121 | How Your Lead Magnet Must Create a "Better Problem" w/ Glenn Allen

Glenn Allen is “The Go-To CMO of Digital Course Launches.” As a multi-instrumental musician-turned marketing and business consultant, Glenn coaches online entrepreneurs to scale from five to six-figure businesses and beyond by helping them turn their expertise into digital courses and membership sites. He's the host of the Glenn Allen Show, a YouTube video series about digital marketing, and a podcast on entrepreneurialism called “Unstuck & Unstoppable.” He also works as an unpaid volunteer chef, housekeeper, and chauffeur for three small children who refer to him lovingly as “Dad.”

Among other things, we go deep into how to leverage your knowledge to develop a course that can serve as the perfect way to gain clients.

This is something that I've been seeing bootstrapped entrepreneurs doing for a while with massive success, and it's about time that the traditional business world understands the model.

Go connect with Glenn!

His website

His free Golden Lead Magnet mini-course

His YouTube Channel

Connect with ME!

Also, I'd love it if you connected with me on LinkedIn or Instagram.

Or shoot me an email at youshould@connectwithpablo.com with the "Heard CEC's Glenn" in subject.

This that's a genius email address?  Me too, but I didn't come up with it.  It was the idea of my good friend, and super talented web designer, Nathan Ruff.

If you want your website redone, updated, and managed with unlimited updates for just $250/month (CRAZY GOOD DEAL RIGHT??), go to Manage My Website and hookup with one of the smartest, most talented guys I've ever met- THE Nathan Ruff.

Transcript

Pablo Gonzalez: 1:43

Welcome back to the chief executive connector podcast. My name is Pablo Gonzalez. I am your chief executive connector, and today is a new friend that I'm making on the show via my buddy Moby, who gave me this warm introduction to this good-looking fellow Glen Allen, who is the go-to CMO of digital course launches. As a multi instrumental musician turned marketing and business consultant, Glenn coaches, online entrepreneurs to scale from five to six figure businesses and beyond by helping them turn their expertise into digital courses and membership sites. He's the host of the Glen Allen show and YouTube video series about digital marketing and a podcast on entrepreneurial-ism called unstuck and unstoppable is also an unpaid volunteer. Housekeeper and chauffer for three small children who refer to him lovingly as dad. He was referred to me lovingly from Moby as a content ninja himself. And I am really, really interested in crossing the, the bridge between what online coaches are doing to launch their kind of like scale their businesses and what I think small businesses are. You know, really just skipping over these like tactics that the, that the hand-to-hand combat solo preneur can do. I think a$20 million business can do and really crush it with it because of the resources that they have behind it. So super pumped to get into it. Glenn, welcome to the show,

Glenn Allen: 3:03

man. Thank you, Pablo. It's good to be here.

Pablo Gonzalez: 3:05

Good to have you, man. Good to have you. Glenn, as I warned you about 30 seconds ago, I like to kick it off with my thesis on human connection of quickest way to connect with somebody. So you can connect to our friend. That's listening in her ear right now is to add some value to their life, which I'm sure you're going to do or share a vulnerability man. So I ask all my guests. What you're struggling with. And maybe we can like dive into a little bit of pain that way they see you as a human being. And then we, we see all these great talents. It's not as impossible to see yourself in your

Glenn Allen: 3:37

shoes. All right. Let me grab a box of tissues first. No, that sounds great. So one of the things that's really top of mind for me is you've got this episode, it's the 20, 20 last call, which. I thought it was just really entertaining. I liked the way that you, you told your story in a rhythmic way, along with a beat and everything like that. I thought that was super clever as a musician. I really dug that. But more than that, I, you said something about a client that you know, she called you out on something and may, and, and called you a weasel. And you had this situation where I used. Just like you couldn't, you couldn't get past it. Like it was really weighing you down and you were kind of a shell of your normal self when you had to go do some conferences and it took the wind out of your sails. Right? I am going through that today. I had one of my best performing clients from a couple of years ago. reach out to me saying she saw a post. I did that. Promoted the work we did together and her amazing results. And I really, my intent was to celebrate her success, but having her reach out and say, Hey, that's not your story to tell. And you shared some things that I told you during our coaching that you shouldn't have shared. It made me feel like a total jerk. And I was really questioning like, am I in the wrong hair? I sent this to some close friends that have looked look at the post and you know, and just see. Even though they're like, they've got my back and they're like, you are, this is basically a commercial for her. I still really feel terrible and I, I apologize profusely and, you know, took it down. And I just have that, that weight, that energy on me, you know, you start second guessing everything. You can be riding high on getting people amazing results. And then five seconds later, you can get a, you know, a text like that or a voice message. And suddenly you feel like who am I to be doing this? And you start questioning your own values and morals and ethics and wondering like, have I, have I been in the wrong the whole time,

Pablo Gonzalez: 5:31

man? That is so as you know, I, I can totally relate to that based on, based on that 20, 20 last call thing, man. And first of all, thanks for showing up a great energy today, right? Like even, even, even with something weighing you down, are you a. I'm going to make some assumptions based on the way that you show up and the way that you come across and the work that you do. But you strike me as somebody that kind of like approaches life from a login abundance standpoint. Absolutely. Yeah. I find man, I, as somebody that I feel very blessed that I got, you know, raised in a very. Positive household and whatnot. And I was literally just talking to my sister about this yesterday. She had this friend that had been like sabotaging her work for like four years. And it was like a friend from like 14 years. And then when she realized that she was like, what the fuck is going on here? Right. Like It's so alien to, to have somebody react from a place when you're so into like the the abundance thing. And you're so well natured to get hit sideways from like a wound that somebody has that, that is hard to either. I don't know if the right word is relate with or empathize with, but just like when you don't see it coming at all, it's particularly painful, right? Like And the best thing that I can tell you after having, you know, it took me like two months to get back from that man. And it's, it's the idea that, you know, often it's coming from some trauma that happened in some that had nothing to do with you and, and, and something you did that was like totally innocuous triggered it. But it isn't, it isn't any easier to carry man, but it's like, it's like trying to explain a dream, right? Like it's like, it's not supposed to make sense, but it happened all in my brain and I woke up and it's still with me. Yeah.

