SUMMARY

In this podcast episode, host Troy Ericson interviews Alen Sultanic, founder of Nothing Held Back, who reveals his journey from low-wage work to marketing mastery, sharing strategies on offers, economics, emotional selling, and building supportive communities for aspiring entrepreneurs.

STATEMENTS

• Alen Sultanic started in the industry while working at GNC for six dollars an hour, discovering affiliate marketing through an online community.
• It took Alen two years to earn his first 24 cents via AdSense, proving the potential of online income.
• Early forums like Warrior Forum provided foundational knowledge when resources like YouTube were absent.
• Alen progressed from celebrating 100-dollar days to normalizing 100,000-dollar days and achieving million-dollar days.
• He avoided industries like porn and eBay but experimented widely with offers, including early e-commerce setups requiring manual servers.
• Nothing Held Back originated in 2005 as a private community fostering magic and possibility in online business.
• Alen retired from 2012 to 2014, investing in high-end bicycles and biking with retirees, seeking balance after industry burnout.
• He returned in 2014, running webinars profitably until 2018 without teaching them.
• Alen built and sold an ad network used by 8,500 businesses, then invested in SaaS but faced security challenges.
• Upon re-entering the community in 2018, he noticed a lack of genuine support, prompting Nothing Held Back's revival.
• Modern gurus often use omission of key facts, leading to student failures blamed on themselves.
• Nothing Held Back operates without pitches, emphasizing honor, integrity, and mutual support.
• Alen avoids personal pitches in the group, even for his mastermind, which filled to 172 members organically.
• The platform aims to reach one million users, providing hope and education without high costs.
• Alen works obsessively, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., six to seven days a week, correlating time on computer with skill growth.
• Success in marketing feels like magic, where ideas manifest into revenue via platforms like Facebook and Google.
• Competing on economics involves adjusting pricing, upsells, bumps, and quantities to maximize average order value without altering core copy.
• Changing the audience can resolve mismatches when offers and copy are solid but results lag.
• Selling to low emotional states uses long-form content like 70-minute VSLs; high states require short-form like podcast VSLs.
• Inclusion marketing captures value from the 97% who don't convert in exclusion models, reducing waste amid rising ad costs.
• Women psychologically redevelop every four years, men every eight to ten, influencing tailored selling approaches.
• Desire must pair with justification for purchases; recessions heighten the need for stronger justification.
• Podcast VSLs were invented to overcome sales resistance from overexposed audiences.
• Intuitive copywriting stems from feeling emotions in the body, not intellectual research.
• Sales copy originated in 1895 as "salesmanship in print" by John E. Kennedy, remaining one-dimensional on paper.
• Alen combined the hero's journey with VSLs in 2009, advancing beyond static copy traditions.
• Industry skills regress as copies of copies dilute original principles.
• During recessions, fear drives reactivity, creating opportunities for ethical marketers.
• Markets have core emotions: certainty for crypto, control for women's relationships, status for men's.
• Technology limitations hinder marketing; a tech-savvy team enables advanced features like self-sorting upsells.
• Upsell sequences without downsells can outperform traditional paths by maintaining buyer momentum.
• Alen invests in five verticals: business, health, relationships, finance, and survival.
• Hiring in pairs builds self-sustaining teams; overpaying yields exponential returns.
• Acting big leads to thinking small, shifting from offense to defense in business.
• Subscription models suffer high churn; minimize recurring by front-loading value.
• Low emotional states respond to "why" language; high states to "how."
• Objectivity, developed by studying billionaires, reduces subjective filters.
• Effective empathy feels audience emotions; cognitive empathy merely thinks them.
• Email lists exhibit wave patterns of engagement, like ocean energy.
• Building offers costs under $5,000, far less than perceived.

