The LFG Show
Talking with movers and shakers who grew up with nothing and worked their asses off to achieve success. Let's 🤬 Go!!!!
The LFG Show
Over 1000 Attendees Year 1 | Affiliate Takeover ft. Alex Micol
What happens when over 1,000 of the sharpest minds in affiliate marketing unite under one roof? You get Affiliate Takeover—and in his first year, Alex Micol brought the fire. 💥
In this no-fluff session, Alex delivers a masterclass on ethical, scalable, and sustainable marketing. From spending $70M+ on YouTube without getting banned to building brands that last, this is more than a talk—it’s a movement. 🚀
⚡️ What You'll Learn
✅ How to build a brand without shady tactics
✅ Why white hat strategies win long-term
✅ The core values behind ethical affiliate marketing
✅ Real-world proof that integrity still scales
🎤 Alex doesn’t hold back as he shares what pushed him to launch the Against The Odds conference and why real people behind the metrics matter now more than ever. If you care about long-term growth, transparency, and real impact—this is the playbook.
📈 Whether you're scaling six figures or chasing your first big win, Affiliate Takeover delivers game-changing insight from one of the best in the business.
👉 Subscribe, share, and drop a comment below if you're done with the fluff and ready to build the right way.
#AffiliateTakeover #AlexMicol #DigitalMarketing #WhiteHatMarketing #EthicalMarketing #YouTubeAds #AffiliateMarketing #PerformanceMarketing #againsttheodds
Timestamps:
0:00
Taking the Leap into Purpose
3:52
White Hat vs. Shady Strategies
9:57
Responsibility in Marketing
14:52
Reviving Industry Standards
17:03
The Threshold Test for Integrity
19:29
Quality Connections and Next Level Growth
23:10
No Money, No Honey
When I had to decide if to do this or not, I looked myself in the mirror and I was like fuck, I can't look myself in the mirror anymore If I know that. I can pull this off and wonder what would have happened if I did it and not doing it would have killed me. Sometimes it comes down to that moment like what's more painful doing it and going through all the troubles, or not doing it. Not doing it, it's like wasting potential. You never know which door you're going to open. Alex.
Speaker 2:Mikol, this guy's a fucking legend in this space. How does it feel to see like all these great speakers have it?
Speaker 1:come to fruition, man, I feel like everyone played a part. You know everyone liked the idea and that's what we knew was going to work.
Speaker 2:What was like the light bulb moment, like, hey, I got to bring this back because I feel like everything's going in a different direction.
Speaker 1:The space was always not really clean and it started becoming too dirty. I saw bad companies doing, having bad practices, and when is it enough?
Speaker 2:I went to my first show in 2017 and, man, the fucking people that were at that show compared to people eight years, nine years later, there was like 10% of those people. It's because people did the right thing, that knew how to pivot and whatever it was that lasted right.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of shame in the industry, because a lot of people just don't want to talk about what they're doing. So that's also why we are probably one of the few ones doing content, because we can talk about whatever we want. We don't have to hide. What is life if you need to hide and there is no freedom? How did you?
Speaker 2:determine the threshold. It's almost like you're like the bouncer at the door right. You made an ad.
Speaker 1:Would you show it to your mother? Would you show it to your daughter? Would Probably not welcome here. Lfg, bro, this does not.
Speaker 2:Let's freaking go. We've been going hard as fuck. Man, I don't even know man. Okay, we can swear, yeah, we can swear. This is what I love about this show. You know, ezra was on stage. He's like letting it go. He's from Brooklyn, by the way. Shout out New York, no-transcript, shout out New York. I'm like this is fucking great. One time I was at a show and they told me I couldn't curse. I'm like what the fuck? I got the LFG show. How the fuck can I not fucking curse? But anyway, cursing. You're Italian, alright? First of all, we're at Alex Meekhole. This guy's a fucking legend in this space, jumping on planes. All was like six, seven, eight months ago. Now we're here in barcelona in the fucking. It wasn't even the fucking sperm in the chromosome man. It's here now. Baby, we got italian passion. Let's go. I just came from milan, by the way. I love italy yeah, damn I.
