551: Breaking Down Alex Hormozis Book Launch Success With My Takeaways
In today’s episode, I’m discussing my key takeaways and reflections from Alex Hormozi’s (the author of the book $100 Million Offers) most recent webinar. We’ll explore the intricacies of Alex’s strategy, how he leveraged his strengths, and the careful balance between customization and adhering to foundational principles. While his specific tactics may not be directly applicable to every business, his approach holds valuable lessons for anyone looking to build a successful brand and connect with their audience on a deeper level. If you’re curious as to how these lessons might be useful for you, your business, and your success, listen in!
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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Emily Hirsh
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I am about to wrap up our month-long trip. We’ve had an epic summer. And if you include Alaska before our trip, I’ve been traveling for like six or seven weeks. And it’s been amazing. I love to travel. But also this is probably the first summer that I have worked so little throughout this time. Like, usually I would travel and I’d almost be working full days but everything is just running so well right now that I haven’t had to do that. And it’s been amazing to see the amount of work that we’ve put into our team and our systems and our delivery and everything, really pay off the last month to two months. And another thing that’s interesting is, you know, when you go back, if you don’t live where you grew up, you go back to where you grew up and you go to like places that you used to go to all the time or, you know, drive around even or whatever and it just like spikes all these memories. It’s so funny how our body like, remembers things. And so when you’re back in a familiar place or like smell or something. You remember all these things? And so I grew up in this town where my dad still lives. And, I also met my husband here. And so there’s just like a lot of memories. And so the other day I was in the coffee shop where I literally grew my business. So we lived in a tiny house, like a one bedroom, really small, like probably 1000 square feet, really small house. Like, so there was no office and I had an under one year old, when we moved up here from San Diego where he was born. And so I couldn’t really work at home when I was starting my business because it’s too loud and I had client calls and just had to work and focus. And so I would, every single day I would go at 8 a.m. and I would go to this coffee shop that was like two minutes away and I would work there from 8 to 11 a.m. And then every single day my husband would, we only had one car and my husband would walk with our son to the coffee shop and then I drive back with him and I put him down for his nap. I’d work a little bit more and then I was like, I shifted and I was on mom duty for the rest of the day while my husband worked And so we did this for over a year of trading off this shift. I did 8 to 11. I put him down for his nap. I got that little bit more time of work and then I took the afternoon shift and he worked. And so I built my business in this coffee shop because it was like my office. I went every single day. I would take calls there, which I hate doing that now. But sometimes I’d take calls in my car if I needed to be quiet because it was the only quiet place I could go. I, that was when like, Facebook lives were starting and I was doing these Facebook lives and I would do them in the car because I didn’t have another place to do them. And it was just really crazy to go back to that coffee shop and I went with my husband and it was like, wow, I built my business here and look at where I am now. I also, that was the place my husband and I had our first date. And so it was just like, so many memories and I just felt this, like, overwhelming appreciation for me. That was 21 year old me who was going against what everybody said I should be doing. I was dropping out of college to build this business that nobody even understood What the heck I was doing. My family’s like, what? And I was just doing it anyways while I figured out how to have a baby and be a wife and all these things. And then I look at my life today and I just think it’s such an important reminder that the things I have today and the ability to travel for six weeks and raise the family, how I can now and the support I have with the nanny and all those things I didn’t always have that. It was never handed to me. I worked my butt off in those days that I’d work 8 to 11 and then take a shift. I was back working at eight pm to 11, 11 pm when my kid was sleeping. That was the only time I could work. And so to fit in a full day, I had to basically work like a half night shift. So anyways, it was kind of emotional for me to be in there and just like, really appreciate how far I’ve come in so many different ways. But also remember how hard I’ve worked to have the life I have today and the freedom I have today. And so you might hear a lot and it might sound like, oh my God, her life is so amazing. But I just think it’s important to remember those roots and I think it’s important for all of us to remember our roots.
