How to Become A Celebrity In Your Space

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SUMMARY

In this episode, Josh discusses how becoming a celebrity in your field will drive your business towards success.  You can’t rely on other people to seek you or your business out and therefore it is extremely important to become omnipresent.  Josh will detail to you how to take steps to improve the awareness and presence of your business.   He also interviews Nick Nanton — award winning director and branding expert — on the importance of branding your business as well as yourself.  Nick gives you the must have foundation to begin building the awareness your business needs to succeed. After you have the foundation in place, Nick will load you up with information on how to tackle the media, marketing, and PR for your business. These fundamentals are imperative in accelerating your business from stagnant to massive growth.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

You’re watching the Whatever It Takes Network. I am Josh Felber, host of Making Bank. I’m excited for today’s session in being able to help you as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, stand out in a crowd and by doing that, we have to become a celebrity expert or a celebrity in our space. I know you’re like what do you mean by that? One of the great things that I talk about is you want to become omnipresent. That’s being known everywhere all the time. From being omnipresent and being an expert in our space is going to help our business become more successful. It’s going to help us grow as an entrepreneur and it’s going help set us a part of all the different competition, all the different businesses that are opening up every day all the time these days.

How do we do that? How do we set ourselves a part? One of the businesses I own currently still is a Crossfit gym. I love fitness and fitness has just been a big passion of mine ever since I was little. In 2003, I found Crossfit and I’m like this is awesome. I added it to what I do day in and day out. It helped transform my life so I thought I’ve owned 15 different companies over the years as an entrepreneur and how can I give back and be able to share this same opportunity with other people? One of the things with the Crossfit business is there’s so many different people out there that own their Crossfit business and they can do whatever they want. What we did is how do we stand out? How do we look different? How was I able to take what my business that I had, start from zero, and create it to a seven-figure business within 24 months? By doing that was becoming an expert in my space, becoming a celebrity, and becoming omnipresent everywhere known within … What I started was within my local marketplace.

I did that through being in front of people all the time, being in front of events, being in front of a camera, being on social media. We ended up putting billboards out there at one point and becoming the icon in our local marketplace. Anytime anybody went anywhere, they jumped on Facebook, they were on Twitter, they saw the local newspaper, or local events, they saw our Crossfit business. For you and your business, you have to do the same thing. You’ve got to get out in front of people. You have to start becoming a celebrity and an expert. How do you become an expert? Know what you’re doing well. Know what you’re doing better than anyone else. That is obviously your passion. Utilize your passion and that interest in your business and what you’re doing to become that expert. Then take that expert status and utilize that in the media whether it’s first initial local media with a local paper, write an article, shoot some video. There’s so many people that love to watch video these days. YouTube has taken it and just exploded with a number of views and opportunities its given people to get out in the marketplace.

Shoot that video, get out there. Post it on your business’s Facebook page. Post it on your website. Send it out for people to start seeing and start putting yourself in that position to become that expert in the marketplace. That’s one of the big first steps to start with. I know some of you may be like, “I don’t want to be in front of a video. Maybe I don’t look good or I don’t sound right. I can’t be in front of video because I’m too nervous.” Everybody can get out there and do that. If video is not your thing, start with audio. Create a podcast. Maybe it’s 5 minutes of you talking about what you love about your business and how it’s helping other people transform their lives and become successful in what they do. Make that recording and put it out there. You can put it on iTunes and become a celebrity success. iTunes reaches tens of millions of people. Put that out there in the marketplace, start creating a local celebrity presence in what you’re doing, and start becoming that expert.

Now what? How do we take it to that next step? Where do we go from here? You have the ability to get out and write a book. Writing a book is another good step. That creates an expert of who you are. My wife’s an entrepreneur and she owns a business called Primal Life Organics and that next step for her to catapult her business, to move her business forward and also share her wealth of knowledge of the skincare industry is her writing her own book. She’s launching Beauty’s Dirty Little Secrets that’s going to crush the big cosmo companies and make everybody aware of what they’re putting on their skin day in and day out. That’s her taking her position of her wealth and her knowledge and transporting that into a book for people to read and learn and understand from. The book would be another piece to go out and mark yourself as an expert. I know you’re like, “How do I do that?” We’re going to get into a little more details after our break and how to get out and write a book and what to do.

