Two Worlds of Marketing
In the world of marketing, two opposing ideologies dominate the landscape. On one side stands Seth Godin, the evangelist of remarkable work. His philosophy is elegant: create something so exceptional, for such a specific audience, that the idea spreads on its own. It’s a message that resonates deeply with creatives, designers, and artists. Do good work, and the world will notice. The problem? As author and marketing expert Allan Dib puts it, merit isn't always recognized in time. “How many artists haven't been recognized in their time?” he asks. “They were recognized decades after they died.”
On the other side of the spectrum is Dan Kennedy, widely considered the godfather of direct response marketing. His world is one of measurement, ROI, and relentless conversion. Forget beautiful design. Forget subtlety. Use big, ugly red fonts, a prominent “buy now” button, and hammer the prospect until they convert. “It actually does work,” Dib admits, but the cost is high. “You kind of want to take a shower with a steel brush afterwards.”
Most entrepreneurs, especially creatives, find themselves trapped between these two extremes. They build beautiful things but struggle to pay the bills. They see the aggressive tactics of direct response and feel a sense of revulsion. It feels transactional, pushy, and misaligned with their integrity.
This is the central conflict Dib sets out to resolve. There must be a middle ground. There must be a way to build goodwill and brand equity while also ruthlessly driving results. There must be a way to do more with less.
He calls it Lean Marketing.
The Wisdom of the Assembly Line
The term “Lean” isn’t a marketing invention. It comes from the unglamorous world of automotive manufacturing. On a speaking tour in Guanajuato, Mexico, a hub of automotive production, Dib kept hearing the word: lean manufacturing, lean thinking, lean Six Sigma. His obsession took over. “I'm kind of a bit of an obsessive personality,” Dib explains. “When I go down a rabbit hole, I usually really go deep.”
What he discovered was a philosophy pioneered by Toyota. It was a system built to achieve one primary goal: do more and more with less and less. For manufacturers, waste is the enemy. Wasted materials, wasted time, and wasted labor all directly erode profit. They operate at a gold standard known as Six Sigma, which allows for just 3.4 defects per million opportunities. No manufacturer would ever accept the marketing industry’s famous adage: “Half the money I spend is wasted, but I don't know which half.”
Dib saw the parallels immediately. “Marketing is a space where there is just so much incredible waste,” he says. The industry is saturated with vague concepts like “it’s a numbers game” and a “throw spaghetti against the wall” mentality. It’s what Dib calls “random acts of marketing,” a chaotic approach devoid of system or strategy.
Lean Marketing, therefore, applies the principles of manufacturing efficiency to the art of client acquisition. It asks two critical questions:
- How can we cut the waste out of brand-based, image-based marketing?
- How can we take the ruthless street smarts of direct response and apply them with more integrity?
The goal is to create a systemized approach that blends the best of both worlds. It preserves the goodwill and brand equity of the creative approach while borrowing the efficiency and measurability of the performance approach. It is not about doing more. It is about getting a bigger result by doing less.
As Dib notes, the most sophisticated marketers in the world aren’t defined by what they do. They are defined by what they don’t do. “The list of things that they don't do is much bigger than the list of things that they do do.”
The Enemy Within: Your Money Mindset
Before any marketing tactic can work, you must fix your internal operating system. For many creatives, the biggest obstacle isn't a lack of talent or a flawed strategy. It’s their deeply ingrained, often toxic, relationship with money.
Dib, the son of Syrian immigrants who came to Australia with little, understands this intimately. “Whenever my parents used to talk about money or rich people or whatever, it would almost always be accompanied with the word greedy or shady or cheating,” he recalls. His only exposure to wealth was cartoon villains like Scrooge McDuck. This created a powerful internal script: rich people are bad, and the pursuit of wealth is a morally compromised endeavor.
This is a story familiar to many from humble beginnings. It’s a mindset that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. As Chris Do often teaches, if you have negative feelings about money, you will subconsciously self-sabotage your ability to earn it. For a deeper dive on this, Do's session on Mastering Pricing and Mindset offers a powerful framework for change.
Dib's perspective shifted when he started his first IT business and began interacting with wealthy clients. They weren't the greedy caricatures from his childhood. He found them to be generous, kind, and open. The cognitive dissonance led him to read Robert Kiyosaki’s classic, Rich Dad Poor Dad, a book he initially read in secret, fearing judgment from his family.
He arrived at a simple, powerful conclusion. “Money is a tool,” Dib states. “Like any tool, it can be used for good purposes and for bad purposes. I can use a knife to harm someone… or cook them a beautiful meal.” People with high integrity often fixate on the harm, having seen money used as a weapon or experienced the pain of its absence.
This internal block is not just a philosophical problem. It has tangible consequences. “Behavior is contagious,” Dib warns. If you walk into a sales call secretly believing that your $50,000 fee for a website is an exorbitant amount, that belief will transfer to the client. Your lack of conviction becomes their lack of conviction. “They're going to be thinking, ‘Why would I pay $50,000 for a website? That's insane.’”
Conversely, if you genuinely believe in the value you provide, that confidence is also contagious. You transfer that conviction. The first step in any lean marketing plan is to audit your own beliefs. The information you consume, the people you associate with, all contribute to your mindset. Dib is ruthless about this curation.
“I don't hang around with people who are unlucky,” he says bluntly. “I don't hang around with people who are negative, because this stuff is contagious.”
Your future output is a direct result of your current input.
The Three Levers of Lean Marketing
Getting more by doing less implies the use of leverage. Leverage is any tool or system that multiplies your input. In marketing, Dib identifies three primary leverage points that allow a single individual or a small team to achieve outsized results.
These are not secrets. They are fundamentals that, when practiced with consistency, create an unstoppable engine for growth.
The three levers are: Tools, Assets, and Processes.
1. Tools: The Force Multipliers
A tool amplifies force. To break down a brick wall, you could use your bare hands and end up bloody and exhausted. Or you could use a sledgehammer and finish the job in minutes. The sledgehammer is a tool. In marketing, tools are things like a good CRM system, AI writers, or a content management platform. They allow one person to do the work of many. AI, in particular, represents a monumental shift. “We are being armed with tools that allow us to be the conductor of the orchestra rather than somebody who is playing each individual instrument,” Dib says. However, he offers a crucial warning. Tools are a double-edged sword. Many people get faked out, believing the tool is the solution. “Some people think, you know, if I had Michelangelo's brush, I'd be able to paint the Sistine Chapel, which is not true.”
2. Assets: The Engines of Inbound
Dib uses Kiyosaki’s definition: an asset is something that puts money in your pocket. Wealthy individuals derive most of their income not from labor, but from assets like stocks or real estate. Labor is not scalable, it’s not sellable, and when you stop, the income stops. Marketing assets function the same way. They are things you create once that continue to generate lead flow, revenue, and opportunities over time. For Dib, his books are his primary marketing assets. “The reason that you and I are speaking today is because of an asset I've got in the marketplace,” he tells Do. Every day, that asset brings him speaking gigs, podcast invitations, and new clients. Other marketing assets include:
- A high-value YouTube channel, like the one explored in STOP Trying To Go Viral.
- An email list.
- A well-optimized blog with evergreen content.
- A keynote speech that you can deliver repeatedly.
These assets do for your marketing what financial assets do for your finances: they generate returns while you sleep.
3. Processes: The Power of Boring
Most people treat marketing like an event: a website launch, a product release, a big rebrand. This is a mistake. “Marketing is a process, not an event,” Dib insists. It’s the boring, daily, weekly, and monthly stuff you do with relentless consistency. It’s the marketing equivalent of compound interest. A single action, like sending one email, seems insignificant. But the cumulative effect of sending that email twice a week for five years is monumental. Dib gives a recent example: “I was on a podcast interview just an hour ago with another fellow, and he said, ‘I've been on your mailing list for five years and I just bought your program.’” If Dib had dismissed him as a tire-kicker five years ago, that sale would never have happened. The process is where the real money is made. It’s the LinkedIn posts, the weekly newsletter, the monthly content pillar. It's making common sense common practice. As Do often emphasizes in his own training, like in this masterclass on attracting ideal clients, systems are what separate amateurs from professionals.
Know Your Role: Are You the Visionary or the Integrator?
Understanding the power of process is one thing. Executing it is another. This is where many creative entrepreneurs fail. They are energized by novelty and bored by repetition. They are, in the language of Gino Wickman’s book Traction, Visionaries.
Visionaries are the big-picture thinkers. “We're excited by the new thing, the novelty,” Dib confesses, placing himself firmly in this category. “I’ve got this list of potential new business ideas and projects, and I add to it almost daily.” A Visionary loves starting fires but hates tending to them. They will design the system but loathe operating it.
