I'll Believe It When I See It

Judith and Nicola discuss the matters raised by Nicola’s new website and marketing plan. Which URL will she use? James Schramko advises sticking her NicolaCairncross.com as it is her authority site. She’s going to an SEO meeting to clean up some of the issues she believes may be limiting her traffic to that domain. She wants the new website to keep the same colours but be lighter and brighter and she’s making some brave decisions about client attraction which she believes is her USP.

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Clicks And Leads is a “tongue in cheek” digital marketing Vzine by entrepreneur, author, podcaster, speaker, Nicola Cairncross.

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Hi there, it’s Nicola here and this is my second attempt at doing this because yesterday I managed to turn the camera off when I was talking and turn it on when I wasn’t, which made for some very interesting footage in between I can tell you.

I look a bit pink because I’ve just washed and blow-dried my hair in spite of the fact I’m going to the hairdresser later. Where’s the logic in that? But it looks so bad I thought, I can’t possibly even go down to the village with it looking that bad.

So big news this week on two fronts. I’ve been invited to write some articles for Agora Financial Division, which is coming along under the auspices of Rich Schefren.

I was asked to contribute the articles by none other than Chuck Dolce, who used to be Rich’s copywriter and who I met when I went on a weekend retreat to- well where was it? It was Florida somewhere. I can’t remember the name of the place, it was lovely anyway.

So I’m very happy to be working with Chuck on this, he’s the Editor in Chief and he’s also helping me to not- long articles into shape, but I’m really excited because all of the Agora properties get an awful lot of traffic.

The other big deal this week, is that our own at the podcast not only has had it’s biggest week of downloads ever, we’ve had over 5,000 downloads in a week which is just astonishing, but we’ve also hit the 100,000 download mark which is just amazing, isn’t it?

And that’s one of the things I’m going to talk about in the middle section, I want to talk about all the things that we do, me and Judith, separately and together where we don’t know what’s going to happen, we don’t know if it’s going to make any difference, we don’t know if it’s going to work. And talk a bit about the outcomes, and the trap that’s hidden there.

Hope you enjoy the show this week.

Let’s get on with it, shall we?

Okay, so this week our podcast hit 100,000 downloads. That is absolutely unbelievable. And in the same week, we magically have had something like 5,000 downloads in a week.

Now, you’d think that you’d be able to puzzle out how this kind of thing could happen, wouldn’t you? But no, we can’t figure it out at all. And the interesting thing is, that is seems to be not one episode that spiked which you’d expect if say, an influencer or someone on Twitter with a big following had picked up on an episode and shared it, that would’ve spiked just that episode, but no we’re actually getting growth over all the episodes.

I look at the downloads on some of the earlier episodes, I can see that we get between two and ten downloads a month, or that’s been the case up until now. We’re now across the board, getting 20 to 30 downloads in the last month, for every early episode, it’s quite astonishing.

So, I don’t know what’s caused it, all I can say is I’m happy and grateful that it’s happened. Now, the podcast is an interesting one because Judith works out that it takes us about six man hours to create it every week.

It certainly doesn’t feel like that. We do a little bit of, I don’t know, ten minutes of prep thinking about what we’re going to talk about. We follow a formula, we get onto a Zoom call, which doesn’t cost us anything, and we spend an hour chatting about our week, and what we’ve learned this week, and what tools we’ve come across, and all that stuff.

So, our fans say they don’t listen for all that though, they say they listen for the banter between us which is quite heartwarming, but the thing is on several occasions over the last few years, we started it in 2015, I think.

We have addressed the issue of whether it’s bringing us any business, whether it’s doing us any good, whether we should carry on and there’s been occasions where Judith and I have got quite touchy with each other and thought, no we don’t want to carry on, but we always have, because our listeners encourage us to do so.

We both have received clients from it, we both- it’s not only just part of the authority building that goes before a client signs up with you, it’s a great way for clients to get to know you, but we have actually both had clients who’ve come solely for the podcast. That they’ve stumbled across it and they’ve listened to it and they’ve decided to become clients.

