The Journey Of An Immigrant Entrepreneur Building A Personal Brand (Episode 11)

Frank Hereda (00:01.774) All right, everybody, we're live. Welcome to another episode of focused free fit. We have a special guest today, Nikki Ballou. And I always like to start off the episode with. Telling everybody a little bit about how you grew up, what it was like growing up and where you come from. I always like to kind of start there to see how we end up where we are today. So if you wouldn't mind, share a little bit about your. where you grew up, where you're from, and talk to us a little bit about that. Nicky Billou (00:35.221) Absolutely. I'm originally an immigrant from the Middle East. I'm a Christian from Iran. When I was 11 years old, the Islamic revolution took place in Iran. And my late father, God rest his soul, he could see the writing on the wall. This was not gonna be a place to raise a Christian family. So he and my mom, they sat down together and they made a plan to get us out of Iran. And at the time though, man, like I was a kid, I didn't wanna leave my friends, I didn't wanna leave my home. So, you know, I wasn't on board with the plan, but 11, right? So what happened was, because I didn't wanna leave my home, I didn't wanna leave my friends, right? It was tough for my parents. But in retrospect, that was the single greatest thing they could have done for me and my two brothers. They got us out of Iran and they settled us eventually where I now live in Toronto, Canada. And let me tell you, man. Frank Hereda (01:07.95) How old were you? Nicky Billou (01:33.685) Living here has given me an appreciation for freedom. I believe inside every human breast beats the living heart of freedom. Every man, every woman on this planet wants freedom. They want to be able to march to the tune of their own drummer. They want to be able to follow their own path. They don't want to be told what to do or how to do it. And to me, that's the single most important gift from God Almighty to us human beings, right? And that's why I became a big champion for freedom. You know, I believe that every man, every woman on this planet should be free. Without freedom, you can't have free expression. Without free expression, you can't have free enterprise. And if you're an entrepreneur without free enterprise, you can't be an entrepreneur. And my dad was a believer in freedom. He was an entrepreneur. And if you knew him and you were looking for work, he'd sit you down in his office, make a bunch of phone calls to his buddies until he got you a job. And if you were trying to start a business, he'd sit you down, he'd help you figure out. what you were trying to do. He'd help you get access to capital, access to clients. Even if you were competing with him, he'd help you out because he didn't really believe in competition. And if you were trying to buy a car or a house and you didn't have quite enough money, dad would top you up with a loan that he'd never let you pay back. And you might be thinking to yourself, come on, Nicky, who does that? Well, the late great Napoleon Ballou for one, why would he do that? First of all, he was a devout Christian. He believed he'd been blessed by God and it was his duty to share those blessings with other people. But secondly, He did it because he could, he was a successful businessman. And he was able to share his success, his riches with other people. I wanted to be someone just like my dad. I became an entrepreneur, I wanted to help people, I wanted to be someone people looked up to. That's why I got into business and into entrepreneurship. My dad would always tell me, son, life is about people. I go, okay, dad, business is about people too, son. I said, wait up, dad, come on, come on, business is about money. Without money, you can't have business. He said, yeah, smart alec kid, right? But without people. There's no need for money. Remember that. Nicky Billou (03:36.437) All business is about solving problems for people for profit. You solve acute problems for amazing people, you make an awesome profit. That's the awe -inspiring purpose of business. And me, I got into the business of serving entrepreneurs because I think entrepreneurs are the best. They're society's greatest heroes. Every single entrepreneur has the courage to go after a dream. But a lot of good people who are entrepreneurs, they've got the best ethics, the best morals, they wanna really serve people, but... their sales and marketing skills aren't that great. And they're afraid of selling. Let's be honest, they're afraid. They don't wanna be seen as pushy or salesy, right? And here's the problem. If you're not selling, you're hurting yourself and your business and the clients that you could be selling to. Because a good person won't be able to do business with you. You won't make money. They won't have someone help solve their problem and some Charlotte to marketer. Frank Hereda (04:14.606) Absolutely. Absolutely. Nicky Billou (04:33.045) with low ethics and morals but great sales skills is gonna come scoop up that business. Everybody gets hurt. And I'm here to, yeah, I'm here to tell people that if you're in business, you have to sell. There is no substitute for selling. If you hate selling, you gotta learn sales skills. And you gotta take the attention off you, what they're gonna think of me, are they gonna think I'm pushy or salesy? You gotta put the attention on them, what's their problem? Frank Hereda (04:38.766) And there's a lot of that these days. Nicky Billou (05:01.973) Why are they here in front of me? Can I help them? And if you do that, you're going to be successful in sales. Just teaching people that has helped many people that I know and have helped double, triple, quadruple, tenfold their business. And that's been my deal. My dad was a professional believer in people and that's who I am. Dad said, everyone needs someone to believe in them. Everyone wobbles sometimes in their self -belief and they need someone to believe in them to spark that little, flame of belief into a roaring fire. And that's my job, man. I'm an author. I've written 10 books, two of them New York Times bestsellers. I'm a podcast host, top 10 iTunes podcast. I have helped many people make a lot of money. I teach people about podcasting, podcast guesting, thought leadership, sales. But the biggest thing I have is I believe in people and I help them. Frank Hereda (05:55.63) So I mean, that's a lot to unpack. Amazing story. I always find that it's interesting to see the progression. So you came over with your parents and it couldn't have been easy. Your dad was an entrepreneur there. Did he continue to be an entrepreneur in the States? Okay. So he's kept, he just started right from scratch doing his own thing. Nicky Billou (06:16.149) yeah, absolutely. In Canada, not the States, Canada. Dad had businesses in Iran, so it wasn't from scratch by any means, but he was able to come up with capital