Nicola Gelormino (00:00):
Hey, entrepreneurs, there is a huge opportunity that you're missing and we are going to tell you what it is on this edition of the Inside BS Show. Hey, now I'm Nicki G. This is the Inside BS Show. I'm here this morning with Dave Lorenzo, the godfather of growth. Hi Dave, how are you?

Dave Lorenzo (00:20):
Hey, now Nicki G I'm fantastic. You got the hoodie on today. I love me some Nicki G in a hoodie. We're going to talk about what these people have been missing. This is the show you've been waiting for your entire career. You're going to want to pull over if you're driving because the next 18 minutes are going to be riveting podcast content for you. What's up Nicki G? So let's roll right into it. What are these people missing out on? What's the biggest opportunity that they've missed out on so far in their careers?

Nicola Gelormino (00:55):
Biggest opportunity that we see a lot of entrepreneurs missing out on is getting in front of ideal clients. Yes, we see you out networking. You might even be driving to a networking event right now. That's great, but those are referral sources and not your ideal clients. So we need you to be focused on how can you get in front of more of your ideal clients, which will help bring direct business to you. So let's give them today, Dave, three benefits of getting in front of their ideal clients.

Dave Lorenzo (01:25):
I love it. You people are spending too much thinking time in front of referral sources. So there's three big benefits for being in front of your ideal clients and you are thinking of one of them right now. But you're going to have to delay that gratification because we're not going to get to it until the third benefit because the first benefit that I'm thinking of is when you get in front of your ideal clients, you know what problems they have that you can solve. Think about that for a minute. You're talking to your ideal clients. They hired you to solve one problem, but they're telling you about five or six other problems that they have. If you are ignoring those five or six other problems, you are absolutely freaking stupid. You need to understand all the problems your ideal clients have, and if you hear the same problems over and over again, that's the business you should be in.

(02:20):
Here's the deal. A lot of the people who listen to this show are professional service providers, and I get it. You as let's say a lawyer or a litigator, all you got in your hand is a hammer. So you're running around looking for freaking nails over and over again, right? I'm a litigator, got to sue someone, I'm a litigator, got to sue someone. So somebody comes to you with a transactional matter. What's the first thing you think of? Oh, I got to go out and send that to somebody else who does transactional work? What happens when you hear that a dozen times a year? Well, I send out 12 different referrals and I hope that I get referrals back. No, if you are a real business person and somebody comes to you with a need 12 times over the course of the year, you get in that business.

(03:05):
So those of you out there who are lawyers, particularly those of you who are out there who are litigators running around with a hammer, looking for a nail, go buy a toolbox, put other tools in the toolbox so that you can solve other problems. If people are coming to you with other problems, you got to be able to solve them because the hardest thing for you to develop is a relationship way harder than doing litigation. I don't care if you're trying cases in front of the appellate courts, if you're trying cases in front of the Supreme Court, harder than that is consistently regularly with predictability, attracting clients and building client relationships. Get over it. You think you went to law school just to practice law? Well, you're the best lawyer nobody ever heard of. You think you became a professional just to put on your green eye shade and hide in a dimly lit room and do balance sheets and worry about debits and credits.

(04:05):
You're the best accountant nobody's ever heard of you financial advisors who spend all day trying to beat the s and p 500, get over it. Nobody caress. What they care about is that you care about them. The hardest thing in any profession is to develop relationships. And the only way you develop relationships is by listening to your ideal clients and solving their problems over and over and over again. And unless you're in front of your ideal clients, you damn sure don't know what their problems are. So you're going to your stale bagel and coffee networking event and you're hanging out with other people who look just like you. You're hanging out with other people who sound just like you and you're complaining about judge, so-and-so and how she drinks too much on the weekends and she's really unfair and you better not be late for your hearing in her courtroom. It's all crap. It's all absolute crap if you don't know what problems your clients have. So getting in front of your ideal clients helps you understand what problems they have, and by solving those problems, you make more money. Nicki G, what do you think about all that?

