Mastering Business Events: How to Turn Gatherings Into Revenue with Nick Salvatoriello

Jared Zuckerman: Welcome back, everyone, to the Business Insider Roundtable Podcast. So today we're joined by Nick Sal, someone who specializes in helping B2B companies turn events, webinars, and partnerships into actual revenue drivers. He's led over 250 B2B programs and worked with companies like HubSpot, Drift, and SixtSense. Nick, it's great to have you here, man. Thank you, Basil. It's a pleasure to be here. Appreciate you having me on the show. Thank you, man. So give us the real story, man. Like how did you end up specializing in this specific lane of events? And what really brought you here today? Yeah, well, the ⁓ great question. And I got started back in the early twenty tens. working in Boston technology startup software companies that were making marketing software and that was HubSpot. And part of my job was to help create group trainings. So the customers that we were trying to help get on board and utilizing our marketing software. I was part of the team that would throw virtual events, but then also in person training events to train people about this new wave of marketing, these new tools they could use as as small and medium sized businesses to grow online. So I Got an early taste and a love of digital marketing and sales technology, as well as the gatherings and the communities and the events that can bring people together to use that type of technology and to learn from each other. And a specialization I took on was helping a lot of different marketing agencies become partners with us at HubSpot and helping other companies market better, sell better, utilizing technology, utilizing really savvy marketing agencies to help them along the way. So I helped build up HubSpot's partner community and program. And then I started and then I I transitioned out of HubSpot to go work for some of their leading marketing agencies, some of which I had trained up directly. And they had met me through these gatherings, through these various events. And then I went to went on to put on events and communities and gatherings for those agencies, sometimes with HubSpot, sometimes with other technology companies. And that brought me to Drift, which was another leading technology company that was helping sales and marketers. And they were building up a partner ecosystem of other marketing agencies. So I went back and did this again with another software company. And over the years, Basil, I started realizing what do I really love about all of this? What and what do people continually come back to me for? It was those moments where we need to bring a number of different companies together, this agency, this technology company, these two customers or clients of both, and get them all to tell a story together. When those people are not used to telling the story altogether, like in a panel, a webinar, a training session, a case study video. They're not used to always being on stage or utilizing the technology, the webinar tools, the you know, the podcasting software like we're using today. A lot of people don't spend all day thinking about this aspect of marketing and sales communications. I love it. I love putting these types of videos together, these events together. I love hosting podcasts. Hosting webinars, panels, and training events. So I went out and decided to to specialize in that. So as you said in the introduction, I've been doing this for many years, anywhere from DJing a class reunion or a wedding or something like that, all the way to leading a six hundred person training session in Boston all about marketing software and star ⁓ and stuff like that. I've done everything in between, but I love the thrill of getting into a room of people that I don't necessarily know, they don't necessarily know each other, and how can I help them all get comfortable, get aligned with what we need to do and come out with good outcomes for everybody. That's the burning building I love to run into every week. I love that. That's what I love to talk about. So when you said you want to talk about business, I'm the B2B ⁓ C. You want to talk about business and bringing people together and facilitating gatherings in a business context. I'm all about it. That's amazing. You're clearly very passionate and you love what you do. And that's always a great thing. That really separates the elites from the the average, I would say. So for sure, Ma. So what what made you realize most companies were treating events the wrong way, if that makes sense? Well, I think one challenge is a lot of companies when they think they've they've kind of focused on we need to put on an event, first of all. It's kind of ironic for me to start there, right? But I believe a lot of people think we have to solve for the event whether instead of solving for a feeling or a vibe that they want to have We want to bring people closer together to us. We want our other future prospects to identify with our best clients and customers and want to connect with them and be like them and be treated as well as they were treated with us. That's a good objective that can be solved in a variety of ways within the event itself, within videos about it, email communications and things like that. So let's start with how do we want people to feel? And what do we want the vibe to be? This ⁓ what's the outcome? And then, yes, events and gatherings are a great way to bring people together and get emotion from them. So I think just trying to solve for the format instead of the ultimate objective, I think is a challenge. And then when they do, when we do have an event, what what is it really? It can either it either will skew towards if it's a virtual event, a live sort of lecture, you know, they're just kind of talking at the audience. They somewhat ignore all of the interaction technology that That they have with their webinar or meeting platform, the ability to poll, chat, emojis, bring in gifts and stuff