EP202: The Path to Becoming a Thought Leader: Insights from Nicky Billou

Thanks for having me, man. It's an honor to be here.

I appreciate that. Actually, I'm originally an immigrant from the Middle East. I'm a Christian from Iran. When I was 11 years old, the Islamic Revolution took place in Iran in the late 70s. And my late father, God rest his soul, he could see the writing on the wall. This was not going to be a place to raise a Christian family anymore. So he got together with my mom, they talked, and they made a decision that they were going to get me and my two brothers out of Iran and settle us in the free West, right? Now, at the time, I was a kid, right? I didn't want to leave my home or my buddies, you know? But looking back, it was the single greatest thing mom and dad could have done for us, because they took us from a legacy of tyranny, and they brought us to a legacy of freedom. I believe, Brad, inside every human breast beats the living heart of freedom. Every man, every woman on this planet wants to march to the tune of their own drummer. They want to chart their own course. And if you think about it, if you're in business for yourself, if you're an entrepreneur, freedom is the bedrock of you even being able to be an entrepreneur. Without freedom, you can't have free expression or free enterprise. And then you're not really an entrepreneur. You're just, you know, trying to find favor with the people in charge. And that's really the death of an entrepreneurial society and the death of a lot of people being able to chart their own course. And growing up, man, I could see in particular, even though I lived in Canada, they moved us to Canada where I now live, that the nation that embodied this ethos of freedom, of free enterprise, of entrepreneurship, of going after your own dreams was the United States of America. So I've become like the biggest cheerleader for America that's not an American, right? You know, I think every entrepreneur should at some level study freedom, should study the history of the founding of the United States of America. You need to know what an incredible country this is. You need to know who the founding fathers were. You need to know what the Declaration of Independence is. You know, you need to know about Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. You need to know who Jimmy Doolittle was and how that little raid he did over Tokyo revived American morale and helped America win World War II. You need to know. about the American soldiers that went, fought, bled, and died in Korea, in Vietnam, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and why these men, primarily men, although there's some women as well, did this. And they did this because of an ideal, an ideal of freedom. And there's good men that have died, died, bled, so that you and I can live under a blanket of freedom, you and America and me and Canada. I mean, without the blanket of freedom that America provides. The free West, the free world wouldn't have this. That moves me every single day. And I think it's my responsibility as someone who's been given this blanket of freedom, A, to take advantage of it myself, to go out there and do what I do. But I want to honor the sacrifice of these great men and women by helping entrepreneurs make their dreams come alive. And my father was an entrepreneur. And Brad, if you met him, man, you would love this man. Dad was the kind of man that if you were his friend, you were looking for work, he'd sit you down in his office, brother, and he'd call all his entrepreneur buddies, and he'd browbeat them, ethically manipulate them to one of them gave you a job, man. And he'd say, Brad, you're starting, you're making $150,000 a year? Here's the address. Go. Good luck, right? If you were trying to start a business, man, he'd sit you down. He was a smart man. Like, he'd done several businesses, and he'd studied, you know, got his MBA and things like that in the West from Iran. He'd sit down. He'd listen to you. He'd give you his best advice. He'd put you in touch with, you know, people and banks to get you access to capital. He'd put you in touch with potential customers. That's how he was. And if you were his friend and you were trying to buy a car or a house, And the bank wouldn't give you quite enough money, which in Iran would happen, right? The systems were not as sophisticated as here. Dad would, like, give you a loan so you could buy it. And then, you know, a year, two years, whatever later, you come, you try to repay him. And he'd just say, what are you talking about? Get out of here, man. This was a gift. And he'd go, no, no, no. I remember you said it was a loan. No, no, no. He'd go, no. Don't insult me, okay? Go do it for someone else. You want to do something good? Don't give me the money. Go help someone who needs help. And brother, to this day, to this day, my dad's been dead since February 23rd,2020. Okay. To this day, people call me, people run into me because my last name's unusual, right? Blue. There's not a lot of blues out there in the world. And they just go to me and they go, Hey, excuse me. And I go, yeah, yeah. Your last name's blue. I go, yeah. And they say, you aren't related by any chance to Napoleon bullet. I go, actually, he was my father. And you know, they go, well, I just need to tell you. what that man did for me. And it'd just be a story. And it would make me cry. I'd never met this person. You know what I mean? I just go, my dad was so awesome. I was so blessed by God almighty to do this. And then when I tell the story on podcasts or, you know, to people, some people go, wow, that's amazing. Some other people get really cynical. You know, they just go, what are you talking about, man? That's not real. Nobody does that. Who does that? And I go, I can assure you at least one person did that. That's the late, great Napoleon blue. And they go. Why would he do that, man? What would be in it for him? What was the percentage? And you know what I say to them? I go, that's a great question. You know what the percentage was? Here's the percentage. He was a devout and committed Christian. He believed to his core he'd been blessed by God Almighty and his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And it was his duty as a committed, devout Christian to share those blessings with his fellow man. That was a big deal to my dad. He wouldn't talk about it, but it was a really big deal. Like he went out of his way to look for people to help. And I'm getting a little teary-eyed, excuse me. And then people would go, why would he do that? The other reason he'd do it is brother, because he could, he was rich. He was rich. He was successful. And growing up, man, I worshiped the ground my dad walked on. I wanted to be just like him. I was an eight-year-old kid, and dad would be giving me his wisdom. He's saying, son, life is about people, son. It's not about money or numbers. Remember that. I go, okay, dad. Then one day he said, son, business. Business is also about people, not money, not numbers. And I go, dad, how does that work? Because I'm eight, right? Without money, you can't do business, right? And he said, yeah, son. But without people, there's no need for money to do business. Because here's the definition of business, son. He said, business. is solving a problem for people for a profit. Imagine the Venn diagram, right? The three circles, problem, people, profit. And where all three intersect, that's the purpose of business. P-P-P-P-P-P. You solve an acute problem for an amazing person and you get to make an awesome profit. That's the awe-inspiring purpose of business. So when I grew up, I decided I wanted to help people in business. I because of this background and freedom and this background of my father, I wanted to help entrepreneurs. And, you know, several years ago, I did a test. You know, there's all these wonderful personality tests and I've done many of them. But there was one I did that was that is supposed to be the gold standard test. It's called the Clifton Strengths Finder from the Gallup organization. So Mr. Clifton was the fellow who founded Gallup back in the day. So I did that test. There's 34. characteristics you have. My number one was called Activator. And I read Activator and it said, Activator means you just are like, let's go, let's get it done. When there's something to be done, you go, you get it done. And then you also are good at leading people and getting that done. And in business, coaches, consultants, CEOs, you name it, they are constantly bombarded by what they need to deal with. Okay. constantly, and I'm sure you understand this better than most, Brad, because that's what you do. They need someone in their ear that is going to get them to do the needful when they get so bogged down that they don't do it. And let's be honest, when it comes to sales, marketing, branding, positioning, authority, a lot of good people in business would rather not do that stuff. You know what I mean? They'd rather, like they know they have

