally. If you make more than $40,000 a year, it makes no economic sense for you to take the time to grocery shop, bring it in, put the things in the cabinet, prepare your food, decide what you're going to eat, chop it up, bake it, grill it, eat the food, then clean it, like all of that. Average U.S. American woman spends 10 hours a week just preparing and cleaning food. They spend three hours a week on average going to and from the grocery store and shopping for groceries.

It's 2.7, but spends, so you're talking 12 hours a week, and that doesn't even include eating the food, right? 12 hours a week. So you're talking 40 hours a month, right, that you're spending, you're spending an entire work week every month. I don't want you make per hour, but if you're like, man, I don't have time. Like, well, there's 48 hours for you, my gift to you, that you can save, that you can have all that time back to learn all the skills that you say you don't have. and then you have to look at it as the opportunity cost of the time, right? Like, shoot. Well, Uber, well, Uber is actually picking back up,

but there's a million things you can do in 50 hours a week to afford all of the courses and things that you want. And you should start with books. Books are phenomenal. They cost nothing, right? Like, books are cheap. You can buy books. The only stuff that's a little bit more difficult is, like,

I would say the only thing that has to really be consistently relevant is traffic. That stuff changes constantly. the interface changes, but like everything else, how to sell is evergreen. Once you learn how to sell, never changes. Learning how to market the theory behind it, making an offer, headlines, writing copy, that does not change. Right. So once you learn all those skills, there's only one thing that you need that's relevant. And again, you can look on YouTube and you should be able to see. If this guy's got 500,000, you know, subscribers on YouTube and he's a traffic guy, he's probably pretty good. Right. If the guy has like 900, it's about traffic, right? If you knew how to get traffic, you'd probably be pretty good at it.

marketers who, like I've got, I've got would be gurus who tried, who try to attack us. And I'm like, why do you think we're a hundred times bigger than these guys? Like, well, maybe they're not as good at marketing as we are, but aren't they supposed to be selling you marketing? Right. So like, it's kind of a losing proposition. Like the only way that you can beat us is to be bigger than us, but you're not. So sorry, that sounded arrogant, but that wasn't the point.

Anyways, for everyone who's listening, you can learn all this stuff on a dime if you just do Alex, you demand. I appreciate you spending time. We went over by a lot of time. I appreciate that. Hopefully, you'll look in that email. Go check that. Hit me up and let me know how that worked out. Because, dude, I got to figure out something. I got to figure out some secret sauce where where Lightspeeds got the secret sauce. And then, dude, like I said, I'm not greedy. I'll cut you in. You come, you come figure out how to freaking sell it. I'm just starting. I'm just starting to do what you did. Now, again, everybody's got their own way of doing things. There's more than one way to skin a cat. But if I were

you guys listening, I'd probably follow the way Alex is describing because I did it the backwards way. I freaking, I learned sales. I can close anybody on anything. And I think the reason I'm successful is because I closed a lot of people on a lot of things. Right. So if I would have learned to market first, I think I would be a lot farther ahead. The reason why is I sold everyone a license and let them figure out how to market it. And I would just sit back and cheerlead and be impressed and, oh, good job. Wow. How'd you do that? Oh, shit. That's fabulous. You know, give me my piece. Thank you. What are you doing next? But, but the problem is when those people started getting big, because the ones that figure out marketing always do, right? When they started getting big, they're like, why the fuck am I cutting you such a

big check? And I'm like, what are you talking about? I'm the one that started this whole thing. I'm the one that told you to do it. They're like, yeah, but we're the ones doing it. And now I can kind of just, you know, figure out some other way to, to deliver what you've been delivering. And I'm thinking, dude, this is bullshit. This is unfair. So I had to get forced into saying, okay, so now I got to go learn my own marketing. And maybe I'll come back and kick you in the dick really quick by freaking, by, by, you know, basically coming after you. Now, I'm starting to learn marketing. And I'm starting to see, oh shit, and everything you just said. I think folks, if you're listening, one of the main things he said is marketing is a huge word, dude. It's copyright. Like people say, you know, just get a click

