In her upcoming book Nina Hershberger makes the audacious claim that she can walk into almost any business and find $100,000 in new revenue opportunities within 30 minutes. But can she really?
I have known Nina for many years – I’ve even visited her and her husband in their Fishers, Indiana home – and know her to be a no-nonsense businessperson. So when I saw the claims she was making in this book, I had to learn more.
In this week’s conversation I’m going to ask Nina where this money comes from and, if it’s so readily available, why aren’t more business owners picking it up off the ground right now.
Nina is a smart, experienced and successful marketer who is guaranteed to give you at least one AH-HAH moment. This is an interview you don’t want to miss.
Apply to work with Nina: http://findmy100k.com/
What follows is a computer-generated transcription of our entire conversation. Please excuse any typos!
Frank Felker 00:23
Welcome back to Radio Free Enterprise. My guest today is Nina Hershberger. Nina is a marketing expert and the host of the Megabucks Radio Podcast. Nina Hershberger. Welcome to the program.
Nina Hershberger 00:40
Thank you, Frank. It’s an honor to be here.
Frank Felker 00:43
Well, I’m very excited that you’re here Nina. Full disclosure to all viewers and listeners Nina and I are both compadres in business and also friends. And I was fortunate enough to actually visit your home there in Fishers, Indiana. Was that a couple years ago now?
Nina Hershberger 01:00
Yeah. And Fishers we’re just northern part of Indianapolis and a really pretty little town. And yeah, Frank, it was great to have you here, masterminding with us for a few days.
Frank Felker 01:13
That’s right, we had a marketing mastermind there. So I know Nina, and I know Nina knows what she’s talking about. But nonetheless, Nina has created a book that has the audacious title. And I know I can get the title correct. Nina, but I want to make sure I get the subtitle correct, because that’s where the meat is. The title is 30-Minute Marketing subtitle, how I find $100,000 in additional revenue in 30 minutes without spending a dime on marketing or advertising. Now, that is a pretty audacious claim. And I know you’re talking about how you find it when you walk into or begin investigating one of your client’s businesses. Let’s start with this what kind of businesses can you help? What kind of businesses can you find $100,000? For?
Nina Hershberger 02:03
And that’s a great question, frankly, any business that wants the Help is probably the best answer. Because there’s many people who, you know, well, I tried that it doesn’t work or no, that’s not possible. Or they have a very closed mind. And they don’t know anything about what it is we’re going to be talking about. Because you know, I’m a direct response marketer have been for years and years and years, I’m old enough to remember the old days. And, and so if they just listen, if they just implement and we’re not talking hard things, we’re not talking unusual things. We’re not talking the latest best of shiny object, if you will, we’re talking simple kind of things that they probably are not doing right now.
Frank Felker 02:49
Well, I understand. And that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about. But I kind of want to create a frame of reference set the foundation of what kind of business are we talking about? You know,
Nina Hershberger 03:02
I prefer working with a brick-and-mortar business, somebody who really has an established business, it doesn’t mean it can’t be an inner internet business. But primarily, let’s talk about chiropractor. Let’s talk about a I was just to this morning, regenerative medicine doctor, let’s talk about an auto repair person. Let’s talk about somebody who sees people, whether they see it in their place or not. It could be a swimming pool company, it could be a number of kinds of things, but somebody that has those kinds of businesses. Okay, call it mainstream marketing, maybe that would be good.
Frank Felker 03:42
I like that expression, Main Street Businesses because I think it resonates with people, even non-businesspeople. Oh, yeah, I know what that is people I deal with every day. Yeah. Okay. So we were talking about finding $100,000 for Main Street business, which would be quite defined. And I’m sure you know, right away, I try to be the advocate for my audience. That question comes to my level, you know, that sounds a little outrageous. And I know that you actually have a chapter or it’s prior to the actual chapters of the book, where you address this. He was the heading is real or BS. And I know you Nina know, you’re a no-nonsense businessperson. So can you give us an idea of how real this is?
Nina Hershberger 04:28
Yeah, yeah, sure. I in fact, the reason that I titled The heading was 30-minute marketing, comes back from in 2010. I published my very first 30-minute marketing book. It’s a part of a series. I’m working on a financial one and a digital marketing one for this year’s release. But the point is, it doesn’t take a long time. It does. It’s not hard. It just takes method it takes step by step. So one of the first things I do with clients As I said, Okay, who is your ideal client? A lot of businesses say, Well, what bloke sell to anybody? Well, yeah, but that’s not really what you should be doing. Who is the ideal client? Here’s what I usually say to customers. Let me talk the regenerative medicine guy. I said, Okay, where do you make your most money? And what is the most profit? In medicine these days, oftentimes, because Medicare right now is having some issues. In for payment, now, they’ll get through that, but at this moment it is. So a lot of them would like to have a cash business, I have a very good friend who’s a chiropractor, he is 100%, cash, no insurance. So again, identifying who that ideal one is the client, and then getting rid of all the rest. There was a guy that I used to work with, he was in one of my masterminds, and he was the financial planner, he literally gave away 80% of his book of business and focused only on the 20%. Because they were the ones that made him the most money. So the very first thing any business ought to do is who is your best client? That’s number one.
