The Funnel We Use to Make $250M+ | Ep 898

0:01So I'm going to walk you through a four step process that I think puts business on easy mode. And so whether you're just getting started or you're already making tons of money and are just trying to make more, this process just works. And I've done it in tons of different portfolio companies and companies we've advised. And just to give you a little bit of context, as of last year, our portfolio at acquisition.com did over$250 million in aggregate revenue. And I say that not as a promise that if you do this, you're going to get that outcome, but that this works. So that being said, let's dive in.

0:31All right, this is the blueprint to unlocking your business's full monetization potential. And I'm going to walk you through it step by step. My name is Alex Ramozzi on acquisition.com. And I've used this process in dozens of businesses, both in our portfolio and businesses we've advised in our business as of last year did it for$250 million in aggregate revenue. And so there's four steps to this. Starts with eyeballs, starts with people's attention, and it ends with you making money. What are the steps in between? Let's dive in. step number one, get the ad. So we have to fundamentally show something to someone in order for them to find out about our stuff, right?

1:08And we agree on that. If the answer to that is yes, then the first step here is that we're going to have some sort of advertisement. Now that ad might be somebody reaching out. It's an advertisement, literally letting people know about stuff. It could be a paid ad. So it could be an interruption-based ad that happens on any social media platform, it could be a piece of content like this that says, hey, you know, go buy this thing. Now, between all the different ways of getting customers paid ads versus content versus outreach versus maybe the exception being affiliates, paid ads is the most, you know, the fastest to scale because one guy with buttons and good creative could scale it to the mood, right?

1:45And so it's all about skill when it comes to creating paid ads. Now, I'm going to just use this as our placeholder, but if you're trying to get into paid ads, then I'll give you two little frameworks that have worked really well for me. All right. So number one, and this is a new one, which is absolutely murdering it for us is what I'll call organic plus CTA. Very complicated. All right. So what is organic plus CTA? It's you have whatever organic content you make. Some content does better than others. Provided you make organic content relevant to the stuff you sell, which by the way, probably a good idea.

2:18You make your content and then you find the good ones. And then all you do is you add a call to action at the end that sends people to your thing. And we already know it works because we've already tried it. And so you get to have all these test shots on goal that cost you nothing by simply making the content. And then you just let the algorithm tell you what people already like and they engage with and they share and they click. They get past the hook. And then you just say, oh, I'm going to take this thing and I'm going to turn it into something that feeds my business in a more scalable way.

2:44Because I'm not going to rely on the platform to just give it to people for free, which is great. but I also can't really add a longer call to action because it would tank the effectiveness of the clip. But if I put it in the beginning and then I pay the platform, then they're happy to display it because they were already happy to display it for free. So why wouldn't they want to display it in exchange for money? And then we can add our very simple call to action at the end for some sort of thing. Now, the second kind of way of thinking about this, like this one's by far the easiest. If you can do this, do it.

3:13Now, if you're like, okay, I don't have enough organic or I just need to quickly make ads directly, then this is the framework that I already use. So I have hook plus meat plus CTA. All right. So I'm gonna break down each of these really quickly. So from a hooks perspective, what I do is I still look at the best performing organic and the best performing ads across all industries. So this is one where you don't need to stick to your industry. You might find a hook that works exceptionally well in finance and it works really well for hotels too, right? Provided it doesn't like actually say finance in it.

3:43And so you'll see that hooks just convert across way different audiences because it just draws attention. And so the first thing I'll look at is hooks. And this is by far the 80 % of the ad. And you're like, wait, but they're so short. And they're still the most important. So we should just be thankful. It's crazy. It's like people have a hard time accepting that something short could be more meaningful than something long because it takes more work. Like, would you prefer that the thing that means the most is actually really hard and long to do? No, right? Like the fact that hooks are short is a gift from God for advertisers that we can actually have the most important thing, not require a ton of work.