like that, take people off mute, have people on camera, plug in other software and things like that and tools, ⁓ bring in guest entertainers. They don't utilize any of those tools. So they say, ⁓ we did a virtual event, but it really was kind of a lame. one way live lecture and they didn't gain any interactivity and they wonder why that event didn't work. So there's there's that range. Or let's talk about like an in-person event. We're gonna hold a reception outside or around this large trade show that we're sponsoring or that we're featured at. And then they then they want to be chill and cool and they don't put really any programming into that event. So they spend a lot of money and time to rent a space, to cater it, to staff it with staff members and things like that. And then they just hope that osmosis that people will just naturally have a good time. I don't think there's anything wrong with either of these two extremes that I'm talking about, but I think they're subpar. I think they're less likely to work because that's what most people will do on those two spectrums. If we're gonna have a bunch of people together in person, what else could we have them do to facilitate interacting with each other in a non-cheesy, uncomfortable feeling way? People go to an event to meet and talk and connect. What else are we doing besides simply creating a space and a guest list where we hope that will happen? How can we just facilitate more? So I think that a the pr the challenge with a lot of events, whether they're in person or they're virtual, is that there's not someone owning the facilitating of that, of the of what the guests are after, the attendees and the participants are after, and what the organizers and the hosts and the sponsors are after. And who can just kind of own and make sure that both sides get that in a way that doesn't feel cheesy, awkward, uncomfortable, or really one sided or self serving? I think that requires somebody with a little bit of diplomacy, tact, who's been there before, who can see both sides in perspective. So I think a lot of companies don't have that person in the middle. They usually have a project manager, a campaign manager, a chief of staff. Those are excellent people that when I work with a client, I depend on those people because they know where everything is and they know how to hold people accountable to get things done that we need to get done. But those people are not natural facilitators in terms of a public speaking, a show business, excuse me, a show business movie theater style production that we're putting on here. They want to help organize and project manage to-do lists and items and stuff like that. So having a facilitator again, it's a missing piece for a lot of organizations. And then lastly, Basil, I think that when it comes to who's on stage and who's speaking and representing the company, a lot of organizations will pick the biggest title possible that's appropriate for that setting. So it's the it's a marketing webinar or virtual event or in-person event. Let's send the VP of marketing. But was that VP of marketing really hired for their public speaking and sort of like Ability to command an audience skills. Yes, it is part of a vital skill set. If you're to be a business executive, you need to communicate in group meetings and stuff like that. But generally the people I see Basil, they they they end up freezing up when they have to do this part. This is the part where I have to now like pretend to be comfortable here and speak on behalf of my organization. They sound wooden. ⁓ you've oftentimes these executives, you feel like they cannot wait to get out of this obligation and finish up and get back to their real jobs, which is managing spreadsheets. and budgets and staff and org charts. Those are all very noble, extremely valuable skills, but I don't know why we feel that, aside from their title, why that person needs to be the one who's entertaining and holding the audience's attention and the one who's supposed to be responsible for getting that audience to engage. Otherwise, why are we here? Why are we doing an event if they're not to connect? So I'll just pause there. I know I've been talking a lot, but those those are some of the things that come to mind to me that I try to help head off and solve for a lot of organizations. Hey, if that VP But that CEO is an excellent communicator, I'm gonna get out of the way. I just wanna make sure that that person then is put in the best light and that they don't outshine or overweigh or seem too contrasting from the other folks. How can we pick those other folks up then who might be on the panel or speaking next or whatever to be on their level? Someone's just gonna kind of watch the watch the energy levels and and watch the vibe on behalf of all the titles and people there. Thousand percent. That's extremely excit insightful, honestly. So which brings us to to the next question. What separates an event from that creates like pipeline? From one that just burns budget, would you say? Salesmanship and ability to say, This is we're gonna be talking about taking action. And salesmanship is is to me really helping somebody get what they truly want and helping them figure out how you are the natural best choice for them, if that's the truth. Getting to that truth and then helping that happen. We can do that at scale, virtually or in person in an event. And I think if you want to sell, there's a couple of things that need to happen. Number one is we need to have a very compelling offer. That's gonna be at that event. That's why the people wanna come. You're gonna put all this effort and time and staffing and logistics and budget behind this gathering, whether it's virtual or not. People are going to come and you want that to be an amazing experience. The reason why they came and what they got out of it. One way to ensure that is to offer them an opportunity from a sales perspective, a deal of some kind that they could not get in any