Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of relationships rule. My guest this week is Nikki Nash. And I'm very excited to talk to her. She's a marketer, and a master marketer actually, and known for crafting mind blowing strategies, assembling kicked butt marketing teams and freeing visionary CEOs from the everyday marketing grind. In a previous life, she helped fortune 100 companies and tech
startups make more money. That's always good, right? She is a Hay House, Hay House author, a motivational speaker, a podcast host and a client enrollment expert. And Nikki's been around for over 15 years doing what she does. And I think I from the short conversation that we had previously, I know is passionate about this world of marketing. So welcome to the show, Mickey. Oh, my goodness, thank
you so much for having me.
My pleasure. My pleasure. I love talking to people that think the way I do and, and I think what caught my attention in when somebody sent me your great information about what you do and who you are, I started to look at your LinkedIn profile, of course, because that's what I do. And the thing that caught my attention was, I'm just going to read this couple of sentences at its core marketing is all about relationships, connecting with clients, brands, strategic
partners, you name it. And I teach marketers how to do exactly that in a way that amps up a company's visibility and profitability. Well, anytime I see someone that knows that it's all about relationships I'm in, I'm in. So talk to me about that, from your perspective, tell me what that means for you.
Yeah, you know, it's funny, I've been in marketing since I really graduated college, and I fell into it. And I don't know if somebody taught me this, or it's just been my perspective this whole time. Because at this point, it's been almost 20 years, and I can't remember.
And it's all I'm sure, as well.
Um, but it's so funny when people say to me, they hate marketing. I'm like, do you hate people, because in my mind, marketing is just building relationships with people. And there are different ways to do that. You can do it online, you can do it offline. You can do it through different
media's and mediums. But essentially, it's how do I get to know someone, or get to know a demographic of people or a persona, a type of person, and really understand what they need, what they desire, and then offer them a product or an opportunity or a service that's in alignment with what they really want. And you're a really great marketer, when you are speaking to someone in a way that resonates with them, that
has them go, oh, my gosh, I You get me. And you're really just building that level of like, trust and camaraderie and companionship. So that's the way I look at marketing. And, and I do believe that business is very much the same way. So I love everything about relationship building.
Sounds easy, right? Sounds easy. So when you when a client or a prospective client comes to you, then Has it ever happened that you they're telling you their thing? And what they want to get out there? And it's just not resonating with you? Has that ever happened? Hmm.
It's funny, I don't know that because I don't need what they're selling to resonate with me specifically. Like, I don't need to go, Oh, my goodness, I would love that. If so, for example, this isn't so much a client. But when I worked at Intel, I had a couple of different roles. And one of them was, at some point, helping to sell more accessories, right, like for people who build their own computer, would I ever buy
that? No. Would it resonate with me? No, but could I understand the person that wanted to build their own computer and understand what they were looking for and what they wanted and be able to market to them? Yes. So for me, it's it's really more about do I can I understand the person that you are trying to build a relationship with or to market to, and if I can tap into who that person is, then I can get what you need or coach and guide you through or actually implement the Pentagon.
You know, when I worked in Fortune 100 companies and stuff like that, I couldn't just be like, This is what I think you know, there was doing to make sense, that makes sense, then I then I could build that sort of relationship and it would resonate with me. But I've definitely marketed things that I would not want as long as I wanted it.
I find it hard to sell anything that I like I'm talking about sales because you made me think of my daughter who is she's in an industry that's not sexy at all, but you got to get your head around, you know the client It's about building relationships and business development is all about that, right? Building relationships with people. So it's a similar, it's a similar thing, but a little bit different on the
marketing standard good hair in my mouth area. So your book marketing market, your genius came out a couple of years ago.
It'll be three years in, depending on when this airs at the end of August of 2024. So, August 24, of 2021. Well,
that's exciting. Yeah. In the middle of COVID. That's fun. Yeah. Just to get the book written COVID No,
I mean, I had the book deal before COVID, and had a book proposal and a book marketing plan based on in person and not COVID. So a lot of things had to change and pivot, once COVID happened, because essentially, when my book was going to be released, got pushed back, because people, the big part of what publishers do is get your book in bookstores. And it's hard to get a book in a bookstore when bookstores are
clear. Exactly, exactly. Everybody's
Yeah, launch date got pushed back.