Frank Felker 06:13
Okay. And you do have a chapter, in fact, right out of the gate, that’s about marketing and advertising. And I, because your book has yet to be published, I haven’t seen it or read it. So what sort of marketing and advertising you’re talking about when your subtitle says, without spending a dime on marketing or advertising?
Nina Hershberger 06:37
Well, Frank, you just, you just don’t really know it. The book is up on Amazon, so they can go get it. Oh, okay. purchase. Yeah,
Frank Felker 06:45
I just haven’t seen.
Nina Hershberger 06:47
Yeah, what most people think, is that they have to spend a lot of money on radio ads, on TV ads, on printed ads, on Facebook ads, on YouTube ads, on Pay Per Click all of those. That’s what I mean, when I say without spending a dime. So if the very first thing is you identify who your client is your ideal prospect, then you know who to go after. And generally, that’s a very much more small pool of people. It’s easier to reach a smaller so now you can be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. So the very first thing is find out who the smallest one is. And then how are you going to reach them? What’s the easiest way? I have a background of direct mark of direct mail. In fact, I used to be running an operation where we printed and mailed 9 million pieces a month. Tell you what, there’s probably not anybody listening to this right now, that has mailed more than I have been responsible for mailing. But the bottom line is I love small mailings. So when I say without spending a dime on marketing, there could be a little bit of money, but very little, because the second thing I’m going to say to people is, do you have a list? Have you identified? So now we know who we are? Let’s talk about a dentist. Who is the idea? Who do you want who spends every month or every year? They come in twice a year, buys your insurance policy at the dental office, if you got one, who are they? We’re recording this in 2021. So obviously, we went through COVID and 2020. Still through it.
But bottom line is the dental market in a lot of businesses were just decimated during that period of time. There were things they could have done, had they really taken advantage of their list. So having a list is one thing I talked about in the book that’s really, really critical. I can’t tell you how many businesses I know who have not got a list. So let me see it was my daughter. I just said she went into a store the other day and I said you know the number one Oh, I know as a pizza store. She went in and bought pizza. I was with her. We walked out now their mainstream marketing they are they are my ideal client. She walked out and I said they made the number one mistake of all time. She said What is that? They never asked your name. They never asked your email. They cannot ever get in touch with you again. And tell you about the new recipe they came up about the special this month about buy two get one free about the kids night. Anything that they want to do any promotion anything they want to do. They can they have no list because they think they’re in the pizza business or in the marketing business.
Frank Felker 09:42
And you know, it’s funny, there are even companies that do have a list that they just don’t use it. You mentioned a couple of different types of medical practices. They always have the email address and phone number and emergency contact information. They get all kinds of information on you, but they frequently don’t use it. To help drive business or new patients,
Nina Hershberger 10:02
and there’s, there’s real secret to live, so you got to get permission. So you can’t just spam people. So whenever you’re getting the name and address, email, the very most, you know, most important thing is to get their physical address. But short of that, at least their email, then you say, at the very bottom a young by filling this out and giving it to us, you give us permission to stay in touch with you. So in the medical field, obviously, with the HIPAA laws, you’ve got to be very careful that you that they have given you permission to stay in touch with them. But I had a cosmetic surgeon, and we did all sorts of different kinds of things to grow his business. What about death by chocolate? So in other words, let’s go back to what I said, Who’s your ideal client, in his particular business with a cosmetic surgeon, it’s all cash based. So what he wants to do is he wants to grow those. It’s generally women who want to have certain procedures done. But okay, why don’t we have a patient appreciation death by chocolate night, there’s all sorts of things you can do, maybe you’re going to go, he was in a medical Plaza. Now, here’s one thing he never did, which is so sad. He never led every other medical area office in his area. And he was in a large complex, never let them know what it was he did. What it was he offer, none of that. And again, what would it cost him to make a little flyer, make it black and white, if you want on color paper, it’s so cheap used to be in the printing business, you know how cheap that would have absolutely be. But again, that’s guerilla marketing, if you want to call it that, but that is doing marketing, that doesn’t cost you much.
