MM#136--Jackie and the Super 1,000

Welcome to the theory to action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time to help you take action immediately, and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now, here's your host, David Kaiser.

Hello, I'm David and welcome back to another Mojo minute. Let's kick this Mojo minute off with a story. Pat, I needed to write this email to you to let you know just how much you've helped me. First of all, thank you for your LEED exam walkthrough. I passed my test with flying colors just a couple of weeks ago. And since then, I have been able to get a raise and a promotion at my firm. It was long overdue, but it was passing the exam that finally made it happen. Thanks to my raise my family and I are able to plan a trip this summer to California to visit Disneyland. I know you're in Southern California, would it be possible for us to take you out to dinner? If not, I understand. You don't even know me haha. But I just wanted to say thank you for what you do. I want to tell everyone in my office about you and your guide and make sure everyone who is studying for the exam gets it. It's the least I can do. Let me know about Disneyland in the summer. From your biggest fan, Jackie, your biggest fan. I had a fan for helping someone passed an exam. This didn't make any sense to me at first, but it was obvious. This wasn't just one of those, quote nice things to say to someone. Unquote. She actually wanted to take me out to dinner and even share my guide with her entire firm, again for helping a person pass an exam. Jackie and I swapped a few more emails. And unfortunately, the timing didn't work out for dinner meeting for a dinner meeting. But she represented my first encounter with a true superfan of my work. And I was able to experience the power that a single superfan could have in my business, my business grew to over six figures in earnings within a year after selling my first project product. 

And this was all before I'd even started to build an email list. Imagine a tribe of just 10 Jackies or 100, or maybe even 1000 a business can exponentially grow thanks to the power of a few. Which is why when it comes to building a successful brand, you don't need millions of fans like Taylor Swift or Dwayne The Rock Johnson. All you need to shoot for is your super 1000. And folks, that great story comes to us from Pat Flynn and his fantastic book, titled superfans the easy way to stand out, grow your tribe, and build a successful business. 

Now we covered Pat Flynn in our last Mojo minute with another of his books. Will it fly? That's good stuff there. But I thought we would also cover pat on this book because the world is changing. The revolution that created the internet is leading to a another revolution in small businesses. And let me say it's fascinating to watch. Now perhaps you don't think there is a drastic change going on in the world at all? The start over the last 15 years in technology? Or perhaps you don't think there's not a revolution at all happening in small businesses? Perhaps you would be right. Or perhaps you would be wrong. I would suggest if you don't believe that this revolution is happening, get to YouTube and take a look around. video gamers are now recording and displaying their talents, which is earning them enough money to sustain a living. Yes, I know crazy but true. Experts who are not teachers are teaching many, many subjects and building wholesale courses to learn a trade or a skill. For sure. The Internet and the power of the internet is changing how we live our lives. We will cover more about this and the Small Business Revolution which is coming. we will be covering this in later episodes. 

But let's get back to Pat's book right now because it's a fantastic book. And let's go to our opening quote.

His thesis was this if you had just 1000 true fans, which he defines as a fan, which he defines a fan, as someone that would buy anything you produce, and each of those true fans provided $100 in profit per year, on your art, your craft your work. Well, there's your six figure business right there. And here's Kelly's longer description of what true fans are and what they're willing to do out of love for you. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the Super Deluxe reissued high res boxset of your stuff, even though they have the RO low res version. They have a Google alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page, where your out of print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies, they buy the t shirt, and the mug and the hat. They can't wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans. Sounds a lot like a superfan huh. In fact, Kelly uses the term superfan interchangeably with true fan in his essay, unquote. 

