Welcome to the Confident Live Marketing Show with Ian Anderson

Gray, helping you level up your impact, authority, and profits through

the power of Confident Live video.

Optimize your mindset and.

Communication and increase your confidence in front of the camera.

Get confident with the tech and gear and get confident with the content of

marketing together we can get live well.

Hello?

Hello?

Hello, Ian.

Answer Gray here for episode 202 of the Confident Live Marketing Show.

It's so good to be here.

Uh, Doing this, doing this live show.

And this is the first time after the episode 200, the big

one, the fourth anniversary.

I've got a special guest on today, which I, I've tried to get, um,

my guest today on for a while.

And, uh, for some reason it's not happening.

I think it's, it's, it's probably my fault because I'm just all over the place.

But in today's episode, this is gonna be exciting.

We are gonna be trying to sparkle a bit of positivity on.

On a, on a difficult subject really, because as I mentioned in last week's

episode, there's a lot of people, uh, particularly if you have a

personal brand or a small business, I.

Even if you, if you're running a corporate business, there's, there's,

there's, it's a difficult time.

You know, there's the cost of living crisis, there's inflation,

there's a lot of other stuff.

And so when I, um, spoke to John about what to talk about, uh, John Ferrari,

who's gonna be coming on today?

I kind of, I was asking him, could, could, would it be possible in my very British

way to talk about being auth, uh, how to authentically market your brand in a post?

I'm not even sure if I'm allowed to say this.

I'm probably gonna get, um, uh, the, Facebook's probably gonna

flag this, but anyway, in the post covid world, what do we do?

What do we do?

So that's what we're gonna be talking about in today's episode.

So let's bring in John, I'm very excited to have John Ferrara on the show.

He is a SaaS entrepreneur and CRM pioneer who has reimagined CRM by

building Nimble the simple c r m.

He has been recognized by Forbes as one of the top 10 social CEOs, top

10 social salespeople in the world.

And top 100 marketing influencers.

John, welcome to the show.

I need to find the, there we go.

I almost forgot.

To tell, uh, to, to let everyone applaud you.

So it's great to have you on and, and the crowd goes wild.

I know, I know.

Uh, it, it's, it's awesome to have you, uh, you know, I've, I've been following

your work for, for years and years.

Um, you know, and, and ni nimble is, uh, is really cool.

I mean, I used to talk and I still do talk about tools a lot and.

Nimble came into my life really at a time, and I, I shouldn't really admit this cuz

I, but I didn't actually even know what a CRM was when I was introduced to Nimble.

And then I thought, Ooh, this is actually quite good.

Uh, and it really, it really made a big impact on me.

So thank you for that.

Um, you're, you're welcome.

And you know, I think that a lot of people are, are scared of CRMs

because they, they really think that it's something that Big Brother

creates for controlling salespeople.

And most of us don't think of ourselves as salespeople.

We're really more people building our brand through relationships.

Uh, what you're, what you should be thinking about as any human being on

this planet today is that you're branding your network or your net worth and that

you should be building a sustainable garden of relationships around you.

Not just prospects and customers, but there are influencers as well.

And if you do what we teach you to do, which is create a brand, share

content to inspire and educate others, listen and engage with the intent to

serve, not sell, you're gonna have tens of thousands of connections.

What do you do to manage them?

You need a contact manager, and that's kind of my root

is relationship management.

And I think that's what resonated with you, Ian, is that

it wasn't a c R M for sales.

It was a contact platform for relationships.

Yeah, definitely.

And I, I talked about this last week, um, because I've just come from Atomic

on, which is this big conference in the uk and I met so many people.

First of all, people that I already knew in the, in the marketing world,

the, the, the, the business world.

And also I met new people, and I dunno about you, but my memory stinks.

So I kind of like, usually if I, if I.

Leave it a few days, I've kind of forgotten who I met.

Yeah.

And so what I've done this time is that I have made a, a list of all the people

that I met, uh, using a CRM and, and, uh, and then I, I met somebody, uh, who,

uh, who I know, who I've known for years.

And he's, and I said, when was the first time?

When was the first time we met?

Um, And this is this guy called Richard Tub.

And uh, he said, do you know, I, I can, I can find out.

I'm just gonna look it up on my crm.

And sure enough, he opened up the CRM on his phone and said, we met in 2015 at New

Media Europe conference in Manchester.

And I was blown away.

I thought, that is amazing.

So just relying on our own brains, we we're never gonna remember that stuff.

But, um, yeah.

So, yeah.

And you know what they call that Ian, the Dunbar limit.

Yeah.

Yes.

How much?

There's an English chat named Dunbar who did a study on how many people

can you manage in your head at one time, and literally it's only a

hundred to 200 max for most people.

And so how do you effectively remember who somebody is, what they're about?

When you first met, what's happened before and what might be planned to

happen in the future between you, because that's what I call context and insights.

Context is what happened before.

What's gonna happen ahead?

Who did it?

Who's gonna do it?

Insights is who are they and what are they about?

And if you have context and insights on a human being, you're engaging with.

You're going to be more effective at finding ways to serve them.

And I think that's why we're here is we're on this planet to grow and we

grow best by helping other people grow.

Rinse and repeat.

That's music to my ears.