Glenn Allen: 7:20

That's exactly right. That feeling that just hangs on you. And even though it makes no sense. Yeah.

Pablo Gonzalez: 7:25

Yeah, man. thanks for sharing that man. Like, I don't know where to go with it with you without just being like, this is how you should feel. Cause that's bullshit. Right. But, but like I think talking about it and hearing from people. That have gone through it. And this idea that just because man, I heard this great quote from Tim Ferriss, every don't believe, everything you think. Right? So like the idea that, that you also shouldn't believe everything has somebody other people think, right? Like, just because they said it about you like that weight, that you're carrying is real, but there is something, there is something there that won't, that, that at some point you're going to be able to walk away from after you carry it enough. Tell me about your, tell me about kind of like at the end of the day, it's also a supernatural entrepreneur feeling, right? Like, like this whole like cycle of not worthiness every once in a while, when something goes wrong. Tell me, tell me about your entrepreneurial journey, man.

Glenn Allen: 8:19

So I started out, as you mentioned before, as a musician and as it is with a lot of musicians, you know, you gig around, you've got the dream of making it big and getting a record deal is the thing from back in the day. Now it's not really that, but it's, you know, maybe being a YouTube star or whatever, but. To pay the bills. I was teaching full time and as it turns out my teaching style, because I play 11 different instruments and I've had a lot of different teachers as a result. I learned a lot of teaching styles and I really picked up on some teachers were really great at coaching. And I included a lot of that in my teaching. As a result, people are getting great result. And I was working in a music store where if you bought like a guitar or bass or drum set, you automatically got a set of lessons with me to the point where in short order I had great retention and people were booking and I was overbooked and we were turning people away. So I got tired of kind of saying the same things over and over, but I got really good at kind of a repeatable process of getting results. And I thought I got to make a YouTube channel, a tutorial. And at that time, digital courses were really a new thing. But I remember late one night I was wanting to learn how to play like a Stevie Ray Vaughan style thing. And some guy had a YouTube video and it led to an offer for like a$27, how to play like Stevie is called Stevie snacks. I bought it and I was just blown away. I'm like, how did he offer this thing? And then automatically deliver it to me. Through automation, like, how is that possible? I didn't know how that was done. And I even tried reaching out to find out, but it's all automated, so I couldn't get an answer, but I started diving into it and learning about it and created my first course on songwriting over time and spent, I think like six months writing an ebook on lyric writing. And I made like a whopping 70 bucks, but what's worried about that little would be failure. You know, experiment is people started noticing what I was doing and asking. How do you do that? And I started getting freelance gigs and I got as obsessed with music and that creativity of writing songs and performing as I was about creating marketing campaigns and setting up these automations and learning copywriting and hearing like, learning about, you know, conversion design for websites and all kinds of things. So I just started investing really heavily in learning more and more through digital courses. And I got a degree in marketing. It taught me none of that stuff. Like nothing that I do in the real world came from my college education, but it all came from online courses. And as I, as I started buying more and more of them helped me land an absolute dream job working for a coaching consulting and training firm in the area of leadership development. And I was able to take what I knew about like, you know, info products and such. And basically take their live 12 month training series and workshops and turn them into digital courses for them and member and virtual memberships and things like that. And then the pandemic hit. Thank God they had some of that stuff in place. Yeah. That's what I realized, you know, all the side hustle I've been doing is actually helping other people launch digital courses. now is my time to go full all in on that. And so that's, that's the direction I went with their blessing. They're like, you know, this is, this is the way to go. So I left on good terms and started my own solo practice. That's

Pablo Gonzalez: 11:37

awesome, man. And I know that now you're like this master of lead magnets and digital course launches and kind of all the way that all that flows, man. I love. There's a couple of, there's a couple of things I want to tease out from your story that I really, really like number one is everything that I, I said that I'm like, man, I'm coming out here with this like great idea of bridging the gap between the regular business world and what you're doing. You've already done that man. Like, like going from a sales floor person that is. Giving out a lead magnet of, yeah, you buy this fender Stratocaster, I'm gonna teach you how to play it for a little while. And then later on, you're going to be my actual like music student to, you know, to, to then thinking, oh, wait a minute. If I'm doing this over and over again, I can scale this through content. And, and now that becomes this like much better process for yourself with a user experience that is much more efficient for both parties involved. If a, if a on floor music, instrument, sales guy can do it. Right? Like, it's like, I feel like most, most businesses need to kind of catch up to this idea. What, what year was it that you bought that? Stevie Ray Vaughan thing, then that'd

Glenn Allen: 12:53

be 2008,

Pablo Gonzalez: 12:55

2008. Okay. Oh, so that was really early on. So that's like around the time, like pat Flynn, like started selling his like lead course

Glenn Allen: 13:01

for four architects. This is the early days of, of digital.