other way. And it's a thank you and it's a reward and it's building off of what you established and the connection and what is happening. In that event. If you came to this event, if you participated and interacted with us in the way that you did, we want you. We got we have you right where we want you effectively. So you're well qualified, I would think, if we design this event well enough. It's for people like you who want to do the things that we wanted to do here. And if you did those things, we want to give you a real good chance to be to join our family, become a client with us, customer with us, have a excellent compelling offer that they go, ⁓ my gosh. And I've worked at different ⁓ different companies where we would go to our sponsors and ask for that amazing what's it a what's a discount off your software you've never offered before and that you you would only offer for a limited time for a limited number of people? Or or what more could you offer for your training program that you want to sell after this that you you could add on top of the usual ticket price for that program, let's say. So you can do things like that. Also, Basil, it's not just about the hyper focus on the event itself. Lots of people do that. But if you want an event to sell and drive pipeline, how good are you at marshalling the sales team from the very beginning around the event? This is another problem I see year after year, event after event, Basil, is that there's an events team or there's at least a marketing team where events fall under, usually, right? And then the sales team goes ahead and rents that team's know-how, potentially their budget and their time to help organize an event. And usually the unspoken handshake in that agreement, in that dynamic that we see all the time in B2B is that the sales team is effectively saying, y'all are gonna create pipeline for us. Sales is gonna come in there and grab that pipeline and then go close it. However, I find that that deal doesn't usually work because the marketers go, wow, we don't know anybody. We don't spend all day, all week, all month, all quarter building relationships and connecting with prospects. and getting them to open, you know, invites to us to to come t chat with us. Yes, we do we do marketing emails, we post videos, but we're we're a little bit more indirect. And this is one of the most high stakes things you can ask of somebody. At at a minimum, we're asking them to reserve a half hour, an hour of their time to do a virtual event with us and give us their undivided attention about something. That's that's still a big ask of anybody today. Especially busy executives, maybe that we're trying to target. And then on the other extreme, let's say it's in person, whether it's at the trade show they're at or not, we're asking someone to take a two or three hours out of their day, go walk somewhere, drive somewhere, get a ticket, face the unexpected alone by themselves, maybe, perhaps. And we think a marketing email or a LinkedIn post is supposed to get that done on its own. No. And I've been in sales. So I'm not this isn't me the Passive aggressive marketer who's been a doormat too often in these types of scenarios. I love marketing. I love selling. We're the same team, one team, one dream. Many companies believe this and have this figured out. And it wouldn't even be a question that sales would be at the table from the beginning saying, So we're putting on an event, huh? Who do we know who we want at that event? That's how the conversation should go. There are many companies like that. Sales sits down for the beginning. We're gonna team up. Marketing, yes, does do all the logistical programming, gets the venue. does do some email marketing and so on, but sales, we did this truly for your targets. We wanted to create a venue, an environment where you could bring your targets closer to our brand, maybe even closer to you directly if you're gonna be at the trade show, at the reception, at the virtual event or whatever. So anybody else who comes in off the street who sees the bat signal of this event and goes, ⁓ there that's gonna be happening. It's gonna be there, free stuff or whatever. Okay. That's gravy. That's gravy. It should be, if you want your event to sell, Count on 60 to 80% of everybody there is already a prospect or a client today. Those are good targets for most style of events. Now I'm sure people listening here are already thinking of many exceptions. Of course, an event is not an event, is not an event. Just like an email isn't an email, a blog is it a blog. Like it's always yes, it's exceptions, differences, nuances from different industries and so on. But in general, in recap, you want this event to sell, get sales sitting down from the very beginning, writing up a forecast with you as to who they forecast they can get to the event. Can can can they bring a client or a key prospect to be the speaker, be on the panel, to be the case study? Sales is there from the beginning. Account management is there from the beginning, and they're gonna be targeting people into the event. The event is an excuse for them to reach out and touch those prospects, even if the prospects cannot or would not go to this event. It's an excuse to reach out to them with something timely and something valuable and with a with a friendly, helpful invitation that could translate into some other goodwill later, even if they can't show up. So that's the f sales up front, the events for sales, design. That in partnership with sales. And then when you get there at the event itself, have there be a super compelling offer that someone can confidently sell from stage and say the time is now. And we have, if you are who we think you are, and if sales brought you here for the right reasons that we put on this event for the right people for the right reasons with the right tone and the right speakers and content here, this offer should be seeming like the greatest gift and opportunity we've ever offered