The next part is taking your business and making it known, making it aware. You have to be a social media machine. You have to be posting continuously. Content that you create value for more people whether it’s on Twitter, whether it’s on Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, whatever it may be that is your social media platform. You should be on all of those but you need to be creating additional presence online to continue to market and establish who you are, your business, and you as an expert. I’m excited. After our break we’re going to speak with Nick Nanton, celebrity maker and being able to deliver to your guys the tools and the opportunities to write books, to be in movies, and things like that. I’m excited after our break to speak with Nick Nanton. I’m Josh Felber on the Whatever It Takes Network and you’re watching Making Bank.

I’m Josh Felber. Welcome back to Whatever It Takes. You’re watching Making Bank. I’m excited today. I have Nick Nanton on the phone with me through our Skype and we’ve been talking a little bit about how to become a celebrity expert in your space to catapult your business to success. Nick’s an Emmy award-winning director and producer. He is one of the top agents to celebrity experts around the world, developing and marketing business and professional experts through branding, media, and PR. He is the CEO and chief storyteller at the Dick Nanton’s celebrity branding agency with over 1,800 clients and 33 different countries. Nick is recognized as one of the top thought leaders in the business world, has co-authored over 30 best-selling books along the sides of Brian Tracy, Jack Canfield, Dan Kennedy, Jay Conrad-Levinson, an author of the Gorilla Marketing series. Nick has led the marketing and PR campaigns for more than 1,000 authors to the best-seller status. He has been seen on USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Businessweek, Inc. magazine, the New York Times, Entrepreneur magazine, Forbes, and Fast Company. Man that was a mouthful. As well as appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox as well as CNN, CNBC, and MSNBC and Nick is also a member of the Florida Bar Association. Nick welcome to Making Bank. I’m excited and honored to have your time today.

Nick:                Thanks very much. It’s good to be here with you Josh. I’m happy to help in any way I can.

Josh:                Cool, awesome. One of the things we’ve been talking about is how to position yourself or our audience members as experts in who their business is, what they’re talking about, what they’re doing, and become a celebrity in that state. Whether it’s in their local marketplace, whether it’s national or international, to really utilize that to catapult their business to a success. I know you were the man to talk about this and you’ve helped so many entrepreneurs position themselves and accelerate their businesses in this space.

Nick:                It’s not rocket science. The thing we’ve got to do here … I’ll teach two concepts that I think are really important to know and most people don’t talk about it. The first one is called the business trifecta. You can think of it like a car with cylinders. I like to tell a story about when I first I turned 16, I bought my first car. It was a Dihatsu Charade, it was hatchback, it was sweet. I used to have to turn the air conditioning off to get on the interstate.

Nick:                Yeah, it’s kind of hot. One time I was getting my oil changed and the mechanic’s like, “Do you realize that one of your cylinder’s is out?” I was like, “No, I had no proof of this.” “Well you’re only running on two.” I was like, “Two?” He’s like, “Well this car had three cylinders.” anyway. I’m only running on two so I pay, we fixed it, and as it turns out now, I could get on the highway with my air conditioner on. My dates were much happier. Most of us are running our businesses this way; on likely only one of the cylinders. Just like my car when I turned 16, there’s three in the business trifecta. Those are media, marketing, and PR. Really they all play together but they’re separate things and here’s a simple way of explaining them. Media is just a medium for sharing your story. Your story really is the only thing that you’ve got in your competition. If you’re not using that, you’re missing out on the single biggest competitor advantage that you have. Media is just a medium for telling your story. It could be anything from CD, DVDs, movies, newsletters, e-mails, websites. It can be any form of media that it needs text for.

