Get Mic’d – Episode 10: Leveraging Lean Principles in Marketing with Allan Dib, Lean Marketing- Transcript

Below is a transcription of Get Mic’d Podcast Episode 10, hosted by Katie Zeppieri and features Allan Dib, Managing Dictator at Lean Marketing. Listen to the full episode here.

Allan Dib joins Katie Zeppieri on this episode of Get Mic’d to discuss his innovative approach to marketing through lean principles. As the author of The 1-Page Marketing Plan and a seasoned entrepreneur, Allan shares insights from his journey of transforming marketing strategies for businesses of all sizes. He emphasizes the shift from technical expertise to focusing on fundamental messaging and market fit, highlighting how these elements are crucial for success in today’s landscape. 

Katie Zeppieri: Allan, welcome to Get Mic’d. 

Allan Dib: Hey, Katie. It’s a pleasure to be on.

Katie: We are speaking to each other from quite a distance apart, and it is very early where you are.

Allan: It’s not too bad. It’s slightly earlier than I’d normally be doing podcasts, but it’s all good for you, Katie. Why not?

Katie: You’re up at 6 am anyway. You’re ready to start your day.

Allan: I’m ready to go.

Katie: I’m so curious to dive into your routine later because you are one productive person! And I will say, Allan, when I’m doing a little bit of research on guests, like, one of the places that I go is their LinkedIn page, and you have one of my favourite about sections that I’ve ever seen on a LinkedIn profile. And just for the audience, Allan makes it so digestible and really breaks down his experience in a fun, easy-to-read kind of bullet-point way. And then the best part is right at the bottom of your page, which is the perfect opportunity to encourage people to connect with someone you’ve got, like, how I can help you when you’ve got, like, six bullets breaking that down. 

Allan: That’s correct. A big part of my work is really about simplifying things and making them easy and, ideally, also entertaining. While many say people have short attention spans and insist on keeping videos or text brief, I’ve found that people actually have short boredom spans. When entertained, people listen to a podcast for three hours or binge-watch a Netflix series. It’s not that attention spans are short; it’s that boredom spans are. So, my goal with my work is to make it easy to consume, digestible, and, ultimately, to inspire action.

Katie: What is the recipe for knowing whether or not your content is entertaining enough? How do you sort of judge if what you’ve made is boring?

Allan: You’ll start to get a solid understanding. I was chatting with a client recently who wanted to write a book, which is a fantastic idea. He was concerned about how to determine if his audience would really resonate with the content. Nowadays, it’s quite simple to gauge that because we can receive almost immediate feedback. For instance, I can post something on LinkedIn, and it can either become a hit with lots of shares and comments or it can fall flat. This way, you can get rapid feedback from your market. I told him that a book project could take two years of your life, and if you don’t know your audience well enough, you might invest all that time, effort, and work only to discover that it doesn’t connect with them. So, I recommended that he write daily on LinkedIn for a while to see what resonates with his audience and what doesn’t. The feedback will come quickly.

Katie: That’s a really good point. I think a book is a great analogy for that because, as you mentioned, it takes about two years to write something, edit, refine, and then finally publish it. I believe that the same concept can be applied to someone launching a startup, especially for tech companies that are building out a product in advance, right? So, I’m curious about your thoughts on how companies can ensure they reach Product Market Fit faster, perhaps by utilizing some of these simplifying marketing techniques.

Allan: What I’m essentially discussing is the concept of an MVP for writers. The idea of an MVP comes from Eric Ries’s book The Lean Startup. An MVP isn’t just a smaller version of your product; it’s a stripped-down version with very minimal features. This isn’t exactly a groundbreaking revelation, but it seems to be something that people are doing less frequently these days. I’m not sure why that is—maybe it’s because it’s so easy to raise venture capital or some other reason. However, the idea of an MVP is still highly relevant. 

The question remains: can you get people to pay for what you have even before you launch? I prefer to test ideas on what they call “check writers” rather than just surveying people. When you ask someone if they’d buy a product, they might say, “Oh, yeah, I’d buy that.” But that’s very different from saying, “Here you go, here’s the payment link via Stripe. Pay for this product, and we’ll build it.” The best startups, the most successful tech companies, and the top marketers start with individuals who show their commitment by talking with their wallets, not just with their words.

