Episode 138
Nikki Nash, Market Your Genius
In today’s episode, we chat with Nikki Nash, an author of the book - Market Your Genius
Nikki is an International Speaker, Podcast Host, Storytelling Expert, Marketing Mentor, and Consultant helping you get known and paid as a go-to industry expert.
If you're one of those people that needs encouragement, inspiration and support to get your ideas up and out of the world, then Nikki Nash is the expert to go to.
Nikki says that you are your own marketing tool because of the knowledge you have in you. When you're able to put your knowledge and expertise into something, you're essentially sharing with others. That’s how to position yourself as an expert. Why you're so magic and, showing them that, you know, a lot about a topic. And it's one of many ways that you can position yourself as an expert.
Here, Nikki shares with us the process of how getting her book developed and published. She says by putting her focused thoughts and all her efforts into getting what she wanted to accomplish and ensuring all her actions were focused towards achieving this goal, she got her book published specifically by Hay House. So really putting in the time and dedicating and getting laser-focused on something is really how it happened. Thanks to her taking Brendon Burchard's high-performance course.
Nikki tells us despite having written a marketing book, where thousands of those already exist, the trick is to wrap it into something different.
Although as an author your name is what appears on the cover, there is a lot of supporting collaborators, working in the wings. These collaborators, enabled her to: Have the accountability and real-talk pressure needed to actually produce. So instead of blaming herself for being a procrastinator, she decided to use procrastination to her advantage.
Having collaborators gave her the confidence and invaluable feedback
Nikki gives us tips which are a lot like dating tips, on how we can attract and get to actually work with your dream clients such as being crystal clear on how you’d like your business relationship to look like, what kind of work you’ll be working on, and what their belief systems are.
In addition, she shares strategies of marketing including the OPP strategy which focuses on the three main ways that people get in front of their audience. These are:
- Making organic content
- Paying for your content
- Partnerships
Nikki’s parting shot is ... If you are intentional and focused, you have the ability to put yourself in a place where you can make those partnership connections and be a part of new communities.
Nikki’s Website: https://nikkinash.co/
Nikki’s LinkedIn: Nikki Nash
Nikki’s freebies: Freebies
Brendon Burchard website: Brendon Burchard
Transcript
AUTO GENERATED TRANSCRIPT
Mark (:Welcome back everyone to our podcast, unlocking your world of creativity. This is the podcast where we literally go around the world to talk to creative practitioners about how they get inspired and how they organize those ideas and how they get the confidence and make the connections to launch their work out into the world. And if you're one of those people that needs encouragement, inspiration support to get your ideas up and out of the world, we've got a great guest for you today. Welcome Nikki Nash, Nikki. Welcome to the program.
Nikki (:Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for having me well,
Mark (:It's so great to be talking to you. And Nikki is a Hay House author. She is also the host of a great podcast called market your genius. And that's the name of your new book? Isn't it? Nikki market your genius. How exciting to get the book up and launched?
Nikki (:Yes, It was so exciting and I'm so proud of it. So wonderful things happening. Yeah, absolutely.
Mark (:Well, so many people and I am sure the readers of this book are saying, I've got a lot of expertise, I've got a lot of ideas. I've got a lot of experience. I gotta get my story out, but maybe they're not thinking about that. That's a marketing tool or, or a way to elevate their status. How do you view that?
Nikki (:Yeah. You know, it's, it's so far because I speak to people all the time, whether they're in a full-time job or they've created their own business who want to be seen as the go-to expert, whether it's for career mobility or it's to sell more products or things like that. And when you're able to put your knowledge and expertise into something, whether it's a book or a podcast or a YouTube channel or something along those lines and some may be free and some may be paid, you're essentially sharing with others. Why you're so magic and, showing them that, you know, a lot about a topic. And it's one of many ways that you can position yourself as an expert, but it's one of the greatest things. And so when people are like, oh, how's the bookselling? I'm like, shoot, if I didn't have a book deal, I just give them away for free to everybody and their mother, because to me it's a marketing tool. It's like, I put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into it, but it's, even though, you know, it, people pay for the book. It's for me a way to say, "Hey, I know what I'm talking about and an expert in this industry. And if you read this and like this and are like, whoa, this person's really cool. You are more likely to sign up for another product or service that I have."
