Agents Building Cashflow

EP 166: Storytelling for Real Estate Success with Marianne Hickman

• Marianne Hickman

Share episode

International speaker and mentor, Marianne Hickman, shares her journey from being a single mother on food stamps to building a multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio. Marianne dives into the power of storytelling, both in public speaking and in real estate, and explains how connecting with audiences authentically can lead to exponential growth. She also breaks down her signature process for crafting impactful presentations that drive sales from the stage.

If you're looking to improve your speaking skills and monetize your message, this episode offers invaluable insights. Tune in to hear how Marianne's strategies can help you elevate your real estate business!

Key takeaways to listen to:

  • Discovering the art of storytelling to inspire and sell from the stage.
  • Learning how to create emotional connections that lead to successful real estate transactions.
  • Gaining insight into building a millionaire mindset through mental reprogramming.
  • Mastering a step-by-step formula for delivering compelling keynote presentations.
  • Understanding the importance of mindset over systems in achieving financial success.

About Marianne Hickman

Marianne Hickman is an international public speaker, and personal speaking mentor who specializes in inspiring business owners and coaches to monetize their message through appearing on stages. Marianne has been featured on over 2000 worldwide stages, focusing on enriching and cultivating development of message, and revenue. Her life’s motto is to “Make good people crazy wealthy.”

Marianne was a single mother, who brought her family from food stamps to a multimillion dollar real estate portfolio and a multiple six-figure income.  She is married to her best friend, Richard Hickman, and together, they are raising six children.

Connect with Marianne Hickman:

Get 10% discount on your offering 

To connect with Randal and learn more about passive investing, visit www.ridgelineig.com and follow our social media pages below!

[00:00:00] Marianne Hickman: If you're selling real estate, you have to ask your clients, not what do you want in terms of bedrooms and bathrooms and whatever. You have to ask them, how do you want to feel when you wake up in your home? What do you see yourself? And then when you're out touring these properties, the best buying signals is when the client takes over.

[00:00:16] Marianne Hickman: I can see our desk here. I can see our kids playing in the backyard here. We should put a swing set over there, all of that. They're seeing something and it's not about desks and swing sets and all of that. It's about these signals of I'm pointing towards something that makes me feel joy or happiness or fulfillment.

[00:00:32] Marianne Hickman: And if I can see myself there and the real estate agent does their job, learns the story of the buyer and can help create a better ending and upgraded ending. Now you're in a really beautiful sales situation where it's not sales. No one's about that. 

[00:00:50] Intro: If you're a real estate agent earning 200, 000 a year and you want to grow your passive income, this show is for you.

[00:00:57] Intro: Learn secrets other agents use and [00:01:00] hear from experts in our field who will guide you on your journey to investing in assets like apartment communities. So you can take your commissions and turn them into cashflow. Here's your host, Randall. Let's dive 

[00:01:12] Randal McLeaird: in guys. Welcome back. Today's guest is Marianne Hickman.

[00:01:17] Randal McLeaird: I love the show because it scratches my itch and the sense of public speaking, getting on stages and starting that process. And so she's a coach. She is a public speaking coach. She'd been speaking on stages for years and years and years. Um, has a ton of experience doing that. And she has a program where she teaches people how to get on stage and convert from the stage and make sales from the stage.

[00:01:38] Randal McLeaird: So not only that, she has a podcast and so I was going back and listen to some of the archives of her podcast and some of the guests that she's had on are incredible and phenomenal. So if you want to find those shows, it's the Marian Hickman show. We talk about storytelling, how to tell a story, the components of the story.

[00:01:54] Randal McLeaird: She breaks it down. And if you stick through to the end, she's given something away. So know you're going to get something out of the show. Please go on, rate [00:02:00] and review. It helps me bring on awesome guests. Just like Marianne. I had a great time interviewing or talking to her. And I hope you enjoy the show as always, we have crowdfund going right now, we're raising capital to deploy and buy single family properties in the Texas market that we then owner finance.

[00:02:17] Randal McLeaird: So we create notes and we're offering a 10 percent preferred return to investors coming in, investing in that backed by single family real estate in the Texas market. So if you want to learn more about that, just jump on, send the show notes and you can click the link and go straight through to how you can invest there.

[00:02:33] Randal McLeaird: Let's jump into the show. Here we go. Marianne, it is awesome to have you on the show. I love the energy that we have just already talking and just before we started going live. So welcome to the show. I'm excited to talk to you and learn about what you're working on. First, thank you for 

[00:02:46] Marianne Hickman: having me on. I just want to say thank you.

[00:02:47] Marianne Hickman: Right. I like it. This is a fun connection. I love meeting people through podcasts, by the way, favorite things. 

[00:02:53] Randal McLeaird: It's great. It's an awesome medium. I love having the conversations. This is the reason I keep doing it. I want to start with storytelling specifically. [00:03:00] I have seen guys who have. Not at any kind of following.

[00:03:04] Randal McLeaird: They've just been trying certain things. Maybe they're doing click funnels and they're working on something, but then when they hit a story that resonates, they explode. Like I've seen it happen. I've watched it happen. And so I realized how important storytelling is not just in one on one interactions with either a client or friends or whoever it is, but in business in general as well.

[00:03:23] Randal McLeaird: So I wonder if you could talk high level about the importance of storytelling just for the audience, and then we'll dive into a little bit deeper and more specific. 

[00:03:31] Marianne Hickman: Oh, yeah, absolutely. So I'm sure that you're familiar with the name Jimmy Rex, 

[00:03:34] Randal McLeaird: right? Um, varies to say no. 

[00:03:36] Marianne Hickman: Oh, you, if not soon, you will. Now your algorithm knows to look for him.

[00:03:40] Marianne Hickman: If your phone is nearby, it's going to Jimmy's a cool dude. He's actually the number one real estate agent in Utah. He sold the biggest, most expensive private property. I think it was down in Springville, if I understand correctly. But he's been a real estate agent for a very, very, very long time, very successful in that.

[00:03:57] Marianne Hickman: But his business really exploded. [00:04:00] When he started telling stories and when he started mentoring, some people would not know Jimmy as a real estate agent, actually, because he's got this whole community and he's building a men's training system. He's a really incredible dude. And he published his book not long ago.