they'd rather not. Nicky Billu, Mr. Activator, my number one skill set. Now I'm a thought leader and I teach thought leadership and how to build branding. I teach sales. I teach objection handling. I teach structure of sales, conversations and calls. I'm also the world's leading expert on podcast guesting monetization. This is my new bestselling book, Get Booked and Get Paid, How to Generate Six Figures Plus a Year Through Podcast Guesting. My friend, in addition, and I'm very, very proud of this, I've had my work endorsed by none other than President Donald J. Trump. This is a book I wrote called The Great Patriot Bicot Book. I wrote it with Wayne Allen Rood, who's a personal friend of the president's. Wayne gave a copy to President Trump. He read it, and he endorsed it. This is on true social. So, like, I'm a serious dude with serious accolades, serious credentials. But what I do best, man, is I get your ass into action. I make you do what you must do to get paid in the biggest possible way. Take care of your clients. Take care of your family. Take care of yourself. That's who I am. That's what I do.

you. It means a lot.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. It means a lot to me because, honestly, the fact that I grew up, and in particular when the revolution happened, it got accelerated in a place that wasn't as free as here. And Iran became a tyranny. Under the Shah, it wasn't. Under the Shah, it was amazing in many respects. But under Khomeini, it became a full-on authoritarian tyranny. It means the world to me that I have freedom here. I will say this, and again, not to have a political conversation, but I just want to say this because this is so important to me. This election that just took place on November the 5th, to me, wasn't just an election for America and the American president the way most of your elections are. I believe that freedom itself was on the ballot, and not just freedom in America. 100%. Freedom around the world. If freedom fell in America, if the other side had won election, It is my contention that within 10 years, freedom would fall in America. And it is my contention that within another five years, that means that freedom would fall everywhere in the world. And we would descend into a thousand years of darkness. So I just want to congratulate you and the American people. And I want to get teary-eyed again. Ronald Reagan said the American people are wise. They'll make a mistake. They'll put the wrong guy in office. But they're wise. They'll see when they've made a mistake. And they'll kick that son of a bitch out. And they'll put the right guy in. And you guys just corrected a huge mistake. And you put the right guy in. So bravo, man. Bravo.