Nicola Gelormino (05:22):
We are problem solvers as lawyers and other professionals out there. That's what we do. We get hired by clients because we have the ability to identify and solve problems. You have to know what those are. We're going to tell you in a little bit how you can get in front of your ideal clients, but before you get there, you better know what problem you can solve because getting in front of them is not helpful. If you don't know what the problem is that you're going to be able to solve with the specific skillset and expertise that you have, you've got to do your homework, do your homework by first talk to some of your existing clients. If you're not identifying other problems for your existing clients, it's going to be difficult to identify it for new potential clients. Think about the industry. Think about common problems that companies, if you're dealing with companies would face in particular industries, something that's going on in the industry that may be a trend where there may be a greater need for the services you provide.

(06:14):
Those are just a few ways, but you've got to be thinking about it and identify what those problems are. Benefit number two of getting in front of your ideal clients is once you identify the problem, you have got to be able to speak the language so that you can get the messaging right. So you have to sell. You hear us say this all the time, sales is everywhere and it's everywhere. For professionals, for individuals, we sell all the time. We just don't know that we sell. But you have to understand what the best messaging is to be able to convey to your potential clients that you know what problem they have and you can solve that problem. So it's very important that that messaging is right before we tell you how to get in front of them so that you're able to provide that messaging to them.

Dave Lorenzo (06:57):
You got to speak the language. You absolutely have to speak the language. Your clients want to know that you can relate to them. And the best way, the easiest way to relate to them is to speak like they speak. Take for example, go into a baseball game. You want to go to a baseball game with your friends, but you don't know what balls and strikes are. You don't know what a single or a double is, you dunno what a home run is. You don't speak the language. Your friends are not going to have as good a time with you at the baseball game as they would if they went with somebody who knew what the language was. This happens everywhere. Every industry has its own specific language. Years ago, 2007, I started working with lawyers. I worked almost exclusively with lawyers for seven years. Should have had my head examined, but I did.

(07:53):
And working with lawyers for seven years, I learned that I couldn't use the word sales with lawyers. I had to talk about business development, couldn't talk about sales with them, how to use that language, and they don't sign up new clients, they originate new work. That's just the way they talk. Those are the things they say. I couldn't say sign up the client. I had to say, how much did you originate? And they would tell me, I couldn't talk about even talk about cases or I couldn't talk about services. You know what? It was new matters. Oh, we're opening a new matter. And I would go, what's the matter? And they would say nothing. And I would say, no, no, no matter why are you using that word matter? Seems like it's out of context. Oh no. That's how we refer to new work. So we don't say the word work because work implies that we get our hands dirty, which we never do.

(08:48):
So knowing the language was critically important for me to be able to relate to them. And it's equally important for you, whether you're a professional or you're ACEO with a sales team or you're out there as ACEO developing business yourself for your company, you better be able to speak the language that your clients speak. So how do you learn the language? Go hang around with your ideal clients and see how they talk and then ask them why they're using the words that they're using. I remember walking into a radio station, this is after I started working with every breed of dog, cat, pig and sheep on the planet to help them improve their businesses. And this guy owned a radio station and he said, I want you to come in and do a talk for my sales team. And I said, I'd love to. And they're going around talking about spots like We got this spot and we got to sell these spots and those spots. And I'm like, spots? What the hell are these guys talking about? Well, a radio advertising segment is referred to in the radio advertising industry as a spot. A commercial is referred to as a spot and they're saying spots left and right. And I'm thinking to myself, what?

(09:58):
I'm in the doctor's office just yesterday, I'm in the doctor's office and my general practitioner also happens to be a cardiologist. And I hear him on the phone and he's talking to another doctor and I hear him say, what was the duration of the arrest? And I'm thinking to myself, wow, duration of the arrest in medical parlance means how long was the guy dead? But in the legal world, the duration of an arrest would mean how much time was this person in custody? So if you are not up on the language, you can't effectively build credibility because you need to communicate with your prospective client in the way that they're used to being communicated with. To put a final point on this, I'm a white guy living in Miami, but I speak Spanish and my Spanish is far from perfect, but I get huge credibility.

(10:50):
I have huge credibility when I walk into a Spanish speaking community and I try to speak Spanish even if it's far from perfect, even if my accent sounds like I come from New York rather than South America, even if every verb tense I use is not spot on, I have huge credibility because I'm trying to meet them where they are. I'm trying to communicate with the people in the audience where they are. That's how you need to think of this benefit when it comes to connecting with your ideal clients. They're teaching you the language so that you can demonstrate your credibility to them on their own terms.

