Alex Hormozi
The greatest hitters of all time also have many strike outs, just as there are many failed offers in the track record of great marketers. (Location 88)
“We need to talk,” I said as Leila and I went into the other room. I worked up the courage to speak but stared at the floor, embarrassed. “I’ve got nothing,” I said to her. “I’m a sinking ship, and you don’t have to stay with me.” She grabbed my chin and pulled my face towards hers so she could look into my eyes: “I would sleep with you under a bridge if it came to that.” I would have cried tears of joy, but I was so emotionally exhausted my response appeared apathetic. I wouldn’t stay with me (Location 197)
The skill of making offers saved me from bankruptcy and likely saved my life. I have made so many mistakes in my life. I’ve made so many bad life decisions. I’ve hurt people knowingly and mistakenly. I’ve done bad things with good intentions. I say this because I am human. I don’t pretend to have the answers. I have my own demons that I battle everyday. But, despite my many shortcomings, I’ve still managed to get really good at this one thing . . . and I’d like to share it with you. I can teach you how to build great offers. (Location 238)
“Do you want to know the secret to sales?” I had never sold anything in my life. I had never even read a book on it. I had just recently learned what the term meant (seriously). I leaned forward, intent to download every syllable he spoke right into my brain. I opened my notepad and stared at him with intent. I was ready for the secret. He looked at me soberly and said: “Make people an offer so good they would feel stupid saying (Location 265)
Somehow, in the transition between “passionate to help others” and “owning my first business,” we gradually realized that we don’t even know the first thing about business, let alone turning a profit. (Location 290)
Much to the disappointment of the idealists on the sidelines, succeeding in business means getting prospective customers to trade us money for our services. Our passion for their hard-earned coins. That’s the agreement. (Location 293)
The offer is what initiates this trade. In a nutshell, the offer is the goods and services you agree to give or provide, how you accept payment, and the terms of the agreement. It is what begins the process of getting customers and making money. It is the first thing any new customer will interact with in your business. Since the offer is what attracts new customers, it is the lifeblood of your business. (Location 298)
As Dr Burgelman, a famous Stanford business school professor said, it is far better to have understood why you failed than to be ignorant of why you succeeded. (Location 310)
I have put the steps and components of those frameworks in a logical and digestible format so they are actually useful. Today. Like now. I’m giving you action. Instead of a sad- but-typical book of vague business theories and mental masturbation. (Location 314)
The Two Main Problems Most Entrepreneurs Face and How This Book Solves Them Although you can make the list of problems you face a mile long, which is a great way to stress yourself out, all these problems typically stem from two big kahunas: Not enough clients Not enough cash (excess profit at the end of the month) (Location 316)
What’s In It For Me? I give all these materials (this book, the accompanying course, and all other books and courses which you can find at Acquisition.com) for free or at cost in order to help as many people as humanly possible make more and serve more. And I have made these with the intention of providing more value than you can get from a $1000 course, any $30,000 coaching program, and hilariously more than a $200,000 college degree. And I do this because, although I could sell these materials in that format, I just don’t want to. I’ve made my money doing this stuff, not teaching how to do this stuff, contrary to most of the marketing community at large. So my model is different (I’ll explain more in a second). That being said, there are two key archetypes I am looking to provide value to with my published materials. For archetype I, entrepreneurs under $1,000,000 per year in profits, my goal is to help you get there and earn your trust. Try just a couple of tactics from this book, watch them work, then try a few more, watch them work . . . and so on. The more you see results in your own business, the better. Once you succeed, you become archetype II, entrepreneurs with a minimum of $1,000,000 per year in profits. Once you get there, or if that’s you now, I’d be honored to invest in your business and help you cross $30M, $50M, or $100M+. I don’t sell coaching, masterminds, courses, or anything like that. Instead, I have a portfolio of companies I take an equity interest in. I use the infrastructure, resources, and teams of all my companies to fast track their growth. But don’t believe me yet...we just met (Location 352)
If you’re curious, my business model is simple, just like the four-piece pyramid logo: (1) Provide value at no cost far in excess of what the rest of the marketplace charges for. (2) Have entrepreneurs use materials that actually work and make money helping more folks (3) Earn the trust of the hyper-executor business owners who use the frameworks to scale their businesses (4) Invest in those businesses to make more impact at scale while helping everyone else for (Location 368)
I actively visualize, every day, how it felt to wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweats, wondering how I’d make payroll. That gut-wrenching “meditation” keeps me hungry as an entrepreneur but also grateful for my security and peace of mind. I want the latter for you and anyone else that gives a damn about what they do. (Location 385)
Basic Outline of This Book This book is intended to be a resource. As a resource, I mean it will be something you will read through and then keep in your tool box, coming back to it again and again. Why? As Einstein says, “never memorize anything you can look up.” Business is not a spectator sport. You’re not cramming for some midterm, and you’re not some limp-wristed philosopher. (Location 390)
So, then, what does it take to grow? Thankfully, just three simple things: 1) Get more customers 2) Increase their average purchase value 3) Get them to buy more times (Location 420)
We want to make an offer that’s so different that you can skip the awkward explanation of why your product is different from everyone else’s (which, if they have to ask, then they are probably too ignorant to understand the explanation) and instead just have the offer do that work for you. That’s the Grand Slam Offer way. (Location 574)
