interesting business in Florida. How they started, what they do and what I like, they believe that almost anyone can be made into a celebrity for business growth. Great concept and this is a great interview. 1. Both you and your partner in your agency; Dicks & Nanton Agency, are lawyers but now it seems to be in the marketing business. Can you tell us how you meet and started the agency?
Well, Jack and I are both lawyers, but we also both happen to be serial entrepreneurs, which led us to marketing. Between the two of us we have directed the sales and marketing campaigns of products that have had over half a billion dollars in sales.
It’s a funny story of fate how we met. We actually met when I was in high school when my cousin dated his daughter. I wasn’t sure what he did, although I knew he was a lawyer, but we got to know each other casually. Then about 10 years later a good friend of mine in college married into the family and I reconnected with him. We started working on some projects together and over time found that we were a great team.
2. Now are you a talent agency or a marketing agency or are you carving out a new type agency niche?
Actually it’s a new kind of agency altogether. It’s a Celebrity Branding™ Agency. We coach people on how to become Celebrities and Gurus to their market segment and then we represent them and work with them to build their business and their income streams through various business structures like licensing and franchising.
3. For your unique type of business where does all the talent come from you, your partner or do you have that unique type of blend of talents? Tell us about what your talents are?
We both have similar talents of seeing how to build a Celebrity Driven business, but when you get down into the fine details we have a very complimentary skill set.
My talent is engaging people to learn what they can offer the general public and what the general public will accept from them. It’s very similar to my past as a talent manager and producer in the music business. You start with a piece of clay at some stage of the process and then you work with it to make it the best it can be. You can’t turn it into another material, or make it take on characteristics that don’t exist, but you can help it turn into the best end product it can be. I have an extensive background in television, graphics, event and audio production so I often create the “show” for our clients—how to present them to an audience in an entertaining and informative way.
Jack is truly a master at most everything. He can shape shift to meet any challenge. But I would say his greatest skill is monitoring the way money flows in any market and helping the client hop in the stream of cash flow in a way that makes sense for them personally, but still stays relevant to where the money is. He can help any client find multiple income streams that they never knew existed.
4. From what I have read, in doing what you do, it sounds like at times you do a complete make-over of the look of the business or do you just pick certain parts of the business that need real help?
It can be either. We can help at any stage. But we often do help people start from scratch. We work with clients from “Broke to $4 Billion” in annual revenue, so it really does span a very wide range.
5. The way that I discovered you was via a mailed out newsletter. Many entrepreneurs wonder if a mailed newsletter would bring them any business. How has your newsletter worked for the agency?
A hard-copy “snail mail” newsletter is the best business building strategy for any business and it has been for years. It has worked amazingly well for our business and our clients. People perceive something they get in the mail so much differently than they do an email newsletter. The email newsletter often falls prey to a mailbox full of personal tasks that must be responded to, so an informative piece of information that does not require a response usually gets deleted in order to make time for the messages that must be responded to. The email newsletter is essentially a pest that is exterminated, not that they don’t have their place because they do and we use them all the time, but I’m just saying that’s the real weakness of an email newsletter.
A hard copy newsletter on the other hand is usually one of the gems someone gets in their mailbox at home. Most people don’t get much real correspondence via us postal service, in contrast they get junk mail and bills. A newsletter that can actually help the person receiving it will move to the top of the pile over the other items, if nothing else, because of the contrast to the other items in the mailbox.
6. You say that if your website is not making you money it should be. Can you explain that statement…do you think every site should be a money machine?
By making you money we don’t always mean that it should literally have a credit card terminal that collects money 24 hours a day, although we never mind that! We mean that it should be generating warm prospects for you and your business and then you can use whatever the best process is for your business to convert those leads into dollars. Warm leads are worth dollars and ultimately lead to you making money. So we think your website should be put to work in the online world to bring visitors to you and help you with at least the first step of the process by turning visitors into warm leads who “raise their hand” for more information on you, your products and services. From that point on your correspondence turns from “unwelcome pest” to “welcome guest” because the prospect requested the information from you, rather than you just cold calling them or sending them unsolicited marketing materials.
7. Do I understand this right? You take someone and marketing them to become a celebrity then you teach them how to broaden their horizons with your legal knowledge?
I prefer to explain it this way: we take people and help them create celebrity status in their niche by generating a buzz and then we help them monetize their celebrity status into multiple income streams through capitalizing on their talents and expertise. We use legal structures and strategies to make these businesses operate at the highest level while protecting their assets.
8. Both you and your partner (JW) are also in something that is very new it is called Kennedys Barber Club. Tell us where the idea came from and how does a Barber Club Work?
Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club™ is a really unique concept that we founded with a couple of our other business partners. We believe that at the core of every business should be what we like to call “Continuity Income.” In other words, the business should generate automatic income on a continuous basis from the same customers. Memberships are a really great illustration of this. In most cases, when you join a gym or health club, you don’t pay a one-time fee to attend for the day, instead they get you to pay monthly for access. They get money from you every month, not only when you come in. We believe every business should have this philosophy and we have built it into every business we have, from our online marketing and PR agency http://www.celebritysites.com/ to our law firm and Celebrity Branding™ agency.
Continuity income can be created in any business with a little creativity. We even know a funeral home director who has added continuity to his business! And it really helps businesses to grow and thrive. Instead of having to go out and compete for the same number of dollars every month, all you have to do is go out and try to grow by getting a few more dollars. Some people will stop paying, move, change their minds or whatever, but for the most part if you can retain a % of your customers, you are already ahead of most businesses that have to re-convince their customers every month just to keep the doors open. Also, when you get someone to take on a monthly bill, they mentally add it to their “overhead” and move on. When you get into the “overhead” category of spending you move from discretionary spending to mandatory spending. At some time you could be removed from the mandatory spending, or “overhead,” category, but the point is it’s a mental switch that the customer doesn’t usually re-address every month unless they are having difficulties keeping up with their personal spending.
If you can get customers paying you monthly, and then bring in more customers every month, you now have a formula that will help you to grow quickly.
Kennedy’s™ is built around the concept of memberships and continuity income, but the reason it works is because we have taken a very mundane, necessary experience for most men and have turned it into a luxurious, even fun, experience. Men go to Kennedy’s for haircuts, straight-razor shaves, great conversation with other like-minded gentlemen and most of all they don’t have to deal with the discomfort of attending a women’s salon. Women’s salons just aren’t a great fit for most men, but that doesn’t mean that they want to go to “chop shops” either. We really saw a gap in the market between what the mass affluent (upper middle class) guy is looking for and what the market was offering, so we set out to create a concept that would fill the void. And so far it’s working out great! We are now franchising and expect to grow exponentially in 2009. You can learn more by visiting http://www.kennedysbarberclub.com/
Didn't I tell you this would be great!
Amazingly Yours
Dr Marlene
P.S. Let me know what you think of interviewing men on the blog.
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