The Game with Alex Hormozi

we made 106M in 72 hours. | Ep 987

27 min
Jan 6, 20263 months ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

Alex Hormozi documents his $100 Million Money Models book launch event, which broke the Guinness World Record for fastest-selling nonfiction book in 24 hours with 1.43 million copies sold, surpassing Prince Harry's previous record of 1.4 million. The episode showcases the behind-the-scenes preparation, team coordination, and execution strategy that enabled this achievement while pursuing a $100 million revenue goal across the 72-hour launch window.

Insights
  • Operational excellence and meticulous planning of potential failure points (ad platform throttling, payment processing, link functionality) directly enabled record-breaking execution under extreme time pressure
  • Building a culture of competitive greatness and intrinsic motivation in existing teams produces superior results compared to spinning up temporary event-focused teams without shared values
  • Proof-based marketing—demonstrating business concepts through real-time execution—creates stronger customer conviction than claims alone, particularly in B2B contexts where ROI justification is required
  • Extensive rehearsal and repetition of physical movements and messaging allows performers to execute complex multi-layered presentations without cognitive load during live high-stakes events
  • Transparent communication of ambitious goals and potential failure modes to teams increases psychological ownership and effort intensity compared to top-down directive management
Trends
Direct-to-consumer book launches leveraging owned audiences and sales teams as alternative to traditional publishing distribution modelsReal-time performance metrics and milestone announcements during live events as engagement and social proof mechanismsBundled product offerings (single book vs. multi-book bundle) as upsell strategy in digital commerce launchesCross-platform advertising pivot strategies (Google Ads → Meta → TikTok → LinkedIn) to mitigate platform-specific throttling risksGuinness World Record attempts as brand-building and credibility-establishment tactics in entrepreneurship education marketPhone-based sales support teams (300+ reps) for high-touch customer acquisition during limited-time launch windowsDonation-based pricing models (pay $200, donate additional for broader distribution) as social impact positioning in commercial launchesInternational audience activation (Australia callouts at 2 AM) to extend sales window across time zonesBehind-the-scenes documentary-style content production during product launches to demonstrate operational competence
Topics
Book Launch Strategy and ExecutionGuinness World Record Attempt PlanningSales Team Training and CoordinationOffer Stacking and Product BundlingReal-Time Performance MonitoringFailure Point Identification and MitigationTeam Culture and Competitive GreatnessMulti-Platform Advertising StrategyPayment Processing and E-Commerce InfrastructureLive Event Production and StagingCustomer Acquisition and Phone SalesProof-Based MarketingEntrepreneurship Education Market72-Hour Launch Window OptimizationBrand Building Through Record-Breaking
Companies
Guinness World Records
Official record-keeping organization that verified and certified the fastest-selling nonfiction book record achievement
Shopify
E-commerce platform used for payment processing and order fulfillment; experienced technical issues routing to Serbia
Google Ads
Primary advertising platform that experienced account shutdown 3-4 hours before launch, requiring pivot to Meta
Meta
Secondary advertising platform used as pivot after Google Ads account suspension during launch
TikTok Ads
Tertiary advertising platform identified as backup if Meta advertising failed during launch
LinkedIn Ads
Quaternary advertising platform identified as backup option for B2B audience targeting if other platforms failed
People
Alex Hormozi
Host and primary subject; entrepreneur launching $100 Million Money Models book and attempting Guinness World Record
Jim Lynch
Referenced as business partner with whom Hormozi built his initial $100 million business without existing brand
Prince Harry
Previous Guinness World Record holder for fastest-selling nonfiction book with 1.4 million copies of 'Spare'
Barack Obama
Referenced as previous record holder before Prince Harry in fastest-selling nonfiction book category
Michelle Obama
Referenced as previous record holder with approximately 750,000 copies sold of her book 'Becoming'
Quotes
"I thought it would be cool at the beginning to have the $100 million series do a $100 million launch."
Alex HormoziOpening
"The point that I wanted to prove when I started writing this stuff ages ago was that I didn't have a brand when I did all the stuff that I did with Jim Lynch. I didn't have any of that. All I had was just skills."
Alex HormoziEarly in episode
"Most people only see this event as an event, but they don't realize that this event is being supported by an insane culture that is already existing in an operating business."
Alex HormoziMid-episode
"Rather than like, how do we win? It's like, well, how would we fail? And, okay, there's six ways that this could fail. How do we prevent every single way from failing?"