[00:04:15] Marianne Hickman: It's called be one. And it's all about how to be the man, not, you know, look up to the man, just be one. Right. Be an incredible dude. And the first I'm in his book right now, I'm in the first 30 pages of it and it's all storytelling. It's all about summiting Mount Kilimanjaro and it's all about doing it with a man who only had one leg and I'm getting goosebumps just talking about it because the synopsis of the story is what we learn.

[00:04:39] Marianne Hickman: What do we learn about pushing ourselves? What do we learn about business? What do we learn about anything? So when I train speakers. I train people in real estate, I train people in coaching, I train people who are holistic remedy healers, and anyone who has a business of their own grows their business exponentially, and that's not hyperbole, exponentially, because they appear on stage and they're able [00:05:00] to tell their story and not just To tell the story, because anyone can read a news article, but really get into the storytelling part of it.

[00:05:07] Marianne Hickman: That means mixing up the sequence, not necessarily following the chronology of the story. And then most importantly, teaching the lesson. So when I tell my story about when I was broken on four different forms of welfare, and then I go to six figures, people are on the edge of their seats because the story is what connects us.

[00:05:25] Marianne Hickman: To our audience, and if you want to create movement, a movement, emotion, motion, and that eventually turns into revenue in a very authentic way. I'm not really interested in doing it in a, you know, a salesy, gross, manipulative kind of way, but people buy when they feel something, and that's what storytelling does.

[00:05:44] Marianne Hickman: I always refer to this commercial that Chanel produced, and I don't know if you've seen it or not, but this commercial, I looked it up, cost 33 million dollars to make. And it's a minute long commercial, right? And it's crazy. Cause in the commercial, there's no words. You don't even see the [00:06:00] product. It's just this beautiful couple dancing on the moon and all their fancy clothes and stuff.

[00:06:04] Marianne Hickman: And at the very end, they're like Chanel number five, but they're not selling perfume. They're selling romance. They're selling intrigue. They're selling sensuality, all of these things. And that's what we want as consumers. We want to feel something. And that's what storytelling does. 

[00:06:19] Randal McLeaird: Love that. Very solid.

[00:06:21] Randal McLeaird: Okay. Thanks a lot. Now, more questions, right? How, as a real estate professional, what are you selling, right? So like, how do you pinpoint what you're trying to sell? Are you selling the desire to live in an upscale home? Are you selling the intrigue of that? Like, how do you frame that when you start talking about telling your story as a real estate professional?

[00:06:41] Marianne Hickman: I'll go back to an actual story actually. So this isn't a piece of real estate, but I was actually out wedding dress shopping. My husband and I got married in 2020. If you can believe that deep in the time of COVID, right. And it 

[00:06:52] Randal McLeaird: happens still. 

[00:06:54] Marianne Hickman: I got married and I went wedding dress shopping and I'm one of those girls.

[00:06:57] Marianne Hickman: That's not. Necessarily all [00:07:00] freely. I hate changing clothes. Like, so shopping for clothes is the worst thing ever. It's like car shopping. So I'm trying on these dresses and finally I put one on and I'm like, putting my hands on it, feeling how it fits. And the lady that is at the dress shop, she looks at me and she's like, that's the one with all the confidence of a woman who's been selling wedding dresses for 40 years.

[00:07:20] Marianne Hickman: And I was like, really? And she's like, yeah. And I was like, how can you tell? And she's like, well, I'm going to tell you a secret. I'm going to tell you what I call in our sales industry as buying signals. She said, whenever a bride puts on a dress, And feels herself in it. Like, she's like, Whoa, she's feels the sleeves and the feels the back.

[00:07:36] Marianne Hickman: And she's like, that's a buying signal because she can see herself happy in that dress. She can picture herself on her wedding day. Now take that to real estate sales. If you're selling real estate, you have to ask your clients, not what do you want in terms of bedrooms and bathrooms and whatever. You have to ask them, how do you want to feel when you wake up in your home?

[00:07:56] Marianne Hickman: What do you see yourself? And then when you're out touring these [00:08:00] properties, the best buying signals is when the client takes over. I can see our desk here. I can see our kids playing in the backyard here. We should put a swing set over there. All of that. They're seeing something. And it's not about desks and swing sets and all of that.

[00:08:13] Marianne Hickman: It's about these signals of, I'm pointing towards something that makes me feel joy or happiness or fulfillment. And if I can see myself there. And the real estate agent does their job, learns the story of the buyer and can help create a better ending, an upgraded ending. Now you're in a really beautiful sales situation where it's not win lose sales, that no one's about that.

[00:08:38] Marianne Hickman: If you are, people don't stay in that for long. It's all about the real estate agent wins because they made the sale. The client wins because they get a house that they love. And the seller wins because they get to offload something they didn't want. 

[00:08:48] Randal McLeaird: Very good. I love that you told the story again. We're in storytelling and you told this awesome story just to encapsulate that point.

[00:08:56] Marianne Hickman: I can't help it. 

[00:08:57] Randal McLeaird: No, no, it is. Story, sell, facts, [00:09:00] tell is like the old mantra. Well, I wanted to ask you again. So when you are thinking about framing or selling from the stage or just storytelling in general, are you typically telling your story in like a traditional hero's journey style? Or is there another format that you follow that you can elaborate on?

[00:09:18] Marianne Hickman: Yeah, so I don't know what the hero's journey style might be. Honestly, I've created my own kind of framework. Maybe mine is Similar to what is commonly known as the hero's journey, but what's crazy, if you watch speakers like 20 Robbins, you know, the muscle you watch any speaker, Mel Robbins, anyone that you can put your finger on, you can kind of pick up a pattern.

[00:09:38] Marianne Hickman: So the way I teach it is there is actually a 10 step formula for creating a story. Telling about the content, teaching a lesson and then closing from stage. And what's cool about this formula is that you can compress it down to a two minute presentation, or if you're in a situation like I was, where the host of the event, he's like, I'm really tired.

[00:09:58] Marianne Hickman: I need you to take the stage. And I [00:10:00] don't know what I'm going to have to take you off. And I was up there for three hours. I can stretch it out that long. Right? So this formula starts out with your enrolling questions. So you teach the audience how to show up with you. You're going to introduce yourself.

