The Game with Alex Hormozi - Not Breaking the Bank & An Individual's Hard Work (w/ Billy Rickman) Pt. 1 - Apr ‘19 | Ep 462

Episode Date: November 19, 2022

(Disclaimer: This interview was recorded over Zoom. We apologize in advance for the quality of the audio.)You have to be self-disciplined and self-motivated to stay in the game. Today, join Alex (@AlexHormozi) as he guests on Billy Rickman’s YouTube to talk about how to do business without breaking the bank and how to leverage hard work within the context of a small business (during the time he was doing Gym Launch). This is part 1 of the interview.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.Check out the episode on Billy Rickman’s YouTube Channel! Timestamps:(0:57) - Rapid growth: How without bankruptcy or losing sanity?(3:55) - Success factors: Hard work, strategy, knowledge, individual contributions.(5:46) - Embrace failure; change perspective for industry resilience.(8:15) - Is "self-discipline" a unique advantage in the gym industry?Follow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition

Moise Nation, what's going on? This is a podcast that I did three years ago. So this is Young Mozy. This is Preacquisition.com. This is in the middle of Jim Launch. I went on a show with Billy Rickman. And we talked about how to do business without breaking the bank and how to leverage hard work within the context of a small business. I think you guys will dig it and enjoy. It's like restaurants is number one. And then gyms are number two for the highest failure of businesses. And I think typically it's just for the same reasons. People are like, I like, I like, I like cooking. I'll make a restaurant. And people are like, I really like fitness and health. I'll open a gym.

And the skill set that it takes to like fitness and health couldn't be further apart from actually running a profitable gym. Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get more customers, how to make more per customer, and how to keep them longer, and the many failures and lessons we have learned along the way. I hope you enjoy and subscribe. You tell the story,

it's almost like when an old company CEO tells a story about 20 years ago when we started this company, you know, especially, we were just quickly chatting off there beforehand. And we were talking about revenue, right? And so to give people some perspective about the rapid growth that you've had, I put a post out yesterday. I said, anyone have any questions they want me to ask Alex? And he was some people to DM me. And one specific person was super intrigued about how did you grow so rapidly without bankrupting the business or without going nuts?

Either way. Yeah, which tends to happen, right? First of all, what are your numbers right now? How quickly have you grown in the company? So this last month, we did over $4 million, like $4.1 or something like that. U.S. So my market is Australia. So, yeah, we're talking six million a month.

That's like 25 million Australian, right? Yeah, yeah. Our inflation is insane, right? A can of Coke's $150, I mean. So, yeah, so that's where we're at right now. Yeah, and so going back to the question, how did you do it? One of the things I'm super fascinated about in business is the psychology of business about why some people make it and some people don't.

So like following you online, listening to your podcast, watching your videos, reading blogs and articles about you and things like that and even chatty to you now for about five minutes I can see you have a certain level of charisma and confidence and well you know what I mean like sometimes those things come into it right what how much comes down to the hard work of it the strategy the knowledge or the you know the comprehension how much does it come down to just the person as an individual well I think one goes hand in hand with the other and so like I think so I've just recently I recently read through the book grit by angela ducreux worth in like one sitting. I read half the book and I was like, all right, I get the point.

So, but basically they looked at like super successful individuals and they were able to tease out like, because it wasn't intelligence. We already know that IQ doesn't really do it. EQ is like a little bit better, but like they're like, what is it to predict, you know, someone becoming, you know, being able to achieve massive things. And they just call it a grit. Just grit. And they have an index forward and all that kind of stuff. But it's basically like how long will you hold on and keep pushing when things suck. And so I think that grit is what creates the skill level that then creates the achievement because the simplified version of it. And I'm trying to have to paraphrase the book, but it just articulated it really well.

And it was just that like within the equation of achievements, there's two pieces. There's talent times effort equals skill, right? And then skill times effort equals achievement. And so effort counts twice. And so that's kind of like talent is only one quarter of that whole piece when effort is counted two times. And for me, it's really encouraging because the amount that somebody who paints consistently for 30 years can paint versus somebody who's talented at painting and only paints for six months, the person who's been painting for 30 years is better by a mile, even if they have a quarter of the talent. And I think that a lot of people put too much weight on how talented or how smart they perceive themselves to be rather than what their actual potential is based on actually just consistently doing something. Yeah, I mean, there's a ton of people who graduated from Harvard and Ivy League schools, which didn't amount to anything.

Yeah. And so the original question was, how much do I think strategy and hard work contributed to the rapid growth? The strategy came from the fact that like, this isn't my first business. This is my seventh business. And so you learn things each time. And the gyms were one of the, you know, I count that as like, you know, one. And so like there's a lot of little failed ventures that happened in between that were valuable lessons. And I think that's kind of the great aspect is like, you just keep going because some people just go back to get a job. And And so it's like you just keep going and you keep collecting these scars that eventually amount to better decisions based on experience. And so like right now people consider me a sales whatever, you know, like that I'm good at selling. It's more so that I'm good at teaching people how to sell. But I also did 4,000 one-on-one closes. And so like, isn't that I'm really talented or that like I've just done it a lot of times. And it would be unreasonable for me to not be like if I weren't decent at it at this point, like you'd be like, what is wrong with you? Hey guys, real quick, if you're new to the podcast, I have a book on Amazon. It's called

$100 million offers that over 8,000 five-star reviews and it has almost a perfect score. You can get it for 99 cents on Kindle. The reason I bring it up is that I put over a thousand hours into writing that book. And it's my biggest gift to our community. So it's my very shameless way of trying to get you to like me more and ultimately make more dollars to that later on in your business career. I can touch the partner with you. So that's my give. Go check it out. Amazon and back to the show. Even to use your industry as a metaphor with the gym, like, you know, it's the same thing, right? The guy who goes and does a thousand bench presses or the guy goes and does 20 bench presses,

the guy's going to be stronger who's done a thousand. Right. It doesn't matter what your genetics are. Like, you know, for the most, you know, who knows, there's probably some animals that exist somewhere that are just, you know, pro rugby players or whatever. But like, for the most part, you're going to be. Yeah. Yeah, right.

