The 7 Skills I Used to Build a $100M+ Business

At 22 I was broke. A few years later I’d done well over $100M in sales.

That didn’t come from luck or one big break. It came from seven skills that I see in almost every top earner I know.

Here they are, with the exact steps I use for each one.

1. Identity engineering

Decide who you want to be, then become that person every day.

1. Write down everything you dislike about yourself. Overeating, skipping workouts, addictions. This is easier than listing strengths.
2. Flip each item into its opposite. Those are the traits you want.
3. Read the list out loud morning and night. Record yourself reading it and listen back on your phone.

My mentor Steve Hardison was on a FaceTime call with a prisoner when the man threw a rock and cracked the windshield of Steve’s car, which was worth about half a million dollars. Steve didn’t get angry. He apologized, said he hadn’t realized the man thought he was being recorded, and offered to spend time with him. He said the response came from “making the choice before it happened.”

Most people react. Decide in advance how you’ll respond, and people usually match your calm.

2. Strategic leverage: hiring a team

The goal is to remove yourself from daily operations. I’ve hired a team of 100+ people, and here’s the process.

Recruit on LinkedIn. I prefer it to Indeed, and I sometimes run LinkedIn ads.

Screen for experience and culture fit. I once hired Jake as client fulfillment director. Strong experience, but he prioritized work life balance. Over time he stopped responding and wasn’t actually working. Remote teams are especially exposed to this.

Interview with intent:

• Values first. Describe the culture honestly, including that it’s demanding. Make it sound harder than it is so reality feels like an upgrade.
• The role and a typical day. For example, 9 to 5 with a team meeting at 9:45. Can they handle it?
• Open questions about experience. Don’t ask “do you know ads?” Everyone says yes. Ask what they actually did.
• Culture test. Ask what the best company in the world looks like to them. If they value time off and you value hard work, you’ll clash.
• Stress test. Give sales reps three example calls and a script, then record a real call. If they aren’t a 7 out of 10 on the first try, don’t invest. Moving a 7 to a 10 is easier than a 1 to a 7.
• Goals and pay. Match what they want with what the company needs, and negotiate fairly. You carry the risk.
• Define remote work. Working from home means working set hours.
• Do the final interview yourself. My biggest mistake was outsourcing interviews as we grew. Your team is only as good as your weakest link.

Onboard with SOPs. Write them so a new hire could set everything up alone. Then show them, have them watch you, and finally watch them do it. Keep regular check ins. Complacency turns into laziness, and laziness kills your edge.

3. Content that makes money

I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on YouTube consultants. The main advice: find what’s already working and make your version of it.

• Use VidIQ to find outlier videos. If a creator averages 100,000 views, a 400,000 view video is a 4x outlier. Look for 4x or higher.
• Study the talking points, then make your own version. The same works on Instagram.
• Open with a strong hook, and bridge your points with transitions instead of “okay, point two.” For example: “Making money won’t matter if you don’t know how to make content.”
• Double down on what performs and cut what doesn’t. My Reels took a lot of time and underperformed, so we made fewer of them.

4. Selling

I sold security alarms door to door in Alabama for nine months. 100+ doors a day, about 600 a week, over 20,000 doors total. That built most of my sales skill. I turned it into a seven step framework:

1. Intro and pre frame. State the goal of the call and set expectations, like explaining the plan for a date upfront so nothing surprises them.
2. Discovery. Ask only what you need to give good advice. How do you get leads? Revenue? Payroll? Team? Coached before?
3. Summary. “If we can take you from $50K a month to $100K in under three months and fix these problems, you’d work with us, right?” Get a clear yes.
4. Three pillars. The top three reasons clients choose you. Show what bad looks like, then what good looks like.
5. Brief overview. Five minutes or less on what’s included.
6. Certainty check. Is it a fit? If they hesitate, build certainty before price.
7. Close. State the price and stop talking.

Then beat the four objections: price, spouse, time and belief.

5. Decision making

I make decisions fast, usually in about 30 minutes.

1. Gather the data. Numbers, articles, team input. Keep business data in spreadsheets so it’s instantly available.
2. Find people who’ve faced it. I text friends with high level experience and sometimes run it through ChatGPT.
3. Decide. Once you have the information, waiting only delays the choice.

When I put $1.5 million into a hedge fund, I reviewed the track record, knew the managers personally, and weighed roughly 3x to 8x upside against the downside. I wasn’t 100% certain. I made the call.

6. Offer creation

The better you are at creating offers, the worse you can be at everything else. A strong offer covers for weak sales, leads, hiring and training.

One company in my Elite CEOs portfolio helps high school students get into Ivy League schools. It charges $30,000 to $40,000 per client and gets a 10x to 20x return on ad spend, because few people compete on that outcome. Business consulting, by contrast, is a red ocean. A day trading education company does well too, because many people want money without running a business.

Read Alex Hormozi’s $100M Offers and my book, Infinite Income.

7. Keeping and growing your money

First learn to earn. Then learn leverage, tax strategy and compound interest so you keep it.

Find an accountant whose risk tolerance matches yours. I’m aggressive, but I won’t break the law, so I want advisors who are aggressive and legal.

I also use the infinite banking concept. Surplus cash goes into whole life policies that build cash value at around 5% a year. Then I borrow against that value at about 3% and invest it where it can return 20% to 25%. The money works twice. It has critics, but it’s worked well for me.

The takeaway

Become the person first. Build a team that frees you. Make content and offers people want, sell them well, decide fast, and protect what you earn. Give yourself permission to succeed, and start taking swings.

Want to know what’s capping your business right now? Take my free 90 Day Ceiling Plan. Answer 18 questions and get a written plan, built on your own numbers, that names the one thing holding you back and what to fix first.