I want to thank Nick and Jack for helping me make my dreams a reality. I came to them seeking advice for growing my business. Other people in the past have told me that my ideas and dreams for my business were unattainable. Jack and Nick teamed up with me to brand myself and have opened doors that, in the past, were closed. They have opened my mind to see all of the different ways to make my business successful and to take it to the next level. Thanks to them, today, I am in a position to achieve my business goals and am creating financial freedom for my family and my business partners.
Ronel Jumpp, CEO, Jumpp Investment Group LLC
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, 
“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, the weekend in Hollywood was great… your program is terrific and I really appreciate the speakers you brought in.”
-Ben Glass
Nick, We were interviewed live today by Fox 40 
“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,”
It’s hard to believe that 1 week ago last night, Thursday night, I was in Austin at South By Southwest (SXSW), the biggest music festival in the U.S., rocking out to one of the bands I represent, “A Day to Remember.” These guys have been tearing it up recently. Their most recent release hit #21 on Billboard’s Top 200 records in February of this year. You can check out some video of them on youtube, there’s lots of them out there! Be forewarned, they rock pretty hard and heavy 
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But the story I’m going to tell you about actually happened exactly a week ago, on Friday morning, at one of the biggest brunches you can be invited to, the BMI SXSW Brunch. BMI administers royalties to songwriters and music publishers all over the world to names like Aretha Franklin, Keith Urban, Tim McGraw, Shakira, Kanye West, Mariah Carey and about a million others. They always have GREAT music at the brunch, and you’ve rarely ever heard of anyone who they invite to play. They are usually artists who BMI is recognizing as “rising stars.”
I was eating my brunch and having a mimosa, chatting with some industry friends that I usually only see once or twice a year at events like this, when this guy came on stage. I heard about 3 notes and instinctively reached for my Flip camera (if you don’t have a Flip, do yourself a favor and go to Amazon.com now and buy one!). I couldn’t believe my ears. The vocals were amazing. I had to look at the program to see his name and I found it. Then I went on my iphone to Twitter and “tweeted” that I had just heard a great tune from a new artist named “Guy Sebastian”. I recorded a better video of him from a bit closer up and then went on my way for some more meetings and to see a few more of my artists play.
I left a few hours later because I got a call from my wife informing me that her and both of my little boys, Brock (4) and Bowen (16 months) were all sick. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say it was a bit of a “cookie toss” lol. But as I was at the airport, I logged onto my email and I saw that I had a bunch of new Twitter followers. I wasn’t sure why, but I had to shut down my computer and board my flight. When I got home, everyone was asleep, so I updated my Facebook account and posted my videos from SXSW and posted an update on Twitter that I had just uploaded the videos. Then I went to bed.
The next morning, I had about 50 Facebook friend requests. And I also started seeing the messages. Messages all about Guy Sebastian. Well, it seems that I wasn’t aware that Guy is from Australia and he won the first season of Australian Idol and had gone 6x Platinum in Australia. WOW. That’s impressive. And it made me stop and think back to 2 concepts I always teach when I’m speaking:
1. The only people who need to know who you are, are your target audience. I often give an example of walking through the mall with one of my bands, and how the teenagers freak out, and the parents have no idea what the commotion is about. But it doesn’t matter, the target audience, the teenagers, know exactly who they are! And the same applies to your business. You don’t need to be a Celebrity to everyone in the world, just your target market that would be suited to hire you and pay for your services.
Well, Guy’s fans in Australia knew EXACTLY who he was, and I can tell you that you all will too very soon. This guy is too good. Check out some of my videos (and become my friend on Facebook! at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=138863210116 ).
2. When you join the conversation that is already occurring in people’s heads, they take notice. It’s the old concept that we are all on a “Moving Parade” through life. As we move through life on our “parade,” our wants, needs and desires change, and we take notice of different things as these wants and needs change. Ever notice how you start thinking about getting a new car, and all of a sudden you start hearing about 100 car commercials on the radio every hour, and you start seeing all sorts of promotions on financing for cars, etc. Well, it’s because you are subconsciously paying attention to them on your “parade.”
The value in this concept is that your prospects and even your clients are often distracted as they move along their parade. You can try to “interrupt” them and get them to notice you, but it’s SO much easier to get noticed if you join the conversation that is already going on in their minds. Right now, no matter what business you are in, you could gain a lot of attention from talking about the things that are on top of people’s minds at this moment: Barack Obama, The Federal Bailout, The Recession, Bad Economy, Income Taxes, Spring, etc. There are lots of things that are already on people’s minds right now. If you talk about those things, and relate what you really want to tell your clients and prospects (about your product or service or whatever else) to what’s going on in their minds, they will take note much faster.
Obviously these Australians were already talking and thinking about Guy Sebastian and when I mentioned his name, they caught wind of it like wild fire. My posts hit their message boards in a matter of hours and they were all stalking me to learn more! Well, you see, it seems as if Guy is recording a new album in the US and the Aussie population is dying to hear it, so even a glimpse of a new song, which I gave them, is what they’re dying for! So by joining that conversation, I became very relevant to a whole new group of people, across the world no less, that now were interested in what I had to say. Think about how you can become relevant to the audience that you really want to pay attention to you, and start hopping in the conversation. I think you’ll be as stunned as I was, when you hit the right note!
That’s all for now! I’m off to Chicago to speak at a conference next week for the Senior Living market, for two of our clients, Traci Bild (www.TraciBild.com) and Richard Seppala, “The ROI Guy,” (www.YourROIguy.com). I’ll be sharing the stage with Bill Rancic, winner of Season 1 of the Apprentice with Donald Trump. I’m sure I’ll have some more stories for you soon!
Feel free to email me or post comments on this blog to let me know how the above lessons have applied to your marketing!
