# How to Monetize an Audience Without Selling Out | Ep 972

An episode of [The Game with Alex Hormozi](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1254720112), 21 May 2026, 8:27.

Audio: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/episode.flightcast.com/du6xf8x6r2c36tgxw2mlmatf.mp3

Join Alex At The Live In-Person Scaling Workshop In Las Vegas: https://www.acquisition.com/o-vegas Many business owners are chasing the wrong metrics on social media. Alex pulled 3 billion impressions and 4.5 million new subscribers in 12 months, not by chasing views, but by obsessing over the right viewers. In this episode, he reveals the vanity metrics trap, why interest media is the game now, and the volume math that separates winners from losers. In this episode 00:00 Raw vs. curated social media content 01:29 How volume creates influence 02:45 The shift from social media to interest media 04:41 Leveraging IRL feedback in content creation 05:40 Understanding your real market size More Value: Download your free personalized $100M scaling roadmap in under 30 seconds: https://www.acquisition.com/roadmap?el=yt-alex-486r&htrafficsource=youtube Join The Live Scaling Workshop In Las Vegas: https://www.acquisition.com/o-vegas Discover The Easiest Business I Can Help You Start (Free Trial): https://www.skool.com/hormozi Free Books and Video Courses: https://www.acquisition.com/training Get the $100M Book Bundle: https://shop.acquisition.com/pages/100m-book-bundle Follow Alex Hormozi’s Socials: LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition DISCLOSURE Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary. Copyright © 2026.

