09:56Maria Wendt · Talking Head
How I Made Half A Million Dollars With 1 Google Doc
For three straight years, a two-page Google Doc and a PayPal link outsold every funnel she's built since.
August 6th 2025The argument in one line.
Before you try to sell more, price correctly: build a cost-based quoting system, multiply it by 5 to 10x for margin, then layer a trained sales team and pre-call VSLs on top.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You run a service business that quotes custom jobs, like events, agencies, or contractors, and can't say exactly what each job costs you to deliver.
- You're a business owner who closes deals at a noticeably higher rate than your own sales team and don't know why.
- You sell high-ticket B2B services to an audience that runs its own conferences or events, where sponsoring or speaking could become a lead channel.
- You're weighing whether a video sales letter before your sales calls would shorten your buying cycle.
SKIP IF…
- Your product has fixed, published pricing, like SaaS or retail, rather than custom-quoted jobs. The pricing model here won't transfer directly.
- You're a solo operator with no sales team to restructure or train.
The full version, fast.
A $5M event-planning company was pricing every job by making up numbers on the spot, which masked a real margin problem. The fix starts with cost-based pricing: calculate true fixed and variable costs per job, then charge 5 to 10x that number, locked in with a price-lock guarantee and prepay discounts. With margins fixed, the second lever is the sales team: move underperforming closers into a pure booking role, run daily standups instead of weekly ones, and train through role-play. Layering a pre-call video sales letter on top compresses the sales cycle further. Ninety days later, the business had 200% more pipeline volume and was closing bigger, multi-year deals.
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00:00 – 00:38
01 · Cold open
Hormozi states the premise (rebuild a stranger's business in 90 days) and meets Joey Goone of Utopia Experience, an event-planning company out of Saint Louis.
00:38 – 04:26
02 · Diagnosing the pricing problem
Joey's quotes are built from line items pulled out of thin air with no real cost basis. Hormozi reframes it as a margin problem, not a sales problem, and says fixing the offer has to come before fixing price or sales motion.
04:26 – 07:46
03 · Building the cost-based pricing model
They build a quoting framework: calculate fixed and variable costs per event, then price at 5 to 10x that cost basis. Hormozi introduces the 'zip code tax' idea, charging more in wealthier markets for the same service.
07:46 – 11:34
04 · First 90-day check-in: price lock and the B2B conference play
Joey reports the pricing module is live and being used consultatively on calls. Hormozi adds a price-lock guarantee with prepay discounts, then lays out a B2B conference strategy: sponsor a booth, grab a speaking slot, and run a survey close to build a lead list.
11:34 – 16:39
05 · Sponsorship ROI proof and sales team diagnosis
Joey reports a $15,000 sponsored booth is closing a $500,000 deal. Hormozi then digs into why Joey personally converts 10x better than his sales team and pushes for daily (not weekly) sales check-ins.
16:39 – 19:08
06 · Installing a sales training system
Hormozi restructures the sales team into a pure prospecting-and-booking role instead of full-cycle closing, and lays out a weekly one-on-one structure built around role-play.
19:08 – 25:23
07 · Second 90-day check-in and the VSL rollout
Joey reports 200% more pipeline from the restructured sales team. Hormozi adds a new qualifying question about annual event volume and introduces video sales letters before every customer conversation, including post-event rebooking calls.
25:23 – 33:09
08 · Full funnel build: VSLs, outreach, and contract stacking
They lock in a top-of-funnel and bottom-of-funnel VSL, sequence the order of operations (quote generator, referral incentives, daily sales training, outreach volume), and stack multi-event and prepay discounts to pull cash forward and increase LTV.
33:09 – 36:36
09 · Roadmap plug and the 'do more of fewer' lesson
Hormozi points to the free scaling roadmap quiz, then generalizes the episode's lesson: most businesses are limited by doing too much, not too little, and progress comes from ruthlessly cutting to what already works.
36:36 – 39:00
10 · Legacy, verdict, and sendoff
Joey shares that his late mother started the company and frames the work as continuing her legacy. Hormozi delivers his verdict on Joey's chances in the 90-day scaling competition and the episode closes.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- A quote built from made-up line items instead of real costs is a pricing problem disguised as a sales problem.
- The fix order is offer, then price, then sales motion, then demand: fixing what you sell always comes before fixing how you sell it.
- Cost-based pricing means calculating true fixed and variable costs per job, then charging 5 to 10x that number as the price.
- The same service can fairly cost 2 to 3x more in a wealthy zip code than a poor one for identical delivery.
- A price-lock guarantee holds the quoted price as long as scope doesn't change, letting a business safely offer prepay discounts without losing margin to scope creep.
- Never send a price quote by email alone. Deliver it on a call so objections get handled in real time instead of dying in a silent email thread.
- Sponsoring a $15,000 booth at a niche industry conference produced a pipeline worth roughly 30x that spend in a single week.
- If a business owner closes at several times the rate of their own sales reps, the problem is usually training and structure, not the offer.
- Restructuring closers into a pure prospecting-and-booking role can more than double the number of qualified calls landing on the owner's calendar.
- Sales skills are built through role-play in front of a manager, not by telling a rep what they did wrong after the fact.
- Asking one extra qualifying question, like how many of these do you buy per year, can turn a single sale into a three-year recurring contract.
- A pre-call video sales letter that pre-answers objections can compress a two-call sales process down to a one-call close.
- Running a top-of-funnel VSL built around the prospect's pain alongside a bottom-of-funnel VSL built for the decision-maker who skips the call closes more deals with less live selling time.
- Stacking a discount for booking multiple units with a separate discount for prepaying pulls cash forward and can double as a tax-timing play for the client.
- Most businesses aren't limited by opportunity. They're limited by trying to do too many things instead of ruthlessly focusing on what already works.
Fix Pricing First, Then Sales Systems
PRICING & SALES SYSTEMS
A mispriced offer and an undertrained sales team were quietly capping a $5M event-planning business; fixing cost-based pricing first, then sales structure, then a VSL funnel, unlocked over 200% more pipeline in 90 days.
02Diagnosing the pricing problem
- When a quote is built from a stack of made-up line items instead of real costs, the business is masking a margin problem as a pricing problem.
