Section I: How We Got Here

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The Ugly Truth

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How We Got Here

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::: title-page-contributor-primary-block “Magic will find those with pure hearts, even when all seems lost.”

Morgan Rhodes

:::: alignment-block ::: title-page-contributor-primary-block December 24, 2016. Christmas Eve.

[T]he room was pitch black. My shoes stuck to a floor covered in dried soda and crushed bits of candy. My nostrils were full with the smell of stale popcorn. We had showed up too late to get good seats and ended up pressed near the front of the theater. Just a few rows in front of me, the movie’s blazing projection occupied my entire field of view. In the reflected glow, I could see the outlines 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.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

I didn’t answer.

She rested her hand on mine to get my attention. I didn’t react. Within moments, her fingers tightened around my wrist, and she looked at me, her eyes searching for mine. “Your heart is racing,” she whispered, concerned.

Without asking, she took my pulse.

It was 100 beats per minute. Nearly twice what it should be for a fit 27 year old male at “rest” in a cool, dark room.

“What’s going on?” she asked more forcibly, but still whispering.

The truth is, I was terrified.

A few hours earlier . . .

I looked like a giant. I sat scrunched up in a children’s miniature play chair. My knees almost touched my chest, even with my feet firmly planted on the old beige carpeted floor. My laptop felt hot sitting atop my steeply angled knees. Dolls and toys were scattered around me. They stared at me with wide eyes and toothy grins, motionless. I had been their entertainment the past few weeks.

I was in Leila’s parents’ house. They had recently become grandparents and used this spare bedroom as a playroom when the grandchildren visited. I didn’t have a place to live. So they were letting Leila and I stay there “as long as we needed.” They had let me use the children’s playroom as my office for my “business”, which at this point felt almost as make-believe as the stories they had told their grandchildren in this room.

I literally felt like I was playing dress up. Except the stakes were real. And this was my life.

My ears were hot and red from the phone being pressed against them for what felt like hours. I kept switching hands because my arms would tire from holding the phone up for so long.

“I’m sorry Mr. Hormozi,” the voice on the other end of the line said, “we have to hold onto these funds for the next six months. We’ve seen some irregular activity, so this is precautionary.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, $120-grand,” I said. “A ‘precaution’!?”

“I’m sorry sir, our underwriting team―”

“Yeah, I heard you,” I said, cutting him off. “I don’t accept that.”

“Sir, it’s not up to me it’s just our pol―”

“What am I gonna tell my salesman, who has a baby and another on the way? Are you going to tell him he’s not going to be able to buy his pregnant wife and newborn food? Are you going to pay his mortgage for him?”

I was seething.

“Sir―” he began again, with unphased apathy, just trying to deliver the news.

“It’s not yours to take.” 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.

Fuck.

I hung up and checked my accounts. $23,036.

I owed my salesman a $22,000 commission check for $120,000 in sales I never got.

Without wanting to give myself the opportunity to think about it, I wired it to him.

-$22,000 Payment Successful.

Balance $1,036.

Fuck

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I screenshotted this image of my bank account because I knew I would tell this story some day.

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The sunlight blinded me as we emerged from the matinee. Families shuffled in and out through the revolving doors, making their happy memories. I was in a daze. Leila led me to the car, her hand wrapped firmly around mine.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” she asked.

“The money isn’t coming.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “It’s delayed?”

I exhaled in defeat. “They are keeping it all.”

“Can they do that!?”

“Apparently,” I said stoically, trying to maintain my composure in front of her parents.

“What are you gonna do about the commissions?”

“I already paid him. Everything.” I said it without looking at her.

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.

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30 days earlier . . .

I had decided to go all in on this new business I called “Gym Launch.” Here was the idea: I would fly around the country to gyms and fill them up to full capacity using this new methodology that hinged on an offer I had perfected when I owned my chain of gyms.

Leading up to this moment, I had sold five of my six gyms. The funds from selling them, my life’s work, I had put into an account I had with a new partner. This money was supposed to be the seed money for our new company.

I was finally going to realize some level of success.

My alarm went off. I groggily swung my arm over blindly clawing at the bedside table. I switched off the alarm, while Leila managed to sleep through the commotion.

I laid there silently, pulling up the bank accounts ― a daily ritual. The balance said $300.

Wait. That couldn’t be right. There was $46,000 in here yesterday.

My adrenaline surged. Looking closer I saw “-$45,700 Payment Successful.” I was frantic.

The money from selling all of my gyms was gone. I checked where the money went. To my “partner.” He had taken all the money out.

Fuck.

The last four years of my life had vanished that fast. I officially had nothing, and even less to show for it. No gyms. No equipment. No employees. Nothing.

I felt dead inside.

Adding insult to injury, in that same 30-day period, my mother was in critical condition because of a near fatal accident (and was still under 24-hour supervision), and I had totalled my car in a head on collision at 60 miles per hour and earned a DUI as my consolation prize.

This was the cherry on top. My one saving grace during this time was selling a new “challenge offer” at a gym and collecting all the cash up front as my “fee” for turning their business around.

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 commission check.