and funding and he started businesses here. Frank Hereda (06:27.022) Well, you know, starting over here in the States is what I mean. Frank Hereda (06:33.674) that's pretty impressive. So straight over. Do you know that reminds me of, you know, who Patrick bet David is. Okay. Nicky Billou (06:40.437) Sure, he's a fellow Persian from Iran and he came here, he's 10 years younger than I am, but he came here and he's created quite the business and brand for himself. Frank Hereda (06:44.462) Yeah. Is he? Yeah, pretty interesting. Well, that's really cool. So... You come to America and then what, at what point, what's that? I mean, Canada, you came to, yeah, sorry. You came to Canada. At what point did you say, okay, and what, what did you decide it was going to be? So what was your progression? So you, did you go to school? Did you not go to school? How did you decide where you, did you take after your dad and go into the business with your dad? How did you get, get where you are today? How did you. Okay. Nicky Billou (06:59.349) Canada. Canada. Canada. We moved to Toronto, Canada. Nicky Billou (07:18.901) All of it, I did all of that, I did all of that. I went to school, I got an undergraduate business degree, I got a master's in international business and politics. I worked in corporate for a while. I worked with my dad and his business. I started my own businesses. I always knew eventually I'd end up in my own businesses and I did because I believe in the majesty of entrepreneurship and I believe in going after your dreams and I wanted to live free. I don't like bureaucracy and that became very obvious when I worked in corporate. I love being my own boss and I love working with other fellow entrepreneurs. We're free people engaging with one another freely. That's incredible from my perspective. Frank Hereda (08:01.486) What do you find holds most entrepreneurs back? What's the top three problems they face? They come to you, what are the top three things you see that they face and that they can't get past? Nicky Billou (08:12.565) Overwhelmingly, brother, it's scaling leads revenue. Overwhelmingly. And the vast majority of people, they just don't know how to sell well. They're afraid of selling, they're scared, and that's that. So I'll tell you a little story. There's a woman who just signed up. I have a 90 -day sales accountability program. We call it 90K in 90 days. Frank Hereda (08:20.43) I would agree with that. Nicky Billou (08:41.557) I want you to generate at least an extra $90 ,000 in the next 90 days in sales. Over and above whatever else you got bringing in. And she came in and she had had a hard time getting sales for quite some time. Yeah, really, really hard time getting sales. And she came to us because she needed to do something differently. And honestly, I said, look, come into our program, be coachable, and if you're coachable, this is gonna work for you. And she was. Within her first week, she went from doing nothing and just kinda moping about not having leads in sales to having 30 calls with prospects and setting up about seven sales appointments from zero, seven in a fricking week. And that's in her first week. We had another fellow. He's an accountant, not the most charismatic fellow in the world. He's a tax accountant for crying out loud. His best months were usually 10, 12 grand a month. So Q1 2023 did about 30 grand, 35 grand in sales. Q1 this year, which was his 90 days with us, he did $89 ,500 in sales just because he was part of a group where he was encouraged to take action every day on sales. Frank Hereda (09:43.822) Yeah. Yeah. Nicky Billou (10:09.781) And he couldn't get off the hook. He couldn't get off the hook. And I'm telling you this, if you wanna win in the game of sales, you've got to sell. There's no other way. You gotta get on phone calls, you gotta set up appointments, you gotta have discovery questions that you ask people. And if you suck at that, you gotta learn from someone who's good at it, like us. And if you do it again and again and again, you're gonna win. If you don't, you're gonna lose. You know what I'm saying? Frank Hereda (10:16.046) Is it? Frank Hereda (10:41.23) Yeah, a hundred percent. Absolutely. I agree. And, and let me ask you a question. so I don't know what your process is, but I'm guessing it was one. I know you talk about being uncomfortable. I would agree with you on that. I'm guessing that it was get uncomfortable and start talking to people, you know, and that's what most people aren't doing. They're not talking to people that they know a group of, whether it's their church or whether it's their, you know, people, they, do some activity with or just not using their database, if you will, people that they know. Yes, yeah. How much of it do you think, because I'm seeing this from one coach to another, I'm seeing that it's an epidemic of work ethic, no work ethic. So people just aren't willing to work. And not everybody, some don't know. Nicky Billou (11:12.917) It's a warm network. It's a warm network. Frank Hereda (11:36.334) what to do and some don't know where to go to do it. But then there's also the, okay, now you have to go do the work. And am I wrong? Is it both? Is it okay? Some people then they just still won't do the work and then but some will do it. And once they get the answers, they go and they're successful. I would say that's probably the case. What do you think about that? Nicky Billou (11:57.333) Look, the way I work is I charge for my services and I charge according to the value that I deliver. Bottom line, you're gonna be in my accountability program, it ain't gonna cost you five bucks. It's gonna cost you thousands. If you're gonna pay thousands to be a part of a sales accountability program, it behooves you to do what your accountability program tells you to do. And the vast majority of the people who come into our program are ready to work. Frank Hereda (12:20.846) Yeah, exactly. Nicky Billou (12:27.189) Now there are a few who haven't been. I just had a call with someone before you, it was why I was late for our podcast interview. She wanted to know about how I could help her and I told her this is what I do and she just kept going, well, how are you different? And I'm like, it's not about me, it's about you. It's not, I need to be different, you need to be different. Right now you're trying to put the entire onus of coaching on me. And I told her, it's on you. And I'm gonna tell her, I recommend you don't sign up for any program with anybody until you change your attitude. I'm gonna send that to her in a text as soon as you and I are done. I'm gonna say, it was great talking to you, but here's what I wanna tell you out of our call. I would not take you on right now as a client. I absolutely wouldn't take you on until I'm clear that you're clear that you own this success. You are not coachable. You want to put, you wanna just put all the blame on, I put money in