How To Expertly Position Your Business & Brand In Your Market

Welcome to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast. Today you're in for a treat. We're going to talk about how to expertly position your business and your brand in your market as we learn from businesswoman extraordinaire Allie Brown. Now, Allie Brown is somebody that Dan Kennedy would say is a renegade millionaire. This is somebody who took copywriting to the next level and who understands the power of positioning, but not just in your message, in your entire business and your brand identity. Now, Allie's going to share with you her journey through the ups and the downs as well as the expert advice and how to make sure that you are positioned for growth no matter what comes your way. Let's listen in.

I don't think there's anybody that has had a bigger impact in the field of direct response than Dan Kennedy. The legend of Dan Kennedy should be ignored at your own peril. They're not really lessons, they're kind of laws laws that you live by. Dan opened my eyes to what small business marketing looks like. Dan teaches strategic direct response that is timeless.

His ripple effect touches people who don't even know his name.

The world as we know it was changed because Dan Kennedy became obsessed with marketing.

Welcome to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast with your host, Dan Kennedy. Hello everybody, this is Dave D., Chief Marketing Officer at GKIC, and my guest this month, I'm really excited, is my good friend and businesswoman extraordinaire, Allie Brown. Allie is the CEO of Allie International, and she has created a dynamic enterprise that is devoted to empowering women entrepreneurs around the world and currently has, get this, over 50,000 members in online and offline programs. Now, over the past couple of years, Allie has received the honor of being ranked in the Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing companies. She was named 2010's Enterprising Woman of the Year by Enterprising Women Magazine. Magazine, and on and on. She's also featured in the season finale of ABC's Secret Millionaire show. We're going to get into that, dig in a little bit about that. So I'm really excited. Allie, welcome to the call.

Dave, you did not list all my awards.

Okay. Included in the Ernst Young 2010 class of entrepreneurial winning women, a winner of the 2010 Stevie Award for Women Helping Women, a recipient of the 2010 Commitment to Philanthropy Award from the Women's Network. Hey, hey, hey, hey, you just be quiet now, Allie Brown. All right. You're putting on this name. Entrepreneurial Guru for Women by Business News Daily and is dubbed as by Forbes Women to Watch. How'd I do now? Is that better?

Perfect, thank you. You're welcome.

Well, seriously, I'm really excited about having you on the call. And so let's get right into it. I'm going to start grilling you with questions here as I like to do so we can get some really great value to our gold members. Okay, great. You know, if you could start off by telling us your story. Because you are one of these, as Dan would turn it, renegade millionaires. You didn't start out with a silver spoon in your mouth. So tell your story because it's really, really inspiring. It'd be great.

Well, and you know, I think it is really important we tell our stories because I know, you know, when I was in my 20s and I was looking at people who are successful and I was just miserable jumping job for job, I just kept thinking, wow, they must have just known what they were doing. This must have happened overnight. They were born lucky. And I had never taken a business course. Was really just looking for something that would make me happy and no job fulfilled me. I was always kind of restless and I think that's something in common that a lot of entrepreneurs have. We just don't fit into the mold and we think something's wrong with us and then finally we realize, I think I should work for myself because I'm kind of unemployable. And my last job, I was in New York City and I had found my way to this little ad agency. There's about 10 people working there and I had worked at a larger company and then suddenly worked at this little office. The great thing about that, Dave, is I got to do all these different things. Like, if the bosses were out, I had to talk to the clients, and I was suddenly doing account executive stuff. If the graphic designer was out, like, I suddenly was designing an ad, and I had all this great experience. And then there was a guy who would come in and out, and he was a freelancer. And one day I'm talking to him, I'm like, "How do you do what you do? You get to work at home, you get to go sit in the park, you have, you know, a few clients. I know you travel a lot." And I just was talking to him, I'm realizing, I think that's what I'd like to do. So, I I had— I would not recommend this. This is called the no plan B, and this is kind of how I roll. I think there may be some of you listening who are like that, that you know when you're against the wall, like there's— that's when you come up with your best stuff. So I just had to figure it out day by day. Now, I had gotten pretty good at copywriting, which, you know, Dan tells people it's really one of the best skills you can have. And when I was at that job, I read books, I went to the library, I did learn more about writing, for business, and that's what got me started. So I found a little client here and there and just got things going. The turning point for me was when my little brother— this is pathetic— my little brother gave me a computer, his old computer, because he's a techie kid and always had the latest one. He said, well, here, you can have this one. I feel really sorry for you. And I started a little email newsletter using AOL. I do not recommend this, by the way, people. There's much more sophisticated software at this point than starting a group in your address book in AOL. But that's what I did. I had like 10 people on my list, which included my parents and my cat. I started this little email newsletter that gave a tip. I send this out every 2 weeks, like a tip on writing for business, just something I had learned, pretty basic, and a little paragraph underneath that told people about my services. This saved me because I was going to networking meetings and meeting people, but I didn't know how to really ask for the business. I would just say, "Can I send you these free marketing ezines and give some good pointers?" I have some points on writing for results. They said, "Great," and that's how I started getting clients. That was the first turning point. The big aha moment for me was when I started hearing people ask, "How are you doing what you're doing? How are you sending out emails and getting clients? How are you marketing and not having to really leave your computer?" I just realized, my gosh, I guess I know more than they did. And that was the moment, and some of you have had this already, like you realize, I think they think I know what I'm doing, so apparently I can sell them what I'm doing.