funnel and you make millions. No, that's how Russell, and I, and I am nutting it against Russell or click funnels. I think we use it, but a click funnel is not all you need. You're not one funnel away, okay? You're one funnel, one headline, one copywriter, one product, one pricing, one targeting, one placing. Folks, if you don't place the right ad the right way, your beautiful headline and copy doesn't do shit. And vice versa. So that whole thing you said of all those things that are necessary to technically

do good marketing is a lot. And if everyone here is listening feels overwhelmed by that, good because it means that the rest of the market is going to stay broke. And if you do achieve it, there's just unbelievable amounts of gold on the other side of the rainbow. Automated gold. Automated gold. Dude, like closed your school.

I'm not doing it. I hired someone to do it. But dude, I'm doing $10,000, $15,000 a week. I'm spending $875 a day. I haven't scaled it. I just threw it out there.

I do it as an example. So when people come here and they're like, oh, light speed doesn't work. I'm like, dude, look, it's four hours of training. I put it in the system.

I advertise it. We're doing 15, 10, 15 grand a week. Okay, net, by the way. So it does work, but the automated money makes me think, dude, why am I not filling up closer school? Why am I not taking that more seriously? Why don't I scale that up?

Like, that's crazy. I don't do anything. I love automated money. Let me add one thing for everybody who's starting out, who's really like just getting new. Sales and demand gen, those two skills alone will feed you for the rest of your life. Like you can, you'll never go, you'll never go hungry. And in my opinion, the way that you can make your get much better at marketing much faster,

or at least make money online much faster, is connecting a phone to a funnel. All right? It's much more difficult. It takes much more split testing, way more savvy and skill to get someone to take their credit card out and buy something from you than it does to get them to give your name, phone number, and email address. And so, I mean, and right now there's products on Facebook that you can just do a lead ad, which they don't have to build a page.

You just run the ad and they double click on their thumb. And then you automatically get the name of the lien. And what do you do? You call them up and say, hey, so and so, you're from the internet. What's up? What made you click on the ad? Right? And then Brad's probably giving you every content under the sun for how to close someone.

So, like, you're not that far away. I would try and simplify this whole thing. It's like if you can just get someone to give you their name, phone number, an email address and say, I would like more information on this problem. You can sell them, right? And then you just have to learn a very simple script. sales over the phone is is is a skill that you can learn in weeks it's not a like it takes years to perfect it but you can get you can get proficient in a matter of weeks with reps so i just just to

not to to reverse what i said about disincentivizing you it's there's a very little amount that you just have to do to get that first dollar just get them on the phone and then close them i still to this day don't sell anything through through a funnel um we i guess i i'm a sales guy first and i learned how to market because I went to that conference, then I've kind of continued to level up. I still think I'm better at sales than I'm at marketing. But I just always want to meet someone as soon in the funnel as I can, because I know how to drill a sales team. I know how to build sales scripts. I know how to get them to close. And usually you can get 10 times, 20 times as much money attaching a phone to a funnel than

you can trying to get someone to buy something through a funnel. And so it also allows you a lot more safety net for sucking at marketing. I don't think the marketing that we have is the best out there. we just make more than everyone else does per customer. And that allows us to outbit everyone. So it's just a differentiator. Yeah. And your price has to kind of stay low if you want it, if you expect it to be without touching and talking.

Yeah. You can instantly four or five extra prices over the phone if you have someone selling it instantly, no matter what the product is. Folks, you heard it. Alex, I appreciate it. Next time you're in town, make sure you come by. I want to do a live. I know the sound on these are not as good.

But man, I knew I had one opportunity to get Alex on the horn. So I said, fuck it, we're doing a Zoom. Well, this was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. And hopefully the audience got something for it. Oh, I guarantee you they did, dude. Listen, share this out with all your friends and family.

Follow Alex. And always keep it real.