412. How to Communicate Your Brand Effectively

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In this dynamic episode, Lesley Logan sits down with Nick Hiter, a multi-talented entrepreneur and host of the Hitstreak podcast, to discuss the transformative power of personal branding. Dive into how Nick strategically expands his business ventures, the significance of clear communication, and the importance of personal branding in today's digital age. Whether you're looking to start your journey or refine your existing strategies, this episode offers actionable insights to help you 'be it till you see it.'

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co.

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In this episode you will learn about:

How to organically grow your business by addressing its needs.
The significance of fundamentals in scaling your ventures.
The role of personal branding in achieving long-term success.
Effective strategies for digital marketing and audience engagement.
How to reframe challenges as growth opportunities.
The impact of gratitude on personal and professional life.
Techniques for visualizing success and setting measurable goals.

Episode References/Links:

Guest Bio:

Nick Hiter is the founder of Team Hiter, a business enterprise focused on helping entrepreneurs drive growth. In his role as the Executive Vice President at RAC Financial, he oversees strategic partnerships for a leading 8-figure payment processing company. His work supports a network of 100+ strategic partners supporting major brands such as Planet Hollywood, Brio, and Buca di Beppo to name a few. As a thought leader on entrepreneurship himself, Nick’s insights have been featured in major media such as CBS, NBC, FOX, The New York Times, and Yahoo to name a few. In addition, as the host of The Hitstreak podcast, he talks weekly with top performers to break down their playbook to success so his audience of over 200 thousand can get to that next level too. Nick is also the voice of SiriusXM’s “Y’allternative” radio station! In his prior company, Nick launched over 150 insurance agencies that generated 100 million dollars in just over 5 years. His latest venture, dubbed “The Hitlab”, is focused on creating a physical space for thought leaders to come together, share, and distribute breakthrough ideas at scale. Beyond business, Nick is a husband to Rhiannon, and father to Ethan and Ansleigh. Nick is a former pro athlete and gives back regularly to local philanthropic organizations in the Nashville area.

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Episode Transcript:

Nick Hiter 0:00

When I build a business, I build a business with the exit in mind. All right. So I'm not going to die doing that business. Hopefully, I retire or I sell that business or I hand it to a next generation or something like that.

So when I start a business, how am I going to exit it? Just like when I programmed the GPS. I got a program, the final destination in for it to work backwards and give me a route and so on and so forth. Starting with the end of the business in mind, my personal brand is something that I keep until the day that I die. I might not keep the business. That's why it's called a personal brand, not a business brand.

Lesley Logan 0:31

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

Lesley Logan 1:12

All right, Be It babe. Get ready for an unstoppable interview. I promise you you're going to want to hit rewind, you're going to want to write some of these things down. Your mood is going to shift, and your opinion about how able you are and control of what happens around you in your day, and then what you're building is about to shift. Nick Hiter is our guest today and he is just a force and energetic human who has a lot of amazingness going on, and it's because he's very intentional. And you're gonna hear that theme throughout this interview. I got to meet him in person when I was on the Hitstreak podcast, so make sure you listen to our interview. It was one of my favorite interviews to ever do. I had, he asked me the best questions. So definitely was one of those fun experiences. You're like, this is something I want to remember, and I will, because if you watch his show on YouTube, you'll also see like it is to the end, everything he does is with intentionality and like really amazing quality. So you are going to be impressed with the production effort that goes into his podcast and his intentionality in the guests that he has. He said, some amazing guests on that podcast. So make sure you check out Hitstreak and then also enjoy this interview. I want to hear what your takeaways are. Truly send them in, tag the Be It Pod, tag Nick Hiter and let us know. And then, as always, share with a friend so we change people's lives, right? How we do that? So without further ado, here is Nick.

Lesley Logan 2:30

All right, be it babe. Get ready. This is going to be an energetic conversation. I can already tell you right now I have been in the presence of our guest today in real life, and I'm telling you like I always thought I had a positivity of above a 10 and energy that's pretty close to it most the time. And this person showed me that you can go even higher than that. So Nick Hiter is our guest today. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you rock at, Nick?

Nick Hiter 2:51

Man, I am a man of faith. I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a businessman with a podcast. You know what I'm saying. So we're very blessed. Long story short, my wife and I own an insurance agency that owns equity and a few other insurance agencies today. We own a merchant processing company. I'm the voice of a SiriusXM radio station. We own a set of studios and creative agency here in Nashville, Tennessee, and a whole bunch of affiliate partnerships and programs and whatnot. And I'm the host of the Hitstreak podcast, which you've been a guest on.

Lesley Logan 3:24

Yes, I have. You guys can go listen to that episode right now. Actually, after you're done listening to this one, you'll go listen to that one, of course.

Nick Hiter 3:24

That's right.

Lesley Logan 3:24

It was an amazing conversation. So I really hope you all enjoy it. So Nick, okay, first thing everyone's going to want to know is, how on earth do you have the time to do all those things? Or have you had nine lives like that is impressive and also requires a lot of time. And you have a family, you have a partner like there's a lot that you're also invested in that's a priority. So how did you get there?