Katie: That makes a lot of sense. So, Lean Marketing is the name of your company and one of your two books. It seems to embody the philosophy you consult on, and you travel all over to speak about these concepts. Where did this all begin for you? Could you take us through a digest of your career journey that led you to discover and really embrace the Lean Marketing concept?

Allan: I wrote my book, The 1-Page Marketing Plan, which was published in 2018. A couple of years later, I was invited to speak at a large manufacturing conference. Although it primarily focused on manufacturing, I was there to talk about marketing. Throughout the event, I kept hearing the term “lean” being mentioned repeatedly. I had only a superficial understanding of it at the time.

Then, a guy named Louise approached me and said, “Allan, I consider your book The 1-Page Marketing Plan to be lean marketing.” I had never heard that phrase before, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. After our conversation, he later became a client, and we worked together, but his comment stuck with me. I decided to research lean principles, which emphasize doing more with less—less equipment, less time, less space, and really simplifying things down to the essentials, providing exactly what the customer wants.

I realized this was precisely what we needed in marketing. Everywhere you look—every podcast we listen to, every book we read, every conference we attend—they all tell us to do more: more tools, more AI solutions, more funnels, more brand strategies. While none of these suggestions are inherently bad, the prevailing mindset seemed to focus on adding more costs, more time, more energy, and larger teams.

In contrast, the most successful marketers I observed took a very lean approach. They focused on one or two things and executed them exceptionally well and consistently. This was a stark difference from the common advice that encouraged doing more frequently and spreading oneself thin across multiple social platforms. The gap between the practices of the best marketers and the prevailing advice inspired me to write Lean Marketing. I leaned into this concept because I believe it can make the most significant difference for marketers and their businesses.

Katie: Why is it so important to strip things down? You’re talking about access and adding and I think it’s really easy to say we need to do 10 more things, as marketers or as an entrepreneur. Why is it important to strip things back, and how can someone discover what are the things to kind of keep and what are the things to remove?

Allan: It’s a great question. The reason why this is important is that I’ve found simple scales while fancy fails. That’s been my experience. When something is simple, it’s often a sign that someone is on the right track. If we think about almost any endeavor in life, the steps to getting there are usually quite simple. However, simple is not the same as easy.

For example, if I want to get strong, the path is pretty straightforward: I just go to the gym and lift weights. Over the past four years, I’ve completely transformed my body by focusing on just three movements: the deadlift, the bench press, and the squat. I repeatedly perform these exercises and show up at the gym three or four times a week, progressively lifting heavier weights. 

Sure, we could discuss protein intake or pre-workout shakes, which might make a slight difference, but the core of achieving results lies in the simple, consistent actions you take daily, weekly, and monthly. This approach scales over time. One day, I could lift 100 pounds, and a few months later, I’m lifting 200 pounds. It’s that simple.

As I mentioned, simple is different from easy, and I see this principle apply across various aspects of life—whether it’s business, relationships, finance, or health. The steps to reach your goals tend to be quite straightforward. You can always add complexity as you progress, but in business, complexity tends to arise naturally as you scale. You don’t need to force it by adding a hundred different things or moving parts. Complexity will come with having more people, more revenue, and more clients. If you find that your plan is overly complicated and makes your head spin, you’re likely on the wrong track.

Katie: Yeah, I’m thinking of, was it Mark Twain, who said, “if I had more time, I would have written a shorter book”—that kind of exact philosophy. And to your point, simple is not easy. So yes, I’m sure a large part of what you’re doing for the clients that you work with is helping them develop a strategy for simplification. How that’s exactly right? How would you approach that? How would somebody, if they were working with you, get started on that plan?

Allan: You held up my book, The 1-Page Marketing Plan. The core of that is this: it’s my own one-page marketing plan. So literally, everything we do from a marketing perspective is here on one page. The reason I wrote The 1-Page Marketing Plan is that I saw a lot of complexity. I was a marketing consultant—still am—and when I started working with a client, I’d say, “Alright, let’s put together a marketing plan.” Often, they’d respond with, “I don’t know, it’s too difficult, not sure where to start.” They would need to hire a consultant to help them put one together. So, I created this process, the one-page marketing plan process, where, literally, in a single page, we can map out your entire marketing journey. There’s not a lot of space on one page, so you’ve really got to focus on what actually matters. You can’t start with charts and graphs and all of that. I’m not saying those things are bad either—of course, you could expand on a part of your plan or whatever. But at a high level, if we can’t communicate to our team, to our vendors, or to the people who buy from us what our marketing plan is in a single page, then it’s probably too complex. You’re likely on the wrong track.