Yeah. So would you say what would you say are like the top two or three things that that you tell, or that you teach that you that you inspire people about when it comes to marketing? Your Genius? Like, what do you need to keep in mind?
Yeah, I think the the first and the biggest thing is to understand what is the results? or the like, what can you actually help people achieve? What result? Are they actually achieving? By working with you if you're selling a service? And if you're selling a product, people typically buy things for a reason, right? They invest in things for a reason. So what is that reason? What what makes a happy, satisfied
customer? And when you can understand that, first and foremost, then you can start figuring out, okay, if I know I'm going to make something up, if I know that I could help someone play the cello. Right? I need to get really clear on who would want to play the cello, and then start there, right? And so that's always step one for me is what is the results? Usually, it really needs to be a desirable result that somebody
is achieving. And I help people get really clear on what it is that they're actually selling, and who it is they're actually selling it to. So that's the first thing, because without kind of those two points of what the promises of what you're selling, and who wants that promise, then you're just putting stuff out there, right? You're not really marketing, with intentionality, or with purpose. So that's the thing is that clarity around what it is that you're truly offering to
people? And so that's, that's one thing. I think, from there, it's, it's very much okay, I have this product that helps people get this desired result, I know who the person is, how do I bridge that gap? How do I get what I sell in front of the people that want that results? And how do I do it in a way that resonates with them? And and they understand that it's valuable for them, and they want to make the investment in that. So that's the second thing that's really a marketing plan.
And a marketing strategy is how do you kind of bridge the gap between someone who is ideally, results driven or problem aware, like, they know that they have this problem, or they have this dream, and then they you help them know that you have the solution to what they want or the pathway for what they want.
And so that's the marketing plan piece. And then I think the third piece that I help people with a lot is, once you kind of bring people through the whole cycle of marketing sales, and now you're in client delivery, or, or they're experiencing the product, is how do you actually retain those clients and have them refer? And so referrals are an excellent kind of lead source and or revenue stream, depending on how it's done. And so it's
really how do you bring people in the door? And then how do you keep them in the house and have them bring their friends? And if they leave the house? How do you get them to come back? So that's essentially what I help people with. Okay,
so yeah, that that brings a piece to me that that I talked about, even with with something as different as LinkedIn training from products sort of thing is that people seem to think that they're always looking for the new client, they're always looking for the new and they're spending money on the new and the time on on the new, and they've got 3000 connections in their database, whether it's LinkedIn or somewhere else that they've never talked to for the last
three years. And it's like, Oh, my God, there's a goldmine there, and you're ignoring it. And so I think that's a really big piece about staying connected, being top of mind and and offering something new to existing or past clients, offering them the opportunity To even be an affiliate for you like that could be something as well so that they're bringing referrals in and they're getting another stream of income out of it, whatever. It depends what you're what you're selling, of
course. But yeah, that's a huge piece that I talk about all the time. Because Because I'm in that business, I'm in the retention business as well with, with greeting cards that I, that I am an affiliate around as well. So yeah, that's a good
one. Now one of the things that I think you do and clarify for me if I'm wrong, but I think that you can become you and your team, or you create a team that becomes a, like a fractional marketing team or an outsourced marketing team for smaller companies that, you know, is that correct, that you don't know, I'm wrong, not so
much. So I have in the past been fractional cmo for folks. But really what I'm doing, if I come into a business I, I don't, I'm not in the agency business, where the will come in and serve this role for you. What I am great at is training and developing the team that already exists, or coming
in and hiring the right team. And so so often, a business owner will have a team of doers, but nobody that is a strategist, or who can actually speak to a visionary CEO in a way that they understand what that what marketing needs to get their job done. And then also communicate that back to marketing the team. And so I have, for certain companies come in for a concentrated period of time, and it's almost like, let me get the
house in order. And then let me replace myself. So it's either I'm replacing myself because somebody internally and the team is now ready to step up to the plate. Or it's, Hey, you know, the peep, the team that you have is great at doing the things that we can that they can do. But you probably a couple years out for someone to actually be able to rise to the leader of the team, the strategist, the, the Hey, I understand the
mission and vision and goals of the company. And then I know how to translate that down to what happens on the day to day, so then I help replace myself from that equation. So I've definitely done that for many company. Now I I'm more in the business of how do we train your team, and then hire that person earlier, and just train that person as opposed to it being
me, just for scalability purposes. And then yeah, and I have a business partner who does the similar thing of, let's make sure you have the right team in place and train and develop them from a client success team perspective. So it's nice because, for me, no amount of marketing can help a product or service that people don't want or aren't happy with. So you
need to have a strong client experience in place. So that supports marketing, because I've definitely worked with brands that we crushed it on marketing, but the people bought, like the sales went up. But then people were unhappy and returns came back just as quickly as the sales were made. And, you know, no amount of marketing can solve that problem. That's a delivery. Yeah, it's
Yeah. Interesting. So. So what, what are you working on going forward? Like, do you do you do a lot of with marketing? Do you do a lot of social media stuff for clients.