Now this essay that Pat was referring to was written in 2008. It was written by a guy named Kevin Kelly, who was the senior editor at Wired Magazine, and I'll put a link in the show notes to it. It's a fascinating read. But many, many people in the last 15 years have referenced this essay as the root cause of them venturing out on their own and trying their business idea of inspiring them of encouraging them of putting into practice. This, their business and their game changing ideas. Now, if you really think about this makes sense. In my primary business, I call on small businesses each and every day. 80% of their business comes from their top 20 customers. And that's a fact that is almost universal across every industry. Now how many Pete actual people is that? I would guess it is probably less than 100 cars or 1000 customers. And I think if you extrapolate that across most industries, that number would probably be less than 1000. But there is some variance in the number of superfans that you need to have a successful business. But let's face it, in a world where most oftentimes quantity completely outweighs quality, then you know, in your heart of hearts, you don't need a million people to support your business, or your business idea, or to make your dreams become a reality. You just need some Jackie's.

 Let's close this Mojo minute with a thought experiment from Pat's book that drives home this exact point, quote, imagine you find $1 bill on the ground and you pick it up. And thankfully, it's not a prank. You put it in your pocket and carry on with your day. How many times during the rest of the day? are you likely to think about that dollar bill? How often are you going to pull it out? Or how often are you going to pull out that dollar bill? And show it to your friends and family? And if you were to lose that dollar bill, would it ruin your day? Would it change your life? Probably not. Now, you could argue with me and say Pat, a single dollar bill isn't life changing.

But if I found $10,000 On the ground, that would be a different story. I would think about it all day, I would share it with people who are close to me, I would feel terrible if it were suddenly taken away from me. Now that's a valid argument. But here's the truth. It's not the money itself that you think about. It's the possibilities of what the money could do for you. The experiences and the opportunities it could create for you the ability to unlock something new in your life. And that's the secret when it comes to creating superfans to create new experiences and help audience unlock unlock something new in their life. Not only will you be safe, not only will you be found, and not only will people understand the value you have to offer, but they'll feel different as a result they'll feel special and that in turn will help them become your superfans. When you become a super fan of something, it's not because of a person, a product, a name or a brand. You become a superfan because of how that person product or brand makes you feel. People don't become super fans, the moment they find you. They become super fans. Because of the magical moments you create for them over time. me repeat that. People don't become super fans, the moment they find you, they become super fans because of the magical moments you create for them over time. 

But how exactly do you create those moments? And what do they look like? That supersedes that superfan journey. And all the methods and details you'll need to create it is what we will be exploring in this book. 

Man is that not great nugget of wisdom. Especially if you're a business owner, fantastic nugget of wisdom. And Pat gets exactly right. People don't become super fans, the moment they find you. They become super fans because of those magical moments you create for them over time. So for all you business owners down there are out there be sure to write this down. It's a great nugget of wisdom. Just figured out that I'm a super fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers. By just about everything they put out. They have created so many magical moments for me over the course of my lifetime. That Yep, I'm probably in that superfan status. How about you? Are you a super fan of anything? I'm sure you are we are all super fans of much in our world. So today's Mojo minute, super fans are what make the world go round. Like I said, I'm a super fan of so many things. I'm super fan of certain writers. 

Again, Pat Flynn is one of those, the guys very good at what he does in the business space. And I will buy almost anything he writes and produces. But back to you. Do you have a small business idea that has been in your brain knocking around that you're just trying to materialize but you never get around to executing? Get that out into the world? Guess what the world is waiting to hear from you. In fact, I would say the world needs to hear from you. And your idea. Let's not get discouraged before we even have given it a chance to succeed or not. And I would suggest seek out those experts that have gone down this road before. And then let's find out if this business idea will fly or not. As we learned from Pat in our previous Mojo minute. There's some great advice there. And if you're already if you're already have a business and that business is flying, then your next goal is to build your tribe, your superfans, as we have just learned today. And you need to find your Jackies out there and build your superfans to 1000 or beyond. 

That's how this country can get back on its feet. One small business at a time, one person at a time. Finding their past passion and making magical moments for their superfans. So let's all keep creating and delivering that magical value the most especially Cheers to all you superfans out

thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at T Mojo academy.com where we have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on