Katie: So for those who have not yet read your book, The 1-Page Marketing Plan. Can you break down some of the ideas and concepts that people should consider?

Allan: Yeah, so it’s essentially a book to guide you through creating a marketing strategy, broken up into nine discrete blocks. If you’re watching this, you can see it; it’s nine blocks. If you’re listening, just visualize a single page divided into three rows of three, essentially nine squares. The first block focuses on your target market, which is foundational. It’s about figuring out who our people are. I often say, “Stuff for our people, not people for our stuff.” Especially from a Silicon Valley perspective, I’ve heard Paul Graham mention that a common mistake people make is having a solution in search of a problem. They create this cool tech, app, or technology, and then they look for who needs it. That’s completely backwards. What we want to do is start with our market—who are the people we want to serve, who has a real need for what we offer? Then we can provide them with a solution. We need to find out what’s actually keeping them up at night, what’s a significant problem in their lives that we can help with. So, the target market is really the foundational element.

Next, we move to messaging. Messaging is about how we connect with that target market in a way that they’ll actually respond to, in a way that encourages them to want to buy what we have and engage with our message—essentially, to raise their hand and say, “Hey, I’m interested in what you’ve got to offer. Tell me more.” The third block is media. This is about how we reach that target market cost-effectively. It serves as the bridge between our target market and our messaging. We need to determine what platform we should use to reach them and how to get our message out effectively. This forms the awareness phase, where we make potential customers aware of our existence.

Once they’re aware, they may raise their hand—this could mean they clicked on your landing page, responded to your ad, or called your office. At this point, we want to do three things: capture those leads, nurture those leads, and then convert those leads. That’s the second phase. Many people think, “Great, someone bought from me—marketing is done.” But really, the money is made in the third phase, which I call the after phase. This phase involves delivering a world-class experience, increasing customer lifetime value, and finally orchestrating and stimulating referrals. So that covers the entire process of putting together your own marketing plan in a comprehensive way, all documented on a single page.

Katie: I think that’s such a fascinating concept. I really appreciate that you emphasize marketing not being done after the sale. So often marketers get stuck in that mindset of, “Oh, we got the demo booked. The sale came through. I’m done.”

Allan: Exactly right!

Katie: I’ve heard you speak about the potential to sell to your current customer base and how important that is. Talk to us a little bit about that because sometimes it’s easy to think we always need a new top of the funnel. You do, for sure, but there’s another approach to that as well, which you’ve spoken about.

Allan: Yep, totally. It is absolutely exciting to get new clients, and a large part of our marketing is focused on that. However, it’s been very rare that we’ve ever worked with a business and haven’t been able to double or even triple it in some circumstances, without adding a single new client. This is because there’s often so much value stored in their current and past client relationships, and being able to leverage that is key. For example, we can raise prices for current clients, reactivate past clients, and there are likely prospects in your list that you haven’t re-engaged with.

There are tons of strategies in that after phase, such as selling existing clients a higher level of service or product, and orchestrating and stimulating referrals to turn one client into two. There are so many strategies and tactics you can deploy. As I mentioned, very few businesses couldn’t double their business just by being clever about what they do in that after phase, like figuring out something new to sell, a higher-level service, or reactivating past clients.

The value is all there, especially in retaining current clients. By reducing churn, you also increase customer lifetime value. Ultimately, when it comes down to it, marketing is about two variables that make all the difference: cost of customer acquisition and lifetime value. We want to lower the cost of customer acquisition, and many marketers focus solely on that. However, another great way to enhance your marketing strategy is by increasing lifetime value. This means increasing the tenure of the client, how much they spend, and moving them to a higher level of value. A lot of people think, “Oh, that’s the delivery team or customer service team’s job.” Yes, they play a role, but you need to be involved as well. You have to arm them with the tools and resources they need to get that done.

Katie: Are there any nuances that should be considered for B2C versus B2B?