- Pricing has to start with the offer: fix what you're selling before you fix how you sell it or what you charge for it.
03Building the cost-based pricing model
- Calculate true fixed and variable costs per job, then price at 5 to 10x that cost basis rather than guessing a number that feels right.
- Separate costs that scale with volume, like headcount-driven vendor and sponsor costs, from fixed costs like salaried staff, so a quoting tool can price any job size correctly.
- Charge more in wealthier markets for the identical service. The same job can fairly cost 2 to 3x more in an affluent zip code than a budget one.
04First 90-day check-in: price lock and the B2B conference play
- A price-lock guarantee, where the quote holds as long as scope doesn't change, lets a business collect prepayment discounts while protecting margin against scope creep.
- Never present a price quote by email alone. Deliver it on a call so you're there to handle the objections it raises in real time.
- Sponsoring a target audience's own conference, a booth plus a short speaking slot, can outperform paid ads: one $15,000 booth produced a pipeline worth roughly 30x its cost.
05Sponsorship ROI proof and sales team diagnosis
- If the owner personally closes at several times the rate of the sales team, the problem isn't the offer, it's what the reps are doing, or not doing, on calls.
- Move underperforming closers into a pure booking role, prospecting and setting appointments only, so the best closer handles every sale until the team catches up.
- Daily standups, not weekly check-ins, are what surface a stalled pipeline early enough to fix it before it costs a month of bookings.
06Installing a sales training system
- Sales is trained through role-play, not lectures. Telling a rep what to say fixes nothing until they've practiced saying it in front of you.
- Weekly one-on-ones should start personal, then move to short-term coaching, then long-term growth. Skipping the personal check-in misses why a rep's numbers dropped.
07Second 90-day check-in and the VSL rollout
- Restructuring reps to only prospect and book, not close, can double or triple the volume of qualified calls landing on the owner's calendar within one quarter.
- One extra qualifying question, like how many events do you run per year, can multiply average deal size by turning a single booking into a multi-year commitment.
- A video sales letter watched before the sales call pre-handles objections and can compress a two-call sales process into a one-call close.
08Full funnel build: VSLs, outreach, and contract stacking
- Run two VSLs: a top-of-funnel one that mirrors the prospect's pain back to them, and a bottom-of-funnel one aimed at the decision-maker who never joins the call.
- Stack discounts to pull cash forward: a discount for booking multiple units at once, plus another for prepaying, which can also help a client move spend off this year's tax bill.
- Pick the one outreach channel with the best proven LTV-to-CAC ratio and go far deeper on it before adding new channels.
09Roadmap plug and the 'do more of fewer' lesson
- Most entrepreneurs think their business is limited by opportunity, when it's actually limited by trying to do too many things at once.
- Fixing the two highest-leverage constraints, in this case pricing and sales team output, beats adding five new initiatives on top of an already-strained team.
Terms worth knowing.
- ICP
- Ideal Customer Profile: the specific type of client a business is built to serve best, used to focus messaging and offers instead of trying to appeal to everyone.
- VSL
- Video Sales Letter: a pre-recorded video that walks a prospect through the pitch, pricing logic, and objection-handling before they ever get on a live sales call.
- Price lock guarantee
- A pricing promise that the quoted price won't change as long as the client doesn't alter scope, headcount, date, or venue beyond agreed limits.
- Zip code tax
- Charging more for an identical service based on the wealth of the market it's delivered in, since willingness to pay differs by location even when costs don't.
- Dialer
- Software that auto-calls through a list of numbers, used to increase the volume of outbound sales calls a rep can make in a day.
- SDR/BDR
- Sales or Business Development Representative: a rep whose job is prospecting and booking appointments rather than closing deals.
- Survey close
- A lead-generation tactic where a prospect opts in for free content, like slides, and answers a qualifying question in the process, turning the opt-in into a sales lead.
- LTV:CAC
- Lifetime Value to Customer Acquisition Cost: a ratio comparing how much a customer is worth over time against how much it costs to acquire them, used to decide which marketing channel to double down on.
Things they pointed at.
Lines you could clip.
07:47
“I have very few rules of law, but a rule of sales is never present an invoice via email.”
06:01
“the price difference between that lawn care... it's 2 to 3x difference and I just call it a zip code tax”
14:02
“you're converting 10 times more than your sales team, which is a problem”
13:37
“if a little bit works, more is usually better”
35:31
“we just have to look for what things make the most money and then ruthlessly eliminate everything that is not those things”
36:02
“It's really that you do more of fewer.”
Word for word.
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metaphorstory
I'm gonna help a complete stranger build a $5,000,000 per year business in ninety days step by step. And at the end of the ninety days, we're gonna check-in and show you exactly what happened. This is Joey.
Enjoy. Joey, what's Alright.
Tell me about the business. Yes. Um, so my name is Joey Goon.
My business is Utopia Experience. We are an event planning company out of Saint Louis, Missouri. It's Dale or Fail.
I am with 400 of my closest friends.
So last year, the average deal size for event planning was 34,000. This year, uh, trailing twelve months is 44,000. Audio visual average, uh, spend is between 20 and 150 k per event.
Video production is more of a pass through to just make it easy for clients. Got it. Okay.
What's holding your background now? I'm just not really sure what the strategy is that we should pursue when it comes to the acquisition channel. I'm at an inflection point in my business where I know if I don't do this, we are gonna take massive steps backwards.
We need the strategy to scale to the next level, and that's why I'm here. So why do you think this can scale?
That's a great question. I'm just like in awe. I love you so much.
It's mutual, but Why
do I think this can scale? So before I came here, I actually flew here from my sister's wedding in Mexico. I asked a 100 people on that trip with us.
It's like the entire wedding party. What's one thing in your life that you can never have enough of? And I thought I'd some silly answers because people are drunk doing whatever in the pool, and I thought I was gonna get sex or money, and I got some of that.
But mostly what people told me was some version of connection, community, tribe, family, belonging.
Yeah. And that's the industry that we're in. So our industry, what we're selling is fundamentally what people need.
Mhmm. It is a human need. It's wired into our primal DNA, and so that's why I think it could scale.
And the market cap on events right now is 1,500,000,000,000. It's projected to hit 3,500,000,000,000 by 2033.