So I am not an implementer at all. So that will probably help you at most, I no longer do anything for anyone. I love you all. But I'm not the one I am more of the it I teach and train and develop people. So if it is a solopreneur, I will teach you and or if you have a person on your team, how to
actually bring in clients and retaining those clients. If you have a team, I will train your team so that they can effectively bring in and retain clients, as well as I'll work with the visionary or the CEO in terms of how they can best lead and work with their team. And then I do a lot of kind of coaching work for people that are not used to leading team and that could be specifically the marketing team or team in general. So yeah,
so So I'm curious because when you say that you train you love to train, obviously and your background is business as corporate right? You were in corporate. Did you ever when you were a kid, were you the kid in charge? Were you the teacher in front
of the classroom? No, not at all. I actually so I there is a side of my family that was all in education. Okay. So that my aunt because she was a superintendent or assistant superintendent of a school after she had left teaching. Yeah. And she was convinced I would be a teacher. And I had zero desire
to go into Teaching. However, when I was head of marketing at a tech startup, it was after I left Intel, and I had started figuring out what I wanted to do next, there was a company that was growing called General Assembly, they still exist today. But their model, their business model, at the time I watched it evolve, is it started where they would hire subject matter experts to come in and essentially map out online
courses, and they teach you how to do it. And then you would come in and they'd have a teleprompter and camera set up, and you would just record. And so that's how I started teaching was that way, I also actually technically started teaching before that, I'll share that in a second. And then they had me teach a 10 week long course, in person, and it was twice a week for 10 weeks. And I got a lesson plan, which I go rogue all the time. So I made it my own and but they taught me how to teach
adult learners. So I taught for 10 years with General Assembly either can make long courses, short work shops, all day, boot, camps, all that sort of thing. But I've always been even my gift has always been to to explain things that seem complicated to someone in a way that's digestible and easy. And so that's kind of been a gift of mine for as long as I can remember. And when I did work at Intel, and my manager at the
time, he was like, I'd love for you to be more visible. I did these Lunch and Learns once a month, called getting social with Nicky, where I would teach people a different social media platform, and how to use it to grow their business unit. So I did that for a long time to as well. I
knew there was something it's in your blood, though, you see, it's in your genes. genus, it's because it's very different when, I mean, I was a teacher, and so I get that, but I always wanted to be a teacher. But then, at a crossroads in my career, I went into corporate training, and teaching adults is somewhat different than teaching
children, but they're actually really quite similar. And, and I, when I went into this training department for my corporate job, I was a contractor I never got, I didn't want to be hired, like full time nine to FiVER, I didn't want to do that. I had a little girl at the time at home. And anyway, the girls that I observed that were doing the job that I was going to do, they weren't teachers, and they didn't know how to teach, they sat at their desk and read the manual,
basically. And so that's why I sent that to you. Because it's got to be somewhere in you to be a natural teacher to make it work. And to make it work the way you have. Whether you taught in school or you started by teaching adults, it doesn't matter. So I'm glad I asked that question. Because, yes, it's definitely in you for sure. Yeah.
And I look back, I used to be a tutor. So like, I probably was teaching pretty much my whole life and just never considered it or thought about it that way.
Yeah, exactly. But that's, that's a good like you said, it's totally a gift that that becomes it's a part of you. So yeah, I can't help myself sometimes. And, and it's not a good thing when I when I say that when I'm in the grocery store, and, and some young person says to me, do you need me to bag those for you? Isn't that part of your job? You know, like, Yeah, I'm gonna start doing that whole thing. Anyway, I won't go there. But it's a pet peeve of mine. But, but teaching
it's just comes naturally. So I love that about what you're saying. So what's in the future for you? Do you? Are you at a, you know, change? Do you feel changes coming? Because you did say one thing to me about your podcast is in, in, in change mode. So I wondered if that's about everything?