Allan: There’s always nuances, but as I said, most of the information applies to most people. One nuance in B2B is that there are often multiple decision-makers involved. Even in B2C, you might encounter situations where, especially when selling something high-value, someone might say, “I need to talk to my wife or partner.” However, in B2B, there are usually multiple decision-makers almost all the time.

For instance, if you’re selling a software product, there could be the CTO, who needs to determine if the system integrates with their technology and if the API will work. Then there might be the CFO, who will ask about the return on investment and what the savings will be versus what they will spend. Depending on how crucial the product is, even the CEO may have a say in the decision-making process. Therefore, it’s essential to customize your messaging for each decision-maker.

Additionally, many people forget about the end users, as their acceptance is often critical to the product’s success. Sometimes software is imposed from above, but getting end users on board and ensuring that the product simplifies their jobs is crucial.

You need to think through everyone involved. If we had a spy in that business, who would have a say, who could kill the deal, and what would they be saying? For example, would the end user say, “Look, we don’t really need this; it just adds another step to what we do”? Or would they think, “Oh, wow, this is awesome; it makes my job a lot easier”? Finding those supporters within the organization is key to getting the deal across the line, but more importantly, to ensure that they stay. We want not just the sale, but also to retain customers; we don’t want high churn rates, but rather high lifetime value.

Katie: Your 1-Page Marketing Plan is a very tangible and actionable book, which is the goal, right? Everyone can walk away and create their own marketing plan to fill that one sheet. So, it’s interesting to me that you’re discussing this topic, and someone might come to you and say, “Lean marketing.” That kind of feels like the bracket you’re in. So, when talking about your book and also your business, lean marketing, what are some of the fundamental principles that you think about?

Allan: When we start working with a client, we focus on a few core pillars. We’ve stripped everything down, getting rid of the fluff and unnecessary elements. The first step, naturally, is their strategy: developing their one-page marketing plan. This involves identifying if their message really resonates with their target market and figuring out who their ideal clients are. If we took all their clients, put them in a spreadsheet, and sorted them from best to worst, who would be at the top, and who might be the ones to avoid? It’s about pinpointing who we want to attract more of and understanding what drives their best clients to stick around.

A lot of times, clients are surprised by what we uncover about why people actually buy from them. A significant part of our work is conducting client interviews to answer that “why” question. Often, clients assume people choose them because of their technical skills—like being an exceptional accountant or a top-tier law firm. But it rarely comes down to just the core function they provide. More often, it’s about the added value, like responsiveness, speed, or other aspects that surround the main service.

Take accounting, for example. In my business career, I’ve changed accountants three or four times, and it was never because of their competency in accounting. They all have access to the same tax codes and strategies for minimizing tax. It was always about the common things—returning calls, replying to emails, being proactive about tax and wealth management—that made the difference. So, as I often say, it’s about doing the common things uncommonly well. Clients are often surprised to learn that what truly drives their business isn’t always their technical service itself but those peripheral qualities that resonate most with their customers.

Katie: Do you think it’s better for executives within a team to be asking these questions directly, or would it be more effective if it comes from a third party? And what are some example questions they could ask? Because that’s the tricky part, right? It’s not always clear if customers or clients truly understand why they buy from you, or how to encourage them to dig a little deeper into that reasoning.

Allan: I definitely think executives should be asking these questions, but having someone external involved can add immense value. When you’re so close to the day-to-day operations, it’s easy to miss the bigger picture, so a third-party perspective provides a fresh set of eyes that isn’t as immersed in the details. Something I often recommend to executives, though it’s not always popular advice, is to spend a day with your customer service team—responding to help desk tickets, handling inquiries—and maybe set aside a day every month or quarter for this. Also, spend time with your sales team, listening to how they interact with customers, watching how they approach pitches. You’ll be surprised; you may find issues you thought were long solved still cropping up, or that the way your product is being presented differs from your intentions. It’s an eye-opening experience and reveals real, on-the-ground insights. Often at the executive level, the information you receive is filtered and sanitized, so this direct exposure can reveal things that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Katie: Yes, and if you’re talking to a customer one-on-one, what questions do you think would be really good to ask them to prompt them to give you this deeper insight? 