## Transcript

[0:00] In the last 12 months, my social media had a grand total of three billion
[0:03] impressions and brought in 4.5 million new subscribers.
[0:05] And with that, I managed to break the world record for the fastest selling
[0:08] non-fiction book of all time during just over 105 million dollars in sales in a weekend.
[0:12] And here are my top lessons that I've learned when it comes to building a personal record.
[0:16] I mean, we have this saying which is like butts and seats.
[0:19] If you just make a bunch of like meme content, right?
[0:21] Some of you guys are chasing views when what I think you want is you want to have
[0:25] prospects who are more likely to comply with the future request.
[0:29] And so we need to change our behavior to maximize the likely that occurs.
[0:32] And so in looking at this thing, this is why I'm telling you like,
[0:36] showing my cards, I'm going to be doing more live streams.
[0:39] And I think it's also, and this is me like outside of SPCL,
[0:42] but I think like meta themes overall.
[0:44] I think that the internet will always move towards truth.
[0:46] And so I think the A-listers, everything's super curated,
[0:50] everything's super polished, it's Photoshopped, it's scripted.
[0:53] And as you move closer this way, it's raw or like you have a three-hour podcast,
[0:58] like if they're not scripted, right, or most of them work, right?
[1:01] Streaming, it's like, yeah, there were live, right?
[1:03] I can't do anything like we're live.
[1:04] This idea of how can we approximate the rawest reality of you us hanging out, right?
[1:12] And actually going through this stuff, I think that is what will unlock the most
[1:16] influence as long as you are still including these SPCL elements into it.
[1:20] And I think that's the marriage.
[1:21] Do a SPCL and do it as many times as I possibly can.
[1:26] That's the idea.
[1:27] And so live stream provides that opportunity.
[1:29] Let's also think about this from a context of volume.
[1:31] Whether you like them or not, Rogan tremendous influence, right?
[1:34] To the same degree, PBD, tremendous influence.
[1:37] Dave Ramsey, tremendous influence.
[1:38] What is it that these guys have in common?
[1:40] They're putting out hours of content every single day.
[1:46] So I said earlier that we had 35,000 pieces of content, right?
[1:48] I hear plenty of times, there's tons of, you know,
[1:51] $1 million businesses, $2 million businesses, things like that.
[1:53] They put out one piece of content a day, right?
[1:55] And there's nothing wrong with that.
[1:56] That's 365 pieces of content a year.
[1:59] And if you think about the size of acquisition.com,
[2:01] it's all revenue, right?
[2:02] Compared to somebody who's doing $1 or $2 million a year,
[2:05] and they're doing 365 pieces of content,
[2:07] we're just quite literally doing 100 times more.
[2:10] And as a result of that 100 times of volume,
[2:12] what do you think's happening?
[2:13] We get 100 times the prospect.
[2:15] And so people want to try and like outsmart themselves
[2:18] and thinking that they can like not do the work that's required.
[2:22] But it's actually far more linear than you would expect.
[2:24] So like we just know that like one out of 10, you know,
[2:26] shorts is going to go, you know,
[2:28] it's going to be a two or three X outlier.
[2:30] We just know that math looks like same thing for longs.
[2:32] How do I just jam as much into that input output machine
[2:35] as I possibly can?
[2:36] And as long as I'm checking these boxes,
[2:38] like I'm making the right kind of content,
[2:40] then you're going to get the right kind of prospects.
[2:43] So I can do one more nugget, like I said,
[2:45] which is that some of you guys may have heard this.
[2:47] And it's a concept of social media
[2:52] is now turning into interest media.
[2:55] Okay, so what does this mean?
[2:56] Let's unpack this for a second.
[2:57] If you make content and you judge it by views,
[3:01] I think that's dumb and I'll explain why.
[3:02] If I have a grandma public come and just do a running slap
[3:06] and just slap me across the face,
[3:08] that video will probably get views.
[3:11] But does it get the grandma views?
[3:12] No, does it get me any, any more people
[3:14] who now believe more in my stuff?
[3:17] No.
[3:18] But what it will do is it will show it to people who are interested in humor,
[3:20] which is a lot of people, right?
[3:22] But those might not be your customers,
[3:24] and they probably aren't.
[3:25] So assuming you're not an entertainer
[3:27] and you are somebody who's a business person,
[3:29] if you sell services to anyone,
[3:31] you're likely going to be an educator,
[3:33] not an entertainer,
[3:34] meaning you're trying to provide value people
[3:36] to change their behavior in some way,
[3:37] and ideally changing the behavior
[3:38] that gets them to walk closer to you and buy stuff.
[3:40] Okay, so what do I mean by social versus interest?
[3:43] If you want to attract the right avatar,
[3:46] make content for that avatar.
[3:48] That sounds so obvious and simple
[3:50] and the thing is that no one does it
[3:52] because here's the writer downer.
[3:53] The content is the targeting.
[3:55] The algorithm is so good now.
[3:56] It knows what you're talking about.
[3:58] It can literally judge your background.
[4:01] It judges what you're wearing.
[4:02] It judges who you are.
[4:03] And we'll display it to the people
[4:04] that they know have a history
[4:05] of watching content that is similar to that,
[4:08] that people find valuable.
[4:09] And so if you're making stuff
[4:10] about how to fix pianos
[4:12] because you're a piano repair guy,
[4:13] then you will find people
