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[0:00] It takes a couple of seconds and we are live there and I'm I'm here with pirate broadcast with a special guest today and I'm just,
we've been going back and forth for a while and he has live now on LinkedIn and we we're both you know we're cut from the same fold of cotton and it's awesome to get you on live finally.
Nico the brain Nico How are you doing man.

[0:29] I'm doing excellent. Thank you so much for saying the last name right. That's always a doozy for most people.
I appreciate that you're able to do that. This is going to be a great life. Let me tell you so.

[0:40] Well you know we've we've met in the past before and I know one of your strategies has been you know sit down grab coffee have fun having having an honest and open conversation and you know we met.
I don't always get at least a year ago.
And you were running before you launched your book actually.
And if you want to find out more about Nico Nico right here it's right there I got it.
Got it in the show notes so follow us along and if you're listen on the podcast because this is going to be a podcast as well you get.
So this is a multi stream distribution already in motion and I think that it's important for people to understand that you know you've been doing some things you started out in a different direction.
That's correct. Completely. You're started going down the medical path and it's like yeah I'm not sure I want to do this.
So tell us a brief story about how that transition took place and why the trigger in your mind started to.
Jive in that marketing space because it's not for everyone and it's not easy and there's.
It's fascinating and I love it. However like I said it's not for everyone.
So what took you from the path of the medical field down to the marketing.

[2:06] You know I would love to say that it was an epiphany I had I woke up one day and said You know what. Marketing marketing's for me.
In reality what happened wasn't sitting in class. We met about a year and a half ago I finishing off my degree in nutrition,
and medicine and the beautiful aspect about that was I looked at my grades one day and said listen there's no way I'm ever going to be able to get into medical school like point blank like I had AIDS and then B's and then C..
And then we reported like these at that point. And I said Listen I have to.
I don't think I'm dumb. I don't think anyone's dumb but I just think my passions aren't in medicine.
I have to do that real quick deep dive. And I say quick it was a couple months I figured out that I liked medicine because of the people aspect of it which is in today's modern medicine connection.
Absolutely. It's the connections the stories and being able to articulate what I had that could be useful in a manner that they would love. That's what I loved about it.

[3:07] Long story short I figured out that if it's not medicine then it has to be something else.
Like in my philosophy if you can help anyone you can make a career out of it.
So after going through a ton of little mini internships of direct messaging CEOs and founders I went from construction to real estate to logistics and I can't do it can't do it. Bad at it.
They want to do it and that's when I stumbled into marketing and I said listen if I can dedicate my life to helping people tell stories much like people will help me tell my story.
That's a great career. And today we know that's marketing.

[3:41] Yeah. And I think you know overall because I got back in I was started in marketing in 85.
You know when billboards were hand painted still and you know because I've been around a few years,
and the common thread through all of it is still being able to articulate a concept an idea that motivates somebody to do so.
Absolutely. And regardless of the way that it's delivered it's still how can I quickly.
Share an Idea and a concept in a story form that allows people to imagine that they could do this too.
Or they could purchase this or they could have this you know motivate them to something else.

[4:24] Absolutely and I think the key that you said is is it's Skelton telling the story but it's also telling the story to the right person at the right time.
And that's the biggest thing that I've noticed in marketing is not everyone's your client. Like don't don't shame me for that but in reality I what your client. That's perfect.
Maybe not right now or maybe not ever. But like that's that's gross. Marketers the storytellers come in.
Our job is to communicate to the right person at the right time. That right message exactly.

[4:53] And it's also very important to understand that you know along that path it's like there's a lot of different people could do the same job.
However people resonate with others in a certain way that allows you to work together you know personalities just working style communication style everything about it.
So when you tell people what my market is and everybody is like no it's not.

[5:18] It is not everybody as much as you want it to be it's yes it's not going to be that way unless it's like a water right.
And even in that it's like there's sparkling and there's still like e remains and feel like it's just it's insane.

