Ep. 215: Selling with Heart: How to Turn Sales into Service with Nicky Billou

What if the only thing standing between you and success was a mindset shift? According to entrepreneur Nicky Billou, 

“Without sales, there’s no business. And if you’re scared of sales, you’re scared of service.” 

In this episode, we dive into what it means to truly serve in business and how shifting your mindset can transform not only your revenue but also your impact.

Nicky’s journey is inspiring. From leaving Iran as a teenager to becoming a best-selling author and highly sought-after business coach, he shares how his father’s values of generosity and service shaped his approach to business. He reveals how entrepreneurs can overcome their fear of selling, connect with clients authentically, and build a business rooted in service rather than stress.

We Also Talked About:

• The life-changing mindset shift that took a client from making $2K a month to $20K
• How to stop seeing sales as “sales” and start seeing it as an act of love and service
• Why belief in your clients is the foundation of their success
• The four must-have qualities for any entrepreneur serious about growth
• How to attract your ideal clients using Nicky’s 11-channel strategy
• The critical difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it
• How Nicky’s personal struggles with business and life led him to coaching
• The importance of having a coach and being coachable in business growth

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Nicky’s website:  https://www.ecircleacademy.com/
• Nicky’s podcast:  https://www.thethoughtleaderrevolution.com/episodes
• Book:  Get Booked & Get Paid: How To Generate 6 Figures+ A Year, Through Podcast Guesting

Want regular access to tips, techniques, and advice from experts about growing your business? Sign up here.

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Trudy Rankin is the host of the Online Business Launchpad Podcast, Director of West Island Digital and the founder of the Online Business Lift-Off program.

Affiliate Disclaimer: If you click on links on this page and then make a purchase, I may earn a commission (at no extra cost to you).  I am a proud affiliate of these resources because I use them in my own life and business.

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

• Nicky’s website:  https://www.ecircleacademy.com/
• Nicky’s podcast:  https://www.thethoughtleaderrevolution.com/episodes
• Book:  Get Booked & Get Paid: How To Generate 6 Figures+ A Year, Through Podcast Guesting

TRANSCRIPT

Episode 215:  Selling with Heart: How to Turn Sales into Service with Nicky Billou

Trudy Rankin: [00:00:00] Does it feel like something is holding you back in your business? Maybe it’s a fear of selling or even self doubt that keeps you from reaching your potential. What if there were a way to break through that and find not just success, but the freedom to run your business and life on your terms? Today, I’m talking with Nicky Ballou, who is an inspiring entrepreneur and coach with a powerful story of resilience.

Nicky left Iran in his mid teens and had to learn how to navigate a new life in Canada where he was inspired by his father’s values of generosity and service. And now he channels that spirit into helping entrepreneurs conquer their fears, especially around selling and helping them find confidence in their businesses.

Nicky shares a memorable story about a client who went from struggling to make $2,000 a month to actually earning $20,000, all by shifting his mindset around service. Nicky’s journey from [00:01:00] immigrant to business mentor and author of 11 books makes him the perfect guest to talk about finding the courage to grow in ways you might not think possible.

His approach to sales as a service and his passion for what I call servant leadership, and he doesn’t, but that’s kind of what it is, are exactly what so many business owners need to hear. Welcome to the Online Business Launchpad podcast. I’m Trudy Rankin, and I bring you stories, tips, and advice from online entrepreneurs who have overcome problems and challenges to get to success, because if they’ve done it, then so can you.

My mission is simple. I want to help you solve the challenges you face as an online business owner, so that you can have more time and money for yourself and your family, and more choices in how you live your life.

Trudy Rankin: Welcome to the Online Business Launchpad podcast. I’m your host, [00:02:00] Trudy Rankin. And today I have with me, Nicky Billou. Nicky welcome to the podcast.

Nicky Billou: Trudy, thanks for having me. Great to be here. 

Trudy Rankin: It’s really going to be interesting talking with you today. I’m quite interested to hear what you have to say. Can you with, share with our listeners, just a little bit about yourself? Who you are, where you’re from, and what you do. 

Nicky Billou: Absolutely. Actually, I’m originally an immigrant from the Middle East.

