How Alex Hormozi Borrows Authority and Leverages Familiarity In His Marketing

Alex Hormozi is one of the biggest creators in the world, storming the scene after his success with Gym Launch and deciding he wanted to have more of an impact with his own personal brand.

He has now written two bestselling books $100M Offers and $100M Leads, (which are both incredible, but I prefer $100M Offers), and gained millions of followers across social platforms.

So clearly there is a LOT we could be breaking down for this one, but I will be specifically focusing on how he borrows authority, leverages familiarity, and positions himself as an authority in his marketing (and the differences between them).

If you have read through some of our other Case Studies you know I love breaking down these topics so you can then inject them into your own signature series.

Why Do We Want To "Borrow" Authority?

I shouldn't have to tell you the importance of authority, but I'm going to (kind of) anyway.

The authority bias is when people tend to believe and trust what an expert says, just because they are seen as an authority figure.

Authority is also one of Richard Cialdini's (who we'll discuss again later in this article, as he has influenced Hormozi quite a bit) 7 Principles of Influence from his incredible book Influence.

That's a whole lot of influence going on.

You may see brands and big companies use key figures like celebrities, icons and key figures to promote their product or cause, and this is a way they are using the authority bias.

In this article I'm going to be teaching you two different things:

1. How you can "borrow" authority to build your own.
2. How you can leverage familiarity for attention/hook.

From there I will also show you how Hormozi comes in AS an authority (which he is already, from his past experiences), and teaches based on things he has used.

You'll notice that some of those things are learned from mentors in his past, but because he has taken them, implemented them, learned and tweaked them for incredible success, he can now come in positioned as an authoritative figure teaching them as his own.

By borrowing authority we can build our own authority over time, and eventually start teaching our own frameworks based on what we have learned over time.

You've seen me do this in the past with my business Superhero Jacked.

Instead of just being another jacked personal trainer with some certifications I became an authority in the industry by researching over 300 celebrities training programs and diets and documenting the process.

The Difference Between Borrowing Authority & Leveraging Familiarity

I will be giving you a full breakdown of each of these below, but to start I want to give you a quick overview of the difference between borrowing authority and leveraging familiarity.

There is definitely an overlap between the two, but in this case we're going to be thinking of borrowing authority as the tool to build our own and leveraging familiarity as a way to hook and gain attention.

In this article I'm going to be teaching you two different things:

1. Borrowing Authority: In the first video we see in the image above we have Hormozi doing a video titled "8 Ways Charlie Munger Changed My Life". In the video he teaches specific lessons that he learned from Charlie Munger, borrowing Munger's authority through his lessons, while also building his own as the teacher of these lessons as he relays them to us.
2. Leveraging Familiarity: In the second video we have a video titled "30 Minutes of sales training that will explode your business in 2022" and we see Hormozi pointing back to an image of Leonardo DiCarprio from The Wolf Of Wall Street. In this video he is not teaching The Wolf Of Wall Street's (Jordan Belfort's) sales lessons, but he IS using the familiar image to leverage familiarity and hook his audience.

**Note: In the first example of the video of Charlie Munger's lessons, Hormozi is technically both borrowing authority AND leveraging familiarity, which is often the case when we see the overlap.

 How Alex Hormozi Leverages Familiarity

I'm starting with leveraging familiarity because after the breakdown above, it should be an extremely easy concept to grasp.

Leveraging Familiarity is when we DON'T plan on actually borrowing authority or discussing the actual familiar brand/authority we're using in the hook within the content, but we leverage them because they're relevant.

Let's take a look at these three examples I shared above:

1. 14 Mistakes to AVOID in Your 20's: In this video Alex is literally leveraging the familiarity of Costco and Chipotle, though he doesn't make specific mention to them or talk about them in any depth within the video.
2. How To Make A Billion Dollars: Alex does not talk about either Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos in the video.
3. How The World's RICHEST Man Made His Money: Alex does NOT talk about Elon Musk in the video, but does borrow the authority of Bernard Arnault AND leverage his familiarity in the hook.

Leveraging Familiarity can be done with authorities, brands, professional athletes, and in so many different ways (for example, Alex has used Kobe in a recent Instagram and LinkedIn hook), and is most effective when it can be related back to the topic.

 How Can YOU Leverage Familiarity In Your Content?

The easiest way to leverage familiarity is going to be on platforms like YouTube within your thumbnail, or in short form video (Reels) where you can quickly pop in something familiar that relates without it being click-bait.

That said, another great way to leverage familiarity on platforms like LinkedIn, X (Twitter), Threads and places where you don't have a thumbnail or quick video hook is with quotes.

If you have a specific topic you want to talk about you can find a quote from an authority figure that would be familiar and make an image with it to grab attention.

An example of this would be if I wanted to talk about imposter syndrome I could get the famous Maya Angelou or Tom Hanks quote and then proceed to write my own content without necessarily needing to make direct mention to the quote.

 How Alex Hormozi Borrows Authority

Next up we have some more examples of how Alex borrows authority.