So, all right, what we’re diving into today is my takeaways and thoughts on Alex Hersi’s webinar. So if you don’t know Alex Hersi, he wrote the book $100 million offers. I actually personally know him. We’re not as close now, but he used to be my neighbor in Texas. And so him and Layla would come over for dinner and we would do a lot and this was like maybe four years ago. I used to go for walks with Laila in the neighborhood and stuff. So he’s a great guy. Very smart, absolutely brilliant. And him and Layla are incredible entrepreneurs. They grew the company gym launch. They sold it for, I don’t know the amount but I think it’s upper $50 million. I don’t know if they actually officially released the amount but it is a lot. And just a very, very successful entrepreneur, very smart entrepreneur, really good guy and his book $100 million offers. I I refer and give to so many people because it is so good. And so he did a webinar. I think it was like a week and a half ago. It was on a Saturday. Maybe it was just over a week ago for his second book launch. He just launched a new book, $100 million leads. I haven’t read it yet. I absolutely will read it. And his webinar was kind of a big deal. You probably saw a lot of people talk about it mostly because of the numbers he had over 500,000 people signed up and then he had over 100,000 people on live. So I think with those numbers, you get a lot of people looking and watching because it’s like a performance. I mean, over 100,000 people you’re talking about like five stadiums. I mean, it depends on how big the stadium is. But I know when I just went to my Zach Ryan concert, it was a huge stadium and it was 20,000 people and that was a freaking lot of people. So 100,000 people, that’s a lot of people on there watching you live. So with those numbers, it’s just a really cool thing to learn from. So I actually watched the presentation twice once just to watch it the second time to kind of analyze it because I wanted to do this episode and I’ve seen a lot of people’s like takeaways. So it’s almost like overdone at this point. I’ve seen a lot of posts on like takeaways of Alex Hermozis. I’ve also laughed at some of the takeaways that are like people kind of criticizing it or saying he’s a bro marketer. And I just think it’s really funny when people who are so much less successful, like to criticize people who are successful instead of learn from them. It’s just like, why I don’t understand. So I wanted to just share my takeaways and my point of view from it. I think I have some unique perspective. I also want to step outside. Well, we’ll talk about it. OK, so first of all, like a couple of small things that I think are really, really cool to point out for you guys is so I just told you the numbers he had over 100,000 people on live and 500 K signed up. That’s huge. But what I loved was his slides were so simple. There was almost like no design element to them. They were so basic and so simple. And I think it’s just an example of how people focus sometimes on the wrong things. They’ll focus on like the perfect slide design and spending all these hours on the, on the look of it when it’s like the actual valuable content that he put in the slides was way more important than the design of the slides. And so that good content and clear communication and clear content is so much more important than the actual design, right? The other thing I thought was very, very interesting and something to remember and, and realize is he did not do it perfect. He stumbled over his words multiple times because he is absolutely human. I think so often people look at entrepreneurs at that success level and they assume they’ve perfected things and they’re perfect and they’re untouchable and he definitely stumbled over things multiple times. I also know and heard that there was a lot of tech issues because of the volume. I mean, naturally with that volume, you’re gonna have struggles with people trying to get in the room and bandwidth and, and whatnot. And so I think looking at that and understanding he’s not perfect and he is presenting in front of 100,000 people and he’s stumbling over his words and he didn’t do it a lot obviously, but it happened probably five or six times because he’s human and that’s not going to impact the success of his presentation. And so that’s a lesson again of just do it, don’t try and do it perfect, just go and get out there and every time you do it, you’re probably gonna get better. And also Alex Hersi does, he hasn’t done a lot of webinars. He’s done a lot of youtube videos and edited videos, but I haven’t seen him do a webinar in years. And so that was probably like a first time for him in a long time that he did a live webinar, let alone at that audience size. And so I bet you, I haven’t personally talked to him, but I bet you there was nerves and I bet you that he was feeling nervous about the presentation and the audience and he practiced in those things because, you know, he did stumble a few times and, and it is something that he wasn’t regularly doing because he hasn’t done a bunch of webinars. And so just important to remember that someone even at that size, natural human things happened. And so if that happens to you, that is completely normal and fine. So here are some things from the presentation that I think we can take away that he did really, really well and also knowing Alex and seeing his other content, this is something that he always has done really well. Alex is excellent at taking a known concept and switching it and repositioning it to something new and different. He does this in his books. He does this in his content and he did it in this presentation where he would say, you know, everybody knows that you need to get leads, but people aren’t looking at it this way. And when I used to go to dinner with him, he would very much always be like talking about ways to kind of take, you know, something that a lot of people do and, and flip it around and do it a different way. Very good at thinking, different, thinking about a new way to position something and at the root of it, it ends up being very similar to like the known proven concept, but he’s really good at that. And what that does is it makes people go, oh, I have to pay attention because he has a new