Learn the Ninth Step: Sifu Edward & Sifu Julliana Armstrong Sit Down With Marketing Legend Bill Glazer

Adapted from the recorded conversation; the guest's words are verbatim. The questions are reconstructed and voiced by Sifu Edward and Sifu Julliana Armstrong.

🎥 Video podcast coming soon. The complete interview will play here once published. The full conversation is transcribed below, and the audio edition will be available on sifuarmstrong.tv.

In a new Sifu Armstrong interview, the “Outrageous” marketing author explains how staying in a room seven thousand other people walked out of turned a menswear man into one of direct response’s most celebrated strategists, and why he’s still hunting for the step he hasn’t found yet.

Bill Glazer spent twenty years in his father’s menswear business before a single decision reshaped everything that followed: at a marketing event, when organizers announced the final speaker of the day and roughly seven thousand attendees headed for their cars, Glazer stayed. That speaker was Dan Kennedy. Glazer’s conversation with Sifu Edward and Sifu Julliana Armstrong for the Warrior Intelligence Series traces what happened next.

“This is no longer about being in the menswear business, this is about me learning how to do marketing,” Glazer said, describing the moment he realized his real skill had shifted underneath him. He bought Kennedy’s product, applied it to his own stores, and eventually built enough of a relationship that Kennedy encouraged him to teach other menswear owners the same methods, advice that grew into Glazer Kennedy Insider’s Circle, a company Glazer and Kennedy ran together for eight years before Glazer bought Kennedy’s stake outright.

Glazer credits part of that partnership to a piece of advice Kennedy gave him early on, after Glazer hesitated to bring his own campaign materials to a lunch meeting out of modesty. Kennedy’s response stuck with him: “If you don’t bring all your stuff with you, you’re just stupid. Bring it with you.” Glazer did, and Kennedy asked to feature it in his own newsletter.

Decades later, that same hunger to keep learning still shows up in how Glazer builds his books. His Outrageous Marketing Campaigns series compiles dozens of real campaigns submitted by other marketers, and Glazer has restructured his own framework more than once after being surprised by what he received. One submission from a marketer named Marisa expanded his model from seven steps to eight. “I couldn’t fall asleep all night,” Glazer said of studying her campaign. “I looked through everything you sent me, I went through it for about six hours.”

That refusal to consider the list finished is, in Glazer’s telling, the whole point. “After you learn the eight steps, you want to learn the ninth step, and then the tenth step,” he said, insisting he doesn’t yet know what those steps are, only that he’s still looking. It’s the same instinct that led him to build The Alliance, a newer venture with his daughter Mara Glazer and business partner Rob Cuesta, both of whom have appeared elsewhere in this series.

The Armstrongs took Glazer’s ninth-step principle as a direct parallel to how mastery works inside any discipline built on forms, that reaching the top of a known curriculum isn’t the end of the work, it’s the signal to start looking for what comes after it.

It’s a lesson that applies to any craft worth a lifetime: the master isn’t the one who finished the list. It’s the one who’s still adding to it.

In This Conversation

Staying in a room seven thousand people walked out of, and meeting Dan Kennedy
“If you don’t bring all your stuff with you, you’re just stupid”
Building Glazer Kennedy Insider’s Circle, then The Alliance
How one marketer’s campaign expanded a framework from seven steps to eight
“Learn the ninth step, and then the tenth step,” why the list is never finished
The Outrageous Multi-Step Marketing Campaigns book series

The Full Conversation

Sifu Edward Armstrong: Some of the most important moments of a life turn on whether you stayed in the room. Bill Glazer spent twenty years in his father's menswear business, until he stayed for one final presentation that seven thousand other people walked out on, and heard a marketer named Dan Kennedy. That decision built everything. I wanted our operators to hear how a menswear man became one of the most celebrated marketing strategists alive.

