The One With Nick Nanton - I Love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson - Episode #138

I'm dean jackson, he's joe polish, and this is the I love marketing podcast. Hey everybody, it's Dean Jackson and Joe Polish.

And a very special guest who was really. It was more of my initiative taking than Dean's in order to make this happen today. So I just want to point that out. So everyone has bad feelings towards Dean as we start this up because we're going to talk a little bit about the truthful. I want to start with me having a better brand than Dean. But we've got our good friend Nick Manton on the line and, and Nick can hear us.

Three time Emmy winner, Nick Nanton.

You gotta say that. I can hear everyone wonderfully good.

Well, Dean, do you want to do the intro of Nick and say all the wonderful things about him other than the fact that he's smart enough to be in Genius Network and stuff or.

How do you want to do this exactly? Well, Nick, as we said, is a three time Emmy winner. Not many people can say that. And I have been present and with him for two thirds of his Emmy wins celebrating them right there beside him. So there you go. You got that going for us now. We're excited.

He also has a background as an attorney too. So I mean there won't be any points, you know, every time I see.

Do you ever see tmz and at the end that Harvey Levin, you know, his whole thing, I'm a lawyer. That's what I always think about with Nick because he's a lawyer too.

You help package expertise, you help position it, you help people write books, you put together movies. I mean there's all kinds of stuff that you do. So if you could give your own bio of who the heck you are and what you do, what would you say about yourself? I mean, I've got your book Celebrity Branding youg in front of me and I could read the bio here, but I'd rather just go straight to.

I'll give you the short long version. But just the point is I'm an entertainment guy by trade. Grew up in the entertainment business. Started playing guitar at 6, started writing songs at 16 because I liked girls and they liked songs. And I put up my first record at 18, of which there's still about 800 copies under my parents bed. And that's because I didn't understand one of the key concepts we'll talk about today. But I was in entertainment. Went off to university, worked with a bunch of big celebrities while I was in school, bringing them to the college campus to speak or to perform or Whatever. Got the opportunity to work with Bill Cosby, President Bush, legendary basketball coach Bobby Knight, Don Shoeless, super bowl champ Christopher Reeve before he passed away. And the bottom line was coming from both worlds, kind of creating media that people liked and trying to create Persona with bands. When I was in college and then seeing the other side of people who had made it and were getting paid 20, 30, 40, 50, $100,000 in engagement, I really figured out that there wasn't much difference between the two. It was really just the way they were packaged. And usually they didn't know how to do that themselves at all. They were surrounded by a team of people who really built buzz for them. To make a long story short, I partnered up with my longtime mentor, Jack. And Jack is an absolute expert at a lot of things. But he had led the marketing sales of over a billion dollars worth of products and services with really two skill sets, and that's direct marketing and personal branding. And he said, nick, if you combine your two skill sets, and mine really were. And he kind of identified them, I didn't think about it, but media creation, from all the graphic design and video production and all that stuff, I'd done music production and celebrity buzz building from hanging around with celebrities. He said, I think if we combine our four skill, we can create a category here. We can actually create the first agency in the world that represents business people instead of just Hollywood celebrities. Because I was kind of on the path to become an agent in the entertainment world. So really he's an attorney as well, but we're both just serial entrepreneurs. And so we became business agents. So we're currently the largest personal branding agency in the world. We have over 2,000 clients in 33 countries. And we've gotten clients on, I mean, about every media you can think of. We do things rather uniquely. And we'll talk about that. And then just personally, I'm married, live in Orlando, been married for over 11 years, got three kids. I'm an avid Florida Gator fan, even when we stink. And, you know, I like to have fun. How's that?

Yeah, no, that's awesome. That is good. And yeah, you do like to have fun. I mean, sometimes a little too much, but that's a whole other story. Nick, you're very clever. You're very smart. And let me ask you something, too. That's going to sound sort of weird kind of going into this, but I think it's important. Do you make people appear better and greater than they actually are? I mean, do you manufacture this whole Persona around People that they're really not all that cool, but you really make them look all that cool. I mean, how would you respond to that?

How would I respond to that? Well, my response really would be I try to help people, help the general public see people for who they really are. Now, could it be perceived as other than that? Well, certainly you can spin anything two ways, but I don't intentionally go out and try to make somebody look better than they actually are. But I will say just from being in the world, and we'll talk about branding and what it really is in a second here. But being in the world of kind of branding and packaging, it is so sad to me that I meet some of the smartest people in the world who, I mean, you might not call them cool, but they're some of the smartest people in the world who help people immensely, saving lives, saving retirements, whatever it is, and the world just doesn't know they exist. So what I really try to do is there's kind of two categories of people that I try to bring together. There's celebrities and let's go from the obvious. I mean the celebrities who, some of the starlets who really have no talent, we could say, but are really well known and make a lot of money. And then there's experts and let's go to the other opposite of the spectrum, the guy who doesn't make any money. He's in the basement of university curing cancer and AIDS or whatever else, and he's not making any money and no one knows who he is and he can't help anybody. So I really try to bridge the gap and create celebrity experts where people who are really well known get really well paid because they're experts. If I get them really well known and they're not experts, that crumbles really quickly. But I don't know everything about every industry. So I'm sure there have been times where I built someone up a Persona that they couldn't live up to and that's just part of the nature of the beast. Try to put words or ideas into someone's head that they can't carry or that they don't know. So hopefully that answers your question in a non political correct way that gives you the right answer.