Mark (:Yes, absolutely. And maybe Nikki, a lot of people think, oh, well everybody has a book, but everybody doesn't have a book. Do they?
Nikki (:No. In fact, I've said I was going to write a book since I was probably 11 years old. So it's like decades of not writing a book, thinking about it. And more people fit into that camp than the camp of actually writing a book, even though book production has dramatically increased. So more people are writing and publishing books than they were maybe 50, 60, 70 years ago. But still, when you look at the bigger picture, not a lot of people are actually taking the time to bring a book into the world.
Mark (:Well, and as you said, does that help differentiate you from the other people that maybe haven't published their story or their techniques or their methods?
Nikki (:Yeah, absolutely. And even if somebody in your competitive landscape has a book, your book will be different. You know, I wrote a marketing book. I can't say that it's the first marketing book to ever exist on the planet. Right. Especially cuz it's for entrepreneurs. No. But I wrote it in such a way. That's very me, people who love it are like, "wow, this is such a cool way of writing the book." Because it's almost like I'm you know, how if a parent wants their child to take medicine or something healthy for them, sometimes they wrap it in something else. Right. I feel like I did that. Not, like that way, my thinking, going through this, I just wrote the way that I like to teach, but I use stories and analogies and it can be entertaining. And then all of a sudden you're like, "oh my gosh, that's the point? And now I have homework"
Mark (:Yeah. It's like, she just gave me a lesson here. I thought I was reading something kind of funny.
Mark (:Yeah. Well thinking about your process and, as a Hey house author, how did that come about? And what was the sort of process to get your book developed, written, published, and out into the world?
Nikki (:Oh my goodness. That is so much, so much put into this. It's one of those things where it's like, if I knew everything that went into writing a book before I wrote the book, I might not have wanted to write it anymore. I actually doubt that. I still probably would've, but it might have taken me way longer because you know, you get overwhelmed with a whole lot that you have to do. But to share really quickly the story of how it even came to be for anyone who's familiar with Brendon Burchard, he's a high-performance coach personality et cetera. And he had an event called high-performance academy. And A course, and I think, I, know I purchased the course first and also was able to attend the, and this was back in 2018 and I watched one video from that course, shout out to anybody who's purchased courses and have not finished the course.
Mark (:And watched one video.
Nikki (:Yeah. Watched one video. However, I'm like, that's a lot of people, but I'm, I'm maybe like that one percent or the small percent that gets a life-changing experience from the one video that they watched. And so in this video, Brendan essentially said, this is not his exact words by any means. It's how my brain processed what he said, but it felt like he said to me, you know what, Nick, if I look at your calendar and I can't tell what your goals are, then they're not happening. Like that's essentially what I heard. That's not literally what he said, but I was just like, oh crap. If my goals aren't explicit on my calendar and you can't tell by the actions I'm taking, I'm moving towards something specific. They're never gonna happen. And I've had to write a book on my list, as I mentioned earlier for decades, and I'm not even joking.
Nikki (:Like I loved, I used to write poetry as a kid. I always submit them into little publications. I loved writing. I was an English major, I studied English and did a lot of journalism internships. I thought I was going to produce content for a living and write a book. That's always been my dream. And I'm like, ah, man, this is never gonna happen unless I start putting stuff on my calendar. So it's like, I hit stop on the video. And I started putting things on my calendar, like research, how to get a book deal. I found an article because I knew I wanted to be published by hay house. Brendan is actually a hay house author. There are a number of hay house authors that I just said, you know, I love a lot of the work that they're bringing into the world and it would be really cool if they were my book publisher.
Nikki (:And so I started Googling and searching and researching, and I really believe that the universe or the world or whatever you believe in does something interesting when you set an intention because suddenly I met all these people who had book deals and I don't know if they were always there and I just didn't know
And I said, Hmm, well that, wasn't where I was in 2018. So I was like, that's not gonna happen because I have a book in me and it's coming out. And then I found this article that said, I went to a hay house event and they allowed me to submit a manuscript not a manuscript, a book proposal without an agent. And that's how I got my book deal. And I said, interesting because on the normal path is you have all those followers and then you pitch yourself to an agent and then hopefully an agent, will choose you. And then the agent pitches you to book publishers and then hopefully a book publisher wants you. And I was just like, whoa! Yeah, I don't wanna do that. Yeah. I was like, that's not me. So long story short, I put, attend the hay house event on my calendar. I purchased a ticket. And I went to that eventfully confident that I was getting a book deal. Like just in my soul, in my mind, I was just like, this is my path. I am getting a book deal. And lo and behold, they choose one person from that event to get a book deal. And that one person was me and there were like probably hundreds of people at this event and I'm just like, cool So that was my path.
