How to Position Yourself as a Branded Authority
How can you become a branded authority so that people come to you and you have a lineup of clients waiting to work with you?
Today I’m joined by Nicky Billou, an author, and known as The Millionaire Maker, and we’re diving into “comfort zones and how to become a branded authority so you can get more clients.”
This is an episode you don’t want to miss. You’ll discover:
- Nicky’s amazing family story from Iran
- Why do most people stay in their comfort zone, and how can you get them out of it?
- Why is it better to go narrow in your market niche than broad?
- How can you position yourself as a branded thought leader so that your ideal clients come to you?
- How can you sell without coming across as salesy?
Prefer video? Watch here:
Connect with Nicky:
http://www.ecircleacademy.com/appointment
Before you dive into the full transcription, feel free to download my Weekly Project Workflow for Business Success! Align your life with your business.
Or check out some of my journals to work on your mindset.
Transcription:
Allison: Hey everyone, welcome back to the show and I am really excited for you to listen to my guest today. You guys know that I normally have, typically females on my show because the majority of my audience is females. But I always love to open my network, my circle, to so many different people because I know that everyone has a different.
Allison: On what business looks like for them, what success is, how to grow a brand. So today Nicky Billou joins me, and I think you are going to love his story. He is known as the Millionaire Maker, and we are diving into comfort zones today and how to become a branded authority so you can get more clients.
Allison: So of course, before we get into my juicy questions and all of Nicky’s knowledge, welcome to the show.
Nicky: Allison. Thank you so much for having me. It’s an honor to be here. I’m excited. I’m
Allison: excited too. Now, I know that you have a lot to offer. You have an incredible background. You’re the author of eight books.
Allison: You have a successful business. But before we get into that, we all start from somewhere. I want you to give my audience like just take us back to the beginning stages of you building a business and what you do. Take us back.
Nicky’s background as an Immigrant
Nicky: Well, thank you for that question. I’m originally an immigrant from the Middle East.
Nicky: I’m a Christian from Iran, and when I was a very young boy, my late father who was an entrepreneur, um, made a decision because there was, there was the Islamic Revolution going on all around us and it became clear they were going to oust the secular, relatively benign, uh, dictatorship of the Shaw. And he realized this was not going to be a great place for him to raise his family.
Nicky: So he hustled us out of Iran and eventually we landed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. And I thank God for my father’s prescience every single day because he took us from tyranny to, to freedom, you know, . I know these days that there is a, a fashionable set in the West that always just blame Canada first, blame America first.
Nicky: You, you know, excuse me. They think, oh my God, we’re so oppressive. We’re so racist. We’re so sexist. Here’s what I have to say to that. I push back hard against that because if you go to Iran right now, I don’t know if you’ve been following the news, but there was a young woman. by the name of Masa Amini.
Nicky: She was just 22 years old, a Kurdish girl, and she was, um, she was out outdoors mining her own business. And in Iran, the law as a woman, you must be fully covered up. You can’t show your skin, you can’t show your hair. Mm-hmm. , just think about that. Just think about that. Mm-hmm. for a second part of her hair was showing, so the so-called morality police, which are basically a group of armed thugs picked her up, arrested.
Nicky: Detained her and beat her to death for the crime, quote unquote, of being outside with her hair uncovered. Since that happened, Iranian women and Iranian girls, and I mean literally girls, 13 to 18 year old girls have been burning their hijabs and have been going out in the streets protesting the evil of this tyranny.
Nicky: And over 400 of these young women and girls have been murdered by this regime, shot to death, brutalized for the crime of standing up for basic human rights. You know, so when people say this about the West, I go, hey, this is the world’s most tolerant, incredible place. Perfect. No, but super awesome, right?
The Power of Prayer
Nicky: We need to like push back against the people who are trying to compare us to what’s going on over there. And you know, for your listeners, for the women that are listening to this show, uh, please. Say a prayer for the women and girls in Iran and what they’re doing and their incredible bravery. They say the definition of courage is doing the right thing when you have a lot to lose.
Nicky: These young women have their lives to lose and they’re doing the right thing by standing up for freedom. So, um, that’ll tell you who Nikki Billou is and what I’m all about. I’m about freedom. That’s the foundational thing that I believe in more than anything, and I, I am very grateful to get to live in a free country, and I really am pushing for entrepreneurs, all entrepreneurs, to be free, to be free, to be able to create their own vision, to speak what they want to speak out there.
