I met Nicole Walters on a plane. I heard her before I saw her. She’s hard to miss because her personality fills a room. She was a few rows in front of me and my first thought was, “I am so glad I’m not sitting next to that loud woman”.
Joke was on me, because not long after that, Nicole and I encountered each other again. This time I was sitting right next to her. And we started talking. And I realized this chick knows what she’s talking about.
Nicole and I have completely different personality styles. We run our businesses completely differently. But the thing is: she is killing it and so are we. What a perfect example of how two business can look totally different and yet end up in the same place.
In this episode, Nicole is going to break down the one thing that sets her apart from the crowd and has allowed her company to spend only $2000 in paid advertising…. every year. It’s a fresh perspective on how to authentically connect with your audience and it is definitely worth a listen. Click below to hear the one thing Nicole Walters attributes to her monumental success.
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Do you want to keep being an underachiever? Or are you willing to do what it takes to go pro? Most entrepreneurs are constantly looking for the next best thing. The new traffic source, or the latest sales tactic. But that approach isn’t going to get you to your goal. It has the opposite effect. It leaves you stuck on the side line, watching everyone else play the game. It’s time to go pro and step on to the field.
Hey everybody, what’s going on? Welcome to another episode of Five Minute Marketing. Uh, today I have a good buddy of mine, uh, Nicole Walters. Nicole, you still there and can hear me?
Yeah, I’m here. I can hear you fine.
Good, good. Uh, so funny story actually about Nicole. Uh, if you guys don’t know who Nicole is, um, you should. I actually didn’t know who this chick was until I got-
(laughs).
… on a plane at 5:00 AM. We were both going to, uh, convert-kit. A buddy of ours, Nathan Berry, who runs a condert- convert kit. He was running an event. When was that? Was that like last-
It was last year. Probably, not around this time. Was it may or April?
Yeah, it was-
No. It was
Something like that.
Or was it after or something like that? June?
It was about a year ago.
Or something like- yeah.
But anyway, I get on a plane, it’s like 5:00 in the morning and this super bubbly girl gets on. Talking louder than everybody on the plane and I’m like who is this woman and why does she have so much energy at 5:00 in the morning? And –
That was a good morning.
Yeah.
(laughs).
Yeah so she and not j-not only that she’s talking about her miracle morning book to some poor old guy who doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
Poor guy.
Like two rows up and I’m like oh my gosh I’m so glad I’m not sitting next to this girl. I-I can’t.
(laughs).
I’m like the most introverted, don’t want to talk to anybody. And uh anyway, so I think I got rid of her at our layover in Minnesota, and I get on the little tiny planes, it was even smaller going out to Boise. And guess who sits next to me.
(laughs).
Up at the front of the plane, the same loud mouth girl who’s-
(laughs).
Even, she’s probably even more caffeine deep. And it’s like 9:00 now so I’m starting to wake up. Anyway, long story short, um I-it was one of those, you know, one of those God moments, it was, you know, I ran into this uh, this girl, I didn’t realize, was a huge entrepreneur. We lived six miles apart, well not any more. She’s ditching Maryland for, uh, for Atlanta.
Atlanta (laughs).
I tried to keep her here. But um, but yeah she was going to speak at the event. SamCart, I was going down ’cause we were sponsoring the event. And uh, yeah the rest is history. Nicole is uh, a pretty incredible entrepreneur. Um, she approaches this stuff completely different than me. Um, which I think is is is cool. Uh you always wanna, you know we talk about in the last episode, so about perspective, how that can change everything. Uh, she’s one of the people I keep close ’cause she has a completely different perspective.
so number one, thanks for coming on. Um and I’m excited to have you.
Yeah thanks so much. What an amazing intro. I mean I’ve never been called a loud mouth and told that I have an amazing perspective (laughs).
Hey you know it’s-
Entirely accurate though because I will never forget that day when I come in, the first thing I had no idea you were an introvert. At all. Like I’m thinking you’re an entrepreneur, obviously like love being onstage like of course.
Right yeah.
After I walk up-
Yeah my life’s mission.
(laughs) Life’s mission. I’m walking up here and your seat, and I’m like so I don’t know if you’re a talker, you know ’cause I am so I mean we can just do the hellos or whatever and I can just like not talk. And I can just see in your face like no no no no no no no no no. And you were like yeah it’s fine (laughs). But I will say to your credit somewhere in between, you know, Montana and North Dakota, I signed up for SamCart. And you know, it was one of the best things i have ever made because you know my people love it, it’s an awesome tool…so um you know I-needless to say I got something out of it too, aside from you getting so much more than I did. So- (laughs).
There you go, at least least I I suffered for for a ’cause, right?
Yeah you suffered for a ’cause. Look, you do anything for business, entrepreneurship (laughs).
Yeah, exactly. So so we talked a little bit before we jumped on um obviously this podcast is short and sweet. It’s one-
Yeah.
Simple thing that you think that the audience needs to hear or one thing that’s working for you, one thing you’re thinking about, whatever. Um so if you got that one thing, take it away.
Yeah definitely. So I think one of the things that we often get caught up in in the beginning of online marketing and digital marketing is we focus on the tools, the tricks, the data, the tactics. All that stuff’s still very relevant you know. Algorithms matter and what people are doing um in response to your engagement matters but there’s a big shift happening and it’s the shift that echoed in the brick and mortar in real life world on top of the online world. And that is a need for you to share your story a need for you to be authentic. Uh people want to see you know sort of the man behind the plan, the man behind the business and uh they want to know more about your mission, why you’re doing it. So-one of the ways that I’ve managed to do that really effectively is live streaming. And I mean people talk about it they say “oh yeah you know live streaming’s the hit thing,” but then they don’t actually do it you know and so there’s there’s not as much competition at the top.