Allan: Some of the questions I like to ask are things like, “What almost made you decide not to buy?”—as in, what factors or hesitations made you second-guess? This question is often very revealing. Another valuable one is, “What alternatives did you consider?” While businesses often obsess over their direct competition, the real competition might actually be the customer choosing to do nothing or handling it themselves. For instance, almost any software can be substituted by a basic spreadsheet or a Google Doc, however clunky or limited that might be. So, often the real competitor isn’t another SaaS company in your space, but these DIY solutions that can be free or nearly free. Asking questions like these can give a better understanding of what you’re truly up against, rather than just focusing on direct competitors.

Katie: Can you share any examples of client brands that you’ve worked with and who you’ve really helped transform their business through the Lean Marketing approach?

Allan: We worked with a legal firm that, at the time, was following the traditional billing model, charging clients by the billable hour or day. The problem with that approach is that it creates a kind of perverse incentive—the longer it takes, the more money the firm makes, which doesn’t necessarily reward efficiency. This firm specialized in HR law, and they were confident they could save clients money by properly structuring HR contracts, processes, and policies. But under the billable hour model, their competence and efficiency actually led to them getting paid less.

So I suggested they switch to a monthly retainer instead. Rather than billing by the hour or day, we proposed a fixed fee—say, $5,000 a month—where they would manage all HR legal issues, handle any litigation, and proactively prevent issues by setting up sound contracts and processes. Now, the firm’s incentive was to be as efficient and proactive as possible since they’d be paid the same monthly retainer regardless of how much time they spent.

This approach was a game-changer. Clients had cost certainty, knowing their HR legal expenses were capped, while the firm was rewarded for being effective and efficient. By aligning incentives, both the firm and the clients benefited. This kind of model may not traditionally fall into the “marketing” category, but taking a holistic approach—aligning the business model with both profit and customer value—can be transformative. It also impacts how marketing communicates that value, making the offer compelling and a clear win for the client.

Katie: That’s so unique for a law firm—you made it outcome-focused. Hearing you explain it, I’m realizing there are so many small adjustments a company could make that could have a huge impact on their business. One of those, as you mentioned, could be simply repackaging the service, maybe productizing an offering or adjusting the pricing model.

Allan: Pricing and packaging huge levers that you can pull, I call these small hinges that swing big doors. So a lot of times, just a change in pricing or how the product is packaged, or changing to a subscription model, or unbundling or bundling something can make massive differences.

Katie: Are there any tools or software that you use you recommend to clients and customers that help with marketing metrics, monitoring performance and success.

Allan: Absolutely. We work with clients across various industries, but often the CRM system is truly the core of their marketing operations. It influences everything from email marketing to client management and beyond. I think of CRM software in three main types: a marketing CRM, which handles emails, automations, and similar functions; a sales CRM, which is primarily for pipeline management and sales team activities; and an operational CRM, used by the customer service team to manage help desk tickets and other support tasks.

These three types could all be part of one comprehensive system, like HubSpot or Salesforce, or they may be separate systems based on the client’s needs and industry. For example, in the medical field, there is often a dedicated practice management system for viewing X-rays or patient notes, which requires specific privacy protections that you wouldn’t want to mix with marketing data. In regulated industries like this, it’s common for the operational CRM to remain somewhat separate to ensure compliance and data security.

Our recommendations depend on the client’s needs, circumstances, and current software stack. In some cases, we integrate with an existing system, while in others we might replace it or simply enable unused features within their current system.

Katie: I want to talk about your personal brand for a moment, because you have a great one. You’ve written two books. Yeah, you’re speaking. I feel like you’ve done a really good job at sort of channeling your expertise and making it clear who you help and who you serve. Have you always been intentional about your personal brand and what are some of your best tips to other entrepreneurs who are thinking about how they show up online?

Allan: The best advice I can give is to be authentically yourself. It might sound like a cliché, but when you look at many LinkedIn posts, websites, or other professional content, they often come across as too polished or academic, which can strip away any real personality and make the message feel generic. This is especially true with the rise of tools like ChatGPT and other language models, which often generate polished but impersonal content. But remember, there is only one you, and letting that uniqueness shine through in your writing, videos, or podcasts is essential. Some people will love it, some might not, and that’s perfectly okay.