Nicky: And to be able to participate in the free enterprise system and build wonderful businesses. You know, my, my late father, that’s who he was. He was all about that too, and he was such an amazing man. He uplifted everyone around him. If he knew you and you were looking for a job, he’d get you a job. I mean, like, go out there and, you know, beat the bushes in his network to get you a job.
Nicky: If. , we’re trying to start a business. And he knew you. He’d help you get started. Even if you were going to compete with him. He didn’t care about that. He just wanted to help people. And if you worked for him and you were trying to buy a car, a house, or an apartment, he didn’t have enough money. He’d make up the difference.
Nicky: And you might listen to this and go, wow, who does that? Well, the late great Napoleon, that’s who, why? Well, first, he was a Christian. He believed he’d been blessed by God. Mm-hmm. , and he believed. It was his obligation as a Christian to share those blessings with other people. But secondly, he did it because he could, he was successful.
Nicky: He had the wherewithal to be able to be a generous, giving kind human being. And Dad would always tell me, son, business isn’t about money. It’s about people. Business isn’t about numbers on a page, it’s about human beings, you know? And I, that, that always stuck with me. And I’ve had mentors that have given me a similar lesson over time, you know?
Solving Problems for People, Not Profits
Nicky: Business really is about people. Business really is about that man, that woman in front of you. You know that person in front of you. That’s someone’s mother, that’s someone’s daughter, that’s someone’s sister, that’s someone’s father, that’s someone’s brother, that’s someone’s son. They’re a hero to somebody, and they’ve probably been disappointed by life.
Nicky: Maybe they’ve even been disappointed by someone just like you who promised them everything and yet delivered them. , and so you’ve got to first and foremost come to that person and go, they’re before me because they’re dealing with some sort of problem. What is business? After all, Alison Businesses, what I call the three P seven figure solution to business.
Nicky: Business is about solving problems for people for profit. It’s about solving acute problems for wonderful people, for amazing. How you think about that, if that’s how you approach business, that’s how you build authority. First, people want to know that you care about them. The great American poet, Maya Angelou said, and I, this always stays with me.
Nicky: People will forget what you did. People will forget what you said, but they will never, ever. how you made them feel. Mm-hmm. , and that’s your job in life and in business. That is the step, the cornerstone of authority is that, in my view, lead from your heart. .
Allison: I love that. And I say that a lot about building a personal brand.
Allison: It’s not about you so much as a person, but it’s about how when you step into a room or when you put a post-up on Instagram or you have your voice on a podcast, it’s how you make the other people feel. Feel not only about you, but also feel about themselves and the inspiration that you give them.
Allison: Are you giving them in inspiration? Are you educating them on something that could help them? And it goes back to what you just said in the beginning. It’s not about the money, it’s about serving. And it sounds to me that your father was an incredible person. And that’s what he did. He served, he served people, and that’s why he was so successful.
Allison: And I want to go back to something that you said earlier, and I want to unpack it a bit because I think in today’s world we can. what you said that you know, the United States and Canada, beautiful countries, but they’re not perfect. Right? And we see a lot going on in the world right now. I want to go back to you stand for courage.
Allison: You stand for freedom. And as an entrepreneur, you should be free to not only help people, but express your beliefs. Express what drives you, express what you want from the world. But these days we are seen, it’s very. to do that, especially on social media. H how, how would you respond to someone who says, okay, I, I feel strongly about this, and I want to get out of my comfort zone.
Why do most people stay in their comfort zone, and how can you get them out of it?
Allison: I really want to talk about this issue, but they’re fearful of being silenced. They’re fearful of being shut down on social media. We’re seeing. by so many people because it’s not, I hate to say it, it’s not following a certain agenda. What do you say to those entrepreneurs? Look,
Nicky: um, I think it’s very important for you to authentically speak what’s in your heart, because if you don’t do that, it’s actually going to eat away at you.
Nicky: and you may make money, but you won’t be fulfilled, you won’t be living the life of purpose you were designed to live. And you know, there are times in business where you’re going to turn some people off, and in fact, good marketing should turn off as much as it attracts. Mm-hmm. , you know what I’m saying?