I’m a Christian from Iran. When I was 11 years old, the Islamic Revolution took place in Iran, and my late father, God rest his soul, he could see the writing on the wall. This wasn’t going to be a place to raise a Christian family. He and my mom got together. They made a plan. And they hustled my two brothers and I out of Iran and moved us to where I now live eventually, which is Toronto in Canada.

Now, at the time I was a kid, I didn’t want to leave my home or my friends, but in retrospect, it was the single greatest thing mom and dad could have done for me and my [00:03:00] two brothers. They took us from a legacy of tyranny to a legacy of freedom. I believe inside every human breast beats the living heart of freedom.

Every man, every woman on this planet yearns to breathe free, to march to the tune of their own drummer, to chart their own course. And if you’re an entrepreneur, freedom needs to matter to you. Without freedom, you can’t have free expression. Without free expression, you can’t have free enterprise. Without free enterprise, you cannot have an entrepreneurial society, which allows you to be an entrepreneur and pursue your dreams.

And my late father was an entrepreneur. He’s the greatest man. I knew Trudy, if you met him, you would’ve loved him. He was the kind of man that if you were looking for work, he’d sit you down in his office. He’d call up all his buddies and he’d just browbeat them until one of ’em hired you. If you were trying to start a business, he’d sit you down, he’d listen to you, he’d give you his best advice.

He’d connect you with sources of capital and clients. And if you were trying to buy a car, a home, or an apartment, and you didn’t [00:04:00] have quite enough money, he’d top you up with a loan that he’d never let you pay back. People would always say to me when I tell them this story, Nicky, what are you talking about?

That sounds like it’s too good to be true. Nobody in real life is like that. I said there was at least one person I know who in real life was Ballou. And they go, okay, why would he do that? What’s in it for him? I said, ah, interesting question. He was a devout and committed Christian and he believed he’d been blessed by God and his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

And so he believed it was his duty to share those blessings with other people. But the second reason is he did it because he could. He was successful. He was rich. I wanted to be like my father. I wanted to be somebody who helped people. Growing up, my dad would always talk to me. I’m so lucky and blessed to have been his son.

And he’d say to me. Son, life is about people, not money. And I would [00:05:00] go, okay, dad. And he’d say, son, business is about people, not money. And I go, dad, how’s that work? He said son, think about it. Without people, there’s no need for money to do business. I go, oh, just imagine Trudy. Venn diagram, first circle is people, second circle is problems, third circle is profit.

The purpose of business is to solve problems for people for profit. That’s it. That’s the awe inspiring purpose of a business. And my father brought this to me. And so when I went into business, I wanted to help other entrepreneurs because I think they’re society’s greatest heroes. People like my father with big dreams who want to help the world.

And so I got into the business of serving entrepreneurs. And here’s what I noticed, a lot of [00:06:00] entrepreneurs, especially those that are under a million, two million a year in business, they’re really good at helping people. They’re not so good at business, especially sales and marketing. And in particular, sales scared them.

They don’t want to be pushy. They don’t want to be salesy. That’s what they didn’t want to do. So I decided I could help them with this because if you don’t go and get sales, you don’t have a business. Let’s be honest, without sales, there’s no business. If people think of sales as something that they’re scared of, it’s because they’re putting all the attention on themselves. I wonder if they’re going to like me, I wonder if they’re going to buy from me.

Where the attention needs to be on the other person. I wonder what problem they’re dealing with. I wonder what the consequences of that are. And when you take the attention off yourself and you put it where it belongs on the other person, sales isn’t sales anymore, it’s service, it’s love. [00:07:00] Just by teaching people how to do this effectively, I’ve helped them double, triple, quadruple their business.

And there was one client I had, he was a relationship coach, he’s an older fella, and he was really good at coaching people, but he sucked at business. Sucked is a technical business term. And he made 2, 000 a month on a good month. And I went with him to one of his sales conversations and the entire time he was nervous because he was focusing on himself.

So I taught him how to stop doing that and how to start putting the attention on the other person. Within a week, he made 8, 000 in sales. Within another week, he made another 6, 000 in sales. Within a month, he made 20, 000 in sales. He went from 2, 000 to 20, 000 just by taking his attention off of himself and putting the attention where it rightfully [00:08:00] belonged.