Alex HormoziPre-launch
"I thought man if I want to if I built a brand that was like Everything instead of instead of trying to hide it just like just put everything out there all the details and just build a brand based on that"
Alex HormoziPost-record announcement
Full Transcript
I'm Alex Ramosi. Welcome to my $100 million Money Models book launch event. I think it's possible to put a book in the hand of every entrepreneur in America. I'm hoping that more people get into entrepreneurship who are not, people who are in it do better, and the people who are doing really well helped me on my mission to get the books in everyone's hands. I thought it would be cool at the beginning to have the $100 million series do a $100 million launch. So the $100 million book series was actually written as one book. And it had offers, it had leads, and it had money models. It's a massive thing. I then broke it into constituent parts. each one stacked another layer of skills on top. So first you have your offer, then you advertise your offer, then you monetize the offer. Now, it makes more sense when you think, oh, all three of these were one book. It was, but parsing them out like this made it better. The point that I wanted to prove when I started writing this stuff ages ago was that I didn't have a brand when I did all the stuff that I did with Jim Lynch. I didn't have any of that. All I had was just skills. And so I thought, if I can document these skills, then I can have a visual demonstration of proof in real time that these skills, when used properly, can result in a $100 million thing. The difficulty was going to be the props and the set. Because we have events, we have people, we have things that go on at our headquarters. For me to take the whole main floor and basically sequester the whole thing for months It's not tenable. Yeah, Christian, if I'm spending all my time, I don't think you're gonna use that. That's kind of my point. Well, okay. Oh, great. Okay, so that helps a lot. If you only use those two during the presentation, then I would rather just make a dedicated camera just for this thing. Okay, great. We fill the rest of this out. I would rather put chat in the background with you because it still keeps their eyes on your frame. That's what I meant. Agreed, yes. This is the thing you were talking about. This permanently removes the glare at this angle. And so I really got to do a few practice runs in the true setting. Basically like where will I move? What am I signaling? How's the camp, like that. And I'd rather do like three or four like that. And then I'll do a full, yeah, a full run. Why are we putting so many curtains around where Alex is going to be? For a couple of reasons, but they all essentially boil down to making Alex and his controlled of an environment as humanly possible given the circumstances. So this entirely has to do with limiting distracting stimuli to keep Alex blind to as many things as humanly possible, minus his slides, honestly. So here's your clue what goes on with pretty much anything else going outside of this bubble. This is like right here, that's an evaluator. I'd be like, are you not entertained? Or is there even more? Everyone I know who's not in my immediate circle has texted me being like, so it looks like you're launching a book. Looks like you got a lot going on. Yeah, great. I am knee deep in just a bunch of different facets of the launch. You know, it's a few hours for everyone who shows up, but it's like multiple years of preparation that we're doing. And so the entire team's, you know, working overtime to make this happen. We have built a team around the core values like competitive greatness. You see in those moments who's actually made of the real shit. Who leans into the challenge? Who embraces it? Who chases it? Most people only see this event as an event, but they don't realize that this event is being supported by an insane culture that is already existing in an operating business. Most people will just spin these teams up just to support an event. but you're not going to get the love, the care, the compassion to want to serve at that highest level. I don't think you can manufacture that. I just think it's super hard. In position. Sean, do you want to call it out? I'll call it. All right, perfect. We'll do it like we would do it. Thank you, sir. All right, guys. Good rehearsal. You ready? You ready? All right. Let's roll. I'm Alex Ramosi. Welcome to my $100 million Money Models book launch event. And we're going to try and break the world record together here live. So I've got the Guinness judges right here. We're trying to break the single fastest selling nonfiction book in history in a single day. So Prince Harry is the one who owns that record right now with 1.4 million copies for his book called Spare, which came out last year. Before that, I think it was Barack Obama's book, which had come out many years before that. After that, it was Michelle Obama becoming, I think it's like 750,000 copies. So like big names with gigantic media behind them, literally like globally recognized. And so I had to tell my team this, which is like, we're trying to do something that literally no one has done before. And so we should expect to do things that literally no one has done before in order to do it. How many days are we out? One day. One day. Probably not even less. Less than 24 hours now, right? Yeah. Yeah. 20 hours. How do you feel? I feel so fabulous and excited. We are doing sales support training for the 100 million dollar money models launch. So what you see here is a team of internal ACQ team members. Some of them are in sales, some of them are in our workshop teams. Really pulled from across the organization and we are preparing to staff the phones for launch tomorrow. Alright! Happy Friday! It is training day number two! Woo! All right, we are here. We are in day two, role play one. So get ready to be