you. You know, and it should be easy for you to accept whatever it is. So those are the two things that I think make a really great sales-driving event. But then of course, Basil, I'll I'll quickly go on to say the follow-up. How many of us, and this is the most ironic thing that I almost don't even want to talk about as an event organizer because it happens way too often, makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit thinking about it. But we just don't follow up enough, do we, after these events? You have all this effort. ⁓ we did the trade show, ⁓ we did the big webinar, ⁓ the panel, the reception. ⁓ and you're just like, I just need a break, right? And most of the time the team wants to give you that break. But what we're not realizing is you just surfed the wave, man. We just did all this effort to create all this goodwill and attention and excitement in a single moment. And now you're just gonna jump off the surfboard. We're on the wave now. We gotta be rowing. We're we gotta be surfing. We just had all this excitement. What are you gonna do with it? Do with this attention, do with the sound bites, the clips, the recap post that we're putting out. This is a gold mine for sales. So stay on sales, feed them all the lists of everybody who came, everything we know about them, make it easy for them to follow up on the offer, on everything else, and align with them. You're gonna drive more sales that way. And again, I think it just takes someone, internally or externally, who's owning the whole thing, facilitating that aspect of it. Wow. Like honestly, I'm even learning some some new things myself from this conversation. It's incredible. I'm so pleased by that. And I'm I'm glad it doesn't feel like it's just a rambling diatribe. ⁓ So hopefully it's all right. It's perfect. So you briefly touched up upon this, but like where would you say most companies fail? Is it before the event, during it, or like after? Yeah. I think I think most of the time it's after. If I had to pick the follow-up. The follow-up and building momentum. Oftentimes the event will happen in a vacuum. We gotta do this event because the trade show is happening, or we just feel like doing it. It's a slow quarter, whatever. And then that phenomenon I talked about before will happen. Is then the then they do all that effort. And then they expect that all these new prospects or something like that were going to jump out of the the list to contact them. And then when that doesn't happen, they kind of go, Guess it wasn't really as effective event we thought. Maybe we shouldn't do another event. It's like, no, we need to get sales tightly aligned with that, you know? And even for the people who didn't come, let's follow up with the people who we invited who didn't show and use that as another excuse. It's the whole event to me, the best event you can design is one that doesn't even they don't even need to come, but it's it's an excuse for sales to reach out before, during and after. But I think the after part, so there's sometimes we're not prepared to do the follow-up. It was all we could do to get the event to go well, to get the first hat, like before and then during to do to to work well. And then you're like, look, after will hopefully either take care of itself or I'll worry about it when we get there. But there's a lot of data, Basil, right, that says if somebody comes to your website even and fills out a form or something, your chances of getting them to convert to the next step or whatever go down exponentially like by the minute. So if we just spend all this money to get someone like everybody in the right place at the right time to hear the right topic from the right people in the right way and interact and stuff like that. And then we let even two or three days go by, we have just made it that much harder to convert these folks. If we we have to have that stuff ready. It has to be part of the checklist. We are not ready to start the event until we know what our follow-up messages are, until we know what our follow-up strategies are. We've got our drip campaigns ready to go with the little drip emails the re the reps are going to opt everybody into. It's pre-written, pre-primed, the reps are ready to attack. I don't mean attack in sort of an aggressive way. They're just ready to take action and fire out their messages to their target contacts. I think that's a that's a big one. But then the other point that that we all fall down on and I've been there too is what's the follow up from this event? If this event worked and people want more, then why the heck would we not design an event that would hopefully the event does that. That's a good design for an event. What are we going to do next? Shouldn't we ⁓ again at least have an outline of that? Do we know when the next date is of the next thing? The next time to tell somebody about that and to get them to sign up is at the event you're at right now. Who's gonna come to that event? Maybe the one who showed up to this one. Let's give them the next thing when they're super fired up and said, Wow, this is great. Great offers, great opportunities. I love how the interaction, I made a lot of great connections here. Cool. Sign up for our next thing. I barely know what it is, but the landing page is at least up. I got a date, I got a half dozen bullets. Come on with AI, we could do that in an afternoon, you and I, Basil, right? So So just have that next thing. And then the extension from that is just have an online community of some kind, at least where you can start to have a conversation, post the recaps about this and just kind of collect and gather the people that you're gathering between all the different gaps. Amazing. And this was mainly to do with like in-person events, right? Yeah. Yeah. But I think vir virtual and should should be a companion to that as well, at least. Yeah. I'll just gonna ask you like as a follow-up, would you say webinars still work in 2026 if done properly? Or are