4:17Now, if you want to be smart about it, it should require work because you're going to do that work in the research or the pre-search before you record this. So for here, I would have at least 50 plus hooks. Now you're like 50 plus hooks. Yeah. You're probably not making nearly enough ads and I don't care what your spend is. Like, like if you're, if you're spending$10 ,000 a month, a hundred thousand dollars a month, like you can never have too many ads. I'll just say that you can never have too many ads. You just give the algorithm more things to pick from to find the winners. Now the meat, I'm going to give you a different framework that I haven't talked about much lately.

4:48And so I'm gonna break it down for you right here. All right, this is four-step persuasion. And I just think it's just so easy to understand. Ready to have your mind blown? I'm kidding, it probably won't blow your mind. It'll probably be like, oh, that's interesting. So this is how I think, this is my mental framework, all right, for how I actually make persuasive advertisements, copy, pitches, whatever, right? Which is, you're gonna get more good stuff if you do the thing I want you to do. You're gonna get less bad stuff if you do the thing I want you to do. And if you don't do the thing that I want you to do, you're going to get more bad stuff and you're going to get less good stuff.

5:22That's it. Four different angles that you can hit on any action I want you to take. So if you sign up for the gym, you're going to feel better. I'm making this obviously really simple. You're going to get more good feels. You have more energy. You're going to sleep better. All that stuff's good. You're going to, now what's the inverse of that? You're not going to feel the brain fog that you've been feeling. You're not going to feel as lethargic. You're not going to have your kids out playing and feel like you can't play with them and feel like a bad parent. We're going to get rid of all that minus negative thing.

5:52But the thing is, is the only thing easier, you know, than taking this small action today is not taking that action. And so, but the thing is, is that if you don't take that action, then whatever brain fog you're feeling right now, the current weight that you put over the last five years, let's push it out two or three years. How much more weight are you going to be. Like if you're, if you're 50 pounds overweight now, what are you going to feel like at 70 pounds overweight? It'd be, it'd be way worse, right? You don't want that. Also all those memories, when you think about the happiest memories that you have with your kids, with your family, like those are going to decrease.

6:25You're going to have fewer of those because you physically can't do that. And so the only thing easier than, than taking action is not taking action at all. And so if these are the things that you want, you should do this thing because that way we can avoid this stuff. That's it. Very straightforward. And this is what constitutes our meat. Now I'd be a very simplistic example. If I want to make that more interesting, right? And if you want to like, how do you create unique copy? This is a little advanced tip for you. All right. So pro tip, break down the terms. So what does it mean? So if I say you're going to feel better, right?

6:59That is not going to be compelling copy. I can promise you that right now. But what does feel better mean to somebody? How would I know that feeling better had occurred in their life. And this is where the research of reading Amazon reviews for products that are similar in your space, even if you sell services, read the positive reviews in their language of the things that they will say of why, of what happened. And the way that I think about this, here it is. This is it. This is the big word that you need to double underline. Think in moments. What is the moment that someone thinks, wow, I feel better?

7:31What's the moment? What occurred? What happened, right? Maybe it's that they were able, let's say if it's an elderly population that we're doing with this weight loss thing, they were able to take the kid off the ground and pick him up, right? And they have this moment where after they had that little three, four minute exchange, they're like, man, that was awesome. I couldn't do that before because I was so weak and I hadn't developed my shoulder strength. I didn't have the mobility to do that. Like, wow, it's a moment. What else would it be? Maybe it's, you know, bending over to tie my shoe.

7:58I felt like I was getting out of breath because I had to hold my gut in so I could lean over to tie my shoes. That's gone now. What if there was a world where you just put both of them on and you could do it while you're standing? That's not out of reach. It's just a couple steps away from where you're at right now. So if I say that, I can describe all the things that someone might experience and then denote that they feel better without saying you're going to feel better. And so this applies for each of these elements of copy. And this is what makes copy potent. It's the specificity because you want someone to understand it within their own context of like, man, I've had that happen.