Mark (:I love that story. It does work that way sometimes. Doesn't it? And I love what you said. I mean, just the technique, and if listeners wanna hit the rewind here and go back to this if you have a goal and it's not obvious looking at your calendar, that that's your goal. I mean, there's an action step that we can take right there. Isn't it?
Nikki (:Yeah. And it's so simple. And it's one of those things where I used to go, "oh yeah, my calendar, oh, I have some space. I'm definitely gonna do this thing during that space." Reality check. First of all, whatever thing I decided I was going to do in the space if I didn't put it on my calendar, I usually forgot anyway two, the space that I put on my calendar was usually never enough. Like I always underestimate how long it takes to do anything.
Mark (:About one hour?
Nikki (:Right.
On a Thursday afternoon, let's nail that.
Nikki (:Yeah. Winning that's exactly how it's gonna work. Yeah. That's, usually not how it works. So really putting in the time and dedicating and getting laser-focused on something is, is really how it happened. And same with writing the book. It took a lot of laser focus because there are so many things. And when you think about it, pick up a book and you're like, Hmm, there's messaging on the front cover and on the back cover and on the inside cover. And it's not just the book, there are all these other pages it's like acknowledgments and you know, just little things that you don't think about. And all of that requires somebody to write it, somebody to edit it, somebody to review it. Oftentimes that's the author. You are doing all of those things with editors and, you know, you have support, but you still have to have the final stamp of approval and say, yes, this is exactly what I intended to say. Thank you for cleaning it up or whatnot.
Mark (:Well, and you bring up a good point. I wanted to ask you about, and that is, it, oftentimes we creatives are, and especially authors think, well, I have to do all this myself, write it, edit it. Like you just say figure out how to get it. But what about the collaborators? What about the supporters? The supporting cast around you?
Nikki (:Yeah. You know, it's like a movie, a movie doesn't happen with one actor, it just doesn't and so you have so much support. And so for me, I saw creating this book, even though I wrote every word in the book. I didn't do it alone by any means. And so starting from the fact that I procrastinated writing my book proposal for probably a year, maybe a little bit longer than a year, I was like, I'm so gonna write this thing. And I had a deadline, the pandemic delayed my deadline, which real talk helped me a little bit because I was never gonna meet that deadline based on how much I was procrastinating. And so one of the things I did and I got this from a podcast I was listening to is I created a focus group. And I asked 80 people, many of which, who were strangers that I found on Facebook if I sent them a chapter a week if they would, and it would be a Google doc, if they would just leave a comment that was like, Hey, yeah, this resonated with me. Actually, can you clarify this more? I don't get it.
Mark (:And then I asked them to fill out a survey. And if it wasn't those folks, those amazing people, this book probably wouldn't have come out the way it did, because it gave me a number of things. One, it gave me the accountability and real-talk pressure I needed to actually produce because instead of blaming myself for being a procrastinator, I decided to use procrastination to my advantage. And so, while I said, I was writing a chapter a week, I wrote that chapter usually the night before it was due to all those people. But I didn't write an entire book the night before. It allowed me to space that out.
Mark (:But you did draw on your inner junior high school student to write the night before.
Nikki (:Yeah.It’s not gonna flow the way you think it is?
Nikki (:I was like, I promise you something will be great. She was so funny. She was shocked when she got my first manuscript. She's like, "this is good. And it looks like a real book." I was like, "yeah. Cause I know what you saw initially probably scared you, but I promised you that I could make it a book."
Mark (:I told you I would do it.
Nikki (:Yeah. I'm like, I've written enough to know that I can do it. I just need all of the thoughts out of my head and on paper before I can organize it. So I write in this somewhat chaotic way.