most people like somewhat exhausted by them? Let's say this humans have not changed. Humans, even in business business to business, still want to interact, to learn, to build trust, to know who's the best and who's the leader out there, to be seen as pretty good and seen as a leader themselves. These are all human nature things that so long as the world of business exists, we're going to desire that. To be able to offer an ability to gather virtually with a bunch of other peers like this is frankly a miracle. We take it for granted and we did a bunch of it in 2020. And it is very cost effective to be able to just spin open up your camera, sp put up a landing page, and we're gonna do a w gather a couple of executives, a couple of clients, customers, or partners. We've got ourselves a webinar going on. That's why I like it. But that can also be the problem. To your point, there's a lot of noise out there. But just because there's a lot of products on offer does not mean I'm now exiting a market for those products. There may be a lot of webinars being offered. That does not mean that then I'm gonna go, ⁓ it's just too many, no webinars at all. No, I'm gonna be much more discerning now. ⁓ I've been burned before by a lazy webinar, by a poor planned webinar. So which brand has a reputation, either because I can see it through the buzz and stuff like that, or I can just see sort of how they execute, what the landing pages look like, how the form looks like, who's on the agenda, how they sort of position this event. Like people are not foolish, especially people who've been overly marketed to, like so many of my targets traditionally in B2B sales and marketing. They know. when you you're paying attention to the stuff we've been talking about today, Basil, right? They know when that align they can s see it, they can feel it. Otherwise, why the heck would we do it if it doesn't come off as something that's a better impression? So I think that, yeah, people still want to connect with their peers and and get all the things I just said. Can you give it to them? Or will you be lumped in and misconstrued as one of these sort of lazy webinar producers from your peers, perhaps? So I think there's always and frankly, I'd prefer it. And now I also I prefer digital anyway, because I don't have to leave my house. Does that mean I will never go to an in-person event again? No. But I think there's room for both. I talk to people on the phone. I don't need to be in the same room to enjoy that conversation. So mass communication, digital communication and gathering and stuff like that. No, that's not going away. Now, but now we need to accept that we're in a world where people want both. And Why not give them both if it's since the virtual component is so cost effective? So my case, Basil, is maybe not to rely on just one or the other, but start using them together to realize there's no reason to put a silo between the two. So if I'm going to be having a gathering of people here in my home region of Boston, why not and I'm gonna do that in July. Why not in June have a virtual gathering with everybody I know, including everybody I know in Boston in this target market, let's say, and just say, summer's here, what are you up to? What do you got going on? Poll, poll, chat, chat. Here's what we got going on. This cool event in June. Who's in Boston? Who's going to be there? What would you want us to cover if you couldn't make it there? You know, who wants to watch virtually online if that's even an option? Right. Get people fired up about what you're doing in person by gathering them virtually online. Now, maybe you don't want to even need to have it be a live room virtual gathering. Instead, you just interview the people who are going to be at the event. Hey, we're sponsoring this trade show next month. I know that you're going to be one of our big speakers. There. Why are you fired so fired up about like you know the theme of this conference next month and why we're gonna be there? Okay, blah, blah, blah. What are you gonna be talking about? Now, people who are coming to the conference are now gonna be that much more fired up to actually see you in that big investment in this the breakout session in or the booth that you did. Why would we not do this? And people who can't make it, because there's a whole bunch of reasons why people can't make it. The date didn't work, they can't afford it, a whole bunch of different stuff. We're just gonna exclude them because logistically it didn't work out for them to be there. No, they're still at your target market. We should offer a virtual component that said, even if you're not going to be there, here's what we're going to cover and so on. And the same logic applies, Basil, for after your in-person thing, whether they came or not. If they came, here's a recap, here's you in a photo. Let's get you off mute talking about how much of a great time that was. You weren't able to make it live. Here's what you missed. Here's how you can feel like you were still included. And here's your next opportunity to commute and interact with us. That's before and after. Why not have that virtual component? And I also alluded to it a couple minutes ago. If you're live. W would it be the biggest deal we're at this trade show, this event, or having this talk, if someone flipped open their laptop, opened up a Zoom or whatever it might be, and put it out to your followers, your fans, so that they can participate and at least watch as well, drop a couple of comments for the QA section as well. I'm not saying that makes sense every time, but I I'm trying to say, Basil, that I think webinars and virtual events do work today if you use them in the right way, along with your in-person strategy. Tie them together. Thousand percent. That's very innovative, actually. Not lots of people think about that. Let's go do it, man. All right. So what's one misconception founders have about partnerships as a growth channel? I love that you asked