8:35And that's real. That's what makes you a copy. And if that little copy tip was helpful for you, then I have pages and pages of things that have helped me make good ads inside of the run paid ads chapter and page 129. So I talk about one, how paid ads work, obviously. But secondly, where do you, how do you write the copy? So I break down all the anatomy of ads in all of this, all these pages I'm talking about. All of this is how you can make the ad. All right. And so this is the level one framework. The level two that you put on top of this is who and when. This is the one, which again, I also cover the book.

9:10Real quick, guys, I have a special, special gift for you for being loyal listeners of the podcast. Layla and I spent probably an entire quarter putting together our Scaling Roadmap. It's breaking scaling into 10 stages and across all eight functions of the business. So you've got marketing, you've got sales, you've got product, you've got customer success, you've got IT, you've got recruiting, you've got HR, you've got finance. And we show the problems that emerge at every level of scale and how to graduate to the next level. It's all free and you can get it personalized to you. So it's about 30-ish pages for each of the stages.

9:45Once you answer the questions, it will tell you exactly where you're at and what you need to do to grow. It's about 14 hours of stuff, but it's narrowed down so that you only have to watch the part that's relevant to you, which will probably be about 90 minutes. And so if that's at all interesting, you can go to acquisition.com forward slash roadmap, R-O-A-D map, roadmap. So we could talk about the prospect, but we could also talk about that prospect status with regards to their spouse. Talk about it with regards to their kids. Talk about it with regards to their frenemies, their rivals, their competitors, right?

10:16What are all these plus and minuses with regards to that rival dad across the street or that rival business? What do all those look like? And then how do we pace that for today, but then also the future? What does the future look like when things don't go the right way? Ooh, well, that's going to be the bottom side. That's what happens if you don't take action. On the flip side, what does the future look like if things go well? So we can play it out today, but also play it out tomorrow. And this gives you unlimited different angles to make the meat of your ad more compelling. And then the third thing is obviously the call to action, which you want it to be as clear as humanly possible and tell them exactly what you want them to do and what will happen next.

10:51That's the key point that a lot of people miss. Not only do you want to say it, you want it to be demonstrated in the ad. So if I want someone to go to the next page, when I say go to the next page, I want the go to the next page to be visible because that way what happens is you have congruence. And that has a couple levels of persuasion there. So number one, in terms of congruence, people say, okay, I have set my expectations and they click and then their expectations are met. And then what do you know? you have way fewer people who bounce off the page because the page looks exactly like I expected it to.

11:18Now, what else happens? The person who actually made the recommendation, who made the suggestion to go to the page also increases in influence. Because when you say something's going to happen and then it happens, the person, consciously or subconsciously, doesn't matter, science works either way, they will believe the next thing you predict with greater certainty. And so, wouldn't you want people to be like, man, when that guy says something's going to happen, that's what happens. That proceeds or plants the seed for the sale that will inevitably come down the road. Once we have our ads, so now we're getting eyeballs, right?

11:49People are seeing the ads, and then what are they doing? They're taking an action, all right? So this is my world's terrible mouse click. They click on the ad. I don't know, our little mouse is on fire, but we're just going to go with it, all right? The next step in this process is going to be the opt-in, right? We want them to give us their information for something, and what are they going to give us the information for. So typically it's going to be a lead magnet of some sort. Now people have this big issue with like, ah, lead magnets are dead or lead magnets are alive. I'll tell you this, bad lead magnets are dead.

12:22Good lead magnets certainly are alive. And most lead magnets suck. And so it's unsurprising that the vast majority of people who start to run ads the first time don't make money because their ads suck. And the first time you take a sales call, you probably suck because you don't know how to take a sales call. And the first lead magnet you make will probably suck too. Now, I want to give you, in my opinion, the best lead magnet that I've ever seen in my whole life. All right. And so it was actually in the dating space and it was called how to know if you can, if a girl wants you to kiss her. Now, who wouldn't want to know if a girl wants you to kiss her, right?