Nicola Gelormino (11:31):
Yeah, I think these are all excellent points, Dave. And let me just add this that you can easily learn some of the language in a particular industry where you want to work with clients by just reading materials about it. I love looking at industry sources such as news publications in that space that I know those clients are, what's going on in that space, what's happening with their competitors? That's an easy read in the morning. Take a look through some of those. Know what they are. You'll know quickly which ones are the most popular. Read through those so you can start becoming familiar with it. You'll pick up some of the language hop online, look for different sources on whatever your newsfeed is. Maybe it's LinkedIn or maybe you're using Wall Street Journal or whatever it is. And just look for things in that industry. You'll start picking up on some of it without even realizing it. It's a few minutes of your time and all of a sudden you can speak that language and now you've got credibility with your clients. So you just got to put in the effort. And I'll tell you, it's not a big lift, it's just taking the time to do it. If you really want to work with the clients in that space, they are going to want to know that you understand their business. It isn't just about what service can you provide. You can solve the problem. They need to know you understand their business.

Dave Lorenzo (12:39):
I'll tell you another quick funny story. So cops have a language all their own. You obviously never want to pretend to be a police officer, but I have several police officers in my family and having spent holidays with them, well, I'm 55 now, so having spent holidays with them for 54 years, I know how police officers talk. So I was at an event, it's got to be like four months ago, and a woman comes up to me who I knew and she introduces me to her husband. And I remember her telling me that her husband was a police officer, and so this is in New York. So I shake his hand and I told him my name and I said, how long have you been on the job? And he looks at me and he says, you have cops in your family, don't you? And I said, to be honest with you, I drop into that kind of terminology so easily that I didn't even think of it.

(13:35):
And I said, yeah, that he says, only cops refer to being a police officer as being on the job. He said, it's just one of those things that people who have people who are in law enforcement or have experience with law enforcement, it's a phrase they would use. And so we started talking, and he's a detective, and I said, how many, I used another phrase again, subconsciously, how many years were you in the bag? And he said, 14. And he said, you did it again. And I said, what do you mean? He's like in the bag, that means in uniform. He's like, nobody other than somebody who's in a cop's family would know that terminology. So it's kind of interesting that people just, when you hang around with clients long enough, when you hang around with people long enough, when you immerse yourself in the world of your client, you fall into their language very easily so that they think you belong.

(14:45):
They're not necessarily going to think you're one of them, but they think you belong. For sure. I say all the time Now, Nicole, I say all the time to people execute the documents. Well, who the hell says execute The lawyers say execute the doc. Normal people say, sign the papers. But now I say execute the documents because I've been around so many lawyers that it's just kind of like, it's kind of become part of my own lexicon of language. So immersing yourself in the world of the client makes you familiar with the language. You can craft your messaging appropriately. You can speak like they speak, you can hone your credibility, and it works really well. The final benefit for getting in front of clients more frequently than anybody else is candidly doing business with them. So here's what happens to me, and I know what happens to you because I think I've seen it happen to you.

(15:34):
You spend enough time around people, they're going to want to know how they can work with you. If they like you, they're going to ask, what can I do to get involved with you? How can I, you've given me so much value for free in our conversations all this time. How can I work with you? Or if you have an offer, you're in front of the right people to make that offer and people are just going to fall out of the sky and say, yes. We posted something on LinkedIn. I posted something the other day about an event we're doing for people to teach them how to be professional speakers and developed business through speaking. I posted it on LinkedIn candidly, Nicola, because I liked the picture of me that I used. That's the reason I did it. And four people came out of the woodwork asking me how they could get involved with that event. And I'm thinking, well, I didn't even write the copy for the event Nicola, and I didn't discuss the pricing for the event yet, but now I got to do the event because people are interested. They want to know that's what happens when you're in front of your ideal clients. Frequently, they want to figure out ways that they can get involved with you. What do you think, Nicki? Jane?

Nicola Gelormino (16:34):
Yeah, it's so true. Sometimes you don't even anticipate it, but we realized we were speaking the language of the ideal clients, and some of that was intentional that we knew we were writing articles and putting together at least what our internal business plan was for a number of events next year. Not even thinking this would immediately resonate with some of the people out there who saw it. So while we are surprised, maybe we shouldn't have been. So just know that once you're speaking that language, you're attracting potential clients and it can happen immediately like it happened with you.

