Business Innovators Radio - Niki Dealey: Mastering Business, Resilience, and Philanthropy Amidst Adversity

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

In this episode of the Business Innovators Podcast, host Marco Salinas sits down with Niki Dealey, President and Co-founder of Dealey Media International. Niki is a digital marketing expert and a certified conversion strategist who has a passion for helping small businesses and startups grow through effective lead generation strategies. With years of experience in the industry and a strong entrepreneurial drive, Niki shares her personal journey and the lessons she has learned along the way.Listeners will discover Niki’s early entrepreneurial roots, from her days working at Dairy Queen to becoming a successful digital marketing queen. She opens up about the challenges she faced, both personally and professionally, including the heartbreaking experience of losing her husband to depression. Despite these hardships, Niki’s unwavering faith and hunger to make a difference have propelled her forward.Throughout the episode, Niki emphasizes the importance of resilience and finding one’s “why” in order to overcome obstacles and achieve success. She shares her insights on the power of mastermind groups and the impact they can have on personal and professional growth.If you’re a business owner or aspiring entrepreneur looking for inspiration and practical strategies to grow your business, this episode is a must-listen. Niki’s authentic and transparent approach will leave you motivated to pursue your dreams and never give up, no matter the challenges you face.Tune in to discover the power of hunger and resilience in entrepreneurship and how Niki Dealey’s story can inspire and empower you to unlock your full potential.https://dealeymediainternational.comSource: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/niki-dealey-mastering-business-resilience-and-philanthropy-amidst-adversity

Welcome to Business Innovators Radio, featuring industry influencers and trendsetters, sharing proven strategies to help you build a better life right now. And welcome back to another episode of Business Innovators Radio podcast. I am your host, Marco Salinas, and I've got a very special guest joining us here today. a very dear friend of mine, a new networking partner of mine, and someone that I anticipate having a very, very, very bright and prosperous future with. And before I give her name, I would like to read her bio. So let me just kind of, you do a lot. So there's a lot to talk about.

So let me cover this. And then I'll introduce you, okay? Okay, no problem. Nikki Dealey is president and co-founder of Dealey Media International. Dealey Media is the world's first and only artificial intelligence, all-in-one marketing solution for small businesses, startups, and solopreneurs, such as authors, speakers, coaches, and trainers, because results matter. Additionally, Nikki is a proud member of the forum.

The forum is a group of digital marketers in the top 1% here in the USA. Qualifications come with high standards such as success over a five-year period, annual revenues over a million dollars, substantial media attention, and membership is by exclusive invitation only. There are less than 50 of these certified conversion strategists in the USA, and Nikki is actually the only female in the group. Nikki has also been one of the most successful mobile app developers in the last 12 years, building over 1,000 mobile apps targeting small businesses with limited budgets who want to compete with major players in their industry. She's also developed approximately $2 million worth of proprietary software in an effort to help small businesses compete with larger brands affordably,

An example of this is her non-MLS real estate leads software program. That software was created to have 17 fields for the different types of motivated sellers. Nikki has also volunteered, excuse me, with Greg Lurie's Harvest Crusade for the last 23 years and is currently their first ambassador. She worked on Harvest America for two years in a row, which was held at the AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas. The first year was touted to be the largest ever evangelical event in history, even bigger than the events put on by Billy Graham. She's an avid philanthropist donating monies to help fund orphan children in third world countries and to the Wounded Warrior Project as well as Show Hope and some other local charities in her community. Nikki is a huge dog lover and she is an avid introvert, although you would never tell. and she can be seen hovering over one of her laptops while on YouTube or learning something online on a daily basis.

Cooking for small intimate dinner parties and shopping, of course, as well as volunteering, pretty much describes this digital marketer who is at the top of her craft. Nikki, welcome to the podcast. Well, thank you and thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. And yes, I too believe that we're going to have a very longstanding friendship and professional relationship as well. So I look forward to it.

The same goes for me, Nikki, but let's learn a little bit more about you. So that was a really cool bio that you haven't covered a whole lot of the things that you're working on. But really, I mean, let's be honest, those bios really only give us a tiny little, you know, quick little, hey, here's what I'm about and here's what I do. The reality is that you've been doing a lot of things for a long time. You've done, I know in our conversations, you've done things ranging from obviously small business, marketing, digital marketing.