Yeah, well, that's actually great. That was funny the way you ended that too. Well, here's one of the things I've said numerous times that your job as a marketer is manufacturing credibility. If you do not have any, and when I say do not have any, you could Be a very credible individual. Like you could even say they didn't have to be cool. They could be very smart. They could have formulas, methods, processes, know how that can do everything from save lives to just make people laugh. You know, I mean, whatever their skill set is, it could be a very serious thing or it could be a very non serious thing or it can be a destructive thing. I mean, there's a million different abilities that people have and how you package it and present it. So when I make a statement like, you know, the job of the marketer is to manufacture credibility. Well, believability I have found is more important than credibility. Important from the standpoint of people to seek you out, to find you desirable. Now frankly, if you want to be honest and ethical, you need to deliver everything you say and more money earned ethically is a byproduct of value creation. You need to not overstate what you're able to deliver. All of those things being said, there's a tremendous amount of people that are out there that the world does not know who they are. The way they present themselves is pathetic. And you want to package yourself up so that people want you because nobody seeks out that which they are one oblivious to or have no desire for or do not want. And as David Ogle, he said, you cannot bore people into buying. I ask that question because you're one of the few people that I know that does a tremendous amount of work in the branding world that actually also understands marketing and also understands direct response. Because you've probably read my article, Branding equals bullshit. Which it's a context thing, not branding in and of itself, but how most people will put time and effort and energy, logos and on imagery and on certain things, but there's no substance to what it is that they're selling or they don't make specific offers. There's no call to actions. So you know all of these elements of direct response and you do it under this umbrella of branding. And so those are the things that me and Dean are going to talk with you about today and kind of just get you to clarify because I think it will be incredibly helpful to our listeners. And I know you've helped a lot of people obtain a lot of success with what you've done. So I mean, I'm not talking to some guy here that just has a few ide. I mean, you're in my 25k group, I've seen you at other events, you know your shit, you have a lot of high profile clients, that sort of stuff. So just Wanted to go on that ramp for a minute.

There you go. Let me address the Brandon thing for a second because it's really funny because I really kind of grew up in the Dan Kennedy world of direct response more than anything. And it's like Dan's a business partner of mine on a couple of different businesses. And the thing about it is in one of his newsletters, I think he quoted somebody else, I don't remember who said this. So someone. It was either Dan or someone in his newsletter. So the credit comes from Planet Dan, we'll call it. But he said, and this is a paraphrase too. So I'm really like, I'm not a university professor, so we don't have a site. And I'm not even going to say it right, but you'll get the point. So the point is that he said something like, branding without direct response is suicide, but direct response without branding is just a wasted opportunity. So, like, if you're going to go out into the marketplace and create desire for a product, why wouldn't you create a brand around that product? If you're going to go out in the marketplace and create a brand for a product without a desire, you're just going to run out of money. And we've seen that happen over and over and over again. So the two really play together really super well. You just have to know how to do it. And then the thing about branding that I like to break down, and I like to say this too, look, I'm an expert in branding, media, marketing, pr, and I'm a lawyer. If I were the stereotype of all four types of these people, I would be literally the lowest scum on the earth. Thankfully, I'm not. But. But here's the thing you got to know about branding. This is very simple. A lot of people try to charge you all sorts of money to confuse you, to make it unclear, to make a logo that doesn't do anything for you. I mean, logos are important, but it's not be all, end all. Look, branding is one thing. It comes down to a one word answer. Branding is simply storytelling. Your brand is your story. How effectively you tell that story dictates two things. How many people you can help and how much money you can make. And that money can be for yourself. You can give it all away to nuns in Africa, I don't care. But when you create value for people, you're going to make money one way or the other. Your brand is your story. And how effectively you tell that story dictates those Two things. How many people you can help and how much money you can make.

Awesome. I like it. Dean. I can rattle on forever. So go ahead and hit him with some thought provoking questions and make me proud. Dean.

Exactly.

Let's build this brand we got here called I love marketing.

Well, one of my favorite things about Nick is that he's actually a guy that has an answer. When you ask him the question, what is branding? His answer actually makes sense. When I first met Nick, he's really high energy and I love that about him. He's got lots of ideas and you meet lots of people like that. You meet people who are real high energy and they talk about all these ideas. But Nick's actually a guy that's done all the things that he talks about. And so I affectionately refer to him as a hacker in a lot of ways of figuring out, by figuring out the pathway to do things like figuring.

Out.

How to become a best selling author, how to get all of these credibility things, and how much of that kind of figuring out the process for something goes into building a lot of that credibility. Nick.

I mean, so much of it. It's a really funny story and we don't have time for it really today, but I'll tell you, it's a statement that will make it all make so much sense. But be so funny to you that I literally won my first Emmy by googling how to win an Emmy. And I was trying to reverse engineer the process because I knew there had to be a process to it. And it was. I mean, look, you had to have a great product and you had to have a great story. Those are like the given. But what I knew was like, if I didn't enter the right categories, if I didn't enter through the right avenues, if I didn't, something that I might call a promotion or a promotional piece, someone else might call a commercial, I don't know. But just the splitting of hairs. You actually lose so much opportunity in life by not understanding the systems that other people are working on. And I think if you look at that too, I think that's why so many people lose so much business. Because essentially every consumer, every customer, whether it's, whether it's a business or a consumer that's buying something, they're working based on some language, some closed system that they've developed or learned throughout life. And if you don't know how to speak their language or to get them to understand yours, you're out to lunch. But I spent so much time, I spent so much Time, all the time, trying to figure out how can I hack the system to give people like, how can I democratize media? One of the things that really frustrated me about being an attorney when I first started out was, was like trying to get media because I knew I needed to, quote, unquote, get out there to get people to know who I was. And I knew I could use it for credibility. But one thing was like, so I've got to, I have to suck up to some 19 year old in a newsroom who gets to dictate what's newsworthy and what's not. I mean, I got clients who are heart surgeons who save lives every day and they won't cover them in the news because it's not in their mind, not newsworthy. Now to some extent I get it, because they don't want to put out a story every day that Dr. Smith saved a life today. Dr. Smith saved a life today. So it really becomes, it's not the. But often times it's not the underlying proposition, it's how it's presented to the world that actually makes people want to pay attention or not.

That's a good point. In the introduction to your book you talk about the first rule is people buy.

People.

Talk about that and then go a little deeper with what you just were talking about.