That's, I mean, that the, these are the things that I'm really thinking

about at the moment, so thanks.

Thanks, John for that.

By the way, if you're listening to the podcast, you won't know this,

but if you're watching and you see the sweat dripping down my face,

it's because it's boiling here.

And, uh, we don't really do air conditioning in this country in

the uk cuz it, it's basically hot for one week of the year.

So, uh, but I'm, I'm coping so John, um, yeah, well I, I wanna talk a

little bit about Nimble in a bit.

We'll come back to, to that as a, as crm.

But before we do, yeah, I, um, and I will talk to you we're about, I wanna talk to

you about confidence and particularly.

How, you know, what can we do from a marketing point of view at the

moment, uh, with all the, all the struggles that, that are around.

But I'd love to hear some of your, your backstory.

So you are, you know, in the, in the intro, um, I, I mentioned in your bio, you

know, you're a SAS entrepreneur and, uh, you are, you know, nimble as your baby.

But can you give, how did you get to that?

There must be a story of.

How you came to, to want to create Nimble.

Um, tell us a little bit of your backstory and how you got to where you are today.

You bet, Ann.

Um, thanks for asking.

So I got started as a entrepreneur because I had, I struggled, I had a need.

Uh, I, I got my myself through school, uh, my computer science degree.

Working at a computer store and I learned about how computers work

and what software people use, and this is in the infancy of computers.

This is 1979.

80, 81.

So I was one of the first people in my town to buy a computer.

And uh, and I knew enough about software that when I got my first job

and they put me into sales, I needed something to be able to manage the

relationships, the leads, the contacts.

And back then there wasn't Outlook, there wasn't Salesforce, there was

no crm, there was basically any.

Barely any tools to manage contacts, people manage them on paper called

something called a Daytimer.

And so I manage my contacts on a daytimer my to-dos in that, daytimer

my forecast on a spreadsheet.

I communicated with email and text and post-it notes with my team about

the contacts and the relationships we're building to grow our business.

And I said, there's gotta be a better way.

And I looked around and I couldn't find a tool that integrated email contact and

calendar and sales and market automation.

So I quit my job, started a company called Goldmine.

We started Goldmine on $5,000.

It was in the DOS days.

So Dos is before Windows.

It's when it was just a cursor.

Mm.

And, uh, we grew that company to over 125 million a year in revenue without

ever taking a d from any investors.

We bootstrapped it.

Uh, we didn't know any better.

And uh, and I'd have to say that we were able to do that because we believe.

Um, it wasn't easy.

It's not easy bootstrap at the company, but we believed every day that we

could do it, and we kept putting one foot in front of each other.

We, we figured out what our passion was, which is basically building

relationship management systems that help other people achieve their dreams.

We made our purpose to, um, to grow that business.

And we made a, a basic plan and we put on the refrigerator and every day we

said, what are we doing to get there?

And you know, it's unbelievable how long it took to really get

to scale, but at the same time, it went by in a blink of an eye.

Wow.

That's, I mean, I, I think.

I love that, that there, there was this, you had this vision and you were following

it, but you also say, you, you quite clearly say that it wasn't always easy.

Uh, and I was reminded of, uh, as there's a, a speaker at Atomic on the

conference I've just been to by Joe Wicks.

Now, you may not have heard of Joe Wicks, but in the UK he's.

Uh, like a big sensation.

He, during the pandemic, he was create, he was doing, he was a personal trainer.

He was, um, getting on there, getting everyone fit.

Even people all around the world were watching him live.

He had like a million people watching him live and he, he, he said, uh,

that he was an overnight success.

It just, it's just that it took 10 years.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it, and, and, but he, he had this passion and this vision, and it sounds

like that was, I mean, it might not have taken 10 years for you, but it

still, still had you have that passion.

How much of, so when, when I, when I heard you, uh, you, you, you kind of, obviously

that's the shortened version, right?

But somebody might say to you like, John, that that.

You must not have a problem taking risk.

You, you know, cuz you can, you can be risk averse and you can just like, be

almost reckless and people might say, listening to that story, well, you,

you just, like, you quit your job.

I mean, that's a pretty scary thing.

And you just, you believed in this product and, and you did it.

So what, what made you do that?

Because that, that's quite a big thing, you know, quitting your job

and following your passions there.

Yeah.

Well, I believe that you're some of the interactions and the journeys

that you have before you come to these decision points in your life.

And, uh, when I decided to quit my job and start goldmine, I was making about

a hundred thousand plus a year in sales.

Um, but I knew I could go get a job in sales at any time.

Like, there are a few people with my technology skills.

So I was a systems engineer, I had a computer science degree.

I worked three years in a computer store and I was doing, um, sales and technology.

So there are a few people who were as skilled as, as I

was not to be overconfident.

So I knew I could always go get a job, but I didn't know that I could always.

Have this moment in time when there was a crossroads of people's needs

to manage relationships and my knowledge and awareness of what they

needed and that I could create it.

And so, I used to work before I started, um, this sales job at Banyan at a company

called Hughes Space and Communications.

So Hughes had a plant set of 15,000 people on this huge multi acre place,

and I was, um, in systems there.

So I basically installed and maintained the computer networks and the computers

for, um, the engineers and stuff.

