The Game with Alex Hormozi - Why Talking To Your Customers Is Losing You Money (and how to fix this MASSIVE attention-suck) 🗣➡️👥➡️❌ | Ep 83

Episode Date: October 5, 2018

"I also have this big rule where I'm not gonna talk to you if I don't have anything that I think is worth you, um, you know, worth your attention." Today, Alex (@AlexHormozi) talks about the biggest time suck that most entrepreneurs struggle with - talking to customers. He shares some tips on how to break the habit and prioritize productivity and scalability in your business.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:(0:49) - Temptation to check in with customers is a time-sucking habit.(2:49) - Talking to customers without structure leads to cycles.(3:31) - Strategies against self-sabotaging communication habits.(7:00) - Avoid distractions, focus on important business tasks.(8:25) - Owner should not handle issues delegated to team members.(11:10) - Communicate clearly, avoid abusing access.Follow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition

Good on everyone, happy Wednesday. Hope you guys are having a phenomenal week. I'm coming to you from downtown, Austin. Actually, not downtown. We're actually like in a suburb of Austin called B Cave. It's very nice. Anyways, I have not been making as much content recently. That's because we have a lot of huge things that are going on behind the scenes. And usually when my attention is occupied by that, I don't think as creatively. That being said, I also have this big rule where I'm not going to talk to you if I don't have anything that I think is worth you you know, with your attention. So with that being said, today I wanted to bring up something that I think will provide massive value for you. And it's one of the hardest habits that I've

ever had to break. And I still struggle with it. And it's, which is why I called this, why talking to your customers is losing your money. So a lot of people and the people, and like this is like the hardest thing in the entire role is that whenever I have a huge to do list, I look at my to-do list and part of me just wants to reach out to people who are in our group and just say like, hey, how's everything going? Just checking in. Hope everything's going well, right? And I know that you probably have this habit too, right? I mean, maybe, maybe you don't. Maybe you're like, screw them all. But I have this huge, huge, like, I love talking to gym owners. Like, I am a gym owner. Like, they're like, y'all are my people. You know what I mean? And so it is the single biggest

attention and time suck that I have. And I will. would posit that if you do this, it's probably the biggest time stuck that you have, or a productivity killer. Like, if you have stuff that you need to do, then you're like, you know what? This is like, and like the thing is, is we tell ourselves, we're like, yeah, this is super productive. Like, I'm checking in, I'm providing world class service. Like, I'm showing that I'm the owner who cares, who reaches out individually. Yeah, it's retarded. That's just not true. I mean, it's true that you care, but if you really cared, then you'd be taking your time to to scale yourself and be productive and help on a much larger scale.

And so the reason I said that why talking to your customers is losing money, rather than why listening to your customers is losing money, is because most of us do that. We talk to our customers. And then they're like, yeah, everything's going great. Thanks so much. And so we get this little dopamine hit. We're like, yeah, we're good.

This person's happy. I feel great. You know, we only talk to our favorite customers because we know it's going to be good, right? You don't reach out to the crappy customers. Right? It's like you just focus on the ones who you know are totally drinking the Kool-Aid. I do this. All right.

Like it is literally the hardest thing that I've had to break because when I have a huge list of stuff to do, I have so much rather just message Josh Potton and be like, hey man, how's life? It's like, it's awesome. You know, like Chris Burnett has life. And he's like, it's great. We just did an extra 30 grand this month like on top bar normal revenue. Like, awesome. Like I love hearing it. The thing is that it does not make me more money and it doesn't help me help more gyms.

And so if you were doing this, you are hurting yourself. So don't do it. Now, you're like, well, don't do that. Well, thanks, Alex. Appreciate that. So here's some of the things that I did. I have done to actively try and protect myself against this habit that is totally self-sabotage. So if you have trainers and they do this, like unless it is part of their role, they're doing the same thing.