Trudy Rankin: So Nicky I’m curious because you’re talking about something that you personally that you’ve helped coach and there’s, I would really love to know a little bit more about that leap from an 11 year old who’s been moved to a new country. And I know what it’s like to move to a new country and have to readjust and fit in with the culture and then go from there to somebody who’s able to coach somebody into a profitable sort of business. And tell us a little bit more about that space between when you moved to your new country, Canada, and then into the time where you started your own first business. 

Nicky Billou: 11 was when the revolution happened. I didn’t, we didn’t leave Iran for several years. We didn’t get to Canada till I was 15.

So it was not a quick journey. And honestly being in a new country is absolutely sad and terrifying but [00:09:00] like I said at the time I hated it but over time I came to appreciate and love all the wonderful openness of Canadian society and over time I came to realize what an incredible thing my father had done for the family. That’s what took us from a legacy of tyranny to freedom.

And I grew up around a very phenomenal individual and my father, and I just wanted to be like him, and as I grew up, I knew that I was eventually going to be in business for myself. I worked for someone else for a while, within less than a decade, I was done with all that. And I got into business for myself, and it all came and stemmed from being my father’s son and wanting to be a man like him.

So what kind of a business did you start? I’d been in the coaching field from the beginning, like I said, I wanted to help other entrepreneurs. So I [00:10:00] got into the field of helping coaches. So I was in the health and fitness field, helping coach, helping entrepreneurs get in shape for a while. And then I transitioned into business coaching events workshops and all the stuff that I do now.

Trudy Rankin: It’s quite a journey. It’s quite a journey. And I wonder sometimes whether we as entrepreneurs don’t take enough time to look backwards and see how far we’ve come. From where we started and I find that really interesting. Yeah. So I wanna I wanna talk a little bit now about something that’s, that you haven’t referred to it in this term, but it’s something that I’ve heard referred to in this way over my years was as a chief information officer.

And in the work that I do now, and that’s called, something that I call it’s not just me calling it. It’s called servant leadership, where, as you say, you refer to it as taking the focus off of yourself, putting it on your customer, [00:11:00] trying to make sure that the customer’s first. Talk to us just a little bit more about that concept.

What is the concept of servant leadership mean to you in action? 

Nicky Billou: I don’t call it that. I’ve heard that term before, but for me, it’s caring about your fellow man and your fellow woman ahead of yourself. My father used to always say to me growing up, son, you need to believe in people.

That woman standing in front of you, that’s someone’s mother, that’s someone’s sister, that’s someone’s daughter. She’s a hero to somebody. And maybe someone just like you let her down in business or in life. It’s your job to restore her faith in humanity. And how do you do that? My father did it in the ways that I said to you.

He would help people. get jobs, get their [00:12:00] businesses going, buy homes, buy cars. He gave so much money away, but he got infinitely more back from God in the opportunities that came his way. And dad would say to me growing up, son, you need to believe in people. And I’d go, what do you mean by that dad? And he said, everybody needs somebody to believe in them.

You, me, everybody. There are days when our belief in ourselves wobbles. And your job, when someone’s in your life, whose belief in themselves has wobbled, is to believe in them, is to give them that little spark of belief, because that little spark will turn into a small fire, and then it’ll turn into a roaring fire of self belief, and, I do a lot in my work I coach people, I run workshops, I run group [00:13:00] programs, I host podcasts, I write books, I run organizations.

And all those are wonderful and great, but if people ask me what I do, my answer is really simple. I’m Napoleon Bilou’s son, and I’m a professional believer in people.

Trudy Rankin: I like that. I like that. I think that’s a really good description of what a coach should be, is a professional believer in people. I want to take it one step further, though, because, It’s one thing to believe deeply in that somebody can be more than they are or that they can do more than they are, but talk to us a little bit about how you actually bring that belief Or help those people bring that belief to life?

Nicky Billou: The best way to do that is through some stories, and I’ve got a couple of stories that I can tell you. So there was a there was a client of ours and it was a woman and she [00:14:00] was a functional medicine doctor. I’m gonna call her Dr. Vicki. And Dr. Vicki was very successful, but she had hit a ceiling to her success.