[00:10:12] Marianne Hickman: Say your name. Unless you're getting stopped in airports, you got to say your name from the stage. So say your name, tell why you, they should listen to your credibility, your touch points. And then you start this hero's journey where, again, it's not about chronology. It's about storytelling. If you've ever opened a really good book and it starts, the first chapter is like, she had her toes over the edge of the cliff.

[00:10:31] Marianne Hickman: Oh my gosh, I've got a hook and that's the middle of the story, right? So you start the story and we stair step. Down to what I call the bottom of the pool and all these stair steps are little indicators weighs down to the story in the bottom of the pool is the transformational moment in your life that may seem mundane, but it was the point where that decision was made.

[00:10:52] Marianne Hickman: And then, as we go down to the bottom of that pool, we're capturing with all of our beautiful vulnerability everyone in the audience who is currently [00:11:00] at. The bottom of that emotional pool. And it's only because we go down there that we can grab them and bring them with us all the way up. And when we're bringing them with us all the way out, we're going through a piece of content.

[00:11:11] Marianne Hickman: Implementation, a piece of content, implementation, a piece of content, implementation, and those contents are like, the pieces are about three to maybe five, if you can get away with it, chunks, it's like the three keys to X, Y, Z, or the five steps to whatever it is, break it digestibly down for people, right?

[00:11:28] Marianne Hickman: And then we do our call to action, where we're giving away the book, or we're telling people to follow us, or maybe we're pushing them to the back of the room to swipe a credit card, and then we end with the end of the hero's journey, connection with the heart, gratitude. And then you walk off the stage and that's basically the entire hero's journey.

[00:11:43] Marianne Hickman: And like I said, you can do it in two minutes, 10 minutes, two hours. Right now I'm working with someone who's going to be a wealth con down, I think in Texas, actually. And they're speaking with Carlos Reyes. I think Ryan Pineda is going to be down there. Lots of amazing speakers. And he's got 25 minutes on stage to create incredible [00:12:00] transformation in a room of a thousand people, all real estate professionals, by the way.

[00:12:03] Marianne Hickman: And here's the crazy thing. As we're working together, he's like, Marianne, I have so much content. And I don't know what to do. And I said, well, first of all, less is more, but he said this, he said, I think my strongest content has nothing to do with real estate. And as I watched his signature presentation, he's got slide after slide after slide about how to make money in real estate, how to do short term rentals, how to do buy and hold all of these things.

[00:12:26] Marianne Hickman: And he's looking at me and he's saying, Marianne, none of this matters if their mindset isn't in the right place. And so I said, dude, you're a wealth con. You don't have to talk about real estate because you're right. If their mind isn't in the right place, then it doesn't matter what system they use. It could be stocks.

[00:12:41] Marianne Hickman: It could be real estate. It could be an Airbnb. It could be whatever you want. But if your mindset's jacked up, then don't count on making money anywhere. And now he's got an incredible presentation. I'm so stoked to see it. 

[00:12:51] Randal McLeaird: That's awesome. So you were coaching him on his presentation. Can I ask who it is?

[00:12:56] Marianne Hickman: Yes. His name is Adrian Hernandez. 

[00:12:58] Randal McLeaird: Adrian. Okay. It sounds [00:13:00] familiar. 

[00:13:00] Marianne Hickman: He's a cool dude, man. 

[00:13:01] Randal McLeaird: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, it seems so polished. A lot of these guys will get on stage and it's very polished. And so like you can tell. Some who are just starting out, they haven't actually like polished their pitch or polished the thing.

[00:13:13] Randal McLeaird: So has he been on stage before or is this like his first big foray into the selling from stage? 

[00:13:18] Marianne Hickman: Yeah, so luckily he's been on stage before. This is a kind of a bigger stage and it's really neat to be able to work with him because he's higher level. Meaning I don't have to teach him a lot. It's just the final.

[00:13:29] Marianne Hickman: I've got the sculpture behind me. Imagine just sanding off to where you can see the cuticles in the stone. Those, Really beautiful details that set you apart. We're not chiseling anything out right now. My beginning students, we, we are chiseling and it's hard and it's strenuous and it feels like it's being chiseled.

[00:13:45] Marianne Hickman: And now it's just like, okay, I want you to, to not raise your eyebrows when you say that. Or I want you to pivot your weight on your right foot when you say that or your left foot. And it's those fine tuned things that really, like you said, creates the polish. 

[00:13:58] Randal McLeaird: Well, yeah. Okay. So [00:14:00] you're getting down to that nitty gritty of a Look left when you do this, make sure you see the whole audience.

[00:14:05] Randal McLeaird: Don't raise your eyebrows. Wow. Okay. 

[00:14:09] Marianne Hickman: That's why 

[00:14:09] Randal McLeaird: I buy things from people on the stage. Yeah. Oh, 

[00:14:12] Marianne Hickman: I call it the pressure cooker, bro. When people jump into my stage training, it is the most vulnerable. I mean, what's the number one fear in the world? 

[00:14:18] Randal McLeaird: Yeah, public speaking. Yeah, it's 

[00:14:20] Marianne Hickman: public speaking. So when they jump in to get judged on it and get critiqued on it, man, you feel vulnerable, but when you're done, You're on top of the world.

[00:14:27] Randal McLeaird: That's awesome. Okay. We'll talk more about that in a second. I want to go back to the storytelling. I was listening to your podcast with Jeff Griffin and just high level. If you haven't heard and go check out the podcast, Marian Hickman show. And so he's a Guinness world record holder, two time. Olympic medal, 

[00:14:44] Marianne Hickman: like 

[00:14:45] Randal McLeaird: guys.

[00:14:45] Randal McLeaird: Awesome. But I'm listening to the episode I'm listening to you talk to him. And he mentioned something about, we tell ourselves stories all the time. Right. And there, a lot of times they're negative, like, Oh, I'm not a writer in his specific case, he was, he always told himself, or he told people like, They're saying, Hey, you should write a book.

[00:14:59] Randal McLeaird: And he would tell [00:15:00] himself, I'm not a writer. I'm not a writer. I'm not a writer. And he talks about the journey, I guess, of overcoming that and finally telling himself, right. Giving yourself mission or doing it. So my question to you is like, how do the stories we tell ourselves, or how can you, and maybe you haven't had to deal with it, but how do you help people tell themselves different stories so that they can then allow themselves to do something?