programs, that's your problem. Frank Hereda (12:58.926) Totally agree. Frank Hereda (13:09.55) Well it doesn't help anybody. Nicky Billou (13:22.965) The problem is not the programs, the problem is you. You need to own that you went into programs and you didn't do the work you were supposed to do. If you're willing to change and you're truly willing to like tell me, hey, I'm ready to work with you because I am ready to like give up being uncoachable, then we can talk. But other than that, I love you, I respect you, I think you're a great person, but you're fundamentally uncoachable and you can't join my program. That's what I'm gonna tell her. And when people come into my program, they tend to do the work and they tend to get the results. And if they're not somebody in charging 10 grand for a 90 -day accountability program, separates the wheat from the chaff pretty darn quickly. Yeah. Frank Hereda (13:54.318) I love it. Frank Hereda (13:58.542) Yeah, well they can tell. Frank Hereda (14:08.046) Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I agree with that. So getting uncomfortable and focusing on your warm network or whatever you want to call it, right? That handles leads to some degree. So you mentioned scaling. Nicky Billou (14:23.957) There's a quarter million minimum in your warm network that you're not accessing because you're lazy and you're not calling. There's a quarter million minimum in your warm network that you're not accessing because you're being lazy and you're not calling. Frank Hereda (14:28.622) What did you say? What was the first thing you said? Quarter million. Frank Hereda (14:37.742) that's probably I could I could get on board with that. I see it all the time. Scaling. Talk to me about scaling. The process of what people are dealing with and what they need to change. Nicky Billou (14:52.757) At the end of the day, if you own a business, you're in charge of your own sales. Okay, you're in charge of your own sales. And you've got to own that. I think that mindset shift is number one. And the second part of it is that you need to learn how to have a strong personal brand. where there's a point of difference between you and the marketplace. There's a lot of experts out there, but there's not a lot of authorities or thought leaders. I teach thought leadership. What's the difference between an expert and a thought leader? An expert is someone who knows something, but they're invisible, nobody knows them. A thought leader is someone who knows something, but everybody in their marketplace that needs to know them knows them, they're professionally famous. So I teach people about how to become a thought leader, how to become professionally famous. So yes, you've got to have good expertise and it's got to be written out in a powerful, strong way. All that's super true and super important. But more than anything else, Frank, more than anything else, you gotta learn how to have the marketplace know who the heck you are. Because if they don't know who you are, you're going nowhere. So I'll give you an example of a client. So we had this woman, functional medicine doc, successful, made six figures. She came to us and she wanted to tenfold her business. Why? She had a big why. Her dad was dying of brain cancer, geoblastoma. And six months later, he was dead. She was daddy's girl, daddy's girl. And she wanted to honor his memory by becoming as successful in business as he was, because he was a very successful multimillionaire entrepreneur. She came to us and she said, okay, how do I do this? And I said, okay, well, what do you do? Who do you help? She says, well, I can help anybody with any health problem. Frank Hereda (16:42.958) Too broad, too wide. Nicky Billou (16:46.709) I said, we're gonna do an exercise. She said, okay. I said, let's draw a Venn diagram. In the first circle are all the people that you have gotten amazing results for. Make a list. So she did. In the second circle are the people you love working with. They're like just fun to work with, great to work with, awesome, enjoyable. Make a list. She did. In the third circle, make a list of the people that were easiest to do business with. They paid on time, in full, referred lots of clients. She made a list of those. Who are the people who overlap all three? Nicky Billou (17:17.813) became pretty obvious who they were. They were professional women over the age of 45, successfully married with children and very successful in their careers. They only had one major issue in their life and it was a big one. These are women, see Frank? And they felt that time had passed them by, they were no longer young, they were no longer beautiful. And they were resigned, they'd never get it back. Now Frank, you're a man, you're not a woman, but I think you've known a woman or two. I suspect you may have even had a mother and you may have even dated a woman or two in your life. And Frank, one or two. And Frank, women in your experience, do they like feeling beautiful and young, vibrant? Do they like that? Usually, right? Usually. Like real women, you know, not these fake women that they call trans women or any of that stuff, real women, right? They like feeling young and beautiful, right? Right. And... Frank Hereda (17:51.63) One or two. Frank Hereda (18:02.99) Usually. Frank Hereda (18:09.582) Yeah, that's right. Nicky Billou (18:16.181) So I said to her, Dr. Vicki, I'll call her. Dr. Vicki! You can help me so much. She goes, yeah. She said, listen, there's a distinction between aging and getting older. I'm like, okay, cool. What is it? She said, well, getting older is the number. Every year the number goes up. You are gonna get older. If you are alive, you're gonna get older. Every year the number goes up. I'm like, okay, I got it. But aging, that's not so inevitable. Not so inevitable like getting older. You can be as beautiful, as vibrant, biologically young in your. 