12:54And so the simple answer to that, and this is the lead magnet, is try to brush her hair behind her ear. And if she moves her head away, then she doesn't want to kiss you. If she doesn't move her head at all or moves her head towards your hand, then she does. Very simple. All right. But the beauty of this is like, wait, so that's, that could be a lead magnet. Of course it could be a lead magnet. We want to solve the tiniest problem we possibly can for the prospect and completely solve it and blow them away. Now, some people are like, I made this full course and there's nothing wrong with that. To be clear, I've got a whole bunch of them on my site.

13:25The thing is, is there's going to be a certain amount of information that is required in order for a customer to make a decision, period. Right. I would toss out the idea of emotional buyer, a logical buyer, and just replace that, and this is how I think about it, as high information and low information. How much information does someone need in order to make a purchasing decision? Some people need less, some people need more, but if you provide more to everyone, you will close more people overall. And so a lot of us are trying to add to straight money, and there are going to be those people who will just see an ad, watch a video, and then buy something.

13:56That happens. They are the minority. They are the crazy people, and we are grateful for them because they allow all of the machines to work. But for the other 97 % of people, they usually need a little bit more time, a little bit more information in order to make the decision. And we have to facilitate that. So there's going to be two paths that people are going to self-identify as we go through this to maximize our monetization of the advertising that we do to make the most money. Now, the lead man that I just explained, which was just have the girl brush the girl's hair behind her ear, you can feel it out.

14:25So what type of lead magnet is this? What I gave you is a one-step to a multi-step solution. So most people who are in the dating space aren't looking to just get a kiss, right? They're looking to find more dates. They're looking to eventually find a wife. They're going to have to get into a relationship. They're going to maybe get married later. So there's all these other problems that are going to have to happen outside of just figuring out if a girl wants to kiss you. If I don't have dates, I don't care. Now this is neat, but I still have other problems that need to solve. But if you accurately solve that problem, because I'm like, I can understand why that would work.

14:55Then what do you think I'm going to do next? I'm going to believe that you could probably help me solve my other problems. What I just outlined, you can come in real quick. So this is page 32 of the leads book is the problem solution cycle, right? And there's many, many problem solution cycles that exist within a larger goal. The bigger the goal, the more problem solutions they have to go through, right? And so our lead magnet too has to solve one of these little problem solutions. So the little teaching the girl, you know, teaching the guy how to know if the girl wants to kiss him. It's not the big loop.

15:21It's just one of these tiny, itty bitty loops. That's all it is. But now I think, well, who helped me solve that one? I'll bet you he could help me solve the rest of them. Now, what type of lead magnet is this? So the type of lead magnet, you could reveal a problem, which would be like the reason that you're not getting responses in your DMs is because of this. So if I show them a framework for what a DM is supposed to be, I reveal the problem of why they're not getting responses. Now, the other side of this is that I could say, hey, I'm going to give you a free trial of my dating thing. Like this is another type of lead magnet.

15:47Now, this one is actually step three or type three of lead magnets, which is I'm giving away one step of a multi-step process to get an outcome, right? You're not just trying to get a girl to kiss you. You have to get responses and you have to set up dates and then you have to know how to talk on the dates. You have to know how to flirt beforehand and afterhand. And I don't know what afterhand is, but apparently it's a thing, right? It's your God after it. And then it's like, how do I do the second day? How do I do the third day? What are smooth ways to, to, uh, you know, proposition a woman to whatever you get my idea.

16:17I'll stop there, you know, fill the rest in with your imagination, you know, and then propose. There we go. We just went straight to marriage, right? The whole thing is there's a lot of problems that are going to happen in this process and we don't need to solve them all. Think about a dating person who's like, here's how to go from zero to married, right? Like that would be a lot. Like we just have to solve the problem that's in front of them today. Now, one of the other issues with the lead magnet is, is it made for the right avatar? And this is a big one. And this is like, people mess this one up a lot.