Sure, yeah, yeah, that's easy. So people buy people. People buy from people they know, like and trust. Some will argue that in today's day and age, you got to make them trust you before they want to get to know you and like you and then buy from you. Which is true in some cases too because there's so much content out there. But I mean, there's been studies done that. There's a study done at university a few years ago where people, you know, were asked for their two most expensive purchases in life and alimony didn't count. I'm just kidding. But their two most expensive purchases in life, you know, how did they make their decision? And it was a house and a car. I would say education is fast approaching that. Those same numbers, over 90% of the people said they made their final purchasing decision based on the person who sold them the item. And the fact of the matter is, if you look at it, look, I mean, we all might be a connoisseur in one thing or another. You might really like cars, you might really like beer or whatever it is. But ultimately, with all the transactions we have to make in our life, we're ultimately looking for an expert to make that easier for us. That's all we want to do, right? And so. And the higher you get up the affluent ladder, the higher you get up that ladder, the more that person is looking for the guy. You've heard it before, I'm just looking for the guy who can fix this problem. They're not looking for a product, they're not looking for a service. They don't care if that Guy cobbles together 18 different things to make it happen the way he wants it to happen. He wants the guy who can fix the problem. So we buy things from people we know like and trust, and we want to deal with people. It's the same reason why Nike pays Michael Jordan so much money or Tiger woods so much money. It's really why brands, even big brands, put people out in front of their brands. Because it's so much easier to make a personal connection with a living, breathing human being than it is with some inanimate object like a logo. So that's why we so much push personal branding, celebrity branding as we call it. So, I mean, one of the objections I get to that is like, well, hey, there's this personal injury lawyer in my town. He's a total corn dog. I'm like, well, yeah, that guy's a corn dog before he got on tv. Doesn't mean you have to become a gorndog because you step out in front of your business. But by being who you are, you build affinity quickly with people. So by telling your story, by telling your origin story, where you came from, all that sort of stuff. I have people that hear my presentations all the time that want to talk to me about playing guitar or want to talk to me about. I'm from Barbados. I mean, whatever. It's these personal hooks. Affinity builds trust. If somebody's like you, you start to trust them. The first thing you do when you see someone in a sales presentation or sales mode, you try to figure out why they're lying to you or why they're not like you, or why their solution is not going to work. Because we love buying, hate being sold. You know that. So that's the thing about people, by people. I also really, when we get into branding and sales and all that stuff, there's really kind of two main principles that I teach everyone that they have to understand in order to know how any of this stuff works and to use it effectively. One is called the. I'm not going to remember the names for my own principles here, but one's called the. The Secret Formula for Me to Success. And that is also Based on the business trifecta. Those are my two things there. So the business trifecta is the fact that your business really runs on like three cylinders. I often liken it to my first car I bought when I was 16 was a Daihatsu charade. Everyone will probably remember this car because it was a hot seller. I'm just kidding. It was a three cylinder hatchback from Daihatsu, right? And so I didn't realize they even made three cylinder cars. But one day I used to have to turn off the air conditioner conditioner to get on the highway.

I didn't even know that until just now, Nick. I mean, like you're.

There you go. So I used to have to turn off the air conditioner to get on the highway. And dates did not like this. And so one time I was getting oil change and the guy's like, hey, Nick, did you realize that you're only running on two cylinders? I'm like, I had no idea. He fixed it. And all of a sudden I can get on the highway. The dates abounded after that, right? So the point of the matter is that most of us are running our businesses on one, maybe two, but most likely not all three of these cylinders. And these three cylinders are very simple. Media, marketing, and pr. But you got to have all three. I hear so many people say all the time, Nick, you know what, man? I hired a PR firm and I paid them five grand a month, let's say. And at the end of the year, the only thing that changed was I was down 60 grand. I'm like, well, yeah, but what was your marketing and media behind that? Well, what do you mean? So here's how I explain it. Media is just a medium for telling your story. Media is just a medium for telling your story. And I'll go back and cover the types of media in a second because that's important. Important PR is getting your. There's two types of pr, as I call it. There's like traditional pr where you, like, something exciting is going to happen and you put out press releases and you hope the journalists cover you. And it's good if you can get in major publications. It's awesome. The most important thing to understand, though, is that nothing gets sold from traditional pr, right? So you get on. I have clients all the time say, hey, Nick, could you get me on Good Morning America? I say, well, I probably could, but let me save you a lot of time, energy and effort because number one, when was the last time you watched Good Morning America? Crickets, right? They have no idea. Okay, and when was the last time you ever watched a TV show that someone was being interviewed or you read a newspaper article and someone was quoted in it? All these things that you pay PR firms a lot of money to do. And when was the last time you read that article or you watched that show and you said, that person is so brilliant, I'm going to stop what I'm doing, I'm going to look them up and I'm going to try to hire them. That's not what, what we do. We watch tv, read newspapers, read magazines for education. But really entertainment value. We're not looking to make purchasing decisions usually when we do that. But pr, the pre PR or kind of the old school PR is great for getting you that credibility and awareness, getting in that media. Right now there's a new type of PR that I would call, it's kind of like post pr. It doesn't matter what happens. It can be after an event, but with, with press releases online. And you can syndicate press releases online, you can write that you just chewed a piece of gum, you can write that you just closed a deal and you can syndicate these things out. So one of the things I do for my clients is when we make them best selling authors or for example, when I get them on NBC, cbs, ABC and Fox affiliates around the country on one of my TV shows, well, were I to send a press release to the New York Times saying that you just got on abc, NBC, CBS and Fox Phillips around the country, that's not news to them. But when you syndicate it online through a proper PR syndication engine, like there's a great free one called P R log, P R L O G.org, you syndicate it out through that and you use your right keywords in the headline. Now when people search for my clients online, which is the first thing people do when they learn about you, right, they search for you online. If they can't find you on the first page, they wonder if you're in the witness protection program, right? So they search for you. And one of the first things they find on my client's first page of Google is the fact that they've been on NBC. Then they find another press release right below that they've been on abc. They found another one below that they've been on cbs. You get the point. But basically we're dominating the first page of Google for many of my clients for their names and their business names just because of the activity we're creating. So PR is validating who you Say you are media, helps you tell your story. PR validates the fact that the story you told is true and gives you even more credentials on top of it. Now, marketing is really the only thing that generates revenue, right? I mean, that's how we generate money. I heard a NASCAR figure one time that was like, hey, for every sponsor that comes into the NASCAR network, we tell them that they should have as much money in marketing as they are spending to sponsor a car. So if you're spending $10 million putting your name on a car or whatever it is, you should expect to spend another $10 million to make people take action. I think that's a really. I had never heard anyone really quite. Because most people just want your money and they tell you nothing else, right? But they are smart. They're in the long game. I heard that. Okay, cool. So now the second thing that just to tie it all together, what I call the secret formula for media success is this. There are two types of media. There's mass media, television, radio, newspaper, magazine. I already covered it. Again, amazing. For credibility and awareness. But the problem is, again, if I was in the New York Times like I was one time, it was in the recycling bin that same day or the next day, that's gone forever. Had I not framed it and put it on my wall, no one would ever know. So that's mass media. Direct media is really marketing. It's any sort of media you create. You guys are both masters of this. Creating an audience of people who actually care because you nurture them. They raised their hand proverbially in some way. They've opted in, they've given their business card, they're referred by a friend. You then create your own media and you send it out to them to tell the story you want to tell. And you can obviously make offers in it. So direct media can be everything from newsletters to CDs, DVDs, movies, magazines, sales letters, postcards. But direct media is where you make money. The problem with direct media is it really is just marketing. People know you're selling them something. So what I call the secret formula for media success is taking mass media credentials and credibility the fastest, easiest, most inexpensive way you can get them, and then inserting them in your direct media. So when I get my clients on my show or make them best selling authors or get them in major publications, I tell them, look, don't expect the phone to ring at all. It's not going to. But now when you read their bio, I'll use a facetious example for a Second of myself. But if I were to send you out a sales letter and I started it this way, I could say, hi, my name is Nick Nanton. You might have recently seen me on NBC, cbs, abc, fox, cnn, msnbc, cnbc, or on my hit series on the Biography channel. Maybe you've read one of my 33 best selling books, co authored alongside Steve Forbes, Jack Canfield, Brian Tracy. Or perhaps you've seen me in the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine. You get the point. I mean, people will go, have I been in a coma? No, they haven't. They just weren't watching when I was there. And that's what the general public isn't watching when you're there. So the whole point is getting that mass media credentials and then inserting it in your direct media, which is really your marketing and spending your money on your marketing because that's what's going to monetize.