You're doing a lot of stuff with AI right now. But I know you've also done a lot of things in the political world as well. And I know that you have a high level mastermind group where you work with some really, really smart, talented entrepreneurs. And so you've kind of seen it all, haven't you? I have, and I've got the gray hair and wrinkles to prove it. But along with that, Nikki, comes a lot of wisdom and a lot of knowledge. And so what I'd like to ask you is, if I was getting in an elevator with you right now, and we were going to go up a few floors in a big building, and I said, hi, my name is Marco, nice to meet you. What do you do?

Could you give me your little kind of 30 second elevator pitch from your own point of view? Yes. I think what I would, what I'm most proud of is I would tell you in the elevator, depending on how many floors I had, is just simply this. I love to help business owners grow their companies through lead generation and other strategic strategies. I say strategic because we're the type of firm, Marco, that doesn't try and put a business into a list of the things that we offer. Instead, we listen. We find out what their objectives are and we drill down with what their objectives because sometimes I'll say, well, I want to do this. Okay, well, why do you want to do this? Is there a different way? Is there a

different approach? Is that objective still in alignment with your values? But have you thought of some other things that we know in our repertoire because we're really good at digital in marketing. And so I would just say that we specialize in lead generation and especially with AI. So yes, that's what I would say. That's wonderful. That's fantastic. So I like to go back into time. I like to, when I'm talking with entrepreneurs especially, I love to hear the stories of how they essentially got into that world. Can you tell me a little bit, Nikki, about, you know, how that kind of process went about of becoming your own business owner and doing what you do now. Can you kind of give us an idea of when that was more or less, like time period?

Yes. True story. When I was a little girl like six or seven, I was always a teacher. So I would have our little friends come over to my house and then I would teach them stuff. So I've always had a yearning for learning. But more importantly, I would have these mimicking. business teaching classes where I was the business owner and all my little friends were my secretaries at the time you can tell my age they were called secretaries not administrative

assistants or admins or what's that what have you right and I would bark at them to bring me coffee and do this and do that and so much so that my mom would sometimes come out and say Nikki, be nice. And one, then I grew up with a grandfather who was an entrepreneur, and he was very, very generous. I remember sometimes Marco, he picked me up this one time on a weekend, and he had $10, $100 bills laying across the bent seat of his truck. That was $1,000. I'm a twerpy kid.

Now I'm probably about eight, nine, or ten. I'm seeing all this money and I'm thinking, oh, I'm the first grandchild. I'm going to have all this money. We went around town driving in his pickup truck, giving the money away. So he could teach me a lesson that he wanted to teach me that you had to make more money to be able to do this on a Saturday afternoon. And so at the time, my idea of being an entrepreneur and owning my own my own business range the gamut. And it was really inspiring more so from my grandfather's seeing how generous he was.

In fact, to this day, if you ever call my cell phone or read at the bottom of my emails, I put, live your life in such a way that your life story is worth reading. Before he let me out of his truck, he would tell me that as a little twerpy kid. I never knew what it meant until I was in college. And then I got the lightful moment. But it started off really when I was young. I think I just had a wonderful relationship with my grandfather. And he was an entrepreneur and he made it. He made the journey, albeit hard.

And he used to tell me, you have to work hard and longer than 40 hours. And you're going to be up and down. And, you know, so he wasn't just telling me all the cherry cool stuff. But he was really inspirational to me. Yeah, but he gave it to you straight, right? He didn't sugarcoat. He did. Yeah.

Especially what he told me that we were getting, we were going to give away all this money. I was so heartbroken. Oh, my goodness. I can only imagine. So, Nikki, what kind of a student were you when you were in school? You know, a lot of, one thing that's kind of known about entrepreneurs, we don't really fit in the box. We don't do very well in the box, right?

it's kind of like trying to put a little square peg in a round, you know, a little slot, right? Was that what you found when you were in school, or did you actually find that school was really easy for you? Did you do really well with it? What kind of student were you? So I grew up in a military family. My dad was in the Air Force, and then when he got out, he worked for the FAA. He's an engineer, so he's very anal, very particular. I found school to be very easy. So I did really well. I would get A's.

And when I would get a B, I would be real disappointed in myself, probably more so than my family. But when I got older, when I got into high school, I realized I was very bored. It just wasn't stimulating enough for me. And so even in college, I question whether or not I shouldn't even stay in because I had started a business at 25 years old. And when I would go to my business, TAs, teachers, assistants, or professors,

and I'd ask them practical question, mainly because of what a discussion I had with my grandfather, they didn't know because they didn't own a company. They were just giving me book knowledge. Yep. And so I found that I would go gravitate to people that I found successful that I respected. And I would be a sponge and ask them questions kind of like what you and I are doing. What can I learn from you being that you're successful that I can break back and maybe acquire for myself? Yeah, exactly.