Pablo Gonzalez: 13:05

All right. So, so you're a pretty, so to do that, did you have like a technical background when you started diving into that stuff? Or did you.

Glenn Allen: 13:13

No. I mean, I've always been pretty good at computers and stuff like that. And pretty savvy. I did study web design and back then you had to cobble together a lot of tools. Like you had to take, you know, you had to learn like WordPress, how do we think there's a Wix and Squarespace back then? I'm not sure, but you know, WordPress plus you had to integrate all these things. Third party apps to make all this stuff work. So you had to use something like convert kit and lead pages or MailChimp. And it was a lot of cobbling tools together. So now I just use one marketing platform, Kajabi, which like helps me. They do everything. So are you

Pablo Gonzalez: 13:45

a. Are you a tinkerer, right? Like as a, as a musician, I imagine that tinkering is kind of in your blood of just like getting stuff and kind of playing within and mixing around. Like, did you, did you look at a bunch of different online tools and decide on Kajabi? Can you, can you talk me through the reason why you use Kajabi as a one as a one size fits all solution?

Glenn Allen: 14:06

Yeah, I mean, after years of having to do all these, you know, not to get too nerdy and technical, but API calls and integrating things. And I think Zapier was not even on the scene back then. Maybe it was, but it wasn't really clear what it was to integrate third-party software. It was a challenge to get all these things, to talk to each other and get forms to spit out data into another database. And so you spent hours setting these things up. Whereas now with the tool like Kajabi where it's like, it's my website, it's my email CRM, it is my payment processor. It delivers my lead magnets and my courses. I've got all kinds of automations in it. I don't really mess around with anything other than a client scheduler. So it would just seem like so much easier to get rid of all that wasted time.

Pablo Gonzalez: 14:55

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Have you always been like a systemized type person? Like, are you, are you a pretty disciplined dude or has this been like learned by necessity for you in order to get to where you wanna go? Yeah,

Glenn Allen: 15:06

I'm an artist. So discipline is isn't, isn't my thing, right? Like some people say, oh my gosh, you're so disciplined. Like I could spend hours and day after day practicing the saxophone or drums or whatever. And I get in that zone, but that's not that doesn't require any discipline on my part. I'm so focused. In like in the most like just it's like meditation. I think it's, it's a kinda meditation you get into this flow state, you lose track of space and time, and it's just enjoyable. And I never had to like force myself. I never gotten like a regiment of, okay, today I'm going to put in 15 minutes or an hour. It was never like that. I was like, I needed to do it and I love doing it. So I would say I was pretty undisciplined where some people would look at that and be like, wow, you're really, you're really disciplined, but I've learned in life. That, although I love spontaneity and I love just kind of going with the flow. I actually have more time for spontaneity and going with the flow. Now they've learned how to be more organized and systematic. I don't naturally I'm not a naturally like a systems guy.

Pablo Gonzalez: 16:12

I find myself in the same boat, man. Like I'm not a, I'm like I can get lost in having fun and something that I'm really, really into and lose track of time. Completely. Yeah, I really struggle with setting up my, like, I, it gives me anxiety to look at my calendar and be like, this is what I have to do for the next week. But if I don't have it like that, I don't do anything. And, and like, as I'm reaching certain levels of my business, like this year to me is the year of discipline, right? Like I, it is now. Everything that I fit, you know, everything that I always kind of wanted is, seems so like in grasp. And I'm like, well, it's a fucking get it. I need to have like a morning routine. And I gotta, you know, kinda like stick to some of this stuff, man. Did you, did you fight it naturally or, or, or, or was it coming to you? Is it carrot or stick, I guess is what I'm asking?

Glenn Allen: 17:01

That's a great question. So there, there's a part of my journey that. I went through a pretty difficult divorce and unwanted divorce. This happens. I Think. like Three to five, it's all a blur three to five years ago though. Like the whole time period literally is a blur of time. It felt like it was 20 years. And so I struggled to remember the whole timeline, but in that time I started really focusing on, on myself and improving myself and really got into self-improvement. One of the first places was, was fitness. I weighed like 120 pounds. I was always scrawny and non-athletic and I decided I'm going to learn how to change that. And that changed, you know, I eventually. got Muscular and put on 30 pounds. And that change made me realize, oh my gosh, what else can I change? So all these, identities, we have like, oh, I'm not organized. Or I'm a person who, I'm not a morning person. I realized all of this is just a blueprint we follow that you know, is informed from our past and things. People have told us. And maybe some preferences. And so I decided to start looking into what I could change. One of the first ones was I did the miracle morning thing, that Hal Elrod thing. And I thrived at it for awhile, but then I started realizing I didn't need it. And I kind of fell off of it. And I had this guilt about not doing it. And what happens. I think a lot of times with these systems, as some of them are a little bit like hustle hard and I don't, I realized that's not me and I don't need to be that I can implement things and be a little bit more loose with it and have some structure without being rigid and still have some success. And so I think it's about kind of having a little grace with yourself.

Pablo Gonzalez: 18:41

Mm, I like that. Great. So self-forgiveness right. Like not don't, don't shame yourself, right? Yeah.