creative as your customers We really want to make sure that every single team member has a clear understanding of each offer and that they feel comfortable that they can concisely convey the value in a way that aligns with our brand standards. So really important just to make sure everyone feels super comfy going into tomorrow. We're really here because we want to help business owners, irrespective of their size, scale, industry, origin. We are the team who can help literally anyone grow their business. So people will either have the option to buy one book of $100 million money models, or they can buy... Ooh, the bundle! The bundle! So where you two can put this box in your hands and feel just how chunky it is. And my favorite part of this bundle is this Scan Me to Scale Faster. Where does this go? L198! Right to my calendar! How much does the bundle cost? $5,98. Cold, stone cold. All right, love it. 5998 is how much this is. One of the things I practiced the most was actually just going through the motions. So it's like I had to practice what that flow was going to be and do it over and over and over and over again so that when I'm actually live, I'm not thinking what are my hands doing. So it's a lot like I think, I don't play a musical instrument, but I would imagine that people who play the guitar and then sing, it's similar, where it's being able to do two things at once. And so I had to kind of like play the guitar while singing figuratively and I had to just do a lot of reps. That one's like dope. No, that's, yeah, good, yeah. I need, I need speed, need for speed and I do like, there's no ambiguity with this guy. That kind of, that kind of speed, I have a need for speed. There's like hundreds of tiny things that I think people don't see and just have to be there. These are some decisions where we're going to have to live with the consequences because we can't do a lot of them again and we're not going to know what's going to happen. So like, should Should we have the phone number up? When should we have it up? What phone number should it be? Should it just go to the CS team? Should it go to a sales team? All of those are decisions that were one-time decisions that we just had to make and just hope we made the right call. What's up? What's going on? What's up, team? How's it going? How you doing? How's it going? It's good. Alex is doing a run-through downstairs. Oh, yeah? Do you want to go check it out? You can if you want. I've seen three drafts of it. Oh, okay. He wrote this first, and then he was like, hey, this is missing two other pieces. I'm going to do the offers, and then the offers had no launch, and then the leads had the launch. Because if you release the money models without the offers and the leads, they're like, wait a minute, I don't know how to do those things. You could have argued that you could have released it either way, but this is the most valuable book. If someone thinks, oh, this could help me double my business, it's very easy. I'm not saying we promise that, but I'm saying it's very easy to justify the expense within a B2B context. The issue is no one believes you. If I said I can double your business, if you believe me, then it makes sense. I wanted the entire event and the lead up to the event to exist as proof. The best way to get someone to believe is to have already done it. Proof above everything. It looks good, right? Everything's okay with it? Oh yeah, it's got a timer and everything. Have you tried, they tested the stream? Yep. Fuck yeah. I don't know about the stream. Can we ask him? Yeah, yeah, I'll do that. Or like, ideally he should send you the stream link, and then you should watch it through the stream to make sure the audio's good, that it doesn't get muted. Because Amir told me, if it gets muted, it's like, it fucks the stream. Everyone's like on edge right now. I have a terrible fear that the cursing in the promo video will have the stream get listed as 18+. Whatever anxiety about that, multiply it times 1,000. Oh, good. Face noises create so many problems. How you feeling? Like my career's on the line. In the best and worst way possible. Rather than like, how do we win? It's like, well, how would we fail? And, okay, there's six ways that this could fail. How do we prevent every single way from failing? Here are the choke points as I see them in order, and we'll find out after we're watching this if I missed one. But one is if for some reason the social media platforms throttle our ability to spend money on advertising. Sometimes it happens. Like if we can't advertise the event, the event's not going to be able to be as big, which means we're not going to make the record. Okay, so drama of the day. Approximately three hours ago, four hours ago, I was selfishly sleeping and our Google Ads account got down. So the plan now is to pivot, just rewrap the budget towards Meta. And if that doesn't work, we'll go out towards TikTok. If that doesn't work, we'll go out towards LinkedIn ads, whatever we need to do. The next choke point is going to be emails and texts. Doing some last-minute checks on the main announcement email. We also have the SMS that's about to go out as well. And this is the number one most important action, I'd say, of today, aside from everything else, is make sure that this sends. Oh, they're firing. The next choke point is where people click the link. So if they click the link, we have to make sure the link works. We checked all the links yesterday and a bunch of them are broken. The fourth choke point is going to be we have to make sure that Shopify can process payments. Our Shopify link was sending people to Serbia. Those are all of the choke points as I see them. We will find out if there's new ones that I did not know about. And yeah, we'll find out. Okay, five minutes? Five minutes? Five minutes! Okay! When we're selling, stay slow. I want to stay calm and I want to help the person make