So you picked that up really early then? In high school, yes. I started on board. Yeah, absolutely. I'm very old now. Well, you know what, Nikki, I'm realizing that you're really a terrible introvert. Thank you. For somebody who's supposedly so introverted, you are a great networker.

So I don't know if I buy that whole introvert thing. Well, let me tell you, I test it. And what I really should be described as is an ambivert. So what that means is I recharge my batteries, being by, myself, I can stay home for days out of the week because, you know, I can order my groceries or I can order Amazon both being delivered to my home. And I just like to be alone with my thoughts in YouTube. Sure. More so than I do with other people. But an ambival means that when applicable, they rise up to the

occasion and they're friendly and they're kind. And so it appears that they are more extroverted, but they're really not because that drains my energy. And as soon as I leave the event, I kick off my shoes and I go back into the cave. And I'm happy being in the cave. Sure. Yeah. No, I'm with you. I'm totally with you.

And I think a lot of us, there's a lot more of us out there that really are deep down introverted. But, you know, a lot of times as well, we don't really have the luxury of doing that when there are bills to pay and people depending on us and, you know, those kind of things, right? It's like, wouldn't we just all love to just retreat to our corners and stay there forever? But it's hard to grow a business that way. And so we do have to turn it off from time to time and just say, hey, today I'm an extrovert. But as soon as this thing is over, like you said, I'm going to go back to my corner. And please don't bother me for a while, right?

Yes. Yeah, totally understand that. Totally understand that. What about work, actual jobs? Did you ever have any jobs before you started doing your own thing and before you came an entrepreneur? Yes, I'm very proud to tell you that my very first job was working at Dairy Queen. Oh, how fun. I'm going to do the little curly cues at the end of the cones.

In fact, one of my favorite places is Jason's deli because they have an ice cream machine. And to this day, I challenge myself to see if I can still do the little curly cube. at the top of my ice cream. Yeah. I think from high school, I did have to quit that job because I became head cheerleader in my senior year,

and I had to go to two camps and be more responsible for the team. And I was so bummed because I love that job. It was across the street from another high school and a lot of my friends went there, and so I got to hang out with them and get paid because I was working. I think I floundered in my early 20s because I felt I was being pulled.

My parents were saying, go to school, get a job, you know, get the gold watch, retire, get the pension, because that's what they did. And yet I was pulled on the other side from my grandfather because he was like, think big and you can do anything you put your mind to and you just got to work hard. So I felt like I was at a Tug Award, not really having the confidence to step out and do my own gig. So from about high school, my senior year to about 25, I was floundering. I didn't work at Dairy Queen at that time. But I started, I did some telemarketing. I did some door-to-door sales. I just tried to do anything and everything, trying to find my place.

And it wasn't until I was 25 years old that the gentleman that I was dating who was young, who was older than I looked at me and said, if you have a passion to do a business, why don't you start it and I'll help you? And so I did. I started my first business at 25 years old with his help. That was the first time that I got exposed to a mastermind group, a mastermind group where you're around peers that are all very, successful and you're just gleaning from them or their roll of dexes or they're pouring into you.

It's like an informal board of directors. Never knew about this concept, but that was the first time that I was exposed to this group, this type of group. And I've been in a mastermind pretty much my whole life and attribute my success to hard work, the mastermind group, my faith, and just really being a master of your craft. anybody can do that. Yeah, definitely, definitely. That's really awesome.

So I think we're going to have to title this episode from, from Dairy Queen, ice cream swirl to digital marketing queen, right? So we can keep the queen in there from both sides. I need my crown. That is really awesome. So one of the questions that I always ask is tell me about somebody who's had probably maybe the biggest influence or the impact on you, especially in regards to entrepreneurship and being your own, you know, being self-employed. It sounds like very clear that that's your

grandfather. Am I right? He was certainly the first person. I think the second person was my friend Mark Victor Hanson. Many of your audience may know him because he's a co-author of Chicken's Suit for the soul. He really encouraged me. In fact, I was one of his little protegees at one time when I lived in Southern California and would share platforms with him because I was his success story. He was instrumental in having me travel to New York and be on a TV junket. He wrote a book that called The Millionaire Code.

