5 Live Callers Get Brutal Startup Advice from Hormozi & Shaan

Shaan Puri

I want to try something different. Okay — it's the **Hormozi Hotline**: take five listeners out of the crowd, have them call in. Okay, "tell us about their business... tell—"

MFM

Us a business problem. Cool.

Shaan Puri

So this is the **Hormozi Hotline**. Okay — are you down? Let's do it. Okay, we’ve got Flo here. Flo, I want you to give us the—what’s the name of your business and give us a one-minute description of what you do. Give us a sense of where you’re at revenue-wise, and then we’re gonna get to what’s your biggest business problem and we’re gonna try to help you out here in a couple of minutes.

MFM

So, like I said, I'm Flo. I live in London. I own a company called **Wentworth Protection**. We install security bollards on people's driveways. If you don't know what that is, it's basically a metal pole you put on your driveway to stop your car from getting stolen. I started this business as a side hustle in January 2024, so we're now about a year and a half in. It's just me and my best mate; we both still do this as a side hustle. We have a couple of installation guys. In our first year we did just shy of 250k in revenue. This year we're probably going to do 500k. The biggest issue we're having right now is **content**.

Shaan Puri

"The problem you solve is that people in the UK are having their cars stolen, and you install a pole in the driveway that prevents that."

MFM

That's correct. Yeah—*car theft* is just...

MFM

Through the roof in the UK, *especially around London*. So this pole comes up through your driveway, and it means even if someone gets into your car they just actually...

MFM

**They're stuck.**

MFM

Drive it away.

Shaan Puri

Okay, got it. So you get $2k to $50k year one? $500... you're on pace for $500k this year. Give us the "quick and dirty" on how you are getting those customers today, because you said it's a *side hustle*. So where are you getting business?

MFM

Yeah, yeah. The first three months are basically purely door-to-door: Saturdays and Sundays, just knocking on doors. Which, by the way, in the UK people find really, really strange. But now it's about kind of a **50/50 mix** between Google Ads—just search—and mainly SEO, so we get loads of organic leads coming in as well. Then there's a little bit of referral in there.

MFM

Okay, alright—how much do the polls cost?

MFM

So, *average ticket* is about $1,000.

MFM

Okay, so what's it cost you to install?

MFM

We go in roughly a **50/50** margin. So paying the installation guys and buying the units is about **50%** of the ticket.

MFM

"Okay, got it. So you make **$500** in gross profit per... Does that sound right?" "Correct. Okay, got it. So what do you want to have happen?"

MFM

"I want **more leads**."

MFM

Okay, got it. So, what stopped you from doing more *door-to-door*?

MFM

Honestly, it's a *time constraint*. Currently, it seems like the conversion rate on *door-to-door* sales, given the amount of time it takes, just doesn't equate to the extra effort put into content—writing more blog posts or reaching out to commercial partners. That kind of stuff.

MFM

Okay, so one of the big things is: I think you have to get a little bit **narrower** in terms of how you want to get leads. You're super **resource-constrained** right now. You don't have a ton of capital that you can put to work or anything like that. So you've got search, you've got SEO. You just mentioned commercial partners, which I'm guessing you're doing through outbound — is that how you're getting them? You also said content.

MFM

"Yeah, correct. **Content** is basically the nut I'm trying to crack. I inherently know that content can be really big for this business, but it's just—like, we did a viral TikTok two days ago; it got 1 million views, and it's just not translating to any increase in lead flow."

MFM

"Yeah. Okay, I want to rewind for a second. I think that, fundamentally, because you have these **three ways** you can reliably get customers, and then you have this *other way* you'd like to get customers from but aren't really getting them from, does that sound right?"

MFM

*Yeah.*

MFM

Okay, so why not—*like*, what are you spending on search right now?

MFM

About 3,000 a month.

MFM

"Okay, what do you make back on the $3,000?"

MFM

**LTV/CAC** is about **3:1**.

MFM

"3-to-1? Okay. So what stops you? So you're making $9 a month, *roughly*, off Google?"

MFM

Yeah.

MFM

Okay, and then **SEO** is bringing in how much?

MFM

About the same.

MFM

"Okay, and what do you spend on SEO?"

MFM

*Honestly,* I'm just **doing it all myself**. I buy backlinks every now and again, but I'm doing all the writing and all the technical **SEO** myself.

MFM

Okay, got it. And that's bringing in, like, $9,000 a month as well.

MFM

Pretty much, yes. About 50/50—new things.

MFM

"And you stopped doing door-to-door, right? You're not doing it anymore?"

Shaan Puri

"You stopped doing it because you got tired of it, or because it stopped working?"

MFM

No, it's just... it was such a grind in the early days. That was the way for us to get the business off the ground because we had no money. We just had to hustle and speak to people. But at the moment it's like I still have a job and I have a kid. My partner has a job and he has a kid.

MFM

Yeah.

MFM

And for us to find any time, yeah, to go door for door — it's...

MFM

No. *Heard, heard.* Okay, so the rest is referrals.

MFM

Yeah, it's referrals. There's a few little platforms like **Nextdoor**, **Checkatrade**, and **Bock**. I get—we get a dribble in through those.

Shaan Puri

"But those must be small, because you basically said about $10K from each of these. That's $20K a month, that's $480K a year. That's basically what you said you're on track to do. Was that $20K?"

MFM

Right. So that would get us **$2.50**. You said your run rate is 500.

MFM

Yes, correct. A lot of this is in pounds, so the numbers I gave you...