Glenn Allen: 18:47

Because sometimes if you're like, oh, why am I not doing this thing that it keeps saying I want to do well, it's probably because you don't want to do it. And so yeah, I, that whole, like self-improvement thing grew into a, actually a YouTube channel with one of my best friends. Who's a life coach. It was called the Glenn and air show. We did like a comedy tick, not a comedy tape. It was like a humorous buddy, buddy. show about, you know, self-improvement success habits and all those things. And that that show stopped when Aaron was like, this is too much. There's a lot of work, weekly episodes for six months straight. He's like you take the channel, you run with it. I love you, but I, this is hard work. And so I, I, I took it over and made it the Glen Allen show, but We still continue those weekly conversations on the phone. And we just actually had this conversation this last week. why, why he wasn't going to the gym is like ki he really didn't want to, he just got off on vacation and he was shaming himself for it. Sometimes you just gotta be like, Hey, if I just even just go for a bike ride, that's not a failure. I did something. And so sometimes you just gotta be like, what is the least I could do that is enough. Rather than how do I go beast mode right now? You know,

Pablo Gonzalez: 19:53

Really good advice, man. I th the idea of. Okay. I was talking to somebody yesterday, right. Who like is at the point where he hates his job. He's like just turned 30, hates his job. And it's just like, dude, I'm done with this. I just want to like, quit start a boys ranch and like take kids camping with your dad. I'm like, that's cool, man. There's small steps. You can take towards that without, without blowing everything up. And it's like this, we were so hardwired to like go to the extremes, right? Like we're seeing it a lot in society. And whether it's extreme of beating yourself up or extreme of like causing drastic change immediately and expecting it to happen right now, the idea of be a little bit kind to yourself, have a little bit of patience with yourself. You know, as you are, as you're transitioning in, what are natural swings, I think is a, you know, like underestimated advice, man. can you talk me through a typical course launch, right? Like the way you will, your methodology at a 10,000 square foot level. if you are somebody that is looking to. You are somebody that helps people, you have an idea for this program, that's going to help the world, right? Like you've got this great idea in your head. can, can you talk me through kind of like the steps and the frameworks that you think people, the people should take to, get to the point where they. Putting out a good digital product that is, that is useful to them. And I'll let you define that. However you want.

Glenn Allen: 21:22

I struggle to make that real like 10,000 foot level without getting too much in the weeds. Cause I can go in so many different directions, but I think that the easiest thing is to say that there's a couple mistakes people make. One is that they think I've got this great idea for a course and I'm going to make it because I'm an expert in this and this is, this is how I became successful. And therefore everybody else is going to find this valuable. And when you, when you don't really like, have a process of first running other people through that process or teaching it or mentoring or coaching or something where you're getting those repeat success, kind of like when I was a music teacher, right. I kept saying the same things over and over because I was realizing I can, I can actually. I could predict exactly where, and when they're going to struggle on something. And before it happened, I'd say now, right now you're about to go, oh, I'm sorry. I screwed up. Or you're about to go. Ah I can't do this. And I already know you're going to say that because I do this all the time. I don't care. And I'm not here to judge you. You're going to fail. After I asked you to do this thing at least three to five times, but you'll get it on about the sixth or seventh time. That's cool. So fail. Do it. Just keep repeating it. I don't care. I'm not judging anything that you're doing. I need you to fail so you can figure it out. So when you get those kinds of like that, that those, you know, those swings in and you've got enough. practice Getting people results, or you can kind of predict what they're struggling with, rather than thinking with the expert, mind you think with the beginner mind, you know, you've got something that's going to help a lot of people. So that's, that's kinda like the first mistake is assuming, just because you, you got results in something that your way of doing it is the way other people can do it. Some people just don't think like you. and the other thing is a lot of people think, well, I'm going to create this thing and I'm just going to put it up for sale and have it on like an online store or something like that. And people will just buy. it And none of my clients have had success with that. You can absolutely do that. If you've got something else that kind of is drumming up a lot of business and leads to something like that. Like if it's an add-on for your consulting services, that totally works. I've got a client who he's a, you know, he's like a national public speaker and a writer for Forbes and he has this consulting business. Teaching people how to up-level businesses, customer service. And so his main thing is the consulting, but he has this at library of all these great courses that are evergreen ready to go. that does really well. But what works with the people that I work with generally speaking, is having some kind of sense of urgency, a finite window. In which that course is available. It's what we call an open cart. close cart. Window it's general know a week to two weeks, which is a lot, I'd say a week to 10 days is really ideal. So you ramp up you market, you have some kind of launch mechanism, which could be like a webinar or a five day challenge, or it could be something like a prerecorded series of videos that brings people through an opportunity and teaches them something, and then gives them an invitation at the end to take it further into your program Got it.

Pablo Gonzalez: 24:18

So sense of urgency, you know, scarcity drives demand, right? Like the psychology of influence.

Glenn Allen: 24:25

Yeah. I mean like my climate Michelle had this course sheet, so Michelle was out of work with COVID. She was a sound engineer for Elvis Elvis Costello, who was my favorite songwriter. she was doing once the funniest live sound, Janet Jackson, like some of the biggest names in music. And then COVID hit, she created this course, she put it up for sale and she was like, you know, I had a few people on my email list, buy it for like a thousand dollars. I'm like, no, we're going to take that off the store. We're going to tell people like, Hey, this is your last chance. If you want to get it, go get it. Now, before I go only launched this live and all even doing it seasonally. And so, you know, we ran through that. Course launch process that it bring people through and, you know, it was a five figure launch. So there's a big difference between what happens when you use urgency, versus when you have something that's just sitting there on the shelf ready to go. That

