The learning center

I wrote The 1-Page Marketing Plan to give business owners more structure around their marketing.

(And I did — for millions around the world!)

You see, most people think that one or two tactics are going to be that one thing that brings in revenue.

SEO...

Social media...

PPC and running ads...

They're playing slots, praying they find the right combination to win big.

They're going about it all wrong.

But it's not your fault.

Literally, every marketing expert will tell you that their ONE tactic is gonna be the game changer in your business.

They're really great at the one area of marketing, so they'll sell the hell out of what worked for them.

Unfortunately, there's no silver bullet when it comes to marketing.

You need a strategic game plan, with all the different channels of the business working together towards a single common goal.

This is why Phase 1 of how we work with clients is focused entirely on Strategy.

Without a concrete plan, you're:

• Throwing spaghetti at the wall.
• Wasting hours on what is ultimately a money drain.
• Not sure if anything is actually working because you're just "doing marketing"

As opposed to with a plan, where you actually know what to prioritize and you're confident in what you're doing.

What most people don't tell you is that strategy is actually quite simple—and it's the exact same for every niche and industry.

You have the book — so you have the blueprint.

But there's an even simpler way to think about it.

All you have to do is answer 5 questions:

• Who are you talking to?
• How does your product or service make their life better?
• How are you getting in front of them?
• How do you get them to trust you?
• How will you get them to buy?

That's it.

How would you answer these questions for your business?

One thing I learned from my time in the tech industry is that having an incredible product today doesn't mean you can stop innovating, improving, and upgrading...because if you do, tomorrow someone or something will disrupt you.

To stay ahead of the market, it's important to always improve and iterate based on customer feedback.

In other words, you're either growing or rotting.

Ever since, I've applied this idea to every product my team and I launch.

In January, we launched The Lean Marketing Accelerator, our flagship program.

Since then, we've helped clients get amazing results like...

A GPS tracking and management software company achieve their highest revenue in business yet...

Realigned the team behind a crypto education business and got them focused and running like clockwork (as opposed to missing deadlines and going in 4-5 different directions)...

More than doubled the number of products sold for a company that's the Amazon of agriculture...

These are a few among dozens of client success stories.

I mean, the #wins channel in our company Slack pings non-stop:

But we're not stopping there...

We've added more operating systems — these are our frameworks, distilled down into step-by-step actions. We've made it as simple as "do this, then this, in this exact way."

We've incorporated advanced accountability — we have an incredible client success system in place now to ensure everyone is seeing value and making progress. We refuse to let you fail in your implementation.

Calls with me and my CEO, Anna Kloth — I get loads of requests for coaching with me. We'll be running a weekly advanced business strategy clinic where you can get to lean on me and my CEO for personal mentorship and troubleshooting.

A done-for-you hiring package — if you just have too much on your plates, this optional add-on will ensure those marketing tasks get done regardless of how busy your schedule is.

External experts to run specialized clinics — these specialists from our network are absolute geniuses in their respective lanes, whether that's systems, social media, PPC, SEO, etc.

To reflect the enormous value of the program and to ensure our clients receive the highest quality attention possible, we're raising the price of the program.

The standard Accelerator program is now $8,000.

Find out more about The Accelerator HERE.

You still have the opportunity to make 2025 your best year yet or double down if it already is.

You've been hypnotized to fail.

If you're anything like me, you grew up in a working-class family of modest means. Maybe just like me, you constantly heard phrases like:

"Money doesn't grown on trees."

"Do you think I'm a millionaire or something?"

"They're rich because they're greedy."

The thing I envied most about kids who were raised by rich parents wasn't the material trappings, it was the money mindset.

It took me a long time to figure out that money is made in the mind long before it hits the bank account.

It took me even longer to rewire my brain from poor to rich.

I'm in the advice business. I hear from and talk to entrepreneurs from all walks of life.

The difference in money mindset between poor and rich entrepreneurs is stark.

When I say "poor" or "rich," I'm not necessarily talking about their current bank balance. Two entrepreneurs may have the exact same revenue, profit, or bank account balance, and it's usually pretty obvious which one will stagnate and which one will massively grow.

