The Digital Contrarianâ„¢

Ryan Levesque

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Contrarian insights directly to your inbox.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Contrarian insights directly to your inbox.
The Digital Contrarianâ„¢

Ryan Levesque

Issue #013

| The Digital Contrarianâ„¢

How Alex Hormozi Lost My Trust

A Cautionary Tale for Personal Brands...

Ryan Levesque

5 min read

-

This week I posted something that completely blew up the internet…
 
How Alex Hormozi Lost My Trust: A Cautionary Tale…
 
You can see the entire post (and the hundreds of comments) by clicking this image:
(It’s since been posted (and reposted) on Instagram, LinkedIn, and all over Facebook…)
 
But the tl;dr version of what happened is this:
 
1: Earlier this week, Alex Hormozi posted something on LinkedIn that I strongly disagreed with.
 
2: “Alex” responded with a comment to MY comment (that’s since been deleted) that said something to the effect:
 
“Hey Ryan – I wholeheartedly suggest we continue this conversation together over on Telegram [link]
 
3: Knowing Alex personally, I (wrongly) assumed that he responded, and wanted to chat on Telegram, but I quickly discovered the whole thing – the comment reply, the invitation to connect, and the experience on Telegram – was all just coming from an elaborate AI Bot / VA process.
 
But here’s the thing:
 
The whole thing had me completely fooled.
 
And it didn’t cause me to say:
 
“Oh wow! How clever, I want to do this to my customers.”
 
Instead my reaction was:
 
“This didn’t feel good. And I don’t want my customers to have this type of association with my personal brand.”
 
And here’s why:
 
One of the most impactful things I’ve learned from the brilliant copywriter Ray Edwards is this:
 
“People are more afraid of looking foolish than losing money, but what they fear the most is feeling foolish.”
 
And for a moment after this happened, I felt foolish.
 
Foolish that I “fell” for the fact that his reply to my comment… was just a bot.
 
It felt misleading and disingenuous – because the comment implied that it was HIM responding, and not some AI bot or one of his VAs.
 
And because of that experience, it’s led me to question – and perhaps doubt – other work (and claims) that Alex has made.
 
In other words, it’s led to…
 
An erosion of TRUST.
 
Now to be clear:
 
This is not an indictment of Alex Hormozi.
 
(A few people in the comments missed the point of the post.)
 
Instead, it’s a caveat emptor around employing the marketing tactic of using AI Bots to replace respond to your audience and engage with them like this…
 
Alex can afford to lose the trust of one (or thousands) of his followers through tactics like this.
 
But can YOU??
 
For him, it’s just a numbers game – at least for now.
 
His followers are fungible.
 
But the quest for growth like this can lead to compromising one’s reputation.
 
 
“TRUST is the most valuable currency in the world. More than USD. More than BTC. The TRUE reserve currency is KLT.”
 
Remember, KLT stands for:
 
Know…
Like…
 
And by FAR most importantly…
 
TRUST.
* * *
Now, I get it.
 
When you get to a certain scale, there’s a natural tension around engaging with your audience and managing the volume of all that interaction…
 
(I’ve certainly felt this myself at times in our business.)
 
But I believe the solution (for all of us) is actually fairly simple:
 
Disclosure vs. Deep Fake.
 
  • Disclosure =
    • “This is a reply to your comment. – Alex’s AI Bot”
 
  • Deep Fake =
    • “This is a reply to your comment. – Me, Alex”
 
Deep Fake tries to “trick” people into thinking it’s YOU.
 
Disclosure, on the other hand, is transparent. 
 
An opportunity to let people know it’s your AI Bot or VA or Team Member who is responding on your behalf.
 
Disclosure builds trust.
 
Deep Fake destroys it.
* * *
Now, to be fair…
 
Some have said that the Hormozi LinkedIn account could’ve been hacked or spoofed (which is very possible).
 
Others have said that the Telegram invitation should’ve been a clear red flag (which is a fair point).
 
And if I didn’t know Alex personally, I don’t think I would’ve fallen for it.
 
But that’s the world we live in with our audiences.
 
Lines are blurred.
 
Your audience doesn’t know:
 
Is that communication or comment coming from YOU?
 
Or is it coming from “you”?
 
And not to be one who throw stones in glass houses (after all, Issue #001 of this newsletter launched with an Embarrassing Confession of my own), so just to be clear:
 
I’m not claiming to be a moral authority on the topic of what’s right and wrong here.
 
(I’m also a deeply flawed human like the rest of us who has made my own share of marketing missteps and mistakes, trying to figure out how to navigate the tension in all this myself…)
 
Instead, this underscores possibly the most important facet of this entire conversation and that’s this:
 
Right now, we live in a default state of distrust.
 
As my colleague Trey Sheneman introduced to me a few years back, the data published by Edelman Trust Barometer has supported this notion for some time.
 
This is nothing new.
 
BUT what’s CHANGED in the past 12-18 months is this:
 
With the current state of AI…
 
We no longer trust ourselves to be able to discern what is REAL from what is FAKE in the world.
 
And because of that…
 
From a purely pragmatic standpoint, I believe with the world we are living in right now:
 
You can’t outsource connection.
 
You can’t AI your way to trust.
 
That has to come from YOU.
 
And therein lies the opportunity:
 
To Zig when others Zag.
 
Until next week,
 
Ryan :-)
 
P.S. Next week, I’m hosting a two-day deep dive with clients titled:
 
“The Great Sea Change: Why the Digital Marketing Playbook of the Last Decade is Obsolete, And Where to Shift Your Focus in the Next 18 Months.”
 
After the event is over, I’m carving out time to sit down, and distill everything I’ve been seeing and the summary findings of nearly six months of research in a consolidated, consumable format.
My question to you is this:
 
If I decide to release a BOOK… Create a TED style presentation… or do both, what would YOU like to see?
 
  • Book?
  • Presentation?
  • Both?
 
If you’d shoot me a quick note – just so I can get a quick vote – that would mean the world to me. And more importantly, it will help me best help YOU.
 
Thanks and have a great weekend!

Want more insights like these?

Get The Digital Contrarian delivered to your inbox every weekend – before it’s published anywhere else.

Read more newsletters:

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Join over 100K+ readers of The Digital Contrarian getting unconventional business strategies delivered straight to their inbox.

Want more insights like these?

Get The Digital Contrarian delivered to your inbox every weekend – before it’s published anywhere else.

© RL & Associates LLC. All rights reserved.

Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions | Contact Us

The Great Sea Change

The Great Sea Change diagram from Return to Real