this. And some people might be wondering, what part partnerships? Like what what do they mean in regards to events? Here's how I'm interpreting the word partnerships, because that's sometimes a loaded term, Basil, right, to a lot of people. But it's when you're saying you have a similar target market to what I have. But we're not after it's not the exact same. We're not offering the exact same thing to that market. As a matter of fact, we find out. That if they use you and then they use us before, during, or after, everybody's better off, actually. That's partnerships in the world of B2B that I've grown up in. Either there's a technology company on one of those ends, there's a professional services firm or consulting firm on the other end, or both, you know? And how and I've been the ambassador, the facilitator between those organizations to bring them together. So you asked me, what's one thing that mi people misconstrue about partnerships? Lots of folks are looking to in sales and marketing who are looking to generate more business and more pipeline. They think of the different ways you can go to market. And one way you can go to market is what I've been describing here: finding other companies that are have also been trying to tap into the same target market, but they've been doing it in their own way with their own offering that's not exactly directly competitive to yours. It might even be additive to you. Finding those people, finding out what they want and doing a little bit of a trade with them, co-marketing, co-selling. sponsoring whatever it might be. And I've been a facilitator around how we're gonna do that, what's the go to market strategy. Okay, we are gonna market together. We're gonna do webinars, podcasts, events together, our sales we're you're gonna train our sales team. We're gonna train your sales team. I've been the project manager facilitator for many of those types of discussions. But let's get to the point here, Basil. What Do many executives misconstrue is they think I say we get into partnerships now. I go find companies who have clients or customers that I want. I go make appointments with those companies that have the clients or customers I want. I tell them about my thing, explain to them how obviously it's the greatest thing that their clients or customers would ever have heard of. And if they only introduce us to those clients or customers, we'll give them some sort of a bribe like a finder's fee or a or whatever. And so all we have. And literally I'm I swear having done it enough that I think that's about as far as most of the boardroom gets. They go, great, sold, that's amazing. And how much will it cost us to generate those leads? Hardly anything. Because I'll just have to call these companies, explain to them how great we are, and they will and how easy it is just to send an email to your prospect about my thing. And then they'll click on the thing and we'll give them some money. So of course it's gonna work. Go, go start hiring ahead of partnerships, go start hiring partner reps, say that we have a partner program and start showing off these companies. And then a few months go by. And the thing is though the ch the what they misunderstand is that effectively the other company that they're talking to thinks the same thing about you. So you thought you're all set because you're gonna give them a commission of some kind, right? I'll give you a finder's fee, a commission, a badge, or whatever for introducing me into your customers. And if I close them or whatever, as a result of that, of course I want to give back to you. That should they think that should be enough. But the company on the other side, that's not their business model, whether they're a software company, a professional services firm or whatever. They got into business to make money the way that they normally make money. So now you're adding this partnership thing on top, and nobody in their boardroom is going, how many 20% can we get? ⁓ this is they just don't usually do that math. It's not really what they're counting on. They're counting on the same thing you are, which is, well, if I get into bed with them and start swapping leads with them, they've got clients that I want and they'll give me clients. And then suddenly the other company goes, Whoa, wait a second. You wanted c you wanted to know my people? And then they go, and they wonder why the partnership, quote unquote, is not producing anything. Because both sides are playing a game of chicken going, you introduce first. No, you introduce first. No, you do a thing. No, you do a thing. The best thing you can do if you want to do partnerships is build up a war chest of goodwill, a commitment to say, we are going to give, give, give out into this market of other potential influencers in our target market so that they feel the goodwill and say, You've taken such good care of little old us. What can we do for you? You actually took our struggling whatever we are, a software company or prof our agency or whatever. You gave us credibility, you gave us a chance, you trained us up and you introduced us to a couple of key people. Wow. Now I really want to introduce you. To my clients. We almost forget about how inbound works once we start to get into partnerships. And I was raised in the world of inbound. You don't mention what you're selling, you don't mention what's in it for you. You want to give, give, give and generate as much goodwill and generate as much expertise and mentorship and guidance as you can. So that person goes, if what you're offering us for free is this good, what are you asking for? What are you actually selling? You want that in partnerships as well. I should probably write a book or coin a phrase like inbound partnerships or something, but I think a lot of companies are way too outboundy. I push at you, I got my thing. Go tell your people about my thing, and then I'll pay you for that. I'll rent that goodwill from you. That's not a partnership. And it