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Chapter 1: What is the significance of predicting outcomes in business?
If you are not good at predicting what is going to happen next, life will be hard for you. And the better you get at predicting what's going to happen next, the more you will get what you want. And so then being able to predict what's going to happen requires a
an accurate framework of how reality works and i think that that's where you know if you've lost everything and then you can rebuild it again it's because you accurately review view reality and it wasn't luck you can redo it again and so for me i think a big part of it was like i find like the most people don't know what they're saying most of the time
Like the vast majority of people spend their time regurgitating and re parroting things that they never thought about. And so I think that the single greatest razor that I have for defining reality more accurately has been removing all sentiment, emotion and quote psychology from the equation and only looking at it from a behaviorist frame of what can I observe?
Chapter 2: How can removing emotion enhance decision-making?
where you put out a lot of content. And so I don't know what, and I can't imagine you do all of it, you have help I would imagine.
So the reason that I think the brand has been consistent across the board is because I do, all content that goes out is me. So basically anything that's written, I wrote, or is a transcription of something I said. So those are like, if I said it, I'll stand by it. And so like captions on Instagram are just tweets.
LinkedIn posts are transcriptions and or transcriptions plus tweets or many tweets put together. But X is still my, my like core. That's like my, that's like my home base. X is where my source of truth and then everything kind of springs from X.
So you put out two or three or four a day. You probably scroll the comments and you probably get inspiration like, oh, I'm seeing a lot of people say this thing.
No, not at all. So the only tool I use is a tool that allows me to schedule things in the future. And so I'll have a conversation with you and something will come up and I'll be like, oh, that was a pithy thing I just said. And then I'll just put it to whatever my next tweet moment is and then it'll come out whenever it comes out. And so that's, that's like my, my tweet strategy.
And then the team, when I do like the live streams or whatever, like the team's behind the camera here. And, you know, I've got one or two of my guys who's like taking notes. I'm like, oh, that was a cool thing you said. And then they'll send it to me afterwards.
And then when I go and make tweets in bulk, which I do like every once in a while, they'll just send me a shitload of quotes that I've said. And then I'll just, you know, massage the edges and then post it.
What percentage of your time per week is dedicated just like content creation?
So as of right now, I do one recording day a week, which is like four hours. And then on weekends, I spend about two hours on written. So six hours-ish.
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Chapter 3: What strategies does Alex use for consistent content creation?
So, honest truth, I really don't read as much as I probably should. Most, almost all my stuff just comes from like me doing it and then saying, man, there's gotta be an easy way to describe this. Um, if I happen to come along some sort of, you know, if there's some coincidence, I see that as corroboration of an idea.
But yeah, no, I really don't consume anyone else's stuff for, for like inspiration. I like, I have enough shit going on every day. I have tons of stuff to talk about. Um,
and so yeah no the management document was like all right fundamentally people don't do stuff for a reason i have to figure out what that reason is and if there's a way that i can have a framework that i can have for this conversation that makes it less like how do i not attack the person right rather than say like you are lazy piece of it's like that's that's unlikely to be productive and also probably not the real cause of why they're not doing things because most people do prefer to stay employed and also prefer to you know do a good job i think by and large
And so it's like if we take that to be true and I want them to succeed and so do they, then like what's getting in the way here? It's like, well, I didn't communicate that I wanted them to do this thing. OK, well, that's on me. I didn't tell like I told them, but then they're like, cool, I don't know how to do that. That's a training issue. OK.
You know, they didn't know there was a deadline associated with it's a win problem. Right. And then it's like, OK, well, they knew when to do it. They knew how to do it. And then and they knew that I wanted them to do it. Then it's like, OK, well, then is there something blocking them? Now, the motivation one of like they're not motivated to is like technically correct.
But it's the last one that I'll go to because most times people are relatively motivated to do it. Now, mind you, there's definitely times when that's just not the case. Right. Or the how component has a more generalized skill that someone doesn't have. So I'll say differently, like If in order to do a role, my position is like, you probably heard like attitude versus aptitude.
And that used to bug me a lot because I was like, well, that can't always be what it is, right? Because it's really just that there's a deficiency in someone's skill set to enter an organization to do a role. And so we want to hire for the small skill deficiency.
If you're hiring for what people consider low skill labor, so if you run an Airbnb and need maids or you have a yogurt shop and you need to have people who clean the counter and check people out, that's very low skill technically. But in terms of hiring, you're going to hire for attitude, not aptitude.
