Alex Hormozi's Fulfill & Integrate Agency Model (Best Alternative Agency Model)

Alex Hormozi identifies a critical flaw in traditional agency relationships:

1. Agencies underperform and lose client money

2. Agencies excel but create client dependency ("own" them)

This lose-lose scenario explains why 7 out of 10 brands avoid agency partnerships (SaaS Sprints, 2023).

The $5K-$20K "Fulfill & Teach" Solution

Hormozi's alternative model transforms this dynamic:

1. Fulfill first: Deliver results before pitching education

2. Create training: Dedicate 2 days to record instructional videos

3. Implement transfer: Provide access plus 4 weekly coaching calls

This transforms the game. Clients gain a shiny new capability. Agencies dodge the "you suck or you own me" trap.

3-Tiered Revenue Framework

Greg Hickman from Alt Agency, who's worked with 500+ agency owners, structures this approach as:

1. Core Service (High-Labor, High-Price) This is the hands-on gig—like crafting websites, funnels, or brand strategies. It's labor-intensive but pays big. Greg says a tight core service can hit high six or seven figures. Think 12 clients at $10,000 each—$120,000 easy.

2. Training & Consulting (Medium-Volume, Medium-Labor) Package your know-how. Teach clients to run the show. Greg notes 40% of executives now use coaches—demand's spiking. Charge $15,000 to train 50 clients. That's $750,000, and it stretches client lifetime value.

3. Products (High-Volume, Low-Labor) Sell courses, books, or workshops. Zero grind after setup. A $500 course with 1,000 buyers nets $500,000. Passive cash, no sweat.

Case Study: Influencer Marketing Agency

Greg's client proves it works. He ran an influencer agency for e-commerce brands. His core service landed 100 influencers for user-generated content in 90 days.

Clients with in-house teams balked—they didn't need "done-for-you." So he pivoted. He built training to teach their staff his methodology.

Videos laid out the steps: find influencers, cut deals, manage output. Four weekly calls sealed it.

The result was he kept clients longer, expanded his reach, and hiked lifetime value from $10,000 to $25,000 per client. Independence sold better than reliance.

Smart Rollout Sequence

Don't rush. Greg's rollout sequence keeps it tight:

1. Perfect the core service. Push it to 6 or 7 figures.

2. Add training once the core hums.

3. Drop products last—if you want them.

Focus on one avatar—like e-commerce owners. Serve dozens with core services, hundreds with training, thousands with products. Compare that to big dogs like Omnicom, juggling 10 to 20 six-figure and seven-figure clients a year. This model scales without breaking.

The New Model Crushes The Old One

Old-school agencies chase $1,500 monthly retainers. They drown in 50 clients, barely scrape by, and burn out. Hormozi's model flips that. Serve 12 core clients, 50 training clients, and 1,000 product buyers.

That's seven figures with a small, lean team.

Industry trends support this strategic shift:

• Coaching industry experiencing steady growth

• E-learning market up 2.5x in recent years

• Hybrid business models bridging service and education sectors

For agency owners hitting capacity at $1,500 monthly retainers, this model provides a pathway to greater profitability without proportionally increasing client load or complexity.

Alex Hormozi himself uses this model. He always employs agencies for his portfolio companies to launch new departments and suggests them for companies earning over $5 million annually. However, he informs them upfront that he prefers to hire in-house staff eventually and is willing to pay extra for the agency to train his team accordingly.

By restructuring your agency to fulfill immediate needs while building client capabilities, you create a sustainable competitive advantage in a market where independence is increasingly valued.

This model is quite similar to serving Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 customers which all big companies from Apple to Tesla follow.

Top Tweets of the day

1/

Interesting way to think about YouTube SEO.

2/

Midjourney AI, Playground AI, or Krea AI can use this playbook on Upwork. Just create an AI Agent that piches clients and upsells them into their own SaaS.

3/

This is a beautiful business to monetize. I know a guy who does this on Reddit and he always asks a simple question regarding the post. Its fully automated and he always gets a reply from me. I know because he pitches me in the next comment. The only skill you need is asking the right questions which you can nail down if you learn how to prompt well. Nobody spots an innocent question but they can spot a rephrase of the original post intuitively.

You can do this on LinkedIn & X as their algo values comments a lot. The more comments you make, the more views you get.

Tools like this are incredible business since most people will use them. I have ~2k followers on X and get atleast 2-3 Cold DMs per day even though I don't use X as much anymore. All Cold DMs follow the same pattern and I always ignore them. But the person who is printing money is the one who made the Cold DM tool for X like Drippi AI.

Rabbit Holes

1. Claude 3.7 is More Significant than its Name Implies (ft DeepSeek R2 + GPT 4.5 coming soon) by AI Explained

2. My extremely short guide to B2B copywriting by Tom Orbach

3. Nobody Knows This About Instagram by Edward Sturm

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