What a great question. You ever seen this? You ask some people like what they do and they'll give you a generic answer. And then you go, well, you know, who do you help and what do you do for them? And they'll go, well, inside of this, I can do anything for anybody. You ever heard this? Like guys, you tell a guy, they try not to specialize because they think the broader they are, they're going to make more money, right? They're going to get more clients. I don't want to miss out on business I could get. You ever heard this? Because I've heard this a gazillion times. I used to be one of those guys. All the time, right? So let me tell you a story from one of my clients, okay? And this guy was a serious business guy. So his name was Carl Kramer, and he was an executive vice president at a very large manufacturing concern in Ontario, in Canada. And he quit because he got burnt out. He was working 60 hours a week. He was 57 when I met him. And he decided, I'm going to become a coach. You ever heard of people doing that? They leave their corporate job and they become coaches. Never seen anybody else do that, right? Carl was the only one. I'm being facetious here a little bit. So Carl came to me because he knew of another client of mine, and I may tell that other client's story in a few minutes. But he said, Nicky, I hear you're really good at helping coaches get their footing and start really getting traction and make money. Can you help me? And he told me a story about all the stuff I told you. And I said, sure, Carl. I think I can help you. So we met, and we had like an initial discovery conversation. And I said, okay, Carl, you're like a coach now? He says, I'm a business coach, an executive coach. I'm like, oh, okay. All right, what exactly do you do? He said, well, I solve business problems for executives. And, you know, I can solve any business problem any one of them has. And I said, okay, Carl, let me ask you a question. How much money did you make when you were an executive vice president? He says, I made $350,000 a year. chest got puffed out he was really proud really happy i said how much money you making now as a coach he was quiet for a second and he said not as much i said all right how much pal he spat it out i couldn't hear i don't want what so i said i said tell me how much he said 70 000 i did the math in my head i said that's an 80 haircut pal that's a big drop he goes yeah yeah it is i said do you have any inkling why he said why i guess i don't know what i'm doing i go yeah that's true But this whole thing of you trying to be all things to all people, this is why you're not getting traction. Nobody knows if you're really an expert that they can trust. They probably are meeting you in person and you're convincing them to buy from you because, you know, they trust you, they like you, but you haven't got a good positioning in the market. You say, so what should I do? So I did this exercise. called the ideal client exercise that we've created inside eCircle, okay? You guys might want to write that down. Ideal client exercise. Just give us the TM credit for eCircles. It's really good. So, Brad, the ideal client exercise goes something like this. You know, we first drew a circle, and that first circle was the clients you got the best coaching results for. So he said, okay. He made a list of those. And I go, the second circle is the clients you enjoyed working with the most. Like, these were awesome. They were fun. A whole bit. Okay. And then the final circle, the clients that were easy to do business with. And how do I define that? A, they don't dick around price. B, they pay you in full on time, right? That's pretty important. You know what I mean? There's some people that dick around price. You know what I'm talking about. C, they respect your wisdom. They're like, they listen to you. They're like, yeah, yeah. And D, they give you lots of referrals. Lots and lots and lots of referrals. This was, you know, four criteria for identifying easy to do business with. So he made a list of that. This took him a while to compile this list, as you can imagine, right? And then I said, Carl, you got the list? I go, Carl, did you notice, were there any clients that were in all three buckets? He goes, there were a few. Yeah, there were like about a dozen. And I go, okay, write those down. And then we went deep to examine those clients. And here's what we noticed. They were all kind of over 40, but under 55. They were typically men, almost all of them in his case, like one or two women, and they owned their own business. So they were not like executives inside a company. And half of them were solo practitioner lawyers. And I'm like, hey, there's a little trend over here. I said, what if we have you go work with these solo practitioner lawyers? And what was the big problem they had? And, oh, that was the other thing I forgot to mention. The big problem they had was... They all wanted to scale. They all wanted to grow their business. That was their number one thing. And he also found that, you know, the clients he loved, all of them wanted to scale and they were like excited and he loved doing that. So like, I'm like, okay, so we're going to create some serious messaging for you aimed at solo practitioner law firms that are looking to scale. And let's say that most of these are going to be led by men. I mean, he said, I don't mind working with him. I said, that's fine. But let's aim your marketing at the men that are owning these companies because there's a different way to talk to men than there is to women. Okay, so it took us two, three months to get all this sorted out. Like I'm telling you this in a few minutes, but you understand this did not happen like overnight, right? This was a deep dive, figure it out, all that. So within six months of him meeting me or another, you know, three to four months of us completing this, His income spiked, spiked. Like he went up 70,000 a year is roughly $6,000 a month, right? He went from 6,000 a month to 40 and then 50,000 a month. But this was the part he loved the most. He didn't increase his work hours that much. So he worked 30 hours a week on a busy week, right? But he was making 40,50 grand a month. So we're talking between 480 and $600,000 a year run rate from focusing on a particular target market group, focusing on a specific problem, not all problems for all people, but particular people with a particular problem. And then the final thing we did, and a lot of people do this, and Brad, I'm sure you see this in your work all the time. They undercharge and Carl was undercharging. Carl was undercharging. You run into this, guys, just like they just, they just, they, I can't, they won't pay it. My competition, I mean. It drives me crazy when I hear people talk like that. Oh, I want to pull my hair out. And coaches should know better, business coaches especially, because this is what they should be telling their clients. But they don't, you know, like cobbler's shoes, cobbler's kids have no shoes, you know, the whole drill, right? They do as I say, not as I do, right? That's what the coach is all about, unfortunately. So Carl did really great. After about three, four months at that 40,50K month, he went to me, he goes, let me see if I can do 100K in a month. And he did. It took him just a month and a half to get to 100K a month, but he was working too many hours at 100K a month. So he said, I'm going to drop back to 50. It's all right. 50 is enough for me. I don't want to work this hard. And I'll tell you the last piece of Carl's story. Two and a half years later, Carl was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And he died within another year and a half. And that is sad. And you might think to yourself, why would God give a man? this opportunity to go make the best of himself and then shortly thereafter take him home and I don't have an answer to that being straight with you I don't but what I can tell you is this me Nikki Ballou I am immensely proud that I helped this man live those last years of his life fulfilled with all the money he could handle spending loving what he was doing and believing that he he mattered that he made a difference I'll go to my grave knowing that I did a good thing for a fellow man.