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s as you were in your teens, 20s, 30s. I'm like, yeah, really? You can deliver on this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, okay, let's call it a cool name. So I came up with the name, Get Your Sexy Back, Baby. Get Your Sexy Back. And, body, in her first year, doubles her income. In her second year, doubles it again. In her third year, doubles it again. She went from six figures a year to six figures a month. Frank Hereda (19:21.838) Big difference. Nicky Billou (19:22.037) thought leadership brother, power of thought leadership. Frank Hereda (19:25.39) But you said something, I think the nugget there, and this is what I want everyone to understand. I want you to repeat something for me. If you will. You said the three questions you asked her with the Venn diagram, would you repeat those three questions again? Nicky Billou (19:38.197) Yeah, who are the people you got the best results for? Who are the people you enjoyed working with the most? Who are the people that were easiest to do business with? Frank Hereda (19:49.358) I think that's the gold. That's the gold right there. There you go. I hope everybody's willing to send in their checks. Everybody's sending your checks. So that's, but that's the gold, right? So you have to ask the right questions. If you ask the right questions, then you get better answers. And I think those are three great questions to ask. Great place to start. So I think that's really important. Nicky Billou (19:51.861) Free of charge to you and your listener, brother. Well, we normally charge 50 grand for people to learn these secrets, but it's free right now for you and your listeners. Nicky Billou (20:19.285) Yeah, for sure. 100 % Frank Hereda (20:21.166) So we talked about, so, okay, so she's asking the right questions and she's going to call the right people. She's going to get more leads and then she's going to start to get bigger. She's going to need more help. Right. So this leads us to our scaling question, which, which we're kind of on. So you said that someone has problems with scale. I would agree with you. Scalability is an issue, right? the leads is an issue and then the revenue is an issue and that could be ways, a couple of ways to fix that. Nicky Billou (20:49.621) Yeah. Frank Hereda (20:49.646) the scalability issue, how do they figure out, okay, I'm getting more deals, I need help, I'm starting to get underwater. How do they go through the process of figuring out who to need and where do they go next? Nicky Billou (21:04.021) Well, you know, there are four qualities that everyone needs to have in order to really win in the game of business. Number one is you gotta be decisive. That means you gotta be like, I'm in it to win it. Number two is you gotta be committed. You gotta be willing to suck at something before you're any good at it. Right? And a lot of people don't get that. Like if you go, I'm not good at this and you realize you have a gold of. Frank Hereda (21:28.11) True. Nicky Billou (21:33.173) Winning business and this is one of the skills you need, you better learn to get good at it and commit to it. And number three is you gotta be coachable. You gotta invest in yourself. You are the entrepreneur, you're the most important asset in your business. Businesses invest in key assets all the time. As an entrepreneur of a micro or small business, you are by far the most important asset you have. You gotta invest in coaches. You gotta join masterminds. You've got to. Be coachable and go to conferences. You've got to take courses, buy and read books. Invest in coaching though. And finally, you gotta be resourceful and come up with the time, energy and money to do all this. So if someone says, I'm underwater, I don't know what to do, what do you think I'm gonna tell them? Hire a coach, a good coach. Frank Hereda (22:31.726) Coach. Nicky Billou (22:34.677) a great coach, the best there is coach. What you shouldn't do is say to yourself, well, I'm not gonna do that. I don't need. Frank Hereda (22:47.278) Yeah. Well, investing in yourself is one of the number one things you need to do. And most people don't see the value in that. That's unfortunate. Nicky Billou (22:53.845) Robin Sharma, the author of the legendary book, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, he used to be a client of mine when I was a fitness trainer, said to me once, if you want to double your income this year, triple your investment in personal and professional development. I listened to him. Whenever I've done that, I have at least doubled my. Frank Hereda (23:11.566) So true. Nicky Billou (23:11.861) If your business right now is lacking sales, you need to do something about it. You need to learn how to sell. You need to be part of a community where they teach you how to sell and they give you accountability. Right? If you are wanting to learn how to get business through podcasts, you need to go do a course on it. I teach a course called Get Booked and Get Paid about how to get booked on podcasts and get paid. Do my course. There's other people who teach courses on how to start a podcast. Do that course. If you want to learn about how to be a thought leader, I teach a course on creating your thought leadership. Do that course. You've got to do courses. You've got to join masterminds. You've got to do them. There's no other way. Yes, ma 'am. Yes, ma 'am. Frank Hereda (23:53.678) It's a journey. It's a journey. Invest in yourself. I agree. Let me ask you a question. So in today's world, a lot of what you're saying is, you know, there's two things that I see. One is a, is another problem and, and well, they're both can be challenges. Let's say that. And, and I think that's added more to most entrepreneurs plates that they weren't prepared for is what it is. You got to do what you got to do. Social media, video. Right. I coach on, Hey, video first social, you've got to be out there that ties directly in with what you said earlier, but then also focus people do too many things and they don't have one lane they stay in. And then they, they're all over the place and they never really get deep enough on one topic or one getting too, you know, not niche enough. Do you see that? And how do you, how do you have those conversations with your clients? Do you agree? Nicky Billou (24:51.125) Look, I gotta be honest. Most of my clients aren't doing a ton on social media or video. I've got some clients who do that. I've got a few clients who are doing podcasts and I teach people how to be a guest on other people's show. So I can't really speak to that from experience. You probably can speak to that better than I can. But I can tell you this, when it comes to generating sales and leads, I know that they are. Frank Hereda (25:06.99) Okay. Nicky Billou (25:18.837) not doing that to the extent they ought to be doing. They aren't calling their warm network. They're not doing things like social media, video, podcasting, and podcast guessing with the intention of generating leads. They just want to get visibility. I gotta be honest with you, that is a weak intention. On a good day, it's a weak intention. You need an intention to say, I'm going to do this to get leads and sales. If you do that, that's a good intention. Frank Hereda (25:37.358) It's passive. Nicky Billou (25:47.221) and you will generate leads in sales. So to me, that's the number one intention you ought to have. So when I go on a podcast like yours, I have what I call the triple intention. Number one is I want to inspire your listeners. We're living in a time where a lot of people need inspiration. God has given me the ability to inspire people with how I speak. So that's number one. Number two, I want to make you feel like you made an amazing decision to bring me on. I want you to say to yourself, This dude is the greatest guest I've ever had on. I want him back, man. And number three, I want to build a relationship with a