Well, you did know what you were doing. You knew more than them.

And the little voice in my head was like, who do you think you are? You don't really know this stuff. But I'm realizing, I realized I had something to offer. That was the big aha moment, that I could leverage that and start creating info products, which I didn't even know what they were called. I literally bought an ebook on how to create and sell ebooks and wrote my first little product, which was called Boost Business with Your Own Ezine, and it was how to create an email newsletter and market. From then on, man, I was hooked because I loved seeing those orders in the inbox and I wasn't working for clients. So, built that up, built that up, built that up. People started then saying, "Can you work with me directly? I don't want to read the stuff. Can you coach me?" Then I had workshops and then it's just, it's grown and grown and grown. I want people to know this has absolutely been a journey, and a lot of people starting a business for the first time think they need this all laid out. I never had the vision, and especially today, I mean, it's funny, I wanted you to go through all the awards because sometimes I need to still hear that. I'll go look at my bio and go, Jesus, like when I'm having a rough day, I really will go and I'm like, okay, it's okay, I know what I'm doing. It's all coming together. But my first goal was really just to have a lifestyle business and pay my rent and be able to work for myself. That's how this all started. Started. And now that I'm seen as a leader, it's truly the biggest blessing in my life, and now I know why I'm really here.

You know, we were just— before we started talking recording, we were talking about Barbara Corcoran from Shark Tank, and I was talking to her afterwards, and she just echoed basically everything that you said, that most entrepreneurs and what they're taught is that you need to have an entire plan laid out, lay out everything. And she says that's bull. She says just get started, and that's what you did. I mean, you started with 10 people.. You didn't worry about, my gosh, I only have 10 people on my list. I need 100,000. You started with 10 and it grew from there. Very, very powerful. Very, very powerful lessons. You were one of the first people, Allie, on what we call— one of the first women on Planet Dan. Now, partially because of you, there's a lot more women who are GKIC members, but when you got started, it was like you.

It was boldly going where no woman had gone before, except God bless Lee Miltier. She's like the only one I had to talk to at some of those events.

I love her. Seriously, that's no joke.

Yeah, really. Well, you know what, here's the thing. It actually, it wasn't, I was used to being in a lot of environments with men because I got started going to a lot of those internet marketing events. Same situation, right? What's fascinating, look what's happened over the last several years. I mean, women are starting businesses now nearly 3 times the national average rate. Were on fire. But at the beginning, yeah, it was pretty interesting. I think what was more funny was when I joined Bill Glazer's mastermind, I think I was the first woman to be in any of those groups that Dan or Bill were running. And it was me and 20 guys. And so once I got over listening to dick jokes and, you know, had to have like a thicker skin sometimes, I really liked it because I think men offer such a different point of view. I love working with men and women in business because I think there's great ways that we complement each other in working differently and having different perspectives. But the funny, you know, Bill still tells the story to this day, which mortifies me, that I was the first person to cry in the mastermind.