So for instance, if you just said you may have heard me on I love marketing, would that hold much higher credibility than all those other media channels.

And esteem, most importantly, high esteem and credibility? Yes. That's a great quote I heard. Yeah, there you go.

Here's something to tie it all together. Nick, I heard this quote. It says, I'm going to read something that I just found that ties it all together. It says, if the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign that says circus coming to the fairground Saturday, that's advertising. If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk it into town, that's promotion. If the elephant walks through the mayor's flower bed, that's publicity. And if you get the mayor to laugh about it, that's public relations. If the town sitteth go to the circus, you show them the many entertainment booths, explain how much fun they'll have spending money at the booths, answer their questions, and ultimately they spend a lot at the circus. That's sales. And if you planned the whole thing, that's marketing. That ties it all up, doesn't it?

That's pretty good.

It does indeed. Another thing that a lot of people don't do, it's funny. Just as far as like manufacturing, manufacturing, credibility and you making the joke about I love marketing, which is not a joke. I mean, it's the best podcast out there, everybody knows that. But if you just were to put on your website, as seen on itunes, it's really funny. That's a logo that many people have, like they have a high credibility factor for. And it's just a logo you Put on your website. I actually saw a guy the other day. What's that?

Yeah, you look at on ilovemarketing.com right up in the top banner, we've got our five stars and quote, the most valuable podcast on the planet for entrepreneurs who want more business than they can handle, with the itunes logo right below it. It's credibility.

Beautiful.

You're right.

Yeah, exactly. I saw a guy driving down the road the other day. He's like a roofer or something, and he was literally on the side, but his truck said as seen number one on Google. And it's like, that's intriguing because he had people like, he's just the number one result for his name on Google.

That's actually pretty funny in all seriousness, too. I mean, I say that sort of stuff jokingly. How do you frame something like this? You're doing an interview with us. We're creating an episode together for I Love Marketing. What box would you put that in for you?

So, I mean, I think I know the question you're asking, but if I were being intelligent about it, let me tell you how I might promote it. Right, so. So I would put out a press release saying that I was booked as a guest on I Love Marketing and we're going to talk about the controversial subject of branding. I would obviously promote on Facebook and Twitter and all that stuff. I'd push out the press release. I'd syndicate the press release. I would, if I had time, I'd probably tease it through a blog post and I'd reference your blog post or one of them from before, maybe even your video. And so I'd say start, like, and I'm going to go head to head with Joe Polish and Dean Jackson and tell them why they're wrong. I might create some controversy, whatever, which they'll see typical in most controversy in media, it doesn't really exist. You kind of laugh once you get there.

Joe Polish says branding is bullshit.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then I would, once I got off the recording or whenever it was live, whatever, I'd post something. Hey, I just had a killer conversation with Joe and Dean. I can't wait until you can hear it. Actually, I'll do that right after this and then once it comes out, I'll push it. And then I'll also put out a press release that has some quotes from it and to learn more, go to this website. And then if I had a way to control it, I would actually make them opt in to hear it.

See, that's fantastic. That's the Mind of a marketer, too. You're thinking through all the different steps and all the different touch points. No, that's awesome. I wanted to go a little bit deeper with this. How? Like, look, we're friends. So if I said, hey, Nick, let's do an episode together, you would of course be agreeable to it. Because if any of us wanted to ask each other for any sort of anything within reason and we could fit it into our schedule, we would do it for our listeners. There's a lot of people like, oh, I need to start a podcast, or I need to do this, or I need to start a social media campaign, or I need to start a Facebook page, or I need to be in the New York Times or whatever it is. And they don't have, like, you've laid out all these different pieces and ways to look at it. Many people, they play blind archery. I mean, they go out and do a bunch of stuff, but they have no rhyme or reason or strategy behind it. With. I love marketing because I'm even sitting here thinking, how would we catch part of it? Is it per se marketing? Yeah, part of it is branding. Certainly part of it is me and Dean working through different ideas. And we decided to do it live into a platform so we can kill two birds with one stone. But it's more of a branding thing for us than anything. And as much as I don't like the word branding because of how it's been hijacked by idiots and they call things that branding as kind of a cop out for trying to sell people crap. Kind of like the statement you made earlier about how a lot of people will just call it a logo and call something branding. But I said to Dean, I go, let's rebrand the way people think about marketing. Because so many people have this sort of down opinion on marketing, but everyone needs it. It's like hating oxygen, but everyone needs it. You ain't going to survive with it. There's a lot of business owners that are listening right now that could take what you're saying and it could transform them. I mean, they absolutely could. People that really, let's say, serious stuff, a doctor or surgeon, someone that has something that can save lives and they simply don't know how to, for one, tell the story about it, how to package it, how to present it. But they're working all day. I mean, they're busy, they're trying to do stuff, but they're not landing. So it's like you're swinging the bat as hard as you can. But you're just not hitting the ball. And you actually teach people how to hit the ball. You teach people how to have home runs with this stuff. That being said, how do you decide where to put your time and effort? Do you have this thing in your head saying, okay, this is my outcome, I'm going to reverse engineer it? When you said, I did a Google search for how to win an Emmy, you kind of said it quickly. But that tells a lot about your thought process. You're trying to have the system and you're like, well, I really would like to win an Emmy, so what should I do? Why don't we study how to win an Emmy? Why don't we look at what causes people to win Emmys? Let's look at the categories that are going to give me the highest likelihood of success. So what is going to give people the highest likelihood of success and results following the advice that you're able to give?