fellow business owner. How do people do business with one another? They do business with people they know, like, and trust. What's the best way to know, like, and trust someone? Talk to them. What is a podcast interview? It's a conversation. At the end of this interview, I will have probably inspired you and a few of your listeners. I will have probably had you go, Frank Hereda (26:34.094) Spend time. Nicky Billou (26:44.565) man, I'm glad I brought this guy on, he's great. And third, I will probably have built enough of a relationship with you that there's an opening for us to discuss collaboration opportunities, doing business opportunities. That's why I go on shows. And I teach people to have this type of intentionality when they go and they're a guest on a show. Most people go on a show and go, I'm just coming on a show because I want more people to see me, I wanna be visible. Frank Hereda (27:13.102) That doesn't help. Yeah, doesn't help. Nicky Billou (27:13.141) What's that going to do for you? What's that going to do for you? Nothing. Nothing. Frank Hereda (27:20.11) Talk to me about, branding, because I think that's an, I think there's different people think there's different ideas of branding. You know, like you said, people go on, they go out and they want to be on the podcast just to say visibility. How do you build that brand? What do we think is what's the most important piece that people need to focus on to build their brand? Nicky Billou (27:42.005) It's not any one thing, man. When you build your brand, you need to be omnipresent with your messaging, right? Like you talked about video, social media, podcasting, podcast, guesting, writing books, all of those need to be done. But I want to say this to you first and foremost, don't just go out there and spew crap that you really don't know about, or you haven't spent the time to think through. So I want to show you something. Okay. this is a tool, which. a fella in Australia invented an IP snapshot, right? This is a tool for creating intellectual property. Do you have any intellectual property you've thought about or you just wanna go and spew some basic cliche crap? No, you need to create some intellectual property. This is a folder full of these IP snapshots. This is like a whole area, the subject of high performance, of execution, of winning. So I've got a bunch of these folders. Right? This is my winning folder. I've got 56 of these IP snapshots in my winning folder. This is the basis of me having written my book, Finish Line Thinking, How to Think and Win Like a Champion. There's another one of these that I did. It's the basis of me doing my book, Power of Connecting, How to Create Profitable Relationships by Building Your Network. You gotta sit down and think this through. And if you don't know how to do it, then you need to do a program like ours that'll show you how to do it. But before you go out there to build your brand, think deeply about issues, know what the hell you're talking about, and make sure that it's useful to people. Then go out there and speak. The biggest mistake that people make, they go, I'm gonna brand myself, I'm gonna go on a gazillion shows, I'll put on a video. So if you put on a video, let's say it goes viral and 10 million people watch it, and you said some really stupid shit, congratulations, man. You have a brand as an idiot. You know what I mean? Frank Hereda (29:30.67) Heheheheh Frank Hereda (29:34.894) Yeah. Nicky Billou (29:37.589) And that's not a good brand. That's not a good brand, bro. Better that 30 people heard you, but you have a brand with those 30 people as a deeply intelligent man in your area of expertise. Frank Hereda (29:40.174) Yeah. Well, that's, that's what a lot of people do. Frank Hereda (29:53.902) There's a lot of people that do that on social nowadays. Nicky Billou (29:56.309) Yes, every day, all day. Social is full of dummies. I'm sorry, but it's a fact. Frank Hereda (30:01.742) It's very true. Very true. Well, it's, and then things are changing drastically. What the one key word that you said that I love was omnipresent. That's a, that's a dead on. So I think that's, that's the best thing you said. so, okay. Tell me about what you do with people when you bring them to, I think I saw that you have seminars. Did I see that correctly? You have events. I don't know if we call them a seminar, but they're events. Nicky Billou (30:28.469) Yeah, I've got a bunch of different events. Yeah, workshops. I got workshops, I got ongoing programs, we do both. Frank Hereda (30:31.662) What's that? Yeah. Yeah. I agree with the mastermind comment. I think people do need to join masterminds and they need to be around the close. They're the, some of the closest people around them. Right. We've heard that how many times. and so I think that's absolutely important. What are the other important topics when you talk to clients and you talk to them about being successful? I know you have a lot of different programs. Nicky Billou (30:46.677) Exactly, a gazillion times. Frank Hereda (31:03.118) How to add 20 to 100K in a year or how to make a million dollars in three years. What else do you focus on besides your close network or your warm contacts? Is there anything else that you talk to them about? Nicky Billou (31:15.445) Yeah, podcast guesting, like I told you, that's a program we teach called, well, podcast guesting, like I said, you have to have a triple intention, right? I show people like you and I met through pod match. So pod match is a powerful tool that has been a game changer for me, but I use pod match to get on 600 shows over the last two years. My first hundred shows I went on, I made no money. And then once I got onto, Frank Hereda (31:18.446) What do you focus on when you talk about podcasting? Walk us through that. Nicky Billou (31:43.381) my 101st show, it all seemed to click. And there is a format to the talk. The talk can't just be a talk. So I show them how to format their appearance. I show them how to tell the right stories. And I show them how to do a good job for the host. Because like I said to you before, this is what I realized that nobody else realized. This is a business opportunity for you, for me. This is a business opportunity. It's not just a day to have tea and crumpets. You know what I mean? And I teach people from beginning to end how to create these opportunities, how to use PodMatch to pick the right shows to go on, and how to generate a conversation with the host that is gonna be valuable and beneficial during the podcast and then potentially after the podcast as well. Frank Hereda (32:18.83) Yeah. Nicky Billou (32:41.717) And that's what people don't understand is that you and the host are in a unique situation to not just have a great conversation, but to potentially do ongoing business with one another. When you think about that, you can bring people on your show as a host that are potential clients for you. I've