That's legendary, by the way. That's legendary.

Oh my God, the story. It is funny, and I'm going to tell the quick version of it, is that my dad was sick for a long time, and so the subject wasn't funny, But the event's funny because I'm in the front of the room and they're throwing more stuff at me, which I love. The group, they're pushing it. They're like, well, you should have 2 events a year, and if this is working, you should do this 10 times more, and blah, blah, blah. And I hadn't really told them what was going on, and so I had a little breakdown. And, you know, I'm starting to get a little emotional. I started telling them about my dad, and in the group at that time, people really didn't talk this way, and so I really just took a risk there and opened up. And I can tell Bill started getting a little fidgety. You know, can we just talk about direct mail? And, you know, and I was mortified. I went to the bathroom. I'm thinking, oh my God, I'm so embarrassed. This is horrible that that happened. And I came back in the room, and I have to tell you, I won't tell you who they are because we're confidential in those groups, but one by one, nearly every guy in that group came up to me and said, I want to really thank you for talking about what's going on in your life because, you know, I need to think about something going on with my parents right now. Or one of them shared with me, you know what, you're really putting your family first, and I need to do that, like, with my wife.— it opened up the group and I think that was a defining moment that we realize as entrepreneurs, there's really no separation there.

We—

that's the beauty of what we do and what we do should honor who we are and the values that we have and we should never forget that.

Absolutely, that's beautiful. Beautifully said. Now, let's talk a little bit about your positioning because quite frankly, you do the best job out of— any marketer who I know, any business person who I know. Your positioning is just brilliant. What are some of the things that you do to position yourself and that other business owners need to think about in positioning themselves in their market? You have a very, very strong positioning in your market.

It is always best if you can find the way to be first and only at something. It may be something you don't see right now or realize right now in your business, but if you can be the first and/or you're the only in your industry to do it, it's going to set you really far ahead. So I'm very honored that people see me as kind of the leader of all the women internet marketers. Many of the women who even are at GKIC or on stage there are women who have coached with me at some point. Someone on Facebook the other day wrote something like, all the marketers, the women have come— it wasn't well said, something like sprung from the loins of Allie. I'm like, please don't say that ever again.

That just sounds weird. That came from a woman?

Yeah, it did. She said sprung from the loins. I'm like, I don't know if you'd say it that way. But the reason I know I am still seen as a leader is because listen, I had everyone nipping at my heels. I would go out and do something and turn around, and on the internet now, you know this is possible. A few days later, someone's doing exactly the same thing, exact same copy sometimes, right? Sometimes you have to spank them and sometimes you just ignore it. But I was willing to do the work to stay ahead. To spend the money, to continually be doing something first, to be different. I published a magazine for a few years, which was a lot of fun, but the main thing I did, the main reason I did that was to say, hey, like, this is something different. Look at this, look at that, look what— what is Allie doing now? And there's two things you want to consider when you're positioning yourself. I think a lot of people undervalue this, and this is something I learned from Dan. I realized how important positioning was, and not just your positioning, but even more important, how others perceive you. We think, you know, we're putting our stuff out there and we're all in our own heads. It is absolutely critical that you have fresh eyes on your marketing all the time. When I'm coaching people, and I'll say this happens more with women because they're a little more humble, they have a little more issue kind of tooting their horn. I'll look at their bio, I'll be like, this is the lamest thing I've ever seen. I said, I want you to brag to me right now. Tell me everything you've done in the last few years with your business. About their business. I got to really pull it out of them. You need to have those bragging points in your bio, on your site, if you did media, if you won awards. If you haven't, go get some. Go look in your industry and say, what's going to set me apart? People ask me, Ali, how did you get all those awards? Besides working hard. You know what we did? I'm not making this up. There's a site called Google, and I went there and I Googled women's business, success, awards, all kind— anything I could think of. We found them all and I applied for them all. And that is how I was bam, bam, bam, won these awards over 2 years because I actually took the time to do it. So right now, you listening, you probably have something that you know you could do in your business that would set you apart. Now, that's the credibility part. The other side of that is a bit of vulnerability, which I think is something that women have honestly brought to the world of business, that personal connection, that relationship, you know, that's something we're very natural at. When I started my newsletter, I know a lot of the internet marketing guys looked at that and like, well, isn't that cute? Barbie's publishing her little ezine, you know? And then suddenly everyone's talking about relationship marketing. I'm like, no shit, like this is what I've been doing for like 10 years. And it's like, well, marketing's changing and we can't do it the same way. So to be vulnerable, I don't mean giving sordid details about your life. I mean building up that know, like, and trust factor. And just small things like sharing something about your vacation or something about your family or your kids your kids are getting married or, you know, just something that people can relate to you and it continually blows me away. I'll post a picture of my cat on Facebook or I did a little video the other day of going through like— I was in the car wash with my mom and it was just the funniest thing because we're sitting there talking and I said, well, let's do a video in the car wash. All these people responded like, wow, you have a mother and, you know, you go to the car wash too. I mean, it's funny but they don't think of you as human and you have to continually— it's a delicate dance of positioning yourself as a leader., but relating to them as a human. Now this is for all of you who are personal brands. I mean, when you have a company brand, that's different, but for most of us, this is our biggest asset, is being a personality brand.