Last week, I saw this stark contrast between rich and poor entrepreneurial mindsets firsthand.

I received messages from two different entrepreneurs.

Both are struggling with a similar problem.

Both have similar revenue levels (in different industries).

Both make similar profits.

Rich entrepreneur: Hey thx for the time on Tuesday, really appreciate it. As I mentioned, I'm currently reading [book name redacted] and [book name redacted] and working my way through [course name redacted]. I want to make sure I haven't missed anything, let me know if there are any other resources I should be aware of to fix [problem].

Poor entrepreneur: Hi Allan, my challenge at the moment is [problem]. I've been considering [course name redacted] for a long time, but it's a big financial and time commitment, and I don't want to make a mistake. What do you think?

In a year, two years, five years, who do you think will be further along?

If you had no other information, who would you bet on?

I'm not throwing shade.

I spot it because I got it.

I've been there — umming and erring about something that, had I taken action on, would have saved me YEARS and made me a fortune.

But thankfully, I've rewired my mind.

Now I have a virtually unlimited budget for books, courses, and experts because it's like a cheat code for my life and business.

What personal or business problem are you currently struggling with that you've underinvested in?

Earlier today, I was talking to an entrepreneur who runs an awesome niche service business.

His service massively reduces potential downside risks in his industry.

He wanted to know what kind of marketing to do for potential prospects who are not problem-aware (i.e. people who don't even know they have risk exposure).

Most marketers would say something like, "Run an educational campaign to highlight the potential risks in their business."

That sounds like common sense, but it's bad advice.

It stems from the mistaken belief that marketing exists to generate customer demand.

In reality, marketing is there to tap into existing demand.

My advice was to steer clear of the problem-unaware marketing segment.

It's usually a money pit.

Here's an excerpt from my new book, Lean Marketing:

The unaware are usually not worth marketing to. Trying to convince them they have a problem will be an uphill battle...Many inventor types live in this world and usually die poor and disillusioned. (Chapter 2, page 40)

You want to be the painkiller, not a vitamin.

A vitamin is something optional that may provide some future benefit.

A painkiller is something that can be taken to relieve pain immediately.

Most entrepreneurs haven't reached even a tiny fraction of all the problem-aware prospects in their market.

Why, then would you go down the difficult, expensive, and frustrating path of trying to convince the unaware they have a problem and then try and sell to them?

Double down on the problem-aware and sell them the painkiller they desperately need.

‍

I was a celebrity in Mexico...for a day.

I couldn't even go to the bathroom without someone stopping me for an autograph.

It's a true story. One I recounted when I was recently a guest on The Futur podcast with Chris Do.

Listen to it here for free.

I also break down:

• How I would approach marketing in today's uncertain times
• The three major leverage points in your business that are going to give you the most ROI for far less time and effort
• The tasks most business owners are focus on — and why they're absolutely killing your growth

And much, much more.

It's over an hour of insights, stories, and shenanigans. Hope you enjoy it.

Listen here.

I’m the perfect target for an unscrupulous mechanic. When I pick my car up from a routine service, and he starts explaining all the work they did, I know I’m about to get ripped off.

“We replaced your flux capacitor, realigned your brake shaft, and topped up the elbow grease.”

I nod my head, pretending I know what he’s talking about. But we both know that I have no clue, and he takes full advantage. “That’ll be $967 all up. Will that be cash or card?”

Let’s be real. The list of stuff I’m bad at is much longer than the list of things I’m good at.

Despite this, I’ve managed to start, grow, and exit multiple businesses, build substantial wealth in the process, and live an incredible life…all mostly thanks to one skill on the short list.

That skill is copywriting.

Learning how to use words well has changed my life, and it will change yours, too.

I often say that marketing is the master skill of business…but copywriting is the master skill of marketing.

Words are the building blocks of marketing and influence.

When you want to program a computer to do what you want, you use computer code.

When you want to influence a human being to do what you want, you use words.