done that on my show. I hope and trust you've done the same on yours and I would recommend that everybody do that. So, and me as a guest, I can go on shows where the host is potentially a client for me, potentially a referral partner for me, potentially a joint venture partner for me. All these things are things that people don't talk about and don't practice. Nikki Ballou, he talks about them and practices them. I joined PodMatch. May 14th, 2022. I have done over $380 ,000 in sales five to seven hours a week because of being on other people's shows. And I do lots of other things to make money. But this is very important. This is why I teach a two day workshop called Get Booked and Get Paid. Anyone who wants to learn how to do what I've done should come and do that workshop. That's a powerful workshop. It'll change your life. And podcast guesting works today. There are things that don't work today, but podcast guesting works today. Frank Hereda (34:09.966) So you said episode 101, it clicked. What I hear is intentionality. That's what I hear from what you're saying. Intentionality, be intentional, and don't just go on and be laissez faire about the podcast experience. Have a purpose, execute on that purpose, and be intentional. And so is that what clicked for you? It took you the 100 episodes? I mean... Nicky Billou (34:29.429) Yes, sir. Frank Hereda (34:34.414) I could see how that would happen. You'd do a hundred and you're like, what the heck? And then maybe a hundred and first, did you change what you did or did it just click in your mind and you were like, my gosh, what have I been doing? I've been walk, sleep, walking through these podcast episodes. There's an actual strategy here and I'm going to tell a story about a client who had success. That's one piece. Make sure I get that in. Number two is, you know, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like what is that kind of what you're talking about? Nicky Billou (35:00.597) bit of a bit of both to tell you the truth. Like I teach that in business there are what I call clicking moments when you do the reps. If you're doing the reps on sales calls, right? Like on our sales program, you may suck at your first 30 sales calls, but on the 31st one, shoot, don't say that. Say this instead. There's a clicking moment. It's you're in the gym. You look like you work out buddy. You got some guns on you, right? The first day you went in the gym, you were probably a skinny little runt, right? But then In month six, you look at yourself in the mirror and you go, holy shit, man, I got pecs, I got shoulders, I got a back, I got a V, I got a taper. my God, I got abs. Look at that. How'd that happen? It's doing the reps. Now, you don't have to go on 100 shows to figure this out. I'll teach it to you so on your first show, you'll do the right thing. You don't have to be like me, right? You know what I'm saying? That's the brilliance of this, but. Frank Hereda (35:51.246) everybody get your checkbook out. Everybody get your checkbook out again. Let's go. Frank Hereda (35:58.83) Yeah. Nicky Billou (35:59.445) For me, man, I was at a time in my business where 2022 started off rough for us, you know? Pandemic, lockdowns, I made some good decisions and some bad ones. I started one mastermind, I let a guy in who wanted to sell everybody else, and I didn't kick him out, which I should have. He wrecked the whole group, quarter million dollars in business disappeared. I had to come up with new ways to make money, and that's why I went into podcast guesting, and it started to work. Started to work. It was beautiful. You know what I'm saying to you. It was beautiful. Yeah It really really is a beautiful thing when it clicks and I'll tell you this we were able to We were able to turn this into a beautiful business. We were able to generate a lot of money But I didn't know if I could teach this to anybody else so I teamed up with an old mentor of mine and he Frank Hereda (36:34.19) That's cool. That's a beautiful thing when it clicks. It's a beautiful thing. Nicky Billou (36:58.869) and I did a few previews for some of his high level clients. These are people who pay him like 100 ,000 a year to be in his masterminds. And seven of them bought my course for two grand. So it's been two grand ever since, you know what I mean? And those guys, three of them came, four of them signed up for my sales accountability program after, and three of those four made money. by going on a podcast themselves and doing what I taught them. This one dude is this Belgian dude. Now I know what you teach might be hard to sell, but this guy, he has an easy time of it, because he's selling gardens and do -it -yourself gardening. I'm being facetious, right? That's not an easy sale at all. So Buddy goes on a show and sells a do -it -yourself gardening program in his first week. This old lady, Grandma, 68, 69 years old, goes on a show. It was her 15th show. Frank Hereda (37:43.31) Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Nicky Billou (37:57.045) She sold a $5 ,000 coaching program. It was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. And when I saw other people were able to do this, I thought, man, this is a great thing. Because buddy, look, there's been all kinds of ways to make money, okay? So you could do blog posts, you could do social media, videos, podcasts, hosting, book writing. And I'm not saying these don't work, because they all work. They all work. Now some of these don't work as well as they used to, right? Because, People have been doing them, like for example, you know, paid advertising, right? It still works, but it's costing more and more and more. It's not as good as it was five years ago as an example. Part cast guesting, bro, the Nikki Biliwe, and I'm one of one who teaches this. It works now. You know why? Because other than me and a few of my students, nobody else is doing it. Nobody. But in three years, everybody will be doing it. It won't be so easy, but it's easy now. So. Frank Hereda (38:36.11) Sure. Frank Hereda (38:54.446) Yeah. Nicky Billou (38:54.549) You should get on it now. You should learn now. You should come and figure this out with my help now. Amen. Frank Hereda (38:58.702) Strike while the iron's hot. There you go. I like it. Okay. Walk me through the one million in three years. Walk everybody through the one million in three years. Nicky Billou (39:12.693) I think I told you the story of my client, Dr. Vicky, right? She was 1 million in three years, right? She had actually 1 .2 million, be perfectly precise with her, 1 .26 million, but she, who's counting, right? Not me. But what was important? First of all, she had to narrow her focus. Not any health problem for anybody, but. Frank Hereda (39:21.742) Yeah. Frank Hereda (39:25.134) Who's counting? Frank Hereda (39:41.902) She was too wide. Nicky Billou (39:42.645) Get your sexy back for professional women, right? That was number