Sifu Julliana Armstrong: And what I love is that he never stopped being a student. He's a legend who still can't sleep when someone sends him a campaign he's never seen before. Seven steps became eight, and he's already hunting for the ninth. That hunger (at his level) is the whole thing.

Our guest is Bill Glazer, bestselling author of the Outrageous marketing series, award-winning growth strategist, and co-founder with Dan Kennedy of Glazer Kennedy Insider's Circle. Bill, welcome.

Bill Glazer: Well, it's good to be with you.

Sifu Edward Armstrong: Let me ask the question you probably get most. How did you get started in marketing?

Bill Glazer: Oh, well listen, that's kind of an interesting question, but I get that question a lot. When I first got out of college, I went to work for my father, who ran a menswear business. Actually, I worked there for ... I hate to tell you this, about 20 years, with my father. Then, at that time, somebody asked me ... A good friend of mine who had a menswear business, he said to me ... I was in Baltimore, and my friend was in Philadelphia. He said to me, "We should come over and see this huge event that they're having there. You would probably enjoy being there." It was a place called Peter and Lloyd's event.

I got on the phone, and went over there. I sat there, and I was listening. It was a whole day, and it was all these presenters. At the very end, at the very end, they said, "By the way, it's five o'clock, and if you want to go to your car, that's fine, but we have another presenter, but you probably never heard of him before. If you go now to try to get your car, you'll have to wait a long time before you can get your car." So he told everybody, "If you want to stay, we have this other presenter, he's a marketer, and you should listen to him." Of course, at that point, probably they start at 10,000 people there, and about 7000 of them went out to get their car. But I stayed, because I was in the menswear business, and I wanted to learn how to do marketing.

There was this guy, Dan Kennedy was this presenter. I sat there, and at the end, Dan Kennedy was nice enough to offer me a product. The product was actually Magnetic Marketing, and I bought it. Which is also interesting, when I was with my friend who also had the menswear business in Philadelphia, he said to me, "Let's just buy one of them, and we'll save it together." I said to my friend, "Listen, I'm going to buy it myself, and as I'm going back, I'm going to go through everything that's in there," which is what I did. That's how I got started with Dan Kennedy.

At that point, it was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me, because from there, in the next two years after that, the same event came to speak in Baltimore. At that point, I actually called him, and I said, "Listen, you don't know me, my name is Bill Glazer. Two years ago, I bought your product, and now you're back at Baltimore. I'd love to actually buy you dinner, because you've been so helpful to my business." He called me back, and he said to me, "Bill," he said to me, "listen, first of all, I can't do dinner with you because right after the event's over, I'm going to go back to where he's at. But, if you want to have lunch, we can have lunch." At that point, I had lunch with him.

The other thing that was funny about it was, I said to Dan Kennedy, "When I go there for lunch, I'm not going to bring over all the stuff that I'm doing now, because I don't want to bother you, but I'm using all your stuff that I learned from you." He said to me, and I'll never forget this, he said to me, "Bill, if you don't bring all your stuff with you, you're just stupid. Bring it with you." We came there, we had lunch that day. He started looking at all of my stuff, which basically I was doing everything I'd learned from him. He said to me, "Bill, can I keep some of this?" This is from Dan Kennedy. He said, "Can I keep some of it, so I can show it in the newsletter?" I said, "I'll be happy to do that." Then he said to me at the end, "Listen, I have an idea for you." I said, "What's that?"

He says, "Well, now that you're in the menswear business, and you're so good at it, you should create a business to teach other menswear businesses how to actually grow their business." I said to him, "I've never heard of this thing before." He said to me, "I have a lot of clients like that, that do it in different categories, that actually do that." He says, "I'll help you put it together." Also, he says to me, "At the end of it, once you put it together, in order to keep it stronger you should join my ..." At that time, it was called the Platinum Mastermind Group, which I said to him, right away, "How much does that cost?" He was telling me how much that was, it was a lot of money for me, at that time. I said to him, "Let me just think about it." Then, before we left for lunch, I said to him, "You know what? I'm going to do it." So, I started to do that, and after a while ... I was with his Mastermind group for about four years.