MFM

Oh, alright. Whatever. Big picture: *more, better, new*, right? So, if you've got—if you've got search and you've got SEO, you do... I will, I will, like, I am staring at the door-to-door thing. I'm not gonna— I will come back to it. But what do you have to make in order to quit the job?

MFM

We could quit right now. I'm just a little bit of a pussy, *to be honest*.

MFM

Okay, fair. Well, then—how many hours are you dedicating to doing this versus the job?

MFM

It's like 40 hours on my job and 50 hours on this. [Unclear word: "heard"—likely "hard."] Pretty wakeful, mom, and I'm working on this business.

MFM

"I got it. So let me ask you a quick question: if you actually just went *door-to-door* for 40 hours a week... I'm not saying you do this, but to ask the hypothetical—if you went *door-to-door*, basically replaced your job by spending 100% of your time on door-to-door... I'm not gonna say you do that, but just hypothetically, would you be able to replace your income if you did that?"

MFM

I think probably not. I mean, it's just—just running really quick numbers. Let's say I get—let's say I do make two sales a week or three sales a week from door to door, which would be really impressive for us at this. That would bring in **$1,500 to $6,000 gross a month**. That wouldn't cover it.

MFM

Okay, great. So then what stops you from spending **$10 a month** on Google Ads?

MFM

Yeah, great question. So we just scaled our **Google Ads** from 1,500 up to 3,000.

MFM

Okay.

MFM

It takes us about *two or three months* to get that to scale.

Shaan Puri

Okay, Flo. One of the things I love about business is that *every problem has already been solved.* So one thing I would ask is: can you *work backwards* from a business that already is doing what you're doing? Are you the only guy doing this? Are you the only company that offers this service? And if not, who's that company and how do they get customers?

MFM

Yeah, yeah, there's a couple.

MFM

There are much, much bigger players in this space, and I think what they've cracked is that they're just really, really, really good at *organic*. They just get maybe five to eight times the amount of traffic that we get.

Shaan Puri

"When you say *organic*, I don't think you're saying that the incumbents are amazing at TikTok. What do you actually mean when you say they *get organic*?"

MFM

Sorry—I literally mean "by Google." </FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

Search. Okay — so they rank. Delete. Alright.

MFM

"Well, let me ask you this question. If I bought your business tomorrow, my first ads would probably be... ads, because making Meta ads work—yeah, making Meta ads work. The thing that you have is: one, you have a clear fear. People are afraid of their car getting stolen. I'm sure you can put some stats up on the board that show a big arrow to the right—'Oh my God, cars are leaving,' right? You also have a service that is tangible and visible—something you can demonstrate. It's much harder to say in an ad, 'I'm really good at SEO.' It's way better to be like, 'Look: car got stolen.' Literally, you could do a before-and-after: 'Look, guy with a mask gets in the car, walks out,' and then right afterwards the guy with a mask gets in and he's like, 'Oh no, this one...' It's literally the ads I would mirror—the carjack ads. If you Google that, it's the little...

Shaan Puri

The bar, you.

MFM

Put the steering-wheel ads on. Then you just do local targeting to a **10-mile radius** (about **16 kilometers**). I would bet you right now that would scale really high — you could probably get to **$1,020,000 a month**.

MFM

We did Meta ads in the early days, and I told myself that didn't work, but it was just the creative that was terrible.

MFM

Yeah, I'm sure it was. I mean, advertising works, so it's not like **Meta ads** don't work — it's just that you needed to get the process down. If you do a very simple **narrative ad** with your **iPhone** demonstrating the product and the problem it solves, and keep it **under 60 seconds**, I guarantee you'll be able to get leads. Then all you have to do is call them, get a deposit on the phone so they show up, and roll the deposit toward the **$1,000**. For example, say: "Hey, it's **$100** for an assessment — it's just to make sure you show up." If you struggle with sales, say: "Just put a card down and I'll only bill you if you don't show." It's just to make sure, because you're going to send a truck and a guy out there — we don't want no-shows. Most people will be fine with that. Then you just roll it into the **$1,000** if they decide today. That gives you a little bit of urgency in the sale when you show up.

MFM

Even better — we don't even have to show up. We can just do the whole thing. We don't really do *site visits*. Can I ask you a question about it?

Shaan Puri

Wait — you just install it on the first go? *There's no scouting?*

MFM

"Explain that: so you just go out and install it *first shot*, right? Is that what you're saying?"

MFM

Yeah. They just send us a picture. We say, "Let's go for it." They send us a **50% deposit**.

MFM

Yeah, okay—great. So that's... I mean, literally, it's a **phone sale**. If I'm looking at all this stuff, the first thing I would do is say, "Let's see if I could **triple Google Ads**." You already went to $3,000; I'd be like, "Can we get to $9,000?" And then it's like, cool—that buys you your job back, right? If you got it—if you tripled and you kept ROIs the same, would that allow you to quit?

MFM

Yeah.

MFM

"And I would—I would, before doing Meta, keep hitting Google Ads until I couldn't do it anymore. I would buy all the traffic. Then, once I'd maxed out Google locally, I would **100%** put all my stuff in Meta Ads."

MFM

What's the rationale for continuing to invest in **Google** rather than putting every extra penny into **Meta**?

MFM

"Because you haven't done it yet."

MFM

Got.

MFM

If you're making money somewhere, *Google as much as you can* first. Then, once you can't make any more, move on to something better or new.