Nicky: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . If you have a powerful personal brand, there’s got to be people who say, I can’t stand here. And there’s got to be people who say, I love. and if you’re not willing to be with both, it’s tough. And I say this to someone who’s dealing with that right now. There’s some folks that, um, came into my sphere.
Nicky: It looked like we were a good match, and then it turned out that we weren’t and. . I’m like right now, uh, finally coming to a space of being able to accept that, hey, this is a good thing. The good Lord wanted this. This is a good lesson for me. And I, I, I have no hate in my heart for them. I wish them well. I, I, they’re just not for me.
Nicky: And I’m not for them. That’s the bottom line. That’s the bottom, bottom line. and if you hold back from speaking your truth, it’s going to bother you a Hella lot more than if someone on social media gives you a strike or takes you off a platform. And this is my, my humble opinion, there’s a lot less tolerance right now for social media companies behaving in that fashion.
Nicky: I mean, Elon Musk just bought Twitter. Mm-hmm. , and he bought Twitter primarily. to, to be able to have it be a free speech platform. And what’s pretty amazing is before Twitter was only promoting one point of view right now, well if you’re from that point of view, but you’re, you’re talking smack, you know, you’re, you’re going to get your posts, uh, your tweets fly, fly on Twitter.
Nicky: I mean, he flagged Joe Biden’s tweet about the price of gas and said, nah, this is the actual price of gas, Mr. P. And I thought, correct. Oh, son, Elon, God bless your heart, you. I’ve got a client that I, I met through Pod Match. Um, this couple, and the, the wife, they’re, they’re both Catholic, uh, coaches and the wife, um, said to me that what she’s coaching her, uh, Catholic mom clients to do sound like they’re, in some respects, like the types of moms and, and women that you work with.
Nicky: Is she’s telling them; I’m going to show you how to work with a coach and grow your business without compromising your values. And I, that hit me right in my heart when I heard it, and I hope it hits everyone listening to the show right in their heart.
Allison: I love that. Don’t compromise your values. And that is the first thing I tell.
Allison: Clients or anyone who comes to me building a personal brand, a lot of people will start with the visuals, right? When we think of personal branding, the first thing in our head is the look, the website. Yeah. , the logos, the colors. And to be honest, with over five years ago, or maybe even LA now, seven years, honestly, that’s how I started.
Allison: I thought I needed the pretty website. I thought I needed the logo. , but after so many years I’ve learned, the first thing I say is start with your values. Start with your mission. That is the first thing you start with, because if you lose that, you won’t have success if you put your values to the side and you’re going to try and grow a, a business or a brand, because this is what the world’s telling you to do.
Allison: you’re going to be in trouble because you’ve let go of your values and you are going to go down. And I want to go back to what you said about the soul and about, even though you may think that you’re going to be silenced online, you need to say it, but you said something so key. And I want the audience to hear this is you said it needs to come from the heart, it needs to come from the soul.
Demote your Ego. Promote your Soul.
Allison: And there’s a lot of times where you may say, see things. Social media, the news, the media, it makes you angry, right? And you want to react or shout out. I always think of something that I learned a long time ago, demote your ego, promote your soul. And I love that.
Nicky: That’s good. I’ve never heard that before.
Nicky: I’m going to write that down. That is good.
Allison: Yes. Demote your ego and promote your soul because something I’ve learned. . Everyone has an ego, right? I think we are made up of two entities. We have our soul, what we were born with, but we have this ego, and our ego is designed to protect us. It builds that wall.
Allison: That’s what’s going to get you in trouble, is when you are coming from an ego standpoint because you want to protect yourself because you’re protecting your values or maybe you’re protecting what you think is. , but we must come from a place of soul. And when we come from that place of soul, I think that’s when we’re coming from a place of service and we’re coming from a place of God.
Allison: And that’s where I think you are going to be. That’s where success to me comes from. And again, it’s not about money. Success to me is who I serve, who I help, and make an.
Nicky: I, I so wholeheartedly agree with that. You know, I, for, for me, um, I see a world right now where there’s a lot of people that are scared and uncertain.
Nicky: You know, it like inflation is at a level we haven’t seen in over 40 years. Right. Um, and, um, we have had lockdowns for over two years that have had a massive mental health impact on children, on adults, on business owners. Business owners have lost their business because the government forced them to shut down.