way of doing things. He has a different way of doing things. I have to listen and I have to, to you know, give him my attention or take the action he wants me to take so that he did multiple times throughout or he took something that’s like, obviously, everybody knows you need to generate leads, but not everybody is thinking about it this this way and he’d fill something in. And so he does that really, really well. He also is very good at storytelling. He incorporated many stories throughout his presentation and constant credibility building. So he would talk about his book $100 million offers or he’d talk about a concept in his new book and he’d instantly back it up with a story and an example of why it worked and he’d show you the testimonials, the screenshots. So throughout the entire presentation, he is just buying your attention and your trust in him that his methods work, that his strategies work. And here’s the proof: So really great storytelling and very authentic, constant credibility building was happening throughout the presentation. Another thing in terms of the content delivery that he does so well. And the reason too that I know he does this so well is he spends so much time getting it to the place where he’s ready to present. And it’s very, it’s actually inspiring to me because I probably spend less time doing this and could spend more time doing this. But it is an absolute skill to be able to break down a complex concept or strategy or whatever it is into steps and into something that’s so digestible and so clear for your audience that’s hard to do. It’s actually easier to just deliver and communicate something complicated to somebody. It’s harder to break it down into something very clear, very concise, very simple. And I remember reading in his first book or maybe he said this in a video, but that the average person can only read like up to fourth grade English. And there’s proven studies that when you actually write copy or a book and you write it so simple in that basic English, it does better because it’s easier for someone to understand. And so Alex will take a very long time, really breaking down and practicing and refining the way he’s communicating a concept, whether it’s in his book or in his content or in his presentation. And so he did that multiple times with very clear visuals. This is also something Russell Brunson does really well. And so that attracts people and builds an incredible audience because people can understand and gain value. And the more value you provide, the more you are able to get people to follow your content, take action, sign up for your thing, buy your book, buy your offer, et cetera. So really great storytelling, really simple basic concepts that he broke down so that you could be like somebody like me who, you know, eats and breathes marketing or you could be someone who’s brand new in business and you could still take away something from the training. Like there were reminders that he said in the presentation that I was like, oh, that’s good. We haven’t thought about that in a while. And so there was value for me at a very high level and there’s definitely value for somebody at a beginning, you know, entry level place because of how, well he did, breaking down the concepts into steps. The other thing, he did a really great job that I have refined many times over the years. And this is also true for speaking is he did a great job engaging with the audience. He would ask questions. He’d often look at the chat and he’d be like calling out names and the chat was obviously going crazy. He’d ask people to raise their hand and all the zoom pictures were behind him. He just did a really, really good job and when you’re presenting a webinar or you’re speaking on stage or whatever you’re doing, you have to do this to keep people engaged because if someone actively like raises their hand or types in the chat or does something, it means they’re thinking and they’re engaged and they’re paying attention and they, they are really caring about what you say. And so it’s something that I actually have had to learn when I do my own webinars because I could just run through content all day. Like that’s easier for me than very naturally picking out spots that I can create engagement in the chat or with people or pause. And so that’s something I know I learned and he did an excellent job at that throughout the presentation, he also had a lot of slides. I’d say that’s something that I might change about mine. He had a lot of slides that didn’t have a lot of text. So he changed the slides a lot which kept your attention because it was constantly kind of changing. It wasn’t staying on one slide going through like four points, it was changing really fast. Those are all the things he did really well. I haven’t talked about the pitch yet. That was just the webinar itself and the actual strategy. But the only thing I would say that I personally would change, which again, I think I have zero room to criticize someone who has been, you know, who has 100,000 people on live. So it’s not at all like, you know, I think he would convert regardless, but I personally felt like he used Russell Brunson’s perfect webinar template a little bit too literally. I would have loved to see and maybe it wouldn’t have converted as well, but I would have loved to see a little bit more authentic Alex in it. I think that a lot of people know that perfect webinar template and there was points in it that I recognized the place he was at because of the template that I know from Russell. So personally, if it was me, I would have removed that template and made it a little bit more him or the person presenting, but that’s just my style. I think it would have connected with the audience more now. I don’t know if it matters because the content was so good that the audience was still very connected and the content was very much his and the value was very high, which sometimes when you use a template, you risk removing the value from it because you’re kind of following this template and keeping yourself in a box, which he didn’t do, but I did feel like it was pretty templated to the perfect webinar template. And I would have loved to see him free flow a little bit more with his personality. So that’s my only really critique.