the purchase. We're making history here. This is insane. Let's go! What's gonna happen? It's gonna go great. We're about to break records. Very excited. We're about to make a lot of money for a lot of business owners. Either it's gonna go really well, which was a plan, so just follow the plan. And if it's not going well, well maybe it hasn't had time to let the plan happen yet or work yet, so just follow the plan. It's launched, dude. It's launched, it's launched. Okay. Where can we go? Alright, so the rumors are true? Yeah, baby. Alright. All right, guys, everybody quiet on set. We're going live in five, four, three. It time The 100 million dollar money models book launch is finally here Welcome to the stage, Alex Hornbladhead! You guys are awesome. You guys are awesome. Thank you guys. Thank you guys. Camera's ready? Audio ready? Lights ready? Are you guys ready? Yes? All right. I'm Alex Ramosi, and welcome to my $100 million Money Models book launch event. And we're gonna try and break world record together here live. So I've got the Guinness judges right here. Brittany, why don't you come on out? Brittany's gonna make sure that we check boxes and do the things to make this legit. Thank you so much, Brittany. We all thank you. So it's gonna be a wild ride, and you guys are gonna wanna buckle up, because it's gonna get exciting. With a $100 million money model, you can get really big, really profitable, really fast. $31 million of consulting work went into this. It's yours for free when you donate $200. And I made donating super easy by hiring and training 300-plus phone reps to help anyone out who has issues checking out. checking out. The massive value that you're going to get is not just the sales and marketing stuff. So did you get a chance to check out all the offers that Alex mentioned? I know I saw you had texted us back and said you saw that. A money model is a sequence of offers. Is there anything else that I can answer for you as well? Yellow ship to Puerto Rico. We're about to push for a hundred million in one weekend. I'm feeling awesome. It's been a blast. This is the most we've ever worked, but it's worth every second. Big dog, Sharon. Two hundo, baby. Appreciate you guys. It's so fun. Yeah, it's so fun. We just cracked $200,000. This is the VIP chat, so someone has to moderate that probably. There's several people. Oh my god. It's all pretty positive in this chat. Big boom. Big boom. I looked at those days as like boot camp. boot camp for our culture. I was talking to somebody and they were like, I'm not afraid to work hard. And I think nobody should feel afraid to work hard because of what's possible when you do. Still going, 577, 578, we may hit this. If for three days, we work harder than we've worked in years, we can break the world record. These guys are the pros. Dude, let's go. I want to show the world that one of us can start from nothing and achieve anything we put our hearts and minds to. Did I say that I wrote just one book since last? I personally delivered the recommendations. I documented their exact problems and solutions. It's Jack from acquisition.com on Record Live. Here's what I would also offer. That's perfect. Thank you so much. Enjoy. Thank you to all the players for putting books in the hands of entrepreneurs who need them. You guys are all amazing. The whole team was like, this is awesome. Everyone's like super gung-ho on like, we want to break this record, we want to break history together. Well, hey, I'm super excited for you. Thanks for doing business with us. We're at a thousand books a second right now. It's not slowing down, it's a thousand books a second. This is crazy. This playbook gives you the exact process we follow to break through ad spend ceilings and keep scaling. So here's just a fraction of what's inside. Holy fuck. This is crazy. I'll say, I think in the moment I was just feeling like, oh fuck, like it's working. Dude, you might break the record. 1.4? Yeah. I think... I feel like there's a chance. Yeah. ...that by which constraint would be the maximum amount of effort to use ACQAI to find and create a leverage. One fucking million copies. Wow. It's just so rare that the stars all align. Can you give me access to Layla's office? Can you talk to her? Okay. So if we can get the book dude here during the stream, I will interrupt the stream to present the world record award during the stream. I could bring them up with me and be like, I have something. Yes. I think that'd be good. I'd be like, I have a special guest. Okay. Here to tell you something. Yes. What is the least important thing that I'm spending time and money on? Am I willing to trade that for this other thing that I want more? If the answer is S, I make the trade. Number one, baby, let's go. Guinness World Record, broken. Wow. Could not be more proud of Alex Layla, the entire team, because the sheer amount of work that has gone into this, that every single detail that's gone into this launch is what makes you feel. I thought it would be cool to disrupt him in real time and just tell him that it happened. Because I also think when you're up there performing, knowing that your performance resulted in a result that you want, it can alleviate some of that tension that you have, and it can also make you want to keep going. So I think it's really motivating to know that he's won. Like winning makes you want to keep winning. And so whenever I like to think of my situation, if I think it's hard, there's always someone who's had it worse and done better. With that being said, let me bring up our next mystery headliner. Actually. Okay. We are interrupting. Okay. Because I brought some friends. Oh. To give you something. No shit. There we go. You broke the record. You broke the record. Hi, Alec. As you know, this record is continuing for 24 hours. Oh, we're still going. So it is quite an officially amazing achievement. You have surpassed the record