And there was this old engineer who I used to go and work on his computer.

And he said to me, John, I should have coulda would've.

And I said, bill, what are you talking about?

Should have coulda, woulda.

And he said, well, my friends left Hughes and they started t r w, they

started Litton, they started, um, all, all these other companies.

And they asked me to come with them.

I, I should have coulda would've gone and done that.

And if I did that, I wouldn't be sitting here working for Hughes for 40 years

making whatever they decide to pay me.

Kind of working this dead end job and.

I said to myself, when the universe knocks on your door, you've gotta be

brave enough to open the door and walk through it if you feel right about it.

And Ian, you're right, it was slightly reckless, right?

I mean, I'm quit a job.

I'm 28 years old.

Can I go get another job in technology?

Yes.

I think the bigger risk was not going through the door and starting goldmine.

Honestly.

Mm, that's, that's really interesting.

It, it, it's the elements of regret, you know, and I think

sometimes I've made decisions.

Yeah.

Because I know that I will regret it if I don't do it.

Yeah, because, so there's, there's an element of anxiety.

It's, it's just maybe a stressful situation.

But you mentioned, I think you mentioned vision, you mentioned passion.

Those are really important things if you have a passion for doing

something, a vision for something.

Uh, and also, like I I, it sounds like you had confidence as well.

And obviously this, this show is a lot about confidence.

Um, I see a lot of, a lot of people out there.

You know, particularly I'm thinking about personal brand businesses

here who have so much to give.

They are clearly smart, they're clearly creative, but there's this

blockage, this barrier, um, and it's this, it is this confidence.

And I'm not talking about this like a brash, um, superficial confidence here.

I'm talking about like a deep confidence in the fa in their

ability to, to be successful.

And we can, we can talk about.

You know, defining what success means.

I mean, obviously it means different things to different people, but how,

how much had, how much has confidence played a role in, you know, in

those early days, but also, um, up into, you know, in recently as well?

How, how has that played a role in your career?

I think it's, I think it's, um, a huge part of my success is my belief that I

can and my commitment to, um, To jump off the cliff, to, to go, to go for things.

Um, and I'd have to say that we're all born, we're gifted with whatever

the universe gifts us with mean both intelligence, personality looks, e

everything the universe gifts you with.

And, and I'd have to say that I was gifted with a lot from the universe

and I'm, I'm extremely grateful.

And I don't think that without these gifts that I'd be the human I am today.

I think that the people around me certainly shaped me, but I really

believe that the universe creates something in the moment of creation.

And that thing that they created is what that thing is.

And I can say that because I have three babies and they behaved in the womb very

similar to the way they behaved when they were born to the way they are today.

And so, um, so I think that my confidence.

Is a gift from the universe.

And also my parents.

My father was an entrepreneur.

He was the number one Lincoln Mercury guy in the country in the fifties.

He had the first Subaru dealership in California in the seventies.

Uh, he could walk into any room and talk to any person.

And I used to just drive me crazy.

I remember my dad would talk to anybody anywhere and I'd just

pull on his, his, his pants.

Cause I was this little tiny guy and I looked up at him, say, dad,

do you have to talk to everybody?

And, um, you know, I swore I'd never be in sales.

I studied computer science cuz I wanted to be more like my Uncle

John, who helped invent radar and microwave at MIT in the forties.

And so I became a technologist, but I couldn't hide from my roots.

And it was my dad's sales and marketing skills, his people skills.

They really enabled me to take the technology vision that I had.

And to scale it, because if you don't build a team around you

to, uh, achieve your dreams, you'll never scale truly in life.

And it's my, I think it's my ability to communicate vision and confidence

where people not only believe in it, but they're willing to follow me into

the valley of, you know, conflict and, and to go create things out of nothing.

I would not be here today without the team of people around me.

And that's not just the people who have worked in the entrepreneurial ventures

I've been in, but the constituency around it cuz Ian, even you are part of that,

uh, sustainable garden that I've tried to create around my entrepreneurial,

uh, endeavors to enlist a series of people to help achieve the dream because

they buy off on the dream that I'm creating, which is not necessarily about

making nimble or goldmine more money.

Really about serving other people's desire to achieve their dreams

through better relationships.

So I think that that sort of higher purpose resonates with the

people we connect with, and it builds this sort of community.

And I think that that ability to communicate vision and to gather

that tribe and to drive that tribe into a higher power purpose could

not be done without confidence.

That.

Yeah, that's so interesting.

Uh, and not all of us will have a, a dad who's like an entrepreneur and

we can, but the, we can still find.

People to be in inspirations in our lives.

And I love what you said about team, having a team of people.

We, we think of like in our businesses, having a team of our team in the

business, we may have assistances.

Mm-hmm.

We may have, uh, engineers, whatever it is.

But I'm a big believer in having a team of.

People, um, who are your, who are your, encourages your cheerleaders, but

also will who will tell you the truth?

Um, in, in, in, hopefully in an encouraging way.

And I, and I think that's you, you have definitely, I've seen this

over the years, John, that you have.

You have built those relationships, you know, we'll talk about Nimble in a minute.

Nimble is the, is is definitely is a technological way of, of,

of helping with in the process.

But you have definitely done that.