I know Dan's talked about this for years. Yeah, he absolutely has. You are so dead right about putting the personality and the personal stuff into what you're doing. Whenever I write an ezine or a blog post, it's got something to do with my kids, kids or something to do with a trip I've taken or some bonehead move that I make. I mean, I could make the entire blog about that, but it is unbelievable the response that you get. And I used to think, well, if I give them hardcore content, that's what they want. Well, you got to give that, but you also got to give them, like you said, yourself.

Give of yourself in that. And that relationship keeps the door open— for the marketing.

So that if you don't have that relationship— Can you say that again? Can you say that again?

Because that's really brilliant what you just said. Excuse me. By the way, everyone, I'm getting over a cold, so I'm a little froggy, but I'm told it's kind of working. It's a good voice. I'm not a smoker. The door opens— the relationship opens the door for you to market, and market probably harder than you could before. It's a different way. You're opening that pathway, they're engaged and they're receptive to hearing from you. There's a great saying that like people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. That's taking it to a different level, but if you get the gist of that, that's what we're talking about. They need to feel like they relate to you first and you have that relationship, and then they're going to listen to what you have to say. Because if you look at all of us, if you lined up everyone in GKIC and got us all together and looked at all of our businesses, I bet you could boil it down to maybe 10 of the same messages, like we're all saying and teaching, right? If you really boil it down, I think Shakespeare said there's only 7 things to say in the world or something. We're all saying it differently. We're all teaching it a little differently. I'm kind of known, you know, I came into Planet Dan and learned everything he had and I was fascinated. I actually stayed home, I remember on Friday nights listening to Dan cassettes. Like that's how I was so hungry for information I didn't see anyone teaching it the way I wanted to teach it. I did look at some of it and go like, "Whoa, I know this works, but that doesn't feel good to me. I'm going to take that principle and do it this way, and then I'm going to teach it this way." We all have a way of delivering something that's different from everyone else. When you truly are yourself and you let your authentic self come into play with what you're doing, that's when the competition really isn't a factor anymore.

Right. One of the things that you're great at, Allie, is— so we've talked about positioning, but everything is very, very congruent in what you do. So your positioning and your branding are tied together brilliantly. How do you go about that? What are some of the elements to doing that? Because you've got your positioning. We know who your target market is, but then your branding of everything that you're doing is just brilliant.

So talk a little bit about that. Yeah, you know, well, I'm not a branding expert. I will tell you though, a brand should stand for something. So you need to stand for something. I'm out here, you know, I work with women and men in my programs, but I'm really, I'm doing this for the ladies. Like, I'm here for the women, you know. And so, everything that I do needs to be feel good to them. The colors I use, even if you look at my site, AllieBrown.com, and you look at, The boxes, the edges are rounded. There is subtle softness to what you do.

But how do you know to do that? I mean, do you just know this intuitively?