Shaan Puri

**Flo, one last thing that I think is important:** you basically said something that I think is emotional but not logical. I think you can counter *emotion with emotion* or *logic with logic*, but don't try to counter emotion with logic. You basically were like, "I haven't quit my job — why? Because I'm being a bit of a pussy about it." I think you need to have a conversation with yourself about how you feel about that. Do you want this to be a forever side hustle, or would you actually like this to be your main business? If so, where would you get the courage and the conviction to do this? You have some evidence — do you currently have enough evidence? Would you like more evidence, and what would that take? You know you're going to be limited by your own bandwidth in this business. We could give you five strategies that would work, but if you only have ten hours, and you're fatigued when you try to execute them, you're going to walk away saying, "It didn't really work," because you didn't really try it. For your long-term success, you need to be able to go all in on this. Maybe now's the time, maybe it's not — only you know that. It sounds like that's something to address today: how do I want to think about that? I know how I have been thinking about it, but how do I want to think about that going forward? What's the narrative to myself about that? So don't answer that right now, but I think it's worth doing. That's between you and your therapist. But I think it's important to answer that. I know a lot of entrepreneurs who got success while starting on the side. I don't know many entrepreneurs who finished with it remaining a side hustle. It's unlikely that your end outcome is that this stays a side hustle. The question is: how do you get there from where you are today?

MFM

Yeah, yeah... I love nothing more than *being in the game*, so I think that's where I'm headed.

Shaan Puri

Alright, Flo — we've been charging you $1.99 a minute, so you owe us some money now. Thank you for calling the Hormozi Hotline. We'll see you later, dude. Appreciate you; let us know what happens.

MFM

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

MFM

See you at the book launch.

Shaan Puri

Hey — let's take a quick break for a message from our sponsor, **HubSpot**, who's making this episode possible. Listen: if you're trying to build something big — and I'm talking about a $100,000,000 or a billion-dollar company — one of the most important things is to focus on *where* the opportunity is. You're like a surfer on a surfboard, trying to find the biggest, best wave possible for you to ride. Well, **HubSpot** has put together a **cheat sheet** that studies and reverse-engineers what's working today. They're looking at the top-performing industries you could target, the funding routes that work best, and the growth strategies that the fastest-growing companies are using. So, if you want a one-pager that's a cheat sheet on the big-company playbook, you can get it right now. Just either scan the QR code you see on the screen or click the link in the description below. Alright — back to the show.

MFM

Alright, alright. What's up? Who am I speaking to?

MFM

"Speaking to Carson. Nice to meet you."

MFM

"Carson, pleasure, man. Tell us about the business."

MFM

So, yeah... my name is Carson. I have a recruiting business. I tell my clients, **"Hiring should make you money, not coffee time."** That's why I built Dymie Connect.

Shaan Puri

I'm a *customer*. I use this business.

MFM

Brand work with a lot of companies, like **True Classic**, **HexClad**, and **Hard Rock**.

MFM

Okay.</FormattedResponse>

MFM

**Full-cycle recruiting.**

MFM

"So, do you do *support*, or... what roles do you recruit for?"

MFM

Yeah — really. All roles junior to C-level roles. Get a **CMO for Sean**. Get: **performance**, **creative**, **retention**, **social media**, **head of ops**.

MFM

So, a lot more on the **marketing** and **rev gen** [revenue generation] side.

Shaan Puri

"Carson—here's your ad, Carson." "Yeah. Carson found me my **CMO** for my e-commerce business, who is now the **CEO** of the e-commerce business. That's... that's good."

MFM

As you can see, there's your—there's your plug. Alright, what's the revenue right now? </FormattedResponse>

MFM

Right now, for last year, did 1.6.

MFM

Okay, this.

MFM

Year tracking: it hit around two.</FormattedResponse>

MFM

Okay, got it. So, what's the issue? What's holding it back?

MFM

Few things. Being a *contingency-focused recruiting agency*... ultimately allowed us to get a lot of clients in the door. It does come with flaws—pausing rules.

MFM

Yeah.

MFM

Slow communication. How does the "let's get in the game"...? I think we've learned that once we unlock the **first hire**, they see the value and stick with us. We're really just trying to focus on building that **first role** with them to show them what we're doing.

MFM

"Okay, what's the issue with your current way of doing it?"

MFM

We have a really good process. It's just that many clients tend to pause roles. There's a lot of potential on the table for candidates who are interviewing, and I think there's more opportunity to *streamline the process* and for me to *take less of the lead*.

Shaan Puri

Carson, let me ask you a question, because I think if you ask a better question you'll get a better answer. Is your question **"How do I streamline operations?"** — is this an operational question, or is this a scaling question? For example: "Okay, I did 1.6, I did 2... I want to get to four or five a year," and right now I don't feel like I'm able to do that because of either (a) my business model or (b) my operation. So what is your question: is it on the business model and the growth side of things, or is it on the operation?

MFM

Yeah, I would say more on the business side. Like the first you said — I guess I kind of said it in two questions — but *mainly I want to scale.* Right now, we're about to hit two million this year. I see a lot of potential. I want to figure out how—how do I take this contingency recruiting business to five to seven million while being so lean? </FormattedResponse>

MFM

"Yeah, so how do you get customers *right now*?"

MFM

Really, **98 percent** of referrals... I have a really good pile of bait — really good customer bait. A lot of people in the e-commerce space, since it's such niche bait, we get a lot of referrals that way.

MFM

Got it. So, fundamentally... I'll ask you a different question: if you **doubled** the number of people who are asking for roles right now, would you be able to **handle it**?

