I Built My $100M Business WRONG…

Summary

• Simplify for Scale: I've learned that scaling effectively means simplifying the business model. The bigger the business, the simpler its operations should be.
• Embrace Scaling Zero: To avoid becoming a bottleneck, my presence in daily operations must be zero. This philosophy pushes the business to thrive independently of my direct input.
• Incremental Outsourcing: Start by outsourcing the small tasks and gradually move towards outsourcing larger components like sales and marketing, until the only task left for me is high-level decision making.
• Target Larger Markets: Aiming for a larger marketplace can significantly boost business potential. I realized that instead of confining myself to a niche market (a 'lake'), I should set sights on a much broader market (an 'ocean').
• Focus is Key: Managing multiple businesses can hinder growth. Success is often tied to focusing on one main business and perfecting its model. This can lead to mastery and ultimately, significant wealth.
• Decision Making: The etymology of 'decision' suggests a 'killing off' of alternatives. Decide on one business and eliminate distractions to ensure undivided attention and commitment.
• Sell High-Margin Products: Observing that the most successful businesses offered high-margin products or services reaffirmed my strategy to pursue ventures that provide significant value with less associated hard costs and risks.
• Quality Leadership: Hire experienced leaders who've excelled in their fields—people who come with 'batteries included' to ensure they can drive growth without my constant involvement.
• Streamlined Structure: I'm focused on structuring my ventures in a way that eliminates me as a bottleneck, allowing for more scalable and sustainable growth.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest implementing the "Scale Zero" strategy by identifying tasks you do in your business and finding ways to outsource them one by one. Start with the smallest tasks and scale up to the bigger ones. This way, your involvement in day-to-day operations decreases, and you can focus on higher-level decision-making.

Aim for larger markets—don't limit yourself to a small niche. Look for the 'ocean', not just a 'lake'. This could mean expanding your product line to appeal to a broader audience or entering new geographical markets.

Focus on one business at a time. If you're running multiple businesses, consider streamlining to one main business to master it. This doesn't mean you can't have interests in other ventures, but make sure you're not dividing your attention too thin.

Sell high-margin products or services. Find offerings that deliver great value to customers while maintaining a low hard cost to you. Pursue ventures where you can reap significant financial rewards without high risks.

Hire quality leadership with experience. Seek out leaders who've proven themselves in their fields—ones that can drive growth without needing you every step of the way. They should come with 'batteries included', meaning they're ready to contribute from day one.

Lastly, the structure of your business should be streamlined to prevent you from being a bottleneck. Aim for a setup where the business can operate smoothly without your constant involvement, allowing it to grow sustainably.

By following these steps, you can work towards creating a business that thrives independently, expands its reach, and maximizes profitability without being held back by the necessity of your hands-on involvement.

Quotes by Alex Hormozi

"Simple scales"

– Alex Hormozi

"Scaling zero means that for me to get bigger, I must get smaller within the company"

– Alex Hormozi

"Going after oceans instead of lakes"

– Alex Hormozi

"A decision is where you choose to kill off all the other things"

– Alex Hormozi

"I want a high margin thing that is high value"

