The Game with Alex Hormozi - Cominggg in HOT !🔥 Why You Should Stop Getting Butthurt Over Copycats | Ep 124

Episode Date: April 25, 2019

Imitation is a form of flattery. Today, Alex (@AlexHormozi) discusses the benefits of being copied and how it is not worth getting upset about. He emphasizes the importance of remaining focused, continuously innovating, and not letting issues distract from the business's success.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.Timestamps:(0:32) - Overcoming apathy and keeping 100% of your attention(2:36) - The benefits of being copied(4:14) - Why speed and innovation are key to success(8:32) - Focusing on your market rather than your competition(10:32) - The reality of copycats: why you shouldn't lose sleep over itFollow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's episode of How to Not Get But Hurt about your competitors, copying your stuff. So I'm actually super pumped for this one. That's why I said, coming in hot. I had a message last night from a gym owner who is in our program. He was like, dude, these guys are using all your copy. They're using all your sales stuff. And they're claiming credit for it. They're not even giving you any credit, right?

and I just I can't I can't even express to you the apathy that I had in response to the to the to the message that I got and it's and that's something that has taken me a long time to build um and to get to the point where like I actually don't get upset about this stuff anymore at all and which means that I get I have now able to like keep 100% of my attention and I want to show you exactly how I got there because when I started with my gym, I would get so upset about people using my copy, people copying my landing pages, people using my ads, people stealing our meal plans, and then like I'd see our meal plans with the guy down the street, people, you know, shopping us and like seeing what we're doing for our programs and then like modeling it on their side. Like I used to get so upset about this stuff. Like I would lose sleep over it, right? And the reality is you don't matter. It doesn't matter. The ideas are not, yours typically. Because anytime I think that I have an original idea, you can probably find someone before you who has thought of it. Right. And like the ideas for the sales and marketing

and all the stuff that we have like, I learned things. You know what I mean? Like I read Dan Kennedy. I read I read all Russell stuff. I read, you know what I mean like, you know, a zillion books on sales. I read, you know, Jordan Belford stuff. Through Cardone's training. Like, you know what I mean? Like, there's so many influences on what create anything that's like, say like, this is all mine. It's like, dude, nothing's yours. Nothing's anyone's. You know, and so to get super buttered about it is just like, it's just not worth the time. And a fun thing to note is that it has literally never affected our bottom line.

We have literally never made less money because people are copying us. In fact, the more people copied us, the more money we made for multiple reasons. One, because the more people who are copying you, it means that you're actually good, right? It means that you have something that is worthy of copying. If people are not copying, you should be worried because you're not good, right? Like, that's it. Right? Like, Apple made the iPhone and then Samsung made the Galaxy tab.

Like, copying is competition. And so that's why speed and innovation matters so much is because you have to stay ahead. It means that you can never rest on your laurels. You have to continue to crush it and improve and improve and improve. And like 30 years ago, people used to, you might remember this. When you would go buy something at the store, your dad or your mom would open it up and check it to make sure that it wasn't broken. Because getting something from the store that was not broken was considered a win. Nowadays, if you got something from the store that was broken, you would be like up in arms about how upset you were about this.

That's because manufacturing is improved. And it's because competition continues to get. fiercer and fiercer because we need to innovate as business owner. So if you think you're going to make something and people aren't going to copy you, then like you just don't live in reality, right? And what's comforting to me is to know that if someone copies me, right, like we don't really copy people. I'll just be straight with you because like we're busy like making shit, right? But if someone's copying me, in my mind, they don't have the skills to win, right? They don't have the skills to win because they don't know how to innovate.

Right. And so like they will always be behind. So it doesn't really matter. And the reality is that right now, I don't think our team could even take more growth than we already have going on in the business, right? The bottleneck is me. The bottleneck is our infrastructure. The bottleneck is how many people we have to serve as customers.

That's the bottleneck. Like if all of a sudden every single person's clients of every copycat that I had came to us, we would probably crush it. us. You know what I mean? And so, like, the reality is, like, we are always the bottleneck to our business. Some competitor is not stealing your business. The reason your business is where it is, is because you have other bottlenecks in your business, not around your business, but in your business, that are causing your business to not grow the way you want to or whatever, right? So, like, it just, it's like, we don't matter. You know what I mean? And, like, on some weird

level, I'm happy about the fact that at least these fake gurus and Mama's Basement gurus who are taking our stuff, at least their clients are getting something now. You know what I mean? Like, I actually feel weirdly okay, oddly, oddly, about the fact that I'm like, at least these guys are getting something that works now. I mean, it's definitely our outdated shit. You know what I mean? But like, at least it's, at least it's better than what they were getting before, which is fluff and air. And so on some level, like, it depends on what your mission is. You know what I mean? If you're like, I really want to make everyone healthy, which hopefully it is, right? Like, if some guy down the street is using like your stuff and like people get healthier.