IDEAS

• Early online communities felt like entering Narnia, a magical escape offering hope to those from grinding backgrounds.
• Scaling success follows simple multiplication: achieve $1,000 once, repeat 1,000 times for a million.
• Retiring briefly to bike with retirees highlights the allure of simple joys after high-stakes intensity.
• Gurus steal ambition through omission, creating false blame on students for undisclosed market realities.
• Reviving "magic" in communities means no-sales environments where support trumps commerce.
• Obsessive work schedules correlate directly with mastery, turning time investment into intuitive expertise.
• Marketing as magic: thoughts convert to trillions via tech giants routing strangers' money.
• Philosophy of offers trumps mechanisms; principles generate wisdom that self-writes copy.
• Economics competition squeezes more from pages via timers, quantities, and self-sorting without claim escalation.
• Audience swaps resolve offer-copy mismatches faster than endless tweaking.
• Slice markets like salami: gender, age cycles (women every 4 years, men 8-10) demand nuanced emotional targeting.
• Inclusion flips exclusion's waste, mining 97% non-converters as platforms saturate with resistance.
• Low-state sellers bind via long videos for the defeated; high-state via hidden shorts for the energized.
• Recession fear wildens emotions, turning reactivity into acquisition gold for the prepared.
• Tech teams unlock exotic funnels, mastering the "middle" between front-end and back-end.
• Multiple upsells sans downsells boost throughput by avoiding "no-buyer" friction.
• Vertical ecosystems (health, finance, etc.) scale via replicated platforms and higher AOVs.
• Human "brain rental" via overpayment yields 10x value over static assets like real estate.
• Pair-hiring fosters competition and sustainability, minimizing management overhead.
• Subscription churn as "turnover" reveals recurring as illusion; front-load to eliminate chance.
• "Why" language doubles conversions in low-state supplements versus "how" for highs.
• Perceptive positions enable objective writing in others' voices, like VSLs at 3.2% conversion.
• Billionaires' objectivity strips past filters, revealing raw opportunity.
• Effective empathy trumps cognitive, birthing intuitive copy from bodily felt emotions.
• Wave patterns in email opens mimic oceanic energy, guiding list intuition.
• Regressive skills from copy-of-copy dilution demand first-principles regression to origins.
• Free models penetrate fastest but demand exotic tech for economic viability.
• Exotic platforms own markets by switching non-transactional to transactional swiftly.
• Offer ownership lifts client stress burden, automating daily income without interpersonal weight.

INSIGHTS

• True industry magic arises from supportive, pitch-free networks that democratize knowledge, countering modern gurus' omission tactics.
• Economic levers like pricing and upsells offer infinite scalability post-copy mastery, diminishing returns on words alone.
• Emotional state segmentation—low for binding depth, high for inclusion breadth—maximizes yield in resistant markets.
• Recessions amplify fear's reactivity, rewarding ethical complexity-builders who justify value amid scarcity perceptions.
• Progressive marketing evolves from first principles, regressing to origins like 1895 copy roots for intuitive, body-felt innovation.
• Audience and offer mismatches resolve quickest via swaps or slices, prioritizing fit over forced optimization.
• Tech ecosystems bridge front-back gaps, enabling unreplicable "middle" mastery for vertical dominance.
• Self-sustaining teams emerge from paired hires, overpayment, and organic leadership, avoiding hierarchy's entitlement traps.
• Objectivity and effective empathy, honed via billionaire studies, birth offers that intuitively convert across niches.
• Front-loading value in subscriptions combats churn illusions, turning turnover into upfront economic fortresses.
• Inclusion marketing harvests 97% waste, flipping exclusion's model for sustainable scale in ad-cost eras.
• Free penetration demands exotic tech switches from non-transactional to transactional, owning velocity over ease.
• Hiring human brains as energy amplifiers 10x real estate, emphasizing rental over ownership mindsets.
• Energy views of money enable fluid allocation—ads, teams, platforms—for complex entity dominance.
• Progressive learning chains references backward, building first-principles wisdom beyond regurgitated tactics.

QUOTES

• "It took me like two years to make 24 cents and um yeah but back then there was no like you know youtube nobody's really teaching stuff."
• "My whole logic was like well you know if you can make a thousand dollars then it's like you gotta do it like a thousand times to make a million dollars."
• "When i came into this it was like oh man look at this is so much possibility so i fell in love with it right and i was like it was like it saved my life."
• "The only way to compete with liars is to lie and i was like i don't want to do that."
• "I'm not like you can't pitch but i can you know no it doesn't work so yeah so i just wanted to bring back the magic."
• "The more time you spend in front of the computer the better you're gonna get it's like a simple correlation right."
• "Write an offer write some copy and then strangers that you don't know just buy your stuff it's like what the [__] like it's crazy."
• "Competing on economics right let's change the numbers and then the other thing is people tend to want to you know change the offer change the offer change the offer right."
• "A lot easier to change them than this because there's a mismatch right maybe the offer is great maybe your copy is fantastic bad audience change the audience."
• "Women age in cycles of four so every four year a woman four years women will psychologically uh redevelop herself for change guys are eight to ten years very different right."
• "Direct response the things we do tends to be very it seems to be based on exclusion marketing right meaning we get a thousand people you know we pay for a thousand people on facebook and youtube and stuff to come to our lander page funnel whatever and then only like one to three percent give us money."
• "Once you know how to add it all up like you literally you know you ever seen like you know again dark lording star star wars and [__] like you know you can bend reality right like things move and people don't know."
• "The body doesn't lie that's some some experience of your entire life so intuitive copywriting is where it's at to trust yourself and most people don't trust themselves."
• "Industry skills being end up being regressive right instead of progressive."
• "Fear is interesting because fear is like the least it's the wildest emotion of human beings so uh they it's easy you know people become very reactive instead of responsive."
• "When you look at money as a form of energy everything changes for you so i look at money as a form of energy right not as a thing like form of value."
• "Get more shitty ones and then figure out how to extract the good ones out of that pile because the shitty ones will pay for you to acquire the good ones."
• "The rule of thumb is if you're running a low ticket offers basically like your daily ad spend should be full value of the funnel."
• "Pick your trophies you know where they they know how to run the offer and that's going to build your reputation."
• "There's a lot of potential right um there's like knitting offers there's one guy like has an offer um how to organize your photos you know doing really well."