[5:33] So now I want to talk a little bit. I want to shift gears and talk about your book because they're 20 20 key components the marketing aspect. Yes yes.
And so for those of you on podcast Nico pointed to his book label.
His book covers so it's like this is fantastic because I know what it's like to get a book out and produce a book and you know work your butt off to get tough. You know having it out there.
So talk us through what was that like and where are you at in this evolution of sharing this information and.

[6:16] Just tell us about your book.

[6:18] Yeah. No honestly I want to add even before we jump on the for.
I said I want to add more value to the conversation so I'm going to make this a very value based topic because I know there's so so many people who want to write the book. I think the stat is about.
Three to the three percent of people who set out to write a book actually make it through the process.
And the reason is that it's a tad bit of Catholic.

[6:46] It's a little bit more intimidating once you look at the book as as the final product but really a book like any other project.
It's just a series of steps that you have to take and that's what I did.
So I went through a mindset of OK I can't change my major in college because it's medicine and I have to I have to finish it because otherwise it has to be in college for three more years which a little bit expensive if you haven't heard.

[7:12] So I'm looking at the landscape and I start reading books like The third door and Other Stories.
But there's you didn't get a degree in something that they do today and a common theme was a book.
So actually linked up with a Georgetown professor who helps students write books and I loved it when I looked at marketing. I first thought listen I love startups.
I want to write a book about guerrilla marketing and how to use Instagram and then all these platforms.
And what ended up happening was I realized that I don't even know what I'm doing. They said engage with your community. I was like What does that mean. Like why.
All these basic questions and as I'm going through the literature can find the resource that was simple.

[7:55] So that's what they say. The principles came out of my lack of knowledge about marketing and I thought if I struggle maybe someone else struggles.
So let me just put that into a concise message and I'll be honest with your your your viewers which probably are a couple of my viewers as well.
I Templer dies out my whole book. So my book is completely based on Tim Ferriss is a book about was it tools of titans. So is the transition right. Yep yep.
So as quotes story message the,
personal narrative and the checklist I just followed that procedure throughout the book writing process when when you Temple dies out like 90 percent of your book the conclusion and introduction really fall into play pretty easy.
So that's why I was such a huge fan of templates.

[8:43] I love templates. I love systems. I love automation.
I love all of those things that allow you to remove decisions from the.

[8:54] And so with that being said I know that this is really an amazing process for you.
So where are you in the distribution process. How are you.
How are you getting this message out and how are you really producing results in this so far.

[9:11] Great question. So honestly the best thing that I've been able to do is while writing the book I've actually put into play all the 20 principles in the last year and a half of being a content creator linked in an Instagram and I love and so,
I put my principles into play. So I've tested them all out.
And through that some people have asked questions and they've been able to now give them a or b source that's like,
you know if you're struggling with understanding your brand message or your needs or how they tell stories like I have a resource for you and it's super inexpensive and you don't spend six months of your life,
interviewing people and trying to figure it out.
So basically my personal brand on LinkedIn has been able to carry the book forward which is fantastic.
The other benefit has been that the questions I've received after releasing the book because people like this a great resource,
houses relevant to me and that's actually enabled start a whole new company around the fact of can I teach people how to be foundational marketers and use tools like LinkedIn and Instagram and all digital platforms to carry carried their message further.
So it's been amazing to put the book out there get the initial feedback and then go to colleges and speak about it or even just help the smallest,
person with the answer that I now have like tangible evidence to have been utterly amazing.
So you know as well as I do authors don't make unless you're in the top 1 or 2 percent of book writing.

[10:39] Is it about the money it's about. It's about it's about the.
I think there's a certain amount of therapy involved in being able to articulate these ideas and concepts and get them out.
And I don't know about you but I really enjoy. I thoroughly enjoy the process. Like somebody asked me.
Jessica geo asked Russ how do you go back into your live feeds and engage in the conversation.
After the feed is over I can't find out how to do that.
I created a little tutorial shot the video published it and put it out there.

[11:24] And if that helps one or 10 people it doesn't really matter it's just it's one of those things that you could do that you could put out there that helps someone immediately and and and it does two things it does.
It does number one. It helps someone.
Number two it gives you the process to understand what it takes to get there.
So because if you could simplify it teach it and you could teach it simply then you know the subject right. Absolutely.