A grand slam offer given to the wrong audience will fall on deaf ears. (Location 663)
You could have the worst hot dogs, terrible prices, and be in a terrible location, but if you’re the only hot dog stand in town and the local college football game breaks out, you’re going to sell out. That’s the value of a starving crowd. (Location 684)
Don’t be romantic about your audience. Serve the people who can pay you what you’re worth. And remember that picking a market, like anything, is always our choice, so choose wisely. In order to sell anything, you need demand. We are not trying to create demand. We are trying to channel it. (Location 717)
When picking markets, I look for four indicators: 1) Massive Pain They must not want, but desperately need, what I am offering. Pain can be anything that frustrates people about their lives. Being broke is painful. A bad marriage is painful. Waiting in line at the grocery stores is painful. Back pain . . . ugly smile pain . . . overweight pain . . . Humans suffer a lot. So for us entrepreneurs, endless opportunity abounds. The degree of the pain will be proportional to the price you will be able to charge (more on this in the Value Equation chapter). When they hear the solution to their pain, and inversely, what their life would look like without this pain, they should be drawn to your solution. I have a saying I use to train sales teams “The pain is the pitch.” If you can articulate the pain a prospect is feeling accurately, they will almost always buy what you are offering. A prospect must have a painful problem for us to solve and charge money for our solution. Pro Tip The point of good writing is for the reader to understand. The point of good persuasion is for the prospect to feel understood. 2) Purchasing Power A friend of mine had a very good system for helping people improve their resumes to get more job interviews. He was great at it. But try as he did, he just could not get people to pay for his services. Why? Because they were all unemployed! This, again, may seem obvious. But he thought, “These people are easy to target. They’re in massive pain. There are plenty of them, and it’s constantly adding new people. This is a great market!” He just forgot a crucial point: your audience needs to be able to afford the service you’re charging them for. Make sure your targets have the money, or access to the amount of money, needed to buy your services at the prices you require to make it worth your time. 3) Easy to Target Let’s say you have a perfect market, but no way of finding the people who comprise it. Well, making a Grand Slam Offer will be difficult. I make my life easier by looking for easy- to-target markets. Examples of this are avatars that have associations they belong to, mailing lists, social media groups, channels they all watch, etc. If our potential customers are all gathered together somewhere, then we can market to them. If searching them out, however, is like finding needles in a haystack, then it can be very difficult to get your offer in front of any potentially interested eyes. This point is tactical. It is reality, not theoretical. For instance, you may want to serve rich doctors. But if your ads are being displayed to nursing students, your offer will fall on deaf ears, no matter how good it is. Main point: you want to make sure you can target your ideal audience easily. (Clarifying point - there is no issue wanting to serve rich doctors, they are easy to find. This is just illustrative that your promotions must be served to the right audience). 4) Growing Growing markets are like a tailwind. They make everything move… (Location 729)
Starving Crowd (market) > Offer Strength > Persuasion Skills Let’s say you were to rate these elements on a scale of great, normal, and bad. You could essentially move down the line from left to right in order of importance. A “great” rating on a higher-order piece overpowers anything else lower on the priority scale. A “normal” rating moves the buck to the next part of the equation. A “bad” stops the equation unless a “great” from a higher priority component nullifies it. Here are a few (Location 790)
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But in order to maintain product focus, and high converting messaging, knowing exactly who the product was for was a game changer. It helped us know exactly who we were speaking to at all times. And exactly whose problems we were solving. (Location 844)
Most people never try anything. Others fail once, then give up. It takes resilience to succeed. Stop personalizing! It’s not about you! If your offer doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean you suck. It means your offer sucks. Big difference. You only suck if you stop trying. So, try again. You’ll never become world class if you stop after a failed attempt. (Location 898)
“Charge as high a price as you can say out loud without cracking a smile.” — Dan Kennedy (Location 912)
Price to Value Discrepancy “I hope what you’re giving them is worth it.” Those words would probably sting for most, but when my dad said them to me, I just knew he didn’t understand the value we were providing. What I want to show you is how to create and communicate value, aka the “worth-it-ness” of an offer. In order to understand how to make a compelling offer, you must understand value. The reason people buy anything is to get a deal. They believe what they are getting (VALUE) is worth more than what they are giving in exchange for it (PRICE). The moment the value they receive dips below what they are paying, they stop buying from you. This price to value discrepancy is what you need to avoid at all costs. After all, as Warren Buffet said, “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” (Location 966)
So the goal of our Grand Slam Offer will be to get more people to say yes at a higher price by increasing our value to price discrepancy. In other words, we will raise our price only after we have sufficiently increased our value. (Location 985)
Pricing where the market is means you’re pricing for market efficiency. Over time, in an efficient marketplace, more competitors enter offering “a little more for a little less,” until eventually no one can provide any more for any less. (Location 1005)