Amazing. So those numbers back up our industry.
I'm so convicted on my quest that I'm going to persevere. I've been resilient since I was a nine year old kid.
I know this business is gonna grow.
With your help, I'm ready to scale it. Sweet. Walk me through how your pricing process works because it's very it's very like make believe.
Right? Yeah. So little abstract.
Yeah. So yeah. And since you have a margin issue, well, I think it's a margin issue, how does how do these numbers get pulled out of thin air?
Because right now, it sounds like they just say we want x y and z, and then you create some line items, and then make up numbers on those line items, and then come up with a number at the bottom, and then send it to them. Like, I I come to you and I say, I'm doing an acquisition.com event. Right?
We're gonna do a a thousand version event here in Vegas and we want full AV and some on-site support. What go like, when you hear that, what actually goes through your head? What's included in every package is a $15,000 or or overall retainer to retain our services.
Okay. So that's the first thing. Like a one time One upfront fee that gets added on to the other make believe prices.
Exactly.
Got it. Yes. Okay.
And then after that it's, you know, sponsor management. That's about 15 k. Then there's vendor management.
Vendor management is like managing all the contractors. Yeah. So it's the photo booth, the video production team, all of those elements that that, you know, sort of come into the event.
Yeah. It's the venue procurement strategy. So if you guys, if you're taking your team to some other place outside of Vegas, you need a hotel Mhmm.
Which hotel are you gonna work with? How are you gonna get people to and from the airport? And so you'll bill for the logistics of managing that as well if it's part of the scope of work or whatever.
Right. And that's 7,500. Is there anything about headcount?
That's the thing. So we learned the lesson. We put the guardrails up.
And so now we're actually deploying like tiered structures where if you have over a certain number of attendees or over a certain amount of vendors or sponsors,
then there's a tier that where you pay more based on the number of people that you have. Got it. Okay.
I think I know what to do. So you wanna hop on the side? Sure.
So, um, there's a dimension issue for sure, but I think that part of it is because you're mispriced. And so the pricing has to do with the offer, and so we kinda have to start with the offer and then fix price and then go sales motion and then go demand increase.
Does that make sense? Got it. Okay.
We gotta fix the thing we're selling. Once we fix the thing we're selling, we'll fix how we're selling it. And then, uh, if we're selling it well, we can price it the way we wanna price it.
Okay. Can't believe I'm sitting next to you right now. You're good.
It's mutual. Um, okay. So, the first thing that has to happen is you have to cost out what true costs are for different levels of delivery.
And then whenever you have that price, want you to five or 10 x that cost and then that's what your price is. Okay.
And so you'll probably have to create like a dynamic sheet which you could either code with AI really easily or just have like an if then type Excel sheet, either way would work. But as you're going through it with a a customer, it should basically pop out what that price for that thing's gonna be and it's all dynamic.
So I have head count of the event, and then from there we're gonna have our variable costs, which are what are the costs that scale with head count.
So we have Sponsors, vendors. Yeah. Exactly.
So these are these are the costs that scale with this and are gonna be proportional. Sure. And then we're gonna have our fixed costs, which is gonna be Amber can only she's it's one quarter of Amber.
So it's like, great. That's gonna be 15 is one quarter of Amber because she can only handle four.
And then what other fixed costs do we have that are probably gonna be more fixed payroll stuff versus kinda the other costs that are associated that are gonna be more like the a b related or whatever. Got it. Is that track?
Yeah. For sure. Okay.
So once you have this, it's like you're going to have a sheet that has a cost number that comes to the bottom. You're not gonna show that to them. And then at that point, you know that your range is gonna be five to 10 x this number.
And that to me would be like, how rich is the person I'm talking to? I'm I'm like, I'm just being real.
Yeah. Like, bigger company, like, if you if you if you get if you get lawn care in one of the top 10 zip codes in United States and you have the exact same amount of grass and you have it in a really poor part of The United States, the price difference between that lawn care, as somebody who knows Oh, for sure.
It's 2 to 3 x difference and I just call it a . Right? This is the privilege I get to have is to pay more for the exact same thing.
I love that zip code. Can I just say to all the future clients out there Yeah? That you're gonna pay you're gonna make it's gonna be a great price.
Whatever you pay is gonna be, you know You're fine. At the end of the day, everyone else is doing this too. They're just not being organized about it.
So that's number one is that we need to have standardized pricing so that you can actually get your sales guys to be able to quote without having this super long delay in the process. And so at the end of the year, you know, like, much money do we make? We should know exactly how much money we're making on every event.
Sure. This, yeah, this this seems like a programmable AI thing that can be done in a couple hours. Yes.
So, hey, this is Alex from the future. Um, I've already given Joey his verdict, but I think what's more interesting for you, independent of what that verdict is, what actually happened when he implemented what I told him to do. So
what we did was we built, per your recommendation, a pricing module so that our team can accurately quote on our discovery calls. And in the past, we would send a proposal via email.
And people would email back and say like, either that feels like a lot, or my needs have changed. And we weren't able to handle those things via email.
Now we're handling it live during the call, which is just like, it's been more consultative, and our clients' prospects are really appreciating that because they're able to surface, like, any objections if we can handle live on the call.
And if they have, like, additional things that they need from us, we're able to add those into scope and give them a real time, like, here's how that impacts your overall investment with us, which they they love and and they appreciate.
Alright. I'd I have very few rules of law, but a rule of sales is never present an invoice via email. It always be over the phone because they're going to have questions and you want to be the person who can answer those questions aka resolve their concerns and then get them to buy.
Now, to make this kind of offer better, so this gives us our cost basis. Um, what I wanna do is add, um, basically a price lock guarantee, which is like, as long as you don't change anything about this, this is gonna be the price and, uh, we give a, you know, 10% discount, um, if you pre put all ahead.
Mhmm. That way you can pull cash forward. Cause right now I'm sure you're getting paid some now, some in the middle, some at the end or something like that.
Does that Yeah. Sound true?
Yeah. And something that
that I'm going through is I've never been through a lawsuit Mhmm. Suing a client right now who didn't pay us and now we're having to hunt down the money and Do they have money? Nope.