Absolutely. So before, let's go back to Carl and his example, right? He was just calling himself your peak performance business coach. I'll help you tinker and do everything about your business, right? And that messaging sucked. Now sucked, Brad, is a technical business term. I'm sure you're very familiar with it, right? I use it a lot. All of his messages. Yeah, absolutely. Sucked. Sucked ass. It was horrible. Now, when we started to understand who he really ought to be going after, he stopped all that crap. And he said, I'm Carl Kramer, and I'm your coach for helping you grow your solo practitioner law firm from, you know, under a million to five million within three years or less. Well, that's good. Now, inside my work. With coaches and consultants, here's what I say to a coach or consultant I'm working with. Say, hey, Brett, I am the man who works with experienced coaches and consultants that are doing under a half a million a year, and I help get them to a million, two million, and above in three years or less. So under a half a million is a pretty broad spectrum, right? It can be anywhere from zero all the way to $480,000, right? But if you are listening to me say that, If you're doing 550, you might go, well, I'm doing over a half a million. But you might go, I'm close enough. Maybe he could still help me if I want to get to a million. But if you're doing a million, you're like, no, that guy's not for me, right? Could I help a guy who's doing a million get to two, three, four million? Yeah. Have I had clients who are doing over a million? I have. But my marketing isn't aimed at those guys. My marketing is aimed at the guy who's experienced, right? Like, to me, that's important. I don't want to work with people who can't deliver a good result. You know what I mean? That's one of my pet peeves. I want to work with guys who have a track record of delivering for their clients. So that's important to me. Experience is important. So brand new being so crazy about that. Right. And I want it to be somebody who has sold a customer or two before. You know what I mean? So I know they actually have a track record of having a program that someone has said, yes, I'll give you money for. And my job. is to find out what's gotten in the way of them getting to where they are. Are they undercharging? And I'll get into the undercharging story in a minute because that's really important. Too many people undercharge. And the reasons for undercharging are insane. Is it your messaging's too broad? Like with Carl, right? His messaging was too broad. Is it that you honestly are having your messaging about your niche is good, but you're too broad with the problem? Or maybe your problems... a good problem, but you're like, I'll solve this problem for everybody. That also isn't so attractive, right? If you say you work with contractors, which you do, I love that positioning because contractors are a broad enough niche that you've got lots of space and room to work inside of them, but they're also, you know, focused enough that a contractor will instantly know I got to talk to Brad. Like if I'm looking to scale my business before I retire to sell it, And right now it's doing maybe 250,000 a year. And I sure would love it to be a million. So I could sell it for a million in five years. I got to call Brad, not I got to call generic business coach, insert his name here. You know what I mean? And that's, what's important. So your listeners, your contractors, when they're listening to this, here's what I'm going to say to you guys, do not try to be all things to all people by trying to hold on to everything. Okay. You're actually not really able to hold on to anything. It's like a guy. who's dating six girls at once and saying, well, I don't want to limit my options. Well, as soon as they find out about each other, they're going to leave you anyways. It's better to date one awesome girl and make her your wife and live life with her because that's where you're going to be doing your best work. You know what I'm saying? As a married man helping raise a family with one amazing woman partner beside you. And in business, focusing on doing bathrooms. If you're the bathrooms guy, amazing, man. Man, you could charge more than generic dude who comes and fixes a bathroom, especially if your work speaks for itself, especially if everyone knows they can trust you. One of the best things for a contractor is to have a reputation that your quotes are what people actually pay, right? Because so many people get quotes, and that's not what people actually end up paying. If a contractor were to get that reputation, right, that my quotes are what you pay. My quotes are what you pay. That alone would get a lot of people's interest and attention. So if you got that little piece of branding there, and then if you said, and I'm also the bathroom guy, and then even better, I'm the powder room guy. All I do is powder rooms. Don't do anything else. I'm the king of powder rooms. Dude, if you're the king of powder rooms, you're going to get so much business, your head will spin. Your head will spin because there's a ton of people that would love to have the greatest powder room ever. Why? The powder room's usually the only bathroom guests go into, right? So if your powder room is amazing for somebody, they're gonna love that. And by the way, if you're the powder room king, you should be talking about that. So your powder room is the first and usually only bathroom your guests go into. It's the place where you get to make the greatest impression. The two things you gotta get right in your house are your kitchen and your powder room. On a scale of one to 10, let's find out how great your powder room is. I got this special scorecard that'll help you determine it. And if he's... worked with you, you can help him develop that. He puts it out there. You know, is your powder room between like a zero and a three? Like, alarm, we got to fix it right away. Is it between a four and a seven, or is it eight, nine, or 10? Right, eight, nines, or tens obviously aren't prospects, but anything like below that, boom. Powder Room King can probably get them going for themselves. And that's the sort of thing you should be thinking about. Not, oh my God, but that means I won't ever get to do, you know, regular bathroom work. I won't ever get to like fix steps. I want to, who cares? Who freaking cares? Get all the business you can. You want to be five inches wide and you want to go two miles deep. That is where all the riches are. There are riches in niches. One of my earliest mentors used to say to me, and I believe that very strongly.