[11:54] Yoga class and I think it's just a general curiosity that we have.
Like I used about marketing and the book is kind of a look this is what I found in my research. It's fun.
It's like being a kid and go exploring something and finding out that oh yeah.
Square the square peg doesn't fit in the round. Well that's kind of weird. You know that's a cool observation.
So it said that curiosity that one has as well is amazing.

[12:19] It is amazing. And I want to give a shout out to Rachel back. She's awesome.
Absolutely. I love Rachel land is here.
You know gratitude for everyone that shows up either love to say they either live or after the fact.
I just I just have all my appreciation for you and the audience and the people supporting this this process because it is a process you know as marketers we're constantly experimenting about how,
and what works and what doesn't work you know and I often say that data is key and sometimes what we feel emotionally and we look at the data we go oh that's not really working as I expected it.
So you know it's one of those things where I've started a lot of companies you know I've started you know different projects in enterprises and things like that just like,
yeah I create something I think everybody's going to love this and nobody really good like say no it doesn't really. Nobody really likes it.

[13:27] And so it's like I'm sure that you've had this experience as well you know you started a company yesterday on your life your you're talking about this.
What I learned starting my first company and maybe you could speak to that a little bit and what your experience so far has been because you know I've been around and I might be a little more I might be a little more.

[13:49] I don't know. It's pretty good feeling good about it.

[13:52] With you have extra fees. Yeah. That livestream yesterday was fantastic because it talked about,
my biggest lesson in my first company was learning that it's not really about each company because we all know this you know failure and success rate of small companies.
It's so much more about the lessons that you've learned and yesterday's livestream was all around the fact that what my friend's company taught me,
to do was market and to hold even me these as a way to market not just effectively but but personally,
I felt that many people take the personality and being personal out of marketing which is so so wrong because we're getting so hyper contextualized with our content that you have to add the person back into it.
But I know about you but when I'm on Linkedin I see an ad with 20 smiling faces with the sun in the background and then a hyperlink to a Web site.
I'm like never never going on that because it's boring and doesn't speak to me.

[14:53] And I think maybe I'm not as cynical as what I imagined because I agree with you.
And there's a certain amount of balance between brand and personal identity you know because if you're building a company say for instance you want to build up a company to sell there still has to be God.
Richard Branson is a great example.
Richard Branson is the you know the head of Virgin.
However there's a lot of different avenues of virgin that are unique and you may not know all of the companies that he owns.
However there is a certain personality involved in that organization.
And as you grow and expand your business in your marketing field and pending on where you want to go and how you want to grow it will determine the personality of the business.

[15:47] And then there's the other part of the brand. You know you are a person. This is a brand right.
So you have to understand OK. Where do I want to fit into that equation and how do I win.
How do I want to build that personality. Because if you bring so much of your own individualism into that brand that it makes it difficult to,
diversify sell the company so to speak.
Well I have your business and you have a thousand clients and you're like,
you're doing all the the brain you're all doing it you call the brain stuff and all of a sudden somebody must come by and by the organization say Well where's all your you know where's all your other people.
Like you've got all the business. It's like that's a difficult piece of separation.
So you have to be thoughtful about what and how you structure your personal brand versus your business brand.

[16:50] Again it's interesting because in my opinion personal brands it's just a different word you know different label different label for a reputation.
Right. Like that's really it at the end of the day.
It's if we just take personal brand wins a reputation people instantly get it.
Because it's time tested you know experiences and know knowledge that you've gained from being in the system.
So again personal brand is just a way to showcase that. And again that's that's the opportunity is like where where can you marry both a personal brand and bring personality inside of your brand.
It could be interesting content series. Now I mentioned it's an interesting conversation to have because it's so true though right.
It's like you want to add a human element to your company because again buying anything is personal.
So it's interesting to say the least. But yeah like,
the last thing I want to add to the conversation that started that first company was the fact that you know,
if you had talked to me about two years ago about certain companies I thought is only reserved to people with tons of money experience time resources and throughout the whole process I realized that anyone can do it. It's only a piece of paper.
But the idea it follows through His Word that the magic happens and we all have the ability to do it so that's kind of the message of yes face a life stream.