MFM

I would say yes. I think I would need to bring on maybe a few extra recruiters in jail [unclear]. But ultimately, these clients used me *because of me* and the relationships we have.

MFM

Sure

MFM

So, I'm trying to figure out: how do I stay *in the weeds*? But also kind of still ramp up and scale, right?

MFM

Yeah, so I'll cut you off for a second. Basically, the question that I'm asking—I'll tell you the intention behind the question—is: are you **demand-constrained** or **supply-constrained**? Right now, if I were to say, "I can go send you more business — could you handle it?" if the answer is yes, then we don't focus on the supply side; we focus on the demand side. If it's, "I could handle more, but I'm sorry — I've got more people than I can handle right now and I need to go get more recruiters," then it's supply-constrained. So which side is it?

MFM

Yeah, I think we can handle more.

MFM

Okay, great. So your **demand constraint**. Alright, so from the **demand perspective**, if you only have referrals, then you need to have an *input-output* in the business to get more leads.

MFM

Correct.

MFM

Okay, so it's actually going to be: the best way in general versus the best way for you will be two different things. You have the **core four** [the four core channels]. Have you read the book, correct? Right. The core four are: - **Warm outreach** - **Cold outreach** - **Content** - **Ads** On the other side, you have **affiliates**. Based on your background, you get recruits via **outbound**.

MFM

Yeah. Like *outbound*, *outbound*, or really all referrals directly from the client.

Shaan Puri

Yeah. When you recruited my **CMO**, it’s because you were blasting people on **LinkedIn**: "Hey, would you be interested? Hey, I got something." You're doing **outbound** to get candidates, which means you have the skill and muscle of outbound already. You're only using it for your supply—what if you used it for your demand?

MFM

That makes sense.

Shaan Puri

Light-bulb moment—let's go!

MFM

So, you already know your metrics for your **outbound funnel**. It's like: we do **100 connections**, and those 100 connections get us, say, five meetings. Then those five meetings turn into one fix—or whatever it is. All you have to do is just apply that exact same external funnel.

MFM

"Yeah, crew—just focus more on the **outbound**."

MFM

Yeah, because it's your *main game* — it's your *main game*. I wasn't gonna be like, "Hey man, learn ads." It's just... if you were like, you know, "We're ready," because the ads are secondary. I'll just be transparent with you: because of the nature of recruiting, you probably have access to very good marketers. If you could recruit a **CMO** [Chief Marketing Officer] who could run the ads to go get those customers, that would also be a play. But in terms of, if I'm gonna give the absolute — if I had to bet my baby on the fact that you'd be successful — I would say do more of the thing that you're already doing. Just change the target. That's it. Since you've recruited for a whole bunch of different roles, recruiting for customers — if you think of it like that — is, I think, the natural step, and you can for sure scale that to the moon.

MFM

For sure. Question on the *contingency focus*, right? Like, a lot of scheme in the game?

MFM

*Obviously*, it's low risk.

MFM

For them, high reward. For us: how do I really—kinda—demand more communication, making sure clients are pausing roles [unclear]? There are a lot of things out of our control at scale.

MFM

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how I...

MFM

Two—two things. Two things. So, alright: three things. **1) Customer vetting.** You have to have certain types of customers. If you have shitty customers, they're going to treat you shitty. If you have good customers, they tend to be more professional. So part of that's going to be: *what is our ideal customer?* **2) The contingency thing.** The question is whether it's a feature or a bug. This may just be—this happens all the time. I'll have these conversations. Or, if we decide this isn't a problem anymore and all of our metrics of the business are fine... **3)** So, what are your margins right now?

MFM

Probably about 50%.

MFM

Right. Okay, so your margins are fine. The issue you have right now is that sometimes customers don't do what you want them to, and I get it—your preference is not for that. The only tiny tweak you could consider when you have more demand, but you don't have that (which is why you have no leverage), is this: you could say, "Our way of doing this is that you put a card down. It is success-based, but if you don't follow our process we bill you a penalty because you're wasting our time." You can do that — it's an **easy, easy fix on the front end**. For example: "The role is $15 for the price range you're looking at. We get 30% — whatever the hell it is — but we charge $5 if you waste our time." Now, we don't want to charge you anything now. We don't want to charge you anything now if you get a little bit more. Again, this is where **supply and demand** becomes important. If you continue to get more and more demand, then the leverage shifts to you and you can say, "Listen, I do half now and half when we complete the role." If they don't want it, that's fine — you've got 10 other guys behind.

MFM

You—yeah, that makes sense.

MFM

So you have no leverage right now, and it makes sense. Number one: I don't think you have a steaming fire because you've got **50% margins** and things seem to be going okay. You've got **98% referrals**, which means you're good at what you do. I think we just need to put some more in the front end. It's going to be to take the outbound engine [inferred from context] toward customers and then be hyper-targeted about the customers that are going to be the best types. Ideally, you probably know what they look like. If you take the **top 20%** of your customers now that are worth the most... > "The beauty of outbound is you get to snipe who you want," so you can just say, "I'm only going after people who I know are gonna do five rolls a year." [“rolls” transcribed as spoken; meaning unclear]

MFM

That's a good— that's a good way to put it that way. Yeah.</FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

Carson, Carson. I think what Alex just said is **huge for you**. "I would not have used you had you been like, 'Give me a $20k retainer for this role.'" Yeah. Why? Because you were a college kid — you're like 22 years old. You haven't even mentioned that part.

MFM

It's not broken. You were...