They just filed Well, there's no point in suing. Oh, yeah. Voluntary bankruptcy.
There's no point in suing. Yeah. Just save your save your dollars, call it cost of business.
Yeah. That's fair. Yeah.
Just let me save you some time. Let me save you some money and some headache. It's not you're not gonna get the money, so there's no Navigating that.
So like getting it all upfront Yeah. Helps us avoid having to chase it later. 100%.
Yeah. There's also the value of money today. If you if you have a a year from now, you just suck that money into a bond or whatever, you know what mean?
Or the the stock mark well, stock mark is probably the best way to put it, but, uh, something that's, you know, a fixed income asset, you'd be able to make make the money back, but you also get the value of speed of money today and most businesses have higher returns on capital than the stock market does, especially small businesses.
And so you're gonna get better returns on that, so it makes sense to at least give 10 or 20% to pull it up. Now, we've already built this padding in, so we're fine. Yeah.
Now, I wanna also create a separate opportunity which is on the events that are b to b, now there's not gonna be a lot of them, but the ones where the audience is the customer, I wanna have a separate approach to it.
So this is our standard way of billing. If someone is b two b, they're basically throwing an event for you.
Okay? Yeah. Not actually, but, like, they have a a you have to take not that you wouldn't take extra care with a normal event, but if there's ever been a time to blow people's socks off and have an amazingly run event, this would be the time to do it.
Sure. Because everybody in the audience is a potential customer. It's the franchise or associations.
Mhmm. Where you've got 1,500 of them in Yeah. In the audience that are all doing conferences.
Love it. So with these people, it's like number one is or rather a, I would say, we wanna get the booth for ourselves in there because they're gonna have, you know, a booth.
Number two is you wanna have the opportunity to do some sort of speaking at the event, and it can be like a fifteen minute slot.
It doesn't have to be a big thing. It's just like, hey, if you guys have been loving this event, you know, we're we're a Utopia, you know, we we put this whole thing on and we do this all the time for people like you.
And so you put a little bit of razzle dazzle of like, this is what makes shitty events, this is makes great and say, hey, if you want these slides, you can give them to your event planner. Just QR code on the screen and I'll I'll send them to you so you can just actually come into this.
It's like, I probably think it was uh, 20 mistakes that, uh, people who are buying event planning make. And so I would just go through all of the mistakes that people make and with each of them proof of one person underneath of them saying that you're awesome at that thing, and say, hey, if you want the slides, go grab them.
But the main sex appeal is that after they kinda opt in to grab them, the opt in says, do you run events? Like, do you host events and how many per year? And then that way that just becomes a lead list for you.
So, you're not pitching, it's just like, hey, the the the CTAs, do you want the slides? Which makes it much easier for you to do for the the the customer.
Got it. Now, when you have those b two b conferences, I would do whatever it took to to get those ones because it's basically them fronting all the cost of getting 500 or a thousand of your ICP in the stadium.
It's like, if you can't close 10% of that room, then there's other issues Yeah. Right?
Yeah. Even if you close 1% of the room, you get 15, it'd be a 50% increase in your in your business. If you just from one event, Right?
And you do more than that per year. Yeah. So that's why I see this as super material.
Like, you should be very willing to Like, we have this nice high anchor so that we can say, oh, we'll do You know, I just quoted you 90, but you have five sponsors. Right?
Do have any issues with having a sixth? I'll pay you for the booth. I'll pay your sponsor fee is 5,000 a booth.
I'll pay you 5,000. It's at 95 now. How's that?
Oh, great. Right? So it's like we can just start chipping away at it.
And if you'll let me just do an intermission, I'll talk in ten minutes, I'll just talk about how events work. I'm sure we can see we can frame it as value additive. I'll knock another fucking team off.
Right? Love it. I'm gonna get my sales team on the phone tomorrow to start calling these different associations.
And so the last one is just, uh, one list email. Basically just say, hey, I don't wanna, like, get your email list, that's that's your own thing, but if after the event I could say, hey, if you had a great time at the event, if I can just say, like, basically solicit them and then I'll happily pay you a a fee on anybody who decides to book through us and that can further, uh, bring this number down, and would say, and typically, we're gonna get, you know, 1% of people.
Sure. Alex,
you also encouraged me to engage with our ICP. And you said sponsor an event, which we did here. Cost $15,000 to sponsor a booth at that event.
We had a line the entire time, and we're gonna end up closing a $500,000 piece of business, um, within the next week as a result of going and sponsoring and spending 15 k.
Like, I'll pay 15 k to make 500 all day long.
Well, it looks like it paid for itself. Um, Yeah. I mean, it I mean, he did the he did the stuff, and then he got the outcome.
And so, you know, if you have 200% pipeline, um, then you have a three x sitting in the business, and he found a channel that is getting him, I don't know, what 15 k to 5,500,000 is, but high, uh, return on spend.
And so, uh, that's how it works. Do more of you know, if a little bit works, more is usually better.
And so it's just figuring out how to do more in an efficient way, uh, giving constrained resources. He's doing it. This is kind of the the, um, offer pieces, and then this can hopefully fix pricing and also the instant quote issue that you have.
Okay. Now, the second part is sales motion.
So, you're converting 10 times more than your sales team, which is a problem. Right?
Because you're doing like if you work leads part time, you're getting more than two guys full time. Right? Yeah.
Okay. So it just means you're doing things they're not doing. So we just have to figure out what those things are.
So have you audited any of their DM conversations
that they're having? Um, I've had one meeting with my sales team. I have a follow-up, uh, one meeting just on this specifically.
Mhmm. I have a follow-up meeting with them next week to just audit all of their communication and just figure out like, great. Like, don't say that, say this.
Yeah. So what I want you to do is basically as soon as you kick off because the
the issue that you have is you're obviously demand constrained. I don't want to forget this one thing. Okay.
Back to this. So instead of weekly, like, you should be meeting with them every single day to drive and then do end of day.
Because right now this like, you need to drive this. Yeah. Like, first thing in the morning, what's your plan?
How many touch points are you gonna do? Great. Like, walk me through the the leads that you're working.
What kind of prep have you done for those those calls and those reach outs so we can personalize them. And then end of day, how the conversations go? Where are we at with pipeline?