[18:15] Yeah well and to to expand on that point is we live in a time in history like no other.
And and you know.
You have a computer you have livestream and you can produce.
Look at podcasting. Look at how podcasting is developed.
And you know as in radio and broadcast and operated radio stations and was broadcasting you know a high school varsity games live streaming and doing all this amazing stuff when streaming first started coming in,
and it's amazing to see what you can do with nothing more than a phone and an account. Right.
I mean anything you can actually move things around and create you could do a livestream with a phone.
Now it's like you know it's just like you have the ability to broadcast and share your message out anywhere in the world.
And when you think about that from my perspective you know when people were hand painting billboards.

[19:25] And you think about OK all of the transition from the Internet you know that the dot com bust in 2000 and you know now we're in an in a in a in the range where you know,
people were born with iPhones in their hands essentially so that they think about that the documentation and the the,
the digital aspect of that and what it's going to mean in another 20 30 years where you're saying hey look look look what dad's done.
You know look what Grandpa did.
And it's I mean my 83 year old mother is she texts all the time she's on Facebook and she's like texting. It's insane.
And and it's changing the way we do business it's changing.
And I think rather than broadcasting you know the traditional broadcast is now a conversation and I think it's really I think it's even more important to build relationships.

[20:26] This one and I haven't kept a relationship building because if you have a relationship and you stay top of mind even if someone doesn't need your product service or no assistance at this point in time if you continue to stay in touch with them,
maybe a year down the road or maybe they introduce you to somebody else that needs your services.
You don't know where it's going to come from. So you know don't burn your bridges and don't think that nobody can help you because there's a lot of people out there that want to help you.
They just don't need anything that you have right at this moment.
And that's how you find your audience and you resonate with people. You just stay consistent in your personality to stay consistent in your delivery.
You stay consistent in your messaging.
And then people find you.
If you're consistent you show up and you're there. People will find you the people that need you and the people that want to work with you. They show up. It's.

[21:21] And just to you know add that to the conversation. Again it's the megaphone versus telephone approach right now.
Today it's it's it's this and again you're thinking about the audience in mind.
Me and Russ connected that we met offline. He invited me to an event. I met his business partner Kyle.
Kyle isn't Renzi amazing from Nicole Dora. I will put them real quick because it's amazing music company.
And the fact is that through those interactions now my company battles media is working with the door very actively on a new interesting offering that the team has come up with over there.
So that just goes to show you this has been you know on paper it's only been a couple of months but in reality it's been two years a year and a half and I'm in the making again.
So timing is everything. So you just can't contextualize what's going to happen because only contextualize it once it's done.
So that's the magic of digital.
And the fact that it's more of a telephone world than a podcasting world.

[22:26] Yeah that's that's a great point. I love to expand on that because it's just you never know.
It's like Steve Jobs said you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect the dots.
So you know yeah.

[22:40] And a year and a half is like having coffee with Nico and he's like I don't know I'm going to get out of college get my degree,
nutrition something this nutrition something that I think was I think the seeds of marketing already and figure are already planted at that point. I didn't know it.

[22:58] Those very good. So what's in your future What now.
You you're you're marketing you're doing some things you're starting to gravitate toward others you're you're making some progress in some areas.
What is it that is on the next year what do you see in the next year. Nico yes.

[23:16] So the the beautiful aspect about marketing is the fact that as long as people are communicating there's going to be a job for us which is amazing because the opportunities are endless.
There you are. And that's the thing that the hardest part hasn't been the lack of opportunities it's the sheer amount of opportunities.
And the thing that we at the about this team of finally bailed out is the fact that we want to help people tell their stories.
So what we've done is really build a company and now after the pilots I know they work.
But we basically want to take companies and instill a FTE mindset which is foundation design and execution.