HABITS

• Wake up at 7 a.m. and work until 9 p.m., six or seven days a week, maintaining hyper-focus on tasks.
• Travel non-stop during off-periods, like 2014-2018, to recharge while staying productive.
• Spend extensive time reading books and absorbing information 24/7 to build broad expertise.
• Pop out of one's mind to observe objectively, adopting others' perspectives for empathetic creation.
• Study billionaire interviews and behaviors deeply, collaborating with mind coaches for objectivity.
• Feel emotions bodily before writing copy, ensuring intuitive rather than intellectual output.
• Monitor email list wave patterns daily, using opens and replies as energy feedback.
• Hire in pairs to build teams, fostering competition and self-sustainability without heavy management.
• Overpay team members to elicit 10x value, treating hires as rented brains for amplification.
• Read foundational marketing books repeatedly, chaining references backward to first principles.
• Ask boldly for help, promotions, or introductions, persisting despite occasional rejections.
• Avoid hierarchy by elevating organic leaders based on performance, not titles.
• Test tools minimally, preferring simple ones like Asana to reduce administrative time.
• Build offers bottom-up by swiping scientific references from competitors' pages.
• Reframe customer positions early, like in seven-day fast starts, to prime ascensions.
• Interact in diverse rooms and conversations to evolve skills progressively.
• View money as energy, allocating fluidly to ads, people, and platforms.
• Maintain solitude for deep thinking, generating ideas away from distractions.
• Celebrate small wins internally, like 24 cents, to sustain long-term motivation.
• Profile psychologically before hiring, avoiding past mistakes through awareness.

FACTS

• Warrior Forum, once a vibrant hub, devolved into a "flea market" over time.
• Alen created 22 number-one ClickBank offers between 2010 and 2012.
• A single tea supplement seller shipped to 285,000 customers monthly via minimal copy.
• Women psychologically redevelop every four years; men every eight to ten.
• Direct response typically converts only 1-3% of traffic, leaving 97% untapped.
• Sales copy was invented in 1895 by John E. Kennedy as "salesmanship in print."
• Alen combined hero's journey with VSLs first in 2009, influencing industry standards.
• Optimism left the market two years ago, detected via rising payment plan requests in high-ticket sales.
• Crypto markets thrive on certainty emotions; women's relationships on control, men's on status.
• Ad costs now reach $5-10 per click globally, eroding virgin leads.
• Alen's ad network served 8,500 businesses before sale.
• Felix Dennis built a $750 million empire founding Maxim magazine.
• Building a supplement offer requires only 24-bottle minimum from suppliers like VitaLabs.
• Horse maintenance costs up to $5,000 monthly, limiting coaching viability in that niche.
• Alen scaled Two Hour Agency to $15-20k daily ad spend rapidly.
• Nothing Held Back mastermind filled to 172 members without pitches.
• Global culture increasingly normalizes side hustles and entrepreneurship vocabulary.
• Alen employs about 20 remote workers across regions like Russia, Bosnia, and Philippines.
• Free models like Facebook achieve highest market penetration velocity.
• Subscription churn rates highlight that customers provide value briefly as "turnover."