Like, we just need to drive this. From a role playing perspective, the way that like, don't do this, do that, you have to then give them the opportunity to try in front of you.
Now, Now, part of this is gonna be the actual sales, but right now, are they just mostly setting for you to close or are they setting for themselves to close? Setting Yeah. They're they're kinda they're end to end.
Yeah. Do I need to restructure that? I'd rather have them just set appointments for you because you don't your sales volume is like two a week.
Right? It's not it's not a huge or not one a week. If you had two guys just setting appointments for you, likely that you'll close them significantly higher, and you're also the business owner and you can kind of flex on some of these things a little bit better.
I would rather you do that because what you're closing 40% of sales, right, that you talk to? Yeah.
I mean, if you have four appointments a week, like, that's not gonna really change anything, but all of a sudden you double your business. If you have eight appointments a week, you quadruple your business.
So And that's still not a lot of, like, that's not a lot of work. So just have them be like s d r's, b d r's, book in my calendar
still give them a commission on the on the on the thing that they bring in, but you're like, listen, you'll make more money if I'm selling than you are. So, like, do this for now. And then I think that'll allow you to stay closer to it so that you can document the process better and your feedback loops will be faster.
Because you're like, hey, I got nothing on my calendar today. What the hell is going on? In a nice way.
Sure. Yeah. Right?
Does that feel okay? Yeah. Okay.
Weekly, would go deep with one of them, or not one of them, with each of them one on one. The way that we structure these is basically you go personal. You say, hey, how you doing?
Hey, if you're, you know, your mom just died, then like, let's talk about that. Make sure you're good because you're not thinking about your KPIs or photos if you just got dumped or whatever. Um, the next is assuming they don't have any like personal calamities, we say, okay, we focus on short term stuff, you're messing this up in the in in the intro, you're messing this up in the in this part of the scripting.
If they're crushing their KPIs, say, hey, long term, what are your goals here? Why don't we why don't we you shadow some of my sales calls so that you can maybe pick up some of this other stuff. It's basically giving them growth opportunities.
But that's the the progression that we do with weekly one on ones. And in here, it's all role playing.
Like, forever, just like you train sales through role playing.
Yeah. Because you have to get you have to get them to try and so that you can correct them and have more feedback loops. Just think how many feedback loops do have?
These people is the only way they learn. Just like saying it at them will do literally nothing.
What's what's my you know, my brother and I have been consuming your content for five years, him longer than me. Yeah. I had a call with my brother last week and he's like, the hormosy in me is telling you that you're not doing you're not doing this.
So I started booking Yeah. Daily check ins with my team. Oh, good.
Good. I've restructured how the sales team is engaging at Utopia.
And so instead of doing the full cycle end to end, their job now, at least in the spirit of, like, this ninety day sprint, they're prospecting, and they're booking discovery calls.
That is it. But, Alex, you said, Joey, once you bring on proficient, competent sales reps who will get it, you're not gonna two x. You're gonna, like, five to 10 x.
And I'm really seeing that now and that we have 200% more volume in our pipeline just in the discovery calls that are getting booked, which is huge for us. It's nice when things work as advertised.
Now I wanna give you something that I think is gonna be super, super high leverage, which is, um, an idea that I had, um, while you were talking, which is when you open up the call, after you say, hey, how's going, whatever, um, and you set the agenda for the call Yeah.
What's the first question you ask them? Why'd you book this call today? Why not six months from now?
Why not six months ago? Okay. So you're clarifying whether they're you're on the c part.
What I what I wanna do There's one question I wanna ask in the earlier part of the process which is how many events per year you do? Because I want automatically as soon as they can say, oh, we do three events a year. Now, just took our average ticket from 80 k and made it 240 k because now I'm trying to bid for all three.
Yeah. And then what we can do is say, hey, why don't we do off like, I'll commit to all three for you. We'll do the first one.
And assuming the first one goes great,
we'll book the other two at the same rate. That way we can start, like, trying to increase average ticket and then get into these kind of, like, very recurring relationships. Do you like that question?
Because I think that will have a very big effect. I just wanna make sure that that gets added into the Okay. Inspired by your question, like, hey, how many events is your organization doing every year?
So we started asking prospects that. They love the idea of being able to do that and to promote next year at this year's event. And, of course, it's a win for them because they can do that.
They could sell sponsorships today for tomorrow. That's been a major win for us because now we've just converted a one year client into a three year client.
Tripling LTV by just getting them to buy more of the thing they just bought tends to always work. Doesn't always triple LTV, but getting people offering them to buy more of what they just bought almost always does. I have one more thing we gotta add.
So in your existing sales process the way you were doing it, you'd reach out to them, you'd qualify the lead, and then you'd set an appointment. Correct?
Yes. Okay. Before they and on that appointment, you then basically collect all this information, and then you'd say, let me get back to you, and then you'd set a follow-up appointment, and then you would try and close them on that call.
Yeah. Go through the proposal with them live because then you can actually kinda work through those questions and and handle the objections. Yes.
So I want you to add a video sales letter before the call.
Okay. I just recorded it. So before you, like, before you ever talk to a customer Mhmm.
You should have a video sales letter. Now, if you have two conversations, there's two VSLs. You said there's before the call?
Mhmm. Okay. Yeah.
And when someone hops on the call, if they haven't, like, the first question Now, inside of the VSL, I can walk you out of structure, but if you already did it, then we can leave it. I like having a little nugget in there, which is having one CTA that's like, hey, by way, text me your head count. Text me the date of the event that you wanna do.
Text me the week or text me the season, whatever. It is we just wanna have something so we have some indication they actually watched it, and then also engages them with us, so that's good. Increase the likely of the show.
But beyond that, when you start the call, you'll find out quickly, like, did you did you watch the video? If the answer is yes, great.
If the answer is no, then we say, hey, no worries. Um, this will save us like thirty minutes in the call, seven minutes. Play this now.
I'm gonna grab a cup of coffee. You want a cup of coffee? It's Zoom.
Okay. And I'll be right back. And so then they watch it and then that way they're fresh and primed and the whole conversation's already been framed and you've been edified and all that kind of jazz.