Now, my takeaways on the strategy as a whole and him as a whole, I think these are probably some of the best points that I have to make that are maybe different than things you’re seeing out there. So first of all, if you watch the webinar, the pitch, he ended up basically giving a bunch of stuff away for free and he pitched it as if it was gonna cost money. And so his whole thing for the last two years has been, I’m Alex Resi and I have nothing to sell you and he gives all this stuff away for free and he’s only had his book, but what their business model is, is him and Layla have a massive holding company that invests in other companies and they get a percentage and they consult and they work with them and they make money doing that. And so that’s really important to keep in mind in what I’m about to say. And so his pitch, he pitched it as if it was going to cost money. And he actually even seated at the end and opened the loop, which was really smart on, are you, you’re gonna find out today? Am I changing that? I don’t have anything to sell you or not? You’re gonna have to wait and see basically is what he said, which was smart because now everybody’s wondering like, what is he going to pitch? Especially if marketers are on there. And then when he pitched it, he positioned it as it was gonna cost money for a while. Like you thought it was gonna be this bundle that was gonna cost money because he was putting dollar amounts. And then it was funny because in his live chat, there was people who were like, basically troll trolling him saying like, oh you’re selling and then it was free. So a lot of people I think have taken that so literally and been like, oh well, I should do that. I should just give away something for free on a webinar. Now, here’s a couple of really important points. Alex used the strategy that was accustomed to his business and was going to help his bigger picture and his goals the most effectively. And if you look at his business, what is his end goal? His new book is launching and he wants people to buy that, right? Because he wants to be on the best seller list. Obviously, his other book has been up there for a very long time. Number two, he builds these massive audiences and then he again invests in companies. So he didn’t need to sell a digital product in this webinar to support his overall goals of his business. And so that was a brilliant strategy for him because it supported his bigger picture goal, his bigger picture strategy and what he’s trying to do while also being different and capturing attention and buzz and people talking about it because everybody’s like, oh my God, he gave all this away for free, right? Because then that just gets people talking about how much he gives away for free, but he’s going to do very well from that strategy. If you took that exact strategy and put it in somebody else’s business, do you think it would be successful? No. And this just backs up my point over and over again on why customs strategies are so important custom strategies that are based on the goal of the business, the offer they sell how they make money and the actual entrepreneur and their audience. And so he creatively created this strategy and I can guarantee their team had conversations about how to, you know, make it seem like he was gonna sell something and then it was free to create that buzz and how that was going to support their bigger picture. And so that is a good, a great brilliant strategy for him because it was using the formula of created for the audience, something different, something new and it supported that bigger picture goal that he has. So I think it’s really important that you see, not just the boxed in version of, oh Alex did this strategy. So now I need to go give away free stuff on a webinar that is not the takeaway, you should have the takeaway is you create that custom strategy for your business. And that is why it worked. The other two things that I think are really important to note here is everything he did before this webinar. And you look at the fact that he had over 500,000 people signed up and that’s amazing. I think there’s some huge influencers who could not do that. So that is just a huge feat in and of itself. Second, what has he done for the last two years before this? If you go back and you look at his social media, his youtube, his podcast and you look at all those avenues. He has shown up way more than most of us could way more than I could so consistently, so frequently with so much value for two years, two years. And he truly hasn’t sold anything in that time. He’s invested in companies. He’s doing great. You know, I’m sure I don’t know the numbers, but he has prioritized building an audience over everything else and knowing and playing that long game that I talked about last week for two years. And he grew his, I think his youtube is at like a million. He’s grown his podcast. He actually had that podcast before. So it already had a foundation, his social. I mean, if you go to his social, it’s insane. The volume they post, I think he shared it in the