Pablo Gonzalez: 25:15

makes it ton of sense, man. So then let's talk about, let's talk about the psychology of a launch, right? So I'll use myself as an example. I, I have a very expensive, I mean, expensive to me and, and maybe to like a solo preneur, right? Like I, my, my, my business is a$7,500 a month done for you business development machine. I call the relationship fly wheel, kind of like what I, what I described in that, up in that last call thing with a really great track record of. Completely changing the business development dynamics of$150 million company. Right. as I am, as I am finding my market, right? Like I've, I realized that I've, I've talked to a lot of people. I get a lot of interest and I get people like 90, 95%. I've had multiple people send me an email saying I'm in, we're ready to start. And then having closed in a month and a half, right. Like that's happened to me a couple of times. how would I, how would I apply the launch kind of dynamic to something like that? Like how would you advise me to, to, to approach selling that with a scarcity window, even though it's my product that I sell anyways, right? Like it's, it is the service that I do. How, what, what would be kind of like the way to approach that

Glenn Allen: 26:31

there is one thing that I see a lot of consultants in my space do, which is sort of that fast action pricing. I don't know if you ever employed anything like that, where it's. Okay. If you're ready to go, here's the contract or, you know, how are the, you know, the mechanism to sign up? And if you sign up before this dates, this is the price after that, it's going to be my usual price. So that is, that is one way in which you can do that. And then that might take a little tech set up on the back end, or it might just do it kind of with the verbal thing, do that. So that's one approach you could say beyond that, who, that's a great question. I mean, there's also. The understanding that, you know, you are an in demand person. And so you, you might have to find a way in which it's like, okay, well, you know, this, this is available between now and this time. Otherwise I've got other clients and you know, you can't really fake that, but there are there's ways of letting people know, like, Hey, there's, there's kind of like a waiting list for this. And so for us to get started and actually reserve this time, You have to jump in before this time. I think that's it really right there. It's just, you know, if you want to reserve your, your, your consulting time, this, this time here before some other client comes in and out. Here's the sign up expiration dates.

Pablo Gonzalez: 27:48

Yeah. That's totally doable for me. Right. Cause at my scale, I don't really want to onboard more than two clients at a time. Right. So I could be like, Hey man, I got two spots open to onboard somebody this month. So are we talking about this month or next month if you're talking about next month, fine. Like we'll just take a meeting later on. Right. So that could, that could drive that scarcity. I like that a lot, man. talk to me about the psychology of a lead magnet, right? Like what what do you think through when you are. You've created this, like the golden lead magnet thing, right? Like you're a lead magnet expert. What's the, what's the psychology of the lead magnet. What does somebody really need to think about? Like, I love how you approach the. The coaching PA either the online course thing, as you got to think from as a beginner, right? Like I love that. Right. Cause I think people often speak way above the receivers level. They're thinking about themselves and not the other person. Is there, is there an equivalent to that in the lead magnet space? Is there like a psychological perspective that that really makes sense?

Glenn Allen: 28:42

Absolutely. So. You know, whatever industry you're in, there's some kind of ethical bribe that people use to build a list or email list of some sort, whether it's called a white paper, which I think is the most boring name ever or free raport, even ebook has kind of become it's it's it can be powerful for some industries, but for some, it sounds like work. And so I recommend people don't do like an ebook necessarily. But really it's about, there's a few things that I teach people and it's actually actually in the golden lead magnet free training that I do. I talk about when you're picking that topic of what you want to be your ethical bribe. Think about number one, what is the end result date, or what is the final sale or offer that you're going towards? Cause some people will pick some area of their industry that is a need like a burning pain desire. That's that's definitely a prerequisite But they won't line it up necessarily with what they're going to offer at the end of the sequence. There might be some aspect that's kind of tangentially related to their business, thinking like, well, we'll get them in that way, but then there's a mismatched between the journey of, well, they're interested in this thing and your program is more, this thing they're kind of related. So you make it, you know, absolutely like aligned with what your offer's going to be. And as I said, you don't want it to be like perfectly aligned. You want it to be a burning pain that your client or customer or ideal person would want to solve and you're going to solve it for them. And in doing so, you close a small loop that opens the loop on a larger, good to have what I call next level problem that your paid offer is going to solve. right And they're gonna, you're gonna have that kind of that reciprocity, you know, you're gonna have that Goodwill built with them we solve that problem. Like, oh, if they can articulate this problem, I have so well, they must have the solution. the other thing when doing that is think about things you don't necessarily want to solve. You don't want to have a solution for it. You don't want to work with them on and, or. They need to have at least ready to go that would qualify them as you buy your offer or work with you or hire you. You know, for me, that's often I it's the golden lead magnet solved. The problem that I had with, with people who are coming in and asking for my help is if they want to launch a course, they need to have somebody to sell it to. And oftentimes they didn't have an email list though. And so I thought, well, I don't want to help them do that while we're also trying to launch something, their sales are going to be terrible. I'm going to feel bad about, you know, charging what I charged and not getting them an ROI. So let's solve this for them first. And then when they're ready, they're going to be like, oh man, this guy's an experts. I like this content. And he knows his stuff. I want to keep working with him. I'm ready to launch. So if you do that with your, with your ethical, broad, your lead magnets you're going to knock it out of the park

Pablo Gonzalez: 31:39

Got it. Got it. So, first of all, have you, are you like a Robert Cialdini guy? Like, I feel like all we're doing is quoting like the seven levers of influence, right? Like like I love it. Like it's stuff I

Glenn Allen: 31:49

love. Right. I think innovation, I haven't read any of his books. but he's quoted everywhere by everybody's whose books I've already read. So, you know, that goes, you hear one thing you're like, that's not the person who actually said that originally, Jay Abraham said that originally, or something like that, you know, you're running those alts.