He flew over to Baltimore. At that point, at the end of it, he said to me, "Bill, you're doing so good, especially in my Mastermind group. I'm looking to sell my product, my own business. Would you be willing to buy my business?" I said to him, "My God! I didn't know, coming here, I was going to buy your business." He said to me, "Why don't you buy it, because you'll do really, really good at it." At the end of that call, I'd already bought his product, and we developed that product into a company called Glazer Kennedy Insider's Circle. We owned that company, pretty much together for eight years. At the end of eight years, I sold that to a private equity company. Dan still stayed involved with that company. After it was called Glazer Kennedy, it became called GKIC. That business has done pretty well, for many years. Although, the private equity pretty much hurt the business a lot, but that's another story for a different day.

Sifu Edward Armstrong: You stayed in a room seven thousand people walked out of, and it became your entire life. I tell my students: the reps nobody else is willing to sit through are exactly where the transmission happens.

Sifu Julliana Armstrong: When was this, and I sense the real lesson is the reinvention, that you stopped seeing yourself as a menswear man?

Bill Glazer: Well, when I actually was in Philadelphia, it was in 1994. Then, he came back to Baltimore in 1996. I think the important thing about this, which would really help a lot of people understand the story I just told people is this: Number one, I started out in the menswear business, but because of the fact that I could go to a special event to hear about Dan Kennedy, that's the point that I learned, myself, that this is no longer about being in the menswear business, this is about me learning how to do marketing. That was really a big thing, for my business. I would say that to anybody else, that's listening to this right now.

You don't have to be in a regular business, or any business at all, as long as you learn marketing, and use marketing in your own business, you can really grow a very, very large business for yourself. Actually, as I owned my business, which was called Glazer Kennedy, I had my own Mastermind groups. Many of the members in my Mastermind group built huge businesses. As a matter of fact, one of them that was in my business, this company, in a couple of months, he's doing his own event. He invited me to go speak at his event. I'm not going to mention his name, I don't think it would be right to mention his name. But, I said to him, "How many people are going to be there?" He said to me, "This is one of the biggest marketing events of the year," he said to me. "There's going to be 10,000 people there." He said, "Bill, I want you to present." Actually, my point is, that through a whole process of learning marketing, not only can you learn marketing for yourself, but you could help other people to grow a huge business, as well.

Sifu Edward Armstrong: Once you knew marketing was the path. How hard was it, really?

Bill Glazer: Well, it's an interesting question. First of all, I would pretty much say that anybody who learns how to build a big business, of any kind of business at all, you have to work at it. You really do have to work at it. Again, when I ran my own menswear business, because eventually I became two stores. I had about 38 employees that were there, work there. But, when I built my marketing business, which at that time was called Glazer Kennedy Insider Circle, we built it up to ... until I sold that business, to about 28 employees ourselves. The reason why we kept growing more employees for that was because of the fact that, as a building gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger, I needed more employees to help me, to help our members, to be able to help them.

Again, there's the thing I would say. My point is this, when I owned my own menswear business, I used to think to myself ... I would sell people suits, and things like that. They would make sure that the suits looked great. When I was in the menswear business, and I had all those members that were part of Glazer Kennedy, at some point we had 10,000 members of Glazer Kennedy, I always said to myself, "This is different." For marketing, for other people, I could not just change how their suits look, but I could help the entire world to help other people like that. Many, many people that were Glazer Kennedy members, I was so happy that I could help other people to help their own business, as a whole.

Sifu Julliana Armstrong: You're famous for "outrageous" marketing, and your latest book is Outrageous Multi-Step Marketing Campaigns, Volume Two. Tell me about it, and why "outrageous."