doesn't really work, my experience. That's an affiliate program. And most most companies that do not want to become affiliates. I'm not saying affiliate programs are bad, but that's not that's not that's not a partnership. That's something different. That's why you're getting that's why a lot of companies get confused and disappointed. Okay. I get you. So so man, Nick, you clearly have some deep expertise. Have you intentionally focused on building your personal brown aro around this knowledge? Or has most of your growth come through Like reputation, network network, as that's probably very important in this industry as well. It's been a little bit of both, Basil, and that's cool. I'd like to get down to these sort of ⁓ brass tacks here. Yeah. So how does how, you know, if i I'm sure folks feel what I'm saying is compelling, but then how how have I gone about as a as a solopreneur, gone out out and hung out my own shingle and offered that rather than baking it into my own jobs? So one of the first things I did, Basil, was I realized I'm getting paid to do this already, the stuff I've been talking about, facilitating events. And so you just heard me describe my My C V, my background. So I figured I'll go back to some of those same people who saw me do that work. And now those same people become leaders in other marketing departments and and and they're head of partnerships and and other things. So those have been the yeah, the pent up demand of people who knew me, thought I did well in those areas, you know, as part of other jobs that they worked with me at, have hired me for these projects. But then also, yes, I'm making a commitment to walk the walk. drink my own champagne, eat my own dog food, and I started my own podcast. I try to post a a video or or a text post or two every week onto LinkedIn. And I've started to put my my name out there as the B2B ⁓ C as a as a business facilitator of of of all stripes onto various different directories and programs. And so I tried to at least a couple of times a month to appear on programs like this. I try to go out to a networking event in the Boston region once a month. So It's just really just spinning up my whole my own marketing engine, which should be the most fun thing ever for me. But I also have to serve clients. I have to sell. I mean, as I'm sure many of your listeners know, you have to wear a lot of hats as a solopreneur. And I was ready for some of them, but there's a lot of them, right? I'm also the head of finance, I'm the head of legal, I'm the head of everything else. So in in short, A lot of my initial results and and leads have come from people who knew me and did this work and that yes, I'm now building up my pipeline through speaking opportunities through social media publishing. And the struggle is just continuing to make sure that always gets a priority, even when it's not screaming red hot, you need another lead. You need to have more people wanting to reach out to you. Sometimes you're doing fine. Sometimes you're way too busy to even think and keep up with what you're doing. ⁓ you have to keep that, keep beating that steady drum of marketing. So I've been trying to do that. And that was my commitment this year was to not let that slip. And to try to make sure I'm always consistently meeting my weekly posting goals, my my monthly podcasting goals, my monthly like public speaking and networking goals. Amazing. Do you feel the market recognizes your expertise at the level it should right now? Or are you still like waiting for the snowball effect to really take, take on? I think I'm probably the latter, ⁓ Basil. And that's really my my hope and wish for any struggling solopreneur or entrepreneur of the small startup that they decide to start themselves is hang in there. You know, my big I I remember hearing some other veteran staff members I worked with, people who are just seasoned business people and they went out and started their own businesses. Inspired me to follow their footsteps. And I remember a LinkedIn post, he said, you know, the greatest advice I got from a mentor was just to try to not die, try to not give up. And that's to me, that's the victory. Every week, every month is I'm still here. I made enough. I see that I have enough in front of me that I can keep doing this. ⁓ for me and my family. And so stay alive and be ready to pivot if you have to to stay alive. Make sure you're earning cash. Make sure you don't forget about marketing, even while you're selling and servicing. And I think that I'm still coming around the corner. I need to do more create more content that shows me in action. All of us need to create more content that shows you in action, doing what you do best, whether it's building spreadsheets, leading team meetings, building apps, onboarding customers, how can you capture that and show that off to people? People want to see you cook. And I I think that I need to show people more of what I do. And that's part of why I'm on here today. That's amazing. I love the determination and grit. It's very moving, to be honest. So thank you, man. I really appreciate that. I'll take all the encouragement I can get. It's lonely out of here sometimes. So what's one thing you'd you'd want listeners to remember about you and your work today? Yeah. Just one thing. Is that I'd say this. If you feel that you are out there on an island because somebody told you you've got to organize this event, whether it's an internal, you know. workshop off site of your executives. It's some sort of customer advisory board, still small and intimate, but it's a it's a it's a group dinner or something like that. Or it's a big virtual event or a huge trade show sponsorship you're doing the breakout session for. Many, many organizers are on an island by themselves. And I know that if you've been listening and you've been in that boat, you've resonated with some of the things I've said here today. So let's talk. Come find me on LinkedIn. Let's at least have some