And that's just because the amount of skills required to train someone on attitude far outweigh the skills it takes to take somebody who's already friendly, knows how to show up on time, can smile, say hello, makes chitchat, teach them how to use a cash register and clean the thing could take like two hours. Like it's not a lot of training in order to do that role.
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Chapter 4: How does Alex define success in hiring practices?
Tweak it. Try it again. When we do that, we get to see how coachable they are, how much ego they have, and how quickly they can learn. Intelligence. And so from there, we're like, great.
I actually read a book that you suggested. The guy who did HubSpot sales team wrote that book. We do the same thing here.
Yeah, and it's funny because like, It's like we ended up re-deriving the exact same interview process as the book. And so it was very corroborating.
He actually says that IQ is the number one. He's like charisma is important, but it's not the most important thing. Ability to learn quickly.
And I think part of that also, because they were selling to business owners, and so do we in most of our portfolios B2B. And so if a salesperson is being outgunned consistently by the people that they're getting on the phone with, the people on the phone feel like they're talking to somebody who's an idiot and can't actually help them solve their problem.
And so, yeah, I think general intelligence is such an important part. But honestly, it started there, but I kind of just see it across the organization. Show me exceptional organizations that employ dumber people. I mean, there are some, but especially in the work that we do, B2B and higher level, you need horsepower.
So in terms of intelligence, rate of learning, and we can actually demonstrate them learning on a small level. And that works, same thing with editors. We follow a very similar process. Here's some raw footage. Send us a clip back with your edit. We can look at just the final output.
And that allows us to be more objective about, like some people don't present well, but that doesn't mean they're bad editors. And I think like interviewing itself is a skill just like anything else. And I don't need somebody who's great at interviewing. I need somebody who's great at editing. Right.
And so trying to pull that apart and something that Layla's taught me that's been really helpful for me lately has been She's like, some people are incredibly smart, but are not very good at communicating. And depending on the role, they might not have as much need for that level of communication. And so that's where it gets a little bit more nuanced. But I want to be really clear.
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Chapter 5: What is the importance of general intelligence in hiring?
And almost the whole room raised their hands. I'm like, okay, cool. Now, of those of you who are on your second business and beyond, who here, your current business grew way faster or passed your first businesses? And almost the entire room raised their hands. And I always think, so why is that? And so I think that at the most basic level,
it's pattern recognition, but especially when it comes to talent. And so like, if you think about building like let's say a million dollar business, it's like first you have us, you have some marketing function, you have some sales function, you have some delivery function, you know, whatever, you know, across the board.
And for the first time ever, as soon as, you know, maybe a million, maybe it's three million a year, whatever it is, like it's not you anymore. Like somebody else has to do some of this stuff. And so you get your first pattern recognition of like, oh, this is somebody who can do some advertising. Or this is some person who can do some sales. This is a person who can do some low level management.
This is a person who can do some delivery or whatever. And so, and you basically keep struggling and keep plateauing at that level until you find that one person who's like competent. And then you're like, Oh my God, you can do the job. This is amazing. And then the business grows until that next level, that next constraint.
And so then across the board by department, one by one, it's like you have these six month, 12 month periods where you go through interviews and interviews and hiring and onboarding just to see if this person's competent. And then whenever they're not, You're like, I have to start over again. And then the business basically stays where it's at.
I think the more experience we've had on each of these roles of like, this is what SDR looks like. This is what an SDR manager looks like. This is what a closer looks like. This is what a senior closure looks like. This is what a closing manager looks like. This is what a director of sales looks like. This is what a VP of sales looks like.
Like it took me time to learn each of these levels and obviously do that across departments. But then after that point, when you got these new, the new businesses, you go after, you're not even building the business. You're just assembling it. You're like, these are all the pieces that are required to make this business.
Who have you hired recently? Um, that is significantly better than you or has taught you something because you're in the world now where you have to do all the talking and a lot of the, you're all using at your workshops and with companies that you work with.
Yeah. Who've K2. Sharon does. Sharon's our new president. He's so knowledgeable on the, I mean, he's so knowledgeable on a lot of different things, but like, you know, he's had two plus billion dollar companies. And so obviously acquisition is, you know, the third that, you know, we're shooting for, depending on, you know, when we have our third party validation.
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Chapter 6: What role does pain play in effective marketing?