And so I want to be clear here, having amazing customer service is incredibly important. But having structure around that service and having structure around those communication cycles is what will make it scalable, systemizable, trackable, and actually make it a business. Whereas if you're just randomly reaching out when you have a to-do list that you don't feel like doing, right? You're opening up a communication line that really shouldn't be there. Now these people will reach out to you and they really shouldn't, right? And then that's why you messes that person one day and then two days later, they message you back about something that's really a customer service issue and you should be like, well, go talk to so-and-so, but now you're a dick, right? And so now you've opened up this communication cycle that really shouldn't be there. So here's some of the things that I've done that massively helped me out.

So here's three things. First thing is that before I had an assistant, I told my head trainer, I would say, hey, listen, when people message me, I'm going to say that you're on my Facebook. And we say, hey, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's Anthony, whatever. Alex, Alex actually doesn't check his social stuff anymore because he decided it was like a really big time suck for him so you could focus on the business more. right and I started saying this before I had Lassette and now Lissette actually does manage my social accounts and so she really does so if you guys have message me and it's like hey thanks so much for messaging this is Lissette I will definitely pass this on to Alex or we're more realistically she says that's really a customer service issue or that's really a billing issue

or that's really a tech issue let me route you to the correct person that's what she does and the same thing is if you have leads or things like that message I have gym owners that message me all the time for friends of friends are like hey you know like or I have a gym owner who will route me route me in to a three-way conversation. I can't, that's like, we have a process in place for that. You know what I mean? I can't like, hey, can I have 10 minutes of your time so I can talk to you? Like, no, I don't. We need the eight-person's-in-stained. Like, you can talk to them because if I hopped on the phone for every person who's interested, then we wouldn't have a business, right? And so you have to discipline yourself because part of you's like, man, sure, like, let me hop on the phone.

I love talking to, like, you know, potential new customers. This is great. But it's a waste of your time, right? It's going to lose you money in the long run. So break that habit. So first one is, have a fake assistant until you have a real assistant. Real quick, guys, you guys already know that I don't run any ads on this and I don't sell anything. And so the only ask that I can ever have of you guys is that you help me spread the words so we can out more entrepreneurs, make more money, feed their families, make better products and have better experiences for their employees and customers. And the only way we do that is if you can rate and review and share this podcast. So the single thing that I asked you do is you can just leave a review. It'll take 10 seconds or one type of the thumb.

It would mean the absolute world to me. And more importantly, it may change the world for someone else. And when you have the real assistant, they can do that. But in the meanwhile, you can route them correctly and you can give amazing world-class service through the guys of someone else. So you can be like, absolutely, what else can I take care of for you today? Like, you can just have like amazing people like, wow, Lissette is amazing, right? So use that.

It will really help you. All right. The second thing is I would 100% I don't have the Facebook app on my phone. Okay. So you're like, hold on, Alex. Because everyone here has tried to uninstall the Facebook app and then they reinstall it. All right. Like who's done that?

Everyone has, right? So this is the workaround that I have figured out because we obviously have a ton of people who engage with us on Facebook. That's where our groups are, et cetera. So what I have done is I take the app off my phone, but I allow myself to do it through like Safari because I have an iPhone. So like just through the internet app. And what you will find is that if you go to Facebook through the internet app, it sucks.

And so you won't stay there. Like it's literally miserable. Like you have to refresh it constantly. Like it doesn't self-refresh. So it's to go to the top, hit refresh, and then it refreshes it. And then like half the time when you hit reply on messages, it doesn't work. And they do this on purpose because they want you in the app, right? But you can use the fact that it's not as efficient because what it does is it doesn't

have all these dopamine triggers that the app does. If I turn the app on within like literally 24 hours, all I'm doing is freaking refreshing it, right? Because I'm a human. And like, I respond to dopamine just like everyone else does. Right? And so I can either try and, like, discipline myself to, not responding to that, which takes a lot of attention. Or just don't install it and then have the internet, just go through the internet to get there.