You have reached out to people.

You are also very giving, you know, you are, I mean, thank you for, for

all the times you've shared or, or retweeted my stuff for, for example.

Um, I mean that might seem like a really tiny thing, but it,

it, it's, it's a massive thing.

It, it's building.

Building those, those relationships with people.

And even though I think we have met in person, uh, once, I think at Social

Media Marketing World, but even though we haven't met each other, um, you know,

very often it still feels that we, we have a relationship, we have a connection.

I think that's really important.

Um, I wanted to ask you, so it's obviously not all been wonderful.

You know, I, well, I assume it has, and I assume there's been some times when

maybe you've had a confidence wobble.

Um, yeah.

And.

So this, I, I didn't, I didn't kind of, um, ask you this before, whether

I, I didn't kind of check with you whether you were happy with this

question, but I'm sure you are.

Like, can you share with us maybe like when you have had, which I assume

you have the occasional confidence wobble maybe in your ability or the

ability of the product or, or something else or whatever in your life.

What has got, what's gotten you through that?

Well, Ian, that's a really great question and I, and I really believe

that life is like a Beethoven symphony, that they're high in low notes, and

without the low notes, you can't really appreciate the high notes.

And if you had high notes all through your life, you'd be crazy.

I mean, it just would be, you know, manic.

Um, so, uh, yes, my life has not been perfect and, um,

and there's been many times.

And throughout my life where I've struggled, um, to see tomorrow, to stay

the course, to believe in the dream.

Um, there are times when I was driving home from goldmine,

literally crying from the pressure.

I mean, to build a company you work for.

The team, they don't work for you, and you carry that home every night and, and

every moment, even while you're sleeping and, and it keeps you awake and it, uh,

you, you worry about making payroll and, um, um, keeping the doors open and, um,

being able to compete effectively in competitive marketplaces and to deliver

the vision and the resources necessary.

And the support necessary to your team for them to execute on those things and to

take advice from people when maybe you're wrong and you have to change your course.

And all those things, uh, are hard.

But I think the thing that's gotten me through it all is belief.

Belief that what we're doing is important and that it serves

other for a higher purpose.

And that, um, if we just stay the chorus, we'll get through it.

And I can't tell you how many times that belief has gotten me through

storms that are unimaginable, um, in both goldmine and nimble.

And, um, you know, that song comes to mind.

Jesus, take the wheel.

Um, and I really believe in that it's a higher power.

Uh, and I'm, I was, um, I was raised a Catholic.

Uh, I've studied all the religions.

I'm a universalist.

I believe in a higher power, but I don't believe it's my God or your God.

It's our God that higher power, who that is.

But I really believe that you need to believe in a higher power and sometimes,

Trust in that higher power where you put your prayers to the universe and

that you're present enough in your life to be able to hear when the universe

knocks and brave enough to open the door, and more importantly, walk through.

And it reminds me of an analogy of, uh, motorcycle riding.

Ian, you ever ridden a motorcycle?

Uh, no, I've been on the back of one, but, uh, okay.

I was a little bit, I have to say I was a little bit nervous

about it, but it was fun.

It's easier to be on the back than it's to drive, so I've never been a street

bike guy, but I've been a dirt bike guy.

And, um, and one of the places near my home in Southern California, there's

a track area that involves mountains and streams and desert, uh, planes.

So if you're riding a motorcycle on the desert plane, If you hold onto the

handles too stiff, you're gonna fall over.

What you need to do is you need to let go of the wheels a little bit and let

the handlebar float, because what happens is you drive through sand at speed.

The, the tire needs to find its place and it flows through the sand.

And I, I really see that as a vision.

Of life.

Like you can't just hang really, really tight on the steering wheel and just

think, okay, we're, I'm, I'm gonna drive this thing through all these ruts.

Sometimes you need to sort of let go a little bit and let the tire find its

groove and, uh, and trust in the process.

I love that.

Yeah.

I, I, I think, yeah, I mean, whether people have a, a faith or, or

not, I mean, for me, my faith is absolutely integral to, to everything.

Um, but I, I, I think thinking a little bit, thinking outside of yourself,

that, that it's, it's bigger than you.

The, the, it is not necessarily letting go is, I don't think what you're saying.

There's, there's a great, I, I love this metaphor about, um, fishing.

So there are some tribes around the world who they, I, I, so I'm not

very knowledgeable about this, but they, they will fish with a stick

and they will, they, they will kind of, um, ram the stick down and.

Through the, through the fish and catch them that way.

Uh, but if you are not experienced with it, so what they'll do is

they'll wait and wait for the fish and then they'll get it quickly.

But what somebody like me would probably do is I would frantically,

you know, I'd be splashing around.

I wouldn't get any fish that way because I'm, I'm try, I'm almost trying too hard.

I'm, I'm, I'm splashing, I'm making too much noise.

Whereas if, if you, if you wait for the moment, Um, I think that's, that's really

helpful to, to think about it that way.

And I think I've noticed that when I try too hard, if I, if so, I, I, I've

been thinking about this, that the, the times in my life when I, in my business,

when I've been strategic, You know, consciously strategic are the moments

when my business has not done as well.

Yeah.

The moments when I follow my curiosity and I get excited about

it, and I follow my passions, that is when my business goes really well.