Allow me to give you a brief overview of why I see premium pricing as not only a very smart business decision, but a moral one. Furthermore, it’s the only choice that will allow you to truly provide the most value, a unique and strong position in the marketplace. Let me introduce you to the virtuous cycle of price. Virtuous Cycle of Price I have used this framework in most of the materials I release because it needs to be consistently reinforced. The forces of the marketplace will grate on your belief system. You must stay strong and ignore them! Here’s the basic premise of why you need to charge a premium if you want to best serve your customers. When you decrease your price, you . . . . . . Decrease your clients’ emotional investment since it didn’t cost them much . . . Decrease your clients’ perceived value of your service since it can’t be that good if it’s so cheap, or priced the same as everyone else . . . Decrease your clients results because they do not value your service and are not invested . . . Attract the worst clients who are never satisfied until your service is free . . . Destroy any margin you have left to be able to actually provide an exceptional experience, hire the best people, invest in your people, pamper your clients, invest in growth, invest in more locations or more scale, and everything else that you had hoped in the goal of helping more people solve whatever problem it is that you solve. (Location 1014)
When you raise your prices, you . . . . . . Increase your clients’ emotional investment . . . Increase your clients’ perceived value of your service . . . Increase your clients’ results because they value your service and are invested . . . Attract the best clients who are the easiest to satisfy and actually cost less to fulfill, and who are the most likely to actually receive and perceive the most relative value . . . Multiply your margin because you have money to invest in systems to create efficiency; smart people; improved customer experience; scale your business; and, most importantly of all, to keep watching the number in your personal bank account go up, month after month, even with reinvesting in your business. This allows you to ultimately enjoy the process for the long haul and help more people as you grow, rather than burning out and shriveling into obscurity. (Location 1037)
the goal is to be so much higher that a consumer thinks to themselves, “This is so much more expensive, there must be something entirely different going on here.” That is how you create a category of one. In this new perceived marketplace, you are a monopoly and can make monopoly profits. That is the point. (Location 1062)
One final point I want to drive home: if you offer a service where a customer must do something in order to achieve the result, or solve the problem you say you solve, they must be invested. The more invested they are, the more likely they are to achieve a positive result. Therefore, it follows that if you care about your customers, you should get them as invested as humanly possible. Ideally, this means pricing your services or product in such a way that it stings a little when they buy. That sting will force and focus their attention and their investment in your product or service. Those who pay the most, pay the most attention. And if your customers are more adherent and follow through, and if they achieve better results with your service than your competition, then you are in a very real way providing more value than anyone else. (Location 1065)
The survey just proved what I already knew. I had complete conviction in our product. I knew it worked. I had outworked my self- (Location 1111)
Profit is oxygen. It fuels the fire of growth. You need it if you want to reach more people and make a bigger impact. (Location 1122)
You need to have a big discrepancy between what something costs you and what you charge for it. It is the only way to be unreasonably successful. Many entrepreneurs believe that charging “too much” is bad. The reality is that, yes, you should never charge more than your product is worth. But you should charge far more for your product and services than it costs to fulfill it. Think up to a hundred times more, not just two or three times more. And if you provide enough value, it should still always be a steal for the prospect. That is the power of value. (Location 1138)
As you can see from the picture, there are four primary drivers of value. Two of the drivers (on top), you will seek to increase. The other two (on the bottom), you will seek to decrease. (Yay) The Dream Outcome (Goal: Increase) (Yay) Perceived Likelihood of Achievement (Goal: Increase) (Boo) Perceived Time Delay Between Start and Achievement (Goal: Decrease) (Boo) Perceived Effort & Sacrifice (Goal: Decrease) If you noticed the questions in the last section that my father asked me, you’ll see they corresponded with these pillars: What will I make? (Dream Outcome) How will I know it’s going to happen? (Perceived Likelihood of Achievement) How long will it take? (Time Delay) What is expected of me? (Effort & Sacrifice) (Location 1165)
Get The Bottom To Zero In the beginning of my career, I focused all my attention on dream outcomes and the perception of achievement (social proof, third-party edification, etc.). In other words, the top side of the equation. That’s where beginner marketers make bigger and bigger claims. It’s easy, and it’s lazy. But as time has gone on, I have realized that these larger-than-life claims are the easiest to establish (and therefore less unique). After all, anyone can make a promise. The harder, and more competitive, are the Time Delay and Effort & Sacrifice. The best companies in the world focus all their attention on the bottom side of the equation. (Location 1177)
The Grand Slam Offer only becomes valuable once the prospect perceives the increase in likelihood of achievement, perceives the decrease in time delay, and perceives the decrease in effort and sacrifice. (Location 1202)
Examples inspired by Rory Sutherland, CMO of Ogilvy Advertising: “Any fool can sell a product by offering it for a discount, it takes great marketing to sell the same product for a premium” (Location 1214)
The dream outcome is the expression of the feelings and experiences the prospect has envisioned in their mind. It’s the gap between their current reality and their dreams. Our goal is to accurately depict that dream back to them, so they feel understood, and explain how our vehicle will get them there. (Location 1231)
The dream outcome value driver is most prominently used when comparing the relative value between two different desires being satisfied. In general, the dream outcome that most directly increases a prospect’s status will be the one they value most. (Location 1249)
So it’s not about the money, it’s about the status (the perceived increase or decrease in relative standing when compared to others socially or professionally) (Location 1257)
