My Best Sales Tactic (to Make a TON of Money)

Alex Hormozi · 08:11 · captions: auto (en)

00:00What the tactic is, and what it did

• "The most powerful sales tactic I ever learned" — not from a book. He stumbled into it by accident. It will appear in the upcoming $100M Sales book, and "you're hearing it here first."
• Results: after this one change he closed 100% of the people who walked in. He then taught it to people who had never sold before, and they closed 80–90% of walk-ins.
• Stated condition: this was a retail environment selling physical products.

00:17The accident — what happens when you run out of stock

• Setting: he was selling supplements at his gym. The flow was: sell a service package → run a nutrition orientation → set up their meal plan and recommend products there.
• "I already sold pretty well, but I always wanted to sell more and get better."
• The incident: a new challenge launch went big and 100 new customers came in — and one key product sold out.
  • The women who came in the morning got their products. Their friends who had signed up together came in the afternoon saying "My friend Sandy told me I need X, Y and Z."
  • "Oh, we're out of Z" — genuinely awkward.
• His choice in that moment: instead of dancing around an item that was plainly on the list but missing, he said:

"By the way, you can get this one cheaper at the Costco down the street. So you don't need to buy it from me. Mine's a little better, but that one will do the job. You can get it after you finish the program."

• The reaction: "Oh, thanks — that's cool."
• And immediately after crossing that item off: "But you do want this one and this one from us." — "Okay, cool."
• "The moment I switched to 'you don't need to buy this one, get it over there', everyone bought what I recommended afterwards. I was like, whoa."

01:39Scaling the experiment — two items, then taking one away

• "I wondered if I could do more of that and sell even more on the back side", so he leaned in.
• Next he handed off two products: "Get this and this over there. This brand, around this price — you'll save 10 or 20 bucks." → the reaction was "Wow, even better."
• Then he noticed a mass gainer on a woman's list who clearly was not trying to gain mass.
  • "You're not trying to gain mass, right?" — "No." — "Then just cross that out. Don't worry about it."
• So this customer got two items sent elsewhere for cheaper + one unnecessary item removed. Then he said "Take two of these in the morning next to this, three of these, keep this one in your car so you always have it" — and closed everyone.

02:19The name — "sacrificial lambs" → "ghost products"

• He first called the idea "sacrificial lambs", and now calls them "ghost products" because it sounds better.
• Over time he stopped carrying those products altogether — "because they were so powerful as a sales tool for me to gain trust from the other person."
• "This is an incredibly, incredibly powerful tactic."

02:39The ethics — intention is the only difference

• "Like all persuasion, the difference between manipulation and help is intention."
• "If you want to help someone, you are manipulating them — you're just doing it with positive intent. If you change someone's behavior with negative intent, you are manipulating them."
• "If you believe in the stuff you sell, you can create an environment where someone will trust you faster by giving them a reason to trust you."
• The definition of that method: "you acted in their self-interest rather than your own, so they can feel you're not trying to take advantage of them."
• When it applies: "If you know they need this stuff but they don't yet know they need it, you can make a concession using a ghost product to gain trust faster."

03:12Which products to give away

• If naming a product you don't stock feels uncomfortable, "feel free to carry a product and never sell it." But he "realized quickly that I was never selling it and was always giving those ones away."
• The key recommendation: "make the products that you send across the street the lowest margin products."
• "Gain the trust by giving away the low margin stuff, and keep the high margin stuff for yourself — then people trust you and they buy that stuff."
• "If you're in an environment where you sell multiple products, this has been the most effective way I've learned to sell."

03:46The second device — the prescriptive close

• "Give someone a vision of what their life is going to be like when they're experiencing the benefits." And "explain exactly how to take it before you make the ask."
• The actual script:
  1. "This one is going to help you do [benefit] and [benefit]. The way I need you to take it is two of these in the morning."
  2. Then he asks a question: "What do you do every day no matter what in the morning? Do you wake up and smoke a cigarette? Drink a cup of coffee? Take a shower? Brush your teeth?"
  3. Customer: "Well, I brush my teeth every morning."
  4. "Cool — so I don't want you to put this in your cupboard, because you'll forget about it. Put it next to your toothbrush, so we don't have to make a new habit." → Customer: "Oh."
  5. "And put a piece of tape on it with a '2' — take two of them. We're basically getting you an extra toothbrush."
• He repeats this for each product they have.
• Then the close: "Okay, you can have all these, you're good to go. Did you just want to use the card you have on file?"
  • "Now they don't have to take their wallet out, they don't have to make another purchase decision. They just have to say yes. It's a one-click upsell."
• His summary: "That is a combination of a prescriptive close and having ghost products to set up trust. And you're also being a good coach by showing them how they're going to make this happen."

04:55Why you piggyback on habits

• "This is obviously a consumption-based product. Any product you want someone to use, they have to use it at a certain point."
• So you have to find ways to associate the act of using the product with something they're already doing.
• "Getting someone to make a new habit is incredibly difficult. Getting someone to break a habit is incredibly difficult. So we just want to piggyback on habits they already have."
• "That makes you both a better salesperson and a better coach."
• The sequence — set up → close → gain trust → make the prescription — "works unbelievably well."