Speaker 1:Every time I meet you I feel like you introduce me to the ring. I'm like let's go baby.
Speaker 2:So anyway, but how does it feel, man? We, we talked in. Uh, last time we talked was in vegas. I think it was in Vegas at Affiliate Summit. Right yeah, and you were talking about you're going to get this going. How does it feel to see, like this, all these people here, all these great speakers, have it come to fruition? Man.
Speaker 1:Grateful, Grateful. It's not easy, but it definitely felt easy because of all of you, all the supports. Like from day one, you were like ATO, let's fucking go. And the cool thing about that is that I feel like everyone played a part. You know, everyone liked the idea and that's what we knew was going to work, because it was needed, Like it was in the air. You know, in the industry, if you're in the industry, you felt that it was time for a change. And even if you didn't and now you saw the change you're like oh yeah, we actually need it. And in fact, even talking to the speakers, you know there was always like a speaker crew, Like the gang that went and did all the other conferences and then, kind of like you know, broke up, Not because they had beef or anything, just because no one bothered bringing everyone together anymore. So what happens then? You become nostalgic, quality goes down, you need to run it back. So it's amazing to just see this come alive and it's exciting because we're just getting started.
Speaker 2:So yeah, there is a new endeavor called Roofs in the Box. It's just man from day one it's taken off.
Speaker 3:When I first started getting in the roofing industry, what was happening was my fixed costs were always there, and so for me I was looking at how can we, kind of one, save on these costs? And then, two, how do I not lay people off during down times, but also maybe even the ability to pocket more money during the slow season or even the peak season. Since we've done this before, like with our leg lead gen companies where we have virtual staffing from Argentina or Colombia, I'm like why don't we do the same thing in the construction business? Now, once we figured it out, we reduced their fixed costs by 70%, and so now during the downtime they have real, seasoned, veteran type of players, but during the uptime they pocket. 70% of their operational costs are now going back in their pocket, and then, when it's time to scale, you have the backend prepared, already ready to go to help them. Like lift off, depending on what state you're in, you're averaging about 12 and a half percent on what you pay out on taxes, insurance, like all the different insurances that you have to pay out, right? So, yeah, you don't have to pay out unemployment, you don't have to pay out bike insurance, medicare, social Security, the things that business owners have to eat.
Speaker 3:Roofs to Box is not just limited to roofing or home improvement companies. You can use it for any services, right? You can use it for IT. We use them internally for data cells, for hygiene, for analytics. It doesn't even matter what the vertical is. It's like business in a box at the end of the day. Pretty much, yeah.
Speaker 2:Look, I'll tell you one thing the I love it. I'll tell you one thing the quality of the speaker is amazing. You know, I had Ezra on. He came on the podcast man. Wow, he blew me away. I thought we were going to get like deep talk about technical stuff. We just talked about the mind, the brain, the psychology, and that. You know, he said something cool about comparison is like the devil. It's so funny because we're marketers and we got Instagram, you got TikTok, you got YouTube and we kind of play on those sort of things Right. And I think that how do you play on the words right, where you're not causing issues? But he blew my mind away and I'm like I would have never had access to Ezra if it wasn't for a show like this. And we made it happen and I appreciate you for doing that.
Speaker 2:And even like James Van Elstrick, James Van Elstreek played a critical role in my career. Him and I started doing solar back in 2016-ish and we had a big run with that. So to see him on stage. And you know, I'll tell you a funny thing, I don't know how you did I never seen James dress as well as he was today. Oh, really, this motherfucker had a belt on, I told you he'd laugh because I know him for a long time. But bro he, knowledge about the future telehealth yes, this is a new trend I feel like no one's talking about. So I think you getting all the few is a testament to you, is a testament to the value. So hats off to you, because I know it's not fucking easy.