one for nobody. Secondly, she had to put in the reps, make the calls. That's one of the reasons we do sales accountability now, because so many people need help with that, right? And one of the things about me that's different about a lot of other coaches and mastermind groups, like people sign up for my groups. I don't just say, okay, you signed up for this, you're on your own now. We're there. Frank Hereda (39:46.35) If you're for everybody, you're for nobody. Nicky Billou (40:12.437) Someone's like, help. We say, text me, pick up the phone, we'll call you now. In between calls. We don't just give you the number of calls you signed up for. This isn't an hourly program, you know what I mean? This is a you get the result program. So we sit down and we talk to people, we make it happen for them. You know what I mean? And I was talking to a lady today and she said, look, you know what I love about working with you? There are days where I just don't feel like I believe in myself and you're there with me. Frank Hereda (40:24.334) Yeah. Nicky Billou (40:40.661) and you call me, you just give me that little bit of encouragement, I keep going for another two, three days. And that's what people need, man. They need somebody to believe in them, right? They need someone to spark that flame of belief. And I think that's important for you to have. And then you gotta do the reps and keep coming and keep getting trained and keep getting coached and keep tweaking, right? That's what gets you to three million. It's not a straight line, brother. It'll be up, it'll be down, it'll zig, it'll zag, it'll move around. Like last year, I used to be a fitness coach, right? Frank Hereda (40:50.414) For sure, they need support. They need a, yeah, exactly. Frank Hereda (41:03.918) No way. Nicky Billou (41:10.005) I quit, I got into business. I gained over 50 pounds over a dozen years. Every year I told myself I'm gonna lose weight, I didn't lose weight. And you know, it's because I lied to myself and I said, you used to be a fitness coach, you know what to do. And last year, I saw my belly hanging over my shirt. I was grossed out, disgusted. I said, no more, man, I'm hiring somebody. And I made a crucial decision, I was gonna listen to him, because you gotta understand, I trained Olympic gold medalist. I had a big ego about what I knew and what I could do. And I hired a coach and I promised myself I would do whatever he told me. And I did. I wanted to argue with him every day with every decision, but I didn't. In six months, I dropped 58 pounds. I went from 227 to 168. That's a massive win. Why did it happen? Because I got coachable. And by the way, after that, I decided I'm going to do a bodybuilding competition. So I put back on another 20 plus pounds and now we're cutting again now, but you know, whole different conversation for a different time. Thank you. Frank Hereda (41:52.814) That's a massive win. Frank Hereda (42:05.23) Good for you. Good for you. Nicky Billou (42:07.157) Yeah, 56 doing a natural bodybuilding competition. That's okay. Frank Hereda (42:10.318) Hey, I'll take it. If I'm 56, if I'm your age doing that, I will be happy, so. Nicky Billou (42:14.741) Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you want to get to three million in three years, get coachable, get in with a great coach, learn how to create yourself as a thought leader and get yourself out there in an omnipresent way. Do the reps with having the sales conversations and constantly tweet, constantly be coached throughout the three years and just constantly go for it, go for it, go for it. That's how you'll get there. You won't get there by pretending there's a magic bullet. There is not a magic bullet. Podcast guesting is a method. It's a great method and it works now, but it won't be the only method. All the methods you can think of and find out which worked best for you and stick to those and get coached throughout the process. Be around people. You talked about the law of proximity. The people you are around, your peer group are going to determine you because Frank man left to my own devices. You know what I want to do? I want to stay up late every night. I want to eat bonbons in front of the fucking TV. I want to get up at 10 o 'clock, 11 o 'clock every morning. You know, I want to eat whatever crappy food I want to eat. I don't want to do anything left to my own devices. But when I'm a part of something like this morning, I had a coaching call with one of my coaches. She teaches me like meditation and things like that. So I interviewed one of my clients for my podcast. She was one of my get booked and get paid clients. Frank Hereda (43:21.87) Nothing, yeah. Frank Hereda (43:33.646) Yeah. Nicky Billou (43:41.525) and I interviewed her to give her feedback and she did a great job. I'm going to release the interview, right? I had lunch. I jumped on another podcast. I had a coaching call, a new prospect called and I've got you. As soon as I'm done with you, I'm on a group course that I'm in called 111 Days to Greatness and it's... It's nonstop bro. And then when that's done, I'm gonna crash. Hopefully my lady's gonna come over. She's been texting me. Her texts have a distinctive sound so I can hear she's been texting me while we've been talking. So I don't know what she's saying, but hopefully she's gonna come over. We'll have a nice romantic night together. If not, I'm gonna watch some reruns of the Sopranos. I'm gonna eat some food. Frank Hereda (44:15.694) We're the same. We're the same, man. Nicky Billou (44:32.469) I did the workout early this morning. That's already done, bro. And then, you know, I get up tomorrow and got family activities tomorrow, family activities Sunday, and Monday we start again. Monday I already have seven podcasts and meetings, man. That's a lot in a single fricking day, you know? Right? And Tuesday I only have four. So it's a slow day, right? And then we take it from there, bro. Frank Hereda (44:35.342) No, you're not allowed man. You gotta work out. You gotta get ready for you. back at it. Frank Hereda (44:55.79) That is a lot. That is a lot. Frank Hereda (45:04.11) That's how it goes, man. That's how it goes. So as we wrap up, anything that you think everybody should know or hear, I want to obviously get to where they can find you and where, you know, we'll leave links in the bio and that kind of stuff. But any last parting words that you want to leave with everybody? Nicky Billou (45:19.413) I'm gonna tell you one last story and this is a great story. So about six and a half years ago, I was introduced to a woman who was a very accomplished woman. She was the country director for Canada from one of the world's oldest and largest personal development companies, like a world famous brand name you would recognize. And she came to us because she had decided, to bring a guy on board to help her run the company in Canada. And she thought this guy was very talented