Their counterpart is the Integrator. The Integrator is the person who loves the process. They thrive on consistency and execution. “They're people who kind of show up every day and drive the bus,” Dib explains. They don’t want to come up with the creative idea; that stresses them out. They want to ensure the bus leaves on time, arrives on time, and everyone is safe. Dib's wife is a classic Integrator. She found joy in bookkeeping and reconciling bank statements, tasks that would make a Visionary want to jump out a window.
The problem is that most solo entrepreneurs and small business owners are Visionaries trying to force themselves to be Integrators. They tell themselves they *should* be able to do the boring, repetitive work. They try to fit a square peg in a round hole.
“I’d be like, 'Chris, look, you got to get the newsletter done twice a week,'” Dib says, roleplaying a coaching session. “And you'd be like, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, Allan, I'll get it done.' We'll get on a call next week, 'How did you go, Chris?' 'Ah, got busy… Didn't get it done.'”
The solution is not more discipline. The solution is to stop fighting your nature. The solution is to staff your weaknesses and double down on your strengths. As a Visionary, your job is to generate the ideas, the creative solutions, and the strategic direction. Your job is to find an Integrator, whether it's a team member, a freelancer, or an automated system, to execute the process. Building this kind of team is a core tenet of scaling, a topic covered in this guide to building a seven-figure agency.
You can spend a lifetime trying to make your weaknesses slightly less weak. Or you can focus on making your strengths exceptional. The latter path is the only one that leads to massive success.
The Lean Sale: Be the Spice Girls, Not Vanilla Ice
This brings us to the most dreaded activity for many creatives: sales. The word itself conjures images of pushy, cigar-chomping caricatures. But what if that entire image is wrong?
Dib argues that the loud, brash approach to selling only works when it aligns with your genuine personality. For an introvert, adopting that persona is a recipe for disaster. The real art of selling is not about talking. It’s about listening. It’s a diagnostic process, much like a doctor’s consultation. “Beware the doctor that gives you a prescription without having done an analysis or a diagnosis of you,” he warns.
Yet, this is exactly what most people do in a sales context. They rush into solution mode, talking about their portfolio, their process, and how great their services are before they have earned the right. “Someone will in my experience not buy from you until they feel heard,” Dib says. This is the golden rule.
To make the point, he offers a brilliant pop-culture analogy. You want to be the Spice Girls, not Vanilla Ice.
Vanilla Ice’s approach was simple: “If there was a problem, yo, I'll solve it.” This is the default mode for most service providers. They hear a problem and immediately jump to the solution.
The Spice Girls, however, had a different philosophy: “Tell me what you want, what you really, really want.”
That is the essence of a lean sale. Your job is not to pitch. Your job is to diagnose. When Dib was still doing sales calls, the prospect did 90% of the talking. His 10% was composed almost entirely of simple, open-ended questions:
- “Tell me more about that.”
- “And why is that important to you?”
This is not a weakness. It is a strategy. It builds trust. It uncovers the real pain point, which is often hidden beneath the surface-level request. And most importantly, it makes the other person feel understood. Only then can you present a solution that truly resonates. This method is echoed in many of Do's own sales workshops, where listening is positioned as the ultimate sales tool.
The time for random acts of marketing is over. The era of simply hoping your great work gets discovered is a gamble most can’t afford to take. We are entering a period of enormous change, where the mediocre middle will be crushed by technology and automation.
But for those at the top, for the creatives who can blend artistry with system, goodwill with data, and vision with process, the opportunity has never been greater.
This is your time. Your time is coming.
TRANSCRIPT
we are heading into a time where there's going to be enormous change these are the times when fortunes are made these are the times when you've got the most opportunity when there's going to be pivots in industries that the Goodwill that you talked about is so important right now especially as we're preparing
for whatever may come and to kind of Bounce out of this so please distill some of your wisdom people go into solution mode way too fast um someone will in my experience someone will not buy from you until they feel heard sometimes what I say is you want to be Spice Girls not
Vanilla Ice so um Vanilla Ice is if there was a problem yo I'll solve it right but we want to be Spice Girls we want to be look tell me what you want what you really really want all right hey everybody what is up um the gentleman I'm I have on the podcast
today is someone I've been chasing for a number of years mostly because I read his first book and uh and many of you know it either by reference or I've specifically talked about it the one-page marketing plan it is a is it is a resource a treasure Trove of information and a very
simple straightforward plan and it literally is a onepage marketing plan so when my guest said hey I got another book called Lean Marketing that's coming out and I got my hands on it and it's it's pretty awesome well without giving it all away he is a big deal in Mexico apparently I I
got that far into the book welcome to the show why are you a big deal in Mexico chriso that's a funny story so uh I was once on a like a five we speaking tour and U my last stop was uh speaking in this event in Mexico which was all about it was
an automotive manufacturing event it was in the city of Guan H which is a automotive manufacturing Hub kind of like the new Detroit I guess um and you know I was tired and I was I just had it and I was hot and you know this was my last speaking engagement and I'm
like what in the [ __ ] am I doing in this place you know I'm in the back of this car going to Mexico and you know uh it was long story short and i' I've got some of the story in the book but it was the most amazing event it was like
the highlight of my trip um I spoke on stage sharing the stage with guy kwasaki and other amazing entrepreneurs and I don't know what was in the air what was in the water what the promoters had done but I was like a freaking celebrity there which is very unusual for me because I've
gone through life uh you know as a bestselling author but I've maybe gotten recognized in the street maybe five or six times and every six every every single time my wife is just flabbergast or is like what's going on um but at this event I was like a freaking celebrity I couldn't go
to the bathroom without someone stopping being asking for an autograph I had lines out the door of people with my book waiting to for it to get signed and I had to catch a plane back in in like half an hour and I'm like guys I've gotta I've got to go but I
would I would walk around and people would be hey that's alen dib and I'm like I don't know what is going on am I the subject of a prank here or something like that but it was kind of cool it was cool to be a celebrity for a day so now whenever uh
I need to pull rank with my team or whatever I just remind them hey I'm a big deal in Mexico guys right like uh excuse me you're talking to the big deal right now every just back up what year is this that this story takes place uh this was in 2019 yeah okay
it a pre- pandemic and have you had similar experiences like that it's it's been five years do you go around and people like hey it's alen it's alen hell no like nobody knows who I am I can very safely walk through an airport and nobody knows who the heck I am um I
mean like I said very very occas Al someone will recognize me or whatever I went to a Tony Robbins event uh maybe about a year ago and I got recognized by about two or three people there but that's about it I I am I'm very Anonymous so so yeah that's why I was
such an anomaly I'm like what in the heck is going on they must have really promoted the heck out of that event they must have a bunch of marketing nerds there apparently something like that right something like that you know I got so excited to talk to you I skipped the part that
I always do at the beginning of the show which is to say this one phrase which is Allan for people who don't know who you are can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit of your backstory editing team we might need to do some magic here that's cool um well look
I Chris to be honest I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up but uh what I tell people I'm an author I'm an entrepreneur I'm a marketer I'm a tech geek um and look objectively by any measure you'd have to conclude that life is rigged in
my favor um so a lot of people don't acknowledge that but the role that luck has to play in their success a lot of times people go on podcasts and things like that and it's kind of the rags to Rich story you know I was sleeping in my car or on a street
and now I'm a multi-millionaire and you know there was some magic in the middle but I think for a lot of us um especially people living in countries like the United States and Australia luck is such a massive factor and I've got a similar background to yours in that my parents came to
this country when I was pretty young and I was lucky to be exposed to so many amazing opportunities um as as were you and you know we get to do what we do right now so my background is uh I was born in Syria uh came to Australia when I was a few
years old with my parents they immigrated here um I was a student I was not very bright but I ended up in one of the top schools in the country I didn't do that well I ended up trying many different things uh I ended up trying um I studied music in University I
studied law I studied Finance I dropped out of all of them they had very very good grades I definitely consider myself an an introvert I know you're you're a loud introvert I'm definitely a quiet introvert um and so that makes a lot of what we do as I hate to use the word
it's kind of bit cringe thought leader or whatever but ites makes it a little bit harder but that's okay um when I got married I got married to a wonderful woman when I was pretty young and my net worth at the time was $300 what do you do with a $300 net worth
you start your first business so I had but Michael calls an entrepreneurial seizure meaning hey I was working for this boss that was an idiot and then I became the idiot boss I thought hey I know Tech stuff I know geek stuff I'm an IT guy uh I can do this stuff better
and so that's what I thought it took to grow a business so I grew that business uh I and that was really my training ground for marketing I spent 10 years in trial and error I attended every conference I read every book I did everything and I got nuggets from each you know
not to take away from anyone or anything that I learned from and I had many wonderful mentors and I'm happy to to talk about them but uh I took something from each but really there was nothing holistic that took me from zero from just a tech tech geek and I a broke it
Tech geek who knew nothing about marketing and not knew nothing about how to get clients in the door to really understanding business and marketing well so I grew that business uh fortunately I learned marketing I learned how to use words well and that was a key to my success I grew that business
exited it um I became a millionaire as a result um I started another business it was in the telecommunication space and that was certainly a another training ground for me in business I don't know what it is about the telecommunication industry but it feels like a gang of Thieves you're working like in