Yes. So one of the things that has been, I guess an epiphany that I had a while back is that in building my business, I realized that I was making money not creating wealth. And those are two very different things, I think period but also to me. Then I went down a path of do I want to create wealth inside of my business or outside? And so for me, like I looked at and what I really deemed as what would be creating wealth to me is something is having assets that were cash
flowing positive and appreciating in value. And so I have looked into real estate. I've looked into buying other businesses that are you know, can live the have a longevity? I've looked at a number of things. Right now I am just starting investing in real estate And I have no doubt that I'll probably ultimately buy businesses as well. But because of that, I'm like, I can't work all day in my business, and then also invest in real estate, and then also buy other businesses
and just own them, not operate them. And all this other stuff, because I am, I guess, I'd have to do some sort of an assessment. But I'm the type of person that likes new challenges and new things, and great and all that jazz. And plus, I would like to have a family. So there's just a lot of things that would be going on. And so what has shifted in my business is that and part of why I'm not a doer inside other people's businesses, is because one, it, it restricts the number of
people that I can work with at a time. And it, it's a lot of hours. So it's like, I'm only working with a few amount of people for a lot of hours. And that's kind of the opposite of what I want, I want to work with way more people have it so that they're actually getting results. And it's impactful and reduce the number of hours in which I'm doing it. And so some things that are in the works. One, I see a split in my business. So I had mentioned, I have a business partner that
said something very specific. And what she and I focus on is helping clients and companies increase their revenue from what we consider the front end and the back end. So the front end would be acquiring new clients. And the back end would be retaining clients getting client referrals, which I guess would be back and back to front end. It's like a client referrals are big, making your clients profitable for you, and then
also reactivating past clients. And so our belief system around that is that marketing sales and client success have to be a well oiled machine and really working together in order to have it such that the people that are coming in are actually staying and happy and that what's marketed to is being delivered it deliberated, delivered upon, like trying to say a word, and
it didn't work delivered upon and exceeding expectations. So she and I are very focused on that were planning out a Client Success Summit, where we bring businesses in and have them bring like their marketing their sales and their client success people in and then we're teaching training supporting them in that way. She's actually a past teacher. And she argues that it's easier to teach young adults that she worked in high school, it was easier to deal with high schoolers than the adults.
A lot these days, they're actually yes.
Okay, so that's happening. And then for me from a purely marketing perspective, and because I worked with in the course of my business businesses that were just getting started to doing like, six figures, to people doing low millions, high millions, eight figures, like all over the place. And so that's probably more likely going to be for our million
dollar plus clients. We don't have a cap from a revenue perspective, but it's really more of if you have a lot of clients, because otherwise it doesn't make sense to have
multiple team members and things like that. That being said, what's changed for myself for my solopreneur peeps, or the small team peeps, is I have been working on and creating a subscription based experience where they're absolutely getting training, they're getting implementation plans, they also have the ability to get support for me ask questions, things along those lines, and then they're rewarded for the longevity of their subscription. So that's been something that I
have that sounds Yeah, and looking into. So it's in the works, it's very early at the time that we are recording this. That's been kind of the other pathway. So those would be the two main ways to work me outside of, you know, grabbing my book or listening to the podcast or something like that.
Well, that's all exciting stuff. Very exciting. Okay, so, as we I'm just going to veer right a little bit and ask you when you're not working. What do you love to do?
So I am a workaholic, I guess because I go on a lot of walks. And I definitely like to do at least 10,000 steps a day. But more specifically, I need to walk by water. So there is I live in Vienna. I live in St. Petersburg, Florida, St. Pete, and I live downtown and so I can walk to the bay and there is a very specific place, not at the pier, but near the pier where dolphins hang out. And so I have
a specific dolphin. I've named him spotty. I sometimes change his name, but it's primarily spotty and I go and sit with him. So that's like the joy of my day. I'm like hey somebody and then I'm like come swims up and sometimes it will swim under my legs if I sit over the edge and it's great. Wow, that's fantastic. I talked to him I probably look nuts. People are like woman is talking to a dolphin and I don't care. Were like, in my mind, he loves me. And it's great.