Did you hire a branding expert? I'll tell you, I just love— I like pretty things. I just really do. I started to learn, and I started to learn just by looking at websites and what looks good and what didn't. Like, you know, remember Dan's old stuff. Jesus, I mean, it's bad looking, but that's his brand. Like if Dan started doing like like super slick stuff. I know he's getting more comfortable with it now and we're embracing it, but he couldn't jump there directly, right? It's starting to get better looking thanks to you and the people you're working with now. But it just suits me. It made me feel good, like to make things look a certain way, and I've always liked design. A brand should make someone kind of feel good about what you're offering. I'm a woman. I work with women. Now, that doesn't mean everything I do is pink. I mean, a lot of people think, "Oh, if you're marketing to women, just make it pink and add flowers." You don't do that. It needs to still have a strength behind it. But if you look at what you're doing, colors actually have subconscious meanings to them or messages to them. Words you use are so critical. There are words I would use writing to a male market and not to a female market. There are shifts in how I present something. For example, and I'm getting a little bit more into the marketing here, but it kind of all blurs together. Women are not typically motivated by the here's how to get rich message. What they are motivated by is how that money can help them help their family and help their community and help the world because we feel too selfish if it's just for us. So we want to see how it will help, you know, help the whole family or, you know, help us further be a better person or, you know, there's so many levels to that. But on the surface, it has to be attractive. And then in branding, there's some things that we call takeaways. And, you know, I have clients come to me, for example, and we're working on their brand because I love doing that actually, and I am really good at it. They'll come to me and we'll work on something. For example, let's say their brand has something like queen in it. I'm just making that up. I started as the Easing Queen. My logo had a crown. I wouldn't recommend that now. I would say, you know what? You don't need it. It's over the top. But we need some type of feeling. Maybe the font needs to feel royal, or there are ways to make it feel more impactful without without hitting people over the head. It's hard to talk about without doing it visually, but look at what you represent, and then if you're not good at this, get someone to help you because it will make a huge difference between your stuff looking hokey-dokey and just feeling good, like being very inviting for people.

One of the things that you do really well, too, is you still have very, very strong direct marketing. In everything that you do, but it just looks good. It looks pretty. I've seen a lot of women, not just a lot of women, a lot of people make, oh, I've got to make my stuff look pretty, but then they abandon the direct marketing principles that we know work. You don't do that.

You've got very strong direct marketing, but it just looks great and ties in with your brand.

It's like LA direct marketing. LA direct marketing.

Hey, you might want to— I've gotten a makeover. I've made it over.

I've made over direct marketing. Allie Brown has made over direct marketing. Fantastic. Let's talk about celebrity now, because quite frankly, you are a huge celebrity in your market. First of all, the first question I have for you, how important is it to create celebrity in your market, whether you're a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker?

Well, Dan's taught this for years, and we know it's important. It's funny because I don't even like saying that I am a celebrity. I don't feel like that, but the positioning is what will do that for you. And what you should be doing is sharing as much as you can about what you're doing in your life. I think it's really more about being bold. They start to see you as a celebrity when you're bold. You're bold in your marketing. You're bold in your promises, and also you're bold sharing about your life. I know when I started, you know, really marketing more and I gained this following, my market started to switch because— let's go way back when I was doing just those writing services, my market were business owners. I had clients and projects with everyone from big companies like Adweek and New York Times Digital. I do little projects for them, to small business owners like a jeweler around the corner. My market started to shift to people who are following me for marketing advice, and what's interesting is when I started sharing a little bit about my success, I wasn't bragging, but I just wanted to share them. You know, I'm so excited, I just bought my first home. This is a huge deal. You know, as a single woman, I just wasn't sure if I was able I'm able to do this. Then when I bought this house on the beach, I shared it with people. I chartered a jet a few years ago and I shared that experience on Facebook. I did a video because I was just blown away that I could do that and how much fun it was. They don't tell you to buckle up or take your iPod off and you can bring pets, guns. It just changed my life. I loved it. Sharing that elevation of your life, I think it's important to share, but not being too far from the me. It's really a fine line. I remember I hired Dan for a day of consulting. This was years ago, and I had to go to Cleveland, and then I had to stay in a 2-star hotel. And you loved it. You loved that. Oh my God, one bar of soap for the sink and the tub. And yeah, does he still make people stay there? It was like a— it was like a 2-star. It was bad.