Then there’s PR. PR is really just validation of who you say you are. If someone else … It’s a third party validating you. A lot of times that takes the shape of press releases that a PR firm might write for you. As you know from working with me Josh, you can write your own press releases in the third person. People won’t notice, that’s what most people do. When you syndicate yours a lot of people find them, it’s a validation of who you say you are although, you can just do it yourself. Then also it can be getting quoted or getting written up or named or whatever in media outlets whether that’s TV or a newspaper or magazines, whatever it might be. That’s PR.

Marketing is really the only thing that drives revenue right?

Josh:                Right.

Nick:                Media and PR are awesome but the way they work is now when people stop what they’re doing when they see somebody being interviewed on TV or mentioned in a newspaper column or quoted and they stop, everything that they’ve been saying, that person’s [inaudible 12:00]. I’m going to go to the website, I’m going to call them, I’m going to hire them, it’s just not the way things work. Making an offer to people who are actually interested and could hire you, are in a position to hire you, your services are good for, that’s what drives revenues. That’s the business trifecta. Media, marketing, and PR. You’ve got to have all three of these things working together.

The second lesson I like people to understand is what I call the secret formula for media success. It’s very simple too but it’s common sense but often times not common knowledge. There’s two types of media. There’s mass media, television, radio, newspaper, magazine, the stuff that we all grew up on; the stuff we trust. It’s great for building credibility and building awareness. The fact that you’ve been on Good Morning America or you’ve been in the New York Times, all the things you mentioned in my bio, great credibility builders but on their own, they didn’t bring me any business. They didn’t make me any money. I can’t control those because I just get mentioned, you want to get mentioned or get interviewed. When I get interviewed I can certainly do things to grease the wheels to make that happen. People always ask me how I get my media mentions and I say, “Well if you want to catch fish, you’ve got to have water”. You do things to get them. You can’t control them and you can’t even control in the end if your quote’s spun out of context, out of shape, all that sort of stuff. Thankfully it’s not common but it happens.

Those things are great for that. One of the stories I also like to tell is that the first big media mention I got was when I was in the New York Times and I was quoted in an article about how to make a small business look bigger. Really excited about it, I told my friends, I told my mom, told my family and I got a bunch of calls, e-mails from my friends and family that day when it came out. We saw it, it was for real, congratulations. Then from outsiders I only got one e-mail and it was from a guy who owns a company called That’s Great News trying to sell me a framed version of me in the New York Times. Thankfully I bought it because now it’s on my office stand, you can see it and people know that I’m in the New York Times, that I was in it, but that’s all it did for me. Actually being mentioned or being in mass media generate, drive revenue. I know people who’ve been on Today Show, Good Morning America, they didn’t sell more than a handful of their books. It’s just not … People are educated and interested when they’re watching but they’re not looking for [inaudible 14:13]. That’s number one.

Number two, the second type of media is direct media. Direct media is any type of media that you create yourself; the stuff we were talking about before. It can be sales letters, it can be postcards, it can be news sites, it can be websites, it can e-mails, it can be DVDs, Cds, videos, whatever. All this stuff direct marketers use. It’s media you create and maybe have to send to the audience that has shown that they care. The people who’ve raised their hand and said yes I’m interested. They gave me their business cards, have called me, they hopped into your website, whatever.

Josh:                Nick one second. We’ve got to go a commercial real fast. You’re watching Making bank on the Whatever It Takes Network. Welcome back, you’re watching the Whatever it Takes Network. I’m Josh Felber, host of Making Bank. We’ve been talking with Nick Nanton about how to position yourself as a expert in your field and create that celebrity profile, that celebrity status around you and your business for success.

Nick you were just mentioning right before we had to go to a quick break as finding that local marketplace, maybe those publications, those papers, those journalists that cater to who you and your business is and then creating valuable content that they would find in enough steam to pick you up and talk about you more right?

Nick:                Absolutely. It’s just about being valued by people.

Josh:                Sure.

Nick:                If you’re trying to use somebody to [inaudible 15:35]. You know, if you have value exchange, they can promote you indirectly by quoting you, mentioning you, all that stuff. If you can provide them with content, that’s what they’re looking for. It’s really just thinking about that process.

