Charlie Nicks

Results Biography
The core of my reputation has always been built on the actual results my clients, customers and students obtained. When it comes to results—if that were the only measurement—I am the best there is anywhere at any price. A truly great coach can take yours and beat theirs or take theirs and beat yours—and that sums up my career. I can do that. Consistently, and in most any market.

My program work, my consulting work and my speaking work has been focused on obtaining specific results for 30 years.

I am hired by a company to get a specific result, sometimes in dollars, sometimes in units, sometimes in market share percentages. Students participating in classroom work, particularly those in PERSONAL BEST, start by getting focused on the specific production result to be reached over the course of the program. We set a goal. Always, always, always.

PERSONAL BEST, which has been taught since 1991 in 49 states and 5 Canadian provinces and has graduated more than 40,000 students has averaged 7.75 transactions (homes listed, homes sold) per student in 5 weeks since the very first group graduated.

Anyone who knows real estate knows these numbers exceed remarkable, they are clearly unsurpassed.

Creative Biography
Production increases are usually the result of three things; Focus; Creativity: Action. Leave any one out of the mix and you get nothing.

I have been fortunate over the course of my career to have developed some of the greatest tools in real estate—programs that started out as an "idea" in my brain found their way through an entire industry of more than 1,000,000 people.

A pretty cool accomplishment when you think about it.

Personal Life
I am married to a wonderful woman, Terri, we don't see one another as often as either of us would like but we work with it. I have a son, Blaine a great young man who recently spent a Medical Month in Haiti. I have a step daughter, now a young woman who is about to graduate from college. And I have a dog, "Littles", breed not quite identifiable, who I love very much.

I play a little golf, though since the recession—a little less than a little.

I go to church, probably not enough.

I write a lot, not always what I would like to be writing, but nonetheless, I write. I plan to write several business and marketing oriented books, an entirely different genre from the 13 historical novels I have written.

I like to catch a Colorado Rockies games each year, I like bet on college football with my son, I like to watch a couple of NASCAR races every year, I like Tiger when he's playing golf life Tiger, I love Christmas time, I like to work cattle on our family ranch in Montana, I enjoy watching political television, I like to eat good food and go to bed early.

My Point
I am a real person, not some "marketing group" from L.A. I have an amazing marketing mind, yet, I know when I look at a project whether or not it's something for my expertise—and when it's not, I decline.

I try to deliver my products and services quickly and completely with the utmost professional protocol, results and respect. I choose my Clients as carefully as they choose me, a good "match" is the first thing I try to determine—I don't enjoy working with stuffy people or stiff corporations who have trouble making choices or changes.

Admittedly, an eccentric Biography
(No lies, few exaggerations and all simple words)

My Early Career

I started selling while I was still in college. First insurance, which I hated, then real estate, which I loved and was good at. My education and entire career has been focused on advertising, marketing and direct sales. It was a natural fit. I'm lucky that way.

At age 27, because I had been a very whiz-bang sales guy, I was offered the lofty (for a 27 year old anyway) position of Vice President of Marketing for the world's largest real estate company—a position I immediately took and loved. I spent all day every day with the best two marketing minds perhaps ever in real estate. Art Bartlett and Marsh Fischer, the founders of Century 21 Real Estate. They took me under their wing, they were my mentors and I was a very attentive student.

These were the men who created the first radio ad ever broadcast in real estate, the colonial post for sale sign, car signs and the legendary Century 21 gold coat—and in those days, they set real estate on fire in a way no has since. During my time there we moved the company from 2,000 offices to 4,500 offices in the U.S. and opened master franchises in several foreign countries.

Business is business and several years later the company was sold to an airline, a new régime took over and I got the boot. Life isn't fair.

My first consulting Client was a friend who had a pretty good idea, a lousy name for it, no money, atrocious credit and a really big heart. At the time, I was broke and grateful to have any client, even a crummy one. Over 4 months together we packaged his program, designed his marketing and launched the company… all on a rented computer at Kinko's. That was in 1980.

30 years later that company has grown to be a multi-million dollar brand leading marketing software company with a world-wide clientele and I hardly ever have to rent time on a computer at Kinko's anymore. (It worked.)

