Building Relationships with Marketing Magic | RR261

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