The Game with Alex Hormozi - How To Inspire Your Team & Create An Evangelical Following In Your Clients & Your Employees. | Ep 61

Episode Date: June 21, 2018

"People want to follow people who are authentic." Today, Alex (@AlexHormozi) discusses the importance of inspiring employees and clients through authentic beliefs and values rather than manipulative tactics. Focusing on the "why" behind a business or brand can create loyal followings and achieve higher productivity and customer loyalty.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:(0:40) - Two ways to motivate: rewards or beliefs.(4:14) - Focus on your game, not competition.(7:03) - Start with why to inspire action.(9:32) - Beliefs create alignment and inspire followers.(12:35) - Trust fosters initiative, innovation, and loyalty.(15:32) - Stand by values, regardless of outcome.Follow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition

Hey, what's going on everybody? Hope you guys are having an awesome Thursday. I was just in my wife's office and we were chitch chatting and I brought up something that I had seen this morning in a video and so she was like, this sounds like, and I kind of went on a little rant about it and she's like, that sounds like a video that you should probably make. And so here I am making this video based on what Layla said. So, you know, I'm titling this, how did inspire you

team and create an evangelical following in your clients and your employees. And so if you think about like there's two ways to get people to do things, right? One of them is to manipulate them with carrots and sticks, which will be, you know, incentives of like, you know, if you're a business, it's to give discounts, discount, discounts, or, you know, penalties, right? It's one or the other and those motivate behavior. But that's from the manipulative side. The other side is the inspirational side. And the difference is huge and most people operate from the manipulative side and I don't say that in a negative way it's just kind of it just is. And a lot of people have seen the growth of our business and whether you, you know,

believe in us or not or if you're watching this video then maybe believe in us a little bit. But we have pretty, pretty loyal clients and we have an incredibly loyal team and especially our clients are almost evangelical and I'm probably going to define a couple things as I go because it's poignant to do so. The difference between like a repeat buyer and a loyal customer is that a repeat buyer is someone who you've met a certain threshold of quality and price and therefore they just continue to do business because it's easier for them than to take on the cognitive load of making another decision about another business, right?

The difference between that and a loyal customer is someone who will forego a potentially better option that might even be priced lower to continue to do business with you. And the reason and the things that differentiate those are what I'm talking about with which is manipulation versus inspiration. And so if you can inspire your clients and you can inspire your employees, then you can get that kind of loyalty. But then the next question is naturally like, well, how do you do that? And so a lot of times there's two aspects.

There's probably more aspects, but the two that I'll talk about is one is a Y-based cause. Right, which is, so I've been like binge watching all of Simon's next stuff on leadership. And I think there's a lot of stuff that are parallels with branding and really, which is like a poo-poo term sort of, but for me. But I'm just go with me on it. But a why-based cause because what happens is people don't actually buy from your company necessarily because of what you offer, but because of what you represent, right? Which is why they buy. and it goes the same thing for a local gym. And what it does is that your services and your products are just tangible proof of the beliefs that you have.

And so people buy into brands because it stands as proof of what they say, what they believe about themselves. And so when they purchase from you, they're saying something about themselves. Now, most people, most businesses don't operate that way. And it's purely transactional, which is why most businesses aren't exceptional, which is why most people don't have loyal followings, which is why most people don't have loyal employees, because they're there only for a paycheck. And the stats are overwhelmingly negative when it comes to fulfillment for employees.

It's like 90% of people are not fulfilled by their work, right? And that's because most of the time, they're simply trading time for dollars and it best pays the bills. But they're not really seeing the cause that the business is after. And so if there's one thing that you can take from this without me getting to the second point,

it's that if you don't know what your beliefs are, right? You have to cast that contribution and what, that inspirational vision of what you believe. And it doesn't have to just be one thing. It can be multiple things that you believe. A lot of times people tease out the beliefs that we, you know, that Leila and I have about business, but also about marriage and how to treat people and how to communicate clearly and how to set standards and how to hold yourself to a higher standard.

And the way to do that is by not, and like if you have that Y-based cause, then you don't have, you don't look at your competition, right? This kind of goes in parallel with the whole infinite game concept that I talked about a couple days ago is that if you're 100% focused on continuing to play the game and chasing an ideal that you know that you'll never actually accomplish, then that's how you inspire people to take action. Because most people don't actually take action with their logical minds. They take it with their illogical minds, their limbic systems, like the deeper ring, right? They just say it feels right, it feels good, it feels like the right decision because they can't put words to it because that's

not where they make the decisions anyways, right? So we can put as much proof out there as we want to about why this might be a good job for an employee, about the benefits and the payroll and blah, blah, blah, blah, right? But the thing is that people will follow you because they believe in you and because they trust you, and they believe in the cause that you're really trying to pursue. Now, you can say, and this is kind of my second point, is that you can say that this is what your belief is.