Some of the biggest winners I brought to the real estate industry

1991 — PERSONAL BEST (now with more than 40,000 graduates in every state except Hawaii)
1991 — TeleFarming (a telemarketing program using an Economic Survey and generated thousands of buyers nationwide)
1994 — Variable Commission Menus (now used by more than 1,200 companies nationwide)
2003 — FSBO Tours (a more collaborative FSBO strategy)
2005 — Real Estate Gift Cards (A $1,000.00 custom designed, premium Gift Card that glues buyers & sellers)

The dumbest idea I brought to the real estate industry

2007— Seller Direct. The concept was pretty simple. Create a Premium FSBO Company. Market a sell-it-yourself package to home owners for $995.00, if their home didn't sell they could then list with a REALTOR®, affiliated with Seller Direct, and that agent would deduct the $995.00 they paid for the program initially from their commission. Everybody wins, no way to lose. Good idea. Didn't work. Flopped.

I never could figure out WHY it didn't work, to this day I think the entire strategy through probably once a week—should have worked. The advertising agency I worked for at the time had marketed the program to about 70 agents, many past customers, I am still personally repaying those agents for their participation—though I am under no legal obligation to refund this money the fact is, I designed the program.

Message here? Well, not all marketing strategies work. Even those that have no visible holes can sometimes fail. Any advertising agency, graphics arts person, media representative, online marketing rep or ad sales rep who talk "sure thing" are lying (or stupid). Advertising and marketing is a tricky business. And online marketing is the trickiest of all.

The other message? I try hard to do the right thing, the fair thing even when it's not much fun. I keep many men's secrets, I do marketing for hundreds of people, I do what I say I will do when I say I will do it and on those rare occasions when things can't be completed by a deadline, you will know why quickly and without having to ask. I need my clientele to adopt that same kind of respect in kind in our association. People need to respect one another before they can go forward successfully together. Respect is the beginning of team work and right now, team work is an essential.

The Bottom-line
I am fortunate to look back over the course of my career and point to hard numbers that we achieved, it's part
of the record and inarguably factual—they are the best numbers ever generated by a trainer, coach or consultant
in the real estate industry—more than 80% of the companies I have worked directly with have set all time
company production records during our association. I am very proud of that… partly because I have been able
to maintain those numbers through two recessions, including this one.

I am creatively well matched to today's real estate world, most recently in 2010. I have launched my
new SPEED LEADS Website—which are online now and generating high quality local leads at this moment.

A Body of Work that is both unconventional and remarkable
I think when you examine any long-standing career you would find it filled with successes and failures,
mine certainly has been. I've never actually counted them up but I think my successes out pace my loses.
Kidding, I'm like 7 and 1.

Like any business, giving talks, doing programs and training work has it's downside—in this case
travel—tons of travel. Hundreds of nights on the road led to two divorces and a serious drinking problem
early in my career… that was 15 years ago, I stopped drinking in 1999, I even have provision in my consulting
contract that excuses me from any corporate socializing.

In 1995, in negotiations with a publisher who was willing to release my first historical novel, "Buffalo Tears",
which later would become a Best Seller, I was asked to take a pen name, which I did. I choose the name
Charlie Nicks. I picked "Charlie" because it is part of my birth name. I picked "Nicks" because I always
liked Stevie Nicks, the singer. (I got to see her in concert in 2008, it was great.) Publisher's aren't fond
of trying to sell western historical novels written by a guy with a long, difficult to spell and impossible
to pronounce last German name. At any rate, in 1995 I got a new name.

Over the years I have been privileged to work with more than 1,000 corporate clients in 3 countries and
got to serve as the CEO of one of the most prominent advertising agencies in the West . I even recently achieved
the coveted "Diamond" status with Hilton Hotels.

Now, it's a new world, a new economy and things are going to be different.

It's not time to "go back to the basics" - the fact is, for the past 30 years, 70% of the people who got a real estate license failed—why would anyone go back to a system that sick? Instead, it's time to go forward creating the "new basics". That's my work. That's what I am about. If I can help you, please email charlienicks@msn.com. Thank you.