She made about six figures a year and she’d always wanted to do more, but then her,

her motivation took a quantum leap forward when she found out her father was dying of brain cancer, geoblastoma, and there was nothing she could do for him. And she was daddy’s girl. And she really was devastated by this. And here’s what she ended up telling us when she met us. She said, look, I’m really motivated to grow my business because I want to honor my [00:15:00] father, who was a successful entrepreneur.

By showing him he did a good job raising me, and I want to show him that I’m his daughter, and six months later he died, he passed away. Dr. Vicki came to us, and the first thing we did is we ran her through an exercise called the Ideal Client Exercise. And we drew another Venn diagram. I like Venn diagrams, right?

The first circle was clients I got the best results for. The second circle was clients I enjoyed working with the most. And the third circle was clients that were the easiest to do business with. So she made a list of all the people she got the best results for, like what the result was, the impact on her, the impact on the client.

The second list was all the clients she enjoyed working with the most. What was it that she enjoyed? Working with them so much for, so the qualities, the characteristics. So that was a deep exercise. And finally, clients who were easiest to do business [00:16:00] with. So who are the clients who were paid in full, paid on time, referred lots of clients, that sort of thing.

Here’s what ended up happening.

She discovered that there was a group of people that were in all three circles. And the demographic and psychographic profile is they were all women. They were all married, happily married, successful marriages, great kids, good careers, made lots of money, but Trudy, there was one thing that all these women had in common.

They were all over 45, 45, 50, 55, 60, that kind of age range. And there was one thing, now I’m a man, I don’t know a lot about this, but, maybe you can set me straight on this. All these women felt that they weren’t young and pretty and beautiful anymore. And it was really bothering them. You know what I mean?

Really bothering them. They felt overweight, they felt like they lacked energy, they felt they weren’t desirable, and it was really bothering them. And so Dr. Vicki came to me and said [00:17:00] Aging is inevitable. You’re going to get older. Getting older is inevitable. Excuse me.

You’re going to get older every year, but aging is optional. You can physiologically be, as healthy and fit in your fifties, sixties, seventies, as you were in your twenties and thirties. And so we helped her come up with a program called get your sexy back really good name. And she doubled her business in her first year.

She doubled it again in her second year. And she doubled it again in her third year with us. She was with us for three years, and I got to tell you, she went from six figures a year to six figures a month. And if you think about this, she didn’t believe she could do this before, but we believed in her. We showed her what to do and how to do it.

And us believing in her had her believe in us. And that virtuous circle of trust just kept spiraling upward.

And if someone’s listening to [00:18:00] this, the first thing you need is someone to believe in you. And then you need to reciprocate that belief back in them. And then you need to be coachable. You need to take the coaching because successful people, first of all, they’re decisive. They’re like, okay, I’m ready to act.

I’m decisive. I’m committed. Secondly they’re like really committed. They’re willing to be bad at something before they get good at it. Thirdly, they’re coachable and they believe in investing in coaching. And fourthly, they’re resourceful. They come up with the time and the energy and the money to make it all happen.

Dr. Vicki had all of these characteristics, and that’s what allowed her to take our coaching and turn it into a beautiful result for herself. 

Trudy Rankin: I want to swing back a little bit to what you’ve just said, because this is something that I’ve, that’s [00:19:00] come up before, I’ve heard a few people talk about it, but it tends to not get talked about a lot.

And that is that whole concept of being coachable. It comes up in the world of business. It also comes up in the world of corporations, when you’re an employee or you have employees. What does it mean to be coachable? 

Nicky Billou: That’s a good question. If you are in business for yourself, and you invest in hiring a coach, and you pay them what is likely going to be a goodly sum of money, anywhere from 10, 000 to up to Couple hundred thousand dollars.

Then it strikes me that you want to follow the advice they give you. Being coachable really means listening to the people that you’ve paid good money to, to give you [00:20:00] sound advice on how to grow your business.