As we talked about before, we want “people for our stuff,” not just “stuff for our people.” There are those who might not enjoy my humor or style, and that’s fine; they can find someone else who resonates with them. But plenty of others appreciate the fun, engaging way I deliver marketing and business insights. I don’t believe people have short attention spans; they have short boredom spans. So, I aim to add personality and liveliness into what I do. Take my book Lean Marketing, for example—it’s nearly 300 pages, but I didn’t want it to feel like a dull textbook. I wanted it to keep readers hooked, so I included stories, anecdotes, and jokes throughout. Even if the topic is serious, keeping readers engaged and connected is critical. If a book is put down after five pages because it’s too dry, then it’s not fulfilling its purpose, no matter how valuable the information is.

Engagement is like the carrier for your message. If you’re not captivating or relatable, your message gets lost quickly. We see this especially with platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram Reels, where you only have a split second to hook viewers. A reel with just three views might be that way because it starts with a slow, uninspired intro. “Hi, I’m Sally…” is an instant scroll for most people. Sally’s message might be fantastic, but without a hook, she loses her audience. The key takeaway? Keep people connected and engaged from the start, or your core message risks getting lost, no matter how great it is.

Katie: That’s true. Social media, and especially like the short form video push, has really made a lot of us, even consumers who just start posting their content, aware of what it takes to catch somebody’s attention, because you have to, right? And that’s why I think it’s interesting seeing some influencers who, you know, start posting their content. They’re they’re maybe not even aware, like or like conscious of what it is, but they just start building an audience along the way. Yeah, I wanted your take on AI. You mentioned it, and generative AI in particular. You know, we’re now able to create our own gpts. We can train models on our style, our language. You know, does that have a place in Lean Marketing? Are there any concerns we should be aware of when it comes to using Gen AI to write our marketing materials?

Allan: Absolutely, it’s a powerful tool, one we use daily in various contexts, and I cover this topic in detail in my new book. The key takeaway here is how much it’s reducing the friction and technical knowledge once needed to deliver effective marketing. In the past, excelling in the technical side—like mastering SEO to reach Google’s front page or navigating pay-per-click ads—was crucial. It required a substantial technical lift, and being skilled in that area was a major competitive advantage. But as technology advances, that technical edge is fading.

So the question becomes: what matters now? The answer lies in the fundamentals—the foundational aspects of marketing that we focus on, like understanding your target market, crafting a message that truly resonates with them, delivering your product or service in a unique way, and providing a world-class experience. These core elements are more important than ever. That’s why my books, The 1-Page Marketing Plan and Lean Marketing, have only become more relevant as technology progresses. Many people worry about their strategies becoming outdated as tech evolves, but the opposite is true for these fundamentals—they’re more critical than ever because the technical barriers are now lower.

Today, we don’t need as many specialized tech-focused roles in marketing teams, like web developers or SEO experts. Those roles are still valuable, but the workload has gotten lighter. The need for deep technical knowledge has decreased, allowing us to focus more on the basics. And the shift is clear: businesses that relied on short-term hacks—like gaming the algorithm or keyword-stuffing—are feeling the negative impact. Meanwhile, companies that have something genuinely valuable to offer, with a strong message, a well-defined target market, and good product-market fit, are reaping the benefits.

So it’s worth considering: is your success based on a few technical tricks, or is it rooted in a strong foundation that genuinely resonates with your audience?

Katie: Don’t neglect the basics. Essentially.

Allan: Don’t neglect the basics. Exactly, right. 

Katie: All right. Lean is a movement. I would say there is like a big lean crowd that talk about applying lean principles in so many aspects of their life. And I just wanted to ask about your own life outside of work too. Do you employ Lean principles in how you spend and manage your days? I

Allan: Absolutely. You might be surprised by how my calendar looks because I document almost every waking moment, from the time I wake up until I go to sleep. I got this idea from lawyers, who often manage their time in 15-minute increments. I realized that my time is just as valuable—if not more—than theirs, so I adopted a similar approach.

While my schedule isn’t rigid, I can look back at previous weeks to see how many hours I dedicated to writing, working, or even things like having lunch. I can track my activities from months ago, down to specific days, such as what I was doing on May 3rd. I categorize everything in Google Calendar, using different colors for various activities, which helps me visualize how I’m allocating my most valuable resource: time.