Yeah. Because this is also what helps you scale sales once it once you stop being the person selling, um, because we wanna do as much of the lifting as we can for the salespeople including you, because what this will do is it'll also shorten the amount of calls you have to have. So if you're currently doing two, if we do a VSL, and then we can do an instant quote, we might be able to change to a one call close.
Got it. And even worst case scenario, even if you like having the two call, which I'm not against two calls at certain price points, sometimes it just people just wanna like, it it gives the approximation of knowing someone. We can still have our instant quote, and then rather than saying, let's meet in five days, you can say, uh, I'll have this to you by, uh, what time tomorrow works best for you?
I'll work on this until until then. Because there's also a speed element of like, if it takes you a week to get me a quote, I'm like, man, how long is it like? Is this what it's gonna be like working with these people?
If it's like, this is priority for me, we'll get this done, you know, I'll get this termite in today, and, um, how's first thing tomorrow morning? It's like that speed, I I can almost guarantee you will increase close rates. Cool?
Got it. Okay. Ah, this is another little a little nuggy.
So after the events that you hold, what happens? So the event's done. Yep.
Now what? Within
usually within two days of landing back in Saint Louis Mhmm. We send a follow-up email Mhmm. To the hosts.
We get them on an event debrief call. Mhmm. That's where we're going through what worked, what do we wanna see improved, and when's the event date the event date for next year.
Let's get it booked. Okay. Love that.
Just add a VSL beforehand.
Really? Yeah. Okay.
Every conversation you have with the customer, frame it. Okay. And so for here, it's like Different VSL?
It'll be same con the structure will be the same. You want different examples, and the the objections are going to be the ones that happen after someone has an event and is thinking about booking the next one, not before they book their first event.
So the objections will be different. Okay. So they'll be like, is it gonna be the same price?
We'll say, well, it depends on like, so you're just gonna go through what the FAQs normally would be, and then just answer them ahead of time before the call. That And way you can spend the whole call actually closing rather than just like transferring information and like yapping at them.
Got it.
But that'll frame the call so that basically it's like, so you know, you just went through your first event with us. Hopefully, it was amazing.
Don't worry, we're gonna go through the like, everything, like, we perfection is our standard and so nothing's ever perfect and we always want to get better and that's how we continue to grow as a company. That being said, there's some questions that people have which is like, uh, billing logistics, uh, what happens with other future events, uh, when am I gonna get my my video stuff, like, all the questions that people normally have.
Um, and then included in that would be, okay, how does how does working with, like, basically, where do we go from here, what's the next step? And I'd say, so, um, what we're gonna do on the call is also just book, figure out what the next event is so that we can get even more advanced prep because basically the more prep we have, the better the event is.
And so Right. And so I would just say like, so I can tell you that even if there was somebody who is better than us at this, which there aren't any of course,
if you book with us now, we will be better than somebody who is better than us. And so you get better value by booking now. It's a great friend.
Yeah. Damaging emissions. Also, our VSLs are gold.
So we have a top of the funnel VSL, which is like, here's the avatar, here's the pain, here's the, you know, sort of the threshold to work with us. And now people are getting on the calls and they're like, oh my gosh, it's like you knew me. And that's been really validating for our team to finally be like, you know, we're going , where in the past we thought in order to scale we had to go 10 miles wide.
And it's just not that way. Like, now that we've, like, narrow casted and focused in on this particular avatar, it's amazing that, like, nine out of ten prospects are experiencing the exact same pain.
Now we can speak to that. We've systematized it, and it's much more scalable.
When you get clear on the avatar, you can systematize and templatize the solution, which allows you to sell for higher margins and have more operational scale, which he is now experiencing. You also will reduce CAC because your messaging is now aligned with that avatar.
So he's probably selling better people for less than he was before and making more margin. We also now have a bottom of the funnel VSL. And the bottom of the funnel VSL is for your busy CEO who or CFO who's ultimately making the decision,
but is maybe not gonna join the call. That has been something that has helped us get some deals across the line. Love that.
So now we can talk about the
like, what is the order of operations? Does that work? Yep.
Okay. So number one, we need to we need to create the, call it, like, the auto auto quote generator, which shouldn't take you that long to build.
But you just have to think through what are the costs, what are the variables, what are the what are the fixed costs, and then how does it depend by headcount? Great. Now we have our we have our at least our cost basis, and then that gives us our range for our pricing.
Right? Second, you'll add in kind of the referral slash promotion incentives to this, so that you can put your discounts in, that you can get you can basically solicit more business from them.
That's the list and the speaking and survey close of like, hey, get my slides and then you can sort from there to get new leads. Yep. Okay.
Got it. Third element is we need to do daily sales training.
Implement via sales times three because you have three kind of touch points. You have call one, call 2, and then post call. Right?
We have to increase our, uh, outreach, which is gonna be first, they're gonna start every day by maxing out the platform limits, which means they should be doing exactly what you were doing when you were doing outreach.
They should just clone exactly what you're doing. If they're not doing that, then like either they're the wrong people or you're not good at training. Then we wanna do an AI scrape of the contacts to get numbers and And then we wanna feed that into a dialer.
And there's a ton of different dialer softwares out there that you can use.
What what would you do with the dialer? You're having to call the We wanna call the We just wanna You wanna hit it from as many channels as you can. You're And gonna have more like, you will be limited by this more than you'll be limited by this.
And so the call these like the highest likelihood responses because it's warmer, etcetera. But these are where you're gonna be able to get a lot of volume.
Got it. And And for Mac's platform, you're talking about something like LinkedIn. Yeah.
Like as many DMs as you can possibly send on the platform. Exactly. Got it.
So you think is Facebook a solid channel that you think we should pursue? I think LinkedIn would I would stick with LinkedIn. You've already done that there.
You already have a proven process. They're not following it, but you have a proven process. So it's like, how do we just do more of that for now?
Got it. Because any of all these are in acquisition channels and my whole focus here was like, how do we get really narrow on the one that like, you have the best LTV CAC on LinkedIn.
So let's do that and let's do way more. And you already hired two guys, it's like we should get them, uh, on ramps and you need to do that with lots of training and making sure that they are motivated. Sure.