Whether you’re influencing a prospect to buy from you, a customer to trust you, or a talented person to join your team, the right words at the right time are your most potent tool.

That’s why, in my new book, Lean Marketing, I dedicate the longest chapter in the book (Chp. 5) to copywriting. I compressed 20 years of my hard-won knowledge and experience into that one chapter because I know how impactful it will be in your business and life.

I introduce that chapter as follows (page 99):

“A not-so-smart person who can communicate well will always beat a super-smart person who can’t. That’s great news because upgrading your communication skills is much easier than your intelligence.”

That’s not hyperbole; it’s the story of my life. 

Ready to upgrade your copywriting skills? Glad to hear it. What level would you like to play at?

📖 Level 1 ▶️ Order my new book HERE (do this regardless; books are the most incredible bargain in the world)

🎯 Level 2 ▶️ Check out our self-paced courses HERE (including messaging, email marketing, and hiring)

🚀 Level 3 ▶️ Apply to Join Accelerator HERE (we run copywriting clinics twice a week)

The word “entrepreneur” is thrown about a lot these days. Most people use it interchangeably with “business owner” or “founder,” but that’s not quite accurate.

Jean-Baptiste Say, a French economist who first coined the word entrepreneur in about 1800, said: “The entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield.”

Think about that for a moment. 

You have a resource (capital, labor, whatever) that could be producing a higher yield elsewhere. Your primary job as an entrepreneur is to identify this and move it where you can produce a greater yield.

Start this process with your most valuable resource. Your time.

Many entrepreneurs are trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. They lack some skill, experience, or discipline that’s outside of their genius zone, yet they persist in wasting time, money, and opportunities trying to crack that nut. 

Sometimes, it’s due to pride. Sometimes, it’s due to the challenge. But most of the time it's because they’re operating on autopilot.

We entrepreneurs are problem solvers. We take on whatever problem comes our way.

In my new book, Lean Marketing, I have an important chapter on building your team (Chapter 11). Here’s a quote from there:

“With hard work, you can brute-force your way into making your weaknesses less weak. However, nobody cares what you’re bad at. Focusing your efforts in areas where you’re already strong or have an aptitude gives you a far better return on time, money, and energy. It’s also more fun. It usually takes the same effort to make your weaknesses slightly less weak as it takes to make your strengths exceptional.”

My biggest wins have come from staffing my weaknesses and doubling down on my strengths.

Business is a team sport.

Great sports teams spend enormous time and resources figuring out the strongest players for each position.

You should, too — starting with yourself. If you doubled or tripled the time you spent in your genius zone, what impact would that have on your business?

It would be huge.

A large part of our work with entrepreneurs in our Accelerator program is helping them staff their weaknesses. Usually, these are the boring (but critical) daily, weekly, and monthly marketing processes they know they need to do but won’t, can’t, or don’t have time to do.

A marketing coordinator has been a game-changer for them because while their weaknesses are being handled, they’re free to focus on their strengths.

What’s your genius zone that you want to spend more time in?

The last few decades were dominated by corporate brands built through interruption, brute force, and broadcast media.

However, this has become too expensive and inefficient.

We’re tuning out and turning off.

The next decade and beyond will be dominated by Brand You.

I spoke to the awesome Chris Do for his podcast. The dude has nailed personal branding (my view is that “personal branding” is just publicly showcasing and accentuating your personality…but that’s a post for another day).

Elon Musk has almost 10 times the followers that Tesla has (on X/Twitter).

Richard Branson has 20 times the followers that Virgin has (on Instagram).

People want to follow people.

Your business isn’t B2B or B2C. It’s H2H — human-to-human.

So the natural question (one I get asked often) is, how do you build an audience?

The answer is in plain sight.

Find your favorite creator on YouTube then go to their YouTube profile.

Click the Videos tab and sort by Oldest.

I did this for MrBeast (247M subscribers), Justin Beiber (72M subscribers), and Chris Do (2.4M subscribers).

Do you know what their early videos all had in common?

They SUCKED!