Josh:                Awesome. That’s some great information. With your business out there for an audience is getting out being in front of people, getting in front of that marketplace. Actually it’s funny you mentioned a bakery. I worked with a local bakery here as one of my clients and they actually were able to get connected in with LeBron and his foundation and it just catapulted their business. Then they were on ESPN and Fox 8 news and created this huge massive exposure for them and it also has heightened their business up to that celebrity status.

When the duke and duchess were over from Europe and everything and LeBron gave them his shirt and these cupcakes, it created massive growth within their business. Guys get out there in the marketplace, get connected in your area. Nick, tell me how’d you go from being an attorney, a lawyer, to celebrity marketing and celebrity business.

Nick:                I never wanted to practice law ever but I knew [inaudible 16:56] I needed to go to law school for it. I really wanted to be in the entertainment business which I guess I am in.

Josh:                Sure.

Nick:                I’d been managing bands, producing records, all that sort of stuff. There’s really my business partner Jack who you know well who said if you would just come in the entertainment business with me. He said, “Nick if you take the same skill set that you use at promoting bands and managing acts and producing media and all the PR stuff you have to do and you shifted slightly and did all of those things for business people, you would reinvent the game. You’d create a whole new industry, be the first business agent.” We did. It was not a overnight transition but as we started seeing the need for it, it was really crazy. He said you’d make more money, be less frustrated, you’d have clients for the most part, I still get some of them. Managing bands is like having 37 children. It’s scary.

Josh:                I wouldn’t doubt it.

Nick:                It really is advice seeing … A visionary advice seeing that if I just took the same skill set it would be immediately applicable in a different setting. Had I not been flexible enough to try it … I wasn’t willing to shut down everything on the entertainment side instantly but I was willing to try and had I not been willing to do that, I’d certainly wouldn’t be able to do the things I do now including the entertainment stuff I get to do. It’s producing the movies and directing movies [crosstalk 18:16]. The movie that you’re helping with right now, the one that Peter [Ne-men-ere 18:21] it called Visionaire. It would never have happened had I not been in the business circles that I’m in. It’s some of the most rewarding stuff I’ve worked on.

Josh:                That’s awesome. I guess for people out there thinking this is awesome Nick, as our audience is listening, how do I take that first step? What’s those first things I can do to start to get that exposure? I know you guys offer full service solutions from books and movie opportunities and PR. Let our audience know here at Whatever it Takes Network because they do whatever it takes, what they can do to start moving forward in their business and position themselves.

Nick:                The first thing I would do is I would start cranking out content, however you can, whether it’s video content like this, whether it’s blogs or articles on your website. Content is king. Content develops expertise. By handling content, you display your expertise. If you don’t know where to start, I like to call the Napoleon Hill factor. Napoleon Hill is revered as one of the smartest, best authors of all time, Think and Grow Rich. I don’t know anything really about who Napoleon Hill knew or did. All he did was interview a bunch of really smart people and relay their information that smart people oral. You can do that on social media really easily now, even before you’re comfortable creating your own content. Just carry content. Go look at the Richard Branson’s of the world, whoever Mark Cuban’s, whoever you think are good people that you like to write on. Comb through their blogs and articles and start sharing them You’d be surprised it’s an easy way to get started with publishing content without ever having to do anything yourself or even have to have your own opinions form yet.

I would say get started making voluminous amounts of content is what makes people think you’re an expert. One of the reasons why I’m an expert for Fast company, I don’t say this often but when I got named because I had two books out. I hadn’t read the books but they knew I must know something about it because I got two books out. Broadening [inaudible 20:26] website. Write a book, that’s a great thing too but it’s really easy to get started with content online. It’s a free, easy, inexpensive, and fast thing to do to start building up your expertise for it.

