The Big Smoke unpacks Alex Hormozi’s hard-hitting advice for CEOs on scaling, revealing the brutal truths behind rapid business growth.
Let’s get introductions out of the way. If you’re not familiar with Alex Hormozi, he is an entrepreneur who has built and sold nine companies (with the latest acquisition being for $46.2 million), he has written two books that have sold over a million copies, and he owes it all to his marketing expertise.
Hormozi recently dropped a video packing 13 years of marketing experience into 85 minutes. While the video had 13 solid, structured topics for advice, we were more interested in some gold nuggets he hid between the topics with some harsh truths for businesses that genuinely want to scale their business.
But be warned: the following insights are not for the faint-hearted. If you’re just looking to grow your business incrementally, we’ve got plenty of other tips and advice for you. This guide is exclusively for those aiming to skyrocket their business. It’s a different ball game, requiring a radically different approach.
Prepare to sit in discomfort as we dive into these hard truths. Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur, or have a team to help you out, these lessons are for you.
#1 You Aren’t Doing Enough
Brace yourself because Hormozi’s advice is: you aren’t doing enough, you aren’t running enough ads, and you aren’t spending enough on ads. Let’s break this down.
Stop tinkering in the weeds of your business; start advertising. Alex recalls a seminar he ran filled with entrepreneurs eager to scale. He asked, “Who here spends the first four hours of their day working on growing their business?” Crickets. And he responded with, “This is why you aren’t growing.” You simply need to be spending the time growing the business if you are looking for rapid growth. You need to be obsessed with growth. It’s not enough to just maintain; you have to push boundaries every single day.
If you have a team, this applies to them too. But before you send that memo, read the rest of the tips to ensure you are not setting them up for failure.
You Aren’t Running Enough Ads
Let’s talk numbers. How many ads are you running? 10? 20? 40?
That may seem like a lot but Hormozi launches 40 ads per week for his brand.
Hormozi recalls speaking to someone who wanted to scale their business and was comparing themselves to a competitor who was outgrowing them, wondering how they were doing it. His client was spending 40K a month. How much was the competitor spending? 4 million a month.
A lot of businesses would sacrifice 6 months of revenue to double their business (if this magic deal was offered), but will not invest the 3, 6 or even 12 months it takes to scale. Hormozi states that this mindset shift is the biggest barrier for businesses. You will need to spend month-on-month getting more cost-efficient until you are profitable and scaling. Hormozi claims that “You need to keep walking the dollar over the bridge until eventually it comes to the other side”.
This is a common mistake we see at The Big Smoke. Businesses crave the reach, sales and success of their competitors, but severely underestimate the time and budget their competitors are investing to achieve rapid growth. We are all about innovative ways to get more return for less, but if you’re looking to drastically and quickly scale your business, the numbers need to make sense.
#2 Nobody Cares About Your Landing Page
This one hurts to hear. But the truth is, you need to put ten times the effort into the very first touchpoint. Hormozi emphasizes that the first five seconds of a video should be the absolute best part of the video. It should have everything your audience needs to make a decision, even if they don’t watch the rest. But we take this a step further.
If you’re advertising with an image, that first second they scan past it matters.
A social media post? You have two seconds to grab their attention before they scroll on.
Written the best email of your life? Truth is, it’s worthless unless the subject line is good enough to make them click through.
Your landing page, email, all of it – they don’t care about it…
…until they do.
Eventually, people will land on your page, and yes, then it matters. But first, you need to get them there. You might be thinking, “Shouldn’t I ensure the landing page, the email, and the sequence are perfect? There’s no point in grabbing their attention if I’m just going to lose them.” Normally, you’d be right. But you clicked on this because you have a crazy number in your head that you want to multiply your revenue by.
With a goal this big, the strategy shifts. You optimize your funnel from the top down. Master your ads first. Get the right click-through rate. Learn what works – and what doesn’t. Once you’re satisfied with that, then it’s time to focus on your landing page.
When you get to that stage it might not be as hard as you think. Many businesses get caught up in redesigning, rebuilding and perfecting. But often, it’s the little things that matter most. Hormozi recalls a time when he was brought in to redesign a landing page and he saw a 62% increase in sales. What did he do? He simply changed the headline. Nothing else.
People’s first impressions of you are often the ones that stick. Make those first five seconds count.
#3 You Are Doing Too Much
Remember how we said you aren’t doing enough? Well, you’re also probably doing too much. Let us explain. When trying to exponentially scale your business, it’s natural to think about being on as many channels as possible to diversify your revenue sources. But here’s Hormozi’s approach:
- Sell one product, to one avatar (customer profile), on 1 channel
- Sell one product, to one avatar, on 1 channel…consistently
- Sell two products, to one avatar, on 1 channel
- Sell two products, to one avatar, on 1 channel…consistently
- Keep adding 1 element at a time and mastering it before moving on.
This avatar should be as specific as possible while still being broad. It should feel really personal yet apply to a very large group of people. Alex gave examples of running ads with callouts such as “Mums in Nevada” or “Home owners in Alabama”.
You might feel like you’re cutting off too many people, but when done right, your conversion rate will outpace the number of people you are excluding. And if you stick to the plan, you’ll be able to expand to more avatars on more platforms. For example, you can start with “Mums in Nevada” and eventually have a version of that ad for every state.
#4 You Don’t Need New Ideas
A lot of CEOs and entrepreneurs put everything on the line to start their business, and that can feel like being in a massive pressure cooker – whether it’s personal pressure, external pressure from boards, or the weight of responsibility for your workforce. With that pressure, it’s natural to think you just need that next idea, that new product concept, that one thing that will really take off. But Hormozi believes those ideas are not necessary – they’re just distractions.
Your growth will lie first and foremost in your advertising. Do not reinvent the wheel. Here’s Hormozi’s strict rule for his ads:
20% new ideas, 80% old ideas
In the frenzy of trying to grow, grow, grow, CEOs often find themselves chasing the next idea when the current one doesn’t seem to be working, or they pile on new ideas and products every week. But the theme of “You are doing too much” carries over here. Find something great and milk it.
He will use the same copy, the same headlines and the same videos for as long as they convert – which can be years.
If you have a video ad that really works, re-cut it! Add a new background, different sound effects, new clips, try it audio only, try everything! Clip it up differently and your business can feast on that same content for years. Your 20% new ideas will do just enough to ensure you have a steady drip of new concepts to test, that can later become your staples if they prove themselves.
If you are looking to drastically scale your business, it is not about the ideas, it is not about a new product, it is your advertising. New ideas keep you working in the dark, perpetually cursed with not enough data to make real decisions.
Check In
If you’ve made it this far, you’re serious about growing. If this advice made you nervous, that’s fine – it’s meant to! But now, you can accurately assess if you can realistically scale your business.
The truth is, many businesses and CEOs want to scale. They feel like they are doing the right things and are frustrated it’s not working. But often, the teams, the budget, the priorities, or other stressors mean this will simply not happen until those factors are addressed.
If you can’t maintain this level of investment (in both time and money), perhaps the hardest truth of all is that you are simply not in the position to drastically scale your business right now. But that doesn’t mean you can’t dial the numbers down and look at a sustainable rate of growth.
The key is to grow at the highest rate your budget and time allow, re-evaluate and do it again!
Are You Ready To Grow?
If you would like an audit of where your business stands and how you can scale, contact The Big Smoke for a strategy session. We can help you find a rate of growth fit for your business.