[00:15:20] Marianne Hickman: So, yeah, I, I actually kicked off my business with this years and years ago, my very, very first book that I was a part of was all about this. It's the mindset portion of it. That's what Adrian and I are working on with his presentation. So I'm really glad we touched on this because in, we call it storytelling or a narrative, right?

[00:15:36] Marianne Hickman: That we say about ourselves, our most convincing and compelling voice. It's our own and a lot of us are so ignorant about what stories we're telling ourselves and then we wonder why our life is not so awesome all the time. If we get up first thing in the morning and say, Oh, I'm tired, Oh, I'm exhausted.

[00:15:54] Marianne Hickman: Oh, I'm not a morning person. That's a story and we are selling ourselves and we've sold ourselves. We [00:16:00] bought this idea and our poor brains, our brains are just going to do what we tell them to do. So if you're giving, if we are giving our brains like, Oh, I'm so tired. Oh, my neck hurts. Your brain's going to be like, okay, Roger, I know how to do that.

[00:16:12] Marianne Hickman: We can fulfill that for you. No problem. I always tell people, I've imagined for a second, I tried this in an audience. I said, everyone call out your phones, go to Google and type in, don't show me pictures of kittens. I had the whole audience do it. Like almost broke the router router. Like we pull it up and there's 8.

[00:16:28] Marianne Hickman: 2 million search results of pictures of kittens. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait. No, no. We said, don't show me pictures of kittens. And they're like, yeah, but Google only understands keywords. And then I said, okay, pause. What invented Google? A brain. And a brain can only invent what it knows. So your brain functions the same way Google does, right?

[00:16:49] Marianne Hickman: Whatever you're feeding it, it's going to grab onto those keywords and create more. So then we start this, this whole idea of what is my narrative and do I like it? And in the beginning of my [00:17:00] career, I spent. Probably 20 hours a week doing what I call breakthrough. I'm sure it's a very popular term, but we would examine the stories, especially the ones that originated in childhood, because kids are so powerful.

[00:17:14] Marianne Hickman: We are powerful as kids. We are powerful sponges. We absorb things we probably shouldn't. And we interpret them really poorly. And then we create these narratives all along our lives. In fact, just today, oh my gosh, just today, I was talking to my husband, our kids, we're in a blended household, our kids left for the weekend, and there's a sink full of dishes.

[00:17:34] Marianne Hickman: Right. And I'm doing them cause I don't want to have dirty dishes and I'm laughing with my husband and I was like, why do you not love the dishes so much? Like I'm okay doing them. I'm like, I'm pitching in, right? You're working your ass off. I'm working my ass off. He's like, then he looked at me and he went back in his brain.

[00:17:53] Marianne Hickman: I could tell he was going back and he's like, I remember the day that my mom was doing dishes and I asked her [00:18:00] if I could help. And he said, my mom said to me, I'm glad you're asking to help because one day you'll hate doing the dishes. I looked at him and my jaw dropped. I'm like, that's why you hate the dishes so much about all of their chores.

[00:18:15] Marianne Hickman: And my 11 year old son looks at him, he's like, I'm glad your mom told you the truth. Yeah. Funny moment, but it's a small example of a narrative that can be so seemingly innocent. But if we're telling ourselves things that erode us. If we want to make a million dollars, for example, there are certain narratives and stories we can't tell ourselves and have that million dollar net worth.

[00:18:35] Marianne Hickman: It just doesn't work. You can't have both. 

[00:18:38] Randal McLeaird: So taking that same dishes example, one, are you like playing a recording by his bedside now at night? Like I love dishes. I love dishes. Like, yeah. How do you break that? Right. And you can take it from dishes or to real estate and say like, I want to be a millionaire.

[00:18:51] Randal McLeaird: Like how do you break those mental barriers or those stories that you've told yourself years and years and years, that programming, how do you break it? 

[00:18:57] Marianne Hickman: So there's a system that I was taught and that I've [00:19:00] used for the breakthroughs. So I asked myself a series of questions. It's almost like I'm hypnotizing myself because I'm diving into my subconscious and saying, where is my wiring messed up?

[00:19:09] Marianne Hickman: And I asked myself the question, if I want this thing, let's just say a million dollars this year. I don't know of any real estate agent that would turn that down, right? If I want a million dollars this year. What is the number one reason I don't have it yet? And that will reveal what is called a limiting belief, right?

[00:19:27] Marianne Hickman: Yeah, usually it boils down to, I don't know how, or I'm not smart enough or whatever it is. And it's never really about the goal. It's about the wiring. It's about your hard drive. And then when I take people through this, I ask them, what is the first memory that pops into your head when you think of the thought, and then you have the limited belief, you name it, and they'll go back to usually a childhood memory between the ages of 7 and 17, somewhere in there.

[00:19:54] Marianne Hickman: Sometimes it's outside that window, but generally that's when those belief systems are cemented in, and then they tell the [00:20:00] story. And here's what's crazy is that our emotions. Are over here, the fear, the sadness, the joy, all of these things, and when the emotions take a road trip over here to our ideas, a concept, and they marry together.

[00:20:12] Marianne Hickman: Now, suddenly, we have a belief or in other words, an operating system and every decision we make summoned from that operating system for better or worse. So when we go back in time mentally, and we say, what was the story you told yourself? And what was the belief that you formed? We talk about the story, we rewrite it.

[00:20:29] Marianne Hickman: In fact, we change the history a little bit. And we say, what would you want to believe instead? If this isn't serving you, what would a better thought have been in that moment? Oh, well, maybe it was just my six year old being a six year old, and they can't be trusted with adult decisions, and that's okay.

[00:20:45] Marianne Hickman: And that six year old just needs to be six and have fun. And it doesn't mean anything about me as a person that I tripped and fell. I am capable and so I'm going to create a new idea and now attach this new idea to a powerful emotion and then create this new operating system [00:21:00] that needs nurturing, that needs practice because if you're running on the old operating system, that's like a super highway.

[00:21:05] Marianne Hickman: That's really easy by default to go to. This new operating system is like you're cutting through the fourth for the first time at the machete. You got to really nurture this idea, but yeah. Consciously make decisions from the new operating system and then develop evidence to make it into your next superhighway, your neurolinguistic reprogramming, Joseph McClendon calls it, and then create new systems and your results.

[00:21:27] Marianne Hickman: Will come with the actions that precipitate from that belief system. 