Nicky: There’s a lot of fear and uncertainty and doubt out there. You know, one of the reasons I come on podcasts like this, Alison, is I want to give people belief and. I’m a dealer and hope you know that’s my job. And here’s what I want to say to you. If you’re listening to the show, you got to believe. You got to believe.
Nicky: Your belief in your ability to win is what’s going to help you win. You will win. If you believe you can win, you will not win if you believe you cannot. And the problem most of us have is we go into our mind. By itself is not a great place for anyone to go, because your mind is going to be like a chattering monkey and let’s just go, my God,
Nicky: think you’re going to go crazy. Yes. You know the reason that I feel good today is because before you and I spoke, I had a lovely call with this awesome gentleman, and he just wanted to. and I thought, great, and we connected, and it was a great connection. And then I’m having a great day because I get to come on your show, and I speak from my soul to you.
Nicky: I pour into you; I pour into your audience. That energizes me. While if I was sitting by myself at my desk typing a million stupid thoughts would come into my head, you know? And that’s, that’s very important and powerful. Now, let me talk about another, I. Thing that you as a business owner need to really think about.
Nicky: Okay. So yeah, you got to come from the heart. You got to care about people. Remember, it’s not about you. It’s about them. Stop putting the attention on you. Put it on them. A lot of folks in business, they’ve got crap messages. Crap’s a technical term. Okay? . . It’s just one of those things that they’re, you know, they tell you what they do, and you can’t even.
Brand Messaging
Nicky: You can’t understand what’s valuable about what they say. So I’ll give you an example. You ask them what they do, and they’ll say, I’m a coach. Okay, great. I’m a realtor, I’m a mortgage broker. Well, what kind of coach are you? Will I really help people deal with overwhelm? You know, I, you know, I, I, as a realtor, I, I can do anything for anybody.
Nicky: Mortgage broker, I can do anything for anybody. That type of message is what one of my mentors, Mark Vaughn Muir, calls a Mayo message. It’s a message that has cliches all over it, and value does not exist in there. It’s a message that’s about them and not about their client. Do you know what I’m saying?
Nicky: Right? Mm-hmm. , their message does not speak to how they help. So here’s my message if, if you don’t mind me revealing it here, here’s what I say. If you were to ask me, Nikki, so what do you do? The first thing I’ll say is I help incredible entrepreneurs; art driven entrepreneurs add one to two zeros to their annual income while working 10 to 20 hours less per week.
Nicky: You listen to that; you know instantly what I do and how I. . If you’re an entrepreneur and you’re looking to add a zero or two to your income, instantly, you’ll go, I need to find out more about how he does that, right? Mm-hmm. , and if you’re overworked and burning out, you’re going to go working 10 to 20 hours less a week and making more money.
Nicky: I need to find out what, how he does that. That is what you want. Your potential clients to say to you, when you say what you do, what goes on in their head shouldn’t be dismissed. Oh, okay. Coach Real tell should be, hmm, thanks to find out more. That’s what you want them all to be able to say. And I’ll give you a little story.
Nicky: I had a, uh, a young. Who, um, was introduced to me and Alison, this young man, when I met him, he was like 24, 25 years old, and he was one of these personal fitness trainers and he was a good fellow, just a good dude. The kind of fellow that your mom would wish you brought home, you know what I mean? Like that kind of like just a good, wholesome, kind, caring, wanted to help everybody person, right?
Nicky: You might would go; you should date that guy more. He’s a good dude, right? That kind of guy. , but he was a terrible businessman. Terrible, terrible. Oh my God. Because he only had seven clients he made in Toronto, 1200, $1,300 a month. Now Toronto is the New York City of Canada. Mm-hmm. , if you understand the cost of living in New York City, you understand the cost of living in Toronto.
Nicky: You cannot live on 12, $1,300 a month in Toronto. You just can’t do it, you know? So he had to borrow money from his mom and. And when he met me, like, such a good dude, such, such love, caring, you know, he came to me and I go, hey, his name is Dan. I say, Hey Dan. So tell me who? Who do you help? He goes, Nicky, man, I can help anybody.