[23:57] What we want to do is establish the fact that foundations are not just a nice to have their must have in today's marketing world because most of time brands and story brands and companies have,
most of the elements but that has enabled them to go to a good state.
I think a small couple tweaks can get them from good to great right.
So that's what we want to focus on is understanding a company's foundations then we want to help them design a plan that's right for them and their audience and their mindset.
And then we want to help them execute because nothing nothing.
It doesn't matter if you theorising about marketing and you're not doing because you and I as marketers we we can test as much as we want but at the end of the day it doesn't matter if it doesn't resonate with our audience.
So that's what we're doing. We want to we think we can change the way marketing is is not just taught in big companies but really embraced.
And that's what we're we're out we're trying to do that with companies because I just think there are too many stories that need to be told and told them in the manner and the context and the mediums up today.

[25:03] Well think about any large organization. How many small divisions and departments and elements you could walk through and you could you could tell stories all day.
Literally what we do and with and with media the way it is today.
I started this way too early and I think it's still something that needs to return and all and I are starting to see it now is corporate broadcasts.
Absolutely. And so you have internal corporate broadcasts that actually defines the people that are there what they're doing how they're doing it and what the job is.
And I think that could actually act as two dimensional in the marketplace because it allows internal teams to understand what others do with the company and they would understand that it would project and deliver,
some concepts about what the job is like for people moving into the market because you know you get on a high school or college and you're thinking how am I going to do.

[26:09] This job you are mean and you and you're always amazed that these new jobs these what do these people do. How did they do it. How is it done.
Just like you probably evolved into marketing you know it's after you discovered what it was.
Then it became interesting because of what you loved. Right.
Absolutely. And so many people never find their niche because they're not exploring and you know going out and discovering some other niche.

[26:39] You know I think in the other part of the broadcasting is the fact that in larger organizations even small concessions you might not know that you know,
you have access to a better for one K or a resource to help you pay for a class or internal learning like you might not know about that. And that's my thing.
Internet broadcasting is great because it brings to light all the aspects of what's in businesses.
Again we're working with the big big client right. And that's one of the biggest things I set records like recruitment or anything like that.
What if your people just knew about the resource that you're already paying for.
Let's just start the conversation there.
Absolutely I could. I'm a huge fan of bringing to light in a relevant way the right resources. Yeah.

[27:28] And it's amazing how when you're in it it's invisible because you're not looking at it.
You're in the chair down and you can't see that.
Nico this has been fascinating. I love it. What's your show schedule. What do you do now that you have live and you're getting out there and you're doing some things.
Where do people find your your livestream your content. Where is the best place.

[27:57] Yeah. So I am going to take a book out of the Russ Russ playbook.
We need to come up with a better name for a playbook because it's so much more. I'll be livestream streaming now.
Now that I have it on LinkedIn I want just to livestream every day around seven thirty a.m..
P.S. tea time and the times are going to change soon. So most likely you're out of that little gap.
But then I want to start really taking that into a podcast.
Same thing that you're doing YouTube and podcasting. So every single day for at least the foreseeable future we'll be doing a livestream there.
But otherwise you know LinkedIn Instagram Twitter reach out.
I want to answer questions. I think the best thing that marketers could do is start contextualizing a question just to get it.
That's where the value is. So reach out to me and do a little plug for Russia's awesome guy. If you think he's this fun quirky amazing smart individual you're absolutely right. I verified it met it in person two or three or four times now.
It's great. So send him a message because I know he's much like me and he will respond and naturally want to grow a relationship with you.

[29:07] And if you're not connected to Nico get connected to Nico.
He's on LinkedIn and he could brain and it's super simple just just do it. You'll appreciate it. You'll appreciate this.

[29:20] It's going to make us think that you're right.
Oh my friend this has been absolutely amazing.

[29:27] Thank you so much and I appreciate it. So are you going to go jump on a life now.

[29:31] It's seven thirty so I know.

[29:34] I'll let you go brother. Yes I think we can enjoy the day. Kindness is cool.
Smiles are free and you enjoy the day.
Thank you so much.