See, that was the Bay Money.

How much I love Dan. Man, so he was going through one of my sales letters and I did this kind of not knowing what I was doing, but I remember he pointed out and he said this was really smart. I had a picture of me with my Volkswagen Beetle. I drove a Beetle at the time. And you know, so here I was showing them how they could be, you know, have this great life and make all this money, but I also had something that was kind of, you know, people didn't expect at the time that I would drive a Beetle. Maybe they thought I would have something more fancy, a Mercedes or something out here. He actually pointed out, he said, that's very smart, because he's like, you're still going to need some things that are relatable to people. You can't be too far out of the realm. I think that's important. I don't think you should go out and try to be a celebrity. I think building that up with your credibility and that vulnerability, going back to those two principles, that will naturally do it for you.

Fantastic. Fantastic, Allie. Let's talk about now, your Secret Millionaire experience. Again, Allie was the star of the— it was a season finale, wasn't it? For Secret Millionaire. It was a wonderful television show. And first of all, I wanted to— because I, and I also know that, that, that, that being on that show really made a huge impact on your life, which we're going to talk about in just a minute. But first of all, how did you get on the show? And then just tell a little bit about the experience of being on a network, a huge, huge network TV show?

It was fascinating. I remember we got a call. My team answered the call because it came in to like, you know, we have a media page. By the way, everybody, you have to have a media page or something on your site where media can reach you and reach you quickly. We— one of my team members called and said, well, we got a call from these producers for the show ABC. And I'm like, oh, great, TV. I said, "Tell me what it's about." She said, "Well, let me tell you, it's a little different here, a little different. You're going to be living on welfare and giving away $100,000." I'm like, "Of the network's money?" "No, your money." I'm like, "Okay, wow.

Well, let's really look at what this is." This is sounding less appealing.

This is a big— I mean, honestly, at first I'm like, "Whoa." And then the more I learned about it, I looked into it more. At first, I'll tell you that, Dave, I was terrified. You know, all those shows out there, anything reality, you could get sandbagged. I mean, you know, what gave me trust in it was one, it was ABC. It's a family-friendly channel. They have never, they don't do those bait-and-switch shows, at least not anymore. And number two, the show format had been done before. It had been done in the US. It had been done on Fox a few years ago, but it was originated in the UK and Australia. And after meeting with the producers, they pointed out to me, they said, listen, our job is actually "If the viewers don't like you, they're going to— if this makes you feel better, we're going to tell you this. If the viewers don't like you, they're going to turn the show off. So, like, our job is to— don't worry. I mean, you're going to go through quite a journey, but you come out shining on the other end, like, we promise." And I really— I had to have faith there, because you sign a 20-page contract, which really just gives your life away. And I thought it would be an amazing experience. And, of course, I knew some media attention could happen as a result. But, you know, to invest that much money there and not in something else. I just was really called to it also because, you know, I was stepping into more philanthropy and I thought just what an amazing experience. And I prayed on it, I talked with my family about it. I'm like, you know what, I'm going to do it. When am I going to have the chance to do this? And honestly, I had gotten very, very comfortable in the style I live, in what I do, and I didn't think it would be a bad idea to go through that for a week and remember— you know, it's always good to remember your blessings and to know what you have. You will see my life transformed on that show. You will see— they pick me up. I didn't know where I was going. They told me anywhere in the country. I had packed a parka, boots, you know, everything I could think of, and the cab picks me up and you know where we go? 2 miles down the street to Venice Beach. I could have walked home to my 4,200-square-foot house. That was the weirdest thing. The second weirdest thing was getting used to suddenly being filmed all day, and it's very— you feel very alone because you're— no one— these people aren't talking to you. So I'm there, I'm having like emotional moments because they're putting you in these situations where you're meeting people who have no home and these pregnant women who have nowhere to go, and you saw— I mean, it got It got really emotional. But at the end, I mean that magical moment where I reveal that I'm there to help these people, I mean it's funny, they didn't have this on camera. I don't know why they didn't use this clip, but I literally said, "I could die right now." That's literally what I said when I walked out of Harvest Home and I had given them that check, and I knew I had saved their organization. So for me it was a very humbling experience. It was an emotional journey. The surviving on $50 for the week, I mean, it was challenging, but it was doable. And the things that I kept thinking were, you know, there's people with less than this right now. And I had a crappy apartment, but there's some people with nowhere to sleep. And, you know, some people ask me, you know, why didn't you do a lot of promotion around that show? You know, you should have done this and that, and a launch and blah. And Dave, you know, for me, that show for me was so transformational and emotional, it just didn't feel right. But I know it lives on and it's still changing people's lives just by them being able to watch it.

