YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → Alex Hormozi's Advice for Marketing Agencies

Alex Hormozi's Advice for Marketing Agencies — Transcript

by Terrence Kruse · 2,823 words · 425 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:00SMBs suck as customers. Obviously, a lot
0:02of marketers follow my stuff, and so I
0:03get a disproportionate amount of
0:04marketing agencies, and I've seen every
0:05model under the sun. You have to do
0:06this, one or the other. Your price
0:08either goes up and you serve a higher
0:10level avatar, or it goes down and you
0:12serve the one you are now, but you make
0:13sure that your delivery is almost
0:14nothing.
0:15>> That's harsh. It's also mostly right. A
0:16lot of agency owners are selling
0:18low-priced work that still needs
0:19high-touch service, and then trying to
0:21fix the margin by adding more clients.
0:23That doesn't fix it. It just spreads the
0:25same problem across more people. I've
0:27built two seven-figure agencies of my
0:29own and consulted over 75 others, and
0:31I've been on the exact side of this
0:33trademark Hermosi is describing. My
0:35second agency went the small and
0:36medium-sized business route. At our
0:38peak, we had over 100 active clients and
0:39a team of 12 handling it all. And that
0:41worked for one reason, my back end was
0:43productized. If we tried to deliver
0:45custom work to over 100 small
0:47businesses, it would have collapsed
0:48inside a month, and I'd be the one
0:49absorbing it. So, I'm going to play you
0:51five clips of Hermosi's advice. After
0:53each one, I'll show you how I'd apply
0:54inside an agency and where I'd push
0:56back. Because the first three decisions
0:57you have to make as an agency owner are
0:59all sitting inside that first clip. Who
1:01are you serving? What can you charge
1:03them? And what can your team actually
1:04deliver at that price? Let's start
1:06there.
1:09Here's what he's actually saying in
1:11agency terms. You can serve a smaller
1:13buyer with a productized low-touch
1:15service, or you can serve a higher value
1:17buyer at a price with enough margin in
1:19it for real support. Both of these work.
1:21What doesn't work is the middle, low
1:22fees with custom delivery. That's where
1:24most struggling agencies live, and it
1:26creates a capacity problem before you've
1:28even started growing. Now, here's where
1:29I'd add something. Those aren't the only
1:31two models, and I don't think the small
1:32business route is the wrong one. Yes,
1:34small and medium-sized businesses are
1:36generally more of a pain in terms of
1:37client management. That's just true, but
1:39there are a lot more of them, and as a
1:41newer agency owner, you usually can't
1:42walk straight into working with whale
1:44clients anyway. You don't have the proof
1:45yet. And the other end has its own risks
1:47that people don't talk about. You're
1:49working with established business owners
1:50at a high price with a small number of
1:52clients, losing one client can be a 25%
1:55drop in revenue. Those clients are also
1:57not easily replaceable. You don't just
1:59go find another one next week. So, there
2:01are real pros and cons either direction
2:03you go. There's also a hybrid version I
2:04like a lot. Run your core offer for
2:06established larger businesses with
2:08robust fulfillment behind it, and then
2:10you build a more productized simpler
2:12downsell for the smaller businesses who
2:14aren't ready for your high-ticket
2:15done-for-you offer. Maybe that's a
2:17do-it-yourself or a done-with-you
2:18version. Now, you have something to sell
2:20to almost everybody who books a call
2:22instead of turning away half your
2:23pipeline. But, whichever one you pick,
2:25run this test on it. Take your price and
2:27subtract everything the client actually
2:28costs you based on how many clients you
2:30currently have. Your overhead and
2:32include any extra cost for if things go
2:34south. If there's no profit, the model
2:35is obviously broken, and no amount of
2:37lead generation fixes a broken model.
2:39So, here's the decision I'd leave you
2:41with. Could your team fulfill on 10 more
2:42clients right now without you absorbing
2:44the extra work yourself? If the answer
2:46is no, you have to change the avatar,
2:48the scope, the price, or the delivery
2:50model. Do that before you go out and
2:52promise a bigger result. Once the offer
2:53and the delivery model agree, the next
2:55question is what a buyer should actually
2:57see before you ask them to book a call.