like, you know, business therapy around it on a Zoom. But also I am out here for a limited time. to still learn and experiment. So if you want to talk about your challenges and your issues in any of these areas and you think that you can scrape together some money to afford to fly me out, drive me down or whatever it is, I might be willing to entertain that because it's more important to me to help really great companies and to capture more of me cooking and solving problems and creating great experiences and telling great stories, working with all these different stakeholders like I'm describing, bringing your group together than it is to make a fortune right now. I'm here looking for success stories to create and t and talk about. That's the most important thing. So if you think you've got a chance for that, let's at least chat. I'll give you some free advice. And then if you think you can take it f you want to take it further than that and there's a chance you can scrape something together, we'll talk about it. And I think we can be reasonable. I'll just throw that out since you asked, Basil. You know, no hard pitch here, but I don't want people to feel like they're on their own. No, no, man. I'm I'm certain you're gonna kill it and you're you're already killing it. It's very obvious in that sense. You made my morning. All right. So we usually do a lightning round just so like the viewers can really just get to know you better. Sure. Very quick questions. Coffee or tea. I love these. I I do these too. These are fun. I'll try to real I'll try to really lean into it. Hello. Coffee or tea? Coffee. I don't mind tea, but just coffee, man. Yeah. So so so so tasty, so many different flavors and stuff. It just smells so good. A hundred percent. Yeah. I'm I'm personally a coffee drinker myself. I need the energy honestly. But Yeah. I know there's some strong teas out there, it just doesn't it's not like I'm caffeinating up with a big mug of tea. It's just not the same mentally. Number two, best business investment under a thousand dollars. Ooh, best business investment under a thousand dollars. ⁓ here it is. Microphone. Get get yourself a couple hundred dollar microphone. Get yourself some lighting. What I have here is under a thousand bucks. But when you're meeting virtually, that is your business suit. You know, you wouldn't show up to a business meeting with a with a ratty t-shirt. You know, with some stains on it, and then but people have no problem going into a meeting that's like, ⁓ hell of a guy, yeah, sorry, I'm just using my laptop. ⁓ it's the sun in my face or whatever, or am I just a silhouette because I just decided to have this meeting in front of a window or whatever. Like just dress yourself up a little bit. You don't have to be a nerd about it. The mic doesn't have to be in the shot, but there's plenty of decent podcast mics and plenty of little lights that you can buy. Best investment you can make on the first impression and how you show up to somebody. That's straight up facts, honestly. One place you'd still want to visit. It's a chance for to share more. I I love to travel internationally. We have only one life to live on this big, beautiful, amazing earth that we have. And I have sought every opportunity, even as soon as soon as I could, but I growing up to travel. I've been to over thirty-five different countries. We'll be checking some more off this year. I try to check off a couple of different countries every couple of years if I can. And so a place that I have not visited yet is Spain. And I'll be going there next month for one of my my best friends from college. He's getting married out in in in Mallorca and the Belaric Islands there in the middle of the Mediterranean. Never been to Spain. Maybe I will never go again. So my partner and I, we're we're so psyched. She and I are gonna go out and attend that. It's gonna be the trip of a lifetime. I'm gonna MC their event, which is just a total honor. And yeah, so I'm excited to check off Spain and we'll be in Madrid for a day. So if anybody listening, you get to this in time, it's not until mid May. ⁓ you'll drop us a comment on on the post or podcast or whatever, ⁓ for idea or or or LinkedIn DM me, right? If have some ideas about Madrid or Mallorca, I'm all yours. I'm sure you're gonna love Spain. I've been there last last summer. To Marbella, honestly a blast. It's the best place to be. Let's go online, man. Need some tips. That's excellent. Yeah, I'm I'm fired up. I've heard I've heard great things for years. I'm so psyched we're finally going. Got a good reason for it. 100%. And lastly, you did mention the best way to connect with you is through LinkedIn, right? Yes. I would say I I work hard to have a good LinkedIn presence there. LinkedIn, I feel like, is where a lot of us in the business community are at. I try to be active there. I'll I'll get back to you. All right. Do you want to shout out your your full Username, if that makes sense. Yes, it's LinkedIn.com slash in slash Nixal. N I C K S A L. Try to keep it easy for y'all. ⁓ maybe we'll make it into the show notes. Also, my my business, where I do talk about I have services pages for webinar facilitation, like internal working group facilitation, roundtables and such, and live event facilitation in person or otherwise. That's at next levelinbound.com, trying to help you take your inbound, these events that pull people towards you and your brand. Take it to the next level. So next level inbound dot com is ⁓ kind of my my brand and business website. But just go ahead and find me on LinkedIn, LinkedIn.com slash in slash Nick Sal, and we can connect there. Perfect. All right, Nick. It's been a pleasure having you on here. Thank you so much. Insightful information. And I'm sure we're gonna be speaking soon. Incredible value. I've really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks for having me and thanks for asking some great questions and be for being so encouraging along the way. Thank you.