Yeah, and by the way, I think the caller skilled trade world is about to have 30 to 40 years of amazing sustained growth. So congratulations if you're smart enough to be in that space. There are fewer people getting into it and the demand for that type of work is going up. So fewer providers, more people wanting the service means an incredible opportunity for you. I would recommend anyone listening to the show who's not a client of Brad's right now, you need to book a call with Brad so he can show you how you can take advantage of this bonanza opportunity. And if you're a young man in particular, let me tell you, Brad can set you up to be a multi-multi-millionaire within 10 years. 10 years. You will be able to retire. That's how good an opportunity is in front of you if you have the right guy like Brad.

What a great question. So let's define thought leadership first, right? So we'll make sure that we're talking about the same thing. A lot of people, when you tell them thought leadership, they think, oh, you mean some university professor, some egghead in an ivory tower? Well, I'm not that guy. Man, I don't sit there all day reading books and going through dusty research tomes. I'm not that dude. We're talking about commercial thought leadership. Commercial thought leadership. Very different than being a university professor, okay? Commercial thought leadership. And what is commercial thought leadership, right? Great question. So the best way to describe it is to make a distinction between being an expert and being a thought leader. So an expert is like someone who knows something. So imagine a contractor. He could be an expert, and he knows all kinds. He knows how to drywall. He knows how to fix bathrooms. But most of these guys are invisible. You know what I mean? Nobody knows who they are. They're the best-kept secret in the world. A thought leader is someone who's known. for knowing something. A thought leader is someone who is sought after, who has people basically beating a path to his proverbial door saying, I need your expertise. And the way you become a thought leader isn't just by saying, you know what, I'm gonna go on Instagram, I'm gonna make a whole lot of videos. That's what it means to be a thought leader. Grant you, you can have a personal brand that way if you put a lot of videos on Instagram. And a personal brand is valuable. But I'm a believer in selling steak, not sizzle, Brad. You know what I'm saying? Steak means there's got to be there there, right? You can't just be, if people bite into sizzle because you're good at videos on Instagram, you're one of these influencers, right? You take off their shirts and move around and get lots of clicks. But you don't have anything really valuable to say. A thought leader is someone who has thought deeply about issues in their field of expertise and about how these issues cause problems for their clients and potential clients. Okay, so Brad, giving an example. Myself, I'm a thought leader in thinking deeply about issues impactful to coaches, consultants, and service-driven entrepreneurs like... you know, attorneys, real estate agents, and so forth. And one of the issues that many of these folks have is how do I stand out? How do I become sought after? Well, first and foremost, you got to take the time to find out what it is that you actually know something about. You with me? So don't go say, you know what? I don't really know much about this, but this sounds like a hot area. So I'm going to go on Instagram. I'm going to post a bunch of like cliches and I'll get some clients. You may do that, but the problem is if you don't really know what you're doing, you'll be found out, and eventually your brand will crash and burn. And there's guys who've done extremely well, huge names in certain spaces, and I'm not going to name names, okay? But these dudes are posers, and they're full of crap. Okay, they're full of crap. You actually need to know what the hell you're doing, and then you need a way to actually articulate what you're doing. example, this powder room King fella that you and I were talking about, our fictitional contractor. So this fellow would be smart if he took the time to actually map out his thoughts on paper. And inside our work, we have a thought leader program. And for the coaches we work with, we'll say, okay, buddy, we're going to have you create 52 discrete pieces of intellectual property about your expertise and how you do it. So as an example, for myself, one of the areas I have some expertise in is podcast guesting. And this is one discreet thing I say. If you're a guest on a podcast, you should have not one intention for going on a show, but three intentions. Most people, when they hear that, Brad, like even you'll go in your head right now, probably three intentions. What the heck does he mean? Three intentions, man, one intention is probably all I can handle thinking about, right? And then you go, but that intrigues you right away. So the next thing I'd say is intention. Number one is You've got to come ready to play to inspire your audience, right? These people are giving you their attention. They need your energy. They need your best content. They need to leave listening to the show going, hot diggity dog. That guy was awesome. I'm glad I listened. I learned a couple things, and my energy's up. Intention number two, you've got to make the host look good. Man, Brad, you are spending time, energy, money on putting the show together. My job is to make you look good. I want you to say what you said at the beginning of the show, that that's the best darn introduction we've ever had on this show. I'm going for that. I want you to go at the end of the show. I'm glad I brought that guy on. I'd have him on again. That's super important to me, right? Because that's a big risk you're taking by bringing a guy on. So I have that intention in my head. I'm going to deliver for this guy. He's going to be glad he brought me on. It's going to make his brand better to have me on the show. Intention number three, you're a businessman. I'm a businessman. I do business with businessmen and businesswomen. I work with coaches and consultants. I go on shows because I want to be on shows that are hosted by business people, and I want to build a relationship with you as the host. That makes sense, right? That is super, super smart on my part because I do business, Brad, and I'm sure you're exactly the same, with people that I know, that I like, and that I trust. What is the best way for you and I to get to know, like, and trust each other? spend 30 minutes to an hour on a show where you ask me questions and I answer them. By the end of that time, there's enough of a connection between us that you and I talked offline about you coming on my podcasts, right? On both of them, actually. So that's potentially going to happen for you. Actually, it is going to happen for you. We could end up doing business together. You know what I mean? I could send some contractors your way. I know quite a few contractors, actually, and a lot of them are, shall we say, not good at... types of things that you're good at helping them do. So we could make an arrangement to do that. I could become your client. You could become my client. We could do joint events together. The host of a podcast is a golden opportunity for you to expand your network and expand your business. So this is my triple intention. Now that I explained all this to you, Brad, straight up, you don't need to spare my feelings. When you heard that, did you go, did you think to yourself, This was valuable information or this was BS?

