When we first met Nick and Jack, we were floundering a little with our training business…we had all of the pieces, but didn’t have a cohesive vision or strategy of where it could take us. Since working with them, we have put more systems into our office, we are looking at the marketing (and the results of that marketing!) in a whole new light, our website actually looks like a professional did it, AND we have an awesome vision for our company that will allow us to retire in just a few short years. Sometimes we get so busy in the day to day “stuff” of our businesses that we forget to stop and look AT our businesses, The Dicks + Nanton Agency has afforded us an impartial outsiders’ view of our own business and the potential that it has.
Andy Tolbert, The Blue Jeans Broker, 
When I met Nick and Jack, my business was called Total Census Solutions, which was relevant to the niche I first started in (Senior Housing), but to the rest of the world it was confusing and very forgettable. Just by reviewing my Bio, before we even had much time to speak, Nick and Jack shot back a bunch of ideas about how my business was really centered around getting people the maximum ROI in their advertising, and spun out The ROI Guy brand for me. In the past 2 years since they helped me reinvent my brand, my business has taken off! Now everywhere I go, people call me the ROI Guy, which is fun, however, the most important thing is they also know where to call when they need solutions for tracking their marketing campaigns and getting the greatest ROI! Oh yeah, and they also like to have a bit of fun too!
- Richard Seppala, The ROI Guy, 
“I chose Dicks Nanton Agency because they get it. A lot of people provide marketing and PR but I was impressed with their ability to understand what drives a customer to do business with you. That’s pretty rare. I really felt that I needed a fresh vision in my business to help us pull off the extraordinary for our clients. I’m looking to Dicks Nanton Agency to provide fresh insight into Florida Leisure Vacation Homes and to help me take it to the next level,”
“I mentioned to you while we were in Hollywood that the day before I came, I got a call from a producer who found me through a press release and my participation in America’s PremierExperts®. I had a phone interview and received an email inviting me out for an all expenses paid shoot for a TV show, where they want me to talk all about my business and what I do. I just wanted you to know how much I enjoy working with you all and think what you are doing is terrific. The fact is, what you guys are doing works. There is absolutely no way they would have found me, nor would I have this interview without you guys. The great thing is I can use whatever they produce in my arsenal now and hopefully get more interviews. So, again, thank you for everything—it works!!!”
–Jennifer Myers, Realtor, First Time Homebuyer Expert
Nick, We were interviewed live today by Fox 40 
“Nick, the weekend in Hollywood was great… your program is terrific and I really appreciate the speakers you brought in.”
-Ben Glass
“Hi this is Kimberlee Frank “The Real Estate Junkie” and I am writing to let you know how joining America’s PremierExperts® made a difference in my life. First off, I have shared the stage with a lot of people. However, it was always me having to impress my audience. Now, thanks to America’s PremierExperts®, I have a long list of credentials that allows me to get on any stage. The media coverage was out of this world. The friendship with Jack, Nick, and Lindsay is something that can not be replaced, we will always be connected. I have written many courses and wanted to write a book but never seemed to find time. With the help of America’s PremierExperts®, they made it happen and not in years but everything was done in just 12 months. I just wanted to say “Thanks”. I couldn’t have gotten this type of media coverage, book, and I was being interviewed on Inc. 500 CEO, Chris Hurn’s Small Business Success Strategies series, last week and he asked a question that I answer all too frequently in person, but I’m sure many of you have never heard my answer.
What he essentially asked me is, “How is Celebrity Branding® different from personality branding, and the long-standing concept of a personality driven business?”
While I can’t summarize everything that Celebrity Branding® includes in one short article, let me tell you one of the main differences. The main difference is in the magnitude of focus and commitment you give to your positioning. You can have personality in any brand. But Celebrity Branding® is taking your personality and making you the focus, not the back-story for your product or service. Once you make that switch, you develop a system of marketing that is centered on you as the celebrity expert, which separates you from your competition. No longer is your product or service a commodity that anyone can supply. To get what you are now offering, the client or customer must utilize you and your business.
Let me give you an example to illustrate the difference.
Let’s assume we’ve got two different financial planners that are in the same market. It doesn’t matter whether their customer base is local or national, what matters is that they compete for the same customers.
Financial Planner 1 has his photo on his business card, has ads featuring his image in several publications that his target audience reads, and his website also has his picture on it. This financial planner understands that “people buy people,” so he has put his picture on his materials so that people can identify who he is. This is personality branding.
Financial Planner 2 has some or all of the things that financial planner 1 has. These things are a great start, but she also realizes that the true value of Celebrity Branding® is to create devoted fans out of her prospects and clients. And she realizes that while having her photo on her marketing materials is a great start, ultimately she must connect with her audience in order to turn them into fans. She has to let her audience know who she is (and include some details about her “real” life outside of work, when appropriate), what her expertise is, why she’s an expert, that she’s constantly at the forefront of her industry, and just how she can help her prospects and clients. You can’t get any of this across with a photo alone! You’ve got to take the time to develop methods to communicate with your audience.
If you want to create true Celebrity Expert status, you’ve got to show your audience why they should listen to you. You’ve got to display your expertise to them and create a personal relationship in order for them to develop an affinity for you and what you do.
The difference is huge between the value of these two financial planners to their audiences. If you want to develop Celebrity Status, you’ve got to create a system for communicating with your clients and prospects. Clients should obviously get more of your time than prospects should, but the key here is to develop some methods of communicating with your entire audience that you can replicate through the use of systems.
Marketing systems for Celebrity Branding® involve multiple facets of “touch points” with your customers. Utilizing an email system that allows you to write one message and send it out in a manner that makes it look personalized to your list, instead of a generic blast, developing an ezine which contains specific content rich information about you and your business, physical newsletters that allow people to hold and feel your business in their hand, or a blog that allows you to keep in constant contact with your audience via multiple forms of social networking and social media are all examples of new ways to reach your client and create the relationship that both bonds and builds. It is this level of commitment and focus that allows you to take your brand to another level beyond even your closest competitor.
Ultimately it doesn’t matter what you include in your marketing system, the key is that you actually have a marketing system for building a relationship with your fan base. Additionally, the system should incorporate a method, or methods, to continually drive the relationship forward, whether you have the time to literally speak with every person or not. This is what we mean by Celebrity Branding®, and you can see that it is much more than people realize — which is why it is so powerful. Take a look at your current system for prospecting and follow up communication with customers and see how you can better optimize your system to create a Celebrity Brand, rather than just a personality driven business. As always, if we can help, you know where to find us.