Frank Felker 11:45
Well, and that segues perfectly into the next chapter, which has to do with joint ventures and partnerships. What sort of you just mentioned that this cosmetic surgeon could have, if not partnered, certainly offered the opportunity to the other medical professionals, and to their staffs, and to their patients, to have fun at the death by chocolate night. What other ideas do you have for mainstream businesses to do joint ventures?
Nina Hershberger 12:11
You could come up with a coupon, give it to them? Let me tell you a story about an attorney friend of mine. So he focused on divorces for women only. And he said, okay, where would I be getting those women from? Primarily, when they’re going to get a divorce? When things are not right, where do they go? They usually go to a counselor. So what he did was he put together a book and it says what every I think it was a state he was in what every woman needs to know about divorce. And he gave it to all of those counseling companies. Because when the woman comes in, then he handed in my book, and that was a referral source. So that’s a joint venture only an example of a joint venture. What about a photographer, a wedding photographer, joint venture with the person who does the flowers, joint venture with something maybe you’re a roofer? I mean, you only do roof once, maybe every 15 years or something. But what about if somebody is okay, and this is an example, my daughter just sold her house. Now, before she put it on the market, she had to get it all painted. They got all brand-new carpet, and they put all new windows in. Couldn’t you see if you joined ventured with a group there, that maybe there was a cleaning person? Who if the, the realtor or the one of those people said, oh, by the way, I’ve got this directory of companies that I have vetted, that are very, very good. So that is an example of a joint venture. That doesn’t cost you anything.
Frank Felker 13:50
You know, it’s funny, both with the joint venture, everything you’re speaking of, and it’s especially apt with mainstream businesses. It starts with the requirement of the owner to be marketing focused, thinking about marketing and not just thinking about cleaning pools or baking bread or whatever it is that they do, they have to be proactively thinking about this. It also occurred to me just this moment that in terms of not spending an additional dime, what you talked about, because you get so clear about who your target market is your ideal client, you could actually spend less money than you already are on things like per click and other things like that. Now, yeah, we can Yeah, we could go right back down that rabbit hole. But I don’t want that to happen tonight. Because we got more to cover, and more ideas that I think people are going to go home. I never really thought about that before. And the next one is down selling. Now, many people don’t have never heard that term. Maybe it sounds kind of negative down selling it as both the word down and the word sell in it. So if you’re not have a marketing mindset, you might not like that. Please tell us what down selling is and how that Work for Main Street business?
Nina Hershberger 15:02
Well, Frank, what I’d like to do is I’d like to combine it with upselling, cross sell, got down, sell, upsell, and cross sell. Let me give Amazon as the example. Because they’re a perfect example, how many of you have ever bought on Amazon and you’re going to buy XYZ, whatever. And down below, they said, well, because you bought this, you might also be interested in Boom, boom, boom, boom, that’s an upsell. What if you have a high-ticket thing? You’re a chiropractor. And let’s say you have a $5,000 service that they can have. It’s an annual thing, believe me, it is possible. But maybe somebody can’t quite afford it. Okay, well, I got a 2500. That’s the down sell. And then a cross sell means I just bought a bicycle. Just ordered it before we got on this call. It’s an electric assisted bicycle. It was $1,500 for a bicycle. And what did they do? They wanted to cross sell me into something else in my BIA is a competing kind of thing. But whether you cross sell, you down, sell, or you upsell. Again, without really mapping that stuff out. You’re leaving a gun on the table. McDonald’s prime example used to be I don’t know, I haven’t been to McDonald’s a long time. But I used to say, I used to hear, if you want a hamburger, do you want fries with that? Right? That’s an upsell. Do you want to supersize that? I’m not sure if they’re saying that anymore. But any business should be having those kinds of options, again, doesn’t cost you any more money.
Frank Felker 16:50
No. And you already have the person right there, they’ve got their wallet out their credit card out, whatever it is, they’re on the phone. It doesn’t cost you any more. And you never know. And of course, in scientific marketing, people know exactly what percentage of buyers take that. upsell, what percentage take the down sell, and it just never hurts. And if it could generate additional revenue, with literally no additional cost, why not?
Nina Hershberger 17:18
Yeah, exactly.
Frank Felker 17:19
Next one would be drip campaigns. What’s the drip campaign? And how can we do it?