Yes. Well, thanks for sharing that. I know that you know, we creatives like to hear other people's processes. First of all, as you said, we're not alone. We've all done it, but also yeah. To learn from it. But I wanted to turn the page a little bit. If I could, to the content of the book, I, love market, your genius, first of all, great title. But, even the subhead has this idea of attracting dream clients. Tell us about that part of the story.
Nikki (:Yes. So for me, when I started my business, I took on clients and customers because I had a skillset and people had a need for it. And they said, "Hey, we will pay you money for it." And I was like, great, but really early in my business, the fur iteration of my business. And this was back in 2016, what I realized is that I basically created a full-time job for myself. Essentially with a bunch of different clients as opposed to being a business owner and having a business or even building a personal brand and monetizing that. I felt like I was just in house at a bunch of different companies, which is what I quit my job for in the first place. And so I think the challenge for me was that I wasn't crystal clear on what I wanted to offer, who I wanted it to offer it to, and what that looks like.
Nikki (:And so I think that everybody has their own version of a dream client, somebody who is your almost ideal match, from a business perspective. It's like, I love offering you my products and services. You keep buying, you're happy, I'm happy. This is working. We're flowing. Whether it's a service or a product, it's just a win-win. And so getting crystal clear on who that person is and what your non-negotiables are. It's odd, I use a lot of dating analogies in this book, but it does feel a lot like dating because, you know, I'm if you want kids and somebody you're interested in does not want kids. And you're both adamant about that. I'm not seeing necessarily off, at the surface a win-win here, right?
Mark (:It may not be your dream partner.
Nikki (:Exactly. And so you have to get clear on what your dream client looks like so that you can go out and one finds them, but also attract them because if you know what they're dealing with and who they are and what they're going through, and you know, your solution will help them with that. Then you can speak directly to what they're specifically going through and what their specific pain points are. And if you keep talking about it and you keep sharing how you have the solution and you keep positioning yourself as an expert and you keep giving them, little wins advice that helps them, you know, say, oh, wow, you gave me this one little tip and it helped me tremendously. I know I have a far way to go, but now I trust you and I wanna work with you. Well, now you're, in a good place versus going, "oh, you have money. Sure. Hand it to me." And then you're miserable. And nobody's happy because sooner or later when you're miserable, that starts seeping into your work and rubbing off on your clients. And then they're not happy. They're like, I don't know if this is working.
Mark (:It's only transactional. They're paying you're taking the money, but nobody's having fun. And what about marketing? Both the book and your own consultancy you have these great cases and training about how to get our work out there. I even love the 101 content prompts. What do I write about today? I have no idea where do I start? But what are some of the things that you're doing in addition to coming on podcasts and you have your own great podcast, but what are some of the things you're doing to get the word out?
Nikki (:Yeah. So I'll walk you through it, but I'll also give a tidbit. So inside the book? I, talk about this thing called OPP yes. Musical reference enjoy, but it stands for organic paid and partnerships. And OPP are essentially the three main ways that people get in front of their audience. So organic could be, for example, social media marketing, it could be content marketing, and you're literally showing up organically on people's search engines. Like you may constantly talk about you know, graphic design, but, or just design in general from a very specific angle using words that, you know, your dream customer is typing into Google all the time, and you're constantly showing up. So you could organically get in front of your audience. You can pay to get in front of your audience and run advertisements in places.
Nikki (:You know, that they're gonna show up and you can partner with other people. And that's what I would consider this, where it's like, "Hey, I'm gonna show up in your community to your community of people and share my knowledge and expertise there." And so most people start with one, a lot of people start organically. And a lot of people also start with partnerships if they are a little bit savvy and they're like, huh, or they accident definitely start with partnerships. "Oh, I found a friend who has a group of people and they referred me" and they're like, "oh, this is great." And then people are very familiar with paid. And so right now, for me with my business, it's a combination of those three it's. I produce a lot of content with the podcast and we turn all blog podcasts and the blog posts and things like that, so that we can increase our searchability and that we show up on search more.
Nikki (:I also organically show up on social media. I started my business doing a lot of lives. So I would just go live on Instagram and Facebook. I started with Facebook. This was a number of years ago. And then, so that's organic paid. We started running ads for the business as well. And then partnerships. So a lot of podcasting, I speak inside other people's communities, if they have a membership or if they have a group program or things like that, I'll come to be an expert guest. And so those are the main ways I do it for the business for the book, for anybody who wants to write a book, particularly a nonfiction book word of mouth is really, and I think that's for books in general, but word of mouth is the best.