I used to take on clients who weren’t coachable in the past. I don’t do that anymore. I won’t work with somebody if they’re not coachable. And if you want to succeed in anything, you need to be coachable. You need to do things differently than you’ve done them. Otherwise there’s no point.

Trudy Rankin: It’s interesting because in my experience, that, that whole, yes, you need to listen, You need to pay attention, but there’s also a, there’s also a bit of a mindset shift that has to go on in terms of people going from I am this person. I hear this advice. How do I get to where those, these people say they believe in me that I could be this, but I don’t see myself as that.

How do you help them with that mindset shift?

Nicky Billou: I think I answered the question, right? These are the four qualities that someone has to have before I would work with them and before they can be [00:21:00] successful. The decision to want to be successful has to come from you. It’s not going to come from anywhere else. Nobody can make that decision for you.

So I like decisive people. If I’m going to work with somebody, I want to know that they’re ready to act, to work. They’re ready to say yes to themselves and their dream really is what I’m looking for. And secondly, they got to be willing to understand that they’re going to be bad at it for a while, right?

And they’re going to have to do the work until they get good at it. And then thirdly, when I give them my coaching, I need to see them follow it. If they don’t follow my coaching they don’t get to work with me. I fire them. And then fourthly, you got to be resourceful. You got to come up with time, energy, and money.

Coaching programs cost money. You got to be ready to invest in yourself, which means come up with the financial resources. You got to be ready to invest time in yourself to do the work. You got to be ready to invest your passion, your energy. All of that is where resourcefulness comes in.[00:22:00] 

And it’s not my job to have those four qualities. It’s your job to have those four qualities. My job is simply to be there and to provide you with belief, love, caring, certainty, clarity and a commitment to you winning. That’s my job. There’s a role on both sides of the equation, but I’m not here to help everybody.

I can’t help everybody. And I don’t think you should be either inside your business. You should help people that want to be helped and that respect you and your wisdom. If they’re unwilling to respect you and your wisdom, it’s not going to work.

Trudy Rankin: Yes, that, that is very true. It’s one of the common, one of the common things that I hear people say when they first get started working with groups of people, they want to start helping people that are being through the process they’ve been [00:23:00] through. And they basically come back and say, I don’t think these people, I don’t think I can help these people because they’re not willing to do all of those things that you’ve just said.

And just out of sheer curiosity, because this is part of the way I look at the world and think about things, is that you’ve got the ability to help people, but you personally with your business, how do you tend to go out and attract those people to you? 

Nicky Billou: Interestingly enough one of the things I teach is there’s 11 channels of client attraction.

One of them is being a guest on other people’s podcast. It’s a very powerful channel for attracting. The other one is having your own podcast. Third one is speaking on stages. Fourth one is making calls into your warm network. Fifth one is having a book funnel. There’s a number of different channels that I [00:24:00] use, and I teach this in my course to people.

It’s not, it doesn’t matter what strategy you use. That’s less important. I know there’s gurus who say, oh no, this is the way, only this way. I don’t believe in that. What matters is how bad do you want change? How bad do you want change? That’s the most important thing you need to look at. In my own life, about 12, 13 years ago, I was going through a divorce and, my then wife, seemingly out of the blue, decides she didn’t want to be married anymore.

Maybe I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. I crashed. She kicked me out of the house. I was sleeping on my mother’s couch. Couldn’t see my kids. And I stopped earning. A friend of mine took pity on me, bought me a ticket to a conference and went to see a fellow speak. And he seemed to be speaking to me.

When he was [00:25:00] done speaking, I walked over to him, shook his hand and I told him, Hey, I’m interested in what you have to say. I think I, I need to hire you. I told him my story and he said sure. But my minimum fee is 5, 000 for five hours of my time. I was shocked. I’m like, Oh my God, I don’t have that kind of money.

He said, okay, I’ll give you some free coaching. I said, free coaching. Sounds great. I love it. He said, it doesn’t matter how much money you have. I said, wait up. You just told me you want 5, 000 from me. Of course it matters how much money you have. I said yeah. He said to me, I don’t need your money.

I got 20 people lined up to work with me. You need me. Okay. So it doesn’t matter how much money you have. What matters is how bad do you want change. You’re a grown ass man sleeping on your mother’s couch. And you can’t take care of your family. How much longer you want to put up with this? A day? A week? A month?