The problem was the $120,000 never came.

“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.

“Are we still gonna do these launches starting tomorrow?” She asked. “All my friends quit their jobs to do this.” She was being matter of fact, but it still stung. I felt defeated. “Listen, this could go horribly wrong, “

“I trust you. We’ll figure it out.”

I had two things left at that point: a grand slam offer and an old business credit card with a $100,000 limit from when I had my gyms.

On the day after Christmas (two days after the gut-wrenching call with the payment processor) we were scheduled to launch six new gyms . . . at the same time. Between airfare, hotels, rental cars, gas, and ad spend (all multiplied by six), I was going to be spending $3,300 per day of money I didn’t have. My last dollar had gone to paying my salesman. I still remember my hand shaking as the advertisements went live: Off→ ON.

Just like that, I was going into debt at a rate of $412 dollars per working hour. Just like that, $3,300 per day began getting deducted from my account.

:::: prose1 ::: title-page-contributor-primary-block -$3,300 . . . I now officially have 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.

But things started shaping up. Here’s what happened that month (January 2017), as documented by my old processing records I dug up. You can see the month along the left column and the revenue collected that month along the right.

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We made $100,117! It was just enough to cover the $3,300/day that had been coming off the credit card. It was actually working. I could hardly believe it. I threw the hail mary, and the universe caught it. I went from looking up bankruptcy lawyers to figuring out what to do with $3,000,000 in profits, accrued within the first twelve months. It felt surreal. And in hindsight, it still kind of does.

By the end of the year we were doing $1,500,000+/mo. Twelve months from then, $4,400,000/mo. Per. Month. Twenty-four months after that, we crossed $120,000,000 in sales, donated $2,000,000 to help fund equal opportunity in low income areas. We met and befriended Arnold Swarzenegger (lifelong hero) and were asked to be board members of his charity After School All Stars.

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Leila and I meeting with Arnold Schwarzengger at his home. We are now on the national board of his charity After School All Stars. Creating Grand Slam Offers has given us access to people we only dreamed of.

Twelve months after that, we now have a portfolio of seven eight-figure, and multi-eight-figure companies across a variety of industries (photography, publishing, fitness, business consulting, beauty) and business types (brick & mortar chains, software, service, e-commerce, training & education). Our portfolio companies now do about $1,600,000 per week (and growing).

I say this because I honestly can't believe it. All of this was because of a girl who believed in me, a credit card, and a Grand Slam Offer.

I know I teleported you from rags to riches. And the natural question is how? That’s what I’m going to use the rest of this book (and remaining books & free courses in this Acquisition.com series) to break down.

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.

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.

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Grand Slam Offers

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::: title-page-contributor-primary-block “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, in a Las Vegas penthouse hotel room along with ten business owners learning about marketing and sales… 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 like this guy. I’ll do anything. The problem was, I didn't know what any of them were talking about. KPIs? CPLs? Conversion rates? My head was spinning as I pretended like I knew what they were talking about. But I didn’t, and I’m bad at pretending.

Between “sessions,” TJ found me. He could tell I was in way over my head. TJ was kind, curious, and caring. After a little bit of small talk, he asked me a simple question that changed my life forever . . .

“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 no.”

I nodded, wrote it down, underlined it, and circled it. And with that, my entire worldview of selling was transformed.

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My mind began racing. I didn't have to be skilled . . . or even any good. I just had to come up with things that anyone would 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 wantrepreneur. A person full of ideas and frustrated at having potential to spare. Something clicks when they realize the horrible trade they (and so many people) make ― trading their freedom for (falsely) perceived security.

Their discomfort compounds. And once the discomfort of staying the same surpasses the discomfort of change, they take the leap. I’m going to be an entrepreneur so I can be free. Free to do whatever I want, whenever I want, with whomever I want.

Some learned about entrepreneurship through personal development.

Others got into it through a franchise.

Others bought courses.

And some just said, “F*CK IT. I’m doing it. I’ll make it work.”

And made it work they did.

Most of us open up shop with the intention of helping people in some way. Many times, this assistance is in some way related to something that’s affected us personally. We set out to “give back” by providing value to others by helping them solve a problem that once plagued us. Then again, sometimes this isn’t our way in. In either case, we cling to the dream of making more and being freer than we are now.

Many of us thought, naively, that owning a business would be our crowning accomplishment — a final destination — when in reality, it was just the beginning.

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.

We may know a lot about our passion, about why we started the business, but that doesn’t mean we know anything about succeeding in business. 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. The only way to facilitate that exchange, to transact, to literally carry out business as a business is by making the prospect an offer[.]

What’s An Offer Anyways?

The only way to conduct business 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 what attracts new customers, it is the lifeblood of your business.

:::: prose1 ::: title-page-contributor-primary-block No offer? No business. No life.

Bad offer? Negative profit. No business. Miserable life.

Decent offer? No profit. Stagnating business. Stagnating life.

Good offer? Some profit. Okay business. Okay life.

Grand Slam Offer? Fantastic profit. Insane business. Freedom.