Time delay is the time between a client buying and receiving the promised benefit. The shorter the distance between when they purchase and they receive value/the outcome, the more valuable your services or product is. There are two elements to this driver of value: Long-term outcome and short-term experience. Many times, there are short-term experiences that occur while en route to the long-term outcomes. They happen “along the way” and provide value. It’s good to understand both. The thing people buy is the long-term value, aka their “dream outcome.” But the thing that makes them stay long enough to get it is the short- term experience. These are little milestones a prospect sees along the way that shows them they are on the right path. We try and tie as many of these as possible into any service we offer. We want clients to have a big emotional win early (as close as possible to their purchase). This gives them the emotional buy in and the momentum to “see it through” to their ultimate (Location 1288)
Pro Tip: Fast Wins Always try and incorporate short-term, immediate wins for a client. Be creative. They just need to know they are on the right path and that they made the right decision trusting you and your business. (Location 1301)
People who experience a victory early on are more likely to continue with something than those who do not. (Location 1311)
So if you find yourself in a market competing against free, double down on speed. (Location 1322)
Decreasing the effort and sacrifice, or at least the perceived effort and sacrifice, can massively boost the appeal of your offer. (Location 1355)
You can make your dent in the universe while making a profit. (Location 1427)
But life will pay you for your ability to solve using a divergent thought process. In other words, think of many solutions to a single problem. Not only that, convergent answers are binary. They are either right or they are wrong. With divergent thinking, you can have multiple right answers, and one answer that is way more right than the others. Cool right? (Location 1485)
So if I were selling a brick, I would find out what my customer’s desire was, and then devise how many ways I could create value with my “brick.” (Location 1522)
No one wants a membership; they want to lose weight. (Location 1539)
What I showed here isn’t just four problems, though. We have 16 core problems with two to four sub problems underneath. So 32 to 64 problems total. Yowza. No wonder most people don’t achieve their goals. Do not get overwhelmed. This is the best news ever. The more problems you think of, the more problems you get to solve. (Location 1581)
That being said, if this is your first Grand Slam Offer, it’s important to over-deliver like crazy. Maybe flying out isn’t such a bad idea in the beginning. Make some sales, then think about how to make it easier for your clients. You want them to think to themselves, “I get all this, for only that?” In essence, you want them to perceive tremendous value (Location 1652)
Whenever you are building a business, you have a continuum between ease of fulfillment and ease of sales. If you lower what you have to do, it increases how hard your product or service is to sell. If you do as much as possible, it makes your product or service easy to sell but hard to fulfill because there’s more demand on your time investment. (Location 1661)
have always lived by the mantra, “Create flow. Monetize flow. Then add friction.” This means I generate demand first. Then, with my offer, I get them to say yes. Once I have people saying yes, then, and only then, will I add friction in my marketing, or decide to offer less for the same price. (Location 1664)
Practicality drives this practice. If you can’t get demand flowing in, then you have no idea whether what you have is good. I’d rather do more for every customer and have cash flow coming in, then optimize my business but have zero cash flow coming in after (and zero idea about what I need to adjust to better serve my customers). (Location 1667)
Here’s a perfect example to drive this home. When I started Gym Launch, gym owners reached out asking me to help. They needed so much help, I didn’t know where to start. But I wanted to make sure they got way more than they paid me. So here’s what I ended up doing to fill their gyms: I would fly out to their gym for 21 days, spend my own money on hotels, car rentals, eating out, advertising, generate the leads, work the leads, then sell for them. I would even do the first onboarding meeting with clients to get them started. In short, I did everything. I took on all the risk. They only had to put down $500 to “reserve” their date, which I made refundable at the end of their launch. So they had 0 financial risk, 0 time risk, 0 effort, and the deal was, I got to keep all the up front cash collected from selling their services, and they got clients for free. You can imagine how this was a pretty compelling offer. On my own, I was able to sell about $100,000/mo in upfront cash for myself. So these deals were very lucrative for me. Over time, I scaled that to a team of 8 guys selling every month. But this began to wear on me and the team. It was at that point that I realized that if I were to simply teach them how to do what I did, I could charge maybe a third of what I would normally make, but I would be able to help hundreds of gyms a month instead of eight. And, I could do it all sleeping in my own bed every night. (Location 1670)
When talking to business owners about their model, I tell them to create cash flow by over-delivering like crazy at first. Then use the cash flow to fix your operations and make your business more efficient. (Location 1684)
What level of personal attention do I want to provide? one-on-one, small group, one to many What level of effort is expected from them? Do it themselves (DIY) - figure out how to do it on their own; do it with them (DWY) - you teach them how to do it; done for them (DFY) - you do it for them If doing something live, what environment or medium do I want to deliver it in? In-person, phone support, email support, text support, Zoom support, chat support If doing a recording, how do I want them to consume it? Audio, video, or written. How quickly do we want to reply? On what days? During what hours? 24/7. 9-5, within 5 minutes, within an hour, within 24 hrs.? 10x to 1/10th test. If my customers paid me 10x my price (or $100,000) what would I provide? If they paid me 1/10th the price and I had to make my product more valuable than it already is, how would I do that? How could I still make them successful for 1/10th price? Stretch your mind in either direction and you’ll come up with widely different solutions. In other words, how could I actually deliver on these solutions I am claiming I will provide. Do this for each problem because solutions from one problem will give you ideas for others you wouldn’t normally have considered. (Location 1748)
