I’m Going All In on Lean (my biggest, boldest bet yet)

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. This is one of those times for me.

But I’m getting ahead of myself... I’ll come back to my big bet in a moment.

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 team “lean.” Lean manufacturing, Lean Six Sigma, lean thinking, and so on.

At the lunch break after my keynote, I had several people who were in the audience come up to me, thank me for my keynote, and chitchat, as often happens at these kinds of events.

The same happened when Luis Socconini came up to me. We chatted for a brief while, and then 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. Holy crap, how was I in business all these years, and didn’t I know about this stuff?

Here’s the short story…

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

Well, that’s nice, you might think, but 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 has 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 the company around it.

The new book is available for pre-order HERE and will be launching May 7th.

We’ve also built an incredible program called Lean Marketing Accelerator, which is available right now (by application).

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.