Yeah.

It's kind of, it seems like counterintuitive.

That's just like the analogy of the, of the motorcycle through the sand.

Right?

It's like when you're like this, it's different than when you're like this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's so true.

That's so true.

So like, and I really, I really believe that there, there is a higher power.

Mm.

And that, and that does deliver magic in your life.

Yeah.

And, uh, and you really believe that anybody listening to this should read

whatever books they can about self realization and, um, All the different

things that they can about trying to tap into whatever higher power is

in your life to achieve your dreams.

Definitely.

Couldn't I agree more.

You need to do the, you need to do the deep work.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So let's, let's move just, I quickly about to, uh, nimble cause I do, I do

wanna talk about, um, You know about marketing, um, but I want to ask it for

people who haven't come across Nimble.

You can find it@nimble.com.

Um, can you just, just explain what it is?

I mean, you know, and, and just assume we don't even know what a CRM is, right?

I mean, I assume a lot of people will have heard of a crm, but for those

who don't, I don't want people to feel that they, they're missing out.

So essentially what Nimble is, is a contact manager that

integrates your email contacts and calendar into a singular system.

So everybody has an email productivity suite, you're using some type of phone

with, uh, Google, Microsoft, apple, or all of the above that manages

the contacts you're connecting to.

The conversations you're having and the activities that you're driving today,

you're doing that in a disjointed contact system, whether we're talking

about you personally using Gmail or Apple Mail, or professionally using

G Suite or Microsoft 365, and that is because your contacts for every team

member is a separate contact database and those contacts aren't connected.

To the email and calendar things that you're doing with each

other, let alone the tasks that you should be doing as well.

And so people call that crm, but that's really not crm.

CRM is really more about salespeople and leads.

And so, uh, most CRMs or sales CRMs that you take your leads from your

website, you put 'em into a system, you drip march, you drip nurture them

till they're lead qualified, and then you pound on them till they buy or die.

Most of us aren't in sales, or most of us don't spend all of our time doing sales

things that are dollar related, but we all spend time building relationships.

And so if you believe that your contacts are your gold mine and you want to turn

your contacts into gold, how can you more effectively manage and nurture the

relationships so that when you do wanna reach out to somebody, you can easily

segment out who you want to reach out to?

Tailor a very small subset of those contacts with a very specific message

that feels you're talking one-to-one to them, and to be able to maintain those

contacts so that you're top of mind with them, so that no matter when they pick up

the phone, they, uh, Whenever they think about you or your products and services,

they pick up the phone and call you, or they drag their friends with them.

That's what a contact manager is.

And so that's what the roots of Nimble are and Goldmine is because Goldmine

predates Outlook or Salesforce.

So we were the original contact platform, and Nimble sort of takes the idea of.

That your CRM should be about relationships for your whole team,

not just leads for salespeople into the modern cloud world.

And we do it in a social way.

So when I started Nimble, there was no social selling or social CRM or contact

platforms to integrate with social.

And I started to build my brand and network on Twitter,

Facebook, and LinkedIn.

And I wanted to manage the contacts I was connecting to and I couldn't find anything

that, you know, that unified the contacts.

And the conversations I was having in social, I found Hootsuite, which

enabled him to manage the conversations but not tie them to contacts.

And so I basically build nimble to automatically unify all your

contacts, all your email, all your calendar, and your social into one

single contact platform that then works with you wherever you live.

So if you're inside your email inbox, if you're inside LinkedIn, if you're

inside Twitter, nimble, sitting there.

Where you could easily build a record for somebody new you're engaging with,

or bring up a record for somebody that is existing to give you the

context and insights you need to effectively engage in the moment.

But more importantly, the ability to follow up and follow through after.

Because any interaction you have typically requires a follow up.

What do I gotta do next?

And most people don't do those follow-ups because they gotta

go to the serum to use them.

So the biggest cause of failure, serums, lack of use, the second bad data.

Uh, bad data cuz you work for it, you gotta go to it.

You Google somebody, then you log in the serum what you did and then

you go and engage wherever you do and you gotta go log what you did.

And nobody does that.

And so I think that's why people love Nimble, is it's the first CR

that automatically builds records.

It's a first serum that works with you wherever you live in

your email inbox, inside social or any business app that you use.

It's a first serum that's designed for relationships, not just sales.

And finally, our workflows that we've built are incredible because most

serums, their outcome is a deal.

But most relationships, the outcome isn't a dollar related thing.

It's a repeatable process you're trying to do in order to achieve a goal.

And so, for example, Ian, when you do a podcast with somebody, you probably

have a series of steps that you do to prepare them for the podcast.

You send them a email asking for their avatar and bio.

You send them some prep notes.

You um, uh, so you move them to ther series of related stages.

And you might collect certain fields on them.

And so a lot of people do that in spreadsheets.

But our nimble workflows enable you to build.

Those repeatable processes and definable stages and boards that allow you to manage

all those things like hiring people and, uh, raising money or getting a job or

accounts receivable or whatever kind of things that you're doing in your business.

And so I think what people love about Nimble is that it's a relationship

platform for individuals or for teams.

It'll do the sales things, but more importantly, it does the

relationship things that you need to truly scale your business.