Nicky: Oh my God, you know, I can, like, if someone’s trying to lose weight, I can help them. If they want to get stronger, I can help them. You know, if, if they want to enter competitions, I can help him. And I was like, oh my God. Danny, Danny, now that’s not going to work. No one, no one understands why this should work with you.
Nicky: We’ve got to, we’ve got to narrow that. And, and he, he goes, but no, really, but really, I can help anybody. I said, Danny, anybody with a wallet and a pulse, like tongue in cheek? He just laughed. Yeah. A good one, Nikki. Good one. I guess so. And. Narrow. So he goes, okay, okay, okay. He said, I got it, I got it.
Nicky: Doctors, my dad is a doctor and I love my dad and doctors. They make a lot of money, don’t they? They’d be great clients for me. And I’m like, oh my God, Danny getting it. It didn’t work because he was going for the money, right? So I said, Danny, we, we got to, we got to figure this out. He goes, okay, okay. You want me to go narrower?
Nicky: Right? Okay, cardiologist, they make more money than doctors. I’m like, oh my God, he’s not getting it. Didn’t work with the cardiologist either, but serendipity struck when the good Lord sent Danny a, um, Paralympic athlete who had a missing leg from childhood, from a childhood accident, right? And um, they hit it off.
Nicky: They really worked well together, and Danny helped this guy. Some medals at upcoming, like competitions, right? So, awesome. And then he came to me, and he goes, okay, Nicki, I think I’m starting to get this here. I really love working with this fellow. He’s a really, good dude. And, um, there’s a lot of people like him with missing limbs and they don’t work out.
Nicky: And I know how to help them. So I’m, I’m going to go work with people with missing limbs. And I said, Danny, that, that makes sense. Go do it. So Allison, . Just six weeks. He signed up 400 clients. Wow. He couldn’t do one-on-one training anymore, like you think about it. Right. 400 clients for a trainer. That’s insane.
Nicky: He had to like rejigger his delivery model. Right? Right. He added not one zero, but two zeros to his monthly income. He went from 12 1300 a month to over a hundred thousand dollars a month. And he wasn’t going after the money. He was going after making a difference for people and put yourself into the shoes of these folks.
Nicky: No other trainer wanted to work with them because they had missing limbs and their attitude was, well, they can’t work out. Right? Danny’s attitude was you can work out. I’m going to help you work out. I’m going to make you stronger, better. , uh, then you believe you could be. It wasn’t just a message of, I’m going to make you fit.
Nicky: It was a message of I’m going to help you realize you’re self-actualized, like Abraham Maslow as a human being to be the best version of you. And you, you think about it could make me put yourself in the shoes of someone with missing a missing limb, or even more than one missing limb. They’re probably not thrilled that they don’t have all their limbs.
Nicky: They’re probably believing that there’s certain things that are out of reach for them. For that reason, Danny’s message was, screw all that. You’re going to have an amazing life. You’re going to be strong and fit, and you’re going to be mentally capable. That’s. , like Danny went and added, not one, but two zeros. Two is monthly income.
Nicky: You need a message that’s all about who you serve. You need a message that’s about them and not about you. Not about what you do, but what you do for people, how you help people. It’s not about you. It’s about them. And that is the second foundational. Of becoming a branded thought leader, a go-to authority in your space.
Allison: I love that. And you just, you nailed it with the whole, like the brand message. It needs to have like those three crucial pieces. You need to identify who you serve, right? Not like anybody and anybody with a pulse. You need to be specific. You need to hit on their main pain problem. What is their main, because they might have multitudes.
Allison: I work with a lot of entrepreneurs who are like, but I do this, and I do that, and I do this. But I’m always like but go to the main one. Like, what do they come to you for? What does that main problem? They’ll eventually learn about the other things you do once they get to know you and trust you. But what’s the main problem?
Allison: But the kicker to that is what, how do you solve it? What is your, so. . Yeah, I love that. That’s awesome. Brilliant. Yeah, brilliant. Now, I think a lot of the entrepreneurs that I work with, once they have that in place, right, they are coming from a place of service, right? They’ve demoted their ego; they’re going to promote their soul.
How can you position yourself as a branded thought leader so that your ideal clients come to you?
Allison: They know they have the brand message. They want to be the thought leader in their industry. , but now it comes to sales and the word sales for some reason just really trips people up. How can you sail sell without coming across as salesy? And I know that’s a common question to a lot of entrepreneurs. I want to know your take on that.