Nick Hiter 3:51

Everything that we do, the insurance agency was the first thing that we kind of had, and then everything else that we've gotten into was a necessity of the original agency. So it was like we were going to hire somebody to do that or we just started our own thing to serve the previous entity, right? So all the things that we're involved in serve everything else that we do. So whenever we start something new, it's usually because something else we already have needs it. You know what I'm saying?

Lesley Logan 4:17

That's really amazing. Thank you for sharing that, because I think a lot of people will see what you're doing or what I'm doing, and they'll go, I'll use myself as an example. I have an on demand Pilates membership. I have a podcast. We do retreats. So then someone looks at that and goes, I need all those things. And what they don't realize is, first I had a studio, then I started traveling, so I needed to have an on demand thing. And then because people wanted to spend time with who lived in other places, we did the retreat. So like, each thing we created was because of a need, like you said, What is your advice for the person who sees the finished project or where we're at and thinks they need to start all those things at one time, versus, like, how we've done it?

Nick Hiter 4:55

The same way that you were educated as a child, like you got kindergarten curriculum in kindergarten, not eighth grade. You know what I'm saying? So a buddy of mine named Marcus Whitney told me, he said, "Don't mistake my chapter 20 for your chapter one.

Lesley Logan 5:08

Yeah. Yeah. We, like, people like to do that. They really do.

Nick Hiter 5:12

Absolutely. When I watch Michael Jordan play basketball, I wanted to play like he did, but I hadn't done the work that he had done and learned what he had learned to be able to make the decisions that he makes on the fly, knowing how to work out, how to practice, how to grow, and then how to execute in a game, right? So there's a lot of experience required to get good at anything.

Lesley Logan 5:29

Yeah, I know. And that's also like you're an athlete, like those fundamentals are the things that people think are boring. They want to skip over. They want to do the thing that's fancy. And especially because of social media, most people put the fancy stuff out because that's the stuff that looks good. That's the stuff that like, gets the likes, or gets the comments. I recently posted myself just doing footwork on a Reformer, which, you might remember from when you did Pilates. It's pretty boring. It's just lying down, doing squats, basically. But it is such a fundamental exercise that leads you to anything you want to do, and also gives so much information. And a lot of people like to skip that fundamental stuff. What are some of the fundamentals that you like really found have helped you grow your businesses the way that they have?

Nick Hiter 6:08

First of all, to scale or grow anything, it's going to hurt. It's why they call them growing pains. All right. It's never easy. It's usually uncharted territory, even if you have knowledge and things from somebody else. But you always got to have something that you can measure the growth by or the lack of. Okay. So you got to have things that you can measure just like losing weight. Do you think you would have finished school if you had to go for 13 years but you didn't know where you were at? Like, you didn't know, it wasn't broken up into 13 grades. I wouldn't have, after, like, a couple years, I'd have been like, Mom, Dad, like, when does this end? Where are we at? Like, when you're a kid on a road trip, are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there? Yeah, you got to have something to measure your success or lack thereof. Again, everything that we got into served the need of something else. Okay? So whenever you're building things, and then you're going to need more people, when you're adding new things, right? Because you just grew. So obviously, if I was at capacity and we launched another product, launched another company, or whatever it may be, even a new department, it's going to require people, and that leads you to communication, right? So the best in the world, in anything, can clearly communicate, all right? And communication has to go two directions. Derek Jeter said that loyalty, trust and communication going one way is stupid. All right, so it's got to go both directions and then through that communication, you have to be able to clearly delegate, and you have to be able to clearly automate. In the world that we live in today with technology, if you're not using automation and you're not good at it, you're probably getting beat by somebody that is.

Lesley Logan 7:30

Yeah, oh my gosh, the delegation automation is so hard for especially if you're not used to it. I know when I hired my first assistant, I kept asking her, do you think you could? Would it be? Would you be able to? And she's like, it's my job to just do what you're asking, and if I can't do it, I'll tell you. And I was like, oh, she trained me how to delegate real quick. Because I was like, oh, okay, so she'll just, she'll tell me if she can't do it. And that's how I've always operated. So now, anybody who works for me, I'm like, if I give you something that you don't, I don't give you enough time for you need to tell me. Otherwise, that's when I want, this is how we're gonna go, because it's communication, but with automation, there's so many tools now and free tools like it used to be so expensive to automate things, and now, like my husband's Monday boards scare a lot of people, but they are amazing for our business, because I love, at each year, going back to measuring, Monday tells us this is how many things you automated this year. This is how many minutes or hours or, like, months you've saved because of automations. Like, it's so amazing. Going back to communication, you are really amazing at personal branding and digital marketing, and that is forms of communication.

Nick Hiter 6:45

Absolutely.

Lesley Logan 7:31

Can you tell me how you got into that? What's your favorite part about doing that?