Sure. So, I mean, the do it yourself answer is, is crank out content the fastest way you can. So I love, I mean, you guys did a great job with, I mean, you're recording the podcast, you're spending time talking. Anyway, it was a pretty efficient thing for you guys to do. You're both great speakers, you're both entertaining. It was just a good medium for you. Then you had that transcribed, you turned into the book. I mean, so the thing that gains expertise the fastest, I mean, of like the easiest things to do, that's fast, that doesn't include, like mass media stuff, is content. And content actually leads to more media stuff because they can see you're an expert. So if you go to my website right now, I don't even know how many blogs I got on there. But I mean, I blog for Fast Company, I blog for, on our own website, whatever. And I have hundreds and hundreds, I don't know, thousands of blog posts. So, like, I can't even hope anyone would read them all. But if someone's looking for an expert or someone who had credibility or they're trying to compare two people taking all the media cheats and shortcuts away because they really help. Because people don't read it. They just see, oh, you've been on nbcc. Ok, go on with this guy. But just the amount of content that you have have just dictates expertise. Like, you know, it's every, I call it the ladder of credibility. So every additional thing you do to separate yourself from your competition, whether that's write an article, write a blog, write a book, become a Best seller, get on tv, whatever that is, it gives you another rung on that ladder of credibility. And if you use that ladder of credibility correctly, you will be whenever you will be towering above your competition and when you're prospect looks around, the only thing they'll be able to see is you because you're so high above everyone else. So I mean, how do I prioritize the things I'm going to do? Well, I spend obviously a lot of time trying to figure out what will give my clients value from being involved with one of our projects, whether it's becoming a best selling author, getting on tv, whatever it is that we're doing for them. At the time I met Steve Forbes actually through you. And I did deal with Steve Forbes where a bunch of my clients got to co author a book with Steve Forbes. I'm doing it again. And so I just try to figure out. It's really funny. It's kind of like I know I'm in a profession in multiple professions. I mean as a lawyer and then also being in branding and media marketing and pr. There's a bajillion people out there claiming to do that for you. How can I separate myself apart from anyone everyone else? And so ultimately most of these things come out of me trying to build my own business and I test them. If they were, we use them. And so I mean again, you can't find anyone else in any of the businesses that I know of, particularly ones I'm in where someone has the same resume as me. I mean I've co authored books with Canfield, Jack Canfield of Chicken Soup for the Soul, Brian Tracy. I produced the Brian Tracy Show, I produced the Michael Gerber Show. I've won three Emmys, I've co authored a book with Steve Forbes. I've led a conference speaking alongside Steve Forbes called Successonomics. I mean so it's like, like I really just look for things like what will totally make me look not like anyone else. One of the biggest secrets I got, I only went to law school for one reason. I wanted to be the president of a record label. That whole business changed while I was in law school, Napster and all that stuff. But what I really found out, I mean I could not hang out in general in rooms full of lawyers. Rooms full of lawyers who like marketing, like Ben Glass has or something. I'm cool there, but just in general, rooms full of lawyers who don't want to understand how to market better. I couldn't do it. But I realized really quickly that I'd go to, like, Dan Kennedy conferences, and, like, Dan would call me out from the stage for being a lawyer in the room. Like, I was the only lawyer in the room. So it's just a positioning thing. I just really realized that I had the same credentials as, like, I don't know, 2 million people in the rest of the United States. However many lawyers there are, way too many, we all know. But I was just in a different room, in a room full of lawyers. I was just a lawyer in a room full of marketers. I was a lawyer that was something unique and different. So I really just try to find how can I show up like nobody else, and what is it going to take to do that? And so I think, obviously everyone on this podcast listening can figure that out. They can hear about it, they can think about it, but that's what you got to think about. And one of the easiest, fastest ways to start that is by creating content that you can use, and you can utilize content to display your expertise. Because we're all experts at something something, we just do a bad job displaying it. So I use the example all the time when people I speak at conferences, people are like, hey, I don't know if I'm really an expert. I'm like, well, you're an expert at something. Like, for example, I have a client, he's a chiropractor. He's an expert, I'm sure, at many things, but I know he's an expert at this one thing. He has this one ad, and I'm going to give you numbers. I don't really know them, but they're something like this. Every time he runs the ad in a community magazine, he gets 100 phone calls. He books 50 appointments, 25 of the people make it in, and he gets 10 new clients, whatever it is. And so he knows, effectively that every time he runs the ad, he gets 10 new clients. So that's once the math works. It works. Well, the math works. And so what we helped him do is we helped him create a program where he licensed that one ad, the ability to run that one ad through an area exclusive marketing agreement, so no one else in a certain area could get it besides one guy. And that one guy had to pay $1,000 a month to license the ad. And he licensed it to over 100 chiropractors. And all they did was run the same ad and paid him $1,000 a month. That's a million two a year. I'd say that's an expert. If you're making a Million bucks. And he was the only expert. I'm not saying only an expert, but all he had to do was be an expert at this one ad. So everyone has expertise. They're just doing a bad job displaying it. And by putting out content, you can just build voluminous amounts of content that you can see. Someone know something. It's like a book, my hardcover book. You can see how much I know. It thuds on the desk. And so whatever you can do to start displaying your expertise through content is probably the f way to start getting known as an expert.

Okay, so, no, that's really good. In terms of branding and building this Persona around yourself, I mean, we've made this statement several times. A lot of people are more interested in being well known than being well paid. And a lot of people will venture down this branding journey because they want people to know who they are and they want a good brand, and they don't even know what the hell that means, but they have ideas and visions of fame and notoriety and wealth. And if enough people know who you are, that somehow translates into riches and wealth and a successful business. We all know people that are incredibly famous that can't pay their rent. So basically, I think in a lot of ways, if someone starts going down the branding route without even understanding what they're doing, they. In many ways, they might as well just head off a cliff, because that's where it could lead if you don't have a strategy behind it. So can you speak to that a little bit?