Shaan Puri

Doing this while you were in college — and I think you used that to your advantage. I think that reframing it in your own mind as a *"feature instead of a bug"* will do you a lot of good, psychologically. It's your own mind as a founder that drives you nuts. Once you literally relabel the same experience you're having, you will have a new experience. So try that out along with the outbound. Was that helpful, Carson?

MFM

Super helpful, *both of you*. Thank you so much.

MFM

**Rock and roll, baby.** Later, crush it.

Shaan Puri

Alright, let's take maybe one or two more. What do you think?

MFM

"I'm always your *hot* one. Let's do it. The weather is cold, but the deals are **hot**."

Shaan Puri

"What's up? You're on the line. How—how are you doing, Jordan?"

MFM

**Hey, how are you guys?**

Shaan Puri

Oh — we got a group call. We got the **co‑founder** in here. Is that right?

MFM

The co-founder is here.

Shaan Puri

"Alright — you got **Sean**, and this is **Alex**. Can you give us your names, your business name, and then a **one-minute** description: what do you guys do, and how is it going revenue-wise?"

MFM

I'm **Jordan Egbert**. **Justin Frober**, my co-founder, is also on the call. Our business is **Elite Travel Hackers**, and we help business owners take their families on $30,000 to $50,000 luxury vacations for little to no money out of pocket using credit card points. We do that in two ways. The first is we help them optimize and maximize the number of points they're earning per year. Most people earn one point per dollar on their credit card spend; we're typically able to get at least a **3–4x** on those points earned, so...

Shaan Puri

You help them get more points, and then you help them spend them well. Yeah.

MFM

And then we help you spend it well: **first-class flights**, **five-star hotels**, **luxury travel** for little — *no money out of pocket*. </FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

So, Jordan, is the business working right now, or is it broken?

MFM

What's *revenue*? What's... yeah.

MFM

Yep. **Business is working.** We're doing about **$40k a month** right now. We do have some hurdles that we've come into, and I'll let **Justin** kind of go through those.

Shaan Puri

"Oh, he's the—he's the guy who deals with the problems."

MFM

Okay. I'm gonna guess that you're *demand-constrained*. That's gonna be my guess. I could be wrong, but go for it.

MFM

Yeah. So last month we actually got a really big box. We scaled to 85k.

MFM

Awesome.

MFM

We've spent a lot of time refining systems, processes, and automations, and getting the next round of staff hired so that we can make the next big push on leads. Right now, the majority of our business comes from **referrals**. About **20%** of our business comes from organic traffic, and we only have a **23%** close rate there. So there's a massive gap between the referral and organic close rates.

Shaan Puri

"Are you saying 80% of the business is referral, or did you guys mean that was the close rate?"

MFM

No, sorry. **69%** of the business's referrals.

Shaan Puri

Okay.

MFM

**98% close rate on referrals.**

Shaan Puri

Okay, okay — **everybody, close.**

MFM

And then.

Shaan Puri

"The rest of the business is through **organic**. Do you just mean web traffic from Google Search, or do you mean content-based traffic, or a mix of everything?"

MFM

Content-based, *okay*, and then...

Shaan Puri

"Is your question? Try to state the question as *crisply* as you can. So, what's the question you guys have?"

MFM

How do we build trust faster and increase close rates from cold traffic? Is there a tweak in our offer—or in our *messaging*?

MFM

"Alright, I'm gonna—I'm gonna... we're gonna—I'm gonna *rock your shit* in a couple seconds, so just tell me: what's the price right now?"

MFM

About 3,000 to 15,000.</FormattedResponse>

MFM

Okay, so it scales depending on their... *whatever*.

MFM

Number of trips they're taking, and how much they're spending out of pocket.

MFM

Okay, got it. Heard. So, right now I'm assuming that you have the **same sales process** for referrals as you do for people from content.

MFM

Yeah.

MFM

Yeah, that's the issue. Every traffic source has to be treated differently because, basically, if you think about a customer on a continuum, there's a certain amount of information they have to consume in order to make a decision. What you need is a *microwave*—something that's going to heat them up really quickly. So right now, walk me through the **"click-to-close."** If someone sees a post or a reel, then what? Do they DM you [direct message], go to your link, or comment? Do they get a mini chat? What do they do—click?

MFM

dm dm

MFM

Okay, so they DM you — got it. After they DM, there's a setter in the DMs, right? Correct. Okay, so *DM setter* — and then what happens after that?

MFM

Into sales calendar.

MFM

Okay, okay — got it. And that's it. That's what happens. Is there anything else that they consume between *set* and *close*?

MFM

There's a *60-second warm-up video* saying, "Hey, come with these data points so that we can maximize what you're doing."

MFM

Yeah, so you're missing a **VSL** (video sales letter). That's all. Two things. Here's what you're gonna do: write a **seven-minute VSL**. It's very simple — it follows the same concept as a YouTube video. In the first 60 seconds you should have: - A **promise** - The **pain** you're going to help them avoid - A **plan** of how it's all going to work - **Proof** that you can help them do that After the first 60 seconds, structure the rest around three beliefs: **belief one**, **belief two**, and **belief three**. These should address the three biggest objections people typically bring up on sales calls. Break those down as FAQs during the video. Also include a 60-second section that explains, "**This is how you prep for the call.**" Script the whole thing, then convert it into a PDF. Some people — especially the bigger clients — prefer reading over watching, so give them two ways to consume it: watch the video or read the PDF. On the call, the closer should verify the prospect consumed the content. Your opener might be, "Hey, how's it going today?" (I know you don't usually open a call that way, but that's the example.) Then ask, "Did you get a chance to watch the video?" The closer should ideally double-check this prior to the call. If they haven't watched it, say, "No worries — I'm going to grab a cup of coffee. You can play it and I'll come back in seven minutes, and then we can talk." That way you're not just blabbing; they can see the visuals and everything will be as tight and efficient as possible. It's the best use of your time.