This is one of the most powerful tools you can add to your marketing plan, and something that can help you build authority in virtually any niche.

Borrowing Authority is when we discuss something we learned from another authority, do a case study on them, teach their lessons, or some variation of teaching what we've learned or found that comes from someone or something else that is positioned as an authority.

Because of this, we almost always inherently leverage their familiarity in the hook, because it's usually a no brainer.

Let's take a look at the three examples I shared above:

1. Why MrBeast Will be Worth $100 Billion: In this video Alex uses an image taken from one of Mr. Beast's videos (we actually even discussed it within our Mr. Beast Case Study) to leverage familiarity, but he is also specifically discussing Mr. Beast and what we can learn from him within the video. He is not only borrowing authority from Mr. Beast by teaching lessons stemming from what he is doing, but he's also building his own authority by being able to dissect these lessons.
2. How To Get Rich [Full Interview with Dave Ramsey]: I love this example because obviously Alex is leveraging Dave's familiarity and sharing lessons from him, considering it's an interview, but it also teaches us another big lesson. All the massive creators we listen to on our favorite podcasts are also borrowing authority. Tim Ferriss has even turned his interviews into two bestselling books (teaching the lessons from other people he has interviewed) all from borrowed authority!
3. How The World's RICHEST Man Made His Money: And finally we come to video three, which I'm purposely repeating to share a big point on the difference between leveraging familiarity and borrowing authority. Alex is leveraging familiarity of Elon Musk without borrowing authority, but leveraging familiarity AND borrowing authority of Bernard Arnault.

Alex has even done a video titled "7 Secrets Behind Chick-fil-A’s $50B Empire" where he borrows authority from Chick-fil-A, breaking down strategies they use to scale - so don't think this is specific to individuals.

There are many creators out there, including myself, that choose to borrow authority by dissecting and learning from much larger brands.

How Can YOU Borrow Authority In Your Content?

I'm not kidding when I say borrowing authority can help make you an authority in virtually any niche.

❓Want to be an authority in the storytelling niche?

✔️Do case studies on the world’s best storytellers.

❓Want to be an authority on how to convert more sales calls?

✔️Teach lessons of the world's top closers.

❓Want to become an authority in landing page copywriting?

✔️Dissect landing pages with lessons from the best copywriters.

I recently did a breakdown sharing how a handful of the top creators borrow authority on LinkedIn within a long LinkedIn carousel you can check out here if you want some more specific examples.

 How Alex Hormozi Positions Himself AS The Established Authority

By the time most people started hearing about Alex Hormozi he had already established his own authority and was able to position himself as one in his marketing.

You have probably seen quotes from him discussing how you have to DO something before you TEACH something.

And he lives by that as well.

Here are some quotes from his social feeds:

1. "Advice to 20 year olds: Do shit before teaching how to do shit."
2. "Hot take: You shouldn’t sell advice for things you haven’t done."
3. "Don’t fake it until you make it. Make it - then state the facts."
4. "You’re not struggling from imposter syndrome. You’re a student and pretending to be a teacher. No students say they feel like frauds for trying to learn. You’re a fraud when you get up to teach the class and you’ve never done it."

Thankfully, we can borrow authority to teach as we learn, but I still want to show you some of the ways Alex learned, implemented, and then taught.

In this LinkedIn Carousel I break down the 13 books Alex says were the most influential to his business career.

You'll find books by Robert Cialdini (Influence, we talked about above), Russell Brunson, Jason Fladlien and more.

And when you read his books $100M Offers and $100M Leads, and learn from his content, you'll see him using the tactics he learned from these people.

BUT, he learned them, implemented them, made tweaks, made them his own to grow Gym Launch, and now is able to teach them within/as his own framework.

📈 So the key takeaways?

1. You CAN build authority in any niche before doing the thing by borrowing authority with case studies, reports, deep dives, etc.
2. You can also position yourself as an authority by taking what you've learned, implementing it, learning from it, making tweaks and creating your own frameworks built on your success.
3. The sweet spot is doing BOTH of these things.

 How To Replicate This In Your Business TODAY

By now you should fully get the concept, but I do want to share a couple resources with you if you want to continue learning about how you can borrow authority to build your own in your niche.

I'm a visual learner, so I learn by seeing other examples and then coming up with ways to specifically implement them into my business.

So, if you're anything like me, you can check out these for further reading:

1. How I Borrowed Authority to Build Superhero Jacked to 7 Figures
2. How Hannah from Salary Transparent Street found a Unique Way to Borrow Authority
3. How Jeff Nippard Borrows Authority from Scientific Research in The Fitness Industry
4. LinkedIn Carousel on How Top Linkedin Creators Borrow Authority

Borrowing Authority is so powerful, even the world's top creators do it while building more of their own.

You don't have to come in with any authority to start out.

Here's how you can get started:

1. Find Your Obsession (A topic you'd love to research every day)
2. Start Teaching What You Learn (With case studies, lessons/lists, reports, deep dives, and more).

That's literally it.

The possibilities are endless.