Josh:                Awesome. People will go out, you guys can start podcasting if you don’t want to be on video, just start podcasting, talking about your business, your passion, what you love, why you’re doing it. If you’re a great writer or even you’re an average writer, just start putting your content down on paper, put it out there on a blog as you said Nick and just start pushing it out there. Now we’ve got our content, we’re pushing it out there, we’re doing a podcast, and we have some people starting to follow us. How do we say, “Hey Nick, I want to take that step? I want to write a book or I want to be on TV.” I know you guys have helped people be on different TV shows and get connected to some of these circles and stuff that you’re around. Where do they go from there to be able to take that opportunity?

Nick:                To take the opportunity to get connected to what? I’m sorry, I missed that.

Josh:                That’s OK. Maybe they want to write a book because I know you’ve got writing book services as well as getting connected into the circles that you’re in maybe or being able to get on TV; ABC, NBC, CBS, or get their articles in Fast Company and things. How do they get to that?

Nick:                The easy way is go to our website solarbrandingagency.com. You can start from there. We talk about all that stuff. Really it’s all developing relationships. It sounds silly but it’s true. I want to just say try to find the people who … Obviously be yourself and you’re never going to be somebody else but let’s say, I don’t know, Richard Branson is your business hero. I’d start looking at what he’s doing, where he’s featured, and maybe who coaches him, whatever it is. Start running up the flagpole. You do it well. You look at people who are doing the things you want to do successfully. If they offer coaching … We all have coaches, we all use coaches. The fastest way is to start spending money on somebody.

It’s about hanging on and creating a relationship. I don’t do a lot of business people who aren’t clients of mine. Dan Sullivan’s a coach of mine. He likes to talk about he doesn’t work with people who … He’s a coach, he doesn’t like to do anything without someone who’s not a strategic coach because they haven’t been potty-trained as he said. They don’t know the way he works and what he thinks but he does lots of visits with people inside his network and so do I because I understand they value what I do and they understand why I do … They’re moving the same direction. It doesn’t have to be that qualifier. I had a guy come in here who’s a college student not too long ago that e-mailed me said, “Hey man, I’ve read your books. I pay attention. I’ve got some questions I want to ask you.” He doesn’t have money for me but I value giving back because there’s a lot of people who helped me along the way. It’s funny, I’ll tell you that story about him in a second.

It’s just certain networking in the least corny way you can, you’re with the people who you want to be associated by or associated with and you want to be effected by. Put in the time. Do the homework, read the books. I don’t ever mind someone e-mailing me telling me how much they love my book. I had a guy e-mail me over the weekend … First e-mail I’ve ever gotten ever where they guy says you literally changed my life.

Josh:                That’s awesome.

Nick:                I read your book. I implemented things. I tripled my income. People tell me the book was great or it really helped me. He was like you literally changed my life. Of course … I respond to everything but that’s going to get a quick response over something that’s you need to spend time with me, no, but I would be happy to spend time with this guy. It’s just human nature. Funny story, when I was a kid trying to get involved in music, I’m from Orlando and I found out who Matchbox 20’s lawyer was and I called the guy up and he was so nice. He actually helped me. He told me some things, told me what to do, what not to do, he didn’t charge me a dime. He knew that I probably couldn’t afford it but he was just so nice and as it turns out, 20 years later he and I turn up together in the same bible study. You never know when you’ll run back into people.

Josh:                Sure.

Nick:                I was able to tell everyone now.  What a great dude. I remember him doing this for me back when I had nothing, there was nobody. It’s just funny, you do never know who you’re running back into. I think we should all do that, help people up the ladder. Look up the ladder a few rungs and see who you might get to help you. There are books, there are blogs, there are podcasts, there are TV shows like this, this is where you get a lot of great knowledge so get to know them first by that and then start interacting the best way you can.

Josh:                Awesome. That’s great information Nick. I really appreciate you coming on the show today. It has been an honor to spend some time with you and really share with our audience here how to position yourself as an expert, how to take those steps. You created or gave us some good framework of what to do, of the trifecta and how to move forward with that so I really appreciate your time and thanks for coming on today.

Josh:                Thanks for watching Whatever It Takes Network. I am Josh Felber, host of Making Bank and we’ll see you next time.

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