That's basically and if you say this is what we're doing twice a day every day, I promise you the productivity of the team is gonna go up. And since it's the constraint, it's a good use of your time. The piece here is this pricing generator, we should be at five to 10 x our costs for the Now, obviously, that's gonna be your estimate.
Your like, we have to 5 is the minimum because it might go over. Right? Like, you don't know.
But the price lock says that we will charge this as long as you don't change anything. If you change something, then we might have to readjust it, and then we'll true up at the end.
Okay. Now, the higher you go in here, the more you can say, as long as you're not changing the headcount by more than 20% between now and then or we have to change venues or anything like that, um, this will be the cost no matter what.
So you can use that as a like, if I were selling this, I would say something like so there's two ways that this pricing works. So one way is you get nickel dimed.
The other is that we just pick a price, it's within your budget, and then as long as you don't do anything crazy, that's what the price is gonna be. Which would you rather do? Right.
Tell me the just tell me the price it's gonna be. It's like, Boom boom. And then we factor in all of the the fudge factor.
And so it's like, to be clear, you're not gonna change your venue and you're not gonna change your head pump by more than 20%. We agreed on that? Okay.
And like, you're not gonna all of a sudden say like, I want AV. Like, these are the services that you're gonna get. I'll I'll give you fudge factor on head count up to 20, and then you can't change the, uh, and you can't change the date.
Right? So, like, you can't change the date, can't change the venue, and then that way, it you don't it it confines the scope. If they break that, which they might, then you have a different conversation.
And I don't think I would try and jab people. I'd feel like, listen, it's gonna cost me 30% more to do this. But if they're already making the decision that they need to do that, then they've decided that it's worth it.
So then if it's worth it, then it's worth paying you. Yeah. Does that all make sense?
It does. Okay. Would you also add in a, you know, like, a multi year kind of agreement?
I mean, my goal of asking how many events are you doing is so that I can seed off the fact that, okay, most people who are in your position are doing three events a year, um, and there are all three events gonna be like this? Great.
I can give you a better rate if we do all three than if we just do one. And so it's like, we'll give you a 10 again, like, I like this big anchor so that I can say, I'll give you 10% off, uh, on all three, but we're already way above your current price.
Sure. Right? Uh, I'll give you 10% off on all three, um, if you commit to doing all three with us now.
And if for some reason you wanna break it because you think we suck, which is totally fine, just pay the difference on on on what you would have owed us. So gives a little bit of a stick. Alright.
Right? And so if that 10% off is, uh, and then it's like, we'll give you another 10% off, prepay all three. Some people and that that may sound crazy to you, but a lot of departments and businesses work on annual budgets.
And so it's like, listen, it's about to be tax season. If you wanna get this off your books now because we have one event now and two next year, prepay for the event now. And that way you can you don't have you don't have to pay taxes on it.
That's right? Mhmm. Yeah.
That'll works super well q four. Got it. Shit.
What we do like, because a lot of people are, you know, they're looking at their q one, q two, sometime, you know, depending how last minute they are. Right? Uh, so q three, q four, you'll be getting the events for, you know, q one, q two, maybe q three.
And so it's like, get the cash off your books, pay your taxes down. You get a discount and you don't have to pay taxes. It's a double it's a double whammy.
Like, why not do it? Yeah.
Sure? Yep. Okay.
And you had one question about the fact, like, you speaking at events. Right?
Like, you speak at these events. Mhmm. I think you should speak as many events as your family life, uh, that you feel comfortable doing.
Because you being on stage will further edify you so that your LinkedIn responses go up, you'll get more inbounds, and then obviously at the events themselves, uh, you're getting leads. So it's like it's a triple dip.
And so to the degree that you can, I would encourage you to do Okay? So if me being the bottleneck and I can only be on so many I mean, the hourly rate I think was like $12.50 per That's because you didn't have a really good offer in the conversion process.
But at a b to b event, if you have a 500 person audience, there's no world where you shouldn't be able to get 50 people or a 100 people to opt in for your thing. And then of those, maybe 10 or 20% are gonna be qualified leads for you. Like, that's huge.
Yeah. That and so you should be able to make significantly more than $1,200 an hour.
So I would encourage you to speak at b two b, but using a survey close as your primary method.
But fundamentally, business as it currently stands works fine. It's not nearly as profitable as it needs to be, which means that we have to understand our cost better and price appropriately in order to have more profit. In order to solve our, uh, demand constraint, what we're doing is we're getting more people from our existing, uh, events that we're doing.
Mhmm. We're training our sales team to be more effective. We're increasing their effectiveness with VSLs.
We're increasing the overarching volume that they're doing in terms of outreach, and then you're also speaking. And so this is giving you like a of like, this is the constraint as demand, and we did have a pricing issue because we don't wanna jam more demand through something that's thin margins.
So let's fix the margins they offer then jam as much demand as we can.
I love it. That feel clear? It does.
Yeah. Okay. I'm I'm processing.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Was probably a lot. Lot of information and also an incredible roadmap that is that is like very followable. Good.
So, I appreciate you. Appreciate you, man. We're gonna do some scaling roadmap.
Where are to us? Alright. What's your headcount?
We have 30 total, 12 full time. Okay. So you're here.
So if we're looking at what we're doing with sales, so we need to install a sales training system, individual coaching and team cadence. We're optimizing. Right?
Now, the ad assembly process is typically if we have a a paid side, but for you, the idea is like, we're doing these events as kind of like your like, that's the thought leadership side of this, but a lot of the other stuff is happening through the sales team with increasing our outreach. Right?
From a product perspective, incremental product improvement across both products. So, because of the customization of how you are going to break down your costs, you'll be able to get laser focused on each component of your offer, and that's really what the kind of product improvement at this level is.
Now, creating customer segmentation, so this is like what we need to do is in time, probably like a year from now, you'll start looking and say, hey, we did a 100 events this year and what's crazy is that, uh, 25 of those events were 75% of our profit. And we're like, okay.
So that's the customer segment that's actually driving the most profit for us. How do we retool our messaging and our marketing and the examples that we use in our VSLs and our scripting in order to attract more of those people? Because then at that point, we could do the exact same volume as we currently did, make four times the money if we just only sold those those customers.
And then that's the process of getting really narrow so that you can then boom. Sure. Cool.