REFERENCES

• Nothing Held Back (community and platform project).
• Warrior Forum (early online forum).
• Corey Rudl (early marketer and teacher).
• Gary Halbert (copywriting legend, letters with his picture).
• John E. Kennedy (inventor of salesmanship in print, 1895).
• Narnia (children's story analogy for magical discovery).
• ClickBank (affiliate platform for 22 number-one offers).
• AdSense (first earnings source).
• Commission Junction (affiliate network promoted early).
• Russell Brunson (ClickFunnels founder, podcast VSL discussion).
• Podcast VSL (Alen's invention for high emotional states).
• Hero's Journey (combined with VSLs in 2009).
• John Caples (copywriting pioneer).
• Victor Schwab (copywriting expert).
• Rosser Reeves (first video advertising, reality in advertising).
• Claude Hopkins (scientific advertising).
• Robert Collier (letter writing techniques).
• Eugene Schwartz (breakthrough advertising).
• Scott Haines (copywriting shortcut book).
• Clayton Makepeace (screaming eagle newsletter).
• Robert Cialdini (influence principles, observational).
• How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis (core inspiration book, read 50 times).
• The Narrow Road by Felix Dennis (another key book).
• Seth Godin (idea virus book).
• Automatic Clients (offer model, low-ticket funnel).
• To Our Agency (scaled offer example).
• Client Accelerator (program with back-end offers).
• Trim Core (sample supplement name creation).
• VitaLabs (supplier for 24-bottle minimums).
• ClickFunnels (funnel builder, $97/month).
• Upwork and 99designs (for logos and contests).
• BrandBucket (domain and name sourcing).
• Forbes Jobs (consulting project with status architecture).
• Million Dollar Group Method (modeled after Automatic Clients).

HOW TO APPLY

• Start by joining supportive communities like Nothing Held Back to absorb free knowledge without pitches.
• Track your daily computer time, aiming for extended sessions to build pattern recognition in marketing.
• Experiment with economic tweaks: adjust pricing, add bumps, and test quantities on existing funnels.
• Audit your audience fit; if conversions lag, pivot to a more aligned demographic via targeting changes.
• Segment content by emotional states: use long VSLs for low states, short podcast formats for high.
• Implement inclusion marketing by capturing non-converters with follow-up sequences mining the 97%.
• Study market emotions first—certainty for crypto, control for relationships—to architect offers accordingly.
• During recessions, amplify justification in copy, addressing fear with clear value proofs.
• Build intuitive copy by feeling emotions bodily before typing, bypassing research placeholders.
• Regress to first principles: read original works like Gary Halbert letters, chaining referenced books.
• Hire in pairs for new roles, overpay to foster 10x output and self-sustaining dynamics.
• Front-load subscriptions: shift to bi-monthly or quarterly billing to minimize churn risks.
• Switch ad language from "how" to "why" for low-state niches like supplements, testing for conversion lifts.
• Use perceptive positions: detach objectively to write in target voices, boosting authenticity.
• Develop effective empathy via billionaire studies, stripping subjective filters for clearer insights.
• Monitor email waves: analyze open patterns as energy signals to refine send strategies.
• Launch low-ticket funnels matching daily ad spend to full funnel value for break-even scaling.
• Reframe early in onboarding, like seven-day fast starts, to prime high-ticket ascensions.
• Profile hires psychologically, using Bezos' pizza team rule (4-5 max) to avoid communication breakdowns.
• Build offers bottom-up: swipe scientific refs from competitors for quick, low-cost launches under $1,000.
• Ask boldly: request JV promotions, intros, or help persistently to accelerate growth.

ONE-SENTENCE TAKEAWAY

Master economic competition, emotional slicing, and supportive communities to scale marketing ethically amid rising resistance.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Prioritize philosophy over mechanisms in offers for self-generating, emotion-driven copy.
• Shift to inclusion marketing to extract value from non-converting traffic as ad costs rise.
• Tailor sales by emotional states, using short forms for high-energy audiences.
• Change audiences before offers when mismatches occur, easing optimization burdens.
• Invest in tech teams to unlock exotic funnel features beyond standard platforms.
• Overpay hires exponentially, pairing them for self-managing, high-output teams.
• Front-load recurring revenue to combat churn, treating customers as temporary turnover.
• Use "why" language in low-state markets like health for doubled conversions.
• Develop objectivity through billionaire analyses to eliminate subjective decision filters.
• Build effective empathy to feel audience pains intuitively, elevating copy resonance.
• Regress to foundational texts for progressive skills, avoiding regurgitated tactics.
• View money as energy for fluid allocation across people, ads, and ecosystems.
• Scale low-ticket daily spends to full funnel value for rapid, break-even growth.
• Reframe customer mindsets early in funnels to facilitate seamless ascensions.
• Launch niche offers cheaply under $5,000, focusing on static markets like dog training.
• Avoid hierarchies by organically elevating performers to leadership roles.
• Test free models with exotic tech for market-owning penetration velocity.
• Boldly ask for opportunities, persisting to build networks and affiliates.
• Study diverse experts like Felix Dennis for raw, non-sugarcoated success truths.
• Profile psychologically before learning sources, testing depth via explanations.