And when he was promoting that book because I was one of his little protegees and testimonials. people, I was able to get on television that time. I think most of all, if I had to really deep down, it would be my faith. Any time that I wanted to give up, or any time that I was weary or scared or anything like that, I would get into my quiet time and sure enough, there would be a scripture or a song or one of my friends would encourage me with something. And, And I feel like that was a little push just to go a little bit further, maybe a couple of weeks, maybe an hour. Sure. Right. You know, before I add another meltdown because I'm human just like everybody else.

Right. So even though I have been successful in the world standards, it comes with a high price because I've also had people, you know, try and get to be friends with me only for influence or they've tried to hurt me. they betrayed me. I'm like everybody else. I think the only difference is I haven't given up yet. Sure. And I hope not to give up. And that's what I would encourage everybody listening to this. It is a road that is long, sometimes very lonely because you get to a certain point. And you can't share your problems with the people that you work with. That's why you have a mastermind group. And that's why I'm in one in Dallas, Texas. if you just don't give up and you and you just live your passion and know that whatever you can do today to pour into somebody else it could even just be a simple smile or an act of kindness it doesn't have to be something huge you're still moving forward you're you're kicking the can down the road and you're not giving up that's right beautifully stated dicky yeah and that's one thing i really

like about you, you're, you're very open about your faith and your love of God and you're, you're very transparent in the fact that if it weren't for him, you know, you may not be where you are today. Obviously, you wouldn't be. I mean, you're very open about that. So that's something that I admire about you, shows a lot of humility. Nowadays, you know, being humble is not, you know, looked well upon. People are just like, you've got to be arrogant and you've got to be, you know, act like there's no, you know, there's no problems that life is perfect. social media kind of perpetuates that problem, you know, because it kind of shows a big facade. It only shows the wins. It doesn't show the losses, right? And this is kind of a perfect segue for my next

question because one of the most important, if not the most important question that I always ask entrepreneurs is that very thing, that very topic, which is failure. We like to only look at people when they have reached the end of the, you know, of their very long marathon, right? We don't see all of the painful setbacks along the way. It's typically not very, very spoken about. People don't always like to share that because, again, vulnerabilities and things like that. But I, I for one, have never met a successful entrepreneur that has not gone through a pretty significant amount of failure and setback, right?

But to your point earlier, it really more than anything has a lot to do with overcoming that. Do you stop and do you give up or do you keep going and overcoming that? And you said it yourself, you said, sometimes you got to take things hour by hour, maybe even moment by moment. Just to be able to get to that next phase, depending on some people have had some heavy, heavy obstacles in their life. Yes, and I'm not adverse to that. I even will tell you right now in your audience, I probably got some up ahead in the future too. But I think our resilience, right, has to come from somewhere.

So I think your why is really important. And I know that in most coaching courses or you go to some retreats or seminars or conferences, Many times a speaker will ask, what is your why? I think that is going to be really huge for anybody. My why was always to live up to that saying that my grandfather used to tell me before I got out of his truck. Live your life in such a way that your life is worth reading. So because that is my why and it was imparted to me by somebody I loved, my grandfather, he's since passed. That keeps me going, my faith. And then my passion, I love, I love what I do.

But I have had failures, both personal and business, personal about six years ago and three years prior to that six year time frame, Marco. My husband at the time was struggling with major depression. And I didn't understand it. I didn't understand it because of his faith, because on paper he had everything that one would aspire to. He came from a very prominent family and loved his work and people loved him. And he was pouring into a lot of people, but he suffered from depression. So depression is not something that is just for people that maybe not have a huge confidence level in them or they grew up with a horrible background. and ultimately he tried to take his life three times and on the third time he was successful.

And that was huge to me because within 24 hours my life changed completely. So that's what I meant by a personal success. And even afterwards or in the three years prior, I was juggling not only my company but his company. And then trying to be at a level of being his wife where, you know, I lost my best friend now because I can't go to him saying, well, babe, I've got this and this and this that I'm struggling with because he's already struggling with it at a point that I couldn't even comprehend. And then after it happened, it was really tough to figure out what just happened. What is this suicide thing?

What could I have done differently? What could I have learned? I'm very open about it because I felt like if I had to go through that crisis, that trauma, then I want other people to know that I've been there. I understand. And if I can help you or encourage you or pray for you, I want to be there. And then professionally, I've been betrayed. I've trusted advisors.