Nick Hiter 7:40

In a previous life, when my wife and I were in a management group with three other friends of mine and we owned restaurants and nightclubs, in Nashville back then, if you weren't the best promoter, you lost. It wasn't just open the doors and people flood in. Back then, you actually had to be good. You had to market and attract people. All right? So we learned a lot about marketing. That was the timing of that was right when Facebook, Myspace had already come and gone, Facebook and Instagram and those other platforms were on the rise and becoming more and more prevalent. So like, we learned the value of those really quick. And then when we got into the world of insurance, they did not value that at all. They did not value social media. There was a lot due to compliance issues and a whole bunch of other great reasons. That just wasn't a space where insurance agents were leveraging those platforms to grow. So when we got in there, we had a head start on everybody, and we just used that. We dove right in with it, went all in with it, and created something that we were very proud of. And all we did was market one message over and over again, which was another win for the client, who's next. So when it comes to personal branding, digital marketing, first of all, when I build a business, I build a business with the exit in mind, all right, so I'm not going to die doing that business. Hopefully I retire, or I sell that business, or I hand it to a next generation, or something like that. So when I start a business, how am I going to exit it just like when I program the GPS, I got to program the final destination in, bring it to work backwards and give me a route, and so on and so forth. Starting with the end of the business in mind, my personal brand is something that I keep until the day that I die. I might not keep the business. That's why it's called a personal brand, not a business brand. I'm a big believer in build a personal brand first, and you can launch businesses with that personal brand, and that's what my wife and I have been very blessed to do.

Lesley Logan 10:19

Okay. I do love that, because there's been a lot of amazing businesses where a personal brand has come out of it, like Spanx, for example, it was known and then Sarah Blakely, but that is difficult nowadays to get a business launched into a huge space. Like there's so much noise, there's it really is, like, who has the most ad money can really dive through? So to go back to the personal brand, just in case anyone listening isn't really understanding the difference between a personal brand and business brand, can you just go like, a little more layman's terms, just for them, and then can you tell me more about, like, developing your personal brand, what that was like.

Nick Hiter 10:53

So, your personal brand is your reputation online. Okay, online. We all know a lot of people, but how many people do we actually interact with on a daily basis, versus my Instagram account reaches millions every 30 days. Okay, so, like, I can't touch that many people in person. So online, it's a much greater net if you're fishing, it's a way bigger cobweb when you're casting out. Again, the personal brand is your reputation online or what you've accomplished to date, and how many people know about it? And again, you can cast a way bigger net online than you can in person. So with the personal brand, that's why it's so important. And I want to kind of preface that question with this your personal brand. Treat it like its own entity. That's the biggest mistake people make, is they want to build a personal brand. They might even hire our agency, and then, like life happens, they run into problems in their business. They run into problems at home, and the personal brand is the first thing to take a back seat. And it's a commitment. You wouldn't do that to your business. You wouldn't do that to your family, I hope. You wouldn't do that to your kids. Put your personal brand on a level of importance that's the same as those other things, because again, the personal brand is yours, man, and it took me years to build our first seven or eight figure company, and then once we had an established personal brand of a certain size, we can launch them almost at will to the right market, or as long as the company or brand that we're the one to launch from our personal brand is in alliance with that. So your personal brand, you have an audience. Are you growing that audience? Is your audience shrinking? Are you feeding that audience? What are you providing for that audience to keep them coming back for more?

Lesley Logan 12:20

Yeah, I think it's really amazing. I want to highlight, like, doesn't get put on the waste on the wayside. And also, like, you can take people with you on those obstacles with a personal brand that you cannot with a business brand. Like, your business (inaudible), you're not gonna go, oh, another failed launch today. That's not so great. But you can take people on the journey of, like, what it's like to try out new things and learn from them. And with my personal brand, I've always been very open with my health struggles. Because one, I had no one to help me, and I was like, seeking out this information myself. And I was like, if I'm going through 10 years of stomach issues, there's probably other people going through stomach issues as well. So how can I help them in a way that's like, I'm not going outside of my scope, but I can be like, at least a cheerleader, like, just keep going. And now, as I'm 41 what I found is most of the women who listen to the show, most of them who follow me, most of them who want to take class with me, they're over 40 as well, and so being able to share the journeys I'm on, like, hey, here are the things I'm doing to keep the energy up that I have when I was 30, now, because it's harder now. So I think that's what's so fun about a personal brand and correct like you don't have to have tons of followers, you guys to reach a lot of people. It's kind of amazing. If you're putting stuff out there that people want to share, and it's your rep, it's like that. It's quoted to you, and it's really amazing. And whenever we put together a new product, it does better than a business doing a similar thing, because we have so much trust built in with what we're doing. When I was in Nashville last when we saw you, I spoke at the Soho House, and there was two other businesses there, one who works with over $100 million a year in ads on social medias as an agency, and then this other person, who was the fifth hire for Rent the Runway, and he's done a million other things that are amazing, right? So here I am, the small business owner, and I blew their minds, because we actually sell things where you have to wait four months for it. Happens all the time. When we have a new product, we allow people on that journey, and it's because so they asked me, like, how are you doing that? Because we have to like. how do you get people to wait? And I said, because they're on the journey with me. They trust me. They know what I'm building. They know how many hours I spent on it. They know what they're going to get, and they know it's going to be four months and they're getting this thing. And the guy looked at me, he's like, that would never work for my clients. And I'm like, that's because your clients don't want to build a reputation with their customers. They don't want a relationship with them. I want a relationship. That's what a personal brand really does well. So what did you do in building yours? Was that something you started out with years ago, or something that you when you started your nightclubs, or is that something a bit more recent?