Dave Lorenzo (17:06):
Alright, so how do we make this happen? How do we get in front of our ideal clients more frequently? Well, the first thing, and it's business development 1 0 1 in the day of Lorenzo School of Business Development. That's to ask your ideal clients where they go and what they do. How do you figure out what's going on in your industry? How do you stay up on industry trends? How do you stay current on the things you need to know in order to service your clients? If you stand there and you ask them where they go to sharpen the saw to learn about things that are going on in their industry, they're going to tell you. And then you need to join those trade associations. You, and this is, I'm going to pick on lawyers because it's just so freaking easy. You lawyers, you love to hang out with other lawyers and God knows why you're not interesting.

(17:57):
You got nothing fun to talk about. I mean, unless you're hanging around criminal defense attorneys, not one of you has a decent story. So I don't know why you lawyers like to hang out with other lawyers. You should be hanging out where your clients hang out. So if you're a corporate transactional attorney, let's say, or you're ACPA, you could focus on a niche market that is really fruitful for you. So let's say you wanted to focus on, oh, I don't know, you wanted to corner the market on independent tow truck operators. By the way, in the United States, there are over 8,000 registered independent tow truck operators. There are two industry trade associations, two industry trade associations that cater to these independent tow truck operating companies. There are several private equity firms that are looking to do tow truck industry roll-ups right now. They're looking to buy tow truck towing companies.

(18:54):
They're looking to buy them and combine them. So if you were ACPA or you were a corporate transactional attorney, you're thinking to yourself, how much competition is there out there for an attorney or for ACPA who really understands the ins and outs of the towing business intimately? I bet there's less than a dozen of each. There's less than a dozen attorneys throughout the entire United States who have done the purchase and sale of a towing company. There's less than a dozen companies throughout the United States, CPA firms throughout the United States that specialize in accounting for towing companies. Now, listen, before you think to yourself, Dave, or you think you're saying to me, Dave, there's nothing different about the accounting for a towing company compared to the accounting for any other company or Dave. A transaction for a towing company being sold to a private equity fund is the same as the transaction for any other company being sold to a private equity fund.

(19:57):
Here's the thing, if you speak the language of the towing company, you understand how tow truck operators operate. You understand the growth challenges of a towing business, you understand that a huge portion of their revenue comes from government contracts, comes from highway administration contracts that gives you an opportunity to speak their language and to connect with them on a more intimate, more personal level. And even though your part of the transaction is probably identical to any other transaction that you would do, they are going to feel like you get them. And if that's one 10th or 25% of your business development, of your marketing efforts, if that's all it is and you speak their language, every tow truck operator who sells his or her business is going to want to work with you. So that's a great way to take this whole thing and put it all together.

(20:57):
If you want to understand how to really develop a competitive advantage in business development, the way to do it is to figure out who your best clients are and then figure out where they hang out, go to those conventions and then begin to market yourself as the person for them in your industry. You don't have to take your whole business and tailor it to them, but you can take a significant portion of your marketing efforts and focus it at them once you know where they go hang out and you spend time with them and you immerse yourself in their world. What do you think, Nicki G, if you were continuing just to be an entrepreneurial lawyer for the rest of your career, would that make sense as a way to start your marketing plan?

Nicola Gelormino (21:45):
It does make sense. So this isn't about just solving the problem. Yes, as an accountant can do the accounting work for any type of business, this goes beyond just can I do the work? Because the clients that you want to work with, you want them to work with you too, and they're going to look for, can you do something beyond just tell me yes, I handle accounting work for businesses. They want to hear that something specific about their business. Why? Because you're going to have more credibility with them. They're going to assume you have expertise in their space and you ultimately will when you start learning more about their business and you would be able to help them in ways beyond the transaction at hand. So if I'm working with a new client out there, I learn as much as I can about their business, and frankly, you're an asset to them when you do that because then it helps you identify other problems.