[00:21:32] Randal McLeaird: Awesome. I've had someone else on, we were talking to NLP and yeah, it's fascinating. And that's like, I first heard about it, Tony Robbins, when he was talking about it and that was part of what he was doing. And so, Again, the way you broke that down is very helpful.

[00:21:46] Randal McLeaird: I think it requires a ton of work to do that, right? It's not like it's a, you're going to get fixed in a week or two weeks. Right. So my wife's a therapist and we have conversations about this all the time in the sense of like [00:22:00] reprogramming your, uh, neural links. So anyway, for breaking it down. I appreciate that.

[00:22:03] Randal McLeaird: Um, 

[00:22:04] Marianne Hickman: that's cool. I'm glad your wife are jamming about that. 

[00:22:06] Randal McLeaird: Yeah. So millionaire mindset touch on that and let's discuss. Are you like coaching on how to have a millionaire mindset? 

[00:22:15] Marianne Hickman: Well, I coach on public speaking. 

[00:22:16] Randal McLeaird: Yeah. A lot of 

[00:22:17] Marianne Hickman: that precipitates down to making a business out of it. Okay. I haven't met very many people that want to jump on stage and not make money doing it.

[00:22:24] Randal McLeaird: No. Yeah. No. Surprising. 

[00:22:26] Marianne Hickman: It's weird, huh? 

[00:22:28] Randal McLeaird: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would think so. Okay. Yeah. Let's talk then about, again, I was watching a bunch of your videos and one of your ads pops up and it says, Hey, you want to monetize your message. And I know there's a lot of real estate professionals, they're out, they're making content, they're doing something, right?

[00:22:45] Randal McLeaird: They're putting themselves out there. How do you go about monetizing your content either on social media platforms or from the stage? Like, what's the breakdown? If I were to call you up and say, Hey, I want to monetize my content, creating some things, walk me through. 

[00:22:58] Marianne Hickman: Well, the good news is it's never been [00:23:00] easier to do that.

[00:23:00] Marianne Hickman: And that's hard to kind of wrap your mind around when you're not monetizing yet. And you're like, well, if it's so easy, why aren't I doing it yet? Well, you just don't know the wifi password. It's really easy to get to the white. Give us the code. Hang on. I 

[00:23:13] Randal McLeaird: got a pen here. 

[00:23:15] Marianne Hickman: Yeah. And it's kind of cool. So there's lots of, lots of ways to monetize.

[00:23:21] Marianne Hickman: You can use AdSense on Google and you can get paid to make stuff on Instagram, or you can do joint venture partnerships. I coached a guy very, very briefly who. Is a blue collar worker and he got paid from intercompany who wanted to have him demo their tools, right? So that was one of the ways he got paid real estate agents get paid to sell houses and you can do that really well I just talked to Colton Lindsay about that and he's he's an incredible real estate guy.

[00:23:48] Marianne Hickman: You should have him on the show He's an Such a cool dude, you know, self the real estate, but if you're wanting to monetize your message, there's really an 11 step formula. I always like to break [00:24:00] things down into steps for people. It's the best. So the speaker formula basically, and I'll summarize the steps.

[00:24:08] Marianne Hickman: Essentially, you have to have an area of expertise, something you're really good at. And then you have to have a signature presentation, which is those 10 steps I talked about a moment ago. And then you've got to find a way to get in front of audiences, get on stages. This example is a digital stage, digital stages.

[00:24:23] Marianne Hickman: You can put on physical stages, getting on Instagram, going live. That's a digital stage. So just starting to speak and put your message out there from there, you can either get paid to appear on stages. Like I've been paid to just come and speak. I deliver and then I leave and then it's a handshake and then we're done.

[00:24:39] Marianne Hickman: Which is great, but my favorite way to monetize my message is through lead capture, which is basically this. So you jump on stage. You deliver incredible value, and then you give away something, a resource or a guide. I've got a list of a bunch of podcasts that people like to get on, because all my students want to get on more stages.

[00:24:59] Marianne Hickman: So I'm like, [00:25:00] hey, come get access to my podcast list, or my 10 step formula for developing your signature presentation. Get that book that I wrote on it. It's free. Just take it. And once that is out there, people can download it, they can take it and run with it, and then maybe never see me again, which I'm fine with, but the people that are my right people, they're like, that appetizer was really tasty.

[00:25:20] Marianne Hickman: Where do I get the main course? How do I spend more time with you? How do I work with you more? And then those people go into what's called the value ladder or your value stack. And they can, you know, take one of these products and maybe work on a high level one on one coaching with you. That's what Jimmy Rex has done.

[00:25:34] Marianne Hickman: Turn it into one on one coaching in addition to selling houses. And then when you have all of those kinks worked out and you're getting in more stages and you're selling more and you're adding products to your value ladder, you're just at that point patching the holes and saying, okay, where am I weakest?

[00:25:48] Marianne Hickman: Do I need to convert better? Do I need to get on more stages? Do I need to produce another ebook? Whatever the case is, that's the long answer. I think the short answer to that is, Have something that you can bring the [00:26:00] audience that loves you into so they can get a greater proximity with you. And the easiest way to do that is through coaching.

[00:26:07] Marianne Hickman: Just teach what you know. 

[00:26:08] Randal McLeaird: Let's say you start there. You're going to teach a course. Here's the thing. I'm going to put it up on my high level account, whatever everything's set up, come into my little program. Do you couple that? Or do you have like a community built around that? So how do you go about growing that community?

[00:26:24] Randal McLeaird: I guess. At an exponential rate, is it just more speaking engagements? Is it referrals? Like what's like a tried and true way that you've seen? 

[00:26:32] Marianne Hickman: My favorite is organic traffic. You know, I've tried paid traffic a couple of different times and I'm sure there's a great way to do it. I just haven't found that one in my password yet, but organic is my favorite because they know I can trust me already.

[00:26:44] Marianne Hickman: So when I'm building my community, what I do is I'm, you know, when I'm all over social media, my YouTube channel right now is my biggest followership. If you will, we've got 43, 000 subs on there. Every time I produce a video and the caption, I'm like, text me if you have a question, right? And I throw my go high level up [00:27:00] number up there and they can text me and then I've got from there They're brought into a I have a free Facebook community where we all hang out and we just talk and we try to keep it Super active super relevant Then the next level up, we have a paid community through school.