That's fantastic. Are you are you a reader a listener? Audio books? Are you a podcast listener? Are you a TV person or movie person?
I am highly auditory. I discovered I don't think I realized that until COVID. To be honest, I love audiobooks. I will read physical books, but for me to read a physical book, it's usually something that is fiction and has to do with like, it's either a murder mystery or, or like, with witches or something. It's something that I can't help but put down like not literally Harry Potter, but something that is, you know, I'm reading a binge reading this whole thing.
Outside of that I'm audiobooks all the way podcasts all the way. I do watch some TV. I tend to be a I'm like laughing because I don't know my family. We love each other. And we're so friendly. And if you met us, you wouldn't go that's the family that loves murder mysteries, but we love murder mysteries.
Have you read any Louise Penny books?
No, but I should to write her
name down. She's a Canadian author. My sister who lives in LA. couldn't stop reading them. She's read all 18 of them. And yeah, so you would probably enjoy them. Yes.
Yeah. I love a good murder mystery. For TV, it could be I watched British murder mysteries. I even watched Hallmark Channel murder.
Don't go there.
Not even that great. But I don't care. Like if it's a murder mystery and watching it. No, like British murder mysteries are my jam. So I'll watch those. And then from a movie perspective, I love I love superhero movies. So I think I've seen like every Marvel movie, you know, probably almost every Batman movie with the exception of Ben Affleck's season. Sorry, Ben. I just didn't. But I've seen every other Batman for DC and in some other DC movies. It's
not my world at all. I love it. Totally different. Okay. Last two questions. One, I love to ask my my guests about my favorite word, curiosity. So I want to know two things. One, do you believe that curiosity is innate or learned? And second part, what are you most curious about these days?
Hmm. I think curiosity is innate. Because if I look at kids right now, I'm lucky all of my I'm the best aren't Nicky ever probably helps that I love Marvel and superhero and geeky stuff. But all of when I look at kids, they're naturally curious. I think as we get older, that maybe leaves us to a certain extent, but I think we're innately curious beings. Okay. What am I most curious right now about? What am I most curious right now about? Ah, yes.
I like, like, what comes to mind is I'm like, I'm always curious about what is actually going to be next and how things will work out. But I'm constantly testing things in my business, I have a framework on essentially coming up with hypotheses, hypotheses and testing and validating them. And so I have a hypothesis out right now for what I'm building inside my business, like the subscription idea and things like that. And it may the model may change slightly, but the product itself will stay the
same. I'm curious about how that will resonate with folks. So I'm really excited. And in the inquiry of, will this actually yield the desired result where it it helps people actually get results, and it frees up my time? Okay,
well, I'd like to follow that one alone, for sure. Yeah. And last question, what would you share with my audience to be maybe your your, your best business tip that solopreneurs sales professionals, small business owners can take and run with?
Yeah, I would say, to learn to duplicate and automate as much as possible, like bring on team and put systems in place as soon as possible. It doesn't mean like, do it tomorrow. But I think one of the things that I did in my business is I was so attached to having to do everything. And I became the bottleneck in my business. And I think if you really want to build something that grows Yeah, like it's like,
get out stop being the bottleneck. And it's going to take a lot of faith and trust and You can take calculated risks. I know on assessments, I tests really high for risk taker. So I'm like, don't necessarily do what I do, because I'm a little crazy. And I'm like blissfully believe it will all work out. But I do recommend taking some sort of calculated risk and, and bringing on team and try to automate things because we didn't build businesses to work all the time.
I know. I know. Yeah, that's great advice. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. So how can my audience find you best place? And I will, of course, put it in the show notes. I'm guessing your website.
Based on your expertise, they need to connect with me on LinkedIn. Like send me a DM that you heard me on the show.
Okay, done, or, yeah, and your website? Of course, Nikki nash.co, right. Yes,
Nikki nash.co. And I have a lot of free blog, like I have a lot of content and cheat like worksheets and things that will help people. So what I would say is, in addition to going on LinkedIn, just go to my website and choose the one that resonates with you the most.
Sounds good. Appreciate it. Thank you for your time. Nikki, thank you for your wisdom and and for sharing. And indulging me in my in my questions that I love to ask people about. So appreciate that. And to my audience, thanks for being here again, and appreciate you if you liked what you heard. Please leave a review. We always appreciate that. And remember to stay connected and be remembered