MEMO

Alen Sultanic, the enigmatic founder of Nothing Held Back, emerged from obscurity to redefine internet marketing's communal spirit. Once toiling at GNC for $6 an hour, Sultanic stumbled into affiliate forums like Warrior Forum, where a Australian promoter's $35,000 monthly earnings ignited his obsession. Two grueling years yielded his first 24 cents via AdSense, a milestone that snowballed into 100,000-dollar days. Retiring briefly to pedal carbon-fiber bikes with retirees, he returned in 2014, scaling webinars and building an ad network for 8,500 businesses. But disillusioned by gurus' omission tactics—lying by withholding key facts—Sultanic revived Nothing Held Back in 2018 as a pitch-free haven, aiming to inject the "magic" of early online worlds back into a jaded industry.

Sultanic's philosophy centers on competing through economics rather than escalating claims, a shift born from witnessing a tea supplement seller ship 285,000 units monthly with minimal copy. "Change the numbers," he urges: tweak pricing, upsells, bumps, and quantities to boost average order values (AOVs) from $120 to $200 without rewriting a word. One mastermind member applied this to supplements, slashing CPAs under $40 while facing capacity shortages. Equally vital is audience alignment; a stellar offer flops with the wrong crowd, so pivot demographics swiftly. Sultanic slices markets granularly—women redevelop psychologically every four years, men every eight to ten—tailoring emotions like certainty for crypto gamblers or control for women's relationships.

Emotional states dictate strategy: low-state prospects (tired, broke) bind to long-form VSLs, while high-state ones demand short podcast formats and hidden sales processes. This inclusion marketing flips exclusion's waste, harvesting the 97% non-converters amid $5-10 ad costs and eroding virgin leads. Sultanic invented the podcast VSL to combat resistance, noting direct response's exclusion roots no longer scale as platforms saturate. In supplements, swap "how" for "why" language to double conversions, as low states crave pain explanations over solutions. His intuitive copywriting flows from bodily-felt emotions, not intellectual placeholders, echoing 1895's "salesmanship in print" but evolving beyond regressive copies of copies.

As recession looms, Sultanic anticipates fear's wild reactivity creating opportunities for ethical players. Optimism fled two years ago, per rising payment requests in high-ticket sales; now, justification hardens amid perceived scarcity. Yet money pools remain—merely slower—so amplify proofs and reframe fears. Low-ticket funnels build audiences and lists, financing high-ticket ascents via bumps that morph $7 buyers into $200 ones. Sultanic favors low-ticket for peripheral branding, panning "shitty" customers to extract gold nuggets. His Automatic Clients model outperforms, powering $400 daily sales in art coaching or dog training, with static niches thriving on unchanging Google ads.

Team-building underpins scale: Sultanic hires in pairs, overpays for 10x returns, and caps teams at pizza-feedable sizes (4-5) to dodge hierarchies. Remote across Russia, Bosnia, and Philippines, his 20-person crew self-sustains via organic leaders, minimal tools like Asana, and chatter-monitored Slack. Investing in five verticals—business, health, relationships, finance, survival—he replicates platforms with mastered "middles," testing upsell chains sans downsells for 15% take rates. Free models, like his upcoming NHB Plus, penetrate fastest but demand exotic tech to flip non-transactional users transactional.

Sultanic's raw honesty, inspired by Felix Dennis's How to Get Rich, cuts through guru fluff: success demands obsessive screen time, bold asks, and objectivity from billionaire dissections. Avoid observational teachers like Cialdini; seek doers who explain depths, from Gary Halbert to Eugene Schwartz. Offers launch cheaply—under $1,000 for supplements via VitaLabs—swiping bottom-up science. Regressive industry habits regress to first principles: chain old books for progressive wisdom. Ultimately, marketing as energy bends reality, where complex systems devour simple ones, turning solitude-spun thoughts into effortless crushes.

Nothing Held Back's vision: a million users in a beautiful platform, hosting break-even events heavy on kegs and hookahs, light on pitches. Sultanic gives everything free, charging only for fast-forward implementation, reconciling integrity in a bait-and-switch world. Study broadly—from Hermosi to Ericson—asking relentlessly to evolve. Comfort kills progress; raw truth levels up, even if it stings identities like copywriting's burdens. In this dark lord's realm, magic returns not through lies, but liberated possibility for the six-dollar-hour dreamer.