Nicky: That’s such a great question. again, the reason people come across as, as salesy is because they’re making it about them and not their client. They need the sale where they’re the kind of person who wants the sale. I’m going to get that commission. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m not full of rush salesman. Oh my God.
Nicky: Just the person you want to run from when you see them coming, you know? And. A lot of good entrepreneurs, they don’t want to be that person. Right. Alison? You don’t want to be that person. You don’t want people to think, oh my God, I, I, I, I, I’m, I’m, I’m this pushy, salesy, commission, breath wreaking individual, right?
Nicky: That’s coming to people I think of a car
Allison: salesman. .
Nicky: Yeah, exactly. Car salesman, full of us salesman, you name it. Like used car, her tar and W K RRP in Cincinnati, if you remember that show from back in the day, right? . What, what really, what really happens is those good people, because the attention’s on them and how they’re going to be seen, pull back and they don’t serve the person that really needs them.
Nicky: Really needs them and they miss out on that sale. They miss out on the revenue that could build their business. It hurts them financially; it hurts them emotionally. It hurts them health-wise because they get stressed out over it and it may even cause problems in their relationships because they’ll fight when money is the number one reason people fight in relationships.
Nicky: Right. The number one reason. It’s not good. And you know, for me, one of the things that my, my father was always a service driven person. Like he, he took a stand. Like he was not afraid to have a conversation about enrolling people in what he did. He took like a stand, and I learned from him, and I took a stand, and I was reasonably effective.
Nicky: And people would just go, how do you do it? I go, because I don’t make it about me. And then I thought, okay, I got to teach these people how to reframe. To serving. Now, nobody wants to be sold, Alison. You don’t want to be sold. I don’t want to be sold. Right? Right. But everybody wants to be served by a caring human being an advocate.
Nicky: I want to serve the human being. And if you take the attention off you and you put the attention on them, and I’m going to serve this person, this individual, this man, this woman, I’m going to give them everything. That I can, in this interaction, whether they do business with me is not important. What’s important is that I serve them.
Nicky: I put them in a great place, then we’re good to go. We’re good to
Allison: go. And I almost want to add something on top of that because people want to be served. But I also think, and this is a great way for you to serve people, people want to be. , we are in a very overcrowded space. I think on social media. People feel that they’re not seen and heard, and I think that’s our jobs as entrepreneurs or if you’re a coach, not only serve your audience, serve your clients, make them feel seen.
Allison: make them feel valued. And I think that is the kind of the connection there of how to sell your services or your products. If you have digital products or if you’re a coach or if you have courses, it’s not about selling your product. , it is about serving the person and helping them be seen in their world, and I think that’s how you’re going to differentiate yourself.
Allison: And again, it goes back to being that branded thought leader in your industry. Would you agree with that?
Nicky: I would wholeheartedly agree with that. And if I may, I’d love to tell a story about a, um, a woman who was a, uh, you know, a, a mom, uh, and a wife who had a business that her, her husband at the time considered a bit of a side hustle because she made between $502,000 a month.
Nicky: 2000 was a good month for her. You know, 500 was an average month and she came to, to us and like we knew her personally, but not professionally at the time. Right. Her name, she had a beautiful name, Adele, you know, like the singer. Mm-hmm. and uh, she was I think 56 when she first came to us. It was a few years ago.
Nicky: and she tried everything, and it wasn’t working, you know, and she’d been following these gurus and spending money on them. And she came to me, and she said, like, I have spent so much money on these folks, and I’ve gotten zero return, zero. I said, well, how much money have you spent? She said, $125,000 of the house.
Nicky: Two years. I’m like, oh, that’s a lot of money to spend to get a lot of money. Zero return for, and anyways, um, we really started to help her. Focus on who she was helping and what their pain was. And it just, something clicked, and she said, okay, I’m going to work with you. I’m trusting you, Nikki. You better not screw this up for me.
Nicky: I just swallowed hard, and I said, don’t worry, I won’t. You work, I’ll work. We’ll get it done. And so, Anyways, um, she, she got clear on who she was serving. She got clear on, um, the pain point that they had, and all her messaging went around that she stopped talking about her. Amazing do dad and whatever way she did what she did, and she started to like, get a bunch of business.