Pablo Gonzalez: 32:04

Yeah. Yeah. He is kind of like the godfather of the guy who wrote the book on it's called influence round. It's like the seven levers, but like the scarcity, the, the ethical Bri, right? Like the gifted, like it's, it's very, very related. You're clearly a student of marketing and well-read right. Well, so I'm enjoying this like nerdy conversation of like behavioral, triggers, man. So I love the, I love where you went, right? Of let's get somebody a better problem that they want to have. Right. Like my, my biggest client we run on Tuesdays and Thursdays morning and we always talk about, it's like, you're never out of problems. You just get to have better problems. Right. Like, and that's and that's life. In solving somebodies in, in solving an initial problem and positioning it. Where does you know, I see you as a great content creator, right? Like where, where does, where does the design, the quality of the content where w you know, like the, the level of the camera, the, design on the webpage, how snazzy the brand images, where is that in the ranking of you as a great teacher and a great coach? How much does that actually help somebody learn? How much do they value that stuff? Is that something that somebody should be really thinking about when they're going to do this

Glenn Allen: 33:19

Absolutely not. I definitely see where people get so bogged down by the quality of the video and their backdrop and all these things. and camera I got in that for years. I mean, I'm standing right next to a really nice DSLR camera with fancy lens that makes like the background look, all perfectly bokeh and blurred and cool. I don't use it anymore because it takes too long to set all that stuff up and it's too fussy. And right now, especially people don't care, they accept and understand that people are working from home. I mean, Hey, check this out. I am in my basement. You can see, oh, that's not a real office behind me. Like, this is the reality that we're in. Right. I have a very realistic photorealistic backdrop, but it's a backdrop. I have cinder blocks behind me. You know, I got to work somewhere. Right. what I've found is even some of the high ticket courses that I've purchased, some of which are, you know, they're, they start around$2,000 and up by some, some of these thought leaders they're just in their kitchen or they're just in their home office. And either, you know, they're using their laptop monitor. They're not using like a fancy lapel. I have like a few of my desk here. I mean, even before we started this call. Yeah. It's like a$2,000 recording studio mic and it just crapped out on us before I started the call. So we're just using my, laptop. But the level of quality, even on a high ticket thing does not matter that much to your students. What matters is, can you give them the information and the results they're after I I've, I've gladly purchased some courses that, you know, it was just like a picture and picture thing in a slide deck. And I got so much out of it. Now I've bought also some higher ticket courses. were it's Splashy a lot of it's run on its own. Home-baked custom websites, software service, membership portal, and it comes to like some slick, you know, workbooks and it's, you know, all that stuff. It's all just kind of bells and whistles. And I, and I don't really care. It didn't help me get the results. The content is what matters.

Pablo Gonzalez: 35:15

It reminds me of I just read creativity Inc. The story of Pixar. Yeah. And in chapter two, he says something like. These talking about how toy story almost sucked. Like it sucked for like a year and a half. Cause what he was just like jerk and nobody really liked him. And he, and he said something about like for all that, we invest in like visual acuity and design. Without a good story. Nothing matters. Right? So it's like Pixar is telling you really the graphics and like the schnoz and whatever doesn't matter, unless like there's real meat there and there's, there's something really to be learned or to be, you know, add a story. Right?

Glenn Allen: 35:51

Absolutely. I mean, that's, I think why so many people, my age are so upset about like the prequels of star wars versus the original star wars trilogy.

Pablo Gonzalez: 35:59

Yeah. That's a great call. That's a really, really good call, man. let's get a little bit more personal. I you're a musician and you know, your stuff. I can't, I don't understand that Elvis Costello, like what, what am I, what am I missing there? Like what is when everybody says that he's the best songwriter of all time? Is it like a structure thing? Is that how he does it? Like, what is there do appreciate it about Elvis

Glenn Allen: 36:19

Costello. He is an impeccable wordsmith. one of the most clever out there, and also as a Milla melodion melody maker some of his melodies are on par with, you know, some of the stuff Paul McCartney did as a beetle and they've worked together. he definitely was highly influenced by the Beatles. I think some of it matters. What, what genre and area of his career you dive into? I don't think it's going to hit for everybody, but Stylistically. He's also well-rounded. I mean, he's done everything from classical to jazz to rock. Is that a little bit of a kind of soul hip hop stuff with the roots? So, you know, It's got a lot of things going for him.

Pablo Gonzalez: 36:58

If I'm a big, I like, I love the Beatles. Right. Like I freaking love the Beatles and I love hip hop. Right. Like you said, too. Right. Like I always talk about, so I have this, like outcasting in the background, like outcast, I always say like, outcast is the Beatles to me, right? Yeah. what do I dive into with Elvis Costello? If I want that, if I want that feeling, if I want that Beatles kind of like,

Glenn Allen: 37:15

Ooh what album is that? So now I'm called blood and chocolate. Might be a good one to go with. He's got he's okay. He's got this album called Imperial bedroom. That is kind of his own Sergeant Pepper's lonely hearts club band. It's actually probably one of my least favorite albums. I think it's it's over the top. and I think he'd probably agree. It's it's produced over the top to be very. George Martin production style. I think he even worked with George and Charles Martin on that one to get that Beatles sound. What was the name of that one? That is Imperial bedroom,

Pablo Gonzalez: 37:47

Imperial blood notes.