a world that feels like the mafia Mafia World anyway I grew that business uh I ended up exiting that and helping the the guys who bought us out um list on the stock exchange and so I exited that um and so uh now basically I work with entrepreneurs with business owners all around
the world we help them Implement Marketing in their business so we're kind of the opposite of a marketing agency we don't do the stuff for you we help you develop your own marketing capability because I believe that's that's incredibly important we can we can go into that if if you'd like um but
look in truth the list of things I'm bad at is significantly longer than the list of things I'm good at so um I guess that's the short summary I don't know like I said I'm probably not your most articulate guest but uh I'm going to I'm going to do my best to get
the point across wonderful wonderful so I'm I'm trying to map your story in my mind because you went through a lot there there was I don't know if this is an accurate description but there's the season of you wandering the desert yes where whether it's like going to school trying some things and
then things didn't work out you said you weren't that bright but clearly a person who can learn on their own who has that inner passion is is a deep learner just you didn't fit within the box of how to learn so you kind of figured it out on your own I'm curious that
period in which you were dabbling with uh the things in music and law and finance what year is this how old are you I'm trying to map this out H what not that good at math so the year but I was uh it was uh straight after school so I graduated school when
I was 18 um went into University so it was kind of my early 20s is when I sort of dabbled I was in in m so I start my first you know my parents are immigrant parents which means hey you've got to be a doctor or you've got to be a a lawyer
or you've got to be something that makes a lot of money an engineer or whatever all of those things so the way my parents presented it was that you're you're either going to be a garbage collector or you're going to be one of these things there was nothing in between so um and
so uh to their great great disappointment I went into a music degree and you know I started doing it I really enjoyed but I don't know the the muso sort of artist world or whatever it just it just wasn't me like I don't know what it was but um it just wasn't me
I really enjoyed playing my instrument and um working uh in the music field but um it just wasn't me um a lot of My Success and like I said uh I don't think I was very bright student but I was really good at trying to figure out what are the leverage points what
are the unfair advantages that I can get to get to the result um one thing that stuck with me a teacher once said and I forget his name but he said um the front door is very very crowded but a lot of times getting in the side door is much easier and certainly
found that in many many Endeavors that I've had from music to getting to schools to study to publishing to business to entrepreneurship the side door is far far less crowded and Far Far easier to get into and if somebody is trying to reverse engineer you and figure out your success there's a lot
of like breadcrumbs and zigzagging kind of all through space and H how did how did you wind up being a guy who is now known for marketing I mean you said you you you gathered lots of things you wanted a a simple process that you can automate and and teach other people yeah
what what year where how old are you what what is going on here so I'm 23 years old I'm married um I'm making all these big mouth promises to my wife you know yeah get getting my wife to marry me that was my best sales pitch ever like you know you are going
to have a life of ease and it's going to be awesome I'm going to be the best husband and initially she said no she's like get out of here like but I put on my best sales pitch and then uh having got married at the age of 23 with a net worth of
$300 um now I had to make good on my big mouth promises so um that's what that was how I got into entrepreneurship and you know I struggled for many many years and one of my biggest struggles was that I equated the level of competence I had at the technical stuff I do
with value and it is valuable to be good technically at what you do like I was like dead said I was amazing at the technical stuff like I reverse engineered routers um when I went entered the telec communication space I I was maybe one of 15 people in the country that you could
call if you wanted to build a telecommunications network from scratch right and um so I was uh I was really really good at the technical stuff because I I reverse engineered a lot of stuff like I always try to figure out how does this thing work and starting from basic principles so how
how does this router work how does Wi-Fi work how do networks work and all of that sort of thing so I never attended any sort of formal schooling for that but I learned it through reverse engineering and so really for me it was always looking for what's the unfair Advantage it sounds kind
of maybe a little bit uh evil or wrong or whatever but it's it's not it's really looking for that leverage Point what's the unfair Advantage I can gain in this situation so to to get ahead because a lot of what we want to do in marketing is really get that unfair Advantage it's
really to get more than is allocated by just natural market forces okay um well congratulations on figuring this out uh and being a guy who writes checks that or his mouth writes the check that's kind of bigger than his wallet would you may good on it right you made good it just took
a little while I made good on it it took a little while but I I made good on it yeah good for you so I want to dig into your latest book um Lean Marketing at first I didn't understand the concept but then once I get into it I totally understand it it
is a phrase I think that's you were introduced to but it's kind of borrowed from lean manufacturing yes and can you tell us like what Lean Marketing is so in fact that event that you you described there the event in Mexico it was an event where automo motive manufacturers were there and I
kept hearing the word lean so lean manufacturing lean thinking lean this lean Six Sigma and all of this sort of stuff and I'm like what in the hell is this lean thing everybody's talking about and I'm kind of a bit of an obsessive personality when I go down a rabbit hole I usually
really go deep I've got to be careful about following my curiosity because sometimes I'll lose like three weeks just going down and trying to figure something out and so I kind of did that with lean uh I was looking into what on Earth is all this lean that everyone's talking about and so
um I met a fellow there uh by the name of Louise and he introduced himself and then we got we got to chatting he became a friend and a and a client but um he's the he's the president of the lean Six Sigma Association but in short lean is something that's been used
in the world of manufacturing uh particularly in manufacturing Automotive it originated in Toyota and all this sounds really really boring and and obvious until you really dive into it um so lean is really a way to do more and more with less and less like so how do we get more with doing
less and the reason manufacturers are super interested in is because manufacturing is very resource heavy in terms of Personnel in terms of equipment in terms of time and all of that and so if we can have less waste and produce more um we make more profit right so sounds kind of really obvious
right so um what we want to do is do more with less and so marketing is a space where there is just so much incredible waste you know even we've got that phrase in marketing you know half the money I spend is wasted but I don't know which half and like when we
look at a world like lean manufacturing there's no manufacturer in the world that's going to say you know half of our raw materials are wasted I I just don't know which half or half of our labor is wasted I don't know which half that just doesn't happen they operate at a gold standard
which is the Six Sigma which is basically 3.4 defects per million opportunities and you know I don't know if we'll ever get to that stage with marketing but I think I want to get closer and closer to that stage because I see so much waste with marketing because typical with marketing is you
know uh words like uh it's a numbers game uh we don't know how much we're spending but you know we we better keep spending and find out you know what hits it's kind of like throwing spaghetti against the wall and if you know anything from my first book it's like look I'm all
about really creating a systemized approach to marketing I it's not about kind of doing random acts of marketing and throwing things against the wall and seeing what sticks so to me coming from an engineering background I really never understood this kind of world where we're just going to do creative stuff and hope
that something sticks so um so that's really where it came from so a lot of the things that I want to apply to marketing come from the world of lean and lean is all about efficiency it's all about getting a bigger result by doing less stuff I want to get into the book
if that's okay of course um I would like to talk about what the big ideas are now we understand what lean marketing is we kind of understand your your crazy background I mean I I guess bless immigrant parents because they they put that fear of God in you to go do something with
your life and uh you found your way though not the traditional path but you found your way so what are some of the big ideas and and you you mentioned something in here if we could just dip into it something about brand marketing versus I think you might have used the word Performance
Marketing or something like that and there's there's differences between the two in the marketing space it's sort of uh there's two kind of branches of marketing there's kind of like brand marketing which is sort of the stuff that you see uh big companies do a Coca-Cola and Nike and all of this sort
of stuff which is kind of image based it's it's designed to make you feel something and the idea of it is with enough exposure you'll end up buying um the other completely opposite branch of marketing is what we call Direct response marketing some people call it Performance Marketing that whatever you call it
but basically the idea is that we're going to run an ad we're going to measure who sees the ad who clicks on the ad who opts in who buys who puts the thing in the cart who abandons the cart we're going to measure every little thing and we just care about that 1%
of people that click through the the other 99% we don't care we're going to hammer those people with emails we're going to get the conversion and so they're kind of two different takes in marketing and really the way I think about it is both both work but one is all about creating a
lot of Goodwill a lot of um a lot of Mind share taking some of the ideas and communicating them and creating feelings and things like that the other one is really about you know how do we get a return on investment as quickly as possible how do we put a dollar in and
get $3 dollars back out as quickly as possible and both have their pros and cons but you know if you had asked me a few years ago I would have been do I would have been firmly in the direct response marketing Camp I'm like you know this branding stuff is just a load
of nonsense and you know it doesn't really work and it's just something big companies waste a lot of money on but I've kind of come around to the fact that there is a middle ground there is a point where you want to create a lot of Goodwill uh with your audience and that