Don’t get romantic about how you want to solve the problem. Find a way to solve every problem a prospect presents with. (Location 1785)
Step #5: Trim & Stack Now that we have enumerated our potential solutions, we will have a gigantic list. Next, I look at the cost of providing these solutions to me (the business). I remove the ones that are high cost and low value first. Then I remove low cost, low value items. (Location 1790)
What should remain are offer items that are 1) low cost, high value and 2) high cost, high value. (Location 1798)
The next question becomes, is there a lesser version of this experience that I can deliver at scale? (Location 1803)
If you think you can accomplish the same value with a lower cost alternative, then do that instead. (Location 1817)
People want what they can’t have. People want what other people want. People want things only a select few have access to. (Location 1952)
Desire comes from not getting what you want. In fact, I heard this quote that I love from Naval Ravikant: “Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.” It follows, therefore, that we only want things we do not have. As soon as we have them, our desire for them disappears. Therefore, if we seek to increase the demand (or desire), we must decrease or delay satisfying the desires of our prospects. We must sell fewer units than we otherwise can. Let that sit with you for a second. (Location 1980)
Hormozi Law: The longer you delay the ask, the bigger the ask you can make. “The longer the runway, the bigger the plane that can take off.” (Location 2010)
We want the ravenous prospect, not merely the aroused. (Location 2020)
The reason an authority (like a doctor), a celebrity (like Oprah), or a celebrity authority (like Dr.Oz or Dr.Phil) can charge egregious rates is because of implied demand. People assume that there is a lot of demand for their time, and, therefore, not a big supply of it. As a result, it must be expensive. (Location 2040)
if I can pay someone $50,000 for a day of their time, and see an increase of $500,000 per month in revenue within three months because of the insights and strategies revealed, that would be a helluva return on investment, right? (Location 2060)
After the event concluded and I was speaking with Leila, I realized how I had somehow become ‘one of those people I had always wondered about’. It was a very surreal experience for me. I finally understood how premium prices were truly made . . . simple supply and demand. There is little that substitutes for incredible demand. You can try and fake it, but there is a special type of “0 fucks given” vibe that’s hard to replicate when you truly do not need a person’s money (or even want it). (Location 2078)
The person who needs the exchange less always has the upper hand. (Location 2082)
Humans are far more motivated to take action to hoard a scarce resource than they are to act on something that could help them. (Location 2094)
Total Business Cap - Only accepting….X Clients. Only accepting X clients at this level of service (on-going). This puts a cap on how many clients you service but also keeps them in it. You create a waiting list for new prospects. The moment the door opens, they jump right in and price resistance disappears. Periodically, you can increase capacity by 10-20% then cap it again. This works well for your highest tiers or service levels. (Location 2121)
Honest Scarcity (The Most Ethical Scarcity) The easiest scarcity strategy is honesty. Wait, what? Let me explain. I’m sure right now, you probably couldn’t handle 1,000 clients tomorrow right? But how many could you handle? 5? 10? 25? Well, you might as well define a number that you are willing to take on in a given time period, then advertise that. Simply letting people know that you are three-fourths of the way to capacity this week will move people over the edge to buying from you. (Location 2156)
if you want to immediately make a lot of money, create a very exclusive service level based on access to you (yes, unscalable), that you cap at a tiny number. Price it very high. Then, tell people. You will make more money than you thought possible. These also tend to be some of the best clients. And limit your delivery to something that you don’t hate. (Location 2173)
SECTION I (Location 88)
of Leila’s family’s faces. They may as well have been hypnotized. I envied them. They sat, entranced, soaking in their paid time off for Christmas. Must be nice. Anybody else would have missed it but Leila, my girlfriend at the time, knew me too well. Anybody else would have thought I was watching the movie, but Leila could tell I was staring blankly at the screen, my eyes not tracking the movie. My face was pale. My cheekbones and jawline appeared gaunt. Weeks of chronic stress had killed my appetite. (Location 197)
My aggression was quickly turning into desperation. “Shit, just send me half so I can pay my employees,” I pleaded “It’s Christmas Eve for fuck’s sake.” “Sir, we’re going to be holding onto the entirety of your funds for the next six months per your agreement . . . ” The voice faded into the distance. (Location 238)
Leila’s concern turned to dread. We sat in silence the whole way home. I stared out the window. She held my hand in hers. It was more comforting than I anticipated. We’ll get through this. (Location 265)
per hour and earned a DUI as my consolation prize. This was the cherry on top. My one saving (Location 290)
So I did the only thing I knew. I sold. My salesman had done $120,000 in a single month, and I owed him a $22,000 (Location 293)
“I’ve got nothing,” I said to her. “I’m a sinking ship, and you don’t have to stay with me.” She grabbed my chin and pulled my face towards hers so she could look into my eyes: “I would sleep with you under a bridge if it came to that.” I would (Location 298)
same time. Between airfare, hotels, rental cars, gas, and ad spend (all multiplied by six), I was going to be spending $3,300 per (Location 310)
Just like that, $3,300 per day began getting deducted from my account. (Location 314)
nothing -$3,300 . . . I now have officially less than nothing -$3,300 . . . I have $10,000 less than nothing -$3,300 . . . This one decision is going to ruin my future forever. (Location 316)