Nicky: And, and the other thing that she did was she started to value what she was doing and charge properly for it because she was. Almost no money for it. And there’s only two reasons people don’t charge what they should be charging. Number one is they don’t think it’s worth it. Number two is they think it’s worth it, but they don’t think anyone will pay.
Nicky: And all of those come from the focus being on them. Mm-hmm. . So when the focus went off her and she started to think about the value of the solutions she started to offer, she started charging an amount that would have her client show up ready to do the work and get the outcome. Because when you undercharge, you rob your client of the value of your solution.
Nicky: Let me say this again, so this is important for everyone to write down. When you undercharge, you rob your client of the value of your solution. You’re not doing them any favors. So anyways, she came to me all excited and she had a year over year snapshot of her Infusionsoft. I think they’re called Heap now, but it was Infusionsoft back in the day and she took a picture of a year ago and it was like $532 or some number like that.
Nicky: And then she took a picture of. That month this year, and it was over $52,000. It was a hundred fold increase in her income, and it all came from, first, you know, taking the attention off herself and stop. Spending money on these gurus that just sold the sizzle but didn’t really have any stake to offer, and then valuing what she had to do for people at a level that people appreciated the value.
Nicky: I mean, I don’t know if you’ve heard of the phrase the expectancy bias, but people liked to pay. A good amount of money for something because they expect to get, uh, more from the money they pay. And it’s very important for them to, to, to actually, you know, have experiences that validate that. But if you go to Tiffany’s and you buy a diamond engagement ring, you know, and if you go to the fellow on the street corner and you buy an engagement ring, Obviously the ring that you bought at Tiffany’s is going to be one that’s valued more than the one that you bought at the street corner, right?
Nicky: Right. And the reason is because it’s from Tiffany’s . Right. You know, and you have that expectation, the expectancy bias that this work. And it’s very important as a thought leader that the attention always be on your client and that you charge not based on your fear of what people are going to pay but based on the value of the solution to the problem.
Nicky: You’re. .
Allison: Yeah. And I think too, it also goes to the experience you give them. Going back to your example of Tiffany’s and the guy in the three corner, those are going to be two very different experiences. Hundred percent. So think of that as an entrepreneur. What experience are you going to give to your clients in addition to what you’re solving That I think is going to help you stand out.
Allison: Very true. Yes.
Nicky: Very.
Allison: Oh, I have to say, yeah, Nicky, this was like an amazing conversation. I feel like you and I could go down a couple more rabbit holes and just keep going and going and going for sure. But I know we’re kind of getting over, you know, our time here. So I would love for you to share with the audience where they can connect with you, find out where they can get your books.
Allison: Because you are the author of so many amazing books. They can learn from you. So where can they connect with you? Well,
Nicky: look, I’m on all the social media, so if you type. Nikki Billou, you’ll find me in pretty much any platform, and I recommend that. But if you’re a business owner and you’re, you’re stuck and you really want to have a conversation about how to get unstuck, then the best place is to go to eCircle academy.com/appointment.
Nicky: That’s eCircle academy.com/appointment. And you fill out a, uh, you know, a, a screening form that we have. Candidly, we just want to make sure that the people that are coming to us are real business owners, you know, Serious people. But once you do that, you’ll have a complimentary, what I call a success call, 45 minutes of, of, of, of, of my time.
Nicky: That’s going to all be up about you. It’s going to be focused on, on what you’re dealing with, where you want to get to. Why you’re not getting there, because we, we, and the consequences of why you’re not getting there and, and, and we move you forward, uh, during that call. So that’s what I recommend people do. But would you mind if I shared one last beautiful story before we Yes, of course.
Nicky: So, A few years ago, there was a woman who, um, came to us who had been the country director for Canada, for one of the world’s largest personal development firms, and she was very good and, um, she brought on someone, a man to work with her, who she believed was very talented to help her grow the business.
Nicky: It was kind of like Steve Jobs back in the day, uh, at Apple when he brought John. and just like Steve and John, um, at first, the two of them got along, but eventually their visions of the future diverged, just like Steve and, and John. She was kicked out of her own company, , you know what I mean. And she was like, it, it was devastating to her.