Yeah. It's funny as you just said that too. I actually have a blog post I wrote, and it was actually a promotion, but it was how major media can kill your business. And it was talking about the whole concept of, I mean, obviously I want them to be in major media, but it's talking about if you don't know what to do with it, you're just going to spend all your time, energy, effort and money trying to get in major media and you're never going to get a sale and ultimately you're going to kill your business. But, yeah, I mean, I found it's a lot easier to get rich than famous. But the key to this really is niches. I mean, look, we've all heard the term riches and niches. I survived very well in a really nice niche we've kind of created. Again, it's very hard to compare what I do to somebody else because of the way we do it. You can't find. You might find one guy who does part of it here, one guy who does part of it there, but you can't find someone who does it all under one roof in kind of a holistic approach. And so the thing that I teach people to understand is that, look, my next door neighbors practically don't even know what I do, right? And it doesn't matter to me, I don't care. You only need to be well known to the people who actually would hire you. And so a lot of people spend all their time and money on ego advertising or marketing where they're blown out to a whole list. Like they really want to be seen in a full page in their local paper or in their national paper, whatever it is. But they would be so much better served by, if they service auto dealers or something like that, by buying a full page or buying a list of auto dealers who could actually hire them. So one of the ways I first built my brand, I didn't understand paper newsletters at all. At first I was like, you got to be nuts. No one reads this stuff. And my partner actually just try it with me. So we put out a paper newsletter and the first thing he told me to do is get. Because I went to a Glaser Kennedy conference and I didn't know anybody, they didn't know me. He said, I'm going to change that. He said, I want you to get the names of the top 100, like most influential people that you know of in that room. So we got the names of the chapter leaders, we got the whatever it was. I went back a year later after sending 12 issues of that newsletter to those people with of course with my face on the front. It's not that I think I'm a good looking dude. It's because people actually can identify you and recognize you. So I'd walk through the halls, I wouldn't even know these people and they'd be like, hey Nick. And they couldn't wait to tell me the other side of their story. Like, of my story. Like, oh, I saw your story about you did this with your son. We were instantly friends and I had used A1 to many communication device to communicate in what felt like a one to one fashion, right? And so that changed everything. I even had one guy walk up to me and he had circled, he had circled one of my newsletter articles, said hey, my coach gave me this and told me I need to hire you. But just bizarre because I just never would have thought that that, I just didn't think that that would have worked. But by understanding now I understand the fact that if all you really need to do is find a niche that is where you want to be. I mean, I'm in multiple niches, but you start with one niche. You don't just blow it all at once because you can't afford to reach everybody. So you start by affording the rich people you can reach. You build a successful business in that niche. I know most people in business. They could help anybody. I mean, your cereal might be great for everyone. Or your business consulting. Yeah, I mean, my business consulting, it works great for dentists, doctors, lawyers. It would work great for a corner grocery store. But I can't afford to reach all those people. So I've chosen to start in the niches that monetize, and I've expanded from there. But you have to pick a niche, something where you can be successful. And don't worry about the ego stuff. Look, people will know who you are. And it's actually kind of fun for me. There's tons of people in my neighborhood, my hometown, don't know who I am. I walk into one of my conferences, and I brought my wife's best friend to my last best seller summit, and she just was like. She couldn't even speak about how she was forward. That there was 100 people in line waiting for me to autograph their book. Like, it's just a. It's just a different thing, but it's just knowing where to build an audience because not everyone can hire you. I have to say something, too.

Go ahead, Dean.

I was just going to say that you talk about picking a niche, and even if your aspirations are national, you got to realize, too, that even if your aspirations are to be Oprah, that before Oprah became Oprah, she was, you know, had a local television show in Chicago. She was Oprah in Chicago long before she was Oprah.

All over the world, she was a newscaster, too. So, I mean, there was like. Yeah, that's the whole thing. You don't fly into flying. You actually start somewhere small. And the whole thing where a lot of people are like, oh, you know, I have something that could change the world. Well, have you changed 10 people? Well, no. Well, why don't you start with that?

Let's start with these 10.

That's really aspirational, Joe.

No, but, you know, so true.

So true.

Yeah, yeah. Like, when you're talking about niches here, you know, it brings me back to, like, carpet cleaning when I speak. Not all the time, but sometimes when I'm speaking to an entrepreneurial audience and I'm going to talk about Marketing strategy. Like, you know, I spoke at Experts Industry Association a month ago or whenever it was, and it was a very vulgar speech. I cussed a lot during it. It was pretty funny. About 450 in the audience. And many of them know me. Many listen, I love marketing, that sort of stuff. I show my report card where I went to Chandler Gilbert Community College and I got a C minus in principles of marketing. And I failed owning and operating a small business. And for some reason everybody finds that to be way funnier than I find it to be. But the point that I make is like, I had no formal education. And I think the reason people like it so much is I think it generally just lets them know that, hey, here I am running a multimillion dollar business for many years, for over 13, 14 years I've had a multimillion dollar business. Basically, I think it allows people to be like, well, hey, maybe I can do this simply because I didn't have any college education as a former drug addict and I started a carpet cleaning company and I struggled until I learned marketing by reading, not going and getting started some profound marketing education or any sort of degree. I just learned it. And I always say that line, just like Abe Lincoln. I'm self taught. And I learned how to do the stuff, I applied it and then I went into the niche. The expertise I had was I learned how to actually get carpet cleaning jobs. I learned how to apply marketing there. And then I started teaching other carpet cleaners how to do the same thing. And it actually worked for them. And now, to the tune of over 7,000 companies worldwide that have become members of Piranha Marketing in just that niche alone, there's pretty much plenty of evidence to support that. Nobody in the world can even hold a candle to the results that I've gotten by a long shot. But I started out in that niche. The reason is because if I would have just started teaching marketing advice to anyone and everyone, for one, it wouldn't have felt like it's just for them. It would have been very difficult for me to make that translation. And I remember this conversation with Dan Kennedy years ago, probably around 1995, where Tony Robbins was new in the infomercial scene and unlimited power. Tony's been around for quite a while, but it was a very big deal on infomercials back then. I remember this conversation with Dan where it's like, niches can't afford the talent of a Tony Robbins. But anyone that has any sort of useful, valuable information can go into any of these niches and make a big impact. A guy like Tony wouldn't go to those niches because he wants to be in the masses. He doesn't want to be like motivation for dentists or for carpet cleaners or for chiropractors. He wants to be Tony Robbins. But the niches, I mean, I'll tell you, I have made more money by being a niche marketer than many of my friends that are world famous mass market people simply because specifying that niche. So even if you have that incredible talent to not niche, it is crazy because there is opportunity there. But it also goes to the whole point I'm making with my. I'm doing a lot of rambling today. I'm sorry, let's interview Nick and then I'll spend all this time just babbling nonsense. So it's one of those things to where you're saying, anyone that's listening to us that really has expertise. And like you said, everyone does. And they really made it clear that guy had that expertise in that one ad. Well, I have that expertise in just getting carpet cleaning jobs. And I've parlayed this into so much. But it all. I learned the ropes through that. If there's one thing I did right, for one, I learned direct response marketing and applied it. And secondly, I niched it. I took my knowledge and my expertise and I niched it. Anyone that is listening right now, if you have not carved that out for yourself or you're not hitting it, a lot of it may have nothing to do with your expertise expertise. It's just where you're directing it to and how you're directing it to do it. So anyway, that's what I wanted to say.