[00:27:14] Marianne Hickman: I'm sure you've seen Alex Ramos's thing. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So I have my school group with nine bucks a month and people jump in and they get a bunch of value. And I tell them if you're going to pay nine bucks a month to be here, you better be making 90 bucks a month by repeating what I do. And then from there, I have a monthly program, and they come in and learn speaker training.

[00:27:32] Marianne Hickman: And from there, there's a one time pressure cooker experience they can buy with me. And from there, there's the top level, which is one on one coaching, where they're spending time on a Zoom call with me, and I'm dissecting their signature presentation. We're getting ready for the next event. We're coaching them through the 11 steps without anybody else.

[00:27:47] Marianne Hickman: It's just focused on us. And so that's, that's my model is bring them into a place where they can hang out. And the right people will climb your value ladder. 

[00:27:55] Randal McLeaird: Yeah. I mean, that's what I've seen. Like, you know, a lot of the masterminds and that sort of thing that I've, [00:28:00] I've joined it is, I didn't even know some of them that they even had Facebook groups, like I just went in for the full boat and like, yeah, 20, 30 grand, let's go.

[00:28:06] Randal McLeaird: And then you guys had a whole crew hanging out on Facebook, like, Oh, Hey, that's funny. But again, they got me with like a click funnel or something. And so yeah, again, I like that breakdown because then I can actually visualize that how you're actually building that and working through that process. You have been on the stage, you've been speaking for years and years and years, right?

[00:28:26] Randal McLeaird: So you have a very unique set of skills that you have learned and you're able to teach others. I feel like 

[00:28:33] Marianne Hickman: me and Neeson have a very 

[00:28:34] Randal McLeaird: particular set of skills. Yeah, that's it. Is that, what is that, uh, taken? Uh huh. Yeah. Classic. Uh, yeah. So I want to know, real estate professionals listening, they want to get out, maybe they want to, Like grow from the stage, sell from the stage, get on stage and just grow their audience and grow their business that way.

[00:28:53] Randal McLeaird: Like, let's talk about that because I know you and I briefly touched on it before we jumped on, but I want to know how you recommend [00:29:00] them going about doing that, setting them that up, and then some just general tips. Tips and strategies. We'll go from there. 

[00:29:04] Marianne Hickman: Totally. Yeah. So if I were in the real estate agent space, and like I said, this is something that you can R and D for really any industry, whether you're a hairdresser or whether you're a real estate agent or whether you're a homeopathic healer, whatever the case is.

[00:29:16] Marianne Hickman: If you want to speak more, speak more. It's really simple. I know it sounds overly simplistic, but when I first started, I actually opened up my home twice a month and just invited people over. And I would even the beginning, I was like, I need to practice my presentation. Cause my coach told me I needed to practice it.

[00:29:32] Marianne Hickman: I can't even remember if that was true or not, but I did just have you come over my first presentation. Nobody showed up. 

[00:29:40] Randal McLeaird: Was this at 12 years old? Oh, no, 

[00:29:42] Marianne Hickman: no, that was my first conscious presentation. That was my own stage. Now, when I was 12, there was an audience of other 12 year olds. Okay, okay. But my first stage, my first presentation on my own stage.

[00:29:52] Marianne Hickman: Got it. Nobody came. Nobody came. When I was 12, that was somebody else's age. That was still pretty cool. But I still delivered. And the important thing is, is I still [00:30:00] practice my presentation and nobody saw me mess up, which was great. But if I was a real estate agent, I would start holding meetings in your home, you know, just to invite people over and say, Hey, I interviewed Sean Finnegan on my podcast.

[00:30:14] Marianne Hickman: And he gave me this rule that he learned from Kevin O'Leary at Shark Tank. He said, never eat alone. So if we're having dinner together and we're just talking, then we talk about what problem you solve. So if you're inviting people over to your home either to listen to you present or even just to break bread together.

[00:30:29] Marianne Hickman: One of the first things that you ask is a question relevant to the problem that you solve. So for example, if I were to invite a bunch of people over to my home and we were to have dinner together, I would ask, how are you getting more clients right now? How are you growing? Because I know how I'm growing.

[00:30:44] Marianne Hickman: I'm going through stages. I'm growing my business through stages. I would ask, how are you growing? If I were a real estate agent, am I inviting other real estate agents over because I want to coach them? Or am I inviting all of my clients over? So who's my audience? Who do I want to invite over? And then what do I want to ask them?[00:31:00] 

[00:31:00] Marianne Hickman: And relevant to the problem that I want to solve. So if I'm inviting my clients over, I might ask something like, what was the hardest thing about getting into your last home? What was the roughest real estate agent experience that you had and just chat about it? And then you can invite them over the next week invite them over the next week twice a month It's my rule of thumb for starting Get on a stage twice a month create something in your home or in one of your businesses twice a month and invite people over And you're gonna learn a lot.

[00:31:25] Randal McLeaird: So in that situation or in that example, how are you presenting? Are you presenting something or are you just asking questions? Cause both are valid, but I mean, that seems like a very easy ease into the, I'm going to be the focal point, almost the moderator of this discussion. And I'm going to be the one asking the questions you guys are coming with the content.

[00:31:44] Randal McLeaird: So when do you transition into like. Hey, I'm on stage or like, even if you're at my house and I have 10 people that showed up, I'm going to present a 20 minute presentation to something like, do you transition into that? Or do you continue with your twice a month? Just questions. [00:32:00] 

[00:32:00] Marianne Hickman: If you've never presented before the Q and a is a really, really easy way to start your signature presentation might develop.

[00:32:07] Marianne Hickman: Because of what you learn about your audience at that point and even after you start delivering an official presentation You might still have these really casual just meet and greet dinner opportunities because people have gone so far as to like have three by five cards At the seats at the table and say, here's the question.

[00:32:22] Marianne Hickman: How are you getting more customers or what was your worst experience? And then at the end of the three by five card is, would you like to talk about the XYZ and then you can have a one on one conversation with them later about selling whatever it is that you want to sell. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. In the signature presentation, it's the same thing.

[00:32:39] Marianne Hickman: You eventually have a call to action at the end, whether it's download my book or sign up for a one on one or whatever it is, and let's talk about whatever We can do together. How can we play in the sandbox together? And if not, that's okay. 