And that way you can go in, get in and out, check your notifications to be done with it. That being said, number one hack on Facebook, never ever look at your news feed. Just don't do it. Never look at your news feed. There's no point. Just check your notifications and be gone. Like your notifications is your inbox. Once you've like scanned it, get off of Facebook.

Okay. So first thing, have your fake admin until you have a real email. until you have a real admin. Second thing, and give them world-class service when some people message you in on that. Second thing, uninstall the Facebook app and access it through the internet on your phone. That'll get you to not be addicted to it,

but it'll still help you handle your customers. Third, which is really the real first thing, is don't reach out to your customers to just talk to them because you have other stuff that you need to be doing because you want to feel like you're giving world-class service because you are not doing that.

You are disservice them by not building the business that you should be doing with that time. All right. So like do not fool yourself. You are not helping them. You're not helping the business. All you're doing is opening up communication cycles that shouldn't be there.

And then they start going straight to the owner for things that really should be handled by your trainer or by your coaches or by retention manager, by front desk or billing or whatever, right? So don't do that. And then the last thing, and this is like super, you know, if this was a college class, this would be like 506 W, like the second level or third level.

One of the biggest breakthroughs that I had in business ever was the moment of the moment. I, so when you hire your first admin, so for some of you guys, it might be your, your operations manager who will start as an admin and then ascend up to an operations manager, and then you probably can hire an admin just for yourself, is that I gave them my phone. I literally gave them to me. I was like, you are now working for me. I was like, this is my phone. I mean, I was like, you can look in wherever you want. And they were like, I mean, I didn't give anyone my number. Like my parents made appointments to talk to me. Like, I'm being very real

with you. And it was because I wanted to put a huge wall between me and the world so that I could focus. And maybe I'm just more ADD than everyone. I have no idea. I'm sure some of you guys are very ADD too. But for me, that was the single greatest leap that I had in productivity and being able to get things done and move the business forward was the moment that I disconnected myself from everything. And obviously you can't do that tomorrow sometimes. But the moment you can't do it, that was the biggest thing that broke me free from the talking to customers, from having like myself, when available to everyone,

which I know that a lot of you guys have that situation because you started with your OGs and there was only 60 of them and you wanted to take care of them all personally because that was the hard and soul of the business. The reality is that like, shit's changed.

You have a business now. Or at least if you want a business, they can't all have your cell phone number. And so that needs to get passed on to someone. And then when they're like, wait, this isn't his, you know,

Alex's number to me like, no, unfortunately. Like, Alex realized he was doing everyone a disservice because all he was doing all day was texting people from like morning until evening and he actually wasn't getting like the real things that you guys need done. And so as a favor to everyone, he's disconnected himself and actually put someone who can give

real attention to it and not be distracted. And so that way you don't sound like a dick, but you are also being truthful, which is that's why you did it. So anyways, number one time second, the entire one for an entrepreneur, don't just talk to your customers. It is a, it is a huge waste of your time and you're just doing it because it feels good. So stop doing that. Uninstall Facebook on your phone.

And then if you can, give this to your admin and then get a new phone and don't give the number of people. I mean, like, don't give the number of people. Like, I think it literally took maybe nine months for me to give my mother my phone number. And I know some of years are like, wow, that's really heartless. It's not because my mother texts for a long time who text me all day long, despite what I would say. And so I had to make a clear statement.

I was like, you can't do this. Like you have access to me. You can't abuse it. And it took a really long time for her to get that. And she recently understood it. And that is why she has my cell phone number in it. And she understands that she can't abuse that. So anyways, I just want you guys to know.

It is the number one thing in the world that I have struggled with. And I hope that things that I gave you will help make you some more dollars. And if you have trainers, she would fall into the same trap. Tag a minute, shoot her like, so that other gym owners will see that you're not a bad person if you don't actively Facebook message everyone back within five seconds because they shouldn't be messages. All right, lots of love. Have an awesome hump date, and I'll get you guys soon.