Amen.

Yeah. So Nick, what sort of things can you recommend? What should people read of yours? What should they do? What is the starting point to get this? Going back to what you said, telling your story and then going out and using the different ways to do it. Because you said branding is storytelling. How many people can you help? How much money can you create? How does someone do this?

Sure. So I mean, obviously there's lots of free resources on our website, celebritybrandingagency.com, they can read lots of free stuff there. We have a new book out called Story Hollywood Secrets Revealed. How to Sell Without Selling by Telling youg Brand Story. That's just out on Amazon. You can check that out. And then our celebrity branding use, kind of the book that put us on the map with kind of our proven system for becoming a celebrity expert in your marketplace. To dominate your marketplace and lock out your competition. I mean, those are all great resources. I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of other stuff out there too. I just know that the stuff that's in those books, I've used it and it works. And so I like to vouch for that stuff.

Yeah, and you help a lot of people actually put together books. A lot of people go to you to hire your company to actually help them put together a book. I don't know if that involves just you can ghostwrite it, you can interview them and you can transcribe it, you can edit it, you can package it and I'll hear people say, well, you know, there's so many books out there, you know, I mean, people aren't going to take the time to read it. And a lot of times it's not even, you know, when you talked about going to the seminar and you had been sending out a newsletter for a year for once a month, and your picture's on it and people immediately, it establishes credibility in ways that are not going to be established. You never do that stuff. So talk about why someone should put together a book even if they have something like a dry cleaning operation or they have a pet store or they're a graphic designer, because a lot of people don't get the value of what that can do for your brand. And the book is just a delivering device to carry your story.

Exactly. And most people don't even ever read the book. I mean, that's just the way it is. But again, it's the fastest way to display your expertise. We all grew up, it's in our subconscious that if someone wrote a book on something, they're an expert. I mean, it's just in our brains. So by writing a book, I mean you can instantly become the expert. So We've made over 1300 authors, best selling authors over the last several years and we publish a lot of books, we help make it easy, we can ghostwrite it, we have all sorts of things. But we have most importantly a guaranteed system for helping you become a best selling author. And I would just put it this way. I usually flip the question back to people who don't quite understand why. I say, well, you tell me this. If you were the only carpet cleaner in your area that was the best selling author, do you think you could close more deals? Well, yeah, I probably could. So it's quite, quite simply the most impactful thing you can do. I mean, when you hand someone a copy of your book, you autograph it Whatever you do, when you hand someone a copy of your best selling book, it just completely changes the look in their eyes. They instantly start begging you to do business with them rather than you having to beg them why they should hire you. It's the old Dan Kennedy. You want to be a welcome guest instead of an unwelcome pest. Well, becoming an author and again on top of that, more importantly, a best selling authority author, it changes the position of everything you do. You're now an expert on the subject. You're not just trying to sell them something. So I've got a client, great guy, really, really knowledgeable guy named Tracy Myers. He has car dealerships and so at the, he sells used cars at the base level. Right. He does so much more than that. But like someone taking a knock at him would be like, this guy's just a used car dealer. That's what they say. Well, Tracy's been, he's co authored a best selling book with Brian Tracy. He's co authored A Woman with Tom Hopkins. I'm sure he's done more than that. He's also been on NBC, cbs, abc and Fox with me, he came to the Grammys with me, he's been whatever. So I mean now he's been on documentary that I did on him and he was on my series on Biography channel. Now when you walk into this guy's office, he has Quilly awards from the National Academy of Bestselling Authors from being a best selling author. He's got the movie poster, he's got the golden reel from being on Bio, Biography, he's got the books framed up in the office. I mean you're no longer walking into the office of a used car dealer. You're walking into the office of a celebrity who's willing to help you find the right car. And I think if you can understand that flip in positioning, it changes everything.

Yeah. Okay, so let me say this too because I think this is like you put all those bells and whistles on someone that doesn't have the chops or someone that really doesn't deliver stuff, which you can do and you can create that sort of positioning for them. It's kind of like you can put lipstick on a of piece pig sort of thing and anyone could do this. People that are fantastic at what they do, or people that suck and still give themselves the presence and the brand of someone who gives the appearance of really awesome. Now in the new world of social media, and when I say new world, I mean this world's been around for quite A while now. But it's very new for a lot of people because although the technologies exist, a lot of people, psychologically, they haven't grasped this yet, that this does exist. With reviews, you can get found out very quickly. If you suck, I mean, it can get found out. And I think I love all of those elements of the whole nature of technology, the ability to quickly share your experience about a product or service with. Now a lot of people get frustrated with the fakeness of so much of the blogs. You know my friend Ryan Holiday, who wrote the book, Trust me, I'm Lying, Fantastic book. We're going to be doing an episode with him here real soon on I Love Marketing. He wrote a whole book about how everything in the media and on blogs is staged. And so much of it is not even, you know, it's not even about informing people anymore. It's about startling people, which was actually a quote from someone in the newspaper from 100 years ago. But the news is not. Not designed to inform, it's designed to startle. And so there's a lot of that bullshit out there. And a lot of people don't want to play this game because they think, oh, it's all hyped up stuff. But, you know, the thing is, well, first off, if you are not willing to go out and package yourself and become appealing, it doesn't matter how great you think you are, how much you can help people, no one's ever going to do business with you. So, you know, you can fight it or you can embrace the fact. And if you do have true value, it is your job, not only to yourself and your own income and your wealth, but all the people that you actually can serve and you can be helpful. And if you're unwilling to do that, you're not only screwing yourself, but you're screwing a lot of other people. So the reason I want to bring this up to you is that, you know, marketing could be used in any way, shape or form. You can dress up crap, or you can take a really amazing person and you can just simply present them and make them better. So how does someone adopt that mindset? Because the biggest challenge that me and Dean have is just getting people to adopt a marketing mindset because we lay out all the strategies. People should read your book story. Selling it will give people a real great perspective, will give out your site another time. I mean, the strategies are there, but getting that mindset and embracing that, this is an important thing to do. How do you help your clients with that? What do you say to them. Because I know you have people that come to you that don't get marketing. Marketing. And you have to help them through this thought process.