Great. He's not the limit to your business anyways. The reason your business is where it is is because your leadership isn't, you know, where it needs to be. You're not good at managing details. You're not good at being consistent. You know what I mean? Like those are the things that are actually going to make your business grow and be consistent

and be profitable, right? It's not whether he has a boot camp. You know what I mean? That has a same structure at you or he's using your meal plans or shit. Even if he's using your copy, it doesn't matter, right? It's whether your person's working the leads or they're closing the sales. It's like you don't matter in this equation. Hey guys, love that you're listening to the podcast.

If you ever want to have the video version of this, which usually has more effects, more visuals, more graphs, you know, drawn out stuff. Sometimes it can help hit the brain centers in different ways. You can check on my YouTube channel. It's absolutely free. Go check that out if that's what you are into. And if not, keep enjoying the show.

And so, you know, the next thing that always comes up is people are like, you know, like you should sue those guys, right? Like, I have sued someone. it took a year and it cost like it costs money which i don't like that didn't really matter but it cost so much time and attention that i was like this is just not worth it if i took all of the time and attention for how much i make per hour with the time and attention that i have now that i could invest in the business i will make a higher return on my time and also just not have this huge negative cloud in my life you know what i mean and so for everyone who's like well i'm going to get

lawyers involved like if you want your life to be about lawyers then by all means go for it you know what i mean like we have an entire law firm they do all of our compliance stuff and when we need the lawyers we you know call the lawyers and then they start attacking people you know what i mean like we do that but like i'm telling you for most people who are on here it is just going to destroy your life and take up all of your attention and i guarantee you your business will be worse off nine times out of 10 for me doing this you're not going to win some major losses you know what i mean like And if you do, then it's like you're going to have to spend all of your money and all of your resources to do that for a long period of time, which means your gym is probably going to die. You know what I mean?

So like the big points here is that if someone copies you, great. It means your shit is good actually. Congratulations. Second, everyone is going to copy you because that is competition if you're actually good. Third, it means that speed and innovation are king. Speed is currency. That's why speed matters. Right.

Like how, like here's a fun. Here's a fun one to think about. It has taken these guys. the ones who are now are copycats, right, two effing years to finally copy it. I'm like, what took you so long? Like, what have you been doing? You know what I mean? Like having an inferior product for two years, getting your shit stomped in by someone who was new.

You know what I mean? Like, what have you been doing? You know what I mean? Sitting on your ass? It's just like, and so like, like, I know how long it takes them to do stuff. They didn't even have to innovate it and it took two years to copy it. whatever, you know what I mean? Like, okay.

Next, like, their copying does not affect your business. You affect your business. The bottleneck is you, is not then. I have literally never made less money because of someone else copying our stuff. And it is always when we were making the most money that people copy our stuff, because it is actually good, right? You know what I mean? And so, like, and the ramification of all this stuff is, what are you going to do?

Right? what are your options? There's two options. You can either continue to play the game and realize that anyone who copies you is inherently second because they are copying you, which means you are the leader, which is where you want to be, right? And so you can either do and continue to do the things that have made you the leader, which is continue to execute, continue to coach your team, continue to have speed, continue to make

things better, right? That's what you can do as the leader, because that's what you're supposed to. to do. Or you can stop all of that positive activity of growth and improvement and give up your lead by putting all of your attention on suing something. Right? And you're going to sue one guy. You know me other people copy your stuff? And the reality is like if you're the biggest player or you want to be the biggest play in your space, like you need to focus on the market, not your competition. You can have an eye on the competition to see if there's anything that you're like majorly missing. You know what I mean?

But like, you should not be looking at their stuff. You should not be wasting your time. You should not be wasting your attention on that. And so this took me like a really long time to get. And so I'm passionate about it because I used to lose so much sleep about this stuff when I have my gyms. I used to get so upset about this stuff. And it just does not matter at all.

out. And so, anyhow, I hope there's somebody here who is, who's not going to lose sleep now because of this stuff. If you see yet another copycat, we get, you know,

our customer service team gets two boxes a week from somebody who's new, who's claiming that they've reinvented the wheel. And you know what happens? They disappear. They disappear. They disappear two months later. We've never heard from them again.

You know what I mean? Like, it's just, if you don't have the skills to create, then when you copy, you don't have the skills to win. It just is what it is. And so just be thankful for that, right? So anyways, guys, you can drop a like and a comment or throw this for your ops manager

or anyone who's like you has worried you about this whole copying thing. Like, it does not matter. We are not special snowflakes. Someone has probably thought of this idea before us. We are all influenced by the things that we have learned throughout our lives. And it does not affect your bottom line. Only you can do that.

So have an amazing day. Like, keep crushing it. And Jim Lords, I'll see you guys in a few hours. Bye.