That’s interesting one because it’s not just assuring up of the authority from the traffic from other sources.

The really interesting thing about the podcast is though, we never knew if it would take off. We managed to get it into New and Noteworthy, which meant it sat nicely at the bottom of what’s hot ever since.

In the top 100, with people like Jerrish Rumco and Chris Tucker and people like that. So it’s not a shameful place to be, because there a lot of very high traffic podcasts further up, but it did make you wonder occasionally if what you were doing it for, the odd occasional client, couldn’t you find them somewhere else? What’s the point of carrying on with the podcast?

Well, it’s starting to really fly now and I think that we’re at the beginning of what’s called a hockey stick, where something goes along and along and along, and then suddenly goes like that. Exponential growth it’s called, because all the people who listen and enjoy it, are probably telling other people about it and the more of the people who are listening and enjoying it telling other people, then the more people will have a listen and enjoy it.

It’s a- what’s it called? It’s a virtuous circle, that’s right.

So, the thing is though, if we didn’t believe that we would get somewhere with it, or that it would bring us some benefit, we wouldn’t have done it.

And that’s the hard thing when you’re starting out is to believe that the actions you’re taking will reap rewards later on, and if you didn’t believe that something’s going to happen, you are very unlikely to get started. You’ve got to have the belief. So it’s not I’ll believe it when I see it, it’s I’ll see it when I believe it. That’s what I’m trying to get over today.

And things like going to Australia, I didn’t know if it was going to be a good trip for me, I didn’t know if I was going to attract new clients into Clicks and Leads Academy and I did. 60 percent of the- sorry, 30 percent of the room, 60 new clients for Clicks and Leads.

It was just astonishing, but if I hadn’t believed that I might have a chance of doing it before I went, I would have talked myself out of going because it was quite a big trip. It cost quite a lot of money to get there, and I was going to be on my own for three weeks also apart from the bits when I was actually actively with other people.

So I had to believe that I would generate income, I had to believe that I would enjoy it, I had to believe that it would be a good thing to do before I actually went to do it.

So, I want to ask you what are the things that you’re not doing because you don’t believe they’re going to have any impact? Thereby, making it 100 percent likely that they’re not going to have any impact, because you’re not doing them.

So all I can say to you is pick one thing that you’re thinking about doing right now that you don’t really believe is going to work and then just take consistent action towards giving it the chance to work and then see what happens in a year or two, you might be amazed. And you can’t get that time back, it’s better to start now than start next year.

I hope this has helped and if you’d like to talk about this in anyway, love to see your comments underneath wherever you’re watching this video and I hope it’s helped thinking about the kind of thing that you can do to move your business forward.

What’s on the blog and the podcast this week?

On the blog is VZINE number 95, where I’m talking about how to tell stories in your business. Why you need to be telling stories and how to do it and I also give you a simple five point process for creating a story, even if it’s only for a short two minute video or a blog post, or a case study, or anything like that.

Please forgive the banging from next door, they’re doing their second bathroom now. They did their first bathroom last year.

What’s on the podcast this week?

In episode two-two-two, of Own it! the podcast, we’re talking about my travels down under.

Judith invited me to go into what I’d be doing over the million month I was there in more detail and specifically to talk about the kind of challenges it threw up for me and the brilliant things that happened and quite a lot of brilliant things did happen. It was very magical trip.

So, anyway, check that out on NicolaCairncross.com/Blog and I’ll see you next week.

Creative Direction & Video Editing
Phoebe Soremekun

Intro Music
Pool Cosby

Incidental Music
[No Copyright Music] Chill Lofi Hip Hop Instrumental (Copyright Free) Music – Watching The Clouds
[No Copyright Music] Chill Lofi Hip Hop Instrumental (Copyright Free) Music – Days Like These
Chill & Relaxing Lo-Fi Hip-Hop Instrumental – Warm Nights // No Copyright Music

Drone footage of The Mani
Georgios Ser-Aouas

Drone Footage of Shoreham by Sea
Scott Wright Photography

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