Book Review: $100 Million Offers by Alex Hormozi

I want to warn you up front, this isn't a basic 500-word review.

What it is, is a streamlined summary Hormozi's $100 Million Offers.

This is a 45,000 word book and this review is 4,200 words - so I can guarantee that you'll be able to pick up the key concepts from this great business book in 1/10th the time, in an easy to skim format that you can refer back to at any time.

Before writing this review, I read through the book three times, distilled the key points, and laid out this review to make it as rich and jammed pack with its profitable ideas as possible for you.

It will save you time from reading the whole book, while still getting all of the meat from what it offers. You can refer back to this review for its key concepts.

I hope the ideas in Hormozi's book help you as much as they helped me.

Make people an offer so good they would feel stupid saying no.

This is the main theme of the book - and its subtitle. You should read this review with this line in mind, because everything that follows will come back to this concept.

What Is An Offer

If we're talking about offers, it would make sense to define what an offer actually is.

That's where Hormozi starts. He defines an offer as:

"... a value exchange, a trade of dollars for value. The offer is what initiates this trade. In a nutshell, the offer is the goods and services you agree to give or provide, how you accept payment, and the terms of agreement."

If you have no offer, you have no business. Might as well throw in the towel.

If you have a bad offer, you won't profit, you won't get customers. Your life will suck.

If you have a decent offer, you might get some business. But you won't have profit. Your business will stagnate. This is where most of us are at.

If you have a good offer, you might make some coin.

But a "Grand Slam Offer" -- what Hormozi calls a great offer, the one people would feel stupid saying no to -- will bless your business with fantastic profits. And, ultimately, freedom.

Hormozi discourages price slashing. He writes that the two main problems that we face as business owners are:

1. Not enough clients

2. Not enough profit

If we slash prices to win more clients, we work more for less.

It's a rat race to the bottom.

To solve this, we must improve our offer. So, how do we do that?

Let's find out.

Charge More, Raise Your Prices

Hormozi writes that the core tenet at his companies is: "Grow or Die."

Everybody, every company, is either growing or dying. Maintenance is a myth.

He relates this to the market. The stock market grows, on average, at 9 percent per year. Thus, our business should exceed this rate - and this rate may even be higher depending on our specific industry or niche in the marketplace.

So, how to grow?

There are three main ways:

1. Get more customers

2. Increase their average purchase value

3. Get them to buy more times

With a Grand Slam Offer, each of these three ways to growth can be achieved. How?

A Grand Slam Offer's power is to differentiate your business from the marketplace. It allows us to sell on value, not on price.

This is probably a concept that you've read a thousand times. I know I had. The cool thing about Hormozi's book is he gets into the specifics of how to actually offer your service or product based on value.

The key is that allows us to go into the market with an offer that can't be compared to others. It forces the prospect to stop and think differently about the offer. It establishes our own category.

Thus, the prospect has a hard time comparing your offer to others based on price. This is step #1 and helps us win the battle.

Hormozi gives an example of a Grand Slam Offer in the book. The "standard" offer was a basic marketing / agency offer for gyms, while the superior offer was:

• Pay one time. (No recurring fee. No retainer.)

• Just cover ad spend.

• I’ll generate leads and work your leads for you.

• And only pay me if people show up.

• And I’ll guarantee you get 20 people in your first month, or you get your next month free.

• I’ll also provide all the best practices from the other businesses like yours.

• Daily sales coaching for your staff

• Tested scripts

• Tested price points and offers to swipe and deploy

• Sales recordings . . . and everything else you need to sell and fulfill your customers.

• I’ll give you the entire play book for (insert industry), absolutely free just for becoming a client.

• In a nutshell, I'm feeding people into your business, showing you, exactly, how to sell them so that you can get the highest prices, which means that you make the most money possible . . . sound fair enough?

The results? 2.5x response rate, 2.3x closing rate, 4x price, 22.4x cash collected up front, return on ad spend went from .5:1 to 11.2:1.

That's the power of a Grand Slam Offer.

The Starving Crowd

Even a Grand Slam Offer won't work in the wrong market. If you don't have a market for your offer, nothing here will work.

Hormozi shares an anecdote from a marketing professor, who asked his students:

"If you were going to open a hotdog stand, and you could only have one advantage over your competitors . . . which would it be . . . ?"

The students said: "Location! Quality! Low Prices! Best Taste"

The professor replied with a smile, "A starving crowd."

This concept ties directly to what the legendary Eugene Schwartz wrote about in Breakthrough Advertising (highly recommended book, which I will review soon): "In order to sell anything, you need demand. We are not trying to create demand. We are trying to channel it."

How to find a starving crowd market?

1. They must have massive pain, without pain, you don't have a pitch

2. They must have purchasing power / able to afford your offer

3. Easy to target - meaning, you need to be able to find where they hang out, how to contact them, be able to build a list, etc.

4. A growing market, which helps you grow

I'd say that the first 3 points here are critical. When building your Grand Slam Offer, each of them should be considered seriously.

If some part is missing, like Point #3, then it will be hard to gain traction as you can't easily pitch them.

In order of importance, a starving crowd market will outperform an offer's strength, which outperforms persuasion skills.

Starving crowd > offer strength > persuasion skills.

I thought this was interesting. It flips the typical salesman's mindset that persuasion and charm is all it takes to be successful.

In fact, a poor salesman can do very well in a starving crowd market even with a poor offer.

Riches are in the Niches

This part was eye-opening for me.

Hormozi gives a direct example of how niching down can help us with profits.

He gives the example of a time management product. If it's sold to a general market, the price won't fetch much, say $19. Why? The messaging, or the offer, will be bland and too general - it has to appeal to everybody, which is impossible.

But time management for sales professionals? We can raise the price, as it's more specific in terms of who it helps, how, and why. We can price it at say $99.

Let's niche down more - time management for b2b sales reps. Now we can directly tie it to a role, job function, and translate the messaging and ROI to a specific persona and raise our price to say $499.

Now, time management for outbound b2b power tools reps? The price can bump up more to say $1997.

We want to be the business who serves a specific type of person with a specific type of problem.

Or, in other words, "I solve this type of problem, for this specific type of person, in this unique counter-intuitive way that reverses their deepest fear."

I think an easy mistake that business owners and entrepreneurs make is trying to appeal to everybody, to every business. In this process, our offers become bland and don't resonate with the people that we can actually help.

What's more, price becomes a race to the bottom, as we're compete with a million other generalists.

So, again, the riches are in the niches. We just need the courage to niche down, I think.

Pricing: Charge What It's Worth

Hormozi opens the chapter about pricing with a brilliant quote:

"Charge as high a price as you can say out loud without cracking a smile." - Dan Kennedy

I love this quote. And if we ran our offer in a sales pitch, we should aim as high as possible - until that point where it becomes so silly high that we can't keep a straight face.

That really puts things in perspective, don't it?

Competing on price is a losing battle. You can only go down to $0, but you can go infinitely higher in the other direction.

And as Dan Kennedy said, "There is no strategic benefit to being the second cheapest in the marketplace, but there is for being the most expensive."

Food for thought there.

Hormozi writes further that premium pricing is not only a smart business choice, but it's a moral one. It's the only way that allows us to truly provide the most value.

He makes the case that with low prices:

• Low emotional investment from clients

• Lower perceived value in our service

• Lower results

• Our revenue decreases

• The demands from the clients increase

• Service levels decrease

But with price increases:

• Higher emotional investment from clients

• Higher perceived value in our service

• Better results

• The demands from clients decrease

• Profits increase

• Better service levels

Always keep these points in mind when the urge to lower prices creeps in.

You're doing a disservice to yourself, your clients, and your business when you slash prices.

I've thought a lot about this. It's been one of the harder things for me to do in business: to charge what I'm worth, to charge what my service is worth.