Every master was once a disaster.

In my new book, Lean Marketing, outlined the four-step formula for social media success…(but trust me, you’re not going to like it):

1. Pick a platform

2. Post every day

3. Get better every day

4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for two to five years

Someone asked Warren Buffett, “Why doesn’t everyone just copy your strategy?” His response was, “Because nobody wants to get rich slow.” The same goes for building an audience.

Most people who “try social media” won’t focus on a platform.

Even fewer will have the endurance to post daily.

Fewer still will work on improving their craft.

Almost no one will do all the above for 700+ days in a row.

The best time to start building your audience was yesterday.

The second best time is today.

There are times as an entrepreneur, you have to make a “bet the company” decision and go all in on something you have high conviction in.

I’ll come back to my big bet in a moment, but first...

Have you ever had your world turned upside down by someone who said something to you in passing?

Maybe they didn’t think it was a big deal, and maybe at the time, you didn’t either.

This happened to me a few years ago.

I was a keynote speaker at a conference sponsored by the automotive manufacturing industry in Mexico.

Sounds boring, right? I thought so, too.

Throughout the conference, I kept hearing the term “lean.”

Lean manufacturing, Lean Six Sigma, lean thinking, and so on.

That's when Luis Socconini came up to me during the lunch break.

We chatted for a brief while, and when referring to The 1-Page Marketing Plan, he dropped the bomb:

“Allan, you know I consider your book to be lean marketing.”

“WTF is this ‘lean’ thing I keep hearing about?” I thought to myself.

When I got back to my hotel room that night, I started going down the rabbit hole.

Here’s a short story for you…

After the Second World War ended, Japan was in a catastrophic state — cities devastated, its resources drained, and industries broken.

At the time, mass production was the way manufacturing was done…which was a huge problem for Japan.

Mass manufacturing requires high inventory levels, huge, specialized machines, and large investments in materials and infrastructure.

This was not an option for war-torn Japanese manufacturers.

They needed a smarter way to gain a competitive advantage.

Fast forward to the 1970s and 1980s, Japan had become a global manufacturing powerhouse known for its high-quality products, particularly in electronics, automobiles, and machinery. Brands like Toyota, Honda, Sony, and Canon had gained worldwide recognition and respect.

How’d they do it?

With lean.

Lean is a methodology that focuses on eliminating waste and increasing efficiency.

The Japanese approach has since been widely studied and emulated by companies all over the world.

Jeff Bezos has frequently cited Lean Thinking as one of his favorite business books and has aggressively implemented lean throughout Amazon.

Ever since, I’ve been obsessed with lean.

What’s that got to do with marketing?

Everything.

Read that again.

Everything.

There’s so much waste and inefficiency in marketing, it’s ridiculous.

Marketers even coined the maxim, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.”

This is worlds away from the precision, discipline, and efficiency of lean thinking.

Can you imagine someone in manufacturing ever saying, “Half the money we spend on raw materials is wasted; the trouble is we don't know which half?”

That doesn’t happen.

When your marketing gets more efficient, predictable, and valuable, everything changes.

Leads start flowing in.

Prospects seek you out.

Sales conversion becomes easy and smooth.

The 1-Page Marketing Plan gives you the clarity, simplicity, and structure to put together your entire marketing strategy on a single page. It's touched millions of entrepreneurs worldwide, and I’m intensely proud of it.

Now it’s time for the next phase.

Over the last two years, I’ve been working on Lean Marketing. It’s my best and most important work yet.

It helps you go from marketing plan to radical implementation.

And I’m going all in on lean. I’ve rebranded my company around it.

The new book is available for order HERE.

We’ve also built an incredible program (you might have seen me talk about it a lot recently) called Lean Marketing Accelerator, which you can apply for right now.

I know it’s not popular to say this, but severe economic headwinds are coming.

What you do right now will determine whether your business survives and thrives or struggles or worse.

You need a lean approach to marketing to make it safely to the other side.

Marketing is the skill that will change your business and your life, and I’m determined to help you master this skill.