A year? A lifetime. Whoa. When he [00:26:00] said that, I’m like no, say let’s make an appointment. I’ll come see you in a couple of days. And I was on fire. I called a couple of people who I’d been talking to about working with me. I was a fitness trainer then. And I told him, Hey guys, I got good news. You’re fat, you need to lose weight, and I’m broke and I need money.

I’m going to give you the deal of a lifetime. Half price, but there’s a catch. You need to say yes now, you need to pay me now. Two guys said yes, they gave me a thousand dollars each. I was ecstatic. First money I’d made in a year. I went to see this guy, gave him the two thousand, and he said, that’s nice, but I said five thousand.

And I went, oh my god. So I said, Bill, his name was Bill. Bill, how many people have you told this story to over the years that you told me? He said, over the years. 30, 40. I said, wow, that’s a lot of people. He goes, yep. He said, besides me, whoever came back with any money. He said, Oh, you’re the first. I’m the first.[00:27:00] 

I said, all right, take my money. I’m going to sign a contract that I’ll pay you the balance in 30, 60 days, whatever the case may be. He said, okay. And I paid him back a day early. And in the next six months, I made six figures. The rest is history. And my question for you and your listener is how bad do you want change?

Because change is going to come from you. The motivation is yours. The actions are yours. Your coach is not responsible for getting your mindset right. You are. You are. Your coach is here to help you look at the things you don’t see, so you take action. But the you take action part, that’s the key.

Trudy Rankin: And I think that is a really good place to, to finish up today because that is, I love the way you [00:28:00] say that because that is. That is something that a lot of people just completely ignore. If you want something to do it differently, you actually do something about your situation. So that’s been fantastic.

Nicky, if people were interested in finding out more about you, or they were interested in potentially working with you, where would they go? 

Nicky Billou: Best place is to go to EastCircleAcademy. com forward slash appointment. That’s to book a call with me and we’ll take a deep dive into your business. We’ll look at what’s working, what’s not working, and we’ll provide you with a blueprint on how to fix what’s not working.

If you just want to kick a tire, if you’re not in decisive mode yet, Then just type Nicky Billou anywhere on the internet. I’m the only Nicky Billou in the world. You can find my podcast, you can [00:29:00] go buy my books on Amazon, you can watch my posts on social media.

Trudy Rankin: Okay, we’ll put those, we’ll put those links in the show notes so that people can find you. And, but just before we jump off, that, you saying that just reminded me, I did want to ask you about, about, you said books plural. How many books have you written? 

Nicky Billou: I’ve published 11. 

Trudy Rankin: Okay, that didn’t answer my question.

How many of you have written? 

Nicky Billou: Fourteen. 

Trudy Rankin: Okay, that’s interesting. That’s interesting because there, there are a lot of people out there who think they’ve got a book in them. Most of them don’t think they’ve got that many books in them. What helped you get to the place where you’ve got eleven published, that you’ve, you’ve written all of these books, you’ve got fourteen that you’ve written.

You’ve published 11. Are those other ones in the pipeline or are they ones that you’ve learned on? 

Nicky Billou: We’ll see. We’ll see, possibly. But I’m a book man. This isn’t a virtual background. This is my office. [00:30:00] I’ve got 5, 000 books. I’m a reader and I love to read and I love to write. So my story is not a typical story when it comes to books.

Trudy Rankin: So thank you so much for being on the podcast. And I’m, as I said, I’ll put the links in the show notes and we’ll add in a couple of links to your books just so that people can see what’s there. And yeah, thank you so much. 

Nicky Billou: Trudy, thanks for having me on the show. It’s been great. God bless you. 

Trudy Rankin: Thank you so much for listening in today. I hope Nicky’s stories and insights gave you a fresh perspective on what it means to grow and to serve through your business.

I loved hearing about his father’s influence and how he helped Nicky build his life and business on the foundation of helping others first. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave me a review. It helps me reach more people who need advice like Nicky’s on how to turn potential into action.

Thanks for joining me and I’ll [00:31:00] catch you in the next episode.