Speaker 1:I mean that's when marketers run shows, right? No other conference that is big and relevant is run by marketers anymore, so fairly easy to understand what we need, right, like I know what you need, I know what I like, so it's easy to find. And also like I mean we had a lot of connections already, like the team had a lot of connections. We just came together and everyone just wanted it. So then I guess speakers also got a bit of fun, you know, like they see the first five Ezra's, one of them, nick and stuff, rory, and then I wants to come speak and that was like really cool also because Barcelona, baby. So that's that's also one cool thing. And we really like love the city, like we all have. All the speakers have like some sort of attachment to the city and I think a lot of us because we used to come here before and yeah, we just wanted to run it back. Honestly I think it was almost nostalgic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love it. And let me say one thing is this Edward, you built your career, you made big money, tens of millions, about nine figures in revenue with White Hat right. So you wanted to kind of bring it back to you. Where was the light bulb moment that went over like, hey, I got to bring this back because I feel like everything's going in a different direction. What happened that made you want to do this? I mean, it was not in one moment.
Speaker 1:It was growing and at some point I was like I have enough Because, yes, the previous show was never I don't even want to talk about it anymore, you know. But anyways, the space was always Not really clean and it started becoming too dirty. And then, I mean, they just messed it up and got sold and then just mismanaging everything, not understanding what we like, Turning everyone off, Firing the legends behind it we never get to see. In fact, today I brought all the team in front of the stage Because they did an amazing job. So it just started breaking from the heart.
Speaker 2:And then the results are there not right now, right? So it sounds like you were trying to hide how you you, you started your business white hat, right? Yeah, you're trying to bring it back to white hat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to make it cool, you know, uh, it got to a point where it was just enough, like I mean, if you partake of these things, and I was one of the faces I was, by the end, one of the biggest faces because I was their top ad everywhere and I was vlogging and no one really was vlogging, no. So I made a few vlogs and kids went and they told me like yeah, I went, but it's uh, I, I saw bad companies doing, having bad practices and I take responsibility. You know, like what we're doing even now, like people are gonna watch and there may be a kid there that is watching this and might make a decision based on what we say. So we have a responsibility, right, and marketers forget that. You know that we're actually all very powerful individuals because we can get messages in front of millions of people every single day, and if we forget that those numbers behind the screen are actual people, then that's when things can go really wrong and some people are just blinded by the profits, by the error eyes, and they don't care what they're doing, although maybe on the other side, you're terrifying a mother, you're scamming a kid or your friends. So when is it enough? And I think we.
Speaker 1:You know, I had this big takeaway at my ayahuasca trip and I don't want to bother with the details, but the main takeaway was I do things with love. And actually when you find to do things with more love or there's more intention and you're very intentional about what you put out and what you promote, then you start making better decisions as well, because you realize that, hey, maybe this is not really good, that some people still don't give a fuck and that's why we don't want them here. And you can make a shit ton of money with white hats and, honestly, it's much more scalable. Like that's also the other thing. I don't understand these people. They think like oh yeah, I'm going to make like a quick buck and dip. Okay, yeah, sure, you want. You want the small money and keep the, keep the pocket changes. I'm, I'm for the big bucks and that's why I work with six, nine figure brands, if not 10 by now, because some grew a lot and the real money is there.
Speaker 1:You know you just keep printing. It's cool to make $10,000 a day, but you know what's Doing that for years and you can only do that with. Why that? Because I never got fucking banned, you know, and I was able to spend $70 million around that on YouTube. Did I get banned? No, why? Because I don't rely on shady shit, and that's what people need to. You know, understand, and a lot of us, a lot of us do here. That's why the vibes were so great, but a lot of people don't, and that's a problem. And karma is a bitch and it's always going to come back like a boomerang in different ways.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I love it. I love that you're talking more about long-term versus short-term right, and I've seen this. I went to my first show. Probably you were talking at the Affiliate Summit. I think you went to your first show a few years ago. You're talking about it was pretty crazy to come back for where you are. You showed a picture when you were like way younger and then, you know, a few years later, I went to my first show in 2017 and, man, the fucking people that were at that show compared to the people eight years, nine years later, there was like 10 percent of those people. It's because, yeah, people did the right thing, that knew how to pivot, whatever. Yeah, oh, it was at last right. So I do, you do the right thing. Yeah, maybe you don't make it, doesn't come as quickly, but you stick with it. You want to be the person that wins the race. You don't want to be the guy spraying and then fucking dies.