Bill Glazer: Well, that's actually two questions, but I'm going to make it into one question. First of all, for many years, as I became a marketer ... My very first book, which was 10 years ago, my first book, which was called Outrageous Marketing. At that point, I learned to myself, I realised to myself that I would show other people how to grow their business, by doing outrageous campaigns. By the way, they weren't outrageous, is the keyword. The key to it, and the reason why I always used the word outrageous, because when people would think to themselves the word outrageous, it lets people know that it's going to look unusual. That's what this is all about.

Now, when I wrote my previous book, and now my current book, because the first one was Volume One, and now this is Volume Two. In Volume One of this, I actually would teach people seven steps to create outrageous campaigns. Then, when I did this current book, which is now Volume Two, I moved it from seven steps, to eight steps. Now, let me just tell you a little bit about both of those books. With those books, I reached out to people, and I'm lucky enough to know the right people to ask, to send me their campaigns, and I'd place them in the book. My very first book that we're talking about, which was about two years before this, there was about 52 campaigns in there, and I placed them into the book. Then, my next book, which is the new book right now, which is Volume Two, there's now 42 campaigns in this.

As I was having people send me their campaigns for this upcoming book, I moved it from seven steps to eight steps. I will tell you that was a big change. The reason why is because in the previous book that I had, about two years ago, there was only seven steps. But, it wasn't until people started sending me ... Well, it was actually, really one particular lady, sent me over a campaign. As she sent it to me, I started looking at it. Her name is Marisa, by the way. I said, "Marisa, when I started looking at this, you hurt me a lot." She said, "Why, Bill?" I said, "Because when I started looking at it, I couldn't fall asleep all night. I looked through everything you sent me, I went through it for about six hours, looking at everything there was." At that point, I said to her, "Marisa, this now adds a new step to the Outrageous Campaigns." Now, I moved it from seven steps to eight steps. Actually, the current book that we have right now, has that in there. Now, there's eight steps.

Sifu Julliana Armstrong: You worked alongside Dan Kennedy for years. I have to ask for a story.

Bill Glazer: Well listen, if I can tell you funny stories about when I worked with Dan, I would take about four days to explain that whole thing. Everything that was happening was funny. I will tell you, one of the funniest things that happened. When I bought the business from Dan, one of the reasons why he wanted to sell his business, which I didn't know at the time, which was because he was married, and it was falling apart. That's the reason why he just wanted me to buy it, because he didn't have any employees at all. The funny thing about it was, I started growing the business with Dan, and then about two years after that, he came back to me and says, "Bill, I'm getting back together with my same, previous wife. We're getting together again. I want to invite you and your wife." My wife is Karen, when they're married, we'll go there together. We'll be there, to see both of them getting married together.

That was a funny story, because the fact is, Dan would often say to people, the reason why he had to get out of the business was because his wife was leaving him, and taking half of his money. Now, Dan didn't have as much money, so he had to sell the business. Of course then, after he got remarried to the same lady right now, he also would laugh about the fact, he says, "Yeah, now I've got my other half back right now." It wasn't about ... The money came back, with his ex-wife, came back to him there. It was a funny story about that. Listen, with Dan, there were so many things that we did together. We would go present events everywhere, we went to United Kingdom, we went definitely to Canada, a lot of other things. Certainly, in the United States, we would go present a lot together as well. But, that's a little short story about when his wife left, and came back again. A lot of people, I like to tell that story.

Sifu Edward Armstrong: In today's world, who do you think does the best, most outrageous marketing? And I sense your answer is really about how you keep learning.

Bill Glazer: Well, I'll answer to you differently, but I could probably give you a better response by doing this. When I did the last book, two years ago, and now the current book, this is what I did. I reached out to other people to send me their campaigns, and put it in the book. Now, it's an interesting conversation about this because of the fact that, when a lot of people say to themselves, how do they learn the next marketing? Actually, it wasn't that I created the marketing, people were sending me their campaigns. As they were sending me the campaigns, I was learning new things I never heard before. Like I mentioned before, about Marisa.