[4:14] who are trying to fix their pianos.
[4:16] But if you're making that type of content,
[4:17] you might be like, man, I'm only getting,
[4:19] you know, a thousand views of video.
[4:20] It's a gap with the market of people
[4:22] who are buying pianos
[4:22] might be significantly smaller
[4:23] than the market of people
[4:24] who just want to be entertained or distracted.
[4:26] So it's not fair to compare your views
[4:29] against Mr. Beasts.
[4:30] It doesn't make any sense.
[4:31] If I were to think to myself like,
[4:32] I have a room of a thousand people
[4:34] that are going to watch this.
[4:34] And all of them are only interested in fixing pianos.
[4:38] That's a hell of an opportunity.
[4:39] I care so much more about IRL responses.
[4:42] So what do I mean by that?
[4:42] If I make a video
[4:44] and then I get texts
[4:45] from business owners that I like
[4:47] and that I respect being like, yo, that was fire,
[4:49] then I'm like, okay, I'm on the right track.
[4:51] And so some of you guys,
[4:52] let me know in the comments
[4:53] you guys have seen a format
[4:56] that we talked about, we call cash cows.
[4:57] But basically it's me.
[4:59] There's a business owner
[4:59] that presents a little bit of their business.
[5:01] They come to this side
[5:01] and we talk about how to like,
[5:02] how to improve their business, right?
[5:03] So let me know in the comments
[5:04] if you like that style.
[5:06] And if you do,
[5:08] let me know if you're a business owner or not.
[5:09] Okay, so like, I like that style
[5:12] and I'm not a business owner.
[5:13] I like that style
[5:13] and I am a business owner.
[5:14] Or I don't like that style
[5:16] and I'm a business owner.
[5:17] Or I don't like that style
[5:18] and I'm not a business owner.
[5:19] If you are a business owner,
[5:20] when I have people who are here in person,
[5:21] I are in real life in Vegas, right?
[5:23] Business owners who fly out, I ask,
[5:26] I say, what is your favorite type of content?
[5:28] Dollars to donuts,
[5:29] that's their favorite type of content.
[5:30] And so I make more of that,
[5:32] even though, and it would make sense,
[5:33] like it would make sense
[5:34] that there's fewer of those people, right?
[5:37] Just think about math.
[5:38] If you've got the whole population here,
[5:41] I'll show you a little graph on this.
[5:43] So let's say that 100% of people,
[5:45] like this represents 100%
[5:47] let's just use USA,
[5:48] because I already know all the numbers for USA.
[5:49] Okay, so let's say this is 100%.
[5:52] All right, you get 100% of people are interested.
[5:53] Okay, well, right now,
[5:55] only 9% of people even own a business.
[5:58] Like, 9%.
[5:59] So right off the bat,
[6:01] I'm gonna have a huge percentage of people
[6:03] that aren't my ideal audience.
[6:04] Now, of course,
[6:05] I do have people who are business interested
[6:06] and that's why I'm a co-founder of school
[6:09] and we give people a way to go start a business online
[6:12] in a low cost way, right?
[6:14] Which you can do,
[6:15] it's nine bucks a month after 14-day trial,
[6:16] you can guys can check it out.
[6:17] And there's a bunch of like training
[6:18] and community and all that good stuff.
[6:20] All right, but you can go school.com,
[6:21] I think forward slash or mozi.
[6:23] I think it's below this video.
[6:24] Doesn't matter, point big.
[6:25] 9% is what I'm competing for, okay?
[6:27] Now, that means there's about 32 to 33 million
[6:31] business owners in the US, okay?
[6:33] 32 million, that's 100% of all business owners.
[6:36] Now, within that,
[6:38] 95% of that 9% is below $1 million in revenue.
[6:43] 95% then I've got 5% of that 9% that are over a million.
[6:52] Now, if you want to get,
[6:53] if you want to get weird with it,
[6:54] what percent do you think is over 10 million?
[6:57] 0.4% one in 250.
[7:00] And then 100 million nine figures is I think one in roughly
[7:05] 3000, depending on like your data source,
[7:07] one in 3000 businesses gets to 100 million here.
[7:11] This big.
[7:13] And so it would make sense then that we've given these numbers,
[7:17] right, 9% is 32 million.
[7:19] So out of 5% of that is going to be a million and a half people.
[7:22] There's only a million and a half people
[7:23] who are business owners doing over a million,
[7:25] based on the math that this is Census Bureau data.
[7:27] Maybe there's this incorrect, but that's the math, right?
[7:30] And so if we're looking at that's the market,
[7:32] then it would make sense that I'm not going to get
[7:35] all 100% of them to watch my video, right?
[7:37] If I got one and a half million views and 100% of them
[7:39] were business owners, I'd be insane, right?
[7:41] And so it would make sense that like if I get 100,000 views
[7:43] on a video that has, that's really made
[7:46] for that level of business owner, then I'm crushing it, right?
[7:49] And it doesn't make sense to look at, you know,
[7:51] Mr. Reesa video with 100 million views
[7:53] and be like, man, I suck.
[7:54] It's like, dude, we're going after, we have different,
[7:56] we have different games, right?
[7:58] And so I'd encourage you to create accurate expectations
[8:01] of the size of the market that you're going after.
[8:03] And also think about the translation of these numbers
[8:06] into IRL.
[8:06] I have two businesses that I looked at in the last year
[8:08] that we're doing over a million dollars a year
[8:10] with less than 5,000 followers.
[8:11] You absolutely can make plenty of money
[8:14] with a very small following as long as you make content
[8:16] that's directly valuable for that following.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.