Nikki (:And so to stimulate word of mouth it's a lot of me I'll just go live on social media and read snippets from the book I'll read a little bit, I'll talk about how that came to be. I'll give you a tip. And I'm like, "Hey, you want more? It's all inside this book that I just read to you, please go read it and buy it." Yes. so there's that. And a lot of speaking in other people's communities and we are running some ads on Amazon. But primarily we're just looking to stimulate word of mouth. So one write a really good book or a book that you believe is really good so that people wanna talk about it. And two, and encourage people to share it with their friends, if they love it. It, and so I always say, Hey, if you love this, please tell a friend about it. I had somebody who read, I think two or three chapters and then bought eight copies for other people. They're like, "this is so good." I'm like, "you're, like barely a third of the way into the book. And I love you." Cause whatever I did in that first third of the book was strong enough for you to buy a bunch of copies and share it with your community.
Mark (:That's so good. Well, I think you've touched on something else about putting yourself in a place where you can make those partnership connections or where you can be a part of new communities. I think about even us, Nikki, I think we probably met literally over a year ago, but little by little we've shared friends, we've shared connections. And finally, now here we are together on a podcast. So I mean, you gotta put yourself out there in these places too, right?
Nikki (:Absolutely. Absolutely. And for me, how I got into, even just speaking and, and being a part of other people's community, it goes back to that concept. I mentioned earlier around intention and focus similar to landing the book deal. I decided one day I said, I wanna speak on stages. I wanna speak in other people's communities. This was pre-pandemic. And interestingly enough, what happened is I said that. And then the next week I booked myself on two speaking gigs by going to a conference and just meeting really great people. And it happened in the weirdest way. It was, there was this event that somebody was putting on before the conference, just to network and get to know each other. I wasn't gonna go, they were sold out a ticket. Somebody dropped out. I ended up needing a place to stay. The person who I was gonna stay with was running the event.
Nikki (:She let me buy the last ticket because somebody dropped out. And then I met two people at that event who invited me to speak. And so things happen in a weird way. You can't control that, but if you set the intention, the magic starts to happen and opportunities start to reveal themselves to you, but you have to set that intention and be focused. And so that led me to go, wow, they keep bringing me back to speak. I better have something. And I started a podcast and next thing you know, I'm like great. Now I'm meeting people and that opens a whole nother set of doors as well. So the intention is so important.
Mark (:Lots of lessons to take from all that isn't there.
Nikki (:I hope so.
Mark (:Absolutely. Well, and listeners, if you're listening to this podcast, you're also gonna love Nikki's podcast. It's called market you're genius. For all the five-star ratings, you can imagine, you know, amazing content. Somebody says inspiration, insight, and ingenuity. Another review says lightning-sharp insight. So it's good stuff. It's worth a listen. So you check Nikki's podcast out and of course, check out the book market, your genius, and Nickki, where can we connect with you and follow your work?
Nikki (:Wow. So I have the best place for you guys to go. And it is nikkinash.co/magic. And the reason for that is because on this page, it'll not only show you where you can find me on social media as well as the book, but I have some cool free offerings on the page, including I think its 52 content prompts that I have on that one. And some other gifts that help you build a marketing plan and, and get out into the world and meet more people and share your message with more people. So if you go to nikkinash.co/magic, then you can access all that.
Mark (:And that's where the magic is. I love it. Thanks for sharing that. And listeners, I'll put that in the show notes. So if you link, you'll be able to find it well, what a great conversation, Nicky, your, your energy, your smile, your insights are always appreciated.
Nikki (:Oh my goodness. Thank you so much. This is always fun. I love hanging out with you, Mark.
Mark (:Alright great. Well, Listeners come back again for our next episode today, we've touched down in New York and stamped our creative passports to talk to Nikki Nash, but we're gonna continue our around the world journeys to talk to creative practitioners about how they get inspired and then how they organize their ideas and gain the confidence and make the connections to launch their work out into the world. And that's what our world of creativity is all about. So until next time, our Mark Stinson we'll see you soon.