– Alex Hormozi

Full Transcript

what's going on everyone happy uh hump day wednesday uh i want to make this quick video for you uh because i'm gonna be sharing some of the lessons that i did from that i got from a uh uh 500 million dollar mastermind but it was basically eight people eight entrepreneurs who together were doing uh over 500 million dollars a year i was the second smallest so we'll we'll finish this year i think at 32 million um i think there was one guy at like seven um and then but everybody and then another one was at around my 35 and then the rest of them were almost all above 100 and we had one guy over 250. and the biggest i'll tell you the two biggest takeaways that i have from that entire experience the big the first one was when i looked at the biggest of them they sold simple right uh simple scales and so the term that i've given myself to like remember this is scale zero which is i have to get my business to a point where there's literally zero requirement of me zero not like eat like zero none as in like it just keeps going and growing and by getting to that point where it requires zero then i can scale it without becoming the bottleneck and so let me see if i can unpack this in a useful way for everyone like right now if you're doing anything within the business if you were to double the business the question is are you going to have to double the amount of stuff that you do many times it's a yes and to be honest with you it takes a long time to get like you're going to move up the skill set like in the beginning you do everything and then you're going to outsource some administrative work and then you're going to outsource some you know back-end customer service work and then you're going to outsource the sales and then and then you'll start outsourcing maybe the marketing and then after that you'll you know maybe outsource the messaging behind your overarching position in the marketplace but at some point literally the only thing that should be left for you to do is just make decisions and not all decisions but just the biggest and most important decisions right and so if that is what is left for you to do then there's basically zero right and so scaling zero means that for me to get bigger i must get smaller within the company i must become less and less and less important to the company's success in order for the company to grow without me being the bottleneck of it and i think that um this has just been such so incredibly telling uh for me going through this and watching each of them uh what the people who are doing more than me how how little they were doing and that's by design that's deliberate it's hard to do that and you fail a lot and you hire people and they mess up and you eat those costs of mistakes but that's why you know finding really good people is important but scaling zero has been my the the brand like the branding that i'm trying to send into my brain it's like scale zero like get yourself down to zero because only then i'll be able to scale otherwise if i'm doing 20 hours a week of work and we double that i'll be at 40 right and so that has been probably one of the biggest lessons the next lesson that i learned was that from just about everybody else there and mind you the lessons that i'm sharing with you now are the lessons that i'm learning in my current chapter my current season you may not be in this season but i want to be transparent with you that this is what i'm learning right now and the lesson that i learned was that everybody else was going after a bigger marketplace than i was and so they were all wildly impressed that we've been able to you know generate a hundred million dollars in a single niche but they're like man you know you're really good at this stuff you should be going after multiple you just go after a bigger market like you're in a pond they're like or a lake you should be going after the ocean and so that was what i saw was consistent between all of them was that they were all in oceans and i was in a lake and so that was probably the biggest the second biggest takeaway um that i had the third biggest takeaway here's a bonus one for you is that everything that everyone sold there was simple um and i'm gonna say simple in two different ways one is that of everyone there i was the only one who had three businesses terrible idea um i mean we've i've i've learned my lessons and we've been able to build it but i had to take steps backwards and really work myself to death in order to get all three of them you know over eight and multi-figures in order to to to work right but i feel like i lost probably two years of development for myself as an entrepreneur because i split my attention and every single other person there had one business that they were focused on and more specifically one customer and so um that was a big lesson for me now you can have multiple businesses but for just about everybody who's listening to this you're probably not that at that level like and i'm and i'm not saying that you know douchely but like if you're buying a business that's very different than you starting multiple of them and being ceo of them all if you have multiple businesses and this is a mistake that i made early on and a mistake that i've made again later on if you're ceo of all of them you do like you it's for just about every human besides elon musk it's not feasible and so every other person that i know makes who's made a tremendous amount of money made it in one vehicle and then they may own pieces of other businesses right and if they are the main owner in in multiple businesses which is rare but if they are the main owner in those businesses they are not a partner they're not an active partner in that business they've hired a ceo they've hired an executive team that can run and grow that business without them um but i remember hearing that when i was younger it was like oh man this guy has all these companies he doesn't own all the companies that he's like he's not in it right he's not in any of them he's got teams of executives and high level producers who are incentivized usually with some level of equity in that company and he advises strategically um and so that was you know again one of the reminders we need to be reminded more than we need to be taught myself included um that one of the mistakes that i was making that everyone else there was not and so i'll recap it for you because i'm doing it for myself too the first was scaling zero i have to get down to zero in order to scale otherwise i'll be the bottleneck the second was going after oceans instead of lakes um again remember this is me at my season if you're if you're starting out going after a lake is not a bad idea which is why me making the decision to just niche down to a single you know niche of gyms was not a bad decision because it was the right call at that time now we've developed a skill set that we you know now we've helped agencies in 100 plus niches generate clients for their clients and so i feel very adept at that skill third is focusing on one main business as your primary vehicle and an interesting thing that i found out recently was the word the the root of the word etymology behind the word decide decision um so c day like suicide patricide matricide side is to kill homicide right it's kill and so a decision is where you choose to kill off all the all other things so you you select by elimination right which i kind of like that so it's like when you decide you're actively choosing to kill off other things and so you need to decide what your business is going to be and kill off all other options and so that is the the third lesson um that i got from all of those those people here that were at that mastermind and the and the fourth one um was every single one of them was selling a tremendously high margin gross gross margin um service and or product except for one of them uh and the two people who were selling the lowest margin stuff were the smaller businesses and so when i heard that it was really it was challenging for me in a good way of thinking like how can we provide value in bigger ways for less hard costs to us as business owners and risk and so as i think about you know the next moves that i'll do in my entrepreneurial career i'm taking those things into consideration so it's what am i going to do that is going to go after an ocean instead of a lake what am i going to do that's going to be just one thing so not lots of things attacking the ocean just one what thing is going to be you know very high margin but very high value which is difficult a lot of times you can you can do high margin but low hopefully you get what i'm saying here i want a high a high margin thing that is high value um and sometimes that's hard to find and then finally i want to structure it in such a way that i can get it to the point where i am not the bottleneck of the business because i have um better better decision making leaders so not just not just like in the beginning you have doers and then you have managers and then you have leaders and then you have decision makers and leaders to a certain degree are getting into that it depends on what level of leadership but really finding high level people who have the experience of doing this thing in the past they've already run and won the olympic gold i don't want to teach someone how to do it i want someone who's already done it and can just plug right in and comes pre-loaded with the solutions they come batteries included um as uh as maxwell says and so um anyways those are the biggest findings um that i had now looking back three months later after the dust has settled from that half a billion dollar mastermind and those are the lessons that i took away from it so i hope that was valuable for you if you want the the inner the inner secrets of what what's happening behind the scenes in those in those types of rooms um those are the types of conversations that we're having and i hope you found that valuable and i'll see in the next vid