But think about this. So I like, I don't know the contractor world as well. That's why I didn't give you a contractor example, right? So maybe you can help me with that. But imagine that one of your contractor guys wanted to be the powder room King. The first thing I'd say to you that you want to teach this guy is go look. I want you to go home, pull out your recorder on your phone, and say 20 things you know about building powder rooms that is like second nature to you, but the average client doesn't know. Can you do that? He'll go, yeah, I can do that. Okay, great. Read them all off. He records them, and you listen to them, and you go, you'll probably listen to them. And even though you're in the contractual, there'll be at least half of them that you'll go, I never thought of that. You know what I mean? And then the next thing you're going to say to him is, buddy. you're gonna go take these one at a time and you're gonna do a video. We're gonna hire a video crew or your wife or whoever is gonna sit in front of you and you're gonna go, hi, it's John, the Powder Room King. Let me tell you about one thing you may not have known when it comes to having the best powder room. And boom, he's gonna sit down and he's gonna explain it, okay? He's got 20 of these. He's got a little video channel out there on YouTube or Instagram or wherever the heck it is. that most of his clients are gonna live in. He puts it out there and he does one of these a week with your help. Buddy, you see that if someone goes, who's this powder room king? Let me look him up. And they go, oh, he's got this channel. Oh, he talks. They'll watch two, three, four, five. They'll go deep and watch a whole bunch of those videos. Guess what that's gonna do? That's gonna bring his credibility through the roof, through the roof. And then he gets a little bit smarter. You're gonna go to him and you're gonna go, okay, you got these 20,30,40 videos. Now, here's what we're going to do. We're going to get your little videos transcribed, and we're going to make a little book. We're going to publish this. We might even use AI, and we're going to use it as an e-book, and we're going to make that available to people. How to get the Powder Room of Your Dreams. Boom. So the Powder Room King now not only has a video channel, he now has a book on how to get the Powder Room of Your Dreams as well. And since he recorded all this on the video channel, we'll get some editor to take all the stuff that got transcribed. We'll make it an audio book so people can even listen to this. You feeling where I'm going with this?