Goodwill will convert into revenue and will convert into uh paying customers and we'll convert into people who want to do business with you so the challenge is where do you stand in that uh Middle Ground so for example if I was to choose some somebody who represents kind of both kind of ends
of the spectrum and I kind of mentioned in this in the book Dan kenned is kind of the The Godfather of direct response marketing he's like you know forget branding forget logos forget all that nonsense design and you know everyone we've seen those direct response marketing ads and landing pages the big red
ugly fonts the big buy now button the pushy sales the the emails that just Spam you to death and all of that and it actually does work but right you know you kind of want to take a shower with with a steel brush afterwards like right um it doesn't you know it's kind
of embarrassing like you don't want to show your friends that ad you're not proud of it on the other end of the spectrum uh and someone I respect very much is Seth Goden right and he talks about just create remarkable stuff and people will remark on it you know it will spread ideas
will spread you know uh change the culture there some of the things that that Seth says and I 100% agree with that but also that could take a very long time um it's not always very effective um sometimes you know Merit isn't recognized for a long time like so how many artists haven't
been recognized in their time they were recognized decades after they died and you know sure it's better than nothing but you know how about with get recognized and make some Revenue while while we're alive and have people recognize our value and and all of that so so with Lean Marketing I want to
take that middle ground I want to see can we cut some of the waste out of brand-based marketing and image-based marketing and can we take some of the ruthless Street smarts of direct response marketing and conversely can we take some of the Goodwill and brand Equity that we can generate through brand marketing
and apply it to direct response marketing techniques so the whole idea is we can do more with less and when I look at all the most sophisticated marketers in the world you included Chris um the list of things that they don't do is much bigger than the list of things that they do
do you know because we're told uh every time you read a book every time you watch listen to a podcast or whatever okay I've got another thing on my to-do list okay I've got to spend more with my advertising company I've got to do more more more and what I find is that
the best most sophisticated marketers in the world actually don't do a lot of things but they do a few things very very well I'm with you on this so I love this blend um I'm I'm not as familiar with Dan Kennedy but for sure I'm very familiar with Seth Cen yes and you
said something in in in the book that I think resonates with a lot of our audience they're mostly creative people who show up for this podcast so they're like yeah I mean it's like the PIP Piper singing to the rats like we're we're good like let's let's focus on Craft let's deliver something
great for a small PE group of people who care who are going to spread the word for us and then we're looking in the cupboards and there's not a lot to eat so I love this idea that you're going to blend the two things so how do we how do we do that
what are the the big ideas that you can share with us you know I love Creative people um I kind of you know I I was listening to one of your uh YouTube videos where you talk about the two-word brand thing and two brand two word brand I mean I've been using for
for years I've been using rebellious marketer but I I I thought like if I was going to redo it what what would I do and I know you said the word first word starts with the negative and then you add a modif fire yes and I I thought what I came up was
with was creative nerd I don't know how did I do um so it's good it needs some work I like that you're trying fair enough nerd is your negative word right you you are a nerd I guess well nerd used to be a negative uh thing especially when when I was when I
was a teenager nerd was not a compliment nerd is now a compliment now that nerds are making billions of dollars right certainly at the time that was not a positive thing that someone would say about you but anyway I digress um but what I've found is that creatives uh people who have very
very high integrity and because of that they have a lot of issues with money so one of the biggest issues uh and I've I've coached creatives in the past and I've worked with them is they really have more Hang-Ups about money than they do about sex or anything else right um I'm telling
you I I'm telling you that's absolutely the case and I don't know I don't know why that is um possibly it's that they've seen money misused or there's been a lack of money and I certainly grew up I grew up in a family where you know uh my dad was on welfare and
my mom kind of worked a little bit part-time we certainly did not have a lot of money um and I had to spend a lot of time changing my mind set around money so one of the first places I would start as a creative especially if you've got Hang-Ups about money about charging
a lot of money for what you do is work on some mindset things so for me and I I'll give you a little bit of my background because I think that will be relevant to a lot of the audience you know whenever my parents used to talk about money or rich people or
whatever it would almost always be companied with the word greedy or Shady or you know uh cheating or whatever and so you know I used to think you know rich people were like kind of like the only exposure I had to rich people was like cartoons of Scrooge McDuck diving into a vault
of gold coins and I thought uh you know rich people were these greedy people who were shady and cheating and all of this sort of stuff and then when I started my first business I started to get exposed to wealthy people because people would hire me for their IT services you know I
had um a c who would fly me to his Chalet to set up Wi-Fi or whatever and you know what I had been taught about wealthy people just was not what I was seeing in real life in real life I saw them to be very generous I mean not all of them like
like any cross-section of people but by and large I saw they were generous they were kind they were open with how they got their success and you know I started to experience a little bit of cognitive dis dissonance and I remember my first book that I read about money was Rich Dad Poor
Dad and you know I was reading that in secret because I didn't want my family to think okay I'm I'm GNA try to become this greedy you know rich person so I kind of was reading it in secret and it really opened my eyes up to what the leverage points are and to
my mindset around money now it's not a perfect book it's there's a lot of stuff in that book that you know either doesn't make sense or whatever but it it um really opened my eyes up to money and understanding the value of being either in the entrepreneur quadrant or being in the employee
quadrant the self-employed uh the investor quadrant so that was kind of my start in trying to really understand money and so here's where I've come to here's the conclusion that I you know came to so money is a tool like any tool it can be used for good purposes and for bad purposes
I can use a knife to harm someone even kill someone or you know cook them a beautiful meal and be very hospitable right so like any tool it's uh something that can be used for good or can be used for bad um and what I found is that a lot of people with
high integrity have seen it maybe maybe in childhood or whatever but have seen it used for bad purposes maybe been abused with it or had a lack lack of it or whatever so we really need to change some mindset around money so that's really where I would start I I've I've got a
whole other bunch of things that I would advise a creative to do but I'll I'll kind of pause there and and we can um we can go go forward with that I like that you're talking about changing the inner frame about your relationship with money I I often will say something like creative
people have an unhealthy relationship with money yes and if you feel negative about it there's a good chance that you're going to self-sabotage on a conscious and an unconscious level when you when you look at how to make it uh how much your time is worth and and the value in which you
generate in the world and so when we when we can't get over that part we're going to be stuck in this kind of cycle of like barely having enough to kind of Stay Alive okay so well here's here's what I've learned is that I want to kind of double click on that point
is that behavior is contagious um you know how we've been told that you're the average of the five p you spend most time with or whatever right that's absolutely true why because their behavior is contagious if you hang around with people who are overweight or negative or people who are lean and strong
and positive or people who are creative that's going to that's going to rub off on you behavior is contagious so how does that affect you when it comes to money so if you've got Hang-Ups about money if you're like man who would pay2 ,000 for a logo who would pay $50,000 for a
website that's going to be contagious when you're on that sales call that's going to transfer to the other person and they they're going to be thinking why would I pay $50,000 for a website that's insane right um so behavior is contagious and so you need to get past that mindset block because that's
going to transfer on a sales call so if you're confident if you believe in yourself if you think that you've got a lot of value to give you will transfer that conviction on a sales call or to a buyer so that's why some of that mindset is so important because it's just so
contagious and it even goes further to some of the things that you consume if you consume the news and negativity all the time and listen to negative people and all of that sort of thing that's that's basically other people's behavior transferring through to you as well okay excellent excellent okay um really quick
question because I do want to get into principles in the book are do you have siblings I do I have sister okay you and your sister raised by parents who are refugees or immigrants and have a certain mindset about money somehow you're able to break from that orbit or that belief system what
about your sister no she hasn't she hasn't uh if you saw my my sister and me we are like night and day I love her to death and you know I don't have children but she's had a couple of nephews and so they're essentially like like my children so I see her very
often but our mindsets are worlds apart and I I really believe it is because of what I've allowed myself to be exposed to it's the information that I take in it's who I hang around with you know it m may sound very cold but uh you know I don't hang around with people
who are unlucky I don't hang around with people who are negative because this stuff is contagious like anything that this is a contagion like it's it's funny like When someone tells me you know you know just everything bad always happens to me and and it it it really is true like that just
does happen and it's contagious and it starts happening to their friends and it starts happening to their to their Circle and so uh I've been very very careful about what I take in because the things that we consume are all Upstream from our ideas our creativity and everything like that so all of
your future things that you create all of your future like all of the books that I right uh Downstream from the things that I consume I think Seth Goden said books come from books so the books I read today are going to be the books I I write in 5 years 10 years
