From: alexhormozi
Acquiring customers for small businesses is crucial, and the fundamental principle for business growth is to make potential customers aware of your offerings [07:04:00]. If no one knows about your product or service, no one will buy it [07:07:07]. Effective advertising is essential to this process [07:55:00].
A key concept is that doubling your leads generally doubles your business, assuming all other factors remain constant [07:28:26]. The ability to consistently generate leads provides endless opportunities to refine your approach and succeed in business [10:00:00].
The Core Four Advertising Methods
There are four primary ways to let people know about your products or services, referred to as “the core four” [28:51:33]:
1. Warm Outreach
Warm Outreach involves reaching out directly to people who already know you, typically on a one-to-one basis [12:20:00]. This method is reliable, low-risk, repeatable, and low-cost, making it ideal for securing initial customers [42:02:00].
- Origin: The speaker’s first business, a fitness non-profit, started by contacting 101 friends, resulting in six initial participants [11:45:00]. These participants later became paying clients [12:07:00].
- Application: It’s used for getting the first five customers, subsequent customers, or launching new products [12:57:00]. For a book launch, the speaker used warm outreach to invite friends to the event [12:51:00].
- Platforms: Email, phone calls, direct messages, physical mail, voicemails, and various social media platforms [13:18:00].
2. Posting Free Content
This method involves posting content to a known audience on a one-to-many basis [15:38:00].
- Origin: After exhausting warm outreach, the speaker began posting about client results and fitness content online, then messaged anyone who interacted, leading to 20 new clients [14:45:00].
- Application: Posting free content grows your audience, which naturally leads to more buyers, and also enhances the effectiveness of other lead generation methods by building trust and legitimacy [45:00:00].
- Content Framework: The “Hook, Retain, Reward” framework is used to maximize engagement [17:04:00].
- Hook: Capture attention (e.g., using five unique topic buckets, seven timeless themes for headlines, structured for sharing) [45:50:00].
- Retain: Keep attention (e.g., using lists, steps, and stories) [46:36:00].
- Reward: Satisfy the reason for consumption (elegantly deliver on promises at the right times) [46:44:00].
- Results: The speaker’s content strategy for a book launch involved over 300 pieces per week across multiple platforms, generating over 400 million impressions and 194,000 registrations, equivalent to millions in free advertising [16:44:00].
- Platforms: YouTube (Shorts, Longs), podcasts, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram (stories, reels, posts), Twitter, and more [17:59:00].
3. Running Paid Ads
Paid ads involve letting strangers know about your offerings on a one-to-many basis, and are the fastest way to get leads, even with no existing following [22:59:00].
- Origin: The speaker learned about Facebook ads at a marketing seminar, and an ugly, text-only ad for a free six-week challenge generated 29 members before a gym even opened, saving the business from immediate failure [19:40:00].
- Application: Paid ads are scalable and can start with a few dollars a day, growing to millions per week across a portfolio [23:08:00].
- Ad Framework: The “What, Who, When” framework is used for scripting [21:56:00].
- Results: For a book launch, paid ads spent 2 per lead, significantly lower than the industry average [22:12:00].
- Platforms: YouTube (Shorts, Longs), Facebook, Instagram (reels, stories, posts), TikTok, Hulu, radio, LinkedIn, Spotify, Twitter, podcasts, and more [22:46:00].
4. Cold Outreach
Cold Outreach involves privately letting people who don’t know you know about your stuff, advertising one-to-one to strangers [26:45:00].
- Origin: During the COVID-19 pandemic when 100% of the speaker’s gym clients were impacted, a conversation with a former salesperson revealed the power of cold outbound for customer acquisition [24:19:00]. This method saved the gym launch business during its hardest time, eventually contributing to over 50% of sales [26:21:00].
- Application: It can start with a tiny budget, requiring only time, a way to contact people, and a strategy for what to say when they reply [27:43:00]. It’s scalable using other people’s time and automation [27:50:00]. You can pick highly qualified targets [27:57:00].
- Platforms: SMS, DMs, emails, LinkedIn Messenger, Instagram Messenger, Twitter Messenger, voicemail, physical mail, and carrier pigeons [27:32:00].
Leveraging Lead Getters for Accelerated Growth
While you can perform the “core four” methods yourself, you can also leverage “lead getters”—other people who advertise on your behalf [29:16:00]. This provides significantly higher leverage, meaning less work for more leads [30:40:00]. The strategy is to use the core four to acquire lead getters, who then use the core four to get customers for you [31:37:00].
The four types of lead getters are:
- Customers: Existing customers can refer new ones, often through warm outreach [31:49:00]. The speaker’s first book, “100 Million Dollar Offers,” sold 467,000 copies with zero paid ads, primarily through customer referrals [31:51:00].
- Employees: Your team can create and distribute content, run ads, or perform outreach [32:20:00]. For the book launch, the speaker’s team created over 2,200 pieces of content in six weeks [32:25:00].
- Agencies: External agencies can run ads or do outreach on your behalf [32:50:00]. For the book launch, an agency managed the paid advertising campaigns [32:55:00].
- Affiliates: Independent businesses that promote your products to their audience in exchange for compensation [33:27:00]. Affiliates leverage their own advertising efforts (using the core four) to generate leads for you [58:24:00]. For the book launch, 23,722 affiliates promoted the event to over 10 million people [33:31:00].
Systems for Lead Generation
Several specialized systems and playbooks can further enhance lead generation and business growth:
- Lead Magnet Mastery: Focuses on creating valuable free content (lead magnets) that solve a narrow problem, building trust and converting a larger pool of prospects into paying customers [37:38:00]. Properly designed lead magnets can significantly increase lead flow and sales while building brand reputation [38:23:00].
- The First Five Clients Framework: A step-by-step guide for using warm outreach to secure initial customers on a zero-dollar budget [41:55:00]. It includes exact scripts and strategies for monetizing leads [43:03:00].
- Mosey Media Content Method: Provides the strategies used to build a large audience and personal brand through free content [44:49:00]. It emphasizes the “Hook, Retain, Reward” framework for content creation [45:50:00].
- Cold Outreach Playbook: Outlines methods for reliable customer acquisition without needing a personal brand or constant content creation, allowing businesses to operate in secrecy and scale consistently [48:02:00]. It provides exact scripts for various contact methods and automation strategies [49:12:00].
- Paid Ads Playbook: Explains how to leverage paid advertising for rapid lead generation and business growth, emphasizing simplicity and scalability [51:34:00]. It covers audience targeting, ad creation, and obtaining contact permission [52:45:00].
- Referral Playbook: Teaches how to generate free leads by encouraging existing customers to refer new ones [54:52:00]. It focuses on optimizing the referral percentage to churn percentage ratio [56:15:00], and includes specific referral programs [56:57:00].
- Affiliate Playbook: Details how to partner with other businesses (affiliates) to leverage their audiences and advertising efforts for your benefit [58:12:00]. It covers finding ideal affiliates, crafting win-win offers, training them, and compensation structures [1:00:36].
- Zero to 100 Million Dollar Scaling Roadmap: This guide outlines the optimal sequence and application of the various playbooks to scale a business from zero to 100 million dollars in revenue [1:03:40]. This provides clarity on what actions to take at different stages of growth [1:05:26].
Knowing how to generate leads on demand provides the freedom to pursue desired business ventures and offers endless opportunities for success [35:54:00]. These strategies for gaining leads across industries can significantly amplify business growth [35:50:00].