Alex Hormozi: How To Make People Want To Buy From You

Every day I see founders who are working 80+ hours a week but still can’t break through to the next level of growth.

They’ve got a solid product, real customers, and genuine market demand, yet scaling feels like pushing a boulder uphill.

Sound familiar?

The painful truth is that most founders are thinking about scaling all wrong.

They believe superior products automatically win (they don’t), that lower prices attract more customers (often the opposite), and that doing everything themselves ensures quality (it actually ensures burnout).

Alex’s first gym was on the verge of bankruptcy despite his endless hustle.

It wasn’t until he completely reimagined his offer that everything changed.

A good offer with average marketing will scale better and make more money than a bad offer with the best marketing.

“The difference between struggling and scaling isn’t working harder – it’s structuring an offer so compelling that saying ‘no’ feels like a mistake.”

Let’s break down exactly how to do that.

The Grand Slam Offer Framework

Most businesses try to compete on either quality (“we’re better”) or price (“we’re cheaper”). Both are races to the bottom.

Instead, Alex’s Grand Slam Offer framework focuses on creating an offer so valuable that price becomes secondary. Here’s how:

1. Promise a specific, measurable outcome – not features, not benefits, but the exact result they want
2. Eliminate all risk with a guarantee that puts the burden on YOU, not them
3. Structure payment terms that remove financial friction
4. Add unexpected bonuses that competitors don’t offer
   

The Value Equation: Math That Sells

Most founders vastly undervalue their offerings because they don’t understand the true Value Equation:

Value = Dream Outcome – (Pain + Price)

People don’t buy products or services. They buy transformations from their current state to their desired state. The more painful the current state and the more desirable the outcome, the more valuable your solution becomes.

Here’s how to apply this:

1. Identify the dream outcome your customer truly wants
2. Map all obstacles preventing them from achieving this outcome
3. Show exactly how your offer eliminates these obstacles
4. Calculate the monetary value of achieving the dream outcome
5. Price significantly below that value (but likely above competitors)

Real-world lesson: When scaling Gym Launch, Alex realized clients didn’t care about his “features” (workout plans, meal guides). They wanted transformed bodies and thriving businesses. By focusing on eliminating every obstacle to those outcomes, he could charge premium prices while still delivering massive perceived value.

Perfect Pricing Psychology

Contrary to conventional wisdom, lowering prices is rarely the path to scaling. Alex’s pricing framework flips conventional thinking:

1. Set price anchors by showing original/comparison prices
2. Use odd numbers that suggest precision ($97 vs $100)
3. Create payment terms that minimize upfront commitment
4. Bundle complementary offerings to increase value perception

From Alex’s experience: When launching his supplement company, Alex intentionally priced at $49 instead of the industry-standard $39, avoiding the common “$9” endings. His conversion rates were higher despite charging more because the price suggested precision and quality rather than marketing manipulation.

Pro tip: Instead of pricing your service at $499, price at $997 but offer payment plans of $397/month for 3 months. Show the original price as $1,997 to create an anchor, and bundle in implementation calls “worth $1,500.”

The Acquisition Cost Formula

Most founders underspend on customer acquisition because they focus only on the initial purchase value. Alex’s formula changes the game:

Maximum Acquisition Cost = (Average Customer Value × Profit Margin)

This single formula transformed Alex’s businesses. While competitors were afraid to spend more than $100 to acquire a customer, he would confidently spend $500+ because he knew his lifetime customer value.

The $1.5M bet: Alex famously spent $1.5M on direct mail pieces for Gym Launch in a single campaign after calculating his exact allowable acquisition cost. That campaign returned multiples of his investment because he understood this formula.

Implementation step: Calculate your true customer lifetime value. If your average customer stays 12 months at $200/month with 40% margins, you can spend up to $960 acquiring each customer ($200 × 12 × 0.4). This might open up acquisition channels your competitors can’t afford.

The Indoctrination System

The final piece of the $100M offer is systematically converting cold prospects into believers before they ever speak to sales. Alex’s Indoctrination Framework:

1. Address major objections before they arise
2. Share your origin story (struggle → breakthrough → system)
3. Demonstrate results through specific case studies
4. Establish category authority through contrarian viewpoints

Alex’s turning point: When scaling his consulting business, Alex created what he calls the “Indoctrination Sequence” – a series of touchpoints that turn cold leads into true believers. This reduced his sales team’s work by 80% while improving close rates.

Quick win: Create a 5-day email sequence that shares why conventional approaches fail in your industry, how you discovered a better way through personal struggle and showcases three detailed customer success stories with specific metrics.

At last, the question is, do you have an offer that people want?

If you’re not selling something that has a high demand, you won’t get the results regardless of the money you spend. 

The transformation from a struggling founder to a scalable business doesn’t happen by working harder. It happens by building and offering something that people actually need and want. And you can do that by implementing these frameworks systematically.

Alex’s journey from nearly bankrupt gym owner to building multiple $100M+ businesses wasn’t about superhuman effort. It was about creating offers so compelling that buying became the obvious choice.

Your next steps:

1. Restructure your core offer using the Grand Slam framework
2. Recalculate your true customer value and acquisition budget
3. Implement the Indoctrination System to pre-convert prospects

This isn’t just theory. These are the exact frameworks that transformed Alex’s businesses and can do the same for yours.