Yeah.

And I, you used the word automatically.

It, it, it is a bit like that cuz it connects to all these different, you know,

it connects to all these different places.

You, if you're on LinkedIn, it will kind of pop up.

I, I love the way it kind of follows you where you're going,

uh, along, which is great.

Yeah.

And, and if you think about it, it's what we talked about

is the struggle we all have.

We can't remember all the people we've ever connected with.

When did we meet them?

What was said?

Who said it right?

And when you call up American Express, they know that.

So nimble is the nudge on your shoulder that'll basically

say, oh yeah, you met Ian.

Um, In, in, in 2000, uh, 14.

And uh, and then you saw him at Social Media Marketing World in San Diego

and, and you know, all the history and this is what's going on in his life.

And that way when you're connecting with somebody, you could spend time listening.

Instead of Googling them, you're actually present with them and you have

an easy way to do what's my next step?

Because if you don't have a next step with somebody that's important to you.

Then what's the purpose of the connection?

Why are you building a relationship with somebody?

And so you really need to have a contact platform to manage the most

important asset that you have, the relationships that you're building

for to create the brand that you want to achieve, the purpose that you want

in your life, which I hope involves helping other people achieve their.

Awesome stuff.

Yeah.

Well, if you wanna check out Nimble, just go to nimble.com.

Uh, nimble aren't sponsoring this podcast by the way.

I'm just, I'm just a fan.

So there you go.

Uh, just before we move on, I just wanted to remind you of the big giveaway.

So episode 200, the fourth anniversary of this podcast.

We're doing a big giveaway.

Uh, there's gonna be a Heil microphone that you get.

Uh, you could also get a copy of eComm Live, uh, restream.

Lots of cool tools.

Also, the book, the most amazing marketing book ever, which I

have written a chapter for.

This is, uh, mark Schaeffer's book.

So if you want to enter this, uh, I will be doing, uh, baking, making

announcements at the end of the month.

This is June, 2023.

So sorry if you're listening in the future, but all you to do

is go to Confidence Live slash.

Giveaway that's confident live slash giveaway, and all the best with that.

It's gonna be fun and exciting.

So John, uh, let's, let's move on to, um, this uncertain world that we're living in.

And, and I, I keep on talking to people, uh, you know, and this was at

the conference I've been to, but I've been speaking to, to people who, on the

surface, they seem really successful.

They've been doing really well over the years.

But they're struggling, some of them.

Mm-hmm.

You know, it's been a tough year, uh, cost of living.

So I, I'm gonna, this is gonna all sound very melodramatic and depressing, but I'm

hoping that you're gonna help us here.

It's a cost of living crisis, inflation, um, losing clients.

Uh, a lot of companies are, are slashing, say their marketing, uh,

bus, uh, marketing, uh, budget.

Uh, there's so much more content than there ever was before.

Blog traffic is going down.

Ai, which is, which is cool and exciting, but there's obviously a

bit of uncertainty there as well.

So can you give us a bit of hope in this uncertain world, uh, for our businesses

when it comes to marketing and growing?

Well, you know, as you were saying that, a song came to my

head, it was a Monty Python song.

Do you know Monty Python?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Big fan.

Always look on the bride side of life.

Did, did, did.

And they were saying this when they were on the cross in, uh,

in, in the Holy Grail movie.

Um, but uh, seriously, uh, I think this is a great question.

I think that we've all struggled these past few years, um, whether somebody wants

to admit it or not, this past few years.

Has been transformational, uh, to us all.

And I, I think I'd be the first to admit that there's been moments

of that where I was depressed.

Uh, I was scared.

I didn't know what the future might hold.

Massive change was happening around us, and it, and it's still happening and it's,

it's accelerating in so many ways, but.

I think I have to go back to my roots, uh, of kind of the way I was taught

about life, that it's gonna be okay tomorrow that life's like a Beethoven

symphony, that they're high in low notes, and that you have to embrace

both in your life in order to have a true, full experience of life.

And so, um, there's moments when the world is showering me with.

Gifts and there's moments where the universe smacks me right upside my head.

And uh, and I think that this whole, um, crisis that we, that we're

still going through has really smacked us all and that we don't all

really understand fully its effect.

But I think we need to be empathetic with ourselves.

To start, I think we need to really just get present with ourselves.

I.

Just embrace that it's been a hard for years and give yourself a hug and then

start doing that with other people.

I think that it's important to do what you and I are doing right now, Ian,

is to go out and reconnect with other human beings, and it's okay to start

digitally like we're doing today.

I.

I think that the more digital we get, the more human we need to be.

As our dear friend Brian Kra teaches us on a daily basis and that we

need to go out and, uh, get face to face with each other again, to

actually touch other human beings.

And I'm gonna tell you a story about Mark Shaffer, uh, who I adore.

You know, mark, right?

You just mentioned him.

Um, so my wife and I were going out to visit a town called

Asheville, North Carolina.

And if you haven't been to Asheville, definitely check it out.

And I knew that it was near, uh, where my dear friend Mark Shaeffer lived and,

uh, lives and I made a point to, um, to reach out to him and connect with him.

He invited me, come stay at his house.