05:22Handling price resistance — remove, then put it back

• If they push back with "how much does this cost?": "Are you on a budget?"
• If yes: "Then would you like me to order these in order of importance — the things I think you absolutely need to have versus things that'll just get you more benefits faster?"
• Then he takes one off: "This would be the lowest one I'd remove. Does this work for you?"
• If that's still too much, "really getting into the bare bones here": "I could take this one out, but this is what I want you to add to your diet to replace this thing."
• ⚠️ The decisive principle: "You don't want to show that what you took out isn't important, because then it looks like you're selling stuff that doesn't matter."
  • So he says: "These are the ingredients — but you're going to have to eat a shitload of broccoli now." → "Okay, you know what, I'll just get the thing." → "Okay cool" — and it goes back in.
• The generalized principle: "When you're selling something you're trying to solve a problem. If they don't buy the thing, then you reintroduce the problem you were solving." — "I don't want you to have to eat a pound of broccoli, which is why I had this."
• "They're trusting me to make the prescription — that's why they're paying you for expertise."

06:14Finding money in their budget — identity swap

• Then he pauses and asks: "Are there things that are your old identity that you're going to stop doing as a result of doing this program? Are you going to go out less, drink less, smoke less?"
• Then: "Cool, how much of that do you do?" → "Cool, we just found some money. Don't worry about it."
• The framing: "Let's associate with these new activities, new identity."
• His caveat: "If this sounds really smooth, I've done this a lot of times. You'll get used to it."

06:34How to get good at selling fast — insert yourself into someone else's sales process

• "One of the best gifts you can have is trying to tack yourself into an existing sales process of a big business."
• Target: businesses selling lots of low-ticket stuff — car washes, massage, nails, hair — places that see many people every day at low ticket prices.
• Method: work with the business owner to incorporate yourself into their sales process so you get "rep after rep after rep."
• "It will teach you more about the skill of selling and dealing with people than any course ever will, and it will equip you for whatever you want to sell for the rest of your life."
• "One of the best things I ever did was do tons and tons of transactions at low tickets, so that when I got to selling higher-ticket, more expensive stuff, I was like — oh my God, this is a breeze."

07:14Applying it to services — and moving to their side of the table

• For a service business (say, web design) with a long list of offerings:

"We can do this, but it's not necessarily our core capability, and it would probably cost you more because we'd have to allocate more resources. There are guys in the Philippines who will do it for you — I've got a connection, I can talk to you about it after this call."

• The sneakier version — he notes it's easier for a salesperson than an owner, and tells owners to teach this to their sales people:
  • The salesperson can make it seem like they're leaning over to the customer's side of the table — "Hey man, you don't need to worry about this, I'll hook you up with a number of a guy."
  • "Then the salesperson becomes incredibly trusted — it becomes like they're on that side of the table. But what the person doesn't know is that they're trying to sell the other stuff."
• The closing principle: "The goal as a salesperson is to move to their side of the table. If you start the conversation across the table, the goal is to end shoulder to shoulder, so you're both looking at the decision together with the same information to make the best decision for the person."
• "If you can walk yourself around the table psychologically, this is one of the fastest ways to do it."

📌 Bottom line

An 8-minute video that covers essentially one tactic plus the closing sequence wrapped around it. The tactic is called ghost products — originally "sacrificial lambs."

The mechanism is counterintuitive: you sell by not selling. Hormozi discovered it by accident when a supplement went out of stock at his gym. Instead of dancing around it he said "get it cheaper at Costco, you don't need to buy it from me" — and right after crossing that item off, the customer bought everything else he recommended. Scaling it up — sending two items elsewhere and removing one unnecessary item (the mass gainer) — closed everyone. The results were 100% for him, 80–90% for people he taught who had never sold, and eventually he stopped stocking those give-away products entirely because they were worth more as trust tools than as inventory.

The single most important execution note: make the products you send across the street your lowest-margin ones. Give away low margin to earn trust, keep high margin for yourself. His framing on ethics is "the only difference between manipulation and help is intention," and the precondition is "when you know they need it but they don't know it yet."

The tactic never runs alone — it pairs with the prescriptive close. For each product: benefit → exact dosage → "what do you do every morning no matter what?" → put it next to that habit (toothbrush, not cupboard; tape marked "2") — and only then "should I use the card on file?" That makes it a one-click upsell with no wallet and no second purchase decision. The reasoning is habit psychology: building a new habit or breaking an old one is brutally hard, so piggyback on one that already exists. This is where the salesperson also becomes the coach.

Price resistance has a structure too. Confirm the budget → order by importance → remove from the bottom — but never signal that what you removed was unimportant (that reveals you were selling filler). Instead reintroduce the problem it solved — "then you'll have to eat a ton of broccoli" — and it usually goes back in the cart. The last device is manufacturing budget through identity swap: "What old habits are you giving up for this program? How much do you spend on those?" → "We just found some money."

One separate piece of career advice: insert yourself into the sales process of a high-volume, low-ticket business — car washes, nails, hair. "It will teach you more than any course ever will," and after enough reps high-ticket selling feels like "a breeze."

And the metaphor that ties it together: the salesperson's goal is to move to the customer's side of the table. Start facing each other, end shoulder to shoulder, looking at the same information to make the best decision — and ghost products are the fastest way to walk around that table psychologically. Though it's worth noting that in the services section he himself explains how a salesperson can appear to be on the customer's side while "what the person doesn't know is that they're trying to sell the other stuff" — which is exactly where this tactic's dependence on intention shows.