16:42All right. And so they're like, okay, well, how to make your first, how to get your first five clients, right? I have some videos for that, but that's not my main avatar. Now I am willing to help people out who are getting started and that's okay. That's why I make those things. But is it, is somebody who's just getting started my avatar today? No, but I'm betting on the fact that they will be years from now, but not because I want to give something to that person today, right? And so if you have a spectrum of customers that you could potentially service, you want to make sure the lead magnet is perfectly fit for the perfect customer that you want.

17:11And if you haven't gotten clear on the type of customer you want, then you're certainly not going to be able make the right lead magnet. Now I have a free chapter. I think it's called acquisition.com. I think it's called forward slash avatar. I think that's what it is. But if you go, uh, your first avatar acquisition.com or Oxford Museum, I'm sure you can find it. But basically if you're not sure how to pick your avatar, that chapter explains it. It was actually kind of like a single that I released after the offers book. I recommend you check it out. Anyways, once we have our lead magnet, we have their information.

17:37So what is that going to lead to? We're going to need to lead to something that's going to sell them, right? Who's going to warm up the prospect, all right? And so this is where we get our video sales letter. This is a VSL, all right? It's just a fancy term here. Fancy, fancy, smancy. By the way, if you want an example of a lead magnet, this is one that we have. So you can check this out. So$100 million scaling roadmap. This is for business owners, right? So if you're a business owner, you're trying to scale, then you're going to be at one of these 10 stages of scaling. And so what problem can I solve for you today?

18:08Well, if I can solve the current constraint in your business and show you where this is, by the way, a reveal a problem type of lead magnet. I reveal the problem, and then I also give you the solution to do this. But the thing is, is if you see this, and sometimes even just being like, oh my God, this is exactly what I'm struggling with right now, then it probably increases the likelihood that you think, okay, I think this guy can help me out. Simple as that. And it provides you more information to eventually make a decision. All right, so the lead magnet sets the stage and attracts the exact type of prospect that I want to work with, right?

18:36Someone with qualifications, but now we have to convert them. All right. And this is where our video sales letter comes into play. All right. So the video sales letter, the video that you have here is probably one of the highest leverage things that you can create in terms of sales aids, right? Like if you get on, if a lot of times you're like, man, uh, you know, ads don't work for me. It's not that ads don't work for you. It's that you haven't put enough friction in your process. And again, this is one of those things everyone's afraid of. Everyone's afraid of adding steps, adding friction, adding questions, adding qualifications, having people watch things in order to make a purchasing decision.

19:06But I promise you, if you look at your customers over the last however long, most of them, almost all of them will not have immediately bought something. Most of the times they will have consumed an hour, two hours, three hours plus of information from you in various formats before they decide to go through this process and ultimately buy. And so what we want to do is reverse engineer and facilitate this. Like the big finding I had when I was in gym launch, um, was that 78 % of customers had consumed at least two long form, uh, pieces of content. Now I had podcasts, I had books, I had, um, I had, I had a group that I had kind of the video version of those podcasts.

19:44And so 78 % had consumed at least two. So in thinking about this, I was like, okay, so my average piece of long form content at the time was something they were of like maybe 17 to 20 minutes. So basically people had to consume, call it an hour, right? of information from me in order to be willing to book a call and be warm and potentially buy. And so I was like, okay, if that's what it takes, why don't I try and force people to become somebody who is likely to buy? If that's what 78 % of people do before buying, well, then why don't I get 100 % of my people to do the thing that 78 % do that are the ultimate buyers?

20:19That's the idea. So if you're like, okay, VSL, what do I put inside this video? I'm going to walk you through a very simple, there's a bunch of different versions of VSLs that you can run. I'm not going to get into that today. People overcomplicate this. They want to make this seem like this big box of black magic. And I've made so many video sales letters in my life that I can tell you there is no big box of magic. And I'll give you two different structures that work really well. Okay. So structure one is actually very similar to a YouTube video. So you're going to go the five Ps, which is proof, promise, pain, plan, picture.