20 years time so I'm very very careful about what I consume what I let take in and I have that kind of uh reassessment in my life with who should I spend more time with who should I spend less time with who should I spend about the same time with so that's something
that I've got to reassess and that's had a massive impact on my mindset okay wonderful you know I'm looking for some marketing help here let's I really am so I want to learn some new things from you and I feel like in preparation for our show today I went back to kind of
look at my notes from the original book or the the book that I read the one page marketing plan and I'm like I need to reread this book a couple more times I've read it two or three times but you know my need is different today uh let's put let's just set the
stage it's 2024 so this will date us as this episode yeah and in the United States we're heading into an uncertain time and there's a presidential election neither candidate are great for different reasons I don't want to get into the politics yeah uh inflation is relatively High despite all the headlines saying like
the stock market is doing really well regular folk don't feel that and there's a lot of uncertainty I just got a text message from one of my friends who's been in advertising for decades and he just said you know we were just cut just got laid off today and so there's some funkiness
in the air and so now more than ever I think understanding the principle of marketing doing doing less but achieving more or using less but and achieving more and building some of that that that Goodwill that you talked about is so important right now especially as we're preparing for whatever may come and
to kind of Bounce out of this so please distill some of your wisdom we are heading into a time where there's going to be enormous change and with times that there have been enormous change this is the most exciting like a lot of people feel like change coming along is scary and it
is kind of scary but these are the times when fortunes are made these are the times when you've got the most opportunity when there's going to be pivots in Industries so we can talk about AI a little bit because that's going to impact creatives a lot um and so to me this is
such an exciting time do not believe the doomsayers do not believe the people who are telling you that that's it creative services are over you know people are just going to use chat GPT to write right things that people are just going to use all of these tools do not believe that we're
going to enter some of the most prosperous times in the history of the world like there's never been a time when a single person can create a multi-million dollar Revenue business right and it's because of some of these tools that are coming up so in the book I talk about three things that
are real l points so to get more by doing less that implies we need to do leverage we need to use leverage so leverage means that we put one unit of input and we get multiple units of output and that can be a unit of time money energy whatever it is so we
put one unit in and we get more units out so for example um if I wanted to break down a a brick wall I could try with my bare hands and maybe I could probably do it but I'd probably have bleeding hands it take a long time it' be very very difficult but
if I used a leverage tool like a sledgehammer which amplifies the force of my inputs I could do that easily in a few minutes we are being armed with tools that allow us to do that they allow us to be the conductor of the orchestra rather than somebody who is playing each individual
instrument so there is going to be a a compression of people who are in the mediocre middle who yes they're going to lose their jobs they're going to have a time in business they're going to be the ones who are massively affected so they're the people who are just churning out mediocre copy
mediocre content mediocre Services um absolutely they are going to be crushed um the people who are at the top are going to be paid more and more than ever in the last few decades the the world has belonged to the lawyers the doctors the engineers um the people in kind of hard science
or whatever a lot of that is going to be very heavily affected by Ai and what's what's coming along and I believe the next few decades are going to be really ruled by the creatives the people who are videographers who are ideas people who are design people who are thinking because that's going
to be the main main differentiator that's going to be the thing that the creative person who comes up with an idea who comes up with uh a way to present yourself to brand yourself to improve yourself uh they are going to be the ones who rule like they are the one your time
is coming creatives and and I I mean I wouldn't necessarily put myself in the class of hey I'm a creative because from a design perspective or whatever I'm still pretty clunky I definitely don't dress as hip as you um and uh but I appreciate good design but your time is coming this is
this is now this you there has never ever in the history of the world been a better opportunity for guys like you so that's that's the mindset I would be approaching this with okay you you said there were three things so I heard leverage yes is creativity one of those things or no
so there are three major leverage points when it comes to marketing there are tools there are assets and there are processes so we talked a little bit about tools so tools uh give you massive leverage so like I like I gave the example if you want to break down a brick wall a
sledgehammer is going to give you massive leverage similarly uh with marketing tools are going to give you massive leverage uh a good CRM system AI tools that are that are coming up content management system all all of that um now tools are a double-edged sword because you can get faked out by tools
you you know some people think you know if I had Michelangelo's brush and I'd be able to paint the the sister Chapel right which is not true right um so the first leverage point is tools the next leverage point is assets and I love Rich dad's definition of an asset an asset is
something that puts money in your pocket um very very simple and a liability conversely is something that takes money out of your pocket so that was something that I learned from Robert Kaki Rich Dad Poor Dad now when we look at people who are wealthy they derive most of their income from assets
not from labor there's nothing wrong with earning from labor um but labor is not salable it's not scal like you can't sell your job uh labor is not scalable and when you stop the income stops right whereas rich people derive most of their income from assets meaning if you own stocks you can
derive dividends if you own property you can derive rental income um the exact same thing is true from a marketing perspective if you have marketing assets in the marketplace then you can derive lead flow you can derive Revenue you have new clients coming to you you have new opportunities to you so what's
a marketing asset for example for my business my books are marketing assets right so the reason that you and I are speaking today is because of an asset I've got in the marketplace every single day I get inbound opportunities saying can you come speak at our event can you be on my podcast
can I join your program can you tell me about this that or or the other can you invest in my business all of those sorts of things so this happens because of assets I've got in the marketplace so assets do for your marketing the same thing that assets do for your finances if
you they generate new income new Revenue the the third leverage point is processes I often say that marketing is a uh marketing is a process not an event so a lot of people treat marketing like an event hey we're going to do the new website launch we're going to do the Rebrand we're
going to do the funnel that's going to solve all of our problems right whereas marketing is a process it's the boring stuff you do daily weekly monthly it's the compound interest that you earn so to use another Finance example you know so uh you know you can earn compound interest on your Investments
and often the compound interest is the thing that makes you the most money it's just being in the market for enough period of time and to reap that that compound interest so from a marketing perspective it's the boring stuff you do it's kind of like almost nothing I teach you is going to
be something that you're like whoa I had never thought about that before it's going to be like the common stuff but you know what common stuff is not very common practice I've found so a lot of what what I do is help people make Common Sense common practice so let's send it let's
send an email newsletter out twice a week is that mindblowing something that you've never ever heard before something that but the compound interest of that is unbelievable you know I was on a podcast interview just an hour ago with with a with another fellow and he said I've been on your mailing list
for five years and I just bought your program and it's just an amazing program I've had this such and such success so on and so forth but like if five years ago I had said Ty kicker is not ready to buy you know um that would be such a missed opportunity and every
single day I have people who buy one of our programs who were on the list for a year for two years for 18 months for 90 days for whatever and so the their their revenue and their becoming customers is a result of me and my team doing the boring stuff sending an email
newsletter twice a week the LinkedIn posts uh I'm trying to do daily now so I'm getting into that um but the daily weekly monthly boring stuff is how you you're going to make outsized results from a process perspective so they're the three major marketing leverage points tools assets and processes and I outline
those in the new book in in each section yeah you know I was just thinking of some kind of analog to what you were saying uh something that a lot of people I think can understand to relate to I have a big old fireplace that I inherited with the house that we moved
into and I'm not the normal Fire Starter guy but I know you need fuel you need oxygen you need space for the carbon or the smoke carbon dioxide to go to and we don't think we'll just set the fire and just walk away first of all I could burn the house down so
we don't do that but if you don't keep stoking the fire rearranging the elements and feed feting it a log then it'll eventually go out and so I think I'm I'm in that trap I'll just admit it I think of like okay let's let's run some marketing thing as an event and then
we don't do it anymore and you're telling me that that's not the right mindset to look at this it's something that it's a ongoing thing it's a process that you do and you maintain for days months weeks years whatever it is a process and and it is exciting to do new projects like
I am the worst example of this right and so I'll tell you what the solution is and what solution I I've come to so Gino Wickman in his book traction it's a well-known book in in our space but he talks about people who are integrators and people who are Visionaries now Visionaries tend
to be more entrepreneurial people big picture thinkers we're excited by the new thing the novelty and that's the that's absolutely where I fall into uh you know I've got this list of potential new business ideas and projects and I add to it almost daily and realistically in my whole lifetime I'll never get
to 10% of of it um but you know novelty is just in our DNA the boring stuff that's the stuff that the integrators are really good at they're people who kind of show up every day and drive the bus they show up every day drive it again they show up every day get
that done and you know as a Visionary you need an integrator in your business you need somebody because you're not going to get the stuff done if if it was left up to me in my business to get all of the stuff done that we do there's no way it would get done