There you go. So you understand that is thought leadership. If you as a contractor are telling yourself, well, how am I going to be a thought leader? I didn't even finish university. I didn't even go to university. I finished high school, whatever. This is how you become a thought leader. Thought leader doesn't mean you've got an Ivy league education. Thought leader means you have an education, you have real expertise and you share it. And if you think to yourself, but I don't want to tell everybody all my secrets, I'm not telling you to tell people your secrets of what to do and how to do it. But you need to tell people enough that they're going to go, I never thought of this. This is interesting. This is valuable to me. I need to call this guy when I'm looking to do my pattern. That is what contractors use with thought leadership. Because if you're... Joe Blow contractor and all you're doing is putting ads the same way or maybe you have an Instagram page. You know, that's one thing. Maybe you'll like show, you know, little photos of people working on the job site. That's one thing. You might even go, hey, I'm going to do a little video of me of me actually doing some of the work that actually could be pretty interesting. But you want to get people's attention. You need to tell them about things that matter to them that are going to. instantly tweak a thought in their head oh i never thought of that and gonna make them want to be interested in continuing to learn from you and the people you want watching your stuff are people who are gonna spend money with what it is that you do that is what you want to do my podcast on thought leadership is primarily listened to by coaches and consultants why is that a good thing for me because those are the people that are my audience and if i bring things to them that are neat, interesting, valuable, they're the ones who eventually are gonna say, this is a guy I gotta talk to. Thought leadership allows you to attract people to you.

Exactly. But that guy, the second guy, the educator, wouldn't just do one video like that. He'd do like 100. You know what I mean? He'd do the book. He'd go be a guest on podcasts that are all about tile. You know what I'm saying? And he'd also go be guest on podcasts. with realtors, because he's a guest on a show that's run by a realtor, that realtor is gonna bring him in. You understand this whole thing that I'm talking about though. So the three things I just told you, that's the sort of thing guys gotta do. And if all you do is do your work and then you crash and then you start doing it all over again, you're gonna have a living. It's like owning a job. If you're looking to create. a legacy. You're going to create a business that goes forward. You got to think bigger. You got to think differently. I'm going to give you a non-contractor example from my world. Okay. So I had this man and he was the man who sent Carl to me. Okay. I had this man who was a personal fitness coach, right? So he helped people with fitness and he was young when I met him, he was 25 and he was broke, broke as broke could get. He had like seven clients. And he made, if he was lucky, he made $1,200 a month, if he was lucky. So he came to me because we were in the same men's organization together. And he said, can you help me? I don't have a lot of money, but I said, sure. So we met, we met. And I said, buddy, tell me what's going on. And he said, well, I charged 25 bucks an hour. I go, what? He said, yeah. And I said, okay, well, you need to charge more and you need to be able to charge more. And he said, well, how do I do that? And I said, well, who are your clients? And he said, I don't know. I said, well, let's try to narrow your focus. And the first thought that went in is people with money. So he said, okay, let's go for doctors. But why'd you pick them? He said, well, they got a lot of money. My dad's a doctor, but they got a lot of money. I go, man, if you're just going after guys for the money, it's not the best look. They'll feel it. They won't do business with you. But he said, let me give it a try. Didn't work out so good for him. I told him, man, you only got like one or two doctors. And this, you know, he said, okay, okay, okay. He said, you know what, I'll narrow more. You're always talking about narrowing, right? And I do. I talk about narrowing a lot. He said, okay, I'll go after cardiologists. He says, well, it's narrower than doctors. I go, yeah, but why? He said, well, they make more money than doctors. And I'm like, did you not get my message that this was not the way to go? He said, no, no, no, I'm doing this, man. This is going to work. It did not work. But God works in mysterious ways, Brad. You know what I'm saying? God sent him a man who was a Paralympian athlete. He'd lost his leg in a childhood accident. He was originally African-Cuban. And it really worked, these two working out. And this guy, this athlete, he won medals at international competition. I think he even won gold. Like, it was crazy. His name was Wilson, Pepito Wilson. And then this coach comes to me, and he goes to me, Nicky, I'm an idiot. And I said, not an idiot, man, but what's up? He said, you've been telling me don't go after the money. And I didn't want to listen because, you know, I was broke and blah, blah, blah. And now, you know, I've worked with this guy, Wilson. And he said, I really love working with this guy. And he said, I also have a business idea out of this. I go, what's the idea? He said, I think I want to work with people with missing limbs. I go, he said, nobody's trying to train people with missing limbs. I'm kind of the only one. I think I can really help them get fit. And buddy, like in my heart, I went like, this is an inspired idea, man. You know, just like you were saying with the powder room king, right? This is good. Somebody ought to go do this, right? So with no marketing spend, like zero, no marketing spend. And this is, you didn't go on any podcast, nothing. This became a word of mouth thing. In six weeks, he signed up 400 clients. He could no longer do one-on-one coaching. He had to create a group program. Six weeks,400 clients from seven clients before $1,200 on a bad month, on a good month, excuse me. The 400 clients he signed up, are you ready for how much he charged? 3,500 on average. He made a little over $1.2 million. That's over 100 grand a month. As a personal fitness coach, you know how much money those guys don't make, right? They're mostly broke, right? Yeah. He wasn't trying to make the money. He was trying to help guys. And everyone goes to me, oh, my God, why didn't other people go after this? Well, everybody else was going, these guys can't work out. There's no point. And you know what he was saying? He's saying, hey, I see you. I see you. You can do this. You can do anything anybody else can do. And you think about this. Put yourself in the mind space of a man or a woman with a missing limb or more than one missing one. You're probably not thinking, oh, my God. I can do anything everyone else can go. You probably are like a little annoyed that you have to deal with this, maybe even feeling really bad about it. And there comes along a fella telling you, you're just as good as anybody else. You're just as capable. Can you see how that message would like really land, would like give people hope, give people belief? That's why they paid him all this money. Because he wasn't going for the money. He was going for, I'm going to give you hope. I'm going to make you believe in you again. And I want to tell you something, Brad. This is my number one job as a coach, as an advisor to business owners, is to give them hope and to give them belief, to believe in people. When you believe in people, their belief in themselves goes up. Everyone needs someone to believe in them, someone to tell them, to show them their greatness, their goodness. Dan did that for those guys. And I tell you, man, I know that's what I do for people. And I'm sure that's what you do for your people. And if you're a contractor, your client who's looking to buy from you, they want you to share your certainty, your belief, your hope. They want you to say to them, I got you. We are going to do this together. This is going to be better than it ever was. You are going to be fine. I'm your advocate. And if they can let their humanity shine through in that way, brother, they're going to crush it.