(22:35):
It helps you be able to continue to have conversations with your client where you're viewed more as a business partner to them. Even though you're a third party, you're viewed more as a partner to them in thinking about their business beyond the transaction that's at hand. Companies want to have lasting relationships with professionals who are invested in their business, and that will help you develop that long-term relationship when you know more about it. And with these different types of industries, trade associations, for example, you've got to ask where those events are taking place. It's not something that you would just know by looking at the industry. I mean, I remember being invited to an event not that long ago by someone we know, Dave, who is in the customs broker business and at an international level. And I remember going to this event going, wow.

(23:21):
I mean there were a thousand people in the room and these people all had very similar issues that they were talking about that the speakers were presenting on. And I thought that is a great resource for someone who's really looking to do business in the international space with people who move goods and product through different ports, for example, or in different distribution networks. But you've got to be able to ask those questions, speak with your clients to find where those events are and what, sorry, you have to be able to speak with your clients to find out where those events are and the organizations that you could have the most impact with so that you have those opportunities.

Dave Lorenzo (24:00):
You hit on something else there, Nicole, and that's point number two in how to get in front of your ideal clients more frequently. And that's education. You talked about going to the customs and international trade event where they did some education stuff and everybody was there. There was a thousand people there because they wanted to be up on the latest customs and international trade law issues. They probably wanted to be up on multi-jurisdiction issues. Maybe if you're shipping to jurisdictions outside of the United States, we're living in a time now where it seems like every other month there's the government's imposing new sanctions on someone so you can't receive goods from a certain place or you can't ship goods to a certain place. So people are willing to go to these events to be up on what's happening in their industry. If you're someone who wants to market to people in that industry, figure out what you can educate people on and offer them the opportunity to speak at the event and deliver great educational information or start a podcast like we are doing right now to deliver great educational information.

(25:07):
Because then you're going to be viewed as a resource and people are going to say to themselves, well, crap, I'm getting so much good stuff from them for free. I wonder what I would get if I paid them. Or like Eric Johns said at one of the breakfasts the other day, there's so much good information here. I'm going to go back home and try to do it myself. And then I'm going to realize the guy who shared the good information with me is way better of an expert than I am. It would take him a third or less of the time that it would take me to do this. It makes sense for me just to pay him. That's what's going to happen to you if you're at one of these events and you're educating people on the areas of your expertise. One of the biggest myths, Nicola, that I see all the time, especially from professionals, is this thing where they say, well, if I give a talk on this and I give away all the information, people are just going to do it themselves.

(25:58):
I first heard this, I first heard this, it's got to be late 2006, maybe early 2007. Criminal defense lawyer is telling me about this big change in the law. Okay, now we're going back a long time, but he's telling me about this big change in the law where first offenders for simple possession of certain types of drugs like marijuana in small quantities, it's instant diversion. You go before a judge and you plead guilty and you tell the judge that you're going to go into a program and the judge says, okay, if you go into a program and you stay clean for six months, we're going to basically void the arrest. And this guy's telling me he's telling me all about this. And I said, you need to get that out there. We need to do videos and we need to write articles on this because it's so great.

(26:49):
And he says, Dave, if I do that, nobody's ever going to hire me. And even though these are small cases, this is like a $4,005,000 case for me. I could do 10 of these a month and that's a really good month. And I said to him, honestly, who's going to do this themselves? The person that's going to do this for themselves is a person who doesn't have the $5,000 to have you represent them. But am I going to take a chance? If you tell me that I can get diversion, am I going to take a chance and go in front of the judge myself and go, Hey, I heard about this diversion program by reading a blog article, or I listened to a podcast and I heard about this diversion program. Judge, how do I get me some of that diversion? What person is going to do that?

(27:32):
They're going to hear you educating people on this, and they're going to call you and they're going to go, Hey, I heard your podcast about diversion. I need that. Can you help me get that? Because this is the first time I've been arrested for simple possession of marijuana, that type of thinking. If I give away all the information, people are going to do it themselves. It's wrongheaded for two reasons. First, the people who would do it themselves are never going to be your client anyway. So the person who puts the addition on his home himself is never going to hire a contractor regardless of whether the contractor charges $10 or $10 million, that person that do it yourselfer, he's never going to hire a contractor. The second reason this approach is wrongheaded is because the more information you give to people, the more they can understand what goes into the actual making of the sausage, the actual process, and the more they understand, I need a real expert. This is not something I can do myself. It just is not worth it for me to do it myself. So educating people in depth on these subjects is a phenomenal way to connect with your ideal client. Nicki G, you do this all the time.