you know because I'm G to get bored of it I'm G to move on to the next cool project I'm G to go do the next fun thing I don't want to do the boring you know copy I don't want to do the boring HubSpot thing or whatever or the new integration the
new form or whatever I will blow my brains out right there there is no way I'm going to do that I need my integrators who love that stuff like my my wife she's definitely in the integrator category you know uh she she doesn't work in my business anymore but she worked in my
first business and she's like you know I loved doing the bookkeeping you know reconciling the bank statement to that you know she's like ah that that just gave me joy plus our wives just put it out there absolutely absolutely listen go give your wife a kiss and tot totally and you know that
gave her Joy right but for her coming up with with a a creative idea or a solution to a problem that's super stressful she gets stressed out by that so she's in the integrated category I'm in the Visionary category and so I need my integrators in the business getting the stuff done getting
the boring stuff done so often what I found is the solution is to staff your weaknesses and double down on your strengths because you can make your your weaknesses slightly less weak if you put a lot of time money energy like I used to try and fit Square pegs in round hole meaning
you know I don't coach personally anymore my team coaches but um when I used to coach people I'd be like d I'd be like Chris look you got to get the newsletter done twice a week right and you'd be like yeah yeah yeah sure Allan I'll get it done or whatever we'll get
on a call next week how did you go Chris H got busy I had this fire happen I like whatever didn't get it done right and I kept trying to fit that square pig in a round hole and that's never going to happen so what I figured was that we've got to get
the right person in the right seat the right people driving the right processes in the business your job as a Visionary is to come up with the creative stuff with the ideas with the the Creative Solutions to problems with the design um your integrator's job is to drive the bus every day and
make sure we come on it leaves on time arrives on time everybody's safe everybody's good so you need that Visionary and integrator roles in your business I I think it's like one one has to have that one part of your head in the clouds and one your feet planted on the ground without
that it doesn't work Tot so it's it's kind of like an interesting thing and and I totally resonate with this whole thing about my wife she's a creative person but she will do all the boring stuff that I I would just throw me off a bridge I just can't do it totally I
can't it just makes me a dull person I feel like I'm a medication or something totally so I do want to ask this question sure go ahead yeah so really what I would recommend is double down on your strengths because you will make your strengths EX exceptional versus trying to make your weaknesses
slightly less weak so here's the thing how do I know it's my weakness as opposed to an avoidance okay so like some some people in the creative space they don't want to learn sales they don't want to know how to have a conversation with a client like well that's a weakness of mine
I don't want to do that and I I will often say no one can sell you better than you can sell you I agree so what are your thoughts on that how do we know the difference so with sales we've been fed a lot of crazy inform and we see this on Instagram
all the time so uh sales has been made out to be this thing where you're this Brash cigar chomping you know person who's loud and pushy and all of that sort of stuff um you know like um you know I think of people like and not to say anything bad about them like
like Grant Cardone bradlee you know they're the loud Brash person now a lot of creatives tend to be introverts myself included and what I found is that that Brash approach absolutely works when it gels with your real genuine personality when you're a loud Brash person that works so well because you're just getting
across your personality and that works amazingly well now what we've been led to believe is that that's the only way to sell I'm an introvert right and if you heard me on a sales call I don't do sales calls uh much anymore but back in the day when I used to you would
hear the client uh or the prospect doing 90% of the talking I would do about 10% of the talking and the talking that I did was uh tell me more about that okay and um why is that important to you I think of it kind of like a diagnostic approach so beware the
doctor that gives you a prescription without having done an analysis or a diagnosis of you if you walked into a doctor and he said here go here's a prescription you're like hang on I haven't even told you what's wrong you'd be very suspicious you'd be like what's going on and so what a
lot of people are doing from a sales perspective they're like Chris I got the best stuff it's the best widget it's the like my design service is awesome blah blah blah I've done this and this is my portfolio and this is why it's so good and all of that sort of thing people
go into solution mode way too fast um someone will in my experience someone will not buy from you until they feel heard so um sometimes what I say is you want to be Spice Girls not Vanilla Ice right so um Vanilla Ice is and I'm I'm kind of dating myself right but anyway
that's okay um Vanilla Ice is look if there was a problem yo I'll solve it right so that's kind of the the mode that a lot of solutions people go in but we want to be Spice Girls we want to be look tell me what you want what you really really want right
so um what we want to do is I want to get to really understand what the pain point is like what is the issue and I recognize that someone is not going to buy until they feel heard until they feel understood until you know they know that you you've got something that's going
to solve their problem I'll give you an analogy in real life and I don't know maybe you've had this experience you're a married man right so when your wife has had a really bad hard day and she comes and tells you about what a terrible day she's had um and you offer her
a great solution to all her problem you're like I know what the solution to that is oh why didn't you say that to him or go do this how does that work out for you does that work well no your wife most likely wants to be heard you're like oh babe that sounds
terrible like tell me more about that like how did that make you feel like uh you know what what else happened and then and then what happened after that and so and then she feels like oh wow I've been heard right she doesn't want a solution she wants to oh maybe she wants
a solution but after she's been heard right and your prospects are very much the same thing uh your prospects want to be heard so if you heard me on a sales call it would be something like all right Chris so tell me about your situation what's what's going on what what prompted you
to reach out and they're like oh look I need to generate more Revenue in your business okay um so how's Revenue been going over the last few years uh well we were doing really really well but the pandemic hurt us and then blah blah blah so on and so forth so uh I'm
asking probing questions and I found for that's a great approach for an introverted person for someone to to do probing questions because the Prospect Fields heard the Prospect Fields understood we now figure out what's important to them because what you're selling is not what you're selling like if you're selling design or websites
or whatever people don't want a website people what want what a website what they think a website is going to do for them or what a logo they what they think is going to do for them it's a it's a tool or a means to an end what they really really want is
either I don't know more Revenue more time more status uh they want to be differentiated from their peer peers or whatever it is so we want to get to the root of what it is so my recommendation is for someone to not change their personality in sales mode like you don't have to
become that pushy Brash person just be yourself just ask probing question if you are the pushy Brash person great continue doing that that that'll work well for you but if you're not just be that that Doctor Who diagnosed okay tell me more about that and does it hurt here what about when I
twist it this way and how did this start and when did it start so really understanding the person well and then you're going to have so much more success and then the close is super easy um this is my best clothes for an introverted person so where do you think we should go
from here so you know the person has felt heard they've H you've reiterated what you've told them uh you've confirmed that this is their paino and I'm like okay Chris so where do you feel we should go from here they're like look um tell me more about your tell me about your program
or or how do I join your program or whatever else um that's been the most effective clothes that I've ever used you don't have to do anything crazy you don't have to do anything you know you're not comfortable with it's like look where do you think we should go from here low low
pressure because if I create pressure if I push you what's your natural incl inclination going to be going to be to push back we either push back or you you turn away yeah totally right you know what I have to say I've read a few books on sales and I've talked to quite
a few salespeople myself I don't think I've heard that said that way before so I I love that where do you think we should go from here so after this long diagnostic process making sure the person feels heard and seen reflecting back on them what they've communicated to you helping them think through
the problem you don't have to sell anything you just say where do you think we should go from here I love that now I'm just curious Alan have you ever used that with your wife after she's told you about her hard day and you're like babe where do you think we should go
from here have you ever used that all the time she knows all my tricks now she's like are you but you messing with me did she wag her finger at you like Helen I know what you're doing stop that stop right now stop it you know I I have to share this personal
story uh I used to see a family therapist to help get guidance on how to raise our children uh they're going through some difficult times at that point and I would come home uh and I would use some of the things uh that I was taught on my wife or on my children
and my wife which she just give me that quick like rubber neck like did you just go see Joan cuz you're not talking like yourself right now and I would raise my arms up like babe what do you want I go to get instruction I'm going to do what I was instructed to
do but she goes but you need to do it your way I'm like no as a good student I need to do it the way I was taught first right so I'm gonna try this after my wife tells me uh maybe something bad has happened to her I'm GNA like okay tell me
more and how did that make you feel I'm going to conclude with that so we're to warning everybody if you're a happily married person use this with caution we're just going to warn everybody right now we don't want to be responsible for splitting up marriages horrible don't listen to Chris use it with
abandon this will save your marriage ignore what Chris is saying you use this it will save your marriage trust me okay okay I like it you know why I love it so much though because it's nonaggressive it's nonviolent it's not even suggestive it's just like it puts all the control to the other
person what a beautiful way to close well my goodness the other thing I want to I want to say about and I'm look uh I don't want to hop on sales necessarily but the other thing that I will say from a creative perspective when it comes to sales is just flip personas right