3:02>> So, most people send traffic to their
3:03website and immediately ask people to
3:05buy something or just like submit for a
3:07quote. But, here's the problem. Like,
3:08most visitors aren't ready to buy yet,
3:10and so they just leave and they never
3:12come back.
3:12>> He's right about the problem. If you
3:14send a cold visitor straight to book a
3:15call, you lose almost everybody who's
3:17interested but not ready to sit across
3:19from a salesperson yet. But, here's
3:20where I'd push back a little or at least
3:22simplify it. Most agency owners will
3:24hear this and maybe they go build a lead
3:25magnet, PDF, a funnel, an email
3:27sequence, a landing page, and then 6
3:29weeks later they still haven't launched
3:31it. In my opinion, the easiest shift and
3:33the one that converts better right away
3:35is just repositioning the call itself.
3:37Instead of book a call, make it schedule
3:39a free consultation. That's it. That's
3:41the change. You're doing a discovery
3:42process on that call anyway, so just
3:44provide some real value while you're
3:46doing it. Now, you've got an actual
3:48opportunity to build some trust, and
3:49only then do you shift into the pitch.
3:51This goes over a lot better. And then my
3:53second favorite option is repositioning
3:55the call as a free audit of some kind.
3:57If you're an AEO agency, offer a free AI
4:00visibility scan. If you're an ad agency,
4:02offer a free ad account audit. What I
4:03like about both of these is how simple
4:05they are to implement. You're simply
4:06changing book a call to get a free audit
4:08or schedule a free consultation.
4:10Literally will take you 2 minutes. Now,
4:12the tricky part is that you have to
4:13orchestrate the call differently once
4:15you've done that. You can't promise an
4:16audit and then open with a pitch. So,
4:18the first 10 to 15 minutes you actually
4:20deliver it. You do the audit, you do the
4:22consultation, then you can shift into
4:24your offer. And what I found is that
4:25when you go this route, people will
4:27often literally ask you about your paid
4:28services. They'll literally bring it up
4:30for you, and that's a completely
4:31different conversation than you
4:33pitching, pitching, pitching at somebody
4:34who isn't even interested. That's
4:36reciprocity doing the work. If you give
4:38somebody something first, they feel more
4:40inclined to give something back. Now,
4:42there are two things to keep in mind if
4:43you build this. Pick one channel to
4:45start running it on based on where your
4:47buyer actually is and what you're
4:48actually good at. Not four hypothetical
4:50campaigns you're going to test at once.
4:52And track enough to inspect it. How many
4:54people landed, how many booked, how many
4:56showed, how many were actually
4:58qualified, and ultimately how many
4:59closed. Keep a note on why you rejected
5:01the ones you rejected because that's
5:03your qualification data. The point of
5:05the audit isn't to collect email
5:06addresses, it's to make the next
5:08conversation warmer and more specific
5:10than it would have been. A useful first
5:11step can create a much warmer
5:13conversation. The sales process still
5:15has to match how much the prospect
5:17already knows and whether you can
5:18actually help them.
5:22>> To me, this looks like a warm process,
5:24not a cold process. Uh cuz someone just
5:26getting on the phone having a phone call
5:28in then 15 minutes to 10K a year,
5:30they've got to know something about you,
5:32most likely, in order to make that
5:34purchase here.
5:34>> Completely agree with this one, and
5:36every agency owner already knows it even
5:38if they've never put it into words. The
5:39clearest version of this is the
5:40difference between a call that came from
5:42a referral and a call that came from
5:43cold outbound. The referral is warm.
5:45They already trust you because somebody
5:47they trust recommended you. You can
5:49basically get on a quick call and close
5:50out the deal. Not much convincing
5:52required. Now, cold outbound is a
5:54completely different story. That person
5:55doesn't know you, hasn't seen your work,
5:57and didn't even ask for this. To win
5:59that deal, you need a proper sales demo
6:01framework in place. And honestly, you
6:03need a stronger offer, too. Because the
6:04offer is doing more of the heavy lifting
6:06in this scenario. So, here's my rule on
6:08this. Build your sales process around
6:10being able to handle cold traffic. You
6:12can always adjust down for a warm deal
6:14that's easy to close. It's very hard to
6:15go the other direction. If you are only
6:17prepared for warm referrals, and then a
6:19cold lead lands on your calendar, you'll
6:21be missing a lot of good opportunities.
