$100M Leads by Alex Hormozi (Summary)

Sometimes I think I know a lot about marketing. Then I get humbled by books like $100M Leads by Alex Hormozi.

In this article, I’ll summarize the book, share my highlights from each section, and give my final review at the end. The video above goes into much more depth on each point.

But first - click the button below to get an interactive, mind-map version of this post:

Summary

Ask any business owner what keeps them up at night and you’ll probably hear this: “I need more potential customers/clients”. In others words, leads. Just like the subtitle says, this book is about how to get strangers to want to buy your stuff.

The world of marketing can be overwhelming, and Hormozi does a great job breaking it into four main categories (what he calls “The Core Four”): warm outreach, posting content, cold outreach, and ads. He also explains how you can also empower other people to get leads for you: employees, customers, affiliates, and agencies.

This book is filled with actionable insights and real life examples from Hormozi’s businesses. Hormozi first gained recognition in the fitness industry, where he scaled multiple gym franchises through his company Gym Launch. He sold Gym Launch after scaling it to over $50 million in annual revenue. Today he is the founder of Acquisition.com, where he invests in other growing businesses.

Book Notes

I had 5 big takeaways from the book:

1 - No crappy lead magnets

A lead magnet is something you give away for free in exchange for someone’s contact info. Hormozi says, "If you’re struggling to get leads, make an amazing lead magnet." Your lead magnet should be so valuable that people feel obligated to pay you. In fact, he says that your lead magnet’s value should surpass the cost of your core offer. The majority of people won’t buy from you, but they will judge your brand based on your free stuff and then tell other people about it. So take the time to create something good, give it a compelling name, and make it easy to consume.

2 - The core four

You start with warm outreach, leveraging your personal contacts to get your first batch of clients. Instead of pitching people directly, ask who they know that would benefit from working with you. Then move to posting free content, sharing what’s worked for you personally and offering as much “value per second” as you can. Then you can start reaching out to strangers using cold outreach or ads. In both of these cases, people don’t trust you. So it’s all about grabbing their attention, making a compelling offer, and getting in front of people again and again until they purchase.

3 - More, better, new

If you want more leads, you have three options: do more of what you’re doing, do it better, or add a new strategy. Most people just need to do more of what’s working. Hormozi shares the Rule of 100: reaching out to 100 people each day, spending 100 minutes creating content each day, or spending $100 on ads each day. Once you’ve maxed out what you can do, figure out where your leads are dropping off and make that part of the process better. Finally, add new placements and platforms within your current strategy (e.g. blogging plus YouTube if your strategy is posting content) and finally introducing another one of the Core Four.

4 - One question to rule them all

"You’ve lost all your customers but one. The gods of advertising ban you from doing the core four and decree...All customers must come from this one customer." What do you do? Well, you’d have to figure out how to get more referrals and lower your churn. First, make a better product. Figure out what your best customers have in common, incorporate their feedback, and lower expectations during the sale. Second, ask for referrals. Right when someone buys, get a three way introduction via text or email instead of just asking for a name or numbers. Make it worth your customer’s time to refer by offering referral incentives.

5 - There's levels to this

You shouldn’t try to implement all of this at once. As you grow your business, there are levels that you progress through. Start with personal connections and warm outreach, then expand to consistent content creation. As your business scales, hire staff to help you do more of what you’re already doing. Then improve your product to drive more referrals. Eventually, you’ll reach a point where you can hire specialized team members to lead your marketing efforts across multiple platforms. Be patient. Hormozi says, "You want to play games where if you wait, you win."

Review

This is a meaty book and there’s a lot to absorb. I definitely recommend picking up a copy. Although I personally didn’t like it as much as $100M Offers, the books were equally well reviewed.

Goodreads: 4.61/5 (2,558 reviews)

Amazon: 4.9/5 stars (4,933 reviews)

Before you go, click the button below to get the mind map version of my notes: