The Man behind Alex Hormozi's Sales Team with Josh Lyons

0:01Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Imperfect Action. Today, we'll be breaking down the man behind Alex Hormozy's sales team. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Josh Lyons and to EO Fire Studios. Josh helps high-ticket offer owners scale their sales teams. Clients include Alex Hormozy's Gym Launch, who he took to their highest close rates in over a year and eight weeks using his system. And today, our foundation We're going to talk about going from$0 a month to over$100 ,000 a month in commission within 18 months, why Alex Hormozzi hired him, the biggest money leaks on high-ticket offers, and so much more.

0:47And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Josh and our sponsors. Success Story, hosted by my friend Scott D. Clary, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Success Story features Q &A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, and conversation on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship. In a recent episode, Scott brings Kate Bradley on the show, founder and CEO of Lately.ai, to discuss the best ways to use AI to create content. Listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts.

1:18NestSuite by Oracle brings accounting, finance, inventory, and HR into one proven platform, helping you reduce costs everywhere. Backed by popular demand, NetSuite has extended its one-of-a-kind flexible financing program for a few more weeks. Head to netsuite.com slash fire. Josh, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What is up, everybody? Something that the majority of people disagree with these days is there is a magic button. There is a quick fix and you should pay more financially and pay more with your attention if someone can give you the quick fix magic button.

2:08And I think the complete opposite. it. If someone says to me, hey, I want you to turn me into one of the best closers in the world, or I want you to take my sales team and create a powerhouse, and I want you to do it in 30 days, I will immediately say, I don't think we have alignment. And I think for a lot of people that that cold hard truth is something that they either can't accept because we live I mean you speak to a ton of people we live in a a culture now which is about how quickly can I shortcut the process of becoming a master and um an artist in whatever my field is and I think the truth is quite contrary to that social meme, if that makes sense.

3:09It does make sense. And it also makes sense that you are the man behind Alex Hormozy's sales team. And it will make sense to Fire Nation in a little bit here, because I want to talk about how you went from$0 to over$100K a month in commission in your first 18 months closing. How the heck did you accomplish this feat? It's a crazy story. It's not that many years ago that I was making 1500 pounds a month, working a job that now we have a robot in the computer AI that can do what I was doing, customer support and things like that. And the biggest thing that allowed me to rocket my way from$1 ,500 a month to over$100 ,000 a month was off the back of what I just said, that it was a deep, transformative, internal journey that I went through.

4:10And because I was told the truth from my mentor from day one, I was honored and blessed to be to be given a mentor that was a reclusive millionaire in his early 20s and is now, you know, in his 40s. And he told me, you are going to have to go extremely deep into yourself, into your inner mastery, into your journey from this day forth, the first day that we spoke in private messaging. And so because of that, every single day was a hero's journey inside of myself. And therefore, I spent 18 months making a phenomenal amount of transformative progress internally. And therefore, the external results came so quickly.

5:03And what a lot of people do is they just focus on the tactics. They focus on the skills, the tactics, the external results. And what ends up happening is that five years go by or 10 years go by, and they may have been able to recite a few magic words on a sales script or do a few external ninja tricks, but actually they haven't really changed at all on the inside. And so you asked about Hormozy's team. So this is Gym Launch, the company that a couple of years back, Alex and Layla sold and it was acquired for$46.2 million. So pretty substantial company to say the least. And yet they asked me to come in and to train their closers.

5:55And we didn't get into anything sales related for the first four weeks. Everything was about what are they limited by and it was internal things it was their state it was their energy management it was their clarity and vision on their goals and so by coming in and showing them the things that i did from the first day of my journey i was able to take them to their highest close rates in over a year within just eight weeks of working with their team. And it was because the paradigm was completely upside down to what most people are doing these days, which is coming in and giving a very practical or a very intellectual tactical response to problems that usually are much, much deeper.