And talk a little bit about Allie. And that's true, and that's absolutely true because you and I talked personally after that and you were just very emotional about it. And I know I don't want to exploit this. I really just— it had such an impact on me. It is what it is. You, at the very beginning before we, before we got on the air here, you had a very important message. And I think this also came out of your experience with Secret Millionaire about about pushing, pushing, pushing, growing, growing, growing. Let's end with that because it's very profound and I think a lot of business owners, a lot of entrepreneurs need to hear this message from you.

I want you all to remember that being an entrepreneur is a journey and the path that you see right now may not be the path you end up on, but it may be and probably is absolutely critical to getting where you're really supposed to be. I personally had to go through a period of power and growth before I could step into a place of truly being of influence in the world. I got caught up for a while in the more is better. I wanted to grow a company to X dollars of revenue. It was exciting. Listen, being on the Inc. 500 and all that, man, I felt, I was so proud. And, you know, in many ways I think I was doing it for my dad who had passed in 2008 and I just, I wanted him to know that I got to a certain dollar amount, and you know, it felt great. And then there was one morning, and it was actually after I did Secret Millionaire, you know, there's so much I could say, but I know we have to watch the clock here. I went to this, it got me back to looking at what was truly important to me in my life. I like having a beautiful home, nice car, nice clothes, and you know, traveling well, and that's pretty much it. Did I need to grow this huge company? Did I need to have all these employees? That I need to have a schedule that was jammed all week. And for a while that felt amazing, like I was successful. And then after the show, I really was like, you know, I live at the beach. When's the last time I was on the beach? When's the last time I went and spent a week with my mom? It really hit me hard. And it in no way made me apologetic for my success, but it reoriented me. It was like reorienting my place on the map up and getting really solid. If you've been following me the last few years, you saw me. That show came around, you saw me just strip away. I did that 80/20 rule, man. I looked at the whole business and I'm like, "What's making me money? What do I love to do? What's fun? What's aligned with my path in truly helping people in the world while I can make a great living?" That's all I focus on now. My life has changed. I rediscovered the word "net worth." You know, down to about 8 employees now. We don't work Fridays. We work 4 days a week. I'm traveling now. I'm in a great relationship. I've made time in my life now. And don't beat yourself up for trying these different places though, because you won't get the right perspective until you get to a different place on the map. Like if you look at the room you're in now listening to this and you walk to a different corner of the room and then you turn around, you have a completely different perspective. And you're going to see a direction you probably didn't see before, and you had to go there before you can go to the next level. So, just take inventory, maybe like twice a year. Just take a day to yourself or take a trip or go somewhere and kind of think like, "Is this what I want right now?" Because what you want may change.

Just be open to that. Fantastic. Well, Allie, I want to thank you so much for joining me on this call and sharing yourself as you always do. Thanks so much for a tremendous interview.

I really appreciate it.

Thanks, Dave. This is great. Thank you for listening to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast with Dan Kennedy. If you love hearing in on these lost Dan Kennedy talks and speeches and calls, then please let someone else know about this podcast. That's how you can help it to grow, and the more it grows, the more free Dan Kennedy we can bring to you. Also, Dan would love to give you the most incredible free gift ever designed designed to help you make maximum money in minimum time. This free gift comes with almost $20,000 in pure money-making information for free, just for saying maybe. You can get this gift from Dan right now at NoBSLetter.com. Not only do you get the $20,000 gift, you also get a subscription to 2 marketing newsletters that will be hand-delivered by the mailman to your mailbox each and every month, one from Dan Kennedy and one from me, Russell Brunson. To get this gift and your subscription, go to NoBSLetter.com right now.