Nick Hiter 14:43

Well, again, it's what you've accomplished, and how many people know about it. So we've all accomplished certain things in life, and so for me, I played professional sports, so that was something that separated me from a lot of people, which that was leverage that I could use that to get in other doors, to get conversations happening with people, whatever it may be. And because of that success, and a lot of people knew about it, in a game that is, at least up until recently, it's been known as America's pastime, it was just a very important thing. But again, the personal brand, like it's its own product. Every company had a founder, and that founder created that company which had a story. So what we're seeing today is people are selling stuff on freaking TikTok, a shop that, like, you can't even like, how secure is that thing? Like, anybody can buy and be a brand and sell anything these days. And what you're finding is that gives a lot of power to the small business owner. So the small business owner can reach as many people as the large ones can. The gates are down. The fences are down. So the founder story, I think, is incredibly important. I think that people, as a matter of fact, we learned at brand (inaudible), I think 58% of people are buying from, are at least shopping first from an entity that has a personal brand tied to the product or the story. So again, all the things that we use as consumers, we have favorite restaurants, favorite stores, favorite products. Why are they our favorites? All right? And then why can't we use that same knowledge to turn right around and be that for somebody else? Okay? So as consumers, I don't think we're very smart a lot of the times. I think we've been programmed to a certain degree, and I think that we're just running those programs and we're not actually like thinking why and how to make them better? Does that make sense?

Lesley Logan 16:17

Yeah, no, it really does. It shocks me when people don't really understand cookies on their phone and on their devices. I use them to help me. Brad makes fun of me. My husband makes money because I, like, will intentionally click on an ad that I want to get served later on. Because I'm like, I'm not ready to buy that thing right now, but I don't want to forget this thing. And instead of, like, writing down what I want, I'm like, nope, I'll just let that hit me up later. And I intentionally, I use the algorithm to serve me what I want. I'm always looking for positive stuff, and then I'm always telling it what I want to buy, so it serves me those things. But a lot of people are like, just taking things as they come, not really having that discernment.

Nick Hiter 16:51

You're taking responsibility. How many people don't do social media? They just blame the algorithm. What is the algorithm exactly that you're blaming? And first of all, how do you take ownership of it. That's the only way you can fix it. If you place blame, you give somebody else ownership, which means you've removed yourself from being a part of the solution. Last time I checked, the people that solve the most problems make the most money. So you're either a victim or a survivor and they look and smell a lot like a quitter versus a finisher. Okay. God hides the gifts and the things finished. And the end of something is the beginning of something else. And if you quit, you don't get the end. You don't get the gift. Okay. And no matter what storm you're in, dude, it runs out of rain.

Lesley Logan 17:31

Yeah. Oh my gosh. You guys, everyone could just hit rewind on that. That was really brilliant. That was really amazing.

Nick Hiter 17:35

Thank you.

Lesley Logan 17:36

Yeah, I think a lot of people see an obstacle as a sign that they're not supposed to do something. Oh, my posts aren't they're not landing. So I'm not good at this. I'm not supposed to be doing this. And this is a sign I'm not supposed to do it. It's just the obstacle that you have to get over because you need the muscle, you need the feedback, you need to learn this lesson so that where you're going you are prepared for the next thing.

Nick Hiter 17:55

Yeah, everybody that's considered successful, or they get paid well to do whatever it is they do. They're good at it. Okay, so think about it. There's companies that spend six or seven figures a month on their digital marketing, and you spend $400 and you don't know a lot, and the company that you hired, you really don't know why you hired them, other than boy, I sure hope they nail this for me. But again, as consumers, we shop places based on information that we've gathered about that entity or that business or that product. But then, when it comes to this type of stuff, we hire stuff. We hire companies or agencies. We just cross our fingers and go like, I hope they get it right. Like, how do you know if you hired the right person? How do you know if you hired the right agency? What are you measuring and how long does it take for them to get you those results? Did you ask those questions? Are expectations being managed? I have clients myself that'll spend 9, 10, 12 grand over a couple months, which ain't a lot, and they feel like, man, I should be making millions by now. I'm like, well, if that's all it took, then why would anybody spend a million dollars on a Super Bowl ad? If that's all it took to make millions. Just, hey, man, throw six grand at this little company on Instagram, and they're going to make you millions. Nobody would do anything else. So it's just, it's those expectations.