MFM

Got it.

MFM

That's literally it. Now, the second thing I want to do is shift your belief a little bit. You said, "We're only closing 23%." *23% isn't dog shit.* I would say that you're probably—if you just do this—bumped to the mid-thirties. That's not weird; that's a normal close rate. **Referrals are amazing.** That's why everybody would love to have referrals. But if you really want to *get your mind blown*, start running ads. It's going to be way worse than the content leads. So you want to treat warm like cold, and you treat cold like cold by giving them more information prior to the close.

MFM

Got it.

MFM

"That's literally—if you only need to do one thing, that's all you have to do, and you'll see an increase in close rate. That being said, that's not going to take you to $5,000,000 a year. It's just going to give you maybe a 50% lift on whatever you're currently doing. Once you do that, you still have demand issues. That means you still need a reliable—basically, how can we make more and better content? That's the larger and more important question. Yeah, but *do that first.*"

Shaan Puri

Solve that one problem at a time. At the end of the day, you want to have your *growth equation* — I think that's what he's talking about. Today — I forgot what you said — you're converting 29% or something like that. That's actually a pretty decent number. If that number were 40%, what happens to our business? You don't want to put a transformational amount of effort into something that doesn't have a transformational result on the other side. Do some **napkin math** and save yourself a lot of pain. If that's the situation, it might be that you can actually double the number of referrals you're getting by doing something simple. Maybe today you're getting referrals, but you're not actually asking for them intelligently and ramping that up, and you already have a 98% close rate. Just make sure you do some napkin math on what the top of funnel looks like before you try to beat your head against the wall increasing this conversion. You can increase your conversion, and you should, but it's worth doing some napkin math to see: if I did this, would this get me where I want to go, or is this just one block and I'll have to figure out two more things after that? At least it's good to know that going in.

MFM

"Hey, Jordan — would you have a referral script you use right now?"

MFM

I'll take that one. Yeah, so at the end of every *onboarding call*, we're asking them **who else they know**.

MFM

"How do you ask them?"

MFM

"Hey — do you think anybody else could use our services? You've seen what it's like to do our credit-card strategies. Can you connect me via text or email?"

MFM

Yeah, so I would tweak that. This is just a little golden BB for you: **compliment them first** so you can reframe it. For example, say: "Dude, you're an absolute pleasure to deal with. My god, I talk to a bunch of different business owners every day. If I could talk to only people like you, I would." Then ask, "What other successful business owners like you do you know?" That compliments them twice before making an ask, and most people are way happier to give you a referral. Also, when you say, "I want other people who are successful like you," you'll get better referrals overall.

MFM

Got it. Makes perfect sense.

MFM

Yeah — little tweak. One other.

Shaan Puri

One that might help: I think you said this really well with the gym business. You're like, people are in the *maximum amount of pain* when they show up the first time at the gym. For them to have shown up, that means they acknowledge the problem and have walked into your hands. How hard could it be to sell? In your case, you actually have a different situation: when somebody's on their way back from the vacation that you booked for them for free and they just had an incredible, life-changing experience, it's probably a good moment to go ask them, "How was the trip?" Then see what they're thinking for more trips, and whether they know anyone else who's looking. You're going to be riding a momentum — a huge wave of goodwill in that moment — because they're going to be on the high of their vacation. Planning a vacation is work; experiencing and enjoying the vacation is when they're in the *peak state* to be able to ask as well. </FormattedResponse>

MFM

And on the offboarding call that Sean's referencing, if I were getting really tactical with you, this is what I would do. When I call them up, start by saying, "Hey, how's the vacation?" Then ask, "Do you have any pictures?" They'll likely say, "Oh, how many do you want to see?" You can follow with, "So, what friends would you normally send these pictures to?" If they offer to include you, say, "If you want, three-way me." Then you can say, "Hey, I got this whole vacation for free—send it to your friend, just three-way me in." And then you're rocking and rolling. </FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

Yeah—helpful, guys.

MFM

Yeah, for sure... very as...

Shaan Puri

"I asked my first girlfriend, 'Was that the best eight minutes of your life?' Yeah. Alright, fellas—we'll see you later."

MFM

See you guys. Alright — our *Mosey Hotline*. Yeah, here we go. Alright.

Shaan Puri

"Caller number nine, you are on air. What's your name?"

MFM

Hello, hello. I'm Davy, Alex, Sean. Great to be talking with you.

Shaan Puri

"Davy, where are you calling in from, Davy?"

MFM

From Brooklyn, New York.

Shaan Puri

Alright, **Davy** — *"single, married"*... oh wait, no, wrong show. Here we go. **Davy**, tell us about what's going on. What's your business?

MFM

So, I am a content creator, and I'm a little bit different than probably a lot of the businesses that call in. I have a big audience and all the traffic, and I have **absolutely no idea what to sell them**.

MFM

"You need a **money model**."

Shaan Puri

"You have distribution and no product. Is that what you're saying?"

MFM

"I got distribution — *no product.*"

Shaan Puri

Oh, okay.

MFM

And I won the school games last year.

