GENUINE CONNECTION

Hi, I’m Alan!

My mission is to help people form genuine connections in business that change the world for the better.

I started in the personal development and coaching industry when I was 17 years old. I read every self-help book I could get my hands on, and enrolled in various coaching programs with all sorts of different subject-matter experts. My eyes were opened, and my life transformed as a result.

Now with over a decade of marketing experience under my belt, I’ve come full circle - I help subject-matter experts grow and scale their businesses using honest marketing methods so they can impact more lives.

My story

Life is not a level-playing field.

But regardless of the cards you're dealt with (your background and resources), there's always been two things that allow the playing field to be evened out: education and relationships.

Whether it's through education or connecting like-minded people together to create thriving communities, I have a burning desire to help inspire and guide people towards finding more freedom and meaning in their personal and professional lives.

Not knowing what to do when I grew up

Like most teenagers, I didn't know what I wanted to do for work when I grew up.

But unlike most teenagers, it wasn't because I didn't have an interest in anything. Rather, it was the exact opposite – I was interested in EVERYTHING, and had a hard time trying to just pick one thing.

After many years of reflection upon this matter, and given my situation at the time, all I knew was I wanted to form genuine connections with other people, and I wanted to be exposed to everything the world had to offer in terms of things to learn about.

So I chose the cop-out option and decided to pursue a marketing and psychology degree at university.

Cramming my Brain with Knowledge

Formal education wasn't enough for me however.

I had problems in my own personal life that I wanted to fix, and with a roaring fire in my heart and insatiable thirst for knowledge, I decided to pursue other forms of education outside of university. I wanted faster knowledge accumulation and faster results.

So on top of reading every self-help book I could get my hands on, I decided to take the big step of enrolling in various coaching programs and seminars to address both my personal issues as well as learn about business.

It wasn't cheap – I saved up every penny I earned from working a minimum wage job at a juice shop and put it towards accelerating my personal education.

But as a result of taking this big step, I was able to quickly network and form genuine connections with many adults (some double or triple my age at the time) who were subject-matter experts in their areas and could mentor me about business and life.

My life started to transform rapidly.

I matured much more quickly, I learned to deal with my emotions, and I gained a tonne of business and marketing knowledge along the way.

Paying It Forward

Having now had my own life transformed by the subject-matter experts I worked with, I decided to use my business and marketing skillset to help pay it forward to others by helping them get their work and knowledge out to more people.

And initially, I did this through various jobs I selectively applied for, such as:

working with marketing agencies to craft and execute marketing strategies for service businesses
organise and manage conferences/seminars about business education and positive psychology
coaching high school students through entrepreneurship programs
helping university students develop soft skills and land their dream jobs

Becoming Frustrated with Businesses That Don't Care

However, what I came to realise is not every business has their clients' best interests in mind, despite what their marketing might claim.

I started seeing businesses that had great marketing and sales systems - but terrible delivery of their services. That in itself is not a bad thing as every business has to generate cashflow to pay themselves as well as their teams.

However, they would get caught up with their monetary success and just focus on growing their business as much as possible without a simple thread of care about helping their customers actually achieve what they wanted. As someone working with them behind the scenes, I could see they had every opportunity to rectify this issue, but every time they would simply choose to continue the facade and keep focusing on ramping up their marketing efforts.

On the other side of the spectrum, I also saw business owners who had a great passion for solving problems for their clients, but they didn't have the sales or marketing skills to get in front of enough people. They were too busy grinding away to solve everyone's problems for less than what they should have charged, and as a result, they weren't making enough to sustain themselves or their businesses.

This didn't sit well with me internally – that I was helping the businesses that didn't care about their clients grow and succeed (and potentially burn even more customers), while the businesses that did care, struggled.

Becoming the Banner Knight for Genuine Subject-Matter Experts

Luckily, by then I had already built up quite a bit of knowledge and expertise around marketing.

I decided to start my own marketing agency, and carefully choose whose businesses to support – making sure that I understand their delivery models and customer satisfaction before deciding to work with anyone.

That's how Genuine Connection came to be.

"If you value pure economic goals regardless of the sacrifice that it takes to reach those goals, there are many business role models to choose from.

If you value balancing your economic goals and minimizing the personal sacrifices you have to make to reach those goals, there are fewer business role models to choose from.

If you value helping others, attaining your economic goals, and keeping a balanced life, there are even fewer business role models to choose from."