Superfans

Metadata

• Author: Pat Flynn
• Full Title: Superfans

Highlights

People in this bucket are far from superfan status, and so at this early stage in the journey, your goal is to create a trigger that allows them to understand that they are indeed in the right place. That there’s something special for them. That they should convert and become a part of your active audience, so they’ll continue to come back. (Location 379)review

Your connected community is where the magic starts to happen in your brand. Not only are you able to communicate regularly and easily with this segment of your audience, but they are also having conversations with each other. Community members begin to identify with the group and one another so much that they may even create a name for themselves. This is where a majority of your comments, feedback, and survey results will come from, and when it comes to creating anything new, the community becomes an essential asset for seeding and validating new ideas (Location 386)review

Your active audience are your subscribers and followers. They’re the ones who have subscribed to your emails, who now follow you on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. They’re the people who have opted in—the ones who are interested in you and your brand, and have taken action to get more from it. (Location 458)review

To move people from casual to active, you need to create a moment of activation—something that connects them to you and makes them go, “Oh, that’s different, and I like it.” (Location 460)review

Building a strong, successful brand is about solving people’s problems. Step one is to know what those problems are, but step two, so often underrated and overlooked, is knowing exactly how those people describe their problems. The language they use should become the lyrics you use in your brand. (Location 494)review

Jay Abraham, a businessman and author responsible for developing a lot of direct response marketing strategies in the 1970s that we still use today, once said, “If you can define the problem better than your target customer, they will automatically assume you have the solution.” (Location 496)review

To help you narrow down your search for useful discussions, use this quick trick. In the search bar within the group, usually located in the sidebar, type in the following phrases to help you find the goods. Make sure to include quotation marks to get exact matches: “why is it” “when can I” “what are the” “what is the” “how come I” “need help” “please help” “I need” “help with” (Location 529)review - Note: For finding the questions your potential audience is asking

Simply ask people about their biggest challenge related to a specific topic, then follow up with them to learn more. If your business involves helping people succeed with their podcasts, maybe it’s asking about the biggest challenges they encounter when finding interview guests for their show. Then, reach out via email or direct message to the people who respond to ask follow-up questions. I think you’ll find people are more than happy to share a lot of valuable details that will help you create and refine products and services to address their pain points. (Location 544)review - Note: Where?

Even if you don’t have a huge audience, you can still take advantage of asking open-ended questions like this. For example, you could include a similar question in an email in the autoresponder series people receive after they subscribe to your list. You’ll get a continuous stream of answers as people join, and you can then follow up with them. (Location 558)review

Find ten people, and ask them to spend fifteen minutes talking to you about a problem or need they have related to your area of expertise or interest. (Location 564)review

Even after growing my own email list to 200,000 people, I still make an effort to have conversations with at least ten new subscribers every single month. (Location 565)review

So, back to breaking the ice. What’s the trick here? How do you actually implement this? It’s quite easy: Share stuff about yourself that you’d share with your friends. Say you’re reading a good book; is it worth sharing with your friends? Maybe. If that’s something you’d do, then share it with your audience! (Location 640)review

Step 1 Share something as simple as a small post on your favorite social media channel, or just a couple of seconds in a podcast or video you publish. It doesn’t have to be huge or overly produced. Step 2 Use your own voice, and don’t go beyond what you’re not comfortable sharing. You might just find groups of people in your audience who can totally relate! (Location 715)review

Give your audience a small, quick win. (Location 744)review

Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit, dedicates an entire chapter to the power of the small, quick win. As he states, “Small wins fuel transformative changes by leveraging tiny advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within reach.” (Location 744)review

When you have an email list, it’s a great idea to make sure the first email people get from you is full of value and delivers a quick win—ideally something they can do in less than five minutes. (Location 785)review

a tip to help content creators figure out what they should be talking about on their blog, podcast, or YouTube channel—a topic-inspiration quick win. The method involves going to Amazon, looking up books related to your topic, then using the free preview to examine the table of contents. You’re not copying the table of contents, but using it as inspiration for the kinds of content you should be creating and sharing with your audience. (Location 787)review

When you’re helping people do something—learn a skill, build a business, etc.—give them a one-stop shop to get started with that thing and build up some small, quick wins. A great way to do this is through a “getting started” page on your website. (Location 