6:23What changes between warm and cold is
6:24your closing call demo framework. What
6:26does not change is your standard for a
6:28good fit. And I want to specify
6:29something because qualification gets
6:31misused quite often. It shouldn't be
6:33manufactured scarcity. You're not
6:34pretending to be selective to make
6:36people want it. You're truly figuring
6:38out whether you can responsibly help
6:39this person. For my ad agency, the
6:41conditions that genuinely affected the
6:42results were things like does their
6:44offer have proof of concept? Can they
6:46handle the volume we send them? Do they
6:48have experience in sales? And is there
6:50enough budget to get real data on their
6:52campaign? Here are some simple questions
6:53you'd want to ask. What outcome are you
6:55actually after? Why now? What have you
6:57already tried? What's it costing you to
6:59leave this alone? What would make you
7:01confident enough to move forward? And
7:02these questions also translate into
7:04information that will help you close the
7:06sale. From there, you'll get a good
7:07enough idea on whether or not they're a
7:09good fit for the program. And if the
7:11results depend on variables you don't
7:12control, don't hide that inside a
7:14guarantee. Make sure it's aligned. You
7:16don't want to end up needing to refund
7:17them in 3 months. Quick pause because
7:19this is where a lot of agency owners get
7:21stuck. When you look at the whole front
7:22end of an agency, the first visible
7:24problem usually isn't the real
7:25constraint. You'll think that you need
7:27more leads when the actual issue is that
7:29your calls are failing. Or you'll blame
7:30the closer when your offer is attracting
7:32the wrong buyer entirely. That's the
7:34kind of thing we work through on a quick
7:35consultation. We look at your offer,
7:37your lead generation, your sales
7:39process, and your delivery as one
7:40system. So, we can figure out which
7:42constraint is actually holding you back
7:44and what to fix first. If you'd like us
7:46to look at yours, you can apply through
7:47the link below. All right, once the
7:49sales process matches the buyer, the
7:51next question is whether you even have
7:52capacity to deliver on what you just
7:54sold.
7:58>> When you are supply constrained, you can
8:00either [music]
8:00raise the price, so fewer people buy and
8:03the people who buy you get paid more
8:04for, or
8:06you change the ratio of delivery,
8:08meaning you go from one-on-one
8:10to one-on-four to one-on-six to
8:11one-to-many, or you productize, or you
8:15hire people.
8:16>> Those four levers are right, and I'd add
8:18that most agency owners never get to
8:19choose between them because of they're
8:21stuck underneath the problem. What I see
8:23constantly is the owner trapped in the
8:24fulfillment work. They're the one
8:26building the campaigns, writing the
8:28copy, running the calls, and that limits
8:30the entire business because now the
8:31ceiling on the agency is however many
8:33hours the one person has. For an agency,
8:35the general path forward is productizing
8:38the offer. That means building systems,
8:40leveraging AI, creating SOPs,
8:42implementing automations, and hiring.
8:44And I'd change the order Hermosi implies
8:46there at least for right now. Research
8:48the AI implementation first. More and
8:50more agency tasks can genuinely be
8:52handled by AI at this point, and it's
8:54usually the cheapest and fastest of
8:55those four levers. Look there before you
8:57go post a job. Now, here's where I'd
8:59push back on how people execute this.
9:01Productizing is supposed to remove
9:03avoidable variation. It's not supposed
9:05to strip out the judgment your clients
9:06are actually paying for. There's a big
9:08difference between systemizing how a
9:10campaign gets launched and having nobody
9:11experienced ever look at the account.
