Late last year, my lead generation methods failed.
We saw solid growth in 2023 and early 2024 with a focus on Google search ads and LinkedIn video ads.
Both started to decline at the end of 2024.
Nothing I did changed the results.
I can’t say why this happened – but I expected it. Nothing in marketing works forever.
I decided to dive into books to motivate myself and come up with new ideas. Alex Hormozy.
His trilogy of books is almost complete, with the third coming out soon as I write this.
I listened to his first two audiobooks, $100M Offers and $100 million lead.
I found the guides book especially very practical, so much so that I went through it a second time.
I also listen to Alex’s podcast episodes almost every day. He has some deep dives into marketing and sales, which are solid resources.
Alex is one of the most tactical marketing content creators out there. He provides concrete direction that is relevant today as he draws on his work with founders of active companies.
It’s not easy to do because marketing never stays the same, so it’s hard to teach.
Wanting more content on lead generation, I downloaded the audiobooks Russell Brunson. I was especially interested in revisiting it Traffic secrets book, part of his trilogy of books (Dot Com Secrets, Expert secrets, Traffic secrets).
I’ve never been a huge fan of Russell’s content, but I seriously respect his conclusions. Clickfunnels is a beast, and if webinars and funnels are part of your marketing, Russell is someone you should be listening to.
For this newsletter, I thought I’d list a few takeaways from these two marketing legends who have the results (and net worth!) to back up what they teach.
Here is a short list of highlights from their books…
1. “Dream 100” by Russell Brunson
This concept of Russell’s has been around for a long time. Based on his books, this remains his primary traffic tactic.
The idea is simple: Do your research to find a list of “sleeping 100” people who already have your target audience, and find a way to do something that gives them exposure to their audience.
The suggested methods for doing this are wide and varied, Russell goes over a few in his book.
From social media content exchanges to podcast interviews, co-promotions, influencer marketing campaigns, book launches, and even something as simple as running paid ads targeting the dream 100 audience (like Russell targeted Tony Robin’s audience).
Some of these tactics cost money. Most of it is based on building relationships.
I find this concept useful because it narrows your focus down to just 100 people.
However, I find this concept frustrating because you can basically “do anything in marketing” to reach that audience of 100 people. It’s hard to know where to start.
Of course, to be fair to Russell, this is why marketing is so hard to teach. There is no right solution for all situations, and the options are vast and constantly changing.
A guide on how to conclude this technique is useful, if a little strategically difficult.
2. Create more content
Alex Hormozy points out the obvious several times in his lead generation book and podcast episodes: do more of what works.
Originally, this idea was introduced in a story Alex shared about recruiting a well-known social media influencer (presumably Gary Vaynerchuk) for personal calls that lead to a delicious top tip for improving organic results from social media:
Publish more content.
Alex explained how he was asked by Gary (presumably) how much content he had published that day. It turns out that Gary publishes as much in a day as Alex publishes in a week.
Simply increasing the volume will increase traffic.
Not easy to do, especially if you want to maintain quality, but Alex clearly took the advice to heart as he was EVERYWHERE on social media today.
3. Advertise more
As Alex moved into the paid media section of his lead book, the ‘earn more’ concept resurfaced.
The advice this time is to advertise more, especially if the channel works for you.
One reason to test more ads is to test more hooks.
Ad formats are becoming obsolete.
New trends emerge that you can test with your audience.
It’s a good idea to test new ad hooks with new ad delivery styles on a platform that already works for you.
I took it to heart, so much so that we are working on new advertising media as we write this.
I think one of the reasons why our results are down is because our advertising media is outdated. We haven’t tested nearly enough hooks and need new video styles.
4. Don’t Open New Channels
I’ve heard Alex recommend several times to do more ad media on an existing channel as opposed to launching a new campaign on a new channel.
If Instagram works for you, rolling out a YouTube ad campaign is very attractive.
However, the smarter decision is to double down on Instagram because there’s still room to grow — and always have.
If your channel is “sort of” working for you, but isn’t consistently bringing in leads, you’re wondering – let’s go try the same ads on this other platformwhen you probably need to get better with the channel you’re already on.
I did exactly that, spread my ad budget across more channels because I was frustrated with the inconsistent results.
5. Spend more time on preparation (quality)
I’ve been hearing this advice for decades, but it’s nice to hear Alex reinforce this idea again, which is even more important as AI-generated content fills the internet (it’s already full of content!).
Alex explained that today he spends more time on prep work to create better content, which requires less post-production editing.
Better quality content is reformatted, resulting in better video shorts, better podcasts, better advertising media, and more.
If you start with better ingredients, you’ll end up with better food.
Tools like OpusClip use AI to quickly create short movies from videos, but they’re rarely of high quality.
Stepping in front of the camera and shooting a long rambling video might feel productive, but it often leads to impactful content that’s less attention-grabbing and harder to edit together.
Taking the time to craft well and present well results in content with greater impact.
This gives your editing team better source material to create more engaging content, which in turn is more likely to be shared.
It’s not an easy shift—it takes work to get ready—but it’s a good thing, a competitive advantage.
Make more, do more – and do it together
Both Alex and Russell laid out a lot of specific lead generation techniques they use, which, to be honest, are nothing new.
Turn on ads. Find affiliate partners. Produce more and better content.
etc.
While I enjoy all the stories these people share to show how these tactics have been applied by themselves or the founders they work with, the real point is what you will do to grow your own business.
In my case, I decided to produce more advertising media and create new hooks – even a new landing page with a new domain name to present our offer differently.
In your case, you may still not have a reliable source of customers, so you need to choose a channel, prepare well and go deep there.
If you already have customers but growth has stalled, refocusing and doing more in the same channel is probably the best option.
There is no perfect answer, but as a growth marketer this is what you signed up for and will continue to do – get used to it!
Child