So, today I would basically say this, is in order to learn better marketing for yourself, you have to, number one, see what other people are doing. Always look for that. So, to say to your point, gee, this is so ... I've never seen this before, I've got to do this myself in my own business. Again, a lot of these campaigns that I got, are things that ... Now, many of them I knew before, and had seen them before, but I'm always looking for new things for that.

I mean, for example, I would say to you, in the current book, which there's now 42 campaigns in there, one of the campaigns in the book, campaign number 16, which is from a guy named Joe Polish. You might have heard of him already, he's a well-known guy. I reached out to Joe, I said, "Joe, send me a campaign, because I want to put it in the book, and people could actually learn from it." I wasn't expecting Joe's campaign to be the way it was. Here's the campaign that was put together, and this is in the current book, which is "An Outrageous Way to Use Your Marketing Chops to Find True Love." This is kind of a funny story, because of this. It's because Joe was never married, and he wanted to finally find a great lady that he would be together. Then, as I started to go through the campaign, with Joe, I said to Joe, "Joe, this isn't about you, getting the right wife for yourself, this is about love, in general, for your business." Joe said to me, "You're right." He did, by the way, he found a great girlfriend.

He said, "I started finding love about helping my customers, helping my clients." He says, "That's the kind of person I am." This is what Joe was saying, is you just have to think about the fact that everything you do in your business, you have to be in love with it, which is a really great campaign. I'll mention one other one, if I can. Again, about Marisa. Her campaign is number 42 in the book, and you definitely want to read that campaign in there. That's an outrageous way to increase sales, customers, retention, and lifetime value by getting people to do something none of your competition are even thinking about. After I learned about it, I started using that in my own business right now. The key to this whole thing, what this campaign is about is, as soon as people see the first part of it before they buy something, she sends them something next, and next, next. People want to continue, eventually, decide that they want to be his products. One of the things I teach people right now, there are seven steps before somebody says yes. You have to use a lot of different media, online and offline media, on and on, in order that somebody gets to the point they say they're ready to buy something. So, with Marisa's campaign, she realises that people just don't buy right away, she has to continue to send things to them until they're ready to actually buy.

Sifu Julliana Armstrong: After a career this long, what are you most proud of?

Bill Glazer: Actually, before I answer that, I just want to make two other really quick comments, about this. In the book, there's another campaign that's in there, that when you buy this book, you'll want to make sure you read this, which is a book from the guy named Nick James. Obviously, everybody who's going to see this hopefully know of Nick James, and definitely want to look at that, as well. The second thing, I'll say this. I mentioned the fact that there are now eight steps to do an outrageous campaign. This is what I would say to everybody who's listening to this right now, after you learn the eight steps, you want to learn the ninth step, and then the 10th step. Now, I don't know what they are yet, but what I'm saying is, you're always looking for new ways to do things. When I started with seven steps, and now I'm up to eight steps, you always want to think of new things you can add, to help your own business, that you weren't using before.

Now, getting back to your question, what is the thing I'm most proud of. I'm most proud of the fact that I've been able to help other businesses to grow their business. I mean, right now, we've created a new business, which is called The Alliance. When I created this business now, the purpose that I created this business is to be there ... yes, I want to make some money, yes, yes. But, everybody who owns a business deserves to make money. At the same time, always, to me, it's very important for me, for people that will be members of my business, that they actually can get great value to their own business. This isn't just about taking money from them, but this is giving them money back, in teaching them different kind of marketing in their business.

Sifu Edward Armstrong: Stop right there, Bill, because you just described the spine of our whole federation. We built our art on nine forms. And a real master, exactly like you, is already reaching for the tenth step he can't quite see yet. Mastery is never the end of the list. It's the refusal to believe the list is finished.

Sifu Edward Armstrong: You promised to tell us about The Alliance. What is it?