MFM

Oh, sick.

MFM

And, Alex—you know this guy? You in May? I was about to ask you the question I'm about to ask, and your assistant came in and said, "Alex, you have a wedding—need to what?" [phrase unclear]

MFM

That checks out.

MFM

Last year, and then I saw Sean's tweet yesterday, and I was like, "*You know what?*"

Shaan Puri

"Dude, if your life was a movie, this is that."

MFM

This is that one.

Shaan Puri

This is the moment where it *comes full circle*. Alright—moment. So, what is the question you've been waiting a year to ask?

MFM

Are you an entertainer or an educator, *real quick*?

MFM

I would say it leans towards *education*. I mean, I make content for college guys and young guys about how to get internships, how to get jobs, how to date, how to manage... negative thoughts, how to make money. It's really just **virtual big brother** stuff.

MFM

Okay.

MFM

I have **200 million** views, **350,000** followers — so a big army of young dudes. I wanna make a big swing of the... [sentence trails off]

MFM

"Per what? Per month? Per year? Per what?"

MFM

**200 million views over the last two years.**

MFM

Oh, what are you getting monthly?

MFM

5 to 10, okay.

Shaan Puri

And this is *TikTok* we're talking about.

MFM

**TikTok** and **Instagram**.

MFM

Yep. Okay.

MFM

"Five on each."

Shaan Puri

Okay, okay. Go on. Yep.

MFM

And so, I have this big army of young dudes. I could do a paying community; I could do a mentorship, but I think there's a bigger play—either employing many of them or building an app and launching it across college campuses. I've been building this audience, and I'm not sure what the **big swing** I should be making here is.

Shaan Puri

But before we start being know-it-alls and telling you what to do, what have you already tried?

MFM

I mean, I've just committed to making *two or three* short-form videos a day for the last couple of years, outside of my day-to-day other pursuit, so I haven't tried much. </FormattedResponse>

MFM

"What's your day-to-day other pursuit?"

MFM

My mom is a *physician coach*. She was doing about $20k to $30k a month, and now we did $230k last month. So basically, we're building high-ticket sales, marketing, and fulfillment for burned-out doctors.

MFM

"Got it. Well, I'll tell you a **secret**: *burned-out doctors* have more pain and more money than broke college guys—by an order of magnitude."

MFM

I know I don't want to keep freaking with my mom.

MFM

Okay.

MFM

Sort of. I've—I've, yeah. I mean, if you think there's not a *big* prize here, then maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree.

MFM

The question is: what do you want to have happened? If you're like, "Oh, I think—" I'll give a little *reality check*. **Five to ten million views a month** is not bad. It's also not crazy. You have enough to run a business for sure. This isn't like you're sitting on $100,000,000—you're not getting a dollar per view. I just want to put that in perspective. Also, your TikTok views are worth nowhere near what your Instagram views are. It's probably a factor of **10 to 20x** difference in terms of value per view—especially if the content is more meme-y or humorous. You can drive the value way down depending on whether it's education versus entertainment. The revenue per thousand views is a huge difference. I just want to level-set there. So fundamentally, you've got these guys, and they want—careers, they want jobs.

MFM

Well, it's not like I'm *Mister Internship*—I'm not saying that I'm the best conductor ever. But they look to me for input on all this life stuff: whether it's how to land their first date, how to get an internship, how to... whatever. I get a bunch of **DMs** that are like, "Dude, you spoke the thoughts that were in my brain. You, like, you know me so well." I think I've built up enough trust with them that if I wanted them to, like, quit a job or come work for me or do something. That's why I'm thinking maybe I could build something.

MFM

Yeah, on.

MFM

The *back* of them, not the *side*, though.</FormattedResponse>

MFM

So I'll give you just a little bit of a continuum that exists for you, right? This is super common for people who are content creators, and the continuum exists on a **risk continuum**. On one end you have "start a business that you're going to do everything for." That's all the way on one side: it takes the most skill and has the most risk. On the opposite end you have "be an affiliate of something" — you're just going to promote someone else's stuff and get a percentage. That's the other extreme. Next to that you've got **sponsorships**. If I'm really good at promoting, people start paying me ahead of time. That's a **100% gross margin**, and it scales as I scale my content, which is not necessarily a bad thing. In the middle you've got **partnerships**: you're the exclusive person who promotes a specific thing and you get shares, royalties, or whatever you can negotiate. You let somebody else run the business while you continue to promote. Next to that you've got **white labels**: you don't actually run the business, but you have your own brand and you want to capture the equity. And then the very last one — which is what I started with — is **own it all**: you source everything, you manufacture if you want to do products, and you own all of it. Those are kind of your options. If you want to get into the business now, you can de-risk your current thing a lot by trying some options on the left and seeing how they perform. You basically have the luxury of testing product–market fit before doing anything major.

MFM

Okay.

MFM

So, you can easily **affiliate** someone else's thing, see what the demand looks like, and if it *crushes* then you're like, "Oh, I got something here." If it doesn't crush, then you didn't have to do all the other shit associated with that.

MFM

Build that business.

MFM

Right, exactly. So you have this really nice position that you're in. Number one, I would probably work my way from **least risky to most risky** as I validate whatever thing I want to sell. Secondarily, for TikTok, I'll give you a little hack: the people I've seen who monetize best on TikTok have their call to action (CTA) be **"DM me on Instagram."**

MFM

*Mhmm.*

MFM

And then they work the **DMs** on **Instagram**. For whatever reason, Instagram just converts way better for monetization than **TikTok** does. So they use TikTok as a traffic platform to drive people to Instagram to convert.