I flew in in Knoxville and I went to his house on the lake and I spent, uh, a day

and a half with Mark and his, uh, amazing wife on his beautiful home on the lake.

In, uh, Tennessee, and it was, it was joyful.

It was great.

I mean, I've, I've, I'm, I've seen Mark met.

Mark had dinner with Mark over the years, so many times contributed his books.

Uh, I'm part of his tribe.

But to actually spend time, uh, with him in his home on

the lake, it was just great.

And I had this picture I have to share with you sometime with

Mark and I on, on the boat.

It's just, it's literally electric.

It's just like so beautiful.

And so, um, I think that, uh, we should all admit that this past few years has

been, uh, pretty, uh, hard and that, um, The light is beginning to shine at the end

of the tunnel, and I believe that we're coming out of that cycle, but there will

be more cycles, there'll be more stuff.

Um, there's gonna be more gifts, and there's gonna be

more smacking by the universe.

So embrace the gifts when the universe is showering you, um, take your lumps

when the universe is smacking, you know that there are cycles in life.

Like anything.

That there will be more high notes if you're in low notes or more

low notes if you're in high notes.

Uh, but I do believe that in every point of change in the, uh,

cycle of man is great opportunity.

And I've started two businesses in recessions and I do believe that we may

be going into a slight recession and it's going to get harder for a period of time.

But that change will create opportunities in my mind.

Everybody's gonna need to be working smarter and better and,

and why not work smarter and better with your relationships?

And so, because Nimble is super smart, but also very affordable.

I think a lot of people are going to question why they're spending so

much on some of these more expensive CRMs and start using Nimble.

So I think that, um, that every struggle, every challenge creates opportunities

and make the most of these opportunities that are coming in front of you today.

Believe in what you're doing.

Keep putting those foot, those feet in front of each other and, uh, and,

and send your prayers to the universe.

Be present and listen.

For that knock.

And if it does happen and it feels right, jump through that door.

So important stuff there.

I I, I think I'm, I'm gonna have to replay that later cuz there was so

many wonderful points you made there.

Uh, and reconnecting with people, ideally in person, but, uh, and,

and asking people how they're doing and, you know, encourage people.

I think so many of us don't get the encouragement.

Yeah.

Um, people are struggling.

So I, I think that is so important.

Uh, and, and, and the number one thing that people want in life is to

be seen, heard, wanted, and loved.

That is why we feed these things with stuff so that we get the little red lights

that say, people see you, people hear you.

People want you, and that is the best gift that you can give

other people is your presence.

To their moments, acknowledging them and in that moment of connection with them,

find a way to blow wind in their sails.

And if you do that is, if that is your purpose of every interaction with

every human being, is to gift that human being with something, even if, if

it's mainly ma, even if it's only your presence in the moment where you're

checking out your groceries, rather than staring at your phone looking for

more notifications from somebody who might be liking or whatever your post.

Mm.

Give your presence to that person that's serving you in the moment.

Give them a smile, ask 'em how they're doing.

Give them a little bit of love.

And I guarantee you, if you do that with every interaction, especially the ones

that you take the time to schedule a call and have interactions with other people,

if you spend all your time listening to them, rather than spewing on them.

You're gonna learn enough to give, uh, to, to, to give, to

blow some wind in their sails.

And if that is your purpose of every interaction, is to connect deep enough

to learn enough to acknowledge them as a human being and find a way to add some

value, that's the secret to life success.

Zig Ziglar said it, the more people you outgrow, the more you will grow.

And so I think that that is your secret to life's success that I just gave you.

I love that.

It's so counter counterintuitive is isn't it?

It it, it feels like it's the wrong way around, but it works.

It so works.

So yeah, reach out to people.

Uh, Do, do, you know, contact people?

And the, the big thing that I, I, I used to really struggle at this, and that's

listening, truly listening to people.

Part of that is that I've not got a very good short term memory, so I wanna

spew out before I forget, but, Yeah, actually stop and truly listen to people.

We're almost out of time, John.

Um, and I did, but I did want to ask you a couple of questions.

So I dunno how brief you can be because they're kind of maybe quite big question.

But the first one was, why is authenticity important when marketing our brand?

Um, we've talked about authentic human connections quite a bit, I

think in, in the last few minutes.

Um, but, and, and the word authenticity is kind of banded around a lot.

You know, we talk, but we talk about it in live video.

Why is it important in marketing our brand particularly at the moment?

Well, people have more senses than you, than, than they know that they do.

Um, have you ever been walking behind somebody?

Um, And, and they turn around, they catch you looking at them, or you

are walking and you turn around and catch somebody looking at you and

you, you, you turn around or they turn around because they felt you.

Mm.

Do you know what I mean by that?

Like Yeah.

Like I can feel people, I know that I can, I, I, I've experienced it in so many ways.

I could actually, I've actually read people's minds before there

was a guy who was telling me, John, I gotta tell you something.

He, and I said, you have a, you have a daughter.

He said, how'd you know?

I said, I felt it.

So people can, if your brand isn't aligned with the promises you

make and the experience that you deliver, people will sense it.

People will know it, and it's misaligned and it'll affect the way

people feel about you, et cetera.

Authenticity is everything, and so you need to align who you say you are.

To the experience that you deliver and um, and, and the products that you serve.