So by the way, if you wanna know, have your own scaling roadmap which has a 90 video. Have you gone through this? Yeah.
Yeah. I have. Pretty good.
Right? It's really good. Yeah.
I made this as something that was supposed to be of paid quality and then I was like, I should just make it for free, so I gave it away. And so if you are a business owner, you're like, where am I on this roadmap? Um, just fill it out, and it'll tell you in a lot more detail than thirty seconds, uh, where you're at and what you need to do to get to the next level.
And the link's somewhere around here.
I get all these, like, an entrepreneur, we have, like, so many ideas, and we wanna execute all the ideas. And you've made it so simple to be like, no. Just do these three things.
And that oversimplification has created, ironically, the most amount of upside and the most amount of scale that, like, I never even thought I would see in our business, let alone see it today.
And so for that, I just I thank you so much. I've been struggling banging my head against a wall for so many years trying to fix this problem. And the amount and the the level of momentum in our business right now is just wild.
I am so grateful for your recommendations. They are working. And, man, I'm looking forward to winning this competition.
Um, Yeah. We're really limited as entrepreneurs in terms of the amount of things we can do, and a lot of things can work. But none of them will work if you try to do them all.
And so we just have to look for what things make the most money and then ruthlessly eliminate everything that is not those things. And he did that. And he's and he's saying, happens?
And so usually most people think their business is is far more limited than it really is, um, and it's limited because they're trying to do too much rather than too little. And so it's like how do you how do you reconcile do more and do less.
It's really that you do more of fewer. My mom started this business and, um, unfortunately, mom lost her battle with cancer in 2013 and she's no longer with us. Continuing a legacy for me means everything.
I do it because there are people in the company that are counting on me to show up. My family is counting on us because my wife left her corporate job. My dad left his as well, and all three of us are in the company together.
My wife and I now have a three year old daughter whom at someday if she wants to take over, we would love to transfer the baton to her in the same way that my mom passed the baton on to me. And let's do the verdict.
Okay. So, uh, within the context of this competition, we've got scale it ninety days, uh, who can scale the most and win a $100,000 and qualify for that.
Or you kinda have to do some work and nail it first. I think that not having a defined acquisition process is has been something that's obviously limited the business.
Um, so that definitely gives me a little bit of pause on whether or not you'll be able to scale and then obviously win. Want you to be in a in a position where you could win, um, if we were gonna do it. But you do have two sales guys that are underutilized right now.
And if all you do is just train with them daily and get them to do exactly what you were doing and just switch the offer to something that can be significantly more valuable, I think that you have some of the most potential at actually winning.
And so for that reason, we're scaling. Cool. Let's go.
Alright. So you got ninety days to grow as much as you can. I think that if you focus on just those two things, it's like just get those two sales guys productive, which means that you're gonna be in the trenches with them and just get that offer generator so that your pricing is right.
I think you're gonna get significantly higher prices. I think you're gonna get more people saying yes. Have those people set for you.
And I think like I think you have the potential to go from like one deal a week to two or three deals and at not just 60 but like seventy, eighty, a 100. And I think that's where all of a sudden it's like holy shit, we're at a $304,100,000 dollar a month run rate and that can happen very fast if we just get those two things right.
Thank
you. I'll see you in ninety days. Alright, man.
I think you got it. Appreciate you, man. Thanks, Alex.
Appreciate it. Best of luck. I'm profoundly overwhelmed with joy.
Tomorrow's Mother's Day. My mom started our company. She's not here with us.
But to know that that other people believe in the company as much as I do is, uh, is profoundly powerful and an ode and a testament to my mom's legacy.
And now I have an opportunity to to implement what Alex has shared with me today, and now I have the actual strategy to scale.
Alright. And so that was this episode of scale or fail. Stay tuned for the next one as they all compete for a $100,000 in a year of working on scaling.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Alex Hormozi picks a stranger's business live on camera and rebuilds it in front of the audience: an event-planning company charging make-believe prices with an undertrained sales team. Ninety days later, the fixes get checked against real numbers.
Named ideas worth stealing.
04:26model
Cost-Plus Pricing (5-10x)
- Calculate fixed costs
- Calculate variable costs that scale with headcount
- Multiply total cost by 5 to 10x for the client-facing price
A dynamic pricing sheet that starts from real job costs rather than an arbitrary quote, so every job's price is defensible and margin is known before the deal closes.
Steal forany business that quotes custom, non-commodity jobs
08:05concept
Price Lock Guarantee
The quoted price holds as long as the client doesn't change scope, headcount beyond a set percentage, date, or venue. Breaking those terms reopens the price.
Steal forprotecting margin while still offering prepay discounts
06:01concept
Zip Code Tax
Charging more for the identical service in a wealthier market than a poorer one, since the delivery cost is the same but willingness to pay isn't.
Steal forlocal-service pricing across different markets
12:35list
B2B Conference Triple Dip
- Sponsor a booth at the audience's own conference
- Take a short speaking slot to build authority
- Run a survey close (free slides for an opt-in) to harvest a lead list
One sponsorship spend generates three separate lead sources at once instead of just brand exposure.
Steal forany B2B service business selling into a niche that runs its own trade events or conferences
25:23concept
Two-Tier VSL System
- Top-of-funnel VSL: mirrors the avatar's pain back to them, sent before the first call
- Bottom-of-funnel VSL: built for the decision-maker who never joins a live call
Pairing a prospect-facing VSL with a decision-maker-facing VSL closes deals that would otherwise stall waiting on someone who's never on the call.
Steal forshortening a multi-call B2B sales cycle
25:14list
Order of Operations for a Demand-Constrained Business
- Build the auto-quote generator to establish a real cost basis
- Add referral and promotion incentives
- Install daily sales training
- Increase outreach volume on the single highest LTV:CAC channel
The sequence Hormozi insists on: fix margin before you add demand, or you just jam more volume through a thin-margin business.
Steal forprioritizing what to fix first when a service business feels stuck
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
34:16link
“if you wanna know, have your own scaling roadmap which has a 90 [second quiz]... the link's somewhere around here”
Soft mid-conversation CTA pointing to the free $100M Scaling Roadmap quiz on acquisition.com, delivered as an aside rather than a hard sell.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
Visual structure at a glance.