I think it's more of a mindset thing than anything. Hormozi doesn't say this outright, but this is my takeaway from reflecting on my own business journey.

The Elements of the Grand Slam Offer

A Grand Slam offer is all about value, right?

So what if we could quantify this.

Hormozi writes that there are 4 key components to what he calls the "value equation":

1. Dream outcome for your client - we should increase this

2. Perceived likelihood of achieving dream outcome - we should increase this

3. Time delay in achieving the dream outcome - we should decrease this

4. Effort and sacrifice, on your client's side, to achieving the dream outcome - we should decrease this

The equation is:

dream outcome x perceived likelihood of achievement / time delay x effort & sacrifice

That's value.

Hormozi writes that it's easy to increase the top half of the equation: make bigger claims.

But that's what everybody's doing out there.

The harder, but more fruitful, task it to decrease the bottom half of the equation. Make things immediate, seamless, and effortless.

Or at least, make your offer seem that way.

The concept of perception dovetails into what Hormozi calls "logical vs psychological solutions".

I think this is a huge takeaway from the book. Hormozi gives an example of the trains in London were slow and people were complaining.

The logical solution to this? Make the trains faster.

The psychological solution? Make a digital map with dots at the stations, which show the location of the trains.

A clever trick. The dotted map showed progress. It showed that the trains were moving, and it gave the waiting passengers a sense of achievement as the dot got closer to the station. Instead of waiting in the dark, not knowing when the train would arrive, they could follow the train's progress as it got closer and closer.

A psychological solution to the slow trains.

Logical solutions often fail, Hormozi writes.

The question is, how do we communicate psychological solutions to our prospects?

That's a huge question. And we should spend more time thinking about it if we want to grow our business.

Dream Outcomes

Again, as Eugene Schwartz wrote, our goal isn't to create desire. It's to channel existing market desire through our offer.

The dream outcome is the feelings that the prospect already has in their mind. It's the gap between their current reality and their dreams. The goal of our Grand Slam Offer is to accurately depict that dream back to the prospect, so they feel understood, and explain how we will get them there.

The dream outcome is, simply: "getting there."

Keep this in mind: when comparing two services that satisfy the same desire, the value from the dream outcomes will cancel out. It will be the other 3 variables in the value equation that will make the difference.

That's why just making big claims doesn't work. Everybody does that. We must make big claims, while not neglecting those other 3 variables in the value equation.

One pro-tip for communicating a dream outcome: frame the benefits in terms of status gained from the viewpoint of your prospects peers. Example: If you buy this golf club, your drive will increase by 40 yards. Your golf buddy's jaw will drop when he sees your ball soar 40 yards past theirs...

Perceived Likelihood of Achievement

People value certainty. If you make a big claim, but it doesn't seem certain that the prospect can achieve it, the value equation drops.

Hormozi says to increase the certainty of our Grand Slam Offer, we must offer proof, we must be discerning about what to include AND exclude in our offer, and offer great guarantees (more on this below.)

Time Delay

Sometimes our offers take a lot of time to deliver on. Let's say it's a b2b offering that will improve your client's revenue by 30%, but it will take 1 year to see the impact. Or, say it's a health offer, where your client will lose 20 pounds in 10 weeks.

Those take a lot of time. The human mind wants instant hits of gratification. In a Grand Slam Offer, you want to decrease the time delay.

So, what to do?

Hormozi has a clever solution here. Something that I've incorporated into my own offers: create emotional wins fast.

Hormozi gives an example of implementing a sales/marketing solution for a gym. To shorten the time delay of the dream outcome, they create a quick win by getting their ads live within 7 days so they can close their first $2,000 sale.

By doing this, the client trusts us as a solution provider right off the bat, and will trust the other bigger solutions our Grand Slam Offer presented.

Always incorporate short-term, immediate wins for clients.

There's a lot to think about here.

Effort & Sacrifice

This is the difficulty that your prospect will perceive in your offer. These can be both tangible and intangible difficulties.