MFM

"Got it. Can you give me an example of some of the things that you would try *affiliating for*?"

MFM

Well, so—you said a lot of stuff. You have dating content, which probably gets into looks-maxing and all that. Then you've got "want to get a job" content, and you also have biz-op stuff, which I'm not the biggest fan of, but whatever. So you have a lot of different pieces. Then, obviously, there are services that you can charge for. But the thing I'd really hate about this particular customer is that **they're broke**. So the easiest... I mean, I don't think the idea you had about starting a *school community* is a terrible idea. You can have a very large community, continue to serve them, and offer a low-ticket price. That can be an initial launch pad: build the community, essentially say, "tell me what you guys want and I'll do that," and then you can monetize in the meantime. Does that make sense?

MFM

Yes, got it.

MFM

So that's... that's like the easy, *super low-risk* option. It doesn't... If you're like, "Hey man, I want to make $100,000,000," and you don't have a clear path from where you're at right now to get there, besides just starting as though you didn't even have the brand you have.

MFM

Well, if you had a *fleet of loyal guys* that maybe you could turn into good **salespeople** or turn into **ambassadors**, or if you had to launch something across **college campuses** — if you had this resource and it was your only foundation to get to $100,000,000 or $10,000,000... what would...

MFM

You do.

MFM

If you can train a skill—which you just mentioned, that sales thing—exceptionally well, then you can absolutely source and place salespeople for large door-to-door companies. A lot of college guys are willing to relocate after college anyway, and they can make *six figures* a year, or *six figures in a summer* if they crush it. Those companies are happy to pay referral fees upon the success of those types of people. If you can develop a long-term reputation for being very, very good at training them, you can easily run cohorts where you say: > "Hey, you're gonna fly out to this place. We're gonna spend a week. I'm gonna train you, and then after that you'll graduate and go out into the world and be fruitful and multiply." You could very well charge, probably around **$5,000**, for people to come learn how to sell. Then you’ll have a bunch of connections from different companies that you can use your own content to source those relationships. Just get a Vivint, or some of the big alarm-system companies, and have them agree to take people from you. You can also make money on both sides. The best thing you can do for those guys is *use them as the product*.

MFM

Mhmm.

Shaan Puri

"I have a question for you — a *soul-searching* question: are you trying to be a content creator who makes money, or are you trying to be an entrepreneur who uses content? Wow."

MFM

"That's a great question."

Shaan Puri

**Gut instinct.** You can change your mind later, but just *gut instinct*. Would I say that? Which one did your heart go to?

MFM

"You have to **fully commit** to this for life."

MFM

I want to be an *entrepreneur*.

Shaan Puri

You wanna be an entrepreneur? Great. So, I think the **constraint** of "what business can I start using this TikTok audience for this customer" is actually not serving you at all. Instead, think: what business do I want to be in, where I see an opportunity and I feel passionate about solving it? I'm going to *use my content muscles* — probably as one of my growth levers — to do that. All this did was act as the gym where I was working out and building that muscle. But I didn't build it to use it in the gym; I built it to use it in the real world, somewhere else. So sometimes you have to pick the constraint properly. The constraint of using your current TikTok audience in this business is not the right one. The other thing I would do is try to get real. Not only is a certain number of views different per platform, but as a simple test: if you went to a college campus and posted on TikTok and Instagram something like: > "Hey, I'm gonna be at Penn State. If you wanna come hang out, I'm gonna be at this place from this hour to this hour." How many people do you think would show up at Penn State? </FormattedResponse>

MFM

Probably between 10 and 100.

Shaan Puri

**10 and 100** — okay, that's a pretty big spread. I think you should go try it. I would be surprised if the number was 100. I'd even be surprised if it was 10. The reason I say that is because of the nature of **TikTok** and short-form content: *they're not loyal to you; they're loyal to the feed.* You might show up from time to time. The reason to test is to basically wash away your tie and your connection — your invisible sunk-cost thinking like, "but I've already built this audience." Because actually, what you built was the muscle of short-form content. You probably haven't built an army of people who listen to and trust you. For example, you will get more views on your TikTok than I will get on my podcast. But if I tweet something that I'm going somewhere for my podcast, I'll get people there, because I spend hundreds of hours in their ears. It's a different level of connection. So I say all this to say: if you really want to be an entrepreneur, break out of that constraint of trying to sell to college dudes who've been entertained by random TikToks about random stuff. Don't ask, "What's the best business I can build in that tiny, tiny box?" — just get out of the box and then build the best business you can. I bet you'd kick ass that way, because you seem like someone who's pretty high-agency and pretty kick-ass. But don't constrain yourself — don't tie one hand behind...

MFM

"Your back."

MFM

And, Davey, I'll soften what Sean said — which is normally not my role — but *what you can use the brand for* is this: Let's say you don't sell to this audience, and you don't sell them as the product either. Let's say you just say, "I did this thing and I learned this skill." You can still use that to recruit for whatever business you want, and that is actually still a **massive W**. So you can just skim up and say you've got these guys who are super low and want to work. It's like, "Great — work for me." Yep. Cool.

MFM

Yep, I appreciate it.

MFM

Alright — *awesome*, brother. Appreciate you. Thanks for calling in.

MFM

Appreciate it, guys. *Thanks.* Alright.

MFM

See you. Awesome. There we go.

Shaan Puri

Alright, that's a wrap on the **Hormozi Hotline**.