9:14Clients can feel the second one, and
9:15they leave. So, map your agency's client
9:17experience out. Onboarding, fulfillment,
9:19support, reporting, then separate the
9:22work that's genuinely repeatable from
9:23the decisions that still need somebody
9:25who knows what they're doing. Then pick
9:27the one lever that fits your actual
9:28constraint. One, don't try to raise your
9:31price, productize, and hire in the same
9:33month because then you won't know which
9:34one moved the needle. Whatever you end
9:36up implementing can be monitored over
9:37time to ensure it's working as designed.
9:39And there's two more things worth saying
9:41about this. Once your productized,
9:43you're just running a more efficient
9:44operation, which means more clients can
9:46come in without a drop in quality.
9:48That's the whole idea of this. But it's
9:49also about margins. Productizing isn't
9:52only a capacity play. Done right, it's
9:53what lets you keep healthy margins as
9:55you scale instead of watching it shrink
9:57every time you add a client. Before you
9:59accept another sale, run the capacity
10:00check. If you don't feel confident you
10:02can bring on another 10 clients with
10:04ease, well, now you have something new
10:05to focus on. After the delivery model
10:07can handle more clients, the remaining
10:09constraint is usually the owner's own
10:10time.
10:14>> Cuz what it's going to do is give you
10:15full transparency into where your time
10:17is going. It's a is there a process, a
10:20person, or project that I need to
10:22create?
10:23>> Strongly agree with all of that. You
10:24can't remove a bottleneck you've never
10:26really observed. But I think Hormozi
10:28missed something here, and it's a big
10:29one in 2026. Hormozi says process,
10:31person, or project. But there's a fourth
10:33question now, and I'd ask it before all
10:35of the other three. Can AI do this?
10:37That's genuinely a different answer than
10:39it even was a year ago. It's usually
10:41cheaper and faster than hiring somebody.
10:43If you skip that question, you'll end up
10:44making a hire for something that didn't
10:46even need a human at all. And this is
10:47exactly why I have all of my mentees run
10:50what I call a task audit. You start by
10:51documenting where all of your time is
10:53actually going. Every task, every
10:55recurring decision, everything that's
10:57eating into your week. You do that first
10:59before you build anything because most
11:00owners are wrong about where their time
11:02is going. Then you build the proper
11:03system or make the proper hire behind
11:05each task. Now, there's an order to this
11:07that matters, and it's specific to
11:09agencies. You want to get yourself out
11:10of the fulfillment first. Then, once
11:12you're past about 30K per month, you can
11:14slowly start worrying about removing
11:15yourself from sales, not before that.
11:17Sales is usually the last thing you
11:19should hand off because early on, you're
11:21the best closer you have, and you're
11:22also the one learning the most from the
11:24calls. And one more caution here, don't
11:26start this by delegating the most
11:27integral operations within your agency.
11:30Start with something recurring and lower
11:31risk that still waits on you. For
11:33whatever you pick, document the input,
11:35the decision rule, the output, the
11:37quality check, and the condition that
11:38brings it back to you. Then let the
11:40person actually do it on live work while
11:42you watch. Inspect the result, improve
11:44the process, then move to the next one.
11:46And after you hand something off, look
11:48at the agency again because the
11:50constraint will move. It might land back
11:51on acquisition or sales or delivery.
11:54That's not a failure, that's what
11:55progress looks like. So, if you want a
11:5630-day version of the whole video,
11:58here's the order. Align your offering
12:00your delivery model, lean into one lead
12:02generation method, inspect your
12:04qualification, stabilize delivery, then
12:06transfer one decision off your plate. Do
12:08it in that order and you'll stop working
12:10on the loudest problems and start
12:11finding what the real problems are. Now,
12:13if this audit told you that qualified
12:15opportunities are the immediate
12:16constraint in your agency, the next
12:18thing you should watch is the best lead
12:20generation strategy for agencies in
12:212026. In that one, I break down how to
12:24choose one lead system and figure out
12:25why it is or isn't booking you qualified
12:27calls. It's on screen now and I'm
12:29looking forward to seeing you there.

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of Alex Hormozi's Advice for Marketing Agencies by Terrence Kruse, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 2,823 words across 425 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to translate the transcript into 100+ languages.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, translation to 100+ languages, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.