This is what you're trying to accomplish. The difference between those companies and people that are able to do that and actually have people follow them is the extent to which those people actually believe. And so this is what I was talking about with Layla, but it felt like it was necessary to put the groundwork in, is that people want to follow people who are authentic, right? And being authentic is simply being the exact same in private as you are in public and having zero discrepancy between the two of those things. And so most people say you need to just be courageous and say the beliefs that you have in private. And I think that it's actually somewhat different than that.

I mean, I think that's true, but I think the reason that most people aren't doing it is actually because of something a little bit deeper. And I think it's because this is just my theory, that a lot of people actually don't have the beliefs that would inspire the people. And that's where the issue comes up. And that's why they can't be authentic is because if they said I really don't care that much about my employees, like customers are just people. They're just cheap. They're just what I'm, you know, they're just the herd that I'm trying to just, you know, just get dollars from. right because the thing is they can say certain things but the things that they truly believe end up coming out and the tangible proof of that of the quality of the service and the extent to which

their customers and their employees are bought in to their company right now right now do you think that you're all of your employees if offered a equal position at with better pay at another company would leave you it's a real question right if you have loyal employees a lot of times they wouldn't because they're like i love my job i feel so fulfilled by it And so a lot of times people come for those things, but they stay for the belief in the vision that you're trying to cast, right? And it's that why, right? Simon Sineck talks about the three levels of communication, right? It's all the key cause of the golden circle, but it's most companies talk about what they do and then how they're different.

And then that's it. They're like, you know, we are a fitness business and we are different because we offer a personalized approach specific to you. And that's their special sauce, right? And everyone has their own little special sauce of their unique selling proposition, right? But at the end of the day, it's, that's not what inspires people to take the action. Some people will because they're hyperactive buyers. They're in a huge amount of need and they'll buy, right? But the thing is, is that to create that kind of loyal, evangelical following is to show your beliefs and start with the why, right?

That's why it's a book that's called start with why. And like, so for us, you've seen a lot of the beliefs that we have. We believe in absolute truth at all times. If we messed up, I just want to tell you, like, we messed up. Or if I don't know the answer, something, we'll tell you, I don't know the answer. Or if something, if we've released something and it wasn't good, I'll be like, guys, that sucked. And we're going to do everything that we can to not, you know, have that happening. So we believe in, you know, above all else.

We believe in treating our employees really, really well. And we treat them just as well, if not better than our customers. And we believe everyone should receive that love from us because of a testament of what we believe. And so the business and the way that we talk to our team, the way that we structure it, the way that we provide quality trainings to our customers is based on the fact that we believe in that. 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. Right. And that would be the proof. Now, we could say we believed it, but if we weren't delivering that, then it would be the tangible proof that that that's not really the true belief, right? And that's where I think the fundamental disconnect is, and that's what the conversation us having with Layla is, is that most people will say those things, but they don't actually believe them.

And in our little community, we call them singe moments, which is when something that you've heard over and over and over again in your life suddenly becomes real for you, right? And there's a lot of things, as we've grown this business, much bigger than I would have ever anticipated, became real for me. and among them, this is one of them. We kind of fell into the mass movement that we have sort of created among gym owners. I would never have guessed it would have grown as fast as it has. And I don't want to take credit for it because it's not really about us. And people don't follow us or, you know, people aren't inspired by us because we're somehow special, but it's because of the beliefs that those people have and how it confirms or affirms the beliefs that they believe about themselves.

they follow because they're like, I stand for that. Like, I'm an alignment with that. And if you have no beliefs that they can be in alignment with, then there's nothing that they would go to fight for you for because in the reality, people aren't really fighting for us when they go and they comment on other people's ads where, you know, smash us for no reason because they're just competitors. But it's because they're defending an aspect of themselves. They're defending an aspect of their own beliefs.

And so we're just a proxy for that, right? the example I think that Simon Seneca gave in one of his talk, I mean, probably a lot of the talks, was that when everyone showed up to see Martin Luther King speak as I have a dream speech was, it wasn't I have a plan, I have a superior or whatever, it was, I have a dream. It was an ideal that everyone knew that we wouldn't necessarily achieve. Like when the United States was founded, it's like we had, like, it wasn't about like, screw Europe, like this is all the things wrong with the world. It was like, no, we believe that all men are created equal, right? And so it's this ideal. that we have yet to achieve, but that we will all continue to die and fight to achieve it, right? And so, but at the end of the day, the reason that all of these things can work together in this abundant, this growth oriented, like how we can continue to grow as a nation and how we continue to grow as humans is based on trust. And the way that you trust people is when you surround yourself with people who have similar values and similar ideals. And the only way to do that is if everyone knows what those similar ideals and beliefs are, which also means,