I don’t know who you are (yes, you, the one reading this). But thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for allowing me to do work I find meaningful. Thank you for giving me your most valuable asset ― your attention. I promise to do my best to give you a positive return on it. Here is your first piece of good news: if you are reading this, then you are already in the top 10 percent. Most people buy stuff and then promptly ignore it. I can also throw out a spoiler: the further you get in the book, the bigger the nuggets become. Just watch. This book delivers. The world needs more entrepreneurs. It needs more fighters. It needs more magic. And that’s what I’m sharing with you ― magic. Grand Slam Offers “Make people an offer so good they would feel stupid saying no.” - Travis Jones I was 23 years old and, to quote Ruth from Ozark, I didn't know “shit about fuck.” But there I was, (Location 352)
in my most-fashionable “beast mode” t-shirt (a shirt I had gotten for free, and one of the five shirts I owned at the time). Truthfully, I was anxious, self-conscious, and thought I was making a huge mistake. I had paid $3,000 of money I didn't have to get a seat at the table. I knew I needed to learn. Everyone there had a business . . . except me. I was planning on starting one, a gym. TJ, the organizer, had multiple successful businesses. While going over the agenda, I remember he made an off-hand comment about making $1,000,000 that year. One. Million. Dollars. I was spellbound. I wanna be (Location 368)
no.” I nodded, wrote it down, underlined it, and circled it. And with that, my entire worldview of selling was transformed. (Location 385)
say yes to. The greatest game of my life had begun. What This Book Is About At some point, every successful business owner was a (Location 390)
is through a value exchange, a trade of dollars for value. The offer is what initiates this trade. In a nutshell, the offer is the goods and services you agree to give or provide, how you accept payment, and the terms of the agreement. It is what begins the process of getting customers and making money. It is the first thing any new customer will interact with in your business. Since the offer is (Location 420)
average purchase value 3) Get them to buy more times (Location 574)
price-driven purchase versus a value-driven purchase). Your Grand Slam Offer, however, forces a prospect to stop and think differently (Location 663)
all their marketing looks the same as everyone else's. (Location 684)
that you make the most money possible . . . sound fair enough? It’s clear these are drastically different offers . . . but so what? Where’s the money!? Let’s compare both in the below chart. (Location 717)
up front? With the new way, you are making more money and getting more customers. This means that your cost to acquire a customer is so cheap (relative to how much you make) that your limiting factor becomes your ability to do the work you already love doing. Cash flow and acquiring customers is no longer your bottleneck because it’s 22.4x more profitable than the old model. Yup. You read that right. This is the part in the action movie where you walk away from an explosion in slow motion. This is the exact Grand Slam Offer we used with our software business that serves agencies. The numbers can become wild . . . fast. I know 22.4x better sounds unreasonable, but that's the point. If you play the same game everyone else does, you’ll get the same results everyone else does (mediocre). You hit singles and doubles, keep the lights on, but never get ahead. But remember the opening passage of this book: that when you align all the pieces, you can knock it out of the park so well that you win for good. In my first 18 months in business, we went from $500k/year to $28,000,000/yr off of less than $1M in ad spend. So, when I say 20:1 . . . 50:1 . . . 100:1 returns, I mean it. When you get this right, the results are, well . . . unbelievable. Summary Points This chapter illustrated the basic problem with commoditization and how Grand Slam Offers solve that. This gets you out of the pricing war and into a category of one. The next chapter will focus on finding the correct market to apply our pricing strategies to. It’s one of the most important things to get right. A grand slam offer given to the wrong audience will fall on deaf ears. We want to avoid that at all costs. We must detour from pricing for a moment to learn what to look for in a market. It’s an essential box to check before continuing on our journey. Pricing: Finding The Right Market -- A Starving Crowd The seed that fell on good soil represents those who truly hear and understand God’s word and produce a harvest of thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted!” - Matthew 13:23 (NLT) A marketing professor asked his students, “If you were going to open a hotdog stand, and you could only have one advantage over your competitors . . . which would it be . . . ?” “Location! ….Quality! …. Low prices! ….Best taste!” The students kept going until eventually they had run out of answers. They looked at each other waiting for the professor to speak. The room finally fell quiet. The professor smiled and replied, “A starving crowd.” You could have the worst hot dogs, terrible prices, and be in a terrible location, but if you’re the only hot dog stand in town and the local college football game breaks out, you’re going to sell out. That’s the value of a starving crowd. (Location 729)
downsize his company. Don’t worry — this story has a second half. To illustrate the power of a market, as soon as COVID hit, Lloyd pivoted. He started an automated mask manufacturing company. With new technology, he brought the cost per mask below what people could buy them for from China. Within five months he was doing millions per month. Same entrepreneur. Different market. He applied his same skill set to a business (Location 790)
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3) Easy to Target Let’s say you have a perfect market, but no way of finding the people who comprise (Location 844)
have to be exceptionally good at persuasion. Then and only then will you succeed, with your persuasive skills serving as the fulcrum of your success. Heck, many empires have been built by exceptional persuaders. It’s just (Location 898)
normal markets and represent billions of dollars in revenue. Either would work, just not both. You must pick (Location 912)
do better. So let’s go down another level of niching and call our product…. “Time Management for B2B Outbound Sales Reps.” Following the same principles of specificity, now we know our sales people probably have very experienced deals and commissions. A single sale would easily net this salesman $500 (or more), so it would be easy to justify a $499 price tag. This is already a 25x increase in price for almost an identical product. I could stop here, but I’m going to go one step further. Let’s just niche down one last level…. “Time Management for B2B Outbound Power Tools & Gardening Sales Reps.” Boom. Think about it for a second, if you were a power tools outbound sales rep, you would think to yourself “This is made exactly for me” and would happily fork over maybe $1000 to $2000 for a time management program that could help you achieve your goal. The actual pieces of the program may be the same as the generic $19 course, but since they have been applied, and the sales messaging could speak so much to this avatar, they will find it (Location 966)
