Janice Porter: 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
Nikki Nash: you so much for having me.
Janice Porter: 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.
Nikki Nash: 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.
Janice Porter: And it's all I'm sure, as well.
Nikki Nash: 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.
Janice Porter: 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.
Nikki Nash: 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.
Janice Porter: 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.
Nikki Nash: It'll be three years in, depending on when this airs
at the end of August of 2024. So, August 24, of 2021. Well,
Janice Porter: that's exciting. Yeah. In the middle of COVID.
That's fun. Yeah. Just to get the book written COVID No,
Nikki Nash: 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
Janice Porter: clear. Exactly, exactly. Everybody's
Nikki Nash: Yeah, launch date got pushed back.
Janice Porter: 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?
Nikki Nash: 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,
Janice Porter: 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
Nikki Nash: 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
Janice Porter: 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.
Nikki Nash: 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,
Janice Porter: 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
Nikki Nash: 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
Janice Porter: 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.
Nikki Nash: 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.
Janice Porter: 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?
Nikki Nash: 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.
Janice Porter: A lot these days, they're actually yes.
Nikki Nash: 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.
Janice Porter: 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?
Nikki Nash: 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.
Janice Porter: 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?
Nikki Nash: 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.
Janice Porter: Have you read any Louise Penny books?
Nikki Nash: No, but I should to write her
Janice Porter: 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.
Nikki Nash: Yeah. I love a good murder mystery. For TV, it could
be I watched British murder mysteries. I even watched
Hallmark Channel murder.
Janice Porter: Don't go there.
Nikki Nash: 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
Janice Porter: 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?
Nikki Nash: 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,
Janice Porter: 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?
Nikki Nash: 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.
Janice Porter: 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.
Nikki Nash: Based on your expertise, they need to connect
with me on LinkedIn. Like send me a DM that you heard me on the
show.
Janice Porter: Okay, done, or, yeah, and your website? Of
course, Nikki nash.co, right. Yes,
Nikki Nash: 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.
Janice Porter: 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