presentation and it’s a lot of posts. I can’t remember the number. So I’m not gonna say it, but it’s in the hundreds of hundreds a month. He’s got a whole content team producing this level of volume. And Alex is also an insanely hard worker, like he probably works 8 to 10 hour days. And I bet you half of that he’s creating content where he’s sitting there thinking about his concepts and how he’s gonna teach something. I mean, he puts a lot of time into showing up and creating that value. And so how he got 500,000 people signed up for his webinar and 100,000 on live watching him is not from this single strategy. He just ran a webinar and he promoted it the typical ways ads. He said it ads asking people to come organic and and there was one more, I think it was like going out and getting the leads. His cold outreach. That’s how he promoted the webinar. It wasn’t anything crazy. Now, why was it so successful because he spent two years showing up better than anybody else in this industry, producing content better than almost anybody else in this industry. Him and Layla’s content is some of the only ones I follow because it’s so damn good. I send it to people. It’s so good. His youtube videos so good. His podcast so good. And he’s done that consistently for two years. So how he was able to accomplish the volume that he was and the success he was on this webinar. What you need to understand is it didn’t happen in the month leading up to the webinar. It happened in the months, months, multiple and the years leading up to the webinar. And that is why consistency and providing value and playing that long game is so so important. And then the second thing piece to this is he’s not only showing up, but his content is not surface level. It is very in depth. Like I said, he’s probably spends hours thinking about his concepts and how he’s gonna share things. And also to that point, that’s his style, Alex is like a very naturally brilliant entrepreneur. And so his style is these very like in depth philosophical sometimes statements and teachings and things like that. And so that doesn’t mean everybody has to do it that way. He’s playing to his strength and you’ll see, Leila does it differently. His wife does it differently. She’s very operational in leadership. And so they’re playing to their strength and they’re using that strength and they’re putting a lot of time, energy and resources into showing up and creating value. And so none of this is templated. It’s taking those core foundational important principles that never change and using those very, very strategically and consistently. And so the biggest thing to see I think is how everything he did was actually custom combined with foundational principles. And so nobody should try to copy exactly what he’s doing, you should back up and see the traits, the fact that he’s playing to his strengths, the fact that he’s prioritizing value and consistency, the fact that he is very clear on his end outcome and his goals and the strategy he needs to create in order to accomplish that, the fact that he kept things simple, he kept his messaging strong but simple. All of those things is what contributed to his growth, not the fact that he did the perfect webinar, the perfect webinar did not convert his webinar. He did it his strategy, his messaging his content, the simplicity, the breaking down of concepts, the thinking different about the way he did the pitch, all of those things is what contributed to the success. So if you want to duplicate his success, and this is what I told my team because he’s inspired me the level of value he puts out there and the frequency and the depth go out there and produce the most valuable content, create the space in your life as a CEO and content creator to be able to create that content, get the support, get the team so that you can do that, be consistent with it. Years, not months, create the strategy that plays to your strengths, that’s for your audience and that’s for your businesses offering goals. Those are the things that you can copy and use as inspiration to go create success from. Not the fact he did a perfect webinar and now we all should do perfect webinars. All right. This was fun. I do recommend you go watch it. If you haven’t, I think you can go find it on his youtube. If you just go to Alex Hormozis’ youtube, you can watch it. I think it’s like an hour and 20 minutes long. It’s just fun to watch. It’s just fun to watch someone just doing their thing. I love watching people in flow. That’s how I feel on webinars. Like every time I do a webinar, I’m like, this is what I’m meant to be doing, speaking to people in this way, delivering content in this way. And so it’s really fun to watch somebody in that element. And yeah, see what takeaways you get from it and, and try to remember it’s not about the template or the structure or whatever that he used, it’s back it up a little and look at the bigger picture and look at the traits and the principles that he used because that’s where you’re gonna find the magic. All right Everybody I’ll talk to you on Thursday.