Watch this to get your first 5 customers
Video
Summary
- I recommend starting by compiling three lists of leads: your email contacts, social media contacts, and phone contacts.
- Choose one platform where you have the most connections to begin your outreach efforts.
- Personalize your messages to your prospects by mentioning something you already know about them to initiate contact.
- Commit to reaching out to 100 people every single day for effective network engagement.
- When they reply, use my ACA framework: Acknowledge, Compliment, and Ask, to build a warm conversation.
- Suggest your contacts invite friends who might need your service, but do not push for a direct sale.
- Convert interested leads into engaged leads by offering your service for free in exchange for their feedback and a killer review.
- Start by taking on a limited number of free case studies (like five) to build credibility and gain experience.
- Reconnect through your lists regularly to increase engagement and turn leads into customers.
- Begin charging for your services gradually after gaining referrals, starting with a significant discount and slowly increasing prices.
- Cherish and maintain good relationships with the people who’ve worked with you for free as they help grow your business in various ways.
- Finally, keep warming up your leads by providing value consistently, establishing trust, and eventually leading to them soliciting your services.
How To Take Action
I would suggest implementing these steps to grow your business:
- Create three lists of potential leads from your email, social media, and phone contacts. This gives you a big pool to work with.
- Pick the platform where you have the most contacts to start reaching out. It's easier to talk to people where you're already connected.
- When messaging a person, mention something personal about them. This shows you care and aren't just sending a random message.
- Commit to connecting with 100 people daily. It might seem tough but it gets easier after your first try.
- Use my ACA framework when they reply. Acknowledge something about them, compliment them, and then ask a question related to what you offer.
- Invite them to refer a friend who may need what you offer. It feels less pushy than selling directly.
- Offer a free trial of your service in exchange for their honest feedback and a great review. Limit this to a few people, like five, to start.
Once people see value in your service and you build some testimonials:
- Go back to your contact lists and update them on your progress and ask if they know more people who might be interested.
- Begin charging a small fee for your services after getting referrals, with a special discount for new customers.
- Show appreciation for those who worked with you for free. They’ll likely refer more people to you.
- Keep delivering value to your growing network, and maintain relationships trustingly. They may eventually ask for your services on their own!
Quotes by Alex Hormozi
"Everything must be hard before it can be easy"
– Alex Hormozi
"You're not gonna solicit them, you asked a question, they're gonna tell you stuff"
– Alex Hormozi
"Just because you're not getting paid doesn't mean it's free"
– Alex Hormozi
"If people don't want to work with you even for free, then ask them why"
– Alex Hormozi
"Don't think short, think long, and you'll make long money"
– Alex Hormozi
Full Transcript
first five customers in 10 steps the wild world of YouTube has videos everywhere telling you how to scale and grow but I think people over complicate it and so this is actually a sneak peek from my new book 100 million dollar leads which comes out 819 you can go to acquisition.com forward slash leads let's dive in so the first step to getting this going is you need to get a list Alex you're damn straight you do number one I want you to go to your email account to pull all the contacts that you have in there anybody that you've ever messaged or emailed that becomes list one list two is I want you to go to every single social media profile that you have go to your social media profiles where you can direct message people so if you have followers that you can DM I want you to write down every single one of those people list number three pull out your phone look for your contacts I want you to export them list one is all your email contacts list two is all of your Social contacts and list three is all of your phone and private personal contacts if you add all three of those together you will have a shitload more leads than you thought you did you're like wait you're gonna ask me to contact these people slow down not yet and we're not going to do in a really weird way I'm trying to do in a classy way this is how I started every business I have and have people thank me for it the second step is that you pick a platform all right so you have all these contacts but you're gonna have to pick one platform that you're gonna start messaging or emailing them with start with the one that you have the most people on so if you have the most Instagram people or you have the most email contacts or you have more people in your phone than any of those start there step three but what do I say you personalize your message so what you want to do is you want to use something you already know about the person or Prospect in order to initiate reaching out to them this is also just called being a human being what you do is you take 30 seconds you look at someone's profile and you say oh they've got this thing we have something in common and you could reach out to them with that as your primary message so for example you can be like hey Saul you got a baby hey saw you switch jobs hey saw you move hey you saw that movie last weekend it doesn't matter all you need to show is that you took the few seconds to actually not just blast some sort of message step four you reach out and you reach out to 100 people every single day so let's say you had 3 000 people between all your emails all your phone contacts and every single follower across all your social medias it took you 20 years to send your first DM and it'll take you two minutes to send the second one everything must be hard before it can be easy so just get over the hump send it just something so you can realize that you won't die step five what do I say if they reply you warm them up I use a framework that I call ACA you acknowledge compliment and you ask for example I can acknowledge and say oh so you have two kids they're gonna compliment about the thing so it's like wow you have two kids you must be a super mom working full-time and having two kids when we go to ask we're gonna tie our ask to the complim we just gave them then we transition to whatever type of question that's going to lead them to the service we sell if I was selling weight loss I'd be like hey so you're Superman how do you have time to eat right and work out wait a second this sounds like selling it's not talking [ __ ] humans step six invite their friends when you're talking about this stuff you're not going to sell them this is [ __ ] cute you're not gonna solicit them you asked a question they're going to tell you stuff and then it's going to be like oh yeah by the way do you know anyone who's looking for X Y and Z because I'm opening up a few slots to help people do exactly that you're just asking them if they know anybody and since you're friends with them and since you're contacts you're asking them for a favor you're not asking them to buy from you this should make you not feel weird about messaging people if they say hey I'd like to find out more now what they have done is they've transitioned from a lead to an Engaged lead a lead is somebody that you can contact an Engaged lead is someone who you can contact comma who has shown interest in the thing that you sell if she says I haven't been able to keep up with my workouts Etc now they have shown interest in the thing well then how do I get them to buy from it we're going to give them the easiest offer in the world to say yes to you're going to make it free they probably know that you're not that experienced just be honest the reason we do it for free is you say hey I'm gonna do all this stuff for free