Bill Glazer: Yeah, The Alliance, actually, we created a new business. We're very proud of it, it's actually with my daughter, who lives on the West coast, I live on the East coast. Also, with another partner of ours by the name Rob Cuesta, who also helped to write this last book. He really knows ... Not only is he great at helping people to write books, but he really understands multi-step marketing. The three of us got together, and it's called The Alliance. We help people, who want to become a member, to help them to actually grow much, much larger businesses. By the way, as I said, he's in the United Kingdom. He's in Canada, he originally was in the United Kingdom.

My point of this is this, the fact in order for us to learn this business, pretty much Monday through Friday, at around noon, we'd get on Zoom. We'd see each other, we'd talk about each other, we'd discuss things, and we continued to help to grow that business larger, and larger, and larger. That's part of The Alliance. The other thing that we do for The Alliance is we not only do it by teaching people, each month, how to do things, but at the same time, every six months, all of our members, we invite them to come together. Throughout the United States, around, and pretty much every six months we have this event. At the event, we actually do two things there. Number one, we continue to present, and teach them. The other thing is that people that are members of The Alliance, if they have created a great campaign for themselves, we ask them to come and present at the event, to teach the other members what they've done, that's worked in them so well.

Again, these are the steps. The first thing is, people become a member of The Alliance. Then, we continue to teach them, through each month. Then every six months, we actually bring them to a live event. Then, the other thing we do is the fact that part of The Alliance is we look for the right people to be a member of our Mastermind group. When I owned Glazer Kennedy, I had some of the largest people in the Mastermind group in the world. As I said before, one of the guys that were members of that, he invited me to come speak at an event, at the end of March. There will be 10,000 people there. My point is that, things that happen like this, for him to get to that level, the guy that invited me, he had to first learn marketing himself. You can do that, you can build huge businesses. As a member of The Alliance, I want to get more of those people on a Mastermind group, so they can eventually take a business so large, that they can help other people.

Sifu Edward Armstrong: Bill, thank you, a genuine pleasure. How do people find you and the work?

Bill Glazer: Well, as I said before, the first thing people should do is buy the book, because with the book you'll get so much value there. Also, as a member who buys the book, you'll get the opportunity to eventually join The Alliance. The other thing is, which happens a lot, is the fact that people often, they get the book, they say to themselves, "How can I get connected to Bill?" This is how I always answer people. I don't give you my phone numbers. In order to get connected to me, first, buy the book. Go through all that information that's there. After that, you can become a member of The Alliance. As a member of The Alliance, you can not only connect with me, you can connect with my daughter, Mara, and you can connect also with Rob Cuesta, in order to help your business. The full title is Outrageous Multi-Step Marketing Campaigns That are Outrageously Successful. There's Volume Two. Then, of course, Volume One is just the same title, it just doesn't have Volume Two written on it. Those are the best ways to actually get the book.

Sifu Edward Armstrong: Bill Glazer, thank you so much.

Bill Glazer: Thank you.

Sifu Julliana's closing word: What I'll carry from Bill is the hunger. A living legend, decades in, and one woman's campaign kept him up all night and forced him to add a step to his life's work. That's the exact quality I look for in a champion, not the trophies already won, but the refusal to believe you've learned the last thing. Seven became eight. Eight is already reaching for nine.

Sifu Edward's closing word: Bill stayed in a room seven thousand people walked out of, and it built his entire life. Then he spent that life doing the one thing we ask of every Academy Commander, mastering a craft and transmitting it so others can build. We built our art on nine forms, and a real master is already reaching for the tenth. Stay in the room. Keep the list open. Hand it on. We don't entertain warriors. We create them.

Bill Glazer, bestselling author of the "Outrageous" marketing series, growth strategist, co-founder of Glazer Kennedy Insider's Circle with Dan Kennedy, and co-founder of The Alliance with Mara Glazer and Rob Cuesta.

ILLUSTRATIVE RESULTS. Any revenue, enrollment, margin or retention figure in this conversation is either a documented result from one of our own operations, a figure the guest reports about their own business, or an illustrative example, never a projection of your results.

Nothing here is financial, legal or tax advice.

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