Glenn Allen: 37:50

He was, he was his, I don't know about best kind of Beatles these stuff, but his. So the song called Veronica. That's really cool. And he did, I think he wrote that with Paul McCartney. Right. I'm gonna

Pablo Gonzalez: 38:01

check that out. I've been, you know, like I, I consider myself a culture dudes, right. So like when somebody is like, so equanimous or what was the word I'm thinking about? So just like understood by the culture of like people that really appreciate something and I can't get it. Like, I feel like an idiot. Right. So I, I really appreciate this. As a musician, And as somebody that came up with, you know, understanding multiple instruments, did you always, was there always like a high value placed on creativity for you? Is that, is that something that you've learned was that natural to apply to business? Or is that something that you've learned in recent times that it actually applies to the business? The idea that being creative as a superpower for entrepreneurship or business, or the way that you navigate.

Glenn Allen: 38:50

I think it's essential. I grew up no with a dad. Who's a professional drummer. My great, my grandfather was a big band, jazz saxophonists. I never knew him because he died when my mom was two but I play his saxophone. My mom did interior design. My sister is a graphic designer and an incredible painter. And so it's just kind of, it's just something that I just take for granted maybe, but when it comes to business and marketing, To really stand out amongst even the noise noisiest of niche. It's not always enough to have the best product or service. It's really finding other ways of creatively diversifying yourself and standing out. And it doesn't have to be some wild thing. It just, it put a little, you know, have a little thought in it. Like I do this thing with my clients called I call it the proprietary process planner where we take, you know, what is the, what is the way in which you get your client or consultant or your client or student from point a. to point B you know, where they are to where they want to be. And so they usually have some kind of thing they do, whether that's a course or a coaching program. and then I listened to and I go, okay, so let's distill that into the tiniest things. Step one, you're gonna do this step two. You're gonna do that step three or do that. And then let's, let's come up with like an acronym for that, or a secret sauce for that. Like something with a little sizzle. So I mentioned, you know, Michelle, before her course was teaching people how to do, how to make their music sound professional. using sound engineering tools that most non sound engineers wouldn't really know because they're song writers or something like that. So using frequencies, and instead of making this very techie thing, she's like, I'm going to teach them how to listen and how to hear the frequencies. And then once they're able to know what to listen for, I'll teach them how to name them Almost out of thin air and then I'll show them how to manipulate them and what to cut and boosts so that their songs can sound like the hit songs on the radio. Yeah. Okay. So they're hearing them that listening hear and identify what they are then you're going to manipulate them here. Then if I hear identify tweak, hit, okay, I got it. If you want your songs to sound like a hit, you need to have the hit hit production process. So now that's like her secret sauce everywhere. She goes. She's like, I'm gonna run you through my HIT production process to make your song songs, sound professional. Like the hits on the radio. Bam. So that kind of thing, people can in an instant grasp what she's, what she's teaching them and only she can have that. So she's weeded out competition in that niche. Yeah.

Pablo Gonzalez: 41:15

I love it. I love what I love exactly where you went there, man. Like, and I've lived that too. Right? Number one is, have you ever read the book play bigger or are you familiar with category design? No, I'm not.

Glenn Allen: 41:26

I'm going to write this down though.

Pablo Gonzalez: 41:27

Oh man. It's it's the whole, it's everything about how different beats better all day. Right. And you create your own category instead of compete in somebody else's category kind of thing. And it's the only book I've read twice in under 12 months. And the, the, the discipline of category creation kind of guides my life now. Right? Like I look at the stock market like that way. And, and, and, and, and it's, it's amazing. Like it's a deep rabbit hole for somebody that thinks like that. you're really gonna like it. And just to illustrate the point that you're making. My whole, what I was selling of, you know proven community creations, the future of business development, and it's through content and community, whatever, until I quit a relationship flywheel you know, the moment that I coined it, that it became this very, very attractive. I go, I'll fight. You know, people get the flywheel piece as an integral part of business. They're like, oh, relationship fly wheel. I'm a relationship business. Right? Like finding the right language and packaging. To, to put something in completely dramatically changes the results of reactions that you get. Right? So like your illustration of that hit thing, and how you just explained that, I think is phenomenal. And for the record, I'm making a micro content piece of that because I think it's really, really good. You're ready for the lightning round dude? Absolutely. All right. what is your favorite restaurant? Where is it?

Glenn Allen: 42:44

It's a place called braise in downtown Milwaukee. And they do all locally, organically sourced foods. And I believe they have a brussel sprouts dish. Oh man, I'm going to feel bad if they don't, they're not those of the brussel sprouts, but everything I ordered there is great, but I'm a big fan of Brussels. When there was like balsamic glaze and nuts and raisins and things like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Pablo Gonzalez: 43:05

That's good stuff, man. thanks for that man. Every so everywhere I go. And by the way, this is supposed to be a compilation of like travel based on the chief executive connector and where you go eat. Right. So I'm glad that you, you went there and for the record, every time I go anywhere, my go-to moves to figure out if there's good restaurants is I just put farm to table and Google. In, in Google maps. And then it's like, okay, that, that that's probably good. Or like vegetarian restaurant. Like if you can make a good vegetarian dish, you're a good restaurant. Right? So like I'm super into that

Glenn Allen: 43:34

recommendation. Think we have a place called farm to table. And it's also amazing

Pablo Gonzalez: 43:41

good stuff. And what what content are you most into right now? Right? Like this could be Netflix and series Netflix and chill series is your, or it could be like your favorite book that you're like into right now, or like your favorite podcasts or listening to, like what, what, what content are you most like digging into these days? I am