Yeah, I wish I could. You probably know it better than I do, but Dan Sullivan's got a great thing about this. Like, about thinking about thinking and about, like, how the lowest form of thinking is, like. I don't know how he says it, but basically by trying to figure out why that's not possible or whatever else is. But. So if you haven't seen that Dan Sullivan quote, you should. Yeah.

I think you're saying that the problem is not the problem. The problem is how you think about the problem.

Yeah, it's something like that. And then in the last workshop, he did. He just did this killer thing on thinking about things. I don't know, I'll have to look at it again. But it brought that back. So, I mean, there are people who think that way, and it is sad. I mean, I say at the end of the day, I can't convince you to do something you're unwilling to do. However, I agree with you. I mean, the whole point is that, look, if you ultimately think you're the best at what you do, then it is your job, it's your duty to do everything you can to make sure the people who need you can find. And if you are unwilling to do that, I could call it multiple things. I could call it lazy. I could call it undedicated. I could say you don't really believe in yourself, but, I mean, it's a daunting task to get started with. But you'd be so surprised at how little it takes, how little effort it takes to differentiate yourself from the guy down the street. I also tell people, by the way, that all the stuff that I do will do literally nothing for you if you're not going to do it. Any marketing, if you're not even using Facebook to post things, that's a form of marketing. Like, hey, this just happened, or I'm going to be on this TV show, or, here's my new interview, or whatever it is. I mean, if you're not doing any marketing, positioning won't help you. I mean, a business without marketing is just like, just lucky. I mean, you're just waiting for someone to come in the door. I mean, referrals can be a source of marketing.

Putting them in the closet.

What's that?

It's like bringing all your Emmys home and putting them in your closet instead of.

It's so funny, though, man. That's what People do. That's literally what they do. I can tell you I don't even want to know the percentage of my clients who still, after going through my training, my coaching and my programs, don't even add to their bios that they are a best selling author. I mean, it drives me nuts, right? I mean the ones who pay attention to or if they hire us for their marketing, it's the first thing we do for them. But I mean it just drives you nuts how few people use this stuff. But I think it's just, look, if you look at everything through this lens, how can I provide people the most value? I mean, if you figure that out, the business is going to come. I mean, it's going to be easy to close the business. But then in order to close that business, you've got to figure out how do I stand out in a room full of people who look the same? Because I work with a lot of financial advisors and financial advisors, that term means so many different things in so many different places. But I can tell you, poor Mrs. Smith, Smith sitting there, let's say her husband just died and she just got the money. She's got to figure out what to do with it. Or she just retired and she's got to figure out how to do the money. I can guarantee you she doesn't know the difference between financial advisor A all the way through to financial adviser Z. Some are independent, some are for Merrill lynch, some will only sell you life insurance. She has no clue. And all she sees is a sea of these people. If one person would just stand up and say, hey, you know what, Mrs. Smith, I'm John Smith. I'm a best selling author on how to retire easy without putting your money at risk. I'd love to share with you some information. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to send you a copy of my book. Just pay shipping and handling. It's a best selling book and I've been recognized by the National Academy of Best Selling Authors with a Quilly Award. I think you'll really appreciate it. I mean, how hard is that? Not very hard. We make it easy. We make the first part of it easy, like making it all happen easy. But just inserting that into your marketing funnel changes everything. Just with that one little piece of knowledge and position that differentiates you substantially from the rest of the world. But you got to be willing to display your expertise. If you're not willing to display your expertise, there's not a whole lot I can do for you.

Yeah, awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you very much. One of the things that this always reminds me of is that whenever you add another tool into your toolbox or you look at the tools you're already using and you learn how to be more skilled with it, which is certainly what a conversation like this does, at least in my mind and hopefully to all of our listeners. When you start down the path of creating any sort of positioning statements or anything that is going to further deepen how you think about how you're perceived and you start communicating to your clients in better, more effective ways, it just simply makes you a better business person because there's a lot of people that have stuff. I've always liked referring to products and services as glop because everyone thinks they have the greatest glop in the world. But it doesn't matter what you think. What really matters is what your prospects and your clients and your customers. And if you're not in the for profit world, if it's non profit, your supporters and the people that donate and the people that back you, it's what they think. And that's where this method of storytelling and this method of branding and this method of integration marketing is what's going to make the difference between being successful or not. Anything you want to add, Dean, or any last thing you want to ask Nick before we wrap up here.

Well, I think now the reason we brought Nick on is because he's a guy that has an answer for what is branding. So if anybody hears anybody asking what it is, they can send them to this episode of I Love Marketing.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Which we will do. What we'll do, we'll just let Nick just do all the PR for this thing and then tie it into all the media.

I was saying, Nick, all of those things that you, you've got two weeks from today to get all of that out there. So you get it on abc, NBC, cbs, msnbc, no problem, all that stuff. And yeah, we'll see what you're made of.

So, Nick, one more time, what's your website for people to go to?

They can go to celebritybrandingagency.com or you can Google me. I'm not hard to find.

Yeah. NickNanton. N A N T O N. There you go. So thank you so much, Nick. It's great. Always great talking with you and Dean, you know, you not so much, but still, it's okay. And to all of our listeners, please let us know what you thought of this. Share comments@ilove marketing.com Anyone that you have rambling about how much they know about brand new. They want to build a brand. Then share this episode with them because it will probably be really helpful. And we will talk to you guys next time at I love you, Marketing. Take care. See ya.