There's a restaurant in California called Houston's or Hillstone's,

go eat there when you're, if you're ever in, in United States.

And what you'll find is that the, the environment, the food, the

service is all topnotch and they work very hard to deliver that.

And that authenticity makes that restaurant just packed all the time.

And so I think authenticity is everything, especially, uh, the more human we all need

to be with all this AI and, and all this digital stuff that we're being buried in.

I think that's why you're gonna stand out is being an authentic human.

Mm.

I I'm so with you on that.

Uh, in so many ways, I think this is why.

Live video is, can continue to be important.

Mm-hmm.

But why?

Just, just being more authentic, more real, more raw.

Um, almost vulnerable is maybe the word as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, Ian, you're hitting on something really hard there.

I mean, really important.

I try to roll up my sleeves and open my shirt and let

people see my heart and soul.

And I think that's why they connect with me is because they feel me.

They, they, they, they feel connected.

They, they know me.

I mean, I just say who I am when I feel it, and they, they get that right.

And um, and I think that the more you do, that the deeper people connect with you.

I call it the five Fs of life.

We connect, not on our business commonalities, but on the softer side,

family friend, food fund, and fellowship.

So if you share those commonalities, nice to teach that.

If you go into somebody's office, look at the, look at the walls, look at the books

they read, the degree of the school they went to, the knickknacks, they collect.

All these things are what you share in common with somebody.

And if you share that with that person and you build bonds on commonality

like that, then even if you haven't spoken to somebody in years, that

connection will always be there.

Yeah, so true.

Um, if you could share one or two things very quickly that people need

to, that I suppose people can do now that's different to what they did

before, what would they be in order to, to get them out of the, the slump that

they're in and grow their business?

What would they be?

You know, I think that the biggest thing is just get out in the Digital River.

I think that a lot of people are still like in their little shop on Main Street

with that little bell on their door, and they're sitting inside their shop behind

the counter and they're sitting there looking at their phone and they're just

an addict on their phone and they're not really truly engaging with people.

And so think about a a, a trade show booth.

How many times do you walk by a trade show booth at a trade show and people

are sitting at the counter inside their booth staring at their phone versus

standing at the edge of their booth, or ideally in the aisle of their booth

engaging the people that walk by.

Do, do you feel the energy difference there?

Yeah, definitely.

And so, so I think that that's what you need to be doing on a

daily basis is to get out in the digital, social river of life.

And, uh, put your, the, the, those, those rubber pants on and go stand

out in the middle of the river and that's where you want to drop your

fishing lure and, uh, and to begin to listen and engage and interact.

So build a brand in all the places where your constituency has conversations

to, to learn and grow about how to be better, smart and faster in and around

the areas of your products and services.

Give away knowledge on a daily basis to help other people grow

around those products and services.

Listen, engage with the intent to serve and grow as about as

the bag and tag, and the universe will shower you with um, success.

Love that.

Well, we are definitely out of time.

I was gonna, I was, I was gonna make this a shorter episode, but John, you've

just shared so many different things.

I just, I just, I couldn't stop mic, baby.

Oh, that was awesome.

Say one thing, Ian, if, if you're listening the show today and the

stuff that I'm talking about, about building your golden Rolodex, managing

relationships, Resonates with you and you go sign up for a free two week

trial@nimble.com and you dig what you see.

Use the code j o N 40.

John 40, and you'll get 40% off your first three months.

Wow, that's very generous of you.

Thank you so much, John, for that.

So do check out Nimble and use that code.

It's been so great to have you on John.

Uh, where can people follow you obviously go to Nimble, but you

are on the socials, obviously.

Where, where's the best place for people to connect with you?

You know, this is my last piece of advice.

Ian Google.

Google me.

You'll find j o n Ferrara, f e r r a r a.

You'll find, uh, and then connect with me in whatever channel

feels comfortable with you.

And notice that I fill up the first couple pages.

So Google yourself, people are gonna Google you before they meet with you.

Are you showing up on the first page?

Are you filling up a couple pages?

If not, and you want to do better, create a Wikipedia page for yourself.

It's free as long as you follow the guidelines of siding, all

your background, et cetera.

And Google will format that into a really nice box right there on

the page when people Google you.

So, uh, Google me and connect with me on whatever channel that makes sense for you.

Love that.

And we did a whole episode on brand SERPs and knowledge panels.

We had Jason Barnard on, I can't remember which number it's, but if you wanna

find a bit more about that, John's advice here was, is definitely good.

Love the Wikipedia idea.

Um, uh, I'll, I'll look into that.

Well, thanks John.

It's been great to have you on the show.

Really appreciate it.

Um, thank you, Ian.

Awesome.

Well thank you so much for watching or for plugging us into, Uh,

your ears really appreciate that.

Uh, you can find out the podcast at iag.me/podcast.

And this goes, uh, this gets broadcast on all the usual channels.

Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn as well.

But until next time, I encourage you to level up your impact,

authority, and profits through the power of Confident Live video.

See you soon.

Bye.

Thanks for watching the Confident Live Marketing Show with Ian Anderson Gray.

Make sure you subscribe at iag me slash podcast so you can continue to

level up your impact, authority, and profits through the power of Live video.

And until next time, see.