already so soon into the 24-hour launch. So we will get that final number tomorrow morning and see where your final number is. But we can confirm the three of us that you are the official new record holder Congratulations Thank you Yeah Well shit Oh I not supposed to cuss my bed well shoot the idea of putting a book in the in every entrepreneur hands in America was something That was really dear to me because this was like everything I have is because of things I've learned and because of other people who decided to write it down and I thought man if I want to if I built a brand that was like Everything instead of instead of trying to hide it just like just put everything out there all the details and just build a brand based on that And so this is really a reward for you guys. Thank you guys so much. You guys are awesome. And thank you guys so much. Of course. So just so you guys know, I think the record was 1.44, something like that. 1.43. Yeah, 1.43 million copies sold. We're serious. We want to get the books into the hands of as many entrepreneurs in America as we can. And, you know, we're not stopping. So let's keep powering through. I got more stuff to show you, and I can't wait. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Congratulations. We did it. We did it. Woo! We just dethroned Prince Harry. Let's do it. Ready? Go! Great, we broke it, and now we have three more days. You know what I mean? And I'm going to go hard. As much as I do want to, like, celebrate, we got hours left. 100 million is the goal. It'll be the perfect end of the $100 million series. We broke the record. We got the Guinness thing. We got the W, but we had a bigger W to get. Most people that were a part of this, including Alex, did not wake up three years ago thinking we were going to go after the Guinness Book of World Records. But I think it shows that almost anything is achievable. What's up, guys? Congratulations. This is not a book launch. this is a chance to reimagine how we live our lives, that the underdog actually won, and we are all the underdog. The job's almost done. Not done yet. Not done yet? Why not done yet? We're still going to hit a hundred million. A hundred million sales? Yeah. That's fucking good. A hundred million dollar money model. You have to make a hundred million. We're not slowing down now. We just started. Even if you have the thing to sell, offers, and the people to sell it to bleeds, you still have another question to answer. How do you get them to give you money? It's fucking two mil before lunch. I've been working with this guy since March. He's trying to buy 10,000 books right now for his community. How's everything going? How's it going? It's going very well. It's going very well. It's pretty crazy. The sales team is too fast. I can't take calls because the sales team is too fast. Confirmed, 10,000 books. That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Just seeing the team just rally and just rage to make this happen, I would say, like, most people were like, I have not enjoyed working more than this. And they also worked more than any of them had ever done in their lives. And it was also worth it. Look at that. Part of history. Outside of that, our teams can give you the blueprint so that you can collapse the curve and actually have that result right now. If that alone can be worth it, would that protect the downside for you? I'll start this out for you and then in 30 minutes, we can give you a call back and we can figure that out. Basically, we called until we couldn't call anymore. Then we went into calling Australia because they were just waking up. That is my shoe. This is for my Aussies. I promised I would do a shoeie for you guys. since you guys are showing up at like 2 o'clock in the morning. Aussies, this is for you. You guys are awesome. The size and scope of all of this to me was not about the money, but it was about the impact. It's about that so many people around were, one, willing to invest in a book, and two, willing to donate more so that more people can win. There's never been a time in history where someone has done something for somebody else to help beat a world record. That is super cool. So now every single person that helped invest in this, donate and buy a book was a part of history. We have three hours before the Guinness World Record deadline closes to sell as many as we can. And so we're going to try to push for it. No rest for the weary. Picking the associations that you want to make is one of the clearest decisions that you have to make for the brand so that you can ultimately build the brand that your customers want to buy from and tell their friends about. Broke three million! Book launch sales support. Christine made an official. We had a hundred million, we're a hundred million dollar brand. Before the 24 hours ended. We got a solid 45 minutes left. Judge from Guinness is in there right now. We have half an hour before the world record window closes. And so she's basically looking through all of our Shopify backend data to verify the final number. Let's go Lita! 18k! 18k upsellers! Why work around the clock for something like this? Well what else would you work around the clock for? What a surreal day! It costs so much work and money and time to do the $100 million launch but like how elegant is it to have the $100 million series with a $100 million launch culminating with a book about monetization to demonstrate the ideas that the concepts inside the book work. work. Just a chill day at the office. Yeah, just took down three presidents, a former first lady, and a prince. History was made. We were going to be talking about this stuff for years to tell. And we're going to be able to say we're part of that magic. I think sometimes people lack motivation not because their goals are too big, but because they're too small. It has to be big enough to excite us. Or why bother? I'll see you next time.