[00:32:50] Randal McLeaird: Yeah. So when you talk signature presentation, that's the, I can do it in two minutes or I can do it in three hours.

[00:32:57] Randal McLeaird: That's the one. Yeah. And so the two [00:33:00] minute version of that is. Hi. I'm Randall McLeard. I'm in real estate. I'm awesome. I've sold a bunch of houses, flipped all these things, and then your call to action essentially is like a really compressed version of that. Yeah. It's like an elevator pitch almost. 

[00:33:15] Marianne Hickman: Yes and no.

[00:33:16] Marianne Hickman: I mean. Yeah. In the two minute introduction, the elevator pitch, I was in an audience, actually, and I asked the audience, raise your hand if you just love elevators and nobody raised their hand. And then I said, raise your hand if you love being pitched and nobody raised your hand. And I was like, why do we call it the elevator pitch if nobody likes these things?

[00:33:31] Marianne Hickman: It's the worst. It's ridiculous. But what we're really doing is answering the question that's in the other person's mind is what's in it for me. Yeah, and Forbes Riley, my head on the podcast, if you haven't met her, she's an incredible human. She's the pitch queen over 2 billion in pitches. She talks about how to make the introduction or in other words, this elevator pitch actually something that people want to listen to.

[00:33:53] Marianne Hickman: And we want to answer the question. What's in it for me? 

[00:33:56] Randal McLeaird: How do you do that in two minutes? The whiff and the bluff, you [00:34:00] know, like I've heard these things, right? So how do you do it in two minutes? 

[00:34:03] Marianne Hickman: Yeah, and this is something we go with with our students. This is really cool. And I've interviewed Hopes Vara on this as well.

[00:34:08] Marianne Hickman: So this, the elevator pitch, and for lack of a better word, we need to coin a better term for it. So if anyone has any ideas, throw it in the comments, this elevator pitch is who are you? Hey, my name's Marianne. And then what do you help people with? I help this. And then you fill in the blank of the certain demographic.

[00:34:29] Marianne Hickman: And so many people, I'm sure you've seen this. So many people are afraid to narrow down their demographic because they're like, Oh my gosh, I'm going to lose people. I'm sorry. If people don't know who you're talking to, if you think you're talking to everybody, nobody can hear you. Yeah. So you, you fill in your demographic, right?

[00:34:44] Marianne Hickman: My name is Marianne Hickman. I help entrepreneurs who, and then you describe their bottom of the pool. In my case, what do entrepreneurs struggle with? What do they complain to their friends about? And I don't use upper level coach speak. I don't describe the palm trees at [00:35:00] the top of the pool. I don't say, you know, I help entrepreneurs who want to get more followers.

[00:35:06] Marianne Hickman: I have a hard time doing it wrong. Instead, I say, I help entrepreneurs who are struggling to grow their business because they feel invisible. And I use the words that my clients use when they complain to their spouses. Right. And then I fill in the rest by saying, bye. So it's, I help blank my demographic who struggle with blank by, and then what I do.

[00:35:29] Marianne Hickman: So I help entrepreneurs who want to grow their business, but can't because they feel invisible by getting them on stage. 

[00:35:37] Randal McLeaird: That's awesome. 

[00:35:38] Marianne Hickman: So now as an entrepreneur, now, you know, Oh, what does Marianne's have something for me or not? 

[00:35:43] Randal McLeaird: Yeah, that's awesome. Okay. So you've got your coaching. You want to talk about this?

[00:35:48] Randal McLeaird: Cause I'm curious myself. Absolutely. All right. So what is coaching with Marianne? What does it involve and cost and what am I getting? Other than just a cool hangout. Hey, let's go. Let's chat. This is very cool. By the way. [00:36:00] Yeah. 

[00:36:01] Marianne Hickman: We meet every Wednesday night and I have, I have to say, I have the coolest group in the world.

[00:36:05] Marianne Hickman: I really do. There's people in this group. They've been hanging with me. Some of them for decades from the very beginning, when I sucked at what I did, like I was that my Instagram post today is like me 10 years ago and it's so cringe, but people stuck with me anyway. And I'm so grateful. 

[00:36:19] Randal McLeaird: Yeah, but you started and you did it.

[00:36:21] Randal McLeaird: Started. You put yourself out there. 

[00:36:23] Marianne Hickman: Started with my cute little pixie cut and my stumbling words. It was great. So we hang out every Wednesday night and those people in that group pay 147 a month to hang out. And what we do is we go through these 11 steps of how to make money with your signature keynote presentation.

[00:36:35] Marianne Hickman: So for example, last night we talked about your entire value ladder. And now you don't need to have a completely built out value ladder, start making money and selling. You can just sell coaching and that can be the item in your value ladder. Right. Yeah. So Wednesday nights we meet, we talk about developing your signature presentation.

[00:36:49] Marianne Hickman: We usually will take audience polls and say, what step were you struggling with? Let's work on that one next. And if we don't get feedback, then we generally go to the next step [00:37:00] chronologically, or we do a pressure cooker experience. And we take a extended time, two hours together and dissect. We put someone on stage, we dissect their presentation.

[00:37:08] Marianne Hickman: And oh boy, is that fun, but it's so hard for some people. And then, uh, you know, that's my core of what I do. And then there are people that work with me one on one, you know, like Adrian and Renee that have worked with me one on one and we meet outside of that once a week for an hour and really drill down and get focused on, on what we're doing.

[00:37:27] Marianne Hickman: I got to tell you about Renee. Cause she's, oh my gosh, this woman is an incredible human being. She is a natural healer based out of California who was once a nurse, very Well versed in Western medicine, but understands enough about it to know what's dangerous about it, but she didn't know how to build a business.

[00:37:43] Marianne Hickman: So when we got started, we wrote her e book and we got her free giveaway of that e book up on the link. And then she started putting it out there. Now, I have to say this about Renee and she would agree with me that technology, historically, her story was that it was not her strongest suit and she's gradually [00:38:00] learning more about it.

[00:38:01] Marianne Hickman: But she doesn't have the most followers on TikTok. She doesn't have the most followers on Instagram, but she's dang good at what she does. And so she got started, and Started being willing to talk about it. She created a community modeled after mine. And I said, copy what I do, go make your own. And she had another community owner invite her onto his podcast, not just once, but a monthly podcast.