These are licensed advisors. And they took me down the wrong road in investments and lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. and it, you know, it's painful when you feel like you've done your due diligence. You have had a great relationship with some of these financial advisors. And, you know, they betray you for their own personal gain. And that hurts. That really hurts. It makes you cynical and gun shy.

But again, if you just don't give up, you don't give up and you stay the course. You might go off on a bunny trail. like I have many times, but you stay back on track and you get back on track and you, you kick the can down maybe another block and you're good with another block. Right. That's okay. Right. Right.

Absolutely. My gosh, Nikki, that's, that's, you've shared so much in just a short little period of time. And again, I really admire all that you've been able to overcome. And again, you don't pretend to act like you do it by yourself. you kind of just you just fall into the arms of of you know the good lord above right and he helps you through it all so that that is a really beautiful thing you have you have an amazing testimony and i think most of all you're if you haven't already you certainly will be helping many people

that are also going through these difficulties so that in itself is just you know a reason to keep going right so for all that you get to do for others. Yeah, and I hope that, you know, if anybody is listening to this podcast and they are a business owner, I would love to offer, you know, just to get on the phone and find out how can I help you? And it might be where we're not going to ever do business together. I am on many calls where I'm just giving resources, try this, or have you opted to this? Or I was helping somebody yesterday at lunch. He's a CPA here in town and he was talking to me about his problems with his website. And I just suggested two little things that he could do for $12 a year. And by the time

I got back to the office, he had already written me this beautiful email saying, thank you. How can I repay you? And it was like, hey, I was happy to help because I don't need to be paid for every little thing. So if I can help somebody, just hear them out and see maybe I can help them. I don't know, but I'm happy to do that anytime. So that's, we're getting close to wrapping up here. And that is just a perfect way for us to kind of close out. But is there a very specific type of business or entrepreneur that you're looking for, Nikki? Like, what does your ideal prospect look like to work with you? Or are you pretty much just open to any, any business that's out there, a startup? They've been around for a long time. Do you have kind of a niche? I don't, but I do have a personal characteristic.

The reason I don't have a niche is because, like you said, I've worked in political arenas all the way down to what I call a onesie, somebody that's just starting out with a limited budget, and we're able to help them with lead generation. So it really doesn't matter. What I'm looking for is somebody that has a hunger to grow their company. Too many times I am encountered with somebody that thinks that they have a business and I feel like they just have a glorified hobby because they don't treat their company, they don't treat their business like a real business, like a real entrepreneur. So what I mean by hunger is I want to be talking to people that really want to grow their company,

even beyond what they think that they can because at the time when I first started I didn't ever ever imagine that I could be in this place right now I didn't even know what a certified conversion strategist was and yet I just still had this hunger that I could do more I could do better I could serve other people

and so that's what I mean by hunger that they want to grow their company they're authentic they may not know all the answers. They may not have the big huge budgets. I don't care. Some of our lead generation strategies start for $425 a month. So that's what I mean.

I just want that hunger, that passion, that they want to grow their companies and serve other people. Yeah. That's amazing. Really cool stuff. If somebody wanted to reach you, Nikki, what's the best way?

Telepathically. No. You may not get a response like that. Well, maybe I don't want a response, but I'm joking. They can go to my website, Dealey Media International, all spelled out. Dealey is D-E-A-L-E-A-L-E-Y Media International.com. And there they can find our contact information. I even put my extension on the front page of our website because I want to be approachable.

I don't want somebody to think. that or look at my success and think I'm not approachable or that I'm going to be really expensive. Yesterday, I also had coffee with somebody and our coffee wasn't 30 minutes. It was an hour. And I had no problem pouring into him for an hour because he's got that, that hunger, that passion, and I was happy to help him. And hopefully, you know, we will be able to continue to do business and I'll grow alongside them and be very proud of them along the way. That's wonderful. Nikki Dealey with Dealey Media International, it has been an absolute pleasure talking with you

on the podcast today. Thank you so much for your time. Oh, thank you for having me, Marco. And I look forward to getting to know you even better and seeing if I can do anything to serve you as well. Oh, I look forward to it as well. And I'm very confident that we, like we talked about earlier, that we're going to be doing a lot of cool stuff together.

So no question about it. Thank you again, Nikki. Really appreciate you. All right. Thank you. Bye-bye. And that does it, guys, for another episode of Business Innovators Radio. We will catch you here next time.

Thanks for listening to Business Innovators Radio. To hear all episodes featuring leading industry influencers and trendsetters, visit us online at Businessinnovators Radio.com today.