and that's why she brought him on board. And for the first year they were together, it was great. Then their visions of the future diverged. Kind of like Steve Jobs and John Scully back in the day with Apple. And she had a board of directors, kind of like Steve Jobs and Apple back in the day. And just like Steve Jobs, they kicked her out and they kept him. She was bereft. She meandered for 18 months. Someone told her about us and she came on board and we said to her, What do you do? She told us, we helped her narrow her focus, blah, blah. Started working with entrepreneurs of technology, biotech, these types of companies, 10 million plus who were overwhelmed, burnt out. Her first month, she did $10 ,000 in sales. Her second month, she did 12 ,000. Her third month, she did 18 ,000. Her fourth month, she did $62 ,200 as a solopreneur coach. That's a fantastic number. And that number will become germane in a moment. Now she lives in Ottawa, I live in Toronto. At the time, my eldest son was 12, he played soccer and he had a tournament in Ottawa. I called her up, I said, hey, my son's got a tourney in Ottawa, you got a son his age, you guys wanna come watch the game, grab some lunch with us? She said, yeah. We did that, everybody had a great time. I drove back to Toronto, she went back home with her son, and here's what happened. Nicky Billou (47:26.421) A few weeks later in Toronto, we had our quarterly branded Thought Leader Emerging Workshop. This is where we teach people how to create their thought leader brand and scale to seven figures. And we had come to the point of the workshop where we had the registration opportunity. The way I do registration opportunities is I bring on some of my existing clients and members and I ask them to tell their story. It's very powerful, much better than me saying crap. And normally I ask who wants to share, people put up their hands, and I did that again. Who would like to share? She didn't put up her hand, she bounded up on stage and practically knocked me on my ass. I said, I guess you really wanna talk. All right, go for it. I receded in the background, I'm staring at her back, okay? She's at the front of the stage, I'm at the back of the stage. Frank Hereda (48:04.238) Absolutely. Nicky Billou (48:23.125) She's just looking around. I can see her head doing one of this. And then I see a little bit of a shoulder shrug. What's going on? Why is she? And then I heard a sob and I'm like, shit, she's crying. Fuck, why is she crying? What did I do wrong? I'm screwed. Those are all the thoughts that went through my head, right? Now, I work with my beautiful better half, Teresa. I call her the girly gargons, because she does these crazy extreme 12 hours on treadmill runs and sets world records. She set three world records for it, okay? So she's like, wow. She comes on with some tissues and she gratefully accepts them and starts training. I call this lady Julie and then she turns around to me and she's still sobbing and she says, Nikki, you didn't know this in between sobs, but when you and your little son came to visit me and my little son, my little son said, mommy, mommy, who are we gonna go meet? Like, you know, 12 year old boys full of piss and vinegar and energy. And she says, sweetheart, we're just gonna see Nikki Ballou and his son. Cause she was trying to just pipe him down. It worked, he piped down, he got very quiet. And she said, he said to her, mommy, are we gonna go see the man who saved our family? Nicky Billou (49:43.285) So bro, you've only gotten to know me for 30, 40 minutes. I think you probably would agree I'm not a snowflake. I'm not, you know what I mean? I'm an old school, older, 56 year old, Gen X from the Middle East. Not a snowflake, I don't cry in public. That ain't what I do, right? I bald like a little girl. Bald, like just like, my God, we both hugged and everyone's going, And in between that she's saying, You did not know this, but. before I came to join your program, I had not made any money in 18 months. My husband and I were fighting in front of our children, our three sons, every day about money. And the kids were freaking out because they thought we were gonna break up. I thought we were gonna break up. Nicky Billou (50:40.245) We worked with you, we made some money, we paid off our debts, and we have money put aside besides. And that took all the financial pressure off and then we stopped fighting and that saved our family. And then we hugged and we kissed and I didn't call anybody else, bro, because there's nobody who could follow that. You know what I mean? That was, normally it's two, three people, but yeah. So bro, my program is 40 ,000 USD, one year master mark, okay? That is not a small sum of money, you would agree? It's not a small sum of money, right? Frank Hereda (51:08.142) Right? Yeah. Yeah. Nicky Billou (51:18.965) and we had eight prospects in the room. Normally, we hand out the reg forms. There's a couple people who'll sign up right away. There's a couple people who'll say no thanks. And there's a couple people we need to sit out and talk to and figure it out, okay? Frank Hereda (51:21.71) No, absolutely. Nicky Billou (51:35.541) this time for the first and last and only time. Everybody registered on the spot, everybody. And there were two guys, Frank, who had come to me beforehand and said, hey, Nicky, Nicky, they were older guys, right? I just want you to know something. I know I've signed up for your program and listen, I've been around the block. One of them was like, he was just, and I didn't fall off the back of the turn. I know you've got a registration opportunity coming. I'm a smart guy. All right, you're a smart guy. I want you to know, don't be disappointed, but I will not be registering for your enrollment opportunity. I will not. Just don't want you to be disappointed now. Two guys went out of their way to get in my face and tell me this, okay? What did I say? I said, sure, man, whatever. Whatever you want, of course. So Frank, some bitch was the first man to register. And he threw the damn thing in my hand, violently almost, right? Like I thought he was gonna punch me. And he just, he looked at me like this and he said, you son of a bitch. I'm like, what the fuck, man? So you're gonna hit me? What's going on? Do I need to start defending myself here? Yeah, I wasn't gonna sign up for your damn opportunity. He said, but I guess you're not full of shit. Frank Hereda (52:41.102) Yeah. Frank Hereda (52:47.63) I believe it. Frank Hereda (53:53.486) Love it. Frank Hereda (54:06.478) Love it. I appreciate it. Thank you. We'll put, and we'll put any links in the show notes and, everybody knows, where they can find any, they have any other questions. They go to Frank Corita .com. I appreciate you, man. Thank you for being on. It's been, it's been fun and maybe have to do this again in the future, but, we'll catch everybody next time. Take care of everybody. Bye.