[00:38:23] Marianne Hickman: So she's in front of hundreds of people. Thousands of people every single month. And she's talking about her book. And then within, I think it was 12 weeks, we worked together. She's generated about five grand in revenue from never having a business before. Yeah. And she's clients keep feeding in. And it's like, she's like, she's just told me this week was our last meeting.

[00:38:44] Marianne Hickman: She's like, my schedule is so full. I can't keep up. And I was like, it's time to raise your prices. 

[00:38:48] Randal McLeaird: Yeah, awesome. Yeah. That's what I was wondering on the pricing side of things. So she's been in, and she's growing her business. Is she like giving, you know, Eastern like massage. Is it [00:39:00] Reiki? Is it something?

[00:39:01] Randal McLeaird: What is it? 

[00:39:01] Marianne Hickman: It's actually a little bit less woo woo sounding. 

[00:39:04] Randal McLeaird: Okay. 

[00:39:06] Marianne Hickman: She understands all this energy stuff, but she runs a farm out in California and she's raised, you know, ant livestock and animals, but her coolest part of her story. And I got to tell you this, cause this is how we met. When I married my husband, he was house hacking.

[00:39:19] Marianne Hickman: So he bought the house and then rented out all the rooms and he lived for free. Right. Yeah. One of the guys, it's funny how it all comes back to real estate guys that was living there. His name was Mason. And, um, when I met Mason, I could tell that he was not the most socially well versed human in all the world when I met him, but he was a cool guy, the kindest, most beautiful heart.

[00:39:47] Marianne Hickman: And it was just, A fleeting thing to do with my husband's roommate. Now, my husband kicked all the roommates out because he'd married me and brought in my five kids, filled up all the rooms. But Mason was so sweet, he stuck around and he's like, I want to learn as much from you guys as I can. [00:40:00] So he stayed in our universe.

[00:40:01] Marianne Hickman: Now, Renee is actually Mason's mom. And he said, Marianne, you have to meet my mom. And when I met her, she told me this story. She said, Marianne, when Mason was 15 years old, he was diagnosed with autism. He was non verbal autistic. At 15, he couldn't string words together and my jaw dropped, I was like, you're kidding me, because I know this guy, I've talked to him and Renee really got down and dirty with what was making him sick, really decided her narrative said that autism doesn't have to be permanent.

[00:40:33] Marianne Hickman: Autism is curable and she dug in her heels and found out how to cure him using food. She found out which foods were, yeah, she found out which foods were toxic to him. She had foods imported into the San Diego ports that were fresh from other countries and she had to go there every day to pick up the food that was clean.

[00:40:52] Marianne Hickman: She detoxed his body of parasites. And hard metals. By the way, if you talk to her, she'll tell you that 99 percent of us have parasites. I'm about to go get [00:41:00] myself tested. In fact, Brian Pineda just talked about this on his Instagram. So she actually uses the good stuff of Eastern medicine. She'll, she'll send you a parasite test kit.

[00:41:09] Marianne Hickman: You can get a blood draw. She'll test what parasites are there, because if you order a 20 kit from Amazon, it's just going to test for one. She tests for the whole panel and then how to kill them and then how to expel them. And how it heals your body. She's like crooked teeth is parasites. Acne is parasites.

[00:41:24] Marianne Hickman: Fatigue is parasites. Insomnia is parasites. Like. We're all infected and we didn't even know and no one's catching it in our world because they don't have a test for it. They're always like, oh, well, let me just prescribe this prescription that causes more of this. Anyway, I could go on and on. 

[00:41:37] Randal McLeaird: No, no, no, I don't mean to kill you.

[00:41:39] Randal McLeaird: I heard something the other day, somebody, it was like, I stopped eating all this processed food, just chicken and steamed broccoli and it cured up my acne and did this and that, right? 

[00:41:48] Marianne Hickman: And 

[00:41:48] Randal McLeaird: so it's a version of that, but like even more intense. And so. That story as well. So now he's clearly verbal. He's talking to you and 

[00:41:56] Marianne Hickman: the guy learned Latin.

[00:41:57] Marianne Hickman: He speaks like 5 different languages. He's the [00:42:00] master electrician up in Salt Lake. Like, He's so brilliant. And now get this, he's starting a speaker journey of his own. No, right. 

[00:42:07] Randal McLeaird: Yeah, I got 

[00:42:08] Marianne Hickman: goosebumps. Like going from autistic nonverbal to public speaker. Are you kidding me? 

[00:42:12] Randal McLeaird: Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. Again, awesome journey.

[00:42:15] Marianne Hickman: I could go on. 

[00:42:19] Randal McLeaird: Yeah. Hey, look, Marianne, I appreciate you jumping on. Um, it's been a really good conversation. I'm always geeking out on how people are building their communities. I think I started with that before we even got on us. Like these guys, I've seen them, the meteoric rise they've had just in their businesses.

[00:42:34] Randal McLeaird: So I know how powerful it is. It's something that I've dabbled with. And so I'm definitely going to talk to you more about it. 

[00:42:39] Marianne Hickman: Yeah. Let's jam. 

[00:42:40] Randal McLeaird: Yeah. So again, I really appreciate you jumping on. If you're listening to this and you are. Afraid of public speaking, or you want to jump on a stage. Definitely look up Marianne.

[00:42:51] Randal McLeaird: She's got a, what was the link that you have? 

[00:42:53] Marianne Hickman: It's Marianne Hickman. com forward slash free gift. I just got my book for the, all the 10 steps we talked about here. [00:43:00] It's fleshed out and you can download it and get your signature presentation going. 

[00:43:03] Randal McLeaird: Yeah. Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate it. Thanks for jumping on and sharing your knowledge.

[00:43:07] Marianne Hickman: Thank you so much for having me. It was an honor. 

[00:43:10] Randal McLeaird: All right, you guys catch you on the next episode. Did you know that 80 percent of the agents we speak with got into real estate in order to gain passive income so they could obtain financial freedom and become work optional. If you want to stay up to date, the best way is to make sure you're subscribed.

[00:43:24] Randal McLeaird: So if you haven't done that, go ahead and do it now. We'll catch you on the next episode. 

People on this episode

Head Shot

Randal McLeaird

Host
Contributor

Marianne Hickman

Guest