do you know how hard it is to buy creative services like I'm someone who buys creative services like uh we rebranded our business in January and man I was dreading it and I was Dre and I was not wrong it was a painful process right I I was done with WordPress I thought
all right I need a uh webflow uh website so I started shopping for webflow web developers it is so hard to buy creative services like as a creative you think wow you know if only they would buy or whatever they want to buy I desperately wanted one of these web developers to differentiate
themselves I desperately wanted someone to say look I'll do it at Double the price at Double the speed and I would have taken that deal every single time you know we'd get on a call and what would happen we would dance around price you know uh we would talk about nonsense and I
know that they're not going to deliver on time we're going to be having all sorts of back and forth and things like that and and I was right and so what I did was as a buyer I compressed my pain right I I know that if I say I've got three months to
complete this website that it's going to take n months so instead I said look I've got a week to complete complete this I I ended up firing one web developer going with another one and I said look I need this done in a week and I will pay you whatever it takes but
I need this done in a week and it took three weeks right so pretty much I triple any any time estimate I get from a creative person and I'm I'm usually about right so I managed to compress my pain from nine months to about three weeks but it is very difficult and I'm
an affluent buyer I am someone who will spend a lot of money on Creative Services it is very very difficult as a as a buyer to buy creative services so a lot of what what your biggest wins will be will be figuring out how do you make that buyer's Journey easier so how
do you make it clear what you're going to offer because that's another thing like I was interviewing these web flow developers and they all said about the same thing we're really good here's our portfolio here here's some of our you know work that we've done and all of this sort of stuff and
it was incredibly difficult to differentiate and as a buyer I was almost begging them to just show me some differentiation show me how you're different from the other guy and the price differentials were ridiculous I mean there were there were people who were saying it's $5,000 and there were people who were saying
it's $50,000 and I'm like I don't understand what is the difference between the $50,000 one and the $5,000 one um and so just Clarity from a buyer's point of view is what am I getting how are you different show me what is the road map going to look like like so really um
a lot of your wins will come from doing the common stuff uncommonly well so how how fast can you deliver how will your communication be how will you communicate with me how will you will you deliver on time will you deliver what you say you do so all of this stuff has nothing
to do with the creative process so my advice to creatives is look just develop some very basic business skills so you can talk to a business buyer talk understand what return on investment means understand how to present value understand what they are really buying you know who's buying it and why why are
they buying it have some real clarity about who your ideal buyer is be open about price why not publish your price on your website or even just arrange like you know I understand a website can be really really big or or just could be just a onepage website right so maybe have a
range look our range is from $110,000 to $50,000 and here's what a $10,000 website looks like here's what a $50,000 website looks like so clarity about your message your value your buyer who this is for is this for who's my ideal customer so I can figure out am I ideal for you so
there's some of the things that I would uh think about as a creative in the sales process the other thing that I found incredibly helpful is a road map you know whenever you're lost a road map is a godsend you know think of like um you know if you're on a high Trail
you know that little map that says you are here right and you know you you're wanting to go there so great now I've got Clarity of where we are and where we're going to go we've we use a road map now in our sales process we show people okay what we're going to
do we're first going to start working on your messaging then we're going to get your text act right then we're going to fix up your processes and hire the right people to execute on your daily weekly monthly marketing uh things right so we show people a road map and why a road map
is really really useful in the sales process to show people what's actually going to happen but it's also really useful when people kind of end up in that little trough where they realize okay this is not the Magic Bullet that was going to solve all of my problems but you can show them
look you are here so you're part of the way of Journey we're still got to go do this that and the other so don't quit now because when we're we're on our way we're we're in the right place so road map is a really really helpful tool that you can use in both
in the sales process and in the delivery process you said a bunch of things here and you you sparked an idea in my mind and uh there's no pressure for you to respond right now but you said like you're starting to be more consist on LinkedIn growing your following there building thought leadership
there yeah if there's something that you'd like to do with me on a LinkedIn live audio event I would love to do a series called frustrations of affluent buyers of creative services and we would just sit there and list all the problems so that my community of creatives can sit there and like
I'm committing 17 sins that Alan just mentioned let's do it I'd love to do that I would love to do that I would love to do that I'm in because I'm I'm telling you the people listening I am your ideal buyer I don't buy on price you know if you came to me
and you said I'll double the price and I'll double the speed I'm in that's that's a deal I will do every time affluent buyers value time very very highly meaning you know you said you were going to come back to me tomorrow trust me I'm going to be looking for that you you
said you you would deliver on time did you or didn't you um you know time you know as you get more affluent time is the thing that you optimize for most like if you said to me what do you do to optimize your time you you would freak out like you would like
uh you know I I heard that people kind of in legal and financial spaces and things like that track their time in 15 minute increments and I'm like I make more money than a lawyer or someone in finance why am I not tracking my time in 15minute increments so if you looked at
my Google Calendar right now you'd freak out like would see uh that from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep I track all of my time I know exactly how my time is allocated how much time did I spend with my wife how much time did I spend
uh on lunch how much time did I spend on podcasts how much time did I spend writing and Google has this little feature called insights so I can choose any period of time I can say um for the month of March show me how much time I spent writing and it'll say it'll
spit it out it'll say you spent 25 hours writing or whatever else so as you get more affluent time becomes a huge huge Factor so a very simple way to differentiate yourself as a creative is to say I'm going to deliver on time and I'm going to deliver in half the time that
the other guys do that's it don't you you don't need to change anything else about what you do if if you can do that an affluent buyer that will be like catnip to them there's a bunch of things that you're talking about here I just want to highlight for our audience who are
listening right now and this is call back to the onepage marketing plan because somewhere in there I remember you writing something like uh struggling business owners spend time to save money yes successful business people spend money to save time totally okay totally so Allan you were a millionaire a long time ago you're
an affluent person you're a successful best-selling author what you've come to realize which is pretty much all successful people is time is your most valuable non-renewable perishable resourced that's it you'll do everything you can to save your time to buy back your time everything is about time money is a renewable resources we
can we can always get more money we can never get more time and you know people just treat their time like it's unlimited like it's just like you know hopefully youd never ever in this situation but imagine you had a week to live how would you value that time like you know you're
going to be healthy for the next week but at the end of the week that's it that it's over you you would be like very selective about your time well guess what you do have a an end right and it just happens to be that this week may not be that that end
but it's still a week right whether it's at the at the end of your life or or right now if you waste that week that's a wasted week that you will never get back and you know you could argue that that week is more valuable now while you're young and healthy and everything
like that versus when when you're old and frail or sick or whatever so uh a piece of your time is a piece of your life and really that's money is really measured in time really what's money money is an IOU that represents the amount of time and value that you put into something
right so we SWA that IOU we say all right Chris you you delivered $50,000 worth of time and and value so here you go here's an IOU that represents that and you can use that to buy $50,000 worth of someone else's time and value that's a great way to think about that well
um being mindful of your time an nowal nervous is like shoot like I think 15 minutes over like oh my God how you gonna send me an invoice for this conversation now I want to be respectful of your time I think I can talk to you for probably eight hours I don't say
that jokingly I really could there's so many different topics that we can get into and I I just want to say this is there anything else that you want to share with us from the book and I promise I'll finish reading it as I've read the other book many times U that I
I'll have a more informed perspective but without knowing all the ins and outs of the book is there anything anything else you want to leave with us so the thing that I want to leave with you is and it's a frustration for many people many not just creative people but people who are
really good at what they do in any Endeavor um the frustration is that if only people knew how good I was so they want Merit to be the thing that drives success and Merit driving success it does happen it's kind of like be so good that they can't ignore you but often just
takes such a long time it's so difficult and sometimes it never happens at all so what we want to do is we want to we want to elevate that Merit we want to make that Merit visible and what we do from a marketing perspective is make your Merit visible make how how you
do what you do visible and PE get people to know about it right so like as an as an author one of the best things that can happen to you is for you to be a best selling author not a best writing author and I assure you I am not a best writing
author I am a best selling author so I have this one liner that I often leave people with it's the best marketer wins every time unfortunately it's not the best designer it's not the best uh website developer it's not the best it technician it's the best marketer wins every time and in life