Glenn Allen: 43:57

really into pod. and also Netflix. So let's see here podcast wise. One of my favorites is actually one of my good friends, Jacqueline alone. She's called the go-to girl. And I think you'd like it, cause she's also like a big connector. She's all about connections. And so that's one of them. let me think here, I'm struggling to think of other ones off the top of my head. Netflix wise, I've been digging back into some nostalgia lately. So my fiance and I were watching scrubs right now. We're watching that. Yeah. And she's been actually, scrubs has created the same creator critic, Cougar town, and it's a very like comfort blanket he show. And I didn't think I'd like it, but I'm enjoying it. And this is a weird one, but Gilmore girls. Awesome. There's a podcast called Gilmore guys and they, they talk about their love for the show and they have like great people on there. Like comedian Jason Manzu Gus. I don't know if you know him. He's on Brooklyn, 99. He's on the league. He's on, I'm sorry. He's who

Pablo Gonzalez: 44:53

is in the league? Who is in the league then? I'll know who he is. Yeah. I love that. Yeah.

Glenn Allen: 44:59

So he loves Gilmore girls too. So he's on an episode and what I'm going to, I heard that I was like, okay, I can, I can wear that badge of honor now. Like I'm not ashamed to admit it. Awesome, dude.

Pablo Gonzalez: 45:07

Awesome. I like that one. That's a good one. what is something that you were sure about in your twenties that you no longer believe?

Glenn Allen: 45:13

Whoa, something, you know, that's a really hard one to say, okay, if you do everything the right way, And you are, you know, you just live your life, right? Everything is going to go well for you. There's no guarantee there, you can, you can do things the best way and still you're going to have problems in this world.

Pablo Gonzalez: 45:37

Very profound and very true man. Good stuff. What is what's the, either, either the favorite piece of advice that you've ever gotten or your like go-to piece of advice that you'd love to give everybody.

Glenn Allen: 45:48

This is really top of mind because of the journey I've gone through recently, I've been, you know, with buying tens of thousands of dollars of digital courses, you keep thinking, okay, this next thing is going to be the thing that gives me a success, or I'm going to follow this playbook and I have to do it perfectly their way. this, this, this new revelation is realized. Maybe realize that that's been driving me crazy and it's actually been leaving, leading to a lot of just anxiety. The, the truth of the matter is those people came up there on Sunday. You can't just blindly follow someone's playbook. Take what you can and leave the rest. Right? Write your own playbook. That's where I am right now.

Pablo Gonzalez: 46:23

I love it, man. And you've referenced this a couple of times, right? The idea that. The magic comes in the recontextualization of what you've already seen. Right? Like take, take what you're, what you're learning from. People, add your twist to it and make it yours in order to make it work. And, and that, and that is kind of the essence of creativity to a large extent, man. I really like that.

Glenn Allen: 46:43

Yeah. Very cool, man. It drives me nuts that a lot of bands these days are getting sued for sounding like other old artists, because a lot of those same old artists did the exact same thing.

Pablo Gonzalez: 46:53

Totally. Totally, totally. before I ask you your last question, man, this is your opportunity Sen you know, the person that just hung out with us for an hour and thinks you're the coolest, what's the next step for them, or promote whatever you want to promote or draw attention to whatever you want,

Glenn Allen: 47:07

man on stage is yours. Yeah. I mean, if you're thinking of. Creating a better lead magnet for your business. Definitely check out the Glen Ellen show.com/glm. There's the golden lead magnet free training there. Otherwise I do have a YouTube channel where you can you can check out the old episodes of the Glen Erin show and also the new episodes of the Glen Allen show, where I talk about success habits, but also anything you want to know about launching and selling and marketing digital course.

Pablo Gonzalez: 47:31

Love it, man. I'm going to link to all that in the in the show notes for the show. And my last question is what, where do you find community?

Glenn Allen: 47:40

I find community in a few places. One of my favorites is I do run a mastermind of other digital marketers who are at the top of the game. I love those people and we meet every Friday. We're called the den, the digital experts network. But also I find community through a lot of Facebook forums. Heavily invested in a lot of those. And it's funny how those people become your friends in a weird way.

Pablo Gonzalez: 48:01

No, man. There's so many, I ask this question to everybody and so many people find community online and similar kind of things, right? Like I pardon. I'm going to try to keep this rent really short. Cause it's supposed to be the end of the show, but like part, part of everything that I believe in right now is this idea that our is digital man. Like our, our, our relationships. If you people have this, like holier than that, Facebook sucks or Instagram sucks or whatever. But if you really, if you really take inventory of the percentage of. Time you spend nurturing or building relationships. And how much of that is spent via digital means whether it's with your best friend from forever or not, you know, you're using technology to communicate. and yet we still love to bash it. So like, I think there's like a giant catching up to do of understanding that our culture has gone digital and that we are creating community in digital forums. And then there's a whole nother. Wide open space of the idea that businesses aren't thinking about it like that at all, man, like businesses still think relationships are cold calling, not commenting on someone's LinkedIn, you know, like which wide open space absolutely. Yeah, man, dude, I'm really, I'm really pumped. We did this man shout out to Moby for this intro, Glen. I hope that we can build this relationship. Be friends, man. I hope to add value to your life in some way or another man. I appreciate you spending time to share your super powers and your recommendations on food and Elvis Costello are two that I will absolutely figure out to put into words. My

Glenn Allen: 49:25

friend. Thank you, man. Thank you. This is fun. I didn't want this interview to end right on.