Lesley Logan 19:06

Yeah, you know, I love those questions. You gave out. We hired someone. Oh, from an agency, and it was for our YouTube channel. And I definitely thought I did the research. I asked the questions, because we've hired companies before, when we first started our business, and definitely didn't ask those questions. We didn't really know what to ask. So I felt like I asked it. They set the expectations of like, this is what our goal is for your channel, and this is what we've done for other channels and da, da, da. And within five months, everything was awesome. And within five months, I'm like, this is I'm looking at, even if we compound what growth we've had, we're not going to get to the goal you set. We're certainly not going to get to the realistic goal I set. What are we doing here? We have a year-long contract. We have time to rectify the ship. Let's go. And two months later, things hadn't changed. So I continued to raise like, here are my concerns. Here is this thing. And so I laughed, because when we got to the point where we could renew the contract, I was like, are you even asking me? I have been telling you specifically what I'm looking for based on what you told me, based on what you sold me, and now I love that you raised your rates. I love that everyone should raise the rates every year. It's great, but you're raising rates, and you didn't even get me, there was, you didn't even give me 10% of the results we talked about. So you have some work to do, but it's not going to be on me, and it's my fault for allowing us to do a year-long contract. Next time, I'll probably want to do something different so we can have a way out if it's not working the way we expected. And so you also can ask all the questions, and it cannot, it still not go the way you want, and you don't have to get met. I'm not going to blame her. I have to take responsibility. What did I miss? What did I not, what did I not ask? Where was I not super clear on what I expected? And so the next time I know better. And the truth is, like we did learn a lot, our channel grew tremendously, just not to the point that it even paid for what we were paying for them. So it's not all bad. Nothing is all bad. I think we get to learn from it. You talk about the personal brand is so important. So, reputation online. With digital marketing, a lot of people, you said it already, like people like, pay an agency and then they hope and pray. I think a lot of people don't understand what digital marketing is. And like, how a lot of people that we coach, they'll post like, come take my class. And I'm not gonna lie, guys, on the day that we're recording this, I did a post which I have to do for this tour. We launched a tour, and it's basically like tour's happening. Here's what it is. The only people gonna get excited about that, people who know what the tour is. So I'll have other digital marketing I have to do later that actually explains things and educates and inspires and does all this stuff. But what is the difference between a digital marketing strategy where people just post, buy my stuff, come take my class, and one that actually grows a business?

Nick Hiter 21:40

First of all, like I heard one time, the riches are in the niches. Okay, so that what that means to me is specificity, like, it's specific, okay, so let's use, like a neurosurgeon. Would you go to that person for sports rehab? That's not their specialty, right? So digital marketing is massive. Let's just talk about how you compare it to, like money, because we were having a big accounting meeting this morning. So on a business, there's revenue and there's expenses. You take revenue, you subtract expenses, whatever is left, and you want to grow that number, week over week, day over day, shift over shift, month over month, year over year, well, over here. Well, then you've got access to lines of credit. So what's that mean? There's accessible lines of credit, and then are you paying principal or interest when you take out money on those lines of credit. Same thing with credit cards, except credit cards, now you have rewards that you can manage. So like even with your growing, your money on your revenue, on your business. But how are you using cash in cash out lines of credit and then credit cards, which are another form of lines of credit, but again, they have rewards versus bank lines of credit or homeowners lines of credits and stuff. They're different. So it's understanding how you win in each space. It's like, you don't hire a company that's great at YouTube, and it's a bit like, man, why aren't you going to my Instagram? Okay? So again, what are you hiring for? And you have to market to a lot of people–vegetarian, see the steakhouse commercial on TV. It happens, you know what I mean? But like, even if you're going to advertise on a network, you're going to pick like the right network based on the right audience, based on the right demographic of who's watching it at that time, there's all this information that is used to make these decisions, but we don't always use those. A lot of times we're just scratching the surface, and again, that's where you're crossing your fingers. How do you know you hired the right company? How do you know you hired the right company? And you got to have things that you can measure. And before I hire anybody, I like to have those on the front end. All right, it's a year-long contract. After 90 days, how do I know if we're on track? After 150 days how do I know if we're on track? You know what I mean? 3-6-9-12 months down the road, 30 days later, how do I know if we're on track? And what can I do differently? And the moment you say, the moment you place blame on somebody else, subconsciously, you're telling yourself they're the only ones that can fix that problem. Everything's Nick's fault, I promise. Because it's the only way I can fix it. It has to be my fault, because that's the only way I can take ownership to fix it. So even when I hire people, if they're not hitting the measurements that I want, it's my fault, because then I'm going to go to them and say, what can we do to fix this, versus just, what can you do? What are you going to do to fix this? You have to ask that question too. When you say we, there's their part and there's my part, and if I did my part and they didn't do their part, now, we part ways.

Lesley Logan 24:16

Yeah, yeah. And I think also it's even possible to do your part for them to do their part, and it still not be the right parts. And you have to, and those are the hardest times to part ways, because it's like, it's, you know, we're either missing another part or we're not the right parts for this project. And we have to.