Nina Hershberger 17:26
Okay, we’re going to go back to the list. So and we’re going to assume that my mainstream marketing company now has a list. So the pizza place now is asking for your name and email. So a drip campaign is a drip email, it can also be in the mail. of obviously, that’s more expensive, but please do not count that out. Because it could be very powerful. I say, I can reach anybody through the mail, you give me some CEOs of very high companies, I guarantee you, I can reach them. So a drip campaign is generally an email. So it goes into the, your system, whatever it is, you’re it’s called a customer Resource Management System CRM, and you drip them, you do a nurture sequence, you do a special offer. Maybe it’s a Valentine’s offer, maybe it’s a fourth of July offer, and you just drip on them, drip on them drip on them. So whether they are a customer or they’re a prospect in your system, you should have them tagged one or the other. And then you can even score them. I know I’m getting really technical now. But you can’t even score them. So now you get to begin to see who is your ideal client? And how much are they worth to you?
Frank Felker 18:49
Yeah, because you might think you know what your ideal client is. But as you look at those types of numbers, you may find out something different. Now, a couple of things said further that we go into this are just so common sense, as all of this is, but they just I mean, it’s just straight arithmetic. So one of the next things that you suggest is to expand your product and service offerings. The more products and services you offer, the more opportunities there are for people to buy. Can you give us a couple examples of that?
Nina Hershberger 19:24
Yeah, that’s perfect. And I’m going to combine that with I’m a very, very strong fan of printed newsletters. I interview on my radio podcast, I interview very, very successful. one that comes to mind is a chiropractor out of New Jersey, and he’s a $13 million. And during COVID times his business absolutely went down, you know, collapse like everybody else. But he grew it very, very quickly by doing promotional kinds of things. So yeah, so just having something And being able to bundle. So he bundled things together. Let me give you some sort of an example of any kind of a bundling. What about the pizza guy who’s going to also bundle something that is the, you know, maybe they’ll going to put soda in there, or they’re going to put some sort of, you know, sugary dessert item or something like that. So yeah, thinking about what you can tack on. For instance, let me let me show you this, Frank. So this is one of my bundle products. So I put them on my radio show. And I syndicated and then I write a book about them. And then I put them in a magazine. And then I do a media kit for them. So they can be on a lot of podcasts. This is an example of a bundle thing. Any one of those things you could get X number of dollars for, you put it all together. And it’s a bundle thing that you can make a lot more money at.
Frank Felker 21:05
Great at that makes perfect sense. Now, here’s another one that’s just straight up arithmetic is that you could increase your revenue if you increase your prices. And a lot of people don’t really understand the old Benjamin Franklin that a penny saved is a penny earned or how that wouldn’t apply to raising your prices. But it goes like this. Let’s say that your average sale is $100. And you raise your prices by $10. Well, if your expenses have not increased, only your prices have, then that entire $10 goes right to the bottom line. And that’s something because profit is the objective of the exercise here, not just sales. That’s a great idea. And I think people should be thinking about raising their prices, whether we’re seeing any inflation yet or not, I don’t know. But I have a degree in economics. And I can tell you, the government keeps pumping money into the economy, the way it’s been doing. There’s just know it just there’s no way out. It’s like water in a balloon, it’s got to go somewhere, the prices are going to have to go up. So we all need to be mindful of that. And the opportunity to raise your prices is here right now. What sort of examples Can you give people you’ve helped raise their prices and, and what that’s meant for their business?
Nina Hershberger 22:25
You know, I like to I do have a whole chapter on raising prices. And you’re absolutely right, it’d be astonishing. If somebody really got down and ran to the numbers, you can raise your prices and you lose very little people. But I’d like to even do it a little bit further than that. Here’s what I say to my clients, I’m going to give you 50% more to your bottom line, the profit line that you just talked about. And I’m going to do it in three ways, it’s not going to cost you anything, we’re going to raise your prices by 5%, you’re going to give me your credit card statements for three months, I’m going to go through it line by line, and we’re going to find stuff that you’re paying for, that you no longer use no longer need no longer should have. And we’re going to eliminate those expenses. So we’re going to reduce your overhead expenses by 5%. And then what we’re going to do is we’re going to look at your variable costs, the cost of creating that pizza, that widget, that whatever, and we’re going to go back to some of your suppliers, and we’re going to negotiate better deals, and we’re going to do all sorts of things. So we’re going to reduce your variable cost by 5%. So there’s three prongs of up your prices by 5%, reduce variable live 5%, reduced fixed by 5%. You do that, and your profits will be 50%. More. Wow. So it’s a very simple thing. Most people don’t they don’t even know it, nor do they do it. In fact, when I work with clients, one on one, that’s the number one thing I do, very first thing because I become free, because I find lots and lots of money sitting in their business, they didn’t know they had that absolutely pays for anything that I would be charging them.