Hormozi gives the example of fitness vs liposuction in losing weight.

The fitness effort & sacrifice:

• Wake up 2 hours earlier

• 5 - 10 hours per week of time lost

• Stop eating food you love

• Constant hunger

• Physical soreness

• Embarrassment in not knowing how to exercise

• Meal prep

• New, more expensive groceries

Liposuction effort & sacrifice:

• Fall asleep

• Wake up thin

• Be sore for 2-4 weeks

Now you know why liposuction can fetch the rates that it does and fitness offers, if they're a dime a dozen, have a harder time with price.

Decreasing the difficulty of achieving the dream outcome can massively boost the appeal of your Grand Slam Offer.

The takeaway? Make it as easy as possible for your prospect to say "yes" and have their dream outcome achieved as simply as possible.

Time to Build the Grand Slam Offer

I'll make this section as streamlined as possible.

To do so, I'll use a Grand Slam Offer that Hormozi details in the book.

Step #1 in building the Grand Slam Offer? Identify the dream outcome.

Hormozi's example? Lose 20 pounds in 6 weeks.

Step #2 in building the Grand Slam Offer? Write down all of the problems and struggles and limiting thoughts your prospect has in achieving the dream outcome.

Think about what happens before and after someone uses your service. What's the "next" thing they need help with?

These are all of the problems.

Be as detailed as possible. If you do, you'll create a more valuable and compelling offer, as you'll answer people's next problem as it happens.

Here are the examples of problems that Hormozi lists around the dream outcome of "losing 20 pounds in 6 weeks".

Buying healthy food / grocery shopping:

1. Buying healthy food is hard, confusing, and I won’t like it

2. Buying healthy food will take too much time

3. Buying healthy food is expensive

4. I will not be able to cook healthy food forever. My family’s needs will get in my way. If I travel I won’t know what to get.

Cooking healthy food:

1. Cooking healthy food is hard and confusing. I won’t like it, and I will suck at it.

2. Cooking healthy food will take too much time

3. Cooking healthy food is expensive. It’s not worth it.

4. I will not be able to buy healthy food forever. My family’s needs will get in my way. If I travel I won’t know how to cook healthy.

The next set of problems would revolve around eating healthy food, then exercising regularly, etc.

List out the problems for each step of the process of achieving the dream outcome of "losing 20 pounds in 6 weeks".

Or, in your case, all of the problems in each step of the process of achieving the dream outcome of your Grand Slam Offer.

We can tie these problems back to the value equation, too.

Dream outcome problem: "This won't be financially worth it."

Likelihood of achievement problem: "This won't work for me. I won't stick with it. I've tried it before and failed."

Effort & Sacrifice problem: "This will be too hard. I won't like it. I suck at this."

Time problem: "This takes too much time. I'm too busy. It won't be convenient."

Keep listing all of the problems that you can, in whatever order or categorization that you want.

The point is, be as detailed as you can about all of the problems your prospect has in achieving the dream outcome of your offer. These are the objections, both real and perceived.

Here's a trick: in your past sales efforts, why did people decline your offer? That's a good place to start in listing these problems.

Step #3 is to write out solutions to these problems.

This step is easy. Now that we've identified the problems, we will transform them directly into solutions. Then name them.

How?

Turn those problems into solutions by thinking, "What would I need to show someone to solve this problem?" Then we reverse each element of the obstacle into solution-oriented language.

To make it simpler. Simply adding "how to" then reversing the problem with be a great place to start.

Here are examples that Hormozi gives:

PROBLEM: Buying healthy food, grocery shopping

. . . is hard, confusing, I won’t like it. I will suck at it →

How to make buying healthy food easy and enjoyable, so that anyone can do it (especially busy moms!)