Nick Hiter 24:33

And that's based on the relationship. If I met my wife, who is the lady who is my wife today, and we got married tomorrow, like there's not a lot of research or knowledge that we've gained about each other, so we're going to find out a lot later. There's a certain amount of due diligence that's required on all parties to make sure they're a good fit for both. And as a vendor that people hire, it's important to me that I am the right vendor, so I'm always encouraging them to do the right research, and then I'm again, Everything's my fault. The company chose me and I wasn't the right person. It's my fault. I didn't do enough due diligence on the front end, you know what I'm saying? So again, communication, everything goes two directions.

Lesley Logan 25:07

Yeah, we interviewed Daniella Mestyanek Young, who survived a cult, and we were talking about, because I have communities, and I was like, yeah, I'm always trying to make sure I don't have a cult. Like, I'm always, always trying to make sure I'm not creating a cult, because I don't want to, I don't want to be a cult leader. That's a lot of pressure and the answer, like anyone could leave at anytime time, is not the same, because that's true of most cults. But I said to her, I said, no, we're pretty clear. If we're not the right fit for you, because there are some people who want coaching from me, and they're like, well, I want you like, I'm not going to do the work for you. You have to actually come to me before you create the problem. Ideally be great before you. I've had people like, I signed this contract, and now I'm like, oh, I can't help you now, you've got to get a lawyer. This is beyond my coaching business, so I'm trying, we try really hard to be as the vendor. Like, here's what we're really good at. What do you need? Okay, we can't do that, but we can do this. And if that's what you want help on, we'll do that. And if that's not, it's totally okay. And I think that's really important, because for everyone listening, because it is hard to say no to money, it's hard to say no just and also you could be like, well, I can talk about that. Like, I could help them. Yeah, but it's not the thing that you want to be helping them with, and it's not the thing that you're the best to help them with. And like you said, it the riches are in the niches. You'll have more energy, you'll have more growth if you're helping people, the thing that you're most able to do. And so I think that's a really important message that you gave us. It's like, make sure that you, the person who was doing the thing is also the right fit for the person buying or hiring the thing.

Nick Hiter 26:31

I love using plays on words too, to change people's paradigm or their perspective, meaning like using the word cult. You know, well, cult is the root word of culture. I think we would all agree. We'd want a great culture, which is the form of some form of a cult. Even Bruce Lee said, "The words that you say to yourself are so powerful because letters, when you do something to them form a word, you spell them. So when you use words, you're casting a spell on your own mind, right? Just based on the roots of those words. Communication, well, isn't that a form of community? You know what I mean? The words that we use all the time. Brad taught me a really valuable lesson one time, because I was always told, be humble, be kind. The Bible says, be humble to the Lord, but nobody else. Because if you look up the definition of humble, it's actually low thought or opinion of oneself. I was always told, be humble, dude. Do I really want to have low opinion of myself. No, I'll be humble to the Lord, but that's the only person. That's the only thing. You know what I mean. So we use all these words all the time, and actually don't know what they mean.

Lesley Logan 27:30

Yeah, I know. And the thing is, you guys can ask, you can ask your phone really easily. So just yesterday, my husband and I were talking, I used the word titrate and he goes, titrate. I'm like, well, it means people can titrate, they can actually add or take out based on what they need. And he looked up the actual definition. It was mostly like, for medication. I was like, it works at this particular instance as well. But yeah, it's important look them up.

Nick Hiter 27:55

When you use the word humble, if me and you have different definitions of that word, we're not actually saying talking about the same thing, you know? So I was given a keynote one time. We were talking about mindset, right? When mindset became a word everybody used it all the time. So I'm talking about mindset. And I just happened to look out over the crowd, and I was like, I just got this vibe, like there was like, 15 different looks coming back at me, which means there's 15 different opinions out there. So I was like, guys, what's the definition of mindset? I asked eight people and got eight different definitions. So we were actually talking about eight different things and didn't even know it. Even though we were communicating, the communication wasn't happening.

Lesley Logan 28:32

The impact was not of the intention. There's this amazing show on Netflix I love to watch. It's called Physique 100, Physique, yeah, Physical: 100 and it's a Korean show, and they take 100 people in Korea, and they do this physical competition, and it's a see who is the best physique, right? And there's these guys who can lift cars, and there's also, like, a rock climber, and there's someone who does, like mountain climbing, like fire stuff, and then they put it through challenges, and obviously different physiques do better at different challenges. But it was so funny because the translation, since it's Korean, they're translating and people are saying, you have the best physique. I like your physique. And it was so weird because in English translation, it's a little superficial, and especially at the time it was coming out with body positivity, I was like, this is not going to land well, I think they should have translated this just a little bit differently, because this exact translation is not how we use the word, and so it still did okay, but I think you're correct, like, we have to know what the thing be on the same page of a definition. And that's also like, when you go back to the marketing and your personal branding, like you're talking about communications, like making sure that you are using that where the words that your audience, that you're trying to serve is that's how they use those words. It's the words that they use. So that way they really feel like you're communicating with them.