Frank Felker 24:14
That’s great. It and it’s funny because you are a businessperson, in addition to being a marketing expert, and we don’t think of a marketing expert going in and helping us cut our costs. But I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say somebody who knows numbers like yourself can find 5% and variable costs and can find 5% in fixed costs. It’s not just not a stretch. Now.
Nina Hershberger 24:41
Well, Frank, before you go on, let me let me say something. Oftentimes, it’s the person coming in from the outside, who hasn’t been in the trenches, who can see things that the business owner cannot see. The one thing that we didn’t talk about my background, but I spent eight years at the University of Notre Dame In the purchasing department The reason I was there, even though I’m a marketer, and I can tell you my million-dollar marketing stories at the at the university, but that’s another time. But the reason I was there is because my daughter could go there tuition-free, came out with a Notre Dame debt. Zero debt from Notre Dame graduated on a Sunday and Monday morning at 930. I turned in my notice, but I was in purchasing. And so that was one of my primary things was going through those contracts and looking for those kinds of dollars. So it often happens when somebody outside comes in, they can see, and they can ask questions. I had one client who he was spending a lot of money on radio advertising, I said, So what kind of return Are you getting on that? Well, I don’t know. That’s not a good answer. If you don’t know the return on those dollars, should you still be spending those dollars? I’m not saying you shouldn’t. But having somebody asked you that question is a good thing.
Frank Felker 26:00
Well, you sound like you’d be a great partner for any Main Street business owner, what is the best way for somebody to reach out and connect with you? And what happens next?
Nina Hershberger 26:12
You know, I’m going to give you a special offer, just because Frank, you are amazing. And I know that you have amazing people listening to this, I’m going to do something absolutely free. I’m going to spend 30 minutes with no, I’m not going to take everybody that wants to, you’re going to have to, you’re going to have to answer a few questions for me. But it’s not going to cost you anything, I’ll spend 30 minutes, and I will find that $100,000 sitting in your business, all you have to do is go to find my 100 k.com and the number 100 is actually the number don’t spell it out. So it’s find my 100 k.com it’ll take you to my calendar, it’ll take you to you can schedule a 30 minute call with me, we’re going to do a zoom call, I’ll put you in my proprietary software, what I’m going to show you I’ve got 40 different categories that I can go through and I can’t find those, but we’re going to do maybe five at the very most five at the very most. And, and I’ll do that for maybe I know of your guests, maybe five people or something, I can’t do it for everybody, obviously. But so anybody that wants to get on there, if you’re one of the first five, go to find my 100 k.com.
Frank Felker 27:32
That’s great. Now, I will put that link in the show notes, wherever you’re watching or listening or reading right now. Look for YouTube, look for the description under the video, you know, you know the drill, wherever you are Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, wherever I will have it there, find my 100 k.com. And so then you’ll get on a zoom call with them for 30 minutes and learn more about their business. And then at the end of that call, they can decide whether they want to go any further with you.
Nina Hershberger 28:03
Yeah, absolutely, they’ll need three things, they’ll need to know their top line revenue, their gross profit margin, and their net profit margin on those three things. Before we would be on the call.
Frank Felker 28:17
That’s great. And that’s important for every business owner to know. And Lord Save as probably most don’t know the answers to those questions, but they write it out before they get in touch with you. Yeah, well, no, no, we are just about out of time this has gone by very quickly. But I always like to ask my guests before we sign off. Is there a question I haven’t asked you about what you do, or about your book, or a thought that’s come to your mind that you’d like to share? Before we go?
Nina Hershberger 28:47
You know, Frank, I’ve done a lot of my radio shows last year during COVID. And the thing that hurt me the most is when I had business after business after business who had no clue about these principles. If all you do, trust me, if all you do is go to Amazon and buy my book, you will get such value. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if it’s 1295 90. I don’t even remember what it is. And you know, and I make a couple bucks. I certainly don’t make hardly anything on it. But I’m telling you, it’s worth it. I want you to take action, whether you whether you use me to help you take that action or not. It’s okay. But don’t go alone. Don’t just keep going without a plan. Don’t know what your roadmap is. Don’t know, you know, you got to have all of those things. And you got to have accountability. So that’s my final message. I don’t know that that wasn’t a question you asked. But it’s my final message from this. And thank you, Frank for having me.
Frank Felker 29:50
Thank you, Nina for joining me today. Thanks again to Nina. And thank you for joining us. Until next time, I’m Frank Felker. Say and I’ll see you on the radio,
Dude Walker 30:02
Forgiving your entrepreneurial sins with a gentle wave of his microphone. here is Frank Felker.