you don't get what you deserve you get what you negotiate because if you got what you deserved um then firefighters nurses teachers would be the highest paid people in our society I mean you know the work that they do is just so deserving of reward but what we find is that's not the
case so really the best marketer wins every time so your job as an entrepreneur as a business owner and that's really the way that you need to frame yourself regardless of what you do technically is as a marketer of what you do so I'm a marketer of website Services I'm a marketer of
logo design I'm a marketer of graphic design or whatever else you may not like that but that's the reality and that's how you're going to win and the good news is you don't have to do sleazy marketing you don't have to do stuff that you're not proud of you don't have to do
that you don't have to do sales in a way that's contrary to your introverted personality if that's if that's what you are um I'm successful beyond my wildest dreams and I'm an introvert I don't do hard uh I don't do sleazy stuff that I'm not proud of so you don't have to do
that so you you can win by just being a really good marketer and providing a lot of value in advance so I kind of go into this in the book in quite some detail but the best marketers provide a lot of value upfront you know you're creating Goodwill along the way and Goodwill
is a word that um is used both in marketing circles but also in accounting circles in ACC in circles Goodwill like if you sell a business it's the amount of money that you get over and above the tangibles of the business so if you sold a million dollar worth of plant and Equipment
a million dollars worth of inventory but you got $10 million for the business your accountant would write $8 million Goodwill so Goodwill is something that you generate with good marketing so a lot of what we want to do in our marketing is generate Goodwill and we want it to affect people positively whether
they buy from us or not you know the majority of people who read my book see my content hear my podcast whatever will never buy from me but I'm totally okay with that and I love that people will get free value from me but a small percentage of them will buy from me
and that's enough to fund an incredible lifestyle for myself for my team for my family for everyone so really what it comes down to is the best marketer wins every time and you don't need to be worried about having to be slaz pushy salesy all of that sort of stuff it sounds like
you've ju you've uh join the Dark Side here Allan or maybe You' you've left the dark side the Sith and you've gone to the Jedi Knights uh previously direct marketing direct response marketing it's all about the ROI convert convert convert and optimize and now you're like you know what just generate Goodwill some
people will buy some people won't well I've I've got my foot in both camps I want to generate Goodwill while generating an Roi and that's exactly what lean Market that's exactly what Lean Marketing is about it's it's like there it is can we do it you know and we can yes I need
help on the uh the direct response marketing part because I think I do things to generate Goodwill as many creative people do and we're stumbling with the other part and I I'll get into that at some other point I I I want to say something here which really uh reminds me is something
my my former business coach Kier McLaren told me and it was this big reframe he says we're all in the same business kid I'm like what business is that Kier he's a little bit older and he's like you're in the marketing and customer service business it just so happens you make commercials for
a living it just so happens that you design logos or you just so happen to right uh compelling marketing copy for people but we're all in the same business because without marketing there is no business and if you don't take care of the customers that you have then you won't have a business
for very long it's a short-term business that's exactly right and the the awesome service that you deliver is a customer retention tool before customer retention we need to think about customer acquisition how do we no one will find out how good you are how good your Design Services how good your services are
until they buy from you before they buy from you they only know how good your marketing is um and if you were listening to this part and you felt triggered by the parts that Alan was talking about like freaking creatives you make it so difficult to buy from you you're just so bad
at doing the business part of it that is probably a reminder to go reread the chapter on forming or writing or crafting an irresistible offer what value do you provide what language do you need to use the wise the upsells the payment plans the guarantees all that kind of stuff everybody could benefit
from being a little bit clear at differentiating what they do relative to the competitor so people like Allan can give you money he's it's like that Meme uh they hold a fist full of cash and says take my money that's what Allan wants to do but you make it so difficult I desperately
want to give you money I desperately want to give you money just give me a re a reason to to do it a way to differentiate you from everyone else like I really want to okay um and I'm gonna tip my hat off to you for the first person ever on our podcast
or any piece of content I've ever done to bring the Spice Girls and Vanilla Ice together and make it relevant I love you for that that was awesome um and Alan I only have one question for you now which is where do you think we should go from here from here I think
we should uh maybe do this again one day I want to do I would love to be with you on LinkedIn if you're listening um and you got any value out of this I think you're going to love this book Lean Marketing so a little bit of a plug but it's it's a
selfish plug but I think you're gonna get a lot out of it I think it's my best work yet I love it and uh I got a lot of value from one page marketing plan and I'm already loving the parts I've that I've read so I'm I can't wait to sink my teeth
into this uh thank you very much and I also have to thank you for this thing hold on and I have to ask you this came in the Box yes and my name's on it I'm like what do I do with this what is this for Alan is there a secret message do
I there is do I do something with this well that's a bookand you oh see for real like a placeholder yeah when you're when you're reading Lean Marketing and you're up to page number 53 you know that's uh you're going to place that on the bookstand perfect I was wondering what this was
I I told myself it was an award in in future packages we're going to have a little little picture displaying that so but but yeah I know how to share this book then it beplay out on that stand I want I want it on your bedside table Chris so that you've got you
wake up in the morning you see Lean Marketing there you go to bed at night you see Lean Marketing so um okay I want you to dream about how you're going to generate more value how you're going to generate more customer lifetime value so how to build a stronger relationship with my my
wife I had to forget about that get to trust me more well before we go before we go uh how can people get in touch with you what are the resources you want to just tell like where do they find you on the internet what's the best platform to find you and where
else sure my book are wherever books are sold uh Lean Marketing U my people love listening to my book books they're on Audible and I'm at lean marketing.com so there you can download the onepage marketing plan canvas which is a very very easy tool to basically get clear around who your target market
is what your message is what media you're going to use so um jump on and and you'll hear from me regularly so I'd love to hear back from from people we didn't talk much about email marketing we didn't talk much about some of the mechanics but um there are powerful ways that you
can create email marketing as a two-way street so that's that's a way that we really interact with a lot of our audience oo what a tear I love that te love that it's a cliffhanger that's like Dune part one and dune part two you're gonna have to wait two and a half years
to see the next part everybody okay and you also mentioned like you run a program what is the program and how much does it cost yeah so we run a an accelerat program so uh cost uh ranges from $7,000 a year right through to $100,000 a year depending on what what level you're
at what Revenue you're at what complexity you're at so and what intensity you need so you'll work intensely with one of my coaches and it's basically a year program to take you from wherever you are right now to uh having a real marketing infrastructure meaning implementing the tools assets and processes that we
talked about because yes they're simple Concepts but like simple Concepts there's a lot of depth to it you know so we said hey sending an email twice a week is a simple concept but okay uh what do I write in the emails how do I get people to convert do I reply how
do I set it all all that up so we go into details with that we run copyrighting clinics we run Tech clinics so um a lot of people get a lot of value out of that so it's essentially helping you build your marketing muscle if I was to put it simply so the
same as a personal trainer would help you build your actual muscle will help you build your marketing muscle love it love it love it outside outside of Melbourne where do you what city do you spend the most time traveling to outside of melburg I don't travel a lot but uh you don't no
I don't uh I I in fact one of my resolutions this year I don't believe in necessarily new New Year's resolutions but I was going to travel a lot less for obligation a lot more for fun so I'm planning to spend uh a few weeks I've got an author's event coming up in
August in Nashville so I'll be in in Nashville in August I'm going to Singapore in April um and then I think I'm going to in between that spend some time in Europe but uh probably um I would say if anywhere California would probably be the most time that I spend outside of Australia
because a lot of my team is there my the CEO who runs my business is there and um yeah had a good time in Tahoe for a few weeks recently wonderful well open invitation if you're ever in the Greater Los Angeles area on based out of Pasadena if you want to get together
I'd be happy to go meet up with you somewhere I I asked this question because we kind of have an international audience and they're like just just crazy fanatical about the guests that we have on our show so here's what I'm going to do we know Allen's big in Mexico so if you
spot him somewhere in California Nashville or Singapore I want you to flag him down and said Allan Allan can we take a selfie of course let's make him world famous everybody like just don't harass him be mindful or respectful of his person space come up to himit come up to that introvert nerd
and say hello to him will you do that for me please everybody's been a delight it's been a delight my goodness uh I want to show the books one more time the book that I read that I love and I recommend to everybody is the onepage marketing plan I got the soft cover
version I don't know if there's hard cover version but this one is is hard cover I just like hard cover books much better it's Lean Marketing I've been talking to Allen dib and I just want to make one quick reference to everybody if You' heard me or someone else reference this thing about
the circus and the difference between publicity promotion uh public relations and sales and marketing it's a great story the way that you break it down it's it's just a wonderful way to understand what marketing is it's this giant umbrella of many different things Alan it's a real pleasure thank you very much for
being on the show Chris thank you for having me it's been a pleasure speaking [Music]
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