as long as you promise to do three things one you actually use my service two you give me feedback on it and three leave a killer review if you think it deserves one those are the terms of exchange the reason I want you to start with that is that one it'll get you more reps two you probably suck three you need to learn how to suck less and you suck less by doing more and it's way easier to get more people to work with you if you lower the barrier to free you're actually getting the better end of the deal you might be wondering why I just mush the [ __ ] out this banana in my hand and it's because the launch of my second book 100 million dollar leads is both nutritious natural and uh will make you lots of money unlike bananas but the event itself where I'll be launching it on Saturday August 19th will be bananas I've spent over a million dollars in the event itself and I'm going to be giving away a secret thing that I've been working on for over four years to everyone who's there with me live and I I would love to tell you what it is it kills me inside that I cannot tell you but I want the surprise itself to be worth it and I think it will be this is a date that you're not going to miss it's a day after my birthday and it's my way of giving back to you guys for being so awesome click the link register and I'll see you guys I'll tell you the quick story of Warren Buffett and Ben Graham Ben Graham was the goat back in the day for investing Warren Buffett was just a kid out of Columbia and wanted to go learn investing and he offered to work for Graham for free graham said you're getting the better end of the deal the actual answer was you're overpriced so free was too expensive for Graham because Graham knew that he was gonna have to invest more in getting Warren good enough to actually work for him and so right now these customers and they are very much customers because they are exchanging something for your service they're exchanging their time and their effort and some stuff later that you're gonna have them do just because you're not getting paid doesn't mean it's free but it is monetarily free so gather round I'm gonna give you two versions of this you say by the way do you know anybody who is describe their struggles looking to dream outcome in time delay I'm taking on five case studies for free because that's all I can handle I just want to get some testimonials for my service or product and we're being honest because this is their first business and you [ __ ] have no idea what you're doing so you better not take more than five customers I just had a girl named XXX work with me to get dream outcome even though she described the same struggle the person you're talking to is struggling with I'd like to get more testimonials to show Works across different scenarios does anyone you like come to mind if they say no here's a really funny way you can respond to that you say haha does anyone you hate come to mind honestly that's when you'll sometimes get the real response if you don't have time to say all of those things you just say I help the type of customer get dream outcome in time period without effort and sacrifice and I guarantee XYZ to decrease risk that's it that's if you just have that moment to deliver one thing of what do I do some special snowflakes are going to be like you should never sell your time for nothing you suck you have never done this before so it would be unreasonable for you to be good why would you want to sell sucky service to people you know if people don't want to work with you even for free then ask them why because the reason that someone tells you they don't want to work with you even for free is because there are hidden costs associated with whatever thing you sell if you figure out what all those hidden costs are you can eliminate those hidden costs and then be able to charge significantly more for your solution later compared to the other people who charge for it and still include those hidden costs so I'll give you an example I got solicited in this exact Manner and a guy messaged me and said I want to do short form videos for you you don't have to do anything I will take all the stuff you already have online and I will make them for you and I'll even post them for you like you actually just need to say yes and so I said yes and guess what you started making short videos and he started accepting payments because he had removed the hidden costs if people get value from this thing that you have especially if it's free they're far more likely to leave positive reviews give you feedback and send their friends and family once we have that we have our first customers now we go to step eight you start back at the top so you had that big list and we hit all of the months and back again so some of those people by the way when you ask them if they know anybody they actually just give you people that they know that might help and you get free leads because if you reach out to 3 000 people with a free thing you'll get five people who will take you up on it I promise you so now you're like but Alex I can't work for free forever now we're on step nine start charging once people start referring that's when you know you were good enough to start charging when this happens all you do is you go back up to the script that I just read to you and you change free to 80 off and you say that's for the next five what do you do after that change the 80 to 60 after you get those five change to forty then to twenty then you're at full price but guess what it doesn't have to stop there you can go 20 over you can go 40 over that because there are no rules and if at that point you're way better you may Merit that because of the value that you deliver because ideally you're charging full retail but now you're at 10x the value value that you have done has gotten better because you figured out from the feedback that these people that work with you for free have told you so that you can make it even better for people who pay you once you have those people and you started transitioning congratulations you are in business and you are making money you will at some point reach capacity when you fill up all your slots with free people and discounted people now you have true scarcity and so you can ethically sell with conviction that you really don't have that much room they will desire you more because you are scarce from a resource perspective and then they will pay the same or premium in order to work with you and then you turn to your free person and you say I am accepting somebody who's paying full vote in order to do this if you would like me to keep doing this for you you would have to start paying to match them are you comfortable with that if they're not no sweat because all you did is you help them for free and you say no worries can I get the the killer killer review you asked me for or I asked you for and those Free People you have to love and cherish them more than anyone else in your life because they're going to get you business in three different ways one They're Gonna Leave You reviews that are going to get your best too they're gonna send you people that are going to get your business and three they themselves May transition into paying you which will also get you busy don't think short think long and you'll make long money now you have paying customers you're reaching your capacity you're consistently raising your price because now there is more demand than you have Supply and we have artificially created a condition for profit so what's the 10 step keep them warm you've got this big list of people check in like a human being provide value to them on a regular basis when you do that you continue to reinforce and deposit Goodwill in the audience because what will happen eventually is you won't even need to ask them because you've provided enough value you start posting enough testimonials enough results talking about some of the insurance stuff that you're doing right now that people be like hey that's actually pretty cool hey can I find out more about that and then they'll actually start soliciting you and that's the game that's how you go from zero to hero and get your first five paying customers