But a lot of people, in some ways, it's like it's less risky to come to ACQ because we have so much demand and there's just there's so much opportunity. That's basically it. Like if you're working for Jimmy said, you know, use a different brand like Mr. Beast, like he has virtually a limitless demand. And so if he said, Hey, can you help me spin up whatever, pick a random thing.
If Mr. Beast was going to say, hey, let's start an umbrella brand, it doesn't mean, he for sure will sell umbrellas. It's just not the best use of his resources. So it's like, we need somebody who can come in, recognize the best vehicle for the demand that we have, and then be able to obviously execute it on it. But a lot of people don't have that built-in guaranteed
You know, they just don't have that. And so that becomes actually significantly riskier despite, you know, what other, quote, perks might exist. And so it's like you've guaranteed demand. You've basically guaranteed growth. As fast as you can grow, we can grow. And we also still pay exceptionally well. And so with those things put together, we can get very, very good talent.
And there's also people that are just very mission driven. Like we have a lot of people who come in and are like, I've consumed your stuff for years. And I saw the recruiter reached out to me and I was stoked. And that was it. Like there's just in some ways it's like, you know, private equity number 17. It's like it's almost it's just commoditized, like their business is commoditized.
It's just not that interesting. And so they have to compete on price. And so their price is their comp. Whereas if you have a value proposition, like what's the what's the Grand Slam offer from an employee perspective rather than a Grand Slam offer from a product perspective? Because it's still the exact same process of acquiring talent as it is to acquire customers. It's just a reverse funnel.
yeah so we could say uh what's like a really a salesperson that's a simple one uh but i'm hiring other roles so i'm powering um chapter leads so we have 13 chapters that we uh they send about having hiring people manage each chapter i mean the easy answer is settling but it's so tough because there's there's trades because these things don't exist outside of time you know it's like i have to fill this role
And I want to find somebody, especially obviously for us at the C-level, because that's what's top of mind for me. It's like I have to have somebody that when I'm on the phone with them, I'm thinking I have to have this person. And if I don't have that, I'm like, man, I really need this role.
And so if I'm thinking from the like, I really have to fill this role angle, it's like usually not the right person. If I'm thinking like I don't even care if I have a role for this person, I have to get them in. It's usually the right person.
Are you willing to pay them more than you originally thought?
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Chapter 7: How can one effectively communicate expectations to employees?
Like full stop. Like, where else do you get 10x, 20x returns, 100x returns, and can do so reliably? Like, talent is one of those places you can do it. I will also say that typically the higher up the org, the higher the arbitrage. Are you fast at fire? We continue to get faster. I'll say that. I think we get faster. I would say that our firing practices... do somewhat rely on the constraint.
So like sometimes, you know, Layla says this, but like some fires aren't kitchen fires. They're like the trash can in the driveway is on fire. It's like, it's a problem. Like we'll get to it, but it's not the thing that's limiting the business.
And so if we have somebody who's not as good as they should be, but they're not in a role that's right now, like limiting the company, it's probably not going to be our first priority to take them out. But as soon as that becomes the constraint, then it like quickly gets unearthed and then it gets handled. That's like the realistic answer.
I sensed a small bit in your voice where it sounded like potentially you were slow to fire because maybe I'm raised to what's interesting or your kind of voice.
It was like, I just don't like it. Well, I don't think anybody likes it. I think we're fast to fire if it is the constraint of the business and clearly that person is the one limiting us. Like we will not sacrifice the company's growth and the opportunity of all the people who've trusted us with their careers. to not have a comfortable conversation. There's also levels of this.
And so like, let's say there's like, you know, red, yellow, green, right? If someone's like, well, green, they're great, fine. So basically you've got maybe like yellow, orange, red, let's use that as the three levels. For me, like if somebody's just not, doesn't have the complete competence, but is not, like they can still do their job, but they're not doing it as well as they should.
And they're definitely not gonna grow and they can't take on new opportunities. then that to me is like a yellow. If they're like for sure, like they can't actually do their role right now, that's an orange. If red is like, you can't do the role right now and that thing is required for us to grow.
And so that's that's kind of like I'd say, like, it's a combination of like, what is the business need and how incompetent is the person? And so the rates of firing, I think, would depend on both of those things. Obviously, we want to like in a perfect world, we get everyone out who's not a fit as soon as humanly possible.
It's just that sometimes some people do turn it around with good feedback and coaching. And that probably happens half the time. And so, you know, people are messy. And also like we have a reputation too. We don't want to like, we don't want to be seen as, you know, brutal employers. But at the same degree, like we are intense and people do work a lot here.
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