saying what you don't believe in, right? And that creates this level of bond because you're like, those people are just like me, right? That guy's like me or that organization is like me. That's how when people, like it's like this huge accomplishment when a brand will get, you know, when customers will start to get their brands tattooed on them. And the reality is it's not because,

and a lot of times people will tattoo brands of stuff that they don't even own, right? Some people have Harley-Davidson tattooing. They don't even own a bike. But they believe in what Harley-Davidson stands for Because what it does is it stops becoming a logo and becomes a symbol of beliefs. And that's what motivates people to take action. That's what motivates people to become evangelical and defend your brand.

It's what motivates your employees to work overtime and not clock it because they just want to serve your customers because they believe that they're serving the cause. And because that is telling them and reinforcing their own identity that they have about themselves. And so I thought that it might be useful for you. I thought this might be useful for you. If you're thinking about like, man, I wish my team were more, you know, they would take more initiative. Or I wish they, I wish my clients would defend me more. I wish I could have like, and the ways that this happens is you can actually, like from

business standpoint, you actually get huge benefits from this. You get higher, lower employee turnover. You get way more productivity per employee. Your customers are willing to pay a premium for an extended period of time for even an inferior product. I'm not saying that ours is inferior in any way. I think ours is superior for a lot of reasons. But it's, it's because of the way that we are.

approached it, not necessarily because of whatever, right? And, and, and so you have longer lifetime values as a result of that, because then people stop even comparing anyone else in the marketplace to you, right? Like, Apple doesn't have the best products. Like, their computers simply are not as powerful as PCs. And yet so many people don't even look at other computers because they're like, I'm in. I'm a Mac, you know, I'm an Apple buyer. That's it, right? Because they believe in what that company stands for, right? And it's because of what it tells about themselves. And so, right now if you're like if you're having difficulty with that then you need to write down the things that you believe and it can be all of the things that you believe and even in the

honestly the more polarizing it is the more you will get the people who are who are aligned with you and you're like those are my kind of people you don't know why that you just trust them right and trust is the basis of having people take initiative having going the extra mile because if they live in a culture of manipulation right where it's only carrots and sticks they can never venture outside because they don't know there's uncertainty about what's going to happen after work. So they don't take the risk, which means you never get innovation. You don't get that kind of productivity from everyone. And your clients look elsewhere.

So anyways, I thought that was cool. And I thought you guys might dig that. So that is for y'all. And look at what you believe. And I'll recommend you start saying it because it'll benefit you. And it'll very quickly, you'll see the people who are in your organization who don't believe what you believe. You should probably let them go, not because of lack of skill, but just because you should surround yourself with people who believe what you believe because you'll just create a stronger organization. And then that will also attract the customers who believe what you believe.

And so then you have this symbiotic environment that gets created where everyone kind of likes everyone. And that's kind of, if you went to the gym world's event, you would have seen this where everyone just like under, like everyone got it. Like we can't put words to it because it's not something that's a logical idea. It's something that's deep brain feeling. like everyone here just gets it they get what we're about right and why do we have such a giving community inside of the gym large community because that's what we believe we believe in giving first right like i had a speaker who came up who's a rubber manufacturer right and i just tried to negotiate a discount for everyone most times people get points you know if you're like an affiliate or something

you get points on how much you get you get a kickback right and i didn't i don't really want one because i just want over deliver to you guys because that's a belief that i have it's a value that I stand for. And so for me to get an extra 10% or 15%, like, I don't care. That's not my main business. I just want everyone to get a better deal. And I'm happy with that, right? And that's like level one. The second level would be if I want to try and have a strong relationship with someone, like let's say a rubber dealer that does thousands of gyms, right? That might make sense for me. Now, I could ask him, hey man, can you send me gym owners so I can help them out, right? But what do you think the likelihood is that he's going to start

doing that? Probably not. Not a lot, right? But if I know that he's a really high quality business and that he stands behind, he's been doing it for 35 years, right? What am I going to do? I'm going to give to him first because that's a value that I have. And whether or not he gives back to me is kind of irrelevant because the value should be independent of what happens afterwards. Right. It should be independent. And so it's the same reason when we go to war, we still pick up the enemy's bodies and we draw them to our side, even though it makes no logical sense for us to waste our resources on someone else who's our enemy.

But it's because it's what we believe. That's what we're fighting for. right and so um what are the things that you fight for what are the things that you die for what are things that you believe if you articulate those things to your employees first and then your clients your employees will also articulate those things to your clients by not only what they say but how they say it and how they live and how they leave so lots of love everybody hope we're having an awesome day um happy Thursday and i will see you guys too bye