This book helps entrepreneurs craft those Grand Slam Offers. These are the offers that are so effective, profitable, and life-changing that it seems they can only be the result of luck! That’s how it looks to an untrained eye, at least.

As you likely now know, I have crafted thousands of offers over the last decade. Most failed. Some did okay. And some struck gold . . . but I never really knew why. 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.

But, as the data started rolling in, what seemed like “luck” and “fortune” was closer to a repeatable framework. I have been fortunate enough to have struck gold enough times to document these frameworks and have gotten “lightning to strike twice.”

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.

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)

Seems obvious, right? It costs more money and time to get more clients, thereby solving issue one, and that money is coming from the profit margins, which creates problem two! What’s more annoying, prospects savagely compare and belittle our services in favor of cheaper and crappier alternatives — with the cheapest one “winning.” This, of course, when “winning” means getting to work more for even less (sad face).

Let’s say you’ve slashed prices to get more customers. You may even have a full client load. But here you are, barely making it because profit margins are too thin. “Competition” becomes a race to the bottom.

If you’re struggling with one or both of these issues, you’re not alone. I’ve been there.

Heck, I think every entrepreneur has these same challenges.

I also want you to know that it’s not your fault. Typical models weren’t designed for profit maximization. They were designed by companies who have boatloads of funding and can operate at a loss for years. When these models are used in the real world, business owners just barely “get by.” They essentially “buy themselves a job” and work 100 hours a week to avoid working 40. Crappy trade. My guess is that if you’re anything like me, you signed up for something better.

Keep an open-mind. The contents of this book, if executed, can transform your business . . . fast.

It’s okay if you’re not into money numbers or business models. I’ve done all that work for you. I’m walking you through the process step-by-step in these pages. I’m going to explain each of the big two problems we touched on above in detail, including why they don’t work. Then I’m going to show you the solutions. And to wrap this adventure up, I’ll explain how to enhance value to maximize how much you make per customer, so that you can outmarket everyone and stack cash.

We use this offer model for every niche we work with (chiros, dentists, gyms, agencies, plumbers, roofers, dog walkers, physical products, software, brick and mortar stores, and so many more), and it’s amazing how fast things can improve with each and every one of them when they use this framework.

What’s In It For You?

I’ve made every (dumb) business mistake in the book. Now, you can learn from my embarrassing, brutal, multi-million dollar fuck-ups without having to suffer the pain yourself.

Building these businesses has been a very hard and emotional journey for me. I wouldn’t trade these experiences for the world. However, if this book helps just one entrepreneur avoid suffering as I did, keep their business open, or accomplish their dreams, it will all be worth it.

If you are willing to exchange the time it takes to watch two episodes of your favorite tv show and really study this book — and if you implement even a single offer component — I can guarantee you will add more clients and more dollars to your bottom line. Reading this book, and taking it to heart, will be the single best return on time for your business. Nothing else will allow you to do what this book can do in the same amount of time. That is a promise.

As a side benefit — implementing a new offer is about one of the easiest things to do in a business. So you really can do this. This isn't some management practice or culture building hoodoo. This is the real “how you sell shit for lots of money”-type stuff.

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 $3,000,000 per year in revenue, 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 at minimum between $3M - $10M in yearly revenue. 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.

If you’re curious, [my business model is simple, just like the four-piece pyramid logo:]

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Provide value at no cost far in excess of what the rest of the marketplace charges for.
Have entrepreneurs use materials that actually work and make money helping more folks
Earn the trust of the hyper-executor business owners who use the frameworks to scale their businesses to $3M-$10M per year and beyond
Invest in those businesses to make more impact at scale while helping everyone else for free.

If you look carefully, the process reverse-engineers success. I think it’s pretty cool. Here’s how: I know these business owners can execute the frameworks I have without hand-holding, and therefore, would be very likely to succeed with the next set of frameworks (getting to $30M, $50M, $100M looks different than getting to $3-$10M). They know that my style works for them, because it already has. So we operate on shared trust - I trust they can execute, and they trust that our stuff works - again, because it already has….all while helping everyone else….fo’ free. So it allows me to preemptively avoid failures and dramatically increases success likelihood. Let me show you how much….

At the time of this writing, every business I have started since March of 2017 has achieved a $1,500,000/mo run rate. According to the Small Business Administration, the odds of a single business even achieving $10M/year in revenue are .4%, or 1 in 250. Having it happen four times in a row is .4% x .4% x .4% x .4%= very very low probability that it was luck. As such, I can say with conviction that we know how to recreate success using the frameworks I share over and over again. They work because they are timeless business principles.

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.

Fair enough?

Cool. So let’s get to it.

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.

You do work. And to work, you need tools. This, my friend, is one of those tools.

[General Outline]

Section I: How We Got Here (You Just Finished It)
Section II: Pricing: How To Charge Lots of Money For Stuff
Section III: Value: Create Your Offer: How To Make Something So Good People Line Up To Buy
Section IV: Enhancing Your Offer: How To Make Your Offer So Good They Feel Stupid Saying No
Section V: Next Steps: How To Make This Happen In The Real World

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For free courses and books so good they grow your business without your consent, go to: [Acquisition.com].

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