Oh buddy. I think that customer is going to tell everyone he knows. He's going to say, you won't believe this. You are not going to believe this. He's going to call people. He's going to go out of his way and call. You are not going to believe this with emotion and energy. And then other people who are thinking of doing a pool are going to call this guy. They're just going to, they're not even going to consider anyone else. People in this guy's circle of influence will only call this guy. Yeah.

Amen, my brother. Well said. Well said. Awesome.

So, dude, you asked a question that's right in my wheelhouse because I'm a crazy reader. I read like over 100 books a year and have for like the last eight, nine years. And I'm 57 and I've read. close to 5,000 books in my lifetime. So I just want you to know, you just, you gave me a softball right there, brother. All right. If you're a Christian, one book that I'm reading and I read most days is the Bible. And I got to just tell you, that gives me strength. It connects me to my Lord. It's a fantastic thing. And it's right here on my desk. Right now I'm in Jeremiah book 11. So that's where I'm at in the Bible. Now, My own book, Get Booked and Get Paid, How to Generate Six Figures Plus a Year Through Podcast Guesting. This is my latest book. It is a wonderful book if you are someone who is intrigued about podcast guesting as a way to monetize your lead generation efforts. And why this book is good and interesting is because you don't need to be some brilliant tech person. You don't need to do your own podcast. You're just a guest. You show up, right? You don't need to be some incredible salesperson to be a podcast guest. You don't need to be somebody who's even had a lot of experience on going on shows. All you have to do is be passionate about a topic and willing to have a conversation with people. And if you read this book, it'll show you exactly how to tailor your appearance flow. so that you're doing that appearance in a way that's going to be engaging, that's going to get the audience to go, wow, I'm glad I listened to this. You're going to do it in a way that's going to have the host go, wow, this is great. And you're going to do it in a way that you're going to build a relationship with the host. And I'm telling you, if you're a contractor, that should be high on your list of things to do to learn about podcast guesting. And I happen to be a bit of an expert at it. If you enjoyed my podcast guest appearance, you'll know that I know what I'm doing and I have credibility to tell you what I'm doing. But I'll also tell you, I've been a guest on nearly 680 podcasts in the last two and a half years. And that much activity on podcasts is like being in the gym every day and doing the reps. And I'm telling you, this is an area people are not taking advantage of. There are 5.8 million podcasts around the world. Almost all of them are interview style. Interview style. People are constantly looking for great guests. Brad will nod his head and say, yes, people are constantly looking for great guests because you are. We're always looking for great guests. And if you can learn, take the time to learn how to be a great guest, you'll be in demand. It won't cost you much. Like me coming on this show, I subscribe to a service I pay less than 50 bucks a month for, and I can go on as many shows as I want. So instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars a month on ads, by being a guest on someone else's podcast, you could spend under $500 a year and you could generate 100 to 150 relationships and you could generate between 50 and 100. business opportunities for you to grow your business and acquire new clients through these relationships. And Brad, I think this is something everyone ought to consider and consider very strongly.

Thank you for having me, brother. And listen, Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. God bless you and yours. And thanks for the opportunity.