Nicky: She was, you know, uh, bereft, uh, and drifting really for 18 months. And when she came to us, you know, she, she was ready to take on the world, but she just didn’t know how. So, you know, we embraced her, the community embraced her, uh, and we, um, we helped her get clear on, uh, the value she offered, who she helped.
Nicky: Uh, we helped her get clear on, uh, the pain that she sought, and she had a great message in her first month. She made $10,000 in profit. In her second month, she made 12,000. In her third month, she made 18,000, but in her fourth month she crushed it and made $62,200. That number will become germane at a moment.
Nicky: Now she lives in Ottawa, and I live in Toronto. They’re about five hours drive apart, and I have a son who plays soccer. He was 12 at the time. He is almost, he’s 16, he’s going to be 17 in January now. And., we had a tournament that he had to go to in Ottawa. So I called her up and I said, hey, you got a son my boy’s age?
Nicky: How’d you guys like to come and watch the game and attorney and maybe grab some lunch? And she said, sure. So we all did that, and everybody had a wonderful time. They went home, and we drove back to Toronto and a few weeks later, . We had one of our, what I call, um, branded thought leader immersion workshops.
Nicky: This is where we teach people how to add one to two zeros to their income while working 10 to 20 hours less per week. It’s very intense. It’s very powerful, but there’s a portion of it, like it, you know, most events where we show people how they can work with us ongoingly in the future. The famous upsell.
Nicky: I don’t take a lot of time with this, you know, uh, we take a maximum of an hour with this. Uh, but I don’t really go deeply into, uh, why they should work with us myself. I have some of our people share it either live and in person, or we’ve got some pre-recorded videos and so, I asked if anyone wanted to share their experience before I had a chance to say anything.
Nicky: She bounded on stage and told me. I’m like, okay, for sure. Go for it. You’re eager today. Okay, great. Uh, and um, she started to look at the room and then she started bawling and I mean bawling, like tears. Uh, we had to get her tissues. Now I freaked out inside. I kept calm on the outside, but like any. Woman’s crying.
Nicky: What did I do wrong? That’s the first place I went in my head. What did I do? Why is she crying? Oh my God, this is going to be a disaster. That’s what was going through my head, right? But she turned to me, and in between her sobs and her and her tears, said, Nikki, you didn’t know this, but when you and your little son came to visit me and my little son, my little son looked at me in that excited way little boys do and said, mommy, mommy, mommy.
Nicky: Who are we going to go meet? I said, we’re going to go meet Nikki Billou and his son, and he said, oh, his voice, she said, went down. He became very serious and said, oh mommy, are we going to meet the man who saved our family?
Nicky: I started to cry, and I don’t usually cry, and we hugged, and she just kept bawling. And in between her tears kept saying, when I first met you, I didn’t tell you this. The bank was about to foreclose on our home. We hadn’t paid our mortgage in months, and my husband and I, we were fighting every day like cats and dogs in front of our three small children.
Nicky: And it looked like we were going to break up. You literally helped me save my precious family, and we hugged some more. And here’s what I got from this. You never know what someone’s dealing with. I had no idea she was dealing with this. They’re not comfortable telling you maybe yet. . So just keep in mind that this person really could be in a more dire situation than they’re letting on, and you owe them everything to help them get out of it.
Nicky: So that’s number one. And number two is I want to meet. People like her. I want to meet people that are goodhearted kind people with a real ability to be of service that are hurting right now and could use the love and caring of, uh, a good human being. And I ask God to put more people like her in front of me and that I’m worthy of being able to serve that person the way God intends me to.
Nicky: And, um, Here’s the most amazing thing. Normally we hand out the registration form. Some people sign up, some people don’t. Some people need a bit of conversation and persuading. On this day, everybody signed up. There was no persuasion necessary. , you know, it was, it was quite incredible what that caused in the room.
Allison: That’s an incredible story, and it just goes right back to what we were saying in the beginning of the show is coming from a place of service, coming from a place of your heart and your soul. I can’t thank you enough for being on the show today. I am going to make sure that your links are in the show notes, and I really hope, and I pray that my listeners will connect with you, listen to your stories, get connected with you online and just when, when we’re in these moments.
Allison: Doubt and fear and despair. May you have the courage to keep going, the strength to keep going, and like I said before, you need to demote your ego because that’s getting in the way and promote your soul and come from a place of service. Amen. Amen to that.