Nick Hiter 29:47

In the world of sports, some of the greatest coaches, when they're talking about these things, like you can watch coach prime Deion Sanders in their classroom, they show a lot of footage of that, and literally, like on the screen behind him will be a word with the definition that they're talking about. So he's making sure that his entire team is talking about the exact same thing. They wear a uniform. Well, what's the definition of uniform? It's the same, right? So that's what teams do. Going back to the world of baseball, which may or may not resonate with your audience, but like Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, were two of the best to ever do it, all right? One guy hit almost just shy of 700 home runs and one guy hit a few 100, okay, but one guy won six championships and one guy won one so who's the better of the two? Derek Jeter would say, well, I am. They'd say, well, he hit almost 700 home runs and you hit 250 or whatever it is. He'd say, you didn't ask who was the best home run hitter. You said who was the best player and the best players win the most games, win the most championships, right? That's how you gage. Is that a track star? Well, they won the most gold records, so they're the best that ever was. So again, when you're even asking, who's the best player, what are you making those decisions off of? What are you measuring?

Lesley Logan 30:52

Yeah. Feel like that's the theme here. Like, what are we measuring? And I think something that I try really hard with this podcast, with each person who's listening, be it till you see it is acting as if the thing, person, goal you want to have is happening right now, because that changes how you show up. But then you also need to know how to measure that. Is it happening? Otherwise it is going to school for 13 years. I'm wondering when you graduate now, I completely understand why we have random graduations. You graduate from kindergarten, then a few years later, sixth grade, then eighth grade, they keep helping you out. This has been amazing. I want to know what you're excited about right now, like, what's coming up for you? Because you know you're someone who doesn't sit still. You are constantly challenging yourself. It's proof, I'm based on just like, how you've talked about what it is that you've grown and what you do here. So what are you excited about that's coming up?

Nick Hiter 31:38

As a man of faith, it's crazy how just things are put in front of you. We've been very aggressive for the past few years in growth, in business revenue, helping people hope all those things and like, all of a sudden, my news feed, just out of the blue, got flooded with, like, I have a daughter at home, she just turned three. It wasn't that long ago I was holding her and like, gratefulness is what I'm most excited about in the fact that, like, what's been put on my news feed is parents with their infants that just got heart transplants, or literally, like five days before my son left me, you know. And one of my clients I just found out didn't even know this, that as a parent, he had lost a child before, so all of a sudden, I looked around and realized how great I have it. And that took a lot of, that removed a lot of the frustration that I've been feeling, because I want to grow faster and realize that, like all right, all this is happening for reasons, it comes with a great responsibility, and it all starts with gratefulness. You can't have a bad day if you're grateful. A bad day and a good day is a choice. Okay, stuff's always going to happen, but how you react to it, or how you respond to it, that's what makes the good or the bad day. Okay, are you grateful for the problem or not? And if you're grateful for the problem, you're grateful for the solution. And man, it was a great day. So for me, I'm most excited about the gratitude that I'm going to be allowed to have and share with other people.

Lesley Logan 33:09

Yeah, I actually think that's really, especially as someone who likes to move fast, and it can also be harder when you have a team. Yes, you can move fast, but also it's it you go farther with a team, that's what they say. You move fast, go alone, go far, have people with you. And so there has to be a different measurement, and that's something that I've been really I had a coach recently say he's like in the last six years, I missed every goal I've ever set for this business, and I'm the most successful I've ever been. And he said, if you're hitting every goal, you're not setting, your goals high enough, and really should be asking yourself, like, am I acting like the person who could have hit that goal as the team acting like that? And if so, then it was a success, and we can measure that based on these things that improved. And it's so easy, you know, I have had listeners and people we coach who go, I'm not hitting these numbers that I wanted to hit. I'm just like, I'm not good at this. And it's like, you're not good at this. We set a goal that was going to challenge you. You got really close. That doesn't, it's not failure, like there's improvement there. And if we had it hit, it like we didn't, we probably could have set the goal a little higher. I love the way you said that, because we do have a choice of whether we see it as good or bad. We have a channel in our coaching group. It's called, I need a moment. And you're allowed to, like, have a moment and just blurt it out. But there is a rule, and what I love is that our members uphold this rule. If I'm not in there, if you don't immediately go to the wins channel and share a win, people are like, this is terrible, but you got to post a win. It has to be right now. Can't be later today. Has to be right now, because if you have time to bitch, you have time to win. So they're very on top of it, and it's so fun, because now what people do is they just go to the win channel and they go, all right, I was going to have a moment, but I'm actually seeing that losing this client is the greatest thing ever, because I didn't want to work at 9am and so, you know, it's really, it really is a choice, and so thank you for reminding us. We're gonna take a brief break and then we're gonna find out where people can find you, follow you or work with you.

Lesley Logan 35:06

All right. Nick, where do you like to hang out? What's your favorite socials? How can people connect with you more?