Speaker 1:You know, at the end of the day, yeah, I mean, there's still some people around that even 10 years ago was my first show and I still see them doing and, honestly, I don't buy proof, you can tell. You know, like you can tell, there's a lot of shame in the industry because a lot of people just don't want to talk about what they're doing. So that's also why I'm we are probably one of the few ones doing content, because we can talk about whatever we want. We don't have to hide, and that's I mean, what is life if you need to hide and there's no freedom? Like I love life if you, if you need to hide and there's no freedom? Like I love doing this and you know so it's so important and I could talk about it freely and not care, and I know I'm doing good. So, yeah, I actually love what I'm selling, I'm using my, I use the products I'm selling.
Speaker 2:so no, I could tell man, you know one thing I say about you a lot of passion, a lot of energy, right you, you freaking, just you, you, you. I feel like, you feel like and tell me if I'm wrong but you feel almost like you have an obligation, right, this, this industry gave you a lot of freedom help you travel the world, do all these crazy fun things, and you feel like you want to pay it forward Am.
Speaker 1:I right with that. Yes, so it's in fact. It started like that. I mean, I was like we're just going to run it time. I mean, I'm very business oriented, so I can see a lot of value behind this conference and everything that we can do with it.
Speaker 1:But at the same time, you know, I came to a conclusion, like when I had to decide if to do this or not, I looked myself in the mirror and I was like, fuck, I can't look myself in the mirror anymore If I know that I can pull this off and wonder what would have happened if I did it. And not doing it would have killed me. Yeah, you know. So I. Sometimes it comes down to that moment like what's more painful doing it and going through all the troubles or not doing it? And I was like not doing it it's like wasting potential and it's so cool to just bring everyone together and you know you, you never know which door you're gonna open. So I just trust in that and I know it's gonna go. Well, I've already it will. If we stop now, I know it, it already pays off. But we know that we're certainly not gonna stop now right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I listen, I give you a lot of credit because I did. I did a couple masterminds right, one in columbia, columbia con, I think, about 20, yes, so, yes, we're gonna do part three. We'd love to have. I did a couple of masterminds right, one in Columbia, columbia Con. I think we had 20. So, yes, we're going to do part three, we'd love to have you there. So the second one I think we had 45, 50 people. I was fucking stressed. I did it with Samar. We were stressed out man. So I can't imagine Samar, yeah, it is probably like 20 times the amount of people here, but like I don't know, like how, and you're running your business like how many people you think came.
Speaker 2:I know it's hard to imagine, so I would say I mean, right, you got the stage, you got this. I think anytime between 800 to a thousand, I don't know. That it's pretty accurate. We crossed the thousands. Yeah, congratulations, man. That's not easy and I'll tell you one thing so I do.
Speaker 2:I started this podcast a year ago and the guy I hired a coach to help me get the podcast going and he said a lot of times, like we're wearing instagram, we're on linkedin, we're on tiktok, we have a different, and I get pissed off on youtube if I have a video that didn't like cross, like good numbers, but like bro and he wasn't just saying this to me, he was saying in general, some people get mad if they get like 25 views, 50 views, 100 views, like dave, imagine you have a hundred people, how do you, how do you get a hundred people into to watch the stage on stage, a hundred people to watch?