I’m very intentional about how I spend my time. Occasionally, I’ll need to adjust a time block, but for the most part, I have my routine mapped out. I start each day with a morning routine that includes some reading and other tasks, all planned in advance. As a result, I rarely wake up wondering what I should do that day. I know what I want to accomplish and how to fill in any gaps in my schedule.

Katie: How far in advance do you do that? Do you map it out?

Allan: I tend to follow a consistent weekly routine, with variations only for travel or holidays. Just as I advocate for a process-oriented approach in my marketing, I apply the same philosophy to my personal life. I believe marketing is a continuous process rather than a one-time event, and it’s the small, consistent actions we take daily, weekly, and monthly that truly make a difference.

For example, I make it a point to go to the gym three or four times a week, treating those sessions like appointments with a client. I schedule specific times for meals, showers, and other activities. This structure gives me a clear idea of what my day will look like.

Of course, things can change due to unexpected opportunities or emergencies, and I’m flexible enough to adjust my schedule as needed. However, by default, my routine is already laid out. I don’t find myself wondering when I should have dinner or whether I feel like exercising; it’s all set in my calendar. While adjustments are possible, they need to be justified by a good reason.

Katie: I absolutely love asking successful entrepreneurs about their routines, because you’re right. I think it’s so much more than just the things we do once in a while. It’s the things that we do all the time. So any non-negotiables in your morning evening routines?

Allan: The non-negotiables are definitely exercise and walking. So I don’t consider walking exercise, although kind of is, but I think of walking more is for mental clarity, for getting some sunlight and things like that. So I walk, exercise, read and then eatpretty clean. So they’re non-negotiables. I mean, I do the the cold shower in the morning as well, and things like that. But, you know, you can take it or leave it if you want. I don’t think that’s the key to my success.

Katie: But the cold showers, well, you’re thinking really Lean when you’re in a cold shower. You’re like a short period of time, that’s that’s fantastic. I like that a lot. Thanks for sharing that with us. And just before we move to our lightning round, for those listening right now, and we’re looking to implement a lean marketing practice today, or principle today. What is your quick hit? Hey, here’s one way that you could be thinking about leaning in your business today.

Allan: Yes, there is a book called Lean Thinking by James Womack, who has played a significant role in the Lean movement and has influenced both my work and the Lean Startup methodology. It’s an excellent read. I also recommend my own book, Lean Marketing, which provides insights on applying Lean principles specifically to marketing. Both books are valuable resources for thinking lean in their respective contexts.

Katie: Alright, let’s move into our lightning round. I’ve got five questions for you to get some tangible tips and resources. So first, complete this sentence. To me, building a notable brand means making…

Allan: …a promise and keeping a promise.

Katie: What has been your brand’s memorable MicDrop moment?

Allan: To me, it’s been really simplifying things. Every time I’ve simplified the business, removed products, or removed things, I’ve made more money and more revenue.

Katie: What’s one brand that you admire and why?

Allan: I love BMW. I think they do a really, really good job with branding and what they do with their product.

Katie: What are three resources you’d recommend? I know you mentioned a couple books already. What are resources you’d recommend to someone looking to build their personal or corporate brand?

Allan: Yeah, I think books are the most underpriced asset you can get. Someone can spend 10 years of their life, and put all that in a book fee, and you buy that for $20, $25 or whatever. So already mentioned Lean Thinking. I think my book Lean Marketing, and if I to choose one more, if you’re, if we’re talking apps or things like that, I’ve recently started again using an app called Super Human for to manage my email. Fantastic. It’s got AI all built in, and works super fast. So there are three resources I’d recommend.

Katie: What’s up and coming for you? Allan, where can people connect with you outside of this conversation?

Allan: People can connect with me at leanmarketing.com you can buy my book everywhere. Books are sold Amazon. They’re very popular on audio@audible.com and what’s coming up for me. I’m starting to plan my next couple of books. They’re still very half baked. They’re still, I’m still working on the core concept, but yeah, that’s, that’s what I’m working on. 

Katie: At the moment, I am so inspired to think lean Allan, thank you so much for being here.

Allan: My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Katie.

Katie: Thank you for tuning in to Get Mic’d. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the podcast and leave us a review. Your feedback is invaluable in helping us continue to bring you thought-provoking conversations with thought leaders who share their secrets on how. To build a notable brand.