Um less than 3% of the people are out there actually doing it, everyone else is just watching. So I love to go live because you can’t get any realer you know than your six year old going streaking behind you naked you know saying there’s poop in the bathtub. You know and people watch that and the first thing they say to themselves is, you know, I relate to this girl um she’s not faking the funk you know and this is the same thing that we spend what 5-6 emails sending or if you’re Ryan Merand you know an email every day, maybe 2 or 3. You know? So I mean (laughs).
you gotta do what you gotta do.
Yeah you gotta do what you gotta do you know and I mean it works you know it works. It’s just that I’m I’m on the lazier side in terms of my perspective, so I’d rather just go live once a day you know and and let people into my world that way and have the conversation that way and um and it works. And I’ve managed to convert that into a multi seven figure business, and um I don’t have a massive email list, and I don’t have um you know a crazy email sequence, and I’m not creating you know ridiculous amounts of content across all the different platforms. Where I spend my time is going online and engaging with people directly and then authentically sharing both my story, the journey, and the tools that they can use to have their own success. And everyone else should be doing that too.
Yeah that’s awesome. That’s like one of the things that that actually kind of pique my curiosity. When we started talking you’re explaining your business like we’re both sitting here with multi seven figure businesses that were built in completely opposite ways.
That’s right.
Completely. Like I am terrified of turning my phone on live ’cause I mean-
(laughs).
Like I don’t know how it works, and I’m like-
Right.
Someone is going to see me sitting here like picking my nose or something before I think it’s live.
(laughs). Right.
And and and it’s just again I-I’m introverted. I’d rather be behind the scenes in like a dark closet recording a keynote video that I can publish and make perfect before I put online and then use that over and over and over with paid ads and all that kind of stuff.
And it works!
You on the other hand- Yeah and and again yeah-
It works.
There’s a lot of big businesses built that way. You know?
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Agora Publishing, one of the biggest information marketer or publishers on the planet, billion dollar company. Probably don’t even know what Facebook Live is.
Right.
But then you have, you know, someone like Oprah, one of the worlds richest people who is has built a platform because of her personality. Because-
That’s right.
She’s you know over- she you know she might not be live but same same thing. She’s got a show-
Same concept. Yeah [crosstalk 00:06:57].
People connect with her. One of the best communicators the world has like ever seen. Um so it’s just you know I-I think a lot of people they’ll hear someone like me or someone like you or whoever preaching their way and they think ah I gotta get good at at doing this this Facebook ad thing ’cause Brian does it. But the truth is, if you’re someone like Nicole, who someone like me might hear you at 5 am on a plane and be scared of you like-
(laughs) right.
You have a place in this entrepreneur world. There are platforms built for you. Um you know you don’t have to be the analytical introverted CEO that I am you know running ads in the background. You can actually go out and talk to your people and do something that actually fuels you, fills you up and get paid to do it you know. Nicole I-I’m guessing you probably haven’t done much paid traffic uh-
Yeah no.
You can probably count the dollars on one hand.
I can yeah we spend about two grand a year annual on Facebook ads to run our entire business. So –
Yeah and that’s that’s just crazy like –
It’s bonkers. I mean it also means that like when we do run ads or when we are thinking about ads or if we implement something big it’s gonna just blow things up you know? So.
Right right. Yep yeah and you know we did a big promotion last year um announcing our new basic plan for SamCart and Nicole we had a big Philly contest so I called a bunch of friends, asked them to help us promote and she crushed everybody. And she crushed everybody with a fraction of the audience-
Oh yeah.
Um you know f-from a business that hardly spends any money on marketing whatsoever so it just goes to show you like you know these little things that can seem like they’re flashing the pan so you know live streaming or you know anything a-from podcasting to Facebook ads to whatever, there are usually people who can take these flash in the pan type of things and turn them into a serious sustainable scalable business model. Um-
Yep. Going deep and not wide you know it works-it works well-
Yeah yeah. Exactly.
You know and I think the big thing that you’re highlighting that’s the biggest takeaway is that there is space for everyone in this industry as long as you find that thing that works for you. And maybe it’s a happy medium. Maybe you’re a little data, and you’re also a little bit on stage either way [inaudible 00:09:02].
Yeah yeah. Yep. Yeah. Awesome. Good deal. You got anything else?
Uh no that was pretty much it I mean I- the other thing that I know is teach almost everything you know so I mean I can’t I can’t give all the way all the goods. You know? So- (laughs).
Yeah exactly. Yeah.
This is so good I love love love being on your podcast and you should have me back I mean maybe we should just come up with like a secondary podcast ’cause I mean everyone listening is going to like comments and subscribe and all those things so I-if you guys want us to start doing something together where I do nothing but make Ryan uncomfortable maybe a little bit of light beat boxing, go ahead and leave that in the comments.
Yeah. We could do like a behind the scenes one where it’s just-.
(laughs).
You record the whole thing?
The whole thing. The whole thing. It’s I think it’s a plan.
Sweet.
Thanks for having me out.
No problem.
Do want to take your life and business to the next level? Then get my new book, “The Going Pro Manifesto.” Inside this new book you’ll discover the secrets most entrepreneurs overlook that will help you scale your business to the seven figure level and beyond. Grab your copy at ryanmerand.com/pro. [/expand]
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