I’ll let you decide. Summary Points (Location 985)
“Charge as high a price as you can say out loud without cracking a smile.” (Location 1005)
weight was duct-taped to my skull, dragging my eyelids back down. I had to concentrate forcibly to open them. The details of the dimly lit room beamed in. I rolled over to the edge of the hotel room bed, feeling each and every muscle in my body as my weight shifted. Hunched on my side, I could see my clothes scattered on the floor. I was so beat the night before that I didn’t even remember taking them off. I had just finished a five-day gauntlet of keynote after keynote presentation. Two days of presentations for our highest-level clients immediately followed by spending two days planning with our entire company (135+ employees). I had missed a FaceTime call from my father the day before. I didn’t have anything on my agenda for the morning. So I creakily got up, slid into a hoodie and some sweats, and walked into the hotel hallway to call him back. After the initial pleasantries, he immediately dove into why he was calling — parental concern. “I saw the picture you posted of all your clients . . . ” he said, but in an unusually concerned tone. “I thought the event was for all your highest-paying clients? I didn’t know it was a big event. It looked like you had a thousand people there!” Alone in the hallway and struggling to shake the heavy weight of exhaustion still, I tried to gauge where his concern was coming from and what he was getting at. I had explained this all to him already. “It was only for our highest-level clients, that wasn’t all our clients,” I said. “Just the ones who pay $42,000 a year . . . our Gym Lords, like I told you.” “Every single person in that picture paid you $42,000?” He sounded almost frightened at the idea. “Yeah, wild right?” My voice was hoarse from days of speaking and thousands of twenty-second conversations. (Location 1014)
them is worth it.” I contemplated whether it was worth the effort to dive into this or just ignore it. But knowing this was going to be “a thing,” I took a deep breath and began to explain. “If I made you $239,000 extra this year, would you pay me $42,000?” I asked, using “$239,000” because it was the average increase in topline revenue of a gym using our systems for 11 months. “For sure,” he said, “I mean if I knew I was going to make that back. But what would I have to do?” “About 15 hours a week of work” “And how long would it take me to make the $239,000?” “Eleven months” “And how much of the $42,000 would I have to pay you up front?” “Nothing. Just pay me as you start making the money using the system” I watched it click. My dad got it. “Oh,” he said, “well then, yeah, I would do it.” (Location 1037)
I hope that you are in the last category, because that is who I am writing this for. You can do this. You just need to learn (Location 1062)
And I'm gonna show you. Price to Value Discrepancy “I hope what you’re giving them is worth it.” Those words would probably sting for most, but when my dad said them to me, I just knew he didn’t understand the (Location 1065)
Provide what their competitors offers with a “little more” 6) (Location 1111)
We are not trying to stay barely (Location 1122)
. . . Decrease your clients’ emotional investment since it didn’t cost them much . . . Decrease your clients’ perceived value of your service since it can’t be that good if it’s so cheap, or priced the same as everyone else . . . Decrease your clients results because they do not value your service and are not invested . . . Attract the worst clients who are (Location 1138)
the number in your personal bank account go up, month after month, even with reinvesting in your business. This allows you to ultimately enjoy the process for the long haul and help more people as you grow, rather than burning out and shriveling into obscurity. To swing the argument even further in favor of higher prices, here are a few interesting concepts. When you raise your price, you increase the value the consumer receives without changing anything else about your product. Wait, what? Yes. Higher Price Means Higher Value (Literally) In a blind taste test, researchers asked consumers to rate three wines: a low-priced wine, a medium-priced wine and an expensive wine. Throughout the study, the participants rated the wines with the prices visible. They rated them, unsurprisingly, in order of their price, with the most expensive being the “best,” the second most expensive being “second best,” and the third, cheapest option, being rated as “cheap wine.” What the tasters didn’t know is that the researchers gave them the exact same wine all three times. Yet, the tasters reported (Location 1165)
relationship between value and price. In essence, raising your prices can directly enhance the value you provide. What’s more, the higher the price, the more allure your product or service has. People want to buy expensive things. They just need a reason. And the goal isn’t just to be slightly above the market price — the goal is to be so much higher that a consumer thinks to themselves, “This is so much more expensive, there must be something entirely different going on here.” (Location 1177)
In my first niche consulting business — Gym Launch — I teach gym owners a better business model. Before productizing my consulting services, I flew out to 33 gyms in 18 months to do full turnarounds. (Location 1202)
gyms over the next few years (and counting) using a done-with-you rather than a done-for-you model. But. . .back to premium (Location 1214)
Top Line Revenue Growth: +$19,932/mo (+$239,000/yr) Recurring Revenue Growth: +$13,339/mo (+$160,068/yr) (Location 1231)
the most value. Our gyms remained the most competitive, made the most money, always had the latest and best acquisition systems, and had the support to implement them at lightning speed. (Location 1249)
clients voted with their dollars that what the company provides now is far better than what it did before. Cracking value opens up the world of unlimited profit, impact and possibilities. Those who understand value are the ones who will be able to charge the most money for their services. The good news is that there is a repeatable formula that I have created (I’ve never seen it displayed elsewhere) to help quantify the variables that create value for any offer. I call it The Value Equation. Once you see it, you can never unsee it. It will operate in your subconscious, running in the background, calling out to you. It’s a new lens through which to see the world. (Location 1288)