Nicola Gelormino (28:48):
I do. And I know a lot of other professionals who do this very effectively. You do not be afraid to share expertise and knowledge. You have to do it. We are very big. Both of us are on delivering value first, and it's going to go, sorry. And that's going to go a long way for you with potential clients because they're already seeing and hearing you, and they start to view you as an expert in that space. So when they have a need that arises where that falls within your expertise, you're going to be that call for them. But you've got to be able to put some of that out there and holding all of that back does no good for you because you're just waiting for someone to knock on your door so you finally get an opportunity to talk about what you do. But you've said it, Dave, and I love when you say this, you can be the best lawyer out there, but if no one knows who you are, it doesn't matter.

(29:33):
So you've got to get out there and establish yourself as an expert in the space, and speaking is a great way to do that. I can think of at a few recent examples where I've seen a few lawyers who have done this very effectively when there's a trend that's starting to take hold and they become a perceived expert in this space, how reading as much as they can about the subject and writing articles on it. And the next thing you know when industry sources are looking for an expert, they're being the ones who asked to write articles. They're being the ones who are being interviewed, and they just learned this in a matter of months. I saw it with crypto and blockchain. There was an attorney who branded himself as that. There was the marijuana lawyer. There was most recently someone in the AI space, perceived experts who just got out in front of it and started reading as much and learning as much as they could so that those opportunities naturally came to them because they were the only ones out there, or at least among the few out there who were putting out materials on it, giving value based on what they read.

(30:28):
So they're sharing that knowledge and that led to a lot of other opportunities for them and new clients. So this is a great way to do it.

Dave Lorenzo (30:33):
You do this, you do this really well. I've watched you do this in the last 90 days. You are really good now you have a really good command of the value drivers of a business. You have a good understanding, a better than average understanding of how they can help an entrepreneur develop more options when that person is ready to exit. And dare I say, if you continue at this pace in the next 90 days, you'll be a bonafide expert in this area. Lawyers have such a huge advantage and you have a unique ability in this area. Lawyers are capable. Most lawyers, really good lawyers, especially litigators, are excellent at assimilating large amounts of information quickly. But hands down, you are one of the best I've ever seen at immersing themselves in a topic to the point of almost annoyance, where you develop mastery of that subject very, very quickly.

(31:36):
I've seen you block out everything else, including me, and focus on one specific area until you have complete and thorough knowledge of the area. So look what one person can do, another person can do. You have a unique ability in this area and that you do it faster than most people, but there are other knuckleheads out there who could figure out how to do this, even if it takes them twice as long as it takes you. You can become an expert in 60 or 90 days or six months in a specific area so that you're conversant and if you develop a passion for it, this is really the key that unlocks all the doors. If you like the topic and you develop a passion for it, and you become a voracious consumer of information in that area, both academic information and practical real life information that comes from having conversations with people who work in that area, that's when you really develop a significant degree of mastery. When I started working with lawyers, all I did was hang out with lawyers.

(32:37):
I went to dozens of bar association events. I went to breakfast, lunch, and dinner sometimes with lawyers. It was before I had kids. So I was either with my wife or with a bunch of lawyers, and I was with lawyers from every practice area. I went to bar association events. I went to charity dinners and hung out with lawyers. I joined committees that lawyers were on. That's how I got on a grievance committee in the first place. I wanted to sit in a room and hear how lawyers talked and see what they thought or listen to what they thought. And I just immersed myself in their world and within, I want to say 18 months, I could sit and have a conversation with a lawyer in any practice area and relate to the problems they had with their businesses. And that's what we're looking to do. That's exactly what you're looking to do. So if you want to develop three or four of these niche markets, you got to immerse yourself in the market that your client is in, immerse yourself in their world, understand who they are, how they think, what conversations are taking place around their kitchen table, and that's how you get into their world in the first place. Alright? Point number three is host your own events. Conducting industry events that you host is a great way to pull people in and get them interested in you.