Speaker 2:If you get a hundred people on you, that's essentially what you're doing. You get a thousand people and it's fucking true, like you're right man, so you just trust the process. You provide value. The people will come is what it comes down to avoid. So you can't get hung up sometimes on the numbers but actually like a thousand people for the first time you know, and you're talking about hat, you're not talking about all this other stuff. I think that's pretty impressive, but in another country it's a lot, man, yeah At first we thought let's do 500 people.
Speaker 1:But then talk to some people and we're like that's a meetup. Yeah, like I don't like how it sounds. All right, let's do a thousand at least. But at the same time, we could have accepted a lot more booths. Trust me, I said no to a lot. I trained sales team to say no, although they're incentivized to say yes, but they got it. They were like okay, like we can't work with everyone because of the mission, so we could have had a much busier floor. Trust me, at the end of the day, I had those conversations saying why not?
Speaker 1:To some some of the sales team and yeah, I might be the asshole that refuses people, but we have a very clear picture of how this is going to look like in three to five years from now and it can only go that way if we stay true to and have integrity over our mission, because a lot of it's hard to judge who is in and who can be out. You know there's white, gray and white. Sorry, there's black, gray and white and yeah, it's hard to distinguish. But I think we did a pretty good job. Everyone here seemed to be pretty good and I got a lot of good feedback, so we're excited.
Speaker 4:When I first heard of Roofs in a Box, I thought no way could everything be combined in one platform From your CRm to ai, even virtual assistant, helping manage all these things.
Speaker 4:Together it has completely changed my business and I couldn't be where I'm at without it. So over the last eight months or so I've saved at least a million dollars on what it would cost salary-wise to hire the engineer. I wouldn't have been able to do what I've done without roofs in a box or be able to do what I am currently doing without Roots in a Box. If you are looking to scale, get your business organized or get it ready to sell, definitely want to give Roots in a Box a call. They'll get everything tightened up, get you set up to do whatever you need to do for a fraction of the cost. Not everybody's got a million dollars just laying around, hire operations managers and have their own call center. So give Roots box of call, they'll get it taken care of.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about that. I was going to ask you that question earlier how did you determine the threshold? It's almost like you're the bouncer at the door, right. The owner says, hey, I only want good looking people here, right, and they have to make that determination. So how do you determine that it's hard? Yeah, it's tricky. Determine that it's hard, it's tricky, it's a balance. What's going to happen is people are going to hear about this and then they're going to want to go to the next one, right, yeah, and then. So then how do you let's put it out there how are we going to know what's the threshold?
Speaker 1:I have a question you made an ad, or the ads that you. The answer is yes, it's probably great. The answer is no, probably not welcome here, so perfect, I think that's a very easy way to put it and yeah, that says a lot. Man, like, sometimes I talk to people and I was like, why are you running this? Would you ever give this to your mother or have your mama buy in? Oh, no, never. I was like well, well, it's weird, isn't it? I love it. By the way, I have a little thing for you. Could you, could you pass me that little bag back? Oh, I'll get through this. Yeah, I'm not, it's a little scaler's bag.
Speaker 2:Wow, look at this we're getting gifts, we're buying. A first time we got a gift on the show aside from like a shot or something. Let's see just a little, a little present. Oh, I love it. Man, this is great. We're going to wear this with pride. Scalers let's talk about scalers.
Speaker 1:This is beautiful, by the way. Thanks, sir. Thanks a lot, and also some, I think ATO stickers are in it. Oh wow, we got. Look at this.
Speaker 2:We got stickers, we got to get you some LLG, we got some LLG gear. I think we do right, hey man. So let's get him some soap. I appreciate it. It means a lot, man. Well, listen, so we're talking about ATO, right? This has been great. Like I came here. Let me tell you something. I'm breaking a record right here.
Speaker 1:We've done about 10 podcasts today here. Most of them are done in a.
Speaker 2:Were speakers right, yeah, but when speakers like Ezra Fireside, we got. That was great. We got. What's that, Amarisha?