Nick Hiter 35:10

YouTube and Instagram are the two that we're focused on the most, just because I feel like that's where we're having the most impact right now. And honestly, my son is kicking my tail on YouTube. Like, holy cow, he found his little niche, and he is freaking crushing. I'm talking like he's grown 14,000 subscribers in 90 days.

Lesley Logan 35:28

Wow. That is impressive. I love YouTube. I love my viewers on YouTube. I love even the ones that say where it thanks me. They're my favorite.

Nick Hiter 35:36

Man. YouTube hasn't always been the biggest Nick Hiter fan, so we're working on changing that, taking responsibility and fixing that, and we've brought on some new team members that are going to focus on that, which we're really excited about. But Instagram is great. Everything's @NickHiter. My website's at nickhiter.com you can get to everything from nickhiter.com even if you're interested in booking for a Keynote or booking me on a podcast appearance like this, or anything else. nickhiter.com, all my socials are @NickHiter.

Lesley Logan 36:01

Perfect. Love that. And you guys, his podcast is called Hitstreak, so you can listen to it wherever you listen to this one, unless you're on the OPC app to listen to this one. You'll have to go to your podcast. Listen to a different one. Okay, you have actually given us a lot of nuggets, some great gems. I'm really excited for this, but just in case people need some not too long, didn't listen, but just an action they can take from today, what is something bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted that they can do to be it till they see it?

Nick Hiter 36:30

To be it till you see it, Wayne Gretzky said, you win the game before you ever step out on the ice. Okay? So, like, life's an offensive sport, you don't win the championship by accident. You chose, okay? You chose that that was the goal you wanted, and then you did the required work, and then a lot of things had to happen. And if everything went right, you became the champion, right? But if you didn't win the championship this year, assuming it's sports and you're not aging out, then you know what you need to work on to improve to win next year. Okay? That's life, man. Life's an offensive sport. And what you're saying to yourself, again, going back to that Bruce Lee thing, you're casting spells on yourself with the words that you say. In my town, the most common greeting we need is, how are you doing? Right? So they say, Nick, how you doing? I'm unstoppable. I said it to you when I got here today.

Nick Hiter 36:34

Totally I was like, I love that.

Nick Hiter 36:38

Everytime I do that for two reasons. One, I've said it enough times that I actually believe it. Okay. So again, everything takes repetition, and two, people remember it, because most common response is, I'm good. Well, guess what? That's all you're going to be. That's all you're going to be. You know what I mean? So to be it till you see it, like Brad told me about the power of visualization. Some people call it manifestation. First of all, if you're going to visualize, visualize with a partner, find somebody that's going the same place you're going, because you get there twice as fast, all right. But Brad said, Nick, what kind of house you want to move into next? A big one? Well, he's like, what does that even mean? Big is a reference. It's different to everybody else. How about you say this big house. And this is the wall that my TV is going to go on, and this is the chair I'm going to sit in when I watch that TV. He's like, do you want to own a jet? Well, what's the logo that's going to be on the seats of the jet? He's like, that is being it till you see it. That's visualization, right? So, like, everything you do has got to be on purpose. And the difference between a major league pitcher and a little league pitcher is the size target they can hit. Okay? So the more specific you are with your targets or your goals, the better chances you have to hit them.

Lesley Logan 38:18

Oh, I love this. You guys, it is so accurate, my brick-and-mortar studio in LA that I have only for two years. And that is absolutely wonderful, I visualized. I said, that is where my, I looked at the window of the building, I said, that's my studio right there, and it wasn't available when I walked by. Month later, I kept going, that's my studio. Just every time I walked by, I just picture my studio being there. One day, I opened up searching like for rental space, commercial rental space and it was available. And I was like, that's my spot. And when Covid happened, we visualized this house. Brad and I sat down together, and it wasn't like, we're gonna get a house. It was like, how many bedrooms? What are in those but what is each bedroom being used for? Where in Vegas is it at? And so exactly when the real estate agent sent us this house, I was like, that's the house. We like, we didn't even have a car when we moved to Vegas. We, like, rented a car, drove here. We're like, we're buying, this is the house we're buying. And we celebrate that four years ago this week. So the more sense of you are things really do happen. Nick, you're amazing. This is a wonderful conversation. I'm so jazzed up because of you. And like I said in your podcast, like you took my energy levels and positive another level, you just did it again. So thank you so much. Y'all. How are you going to use these tips in your life? Please let Nick and I know. Tag us both. Share this with a friend who needs to hear it. Maybe you've got a friend who, like needs to remind themselves that they're unstoppable, or maybe they're trying to figure out their personal brand. You can just send this to them. You don't have to even remember the things. You can just go here listen to this, because that is how we change people's lives, and also, when you change people's lives around you, your life changes too. We'll all get to work together. So thank you all so much, and until next time, be it till you see it.

Lesley Logan 39:49

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 40:32

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 40:37

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 40:41

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 40:48

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 40:52

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.

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