6:52I'm sure you and your audience have heard the quote, you don't have business problems, You have personal problems that are showing up in your business. So one question that I do have, because everybody wants to work with the best. And especially in that space, in that niche, in that industry, Alex is one of the best. So I know you worked with him and he brought you in, but why? Why did Alex Hormozy's sales team hire you specifically? That's a great question. So I had become pretty infamous in the marketplace because as a single high ticket closer, my claim to fame was that I was on a pretty big offer.

7:39And the offer had three sales departments, shall we say. They had an internal sales team. They had a done for you sales agency, which at the time was Sales Sniper that was doing sales for them. And then they had me. And I was an independent contractor. And I outperformed both of those entire teams on my own. I was bringing in over a million dollars a month in cash collected for the business as just one single sales rep. Whereas these other two departments, the internal team and the external team, had to have an entire team deployed inside this offer. And I was outperforming them on my own. And so where that led to was that people started asking the question in the industry, what is this guy doing differently?

8:30How is he able to outperform an entire sales team? Is it tactical? Is he saying something different on the phone? Is he, I don't know, is he lying on the phone and making false claims about what the offer can do for somebody that enrolls? obviously the answer to that is no. What I was able to do was I was able to show up spiritually, physically, emotionally, energetically, day in and day out with a level of gravity and a level of density and a level of power that I was able to just produce 5x, 10x, 15x on my own, what a normal salesperson was able to do. As you said, Alex and Layla are industry icons.

9:19So when they wanted to bring me into their team, they wanted that level of exponential production for every single member of their sales team. And that is what I had become known for in the industry because I single-handedly was able to outperform a team of eight or nine closers on my own. So they wanted to, well, Jim Launch, just to be clear, because Alex and Layla had already sold their share of the company at this time. So it was Jim Launch, Alex Hormose's company. They wanted me to come in and take them through the methodology that I had perfected over my time as a full-time closer that enabled me to produce that level of asymmetrical production.

10:08So as an example, we had guys in the team, one of their closers, after I'd taken them through that methodology, was producing$400 ,000 in contracts in a single week. Another guy, Jeff, sorry, John, I took him from$150 a month in contract value to$750 ,000 a month in contract value. So for X-ing their results in just a matter of months. And when the two guys that were running the team at the time sent me over a testimonial, it was very funny to read the testimonial because they said, before Josh came in, we had a super solid sales team. They knew how to build rapport. They knew how to handle objections.

11:01They knew how to identify a problem. So the basics, basically. But after I'd come in, within an hour of training between myself and the team, they very quickly realized how much more work there was to be done on the emotional intelligence and the art of conversation side of things. And that is something that very few people can or do talk about when training sales teams is the much more nuanced variables that have a wildly exponential difference for a team that's already performing at a pretty decent level. And so that was Brent Oliver, who was the sales manager at the time for Gym Launch. He was quite blown away, as well as Mike, who was the GM, that it was not the basics that I was going to be able to get a 10x uplift on.

12:00It was the things that run between the lines, if that makes sense. Fire Nation, you can see the value of hiring the best. You've heard the numbers of what happens when you hire somebody that can exponentially grow your business, that can give you the right tools, the right strategies, the right mindsets, the right state, the right confidence to proceed forward. And we're going to be talking about high ticket offers, sales multipliers versus sales managers, and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Personalized support has quickly become an expectation from customers everywhere. They want help and they want it now.

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15:28See how you'll profit with NetSuite. Back by popular demand, NetSuite has extended its one-of-a-kind flexible financing program for a few more weeks. Head to netsuite.com slash fire, netsuite.com slash fire, netsuite.com slash fire. Josh, we're back, and I want to talk about high-ticket offers, but specifically within that topic, the biggest money leaks that you find always happen on these high ticket offers? There's two things. There's two parts in a sales process that account for 90 % of the reason that a sale is going to be made or lost. There's a lot of different things that happen on a call.

16:12But as anybody who's gone reasonably deep into the rabbit hole of business and entrepreneurship, we all know the 80-20 principle. It's no different with sales. There is two things, just two, that are going to account for 90 % of a sale being made or lost. The front of the call, you've got the discovery. And the back part of the call, you've got the pitch. We've all read Alex Hormozy's offers book, so we all know about the pitch and the offer. those two things more than anything will make or break a close an enrollment and so the two biggest money leaks will be those categories the discovery and the pitch now within the discovery that itself breaks into two pieces you've got the internal so all of the internal mastery and the way that the closer is actually showing up to the call.

17:13And then you've got the external, which is, we could call it tactical. So what do they actually say? When do they say it? How do they say it? What is the intention behind what they're saying? So the actual, the verbal side of things. And then with the pitch and the offer, that kind of, let's talk about the typical mistakes that someone makes. So most offer owners, they leave a lot of money on the table by doing that part incorrectly. When they pitch something, they'll make one of two mistakes. Mistake number one, they make it very short, they make it very simple, and it therefore the offer comes across as very, very invaluable.

17:58Thus, when the price is mentioned, the prospect is, oh my god, that's super expensive. even though it might not actually be that expensive but it's the comparison it's the perspective of the price that's done incorrectly because the pitch was too short and too simple and it didn't create a transformation uh in the the eyes and in the mind's eye of the prospect on the phone the second mistake is that they swing the pendulum in the other direction and they attempt to establish a lot of value by cramming in tons and tons and tons of features and benefits and tons of things into the pitch. And it comes across as complicated, hard to understand.

18:43And the prospect then usually gives a completely BS response saying, oh, I need to think about it or I need to pray on it or I need to ask my wife or, you know, can I have 24 hours? And the truth is that they just haven't been able to see the gateway and the doorway to their future vision because now the pitch is too crammed with features and benefits. And so in either of those cases, what ends up happening, and so this is the money leak here, is a close doesn't happen. There's just no sale. And for not wanting to get too deep into political debate here, the follow-up is not a huge opportunity for many businesses, many high-ticket offers.

19:28So someone could say, well, we could just follow up with them. Very rarely that follow up turns into a sale. And so if the close is not done on the first call, it's very unlikely that's going to happen. Or the second thing that ends up happening is the money leak is that the offer is much more valuable than it's being sold for. And it's not able to be sold consistently for a higher price because the pitch is done incorrectly. It's perceived as invaluable. So that's two. money leaks in the pitch and the offer. And then the money leaks in the discovery. Well, when I bring on a client, one of the first things I'll do before considering taking someone on as a client is I will actually dive into their money leaks on their calls.

20:17And so let's walk through some of those things. So in the discovery, money is lost because the energy of the closer is too much rapport seeking. They're too soft. They don't have a backbone. They're too buddy-buddy. Hey, you know, great. Oh, you've got two children as well. Yeah, I've got two children. That's fantastic and all of that sort of stuff. The other money leak in the discovery is that there's no depth. So the biggest pain points, the biggest frustrations, the biggest disappointments in someone's life are not explored and therefore someone doesn't end up enrolling as a client. And the other part with the discovery is that a closer turns up to the call and they end up going off and talking about whatever the offer is before the prospect has ever made any sort of commitment to making a change.

21:15And so that's about five or six different money leaks that you will always find on a high could offer unless you have had someone come in that has trained the team to run a masterful discovery and to pitch and to offer the transformation in a way that is perceived as extremely valuable, but at the same time, abundantly clear on what that transformation is going to entail. Is it even worth doing follow-up calls based on what you found? I don't think it's worth doing follow-up if it's taking away time and energy and focus from the closer's initial one call or two call first touch with the prospect.

22:05Now, obviously, the industry is starting to change with the acceleration of things like AI and automations. And I think follow up is like a, well, if you can have an email sequence that does it for you, or you can have an AI that's going to go in and just keep reminding someone that didn't close, hey, we just had a great win of one of our students in the community. sure do that but what i find having looked under the hood in a lot of businesses is that the follow-up is a rationalization for the fact that the business hasn't got their lead generation down on the front end so it's like well we're generating a bunch of leads and so we'll we'll make our revenue in follow-up and it's like actually no if you have decent lead flow and decent meaning volume and quality and they're not being closed on the first call, you have a sales team problem.

23:05Or if you're hoping and praying that you're going to generate enough profitability from the follow-up, then you're just ignoring the fact that you don't have decent lead flow. I'm glad you asked the question because one of my criteria that I will consider whether I bring on a B2B client is if they don't have their lead flow down, I just will turn them away straight away. I need to see that they have enough solid lead flow in terms of volume and the quality is also great as well. And then if they're not extracting from those leads, then I know that I can come in and turn that sales team around.

23:47It's not a marketing problem. Very fascinating stuff, Fire Nation. And the last thing that I really want to dive into, Josh, are sales multipliers and sales managers. What are the difference between those two? A sales manager is someone that can keep the ship steady. But if a business is not rapidly growing or rapidly accelerating, why are you going to want it to keep heading in the same direction at the same pace? And so the best way to explain this is that how can you ever ask someone how to get back from somewhere, directions on how to get back from somewhere that they've never been to themselves?

24:31And if you look at most sales managers, they have never made more than$20 ,000 or$30 ,000 a month in commission. And so how on earth are you expecting to bring in a sales manager to turn your team into unicorns that could make 50 ,000 or 100 ,000, generate millions of dollars a month for your business from someone that's never done that? Whereas a sales multiplier is someone that is an outlier, someone that has been able to figure out what are the precise levers that have a asymmetrical return when we pull them and when is the right time to pull them and how to pull those levers as well. And so it's very much the difference between someone that is able to see the art and the science behind something, whereas someone that is able to just say, you know, let's say in a singing analogy, everybody can hear when someone sings out of tune.

25:34But that doesn't mean that you can sing in tune. Does that make sense? Yeah, that definitely makes sense. And Fire Nation, we've learned a lot today about the biggest money leaks when it comes to high ticket offers, just the overall mindset that sales closers need to have going into a process, and so much more. But Josh, of everything that we talked about, what would you say is the one key takeaway that you really want to make sure our listeners get from our chat today? The biggest takeaway is how you show up in your life is how the other people in your life are going to show up. That is for a closer.

26:17If you show up as a closer and you're not investing in yourself, you're not showing up making the right choices, your prospects are going to show up with the same approach and attitude to life. But it's exactly the same for the business owner. If you as a business owner are willing to settle for your sales team, leaving a lot of money on the table and performing at a substantially lower level than you know they could be or should be, then you're literally telling the universe that you deserve your offer to not grow. Fire Nation, mic drop, value bombs galore. Josh, if you had to give Fire Nation a way to connect with you, to learn more from you, to give us a call to action, what would that be?

27:08If you are a closer and you don't want to join a mass market sales training, you want to become one of the unicorns out there that can generate a million dollars or more for a business a month, which would give you$100 ,000 a month in commission, you might want to check out my unicorn closer mastermind. The best way to find that is to hit me up on Instagram. And so that is joshlyons.sales on Instagram. That is joshlyons.sales. Or if you're a high ticket offer owner and you're making multiple six figures a month consistently, so your lead flow is good enough, but you know that your sales team could be performing at a much higher level, check out the video that is on my website, which is lionsclosing.com.

28:04And we will have a chat and see if it makes sense to work together. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with JL and JLD today. So keep up that heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Just type Josh in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up. And Josh, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. It's my pleasure. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Josh for sponsoring today's episode and Fire Nation.

28:40Successful entrepreneurs are great at three things, productivity, discipline, focus. That is why I created the Mastery Journal so that you can master productivity, discipline, and focus in 100 days. We're talking step-by-step. visit themasteryjournal.com. And I'll catch you there or on the flip side.

29:21success story wherever you get your podcasts. NetSuite by Oracle brings accounting, finance, inventory, and HR into one proven platform, helping you reduce costs everywhere. Backed by popular demand, NetSuite has extended its one-of-a-kind flexible financing program for a few more weeks. Head to netsuite.com slash fire.