Nicola Gelormino (33:57):
Putting events together gives you the opportunity to showcase yourself as an expert. You recruit other people to do some of the speaking, give them those opportunities. You're being recognized as a person who's bringing all of that together. Add awards on top of that, and now you're being recognized for someone who's providing additional value to others, recognizing their strengths or their achievements. All of this is very effective to helping you to be able to get in front of your potential clients.

Dave Lorenzo (34:26):
Alright, the fourth way to make this happen, very easy targeted advertising or marketing. Now, it could be online where you target all the tow truck drivers that are online. You can do this through industry segmentation on Facebook or Instagram or it could be through Google Ads. Google has a great way of targeting and segmenting people by industry, let's say. Or you could do it the old fashioned way. You could buy lists and do direct mail. You could buy lists of people who have attended conventions. There are dozens and dozens of ways to target your marketing and you're advertising. If you're out there right now and you own a business and you're thinking to yourself, well, I'm going to do TV ads, or I'm going to make videos and hire somebody to get my videos optimized on YouTube, you're missing the boat. If you're not doing direct response targeting with all of your advertising, if you are trying to advertise to the masses, you're wasting 80 to 90% of the firepower that you're putting behind your advertising.

(35:37):
You need to focus on a very specific, very discreet group. Pick a group of your clients, speak to them in their language, in your advertising, whether it's written copy or radio copy or TV or video ads or hiring an Instagram influencer. Listen, think about it this way. You can hire Kim Kardashian. It would cost you a bazillion dollars and she could tout your product and only 5% or less of her audience would be willing to buy your product or service. Or you could hire, if you're targeting tow truck operators, the number one to tow truck operating company in the United States, the one who everybody in the tow truck industry knows. And that person could be the influencer that's talking about your services. And then more people would put credibility, would put stock in what that person is saying because they can relate to them. Then they would put into what Kim Kardashian is saying, I am a huge sucker.

(36:34):
I readily admit this when I the very few times, two or three times a week at the most that I go on Facebook. When I see somebody on Facebook who's in my industry touting something that he or she's doing that I want to do, and they have a program and they tell me I was doing this and they're doing the same things that I'm doing now, I'm doing this and these are the results I got. If that person looks and sounds just like me, I'm much more likely to respond to that ad. If you're advertising anywhere and it's not targeted, stop it. Now. Use targeted direct response advertising no matter what form of media you're in, that's the way to go. And if you want more information about that, call us. Come see us because I do this all day long with my clients.

Nicola Gelormino (37:26):
This can be a really effective tool if you know exactly who your clients are and where to find them. This is basically, it's a silver bullet. You know where they are. You take your shot, you can target them. Exactly. You don't need to be spending money on these larger campaigns where your reach may be bigger, but the actual clients you're seeking to target are far smaller than that reach if you can just find out where they are. So you can do that by looking at what industry are they in, demographics, geography, find ways to target them, and then use targeted advertising or marketing to reach them directly.

Dave Lorenzo (38:01):
All right, so what did we cover today? We told you the reasons why, the benefits to getting in front of your ideal clients. So whatever else you're doing, stop it and start getting in front of your ideal clients. And then we talked about how you can get in front of your ideal clients. We give you four ways to do that. This has been an incredibly valuable episode. Thank you, Nicki G, for everything that you've done to encourage our clients to reform their wayward ways and get in front of the people who can spend the most money with them. This is the Inside BS show. We're here every day or whenever we feel like it with a new show. Join us again tomorrow or whenever the next show comes out. And do us a favor. She's shaking her head at me. She's like, we're going to be here every day, Dave. We're going to be here every day as long as we don't get Covid or get involved in a big case. That's right. We are.

Nicola Gelormino (38:52):
We still did the show with COVID.

Dave Lorenzo (38:53):
Yes, that's right. We still did the show with Covid. We didn't do a show when Nicki G had a big case, but we did a show with, we did the show with Covid. So we'll be back here again tomorrow with another great show for you. Do us a paper, folks, if you feel like it or even if you don't feel like it, share the show with somebody else. Why? Because it's great value. You're going to give a gift to somebody you care about. It might just change their business or change their life. And it's good karma for you and we appreciate it. Until tomorrow. My name is Dave Lorenzo. I'm the godfather of growth, and she is.

Nicola Gelormino (39:23):
Thank you too.

Dave Lorenzo (39:24):
We'll see you back here tomorrow, folks. Thanks for joining us.