Speaker 2:Amarisha, oh my God, Amarisha is not just beautiful incredibly smart, Amazing the stuff she's doing, and you know what I like about what she's doing Everyone. It's not just an affiliate. You can make money. But I'm signing up for Mindvalley. We all need that. It doesn't matter how good or how bad. We need to have that mental clarity and a mental focus, because whether you're a father or a husband, a wife, boyfriend, girl, whatever the hell you are, you got shit. So she's got a product that I love, man. So that was great. So I feel like I'm not even. What I love about my show is that I get to talk to the audience. I'm learning. I just subscribed to Mindvalley. I'm going to get my team to sign up for the AI Summit. She does, because I need to be part of that. Rory just talked about the AI. I'm like, bro, I'm fucking behind. So I appreciate that. So, yeah, the people most I'm glad you said the ministers, the girls spoke here.
Speaker 1:Actually, kudos to Marisha, because she also played a role putting this together, together, yeah, yeah, she helped in the marketing team, so, and you know, I saw, I saw sharon, sharon in barcelona.
Speaker 2:I didn't expect the skier to give me a big hug, man, she was great. You know, when you speak on stage and then you spoke in that stage it's such a like, it gives you immediate credibility, right. And you know, like samar, I was with him last night, I was gonna go out last night and we decided at dinner it's like you know what I'm I got a big speech tomorrow. I got to be ready. I can't fall short. I told Alex I was going to get my egg egg. He didn't have one single drink. He ate Da, da, da, da, da, right, and like I know that pressure, when you're on stage you're in front of a lot of people, an international audience he gave.
Speaker 2:Whenever Everyone did, to be honest, yeah, everybody did. James Van Elstewijk came out. James was huge in my growth, he blew me away, man. I recorded like 60 minutes. I put it on my story. But the point is that you have some really good quality people, that it's not just about making money but also how to be a better person, how to be a better father, and I appreciate that. And, dude, it just goes a long day, no well how was the show for you?
Speaker 1:did you manage to go around?
Speaker 2:because you have podcasts I mean, we went around trying to do a podcast. I met a lot of people. We're doing a lot of home improvement right now. Yeah, I met people that are doing hvac. That's a big growing area in um, in home improvement. It's a whole. It's an air conditioner replacement right. So I met people and so, from a business perspective, I'm going to get a good roi on that as well. That's what it comes down to. I think it was fantastic, cavi. So we got a gift for you, too, little man. We got listen. No money, no honey baby. Look at that.
Speaker 1:No money, no honey, no money, no honey. And we got the damn barcode. It sounds too familiar, dude. I live in Dubai and girls like to say no money, no honey, no honey, no money, no honey. Really, you're sitting in Dubai, no?
Speaker 2:but it's like Something similar, something similar. Yeah, we need to get a Dubai version.
Speaker 1:I think this is the Dubai version already, to be honest, so yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2:Listen, alex, it's been a pleasure Listen. You're a real inspiration. Well, I love what's on it. How old are you, by the way? I know you're in your 20s man. I don't know if it was mid 20s. I want to say mid 20s, 26. I just turned 28, 28 there, yes, bro, that's. I feel like you're 28 on paper, but you got the mind of like a 49 50 year old, and that's great man, because Guys Follow his trajectory. If you follow, if you're like a stock, if you, it's like Nvidia, back in motherfucking like 2005,. Right, you know, now there are four trillion. This is a fucking guy you want to follow. Success leaves clues. He's way younger, but I hang out with younger people, older people. You got to learn. I learned from him. We learn together. We fucking grow together, man. So AT Fucking gold baby.
Speaker 5:Get ready to level your shit up with the LFG show. We travel the globe to bring you heavy hitters from all walks of life. We've been talking some serious business, from the best digital marketers, government contracting experts to top athletic and celebrity doctors We've got it all covered. We're talking to guys with cash in for billions with a, b, and the best thing is we're just getting started. So hold on tight. We're about to crank it up a notch. Get ready for next level networking and masterminds within the LFG community. Scare money, don't make no money, or honey. Hit the subscribe button, drop a like, leave a comment and let's fucking go.