So when I didn't interview with Alex Sharpe and he said that you and I were similar in a way because we were both passionate about failure in our industry. And so my industry, one of the reasons why, so my background is I was in the military for eight years. I kind of fell into the hair, beauty, cosmetic sort of industry, started a franchise business, grew up for eight years, sold it off, and started exactly the same thing as you had. Someone reached out to me and said, hey, I'm struggling. Can you help me? I was like, yeah, sure, why not? Let's just, yeah, see what we can do.

And got really good results. And then they told somebody else and it kind of snowballed. And eventually I went, you know, I'm just going to sell my franchise and do this full time because I really love helping people and seeing. results. And much like yourself, I'd already systemized a lot of it anyway and, and, you know, I can just flow it in. And one of the things when I first started coaching that became really apparent to me is the amount of failures in the industry. How many people were in love with the industry and they go, I'm going to start a business in the industry. They start it and they never transitioned from technician to business owner. And you speak to a year later. They're pulling their hair out.

They've got no relationships at home. They don't know money. And they're totally, out of love with the industry, they feel like they're chained and shackled to their business. And I was like, something has to change here. This is, this is not a good direction for the industry. And so Alex tells me that that's, Alex Sharpen tells me that's a similar kind of way the gym industry is. Yeah, it's like exactly like that. I would say that, I mean, it's like restaurants is number one and then gyms are number

two for the highest failure of businesses. And I think typically it's just for the same reasons. People are like, I like, I like cooking. I'll make a restaurant. And people are like, I really like fitness and health. I'll open a gym. And the skill set that it takes to like fitness and health is couldn't be further apart from actually running a profitable gym.

And so, you know, and to be really, you know, it's funny, you said that like when I had my gyms, I honestly thought everyone was doing what I was doing. So I just didn't, I didn't think that the things that we put in place were really revolutionary by any, you know, by any stretch of the imagination. I was like, yeah, so we, you know, I sign a lease and run some ads and fill the gym, you know. Yeah. Everyone must be doing this.

Yeah. I was like, and then, you know, halfway through, I'd convert three out of four into a long, into a year-long membership. I was like, and then we're good for the year. Like, it's, you know, I mean, it seems, it seems simple, but a lot of things is like, you don't know what you don't, it's like unknown unknowns.

You don't know what you know or you don't know what you don't. So, yeah, that resonates. But yeah, we want to help. With the gym industry, though, it's funny, you say you don't know what you don't know, and it's funny when you're looking to somebody else's industry and you think that they've got it so much easier. And some of the things I would see,

I see some of my gym owner friends, and they're doing particularly well, But it's true, like you focus on the people who are doing well, right? You don't look at all those ones that aren't on the road anymore when you drive down. You don't notice that they've gone. You notice the ones that are consistent there all the time. Well, they must be doing something well. And I look at gym owners, I think to myself, they've got an advantage over my industry

because you've got usually, typically when you look in, you say, well, they must be self-disciplined. They must be self-motivated. They've got high energy, all of these things. And so is that true or is it not true? so that like I would have an advantage in our business because gym owners are more disciplined and more motivated, et cetera, versus coaching slums. Yeah. Gym owners are hardworking as shit.

So I was imagine. I mean, because also in the fitness industry, it's super common to work from 4 a.m. until 9 p.m. Like, it's normal. And you work six days a week because your first client, your first session starts at five. And your last client ends a nine. and so you're basically always working. And sometimes you get the middle of the day off, but you're so exhausted that it's really difficult to like do lots of productive stuff.

And so sometimes you try and work out and you get a half-ass workout. And you're the person who's supposed to be the fit person. And you know what I mean? And so then it's just start snowballing. And the only day you get off is like Sunday. And then you're really just meal prepping that day for the rest of the week that you can eat out of Tupper's all day at the gym. And so from an advantage standpoint,

from a work ethic side, yes. I mean, I don't know how hard salon owners work, but I know that Jim Warner has worked their ass off. Yeah, it's not like the people in the industry don't work hard. I think they work really hard, but I think a lot of people in my industry

who will be watching this and listening to this, their moms and they have to do the kids' school runs. And they're trying to figure out how to balance work and their career and their ambition with the personal life at home as well. And I think that's one of the things I hear from my clients all the time anyway, is one of the hardest things for them to try and they have such big goals and dreams, but it's like they have this parent guilt

and then they feel like they're not being a good wife and mom and things like that. I'm not saying that a father shall struggle with it the way moms do, but I would say that if I'm being candid, they probably don't struggle with it as much because there's a certain expectation for culturally, you know, that guys are going to be putting bread on the table and doing everything to handle work while, you know, wife, mom, et cetera, states at home.

I'm not saying not all of our gym owners are married, not all of our gym owners of kids, but by and large, but clientele wise, we're 80% male. So 80% of my clients are on. Hope you guys enjoy. some throwback, mozy, way back when pre-acquisition.com. Got to hear me probably be a little bit more tactical than I normally would be about business stuff. This is actually a $400 million offers, so you can see how my perspectives have changed

over time. Maybe they will change yours as well. The next half of this podcast, part two, is coming up where we'll talk about how to use a backend customer experience to ascend customers into high-ticket offers in a way that is beautiful that you will dig.