. . . takes too much time →

How to buy healthy food quickly

. . . is expensive →

How to buy healthy food for less than your current grocery bill

. . . is unsustainable →

How to make buying healthy food take less effort than buying unhealthy food

. . . is not my priority. My family’s needs will get in my way →

How to buy healthy food for you and your family at the same time

. . . is undoable if I travel; I won’t know what to get →

How to get healthy food when traveling

PROBLEM: Cooking healthy food

. . . is hard, confusing. I won’t like it, and I will suck at it →

How anyone can enjoy cooking healthy meals easily

. . . will take too much time →

How to cook meals in under 5 minutes

. . . is expensive, it’s not worth it →

How eating healthy is actually cheaper than unhealthy food

. . . is unsustainable →

How to make eating healthy last forever

. . . is not my priority, my family’s needs will get in my way →

How to cook this despite your families concerns

. . . is undoable if I travel I won’t know how to cook healthy →

How to travel and still cook healthy

Trim & Stack

This was another eye-opener for me.

Hormozi writes about a "sales to fulfillment continuum".

Basically, there's a scale of ease of fulfillment and ease of sales. If you lower what you have to do, it increases how hard your service is to sell. If you do as much as possible, it makes your service easy to sell but hard to fulfill - due to costs, etc.

The trick and goal? Find the sweet spot where you sell something very well that's easy to fulfill.

So, when we're building our Grand Slam Offer, we should take into consider what has the most value, what's the easiest to sell, and what's the easiest to fulfill. This helps us whittle down what we include and exclude in our offer.

We should take a look at our solutions list, which should be huge - we should be solving as many problems as we can.

We exclude the ones that are high cost and low value first. Then, we remove low cost and low value solutions.

If you're confused about what solutions are high value, apply the value equation to the solution.

What remains from your solution list should be 1. low cost, high value; 2. high cost, high value.

Importance of Naming

Hormozi gives some great examples of how to make an offer more attractive just by changing the name. He does this by a process that looks like: the Problem -> Solution working -> Sexier name.

Example: Buying food (problem) -> How anyone can buy food fast, easy, cheap (solution) -> Foolproof bargain grocery system (sexier name) ... that'll save you hundreds of dollars per month on your groceries, and takes less time than your current shopping routine

Cooking (problem) -> How anyone can cook healthier, faster -> Ready in 5 minute busy parent cooking guide...

You see the point here. For every problem / solution problem you have, give them sexier, clever names. Do it for all of them. You'll be surprised what you come up with here.

Then you take all of these solutions with great names, and bundle them together, which becomes the core of your Grand Slam Offer.

As Hormozi writes, this does three things:

• Solves all the perceived problems the prospect has

• Gives you the conviction that what you're selling is one of a kind

• Makes it impossible for your prospect to compare or confuse your business with the one down the street.

You see how this circles back to the beginning of the book? The part about differentiating yourself in the market by creating valuable offers?

Sweeten the Grand Slam Offer

Hormozi rounds out the book by adding that the elements of scarcity, urgency, bonuses, and guarantees seal the deal.

Scarcity and urgency are straightforward. They should be employed tactically in your Grand Slam Offer.

Bonuses should be added instead of discounting on price. Go back to your problem / solution list and see what can be included in your offer for free, as add-ons, to close a deal.

Again: don't discount. Instead, add bonuses!

Finally, guarantees are crucial. Hormozi details many different kinds of guarantees in the book, but they all boil down to you putting skin in the game in the deal.

Psychologically, if the prospect sees that you're putting risk in the deal along with them, they are more likely to agree to the deal.

Conclusion

Would I recommend Hormozi's $100 Million Offers? Does it deserve the hype it gets?

To both of these questions, I have to say "yes." In fact, the book surprised me. Oftentimes, hyped up business books don't deliver on their premise. Or they're too shallow to be practical in real life or business.

But Hormozi was able to distill the truths of the "value" concept and write something unique and practical.

I would recommend this book for anybody starting out in their entrepreneur journey, so that you start with the right foot forward.

But also, I'd recommend the book to veterans in business who may be stagnating and want to pump some new life into their business offerings.

My next review will be none other than Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz.

Until then,

Keep kung-fu fighting

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