As you can see from the picture, there are four primary drivers of value. Two of (Location 1301)
If you noticed the questions in the last section that (Location 1311)
etc.). In other words, the top side of the equation. That’s where beginner (Location 1322)
of time delay and sacrifice (being bored waiting) more than actually making the trains faster (which costs billions (Location 1355)
more). The more-experienced surgeon has a track (Location 1427)
Actual nausea working out Meal prepping (Location 1485)
anxiety, and feelings of well-being. I will demonstrate how the other three variables dramatically shift the value of delivering that dream outcome (Location 1522)
0/1 (Location 1539)
“He who said money can’t buy happiness, hasn’t given enough away.” - Unknown (Location 1581)
want to do an exercise with you that will engage the part of your brain that you will need to use in order to make something magical. I call it the “brick” exercise. Don’t worry, it’ll only take 120 seconds. (Location 1652)
uses of a brick as you can possibly think of. How many different ways could a brick be used in life to provide value. (Location 1661)
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (Location 1664)
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________… (Location 1667)
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Alright — stop. Now before I show you my list, did you consider the following . . . . . . How big is the brick? A tab of gum, 3-5/8" x… (Location 1670)
Here’s my… (Location 1684)
When you are thinking about your dream outcome, it has to be them arriving at their destination and what they would like to experience. Step #2: List Problems Next, I wrote down all the things people struggled with and their limiting thoughts around them. When listing out problems, think about what happens immediately before and immediately after someone uses your product/service. What's the “next” thing they need help with? These are all the problems. Think about it in insane detail. If you do, you will create a more valuable and compelling offer as you’ll continually be answering people’s next problem as it manifests.. So, let’s go ahead and list out the problems from a prospect’s perspective as you think about them. What points of friction exist for them? I like to think in the sequence that the customer will experience each of these obstacles. Again, channel insane detail (the more problems the better!). Example Problem List: Weight Loss First thing they must do: Buying healthy food, grocery shopping 1) Buying healthy food is hard, confusing, and I won’t like it 2) Buying healthy food will take too much time 3) Buying healthy food is expensive 4) I will not be able to cook healthy food forever. My family’s needs will get in my way. If I travel I won’t know what to get. Next thing they must do: Cooking healthy food (Location 1748)
Now we’re gonna go full circle here. Each of the above problems has four negative elements. (Location 1785)
Dream Outcome→ This will not be financially worth it 2) Likelihood of Achievement→ It won’t work for me specifically. I won't be able to stick with it. External (Location 1790)
Now, go ahead and list out (Location 1798)
This is the best news ever. The more problems you think of, the more problems you get to (Location 1803)
new to this process a great place to start. For our purposes, we are giving ourselves a checklist (Location 1817)
I'm going to deliver this thing to at once. My list is below. (Location 1952)
In-person orientation, where I teach a small group offsite what to do (not at store) If I wanted to provide a one to many solution I might offer . . . a) (Location 1980)
want to deliver it in? (Location 2020)
Step #5: Trim & Stack Now that we have enumerated our potential solutions, we will have a gigantic list. Next, (Location 2040)
Just take one step back at a time until you arrive at something that has a time commitment or cost you are willing to live with (or, obviously, massively (Location 2060)
a grocery list calculator, plateau busting meal plans (for when they got stuck), fast cooking guides partnered with meal prep services, and did in-person nutrition orientations with every client one-on-one. Many of the “one to many” solutions require more up front work. Once created, however, they become valuable assets that create value in perpetuity. It’s worth putting in the time to create these (Location 2078)
I made for my gym have been used by 4,000+ gyms now and literally (Location 2082)
Step #3: We listed all those obstacles as solutions. (Location 2094)
1-on-1 Nutrition Orientation where I explain how to use… b) Meal Prep Instructions c) (Location 2121)
How to actually stick with it→ The “Never Fall Off” Accountability System . . . the unbeatable system that works without your permission (it’s even gotten people who hate coming to the gym to look forward to showing up) ($1000 value) How To Be Social→ The ‘Live It Up While Slimming (Location 2156)
3) Makes it impossible to compare or confuse your business or offering with the one down the street Whew! We (Location 2173)
it. We will employ a combination of psychological levers: bonuses, urgency, scarcity, (Location 2186)
Pulling up (Location 2210)
act with more urgency, and be willing to pay more for the same thing than they originally did. So now, in the aftermath of our second scenario, we still have eight people who have unsatisfied desires. This increases their (Location 2293)
phony? I’ll try and give you some real-world examples (Location 2422)
Services With services, especially if you want to consistently get customers, it can be a little trickier (Location 2439)
Let me give you a real example of scarcity to enhance the value of a free lead magnet. If I were to tell you right now that (Location 2464)
that are “exploding offers” everyday they wait to take the job, their pay or bonuses decrease. This forces prospects to make fast decisions rather than try and “wait it out” to see if they get a better offer. All of these examples show opportunities that decay with time, so if you find yourself in front of an opportunity like this, make sure to emphasize it! Summary Points (Location 2573)
Tell them: a) How it relates to their issue b) What it is c) How you discovered it, or what you had to do to create it (Location 2632)
I might get a massage therapist to give me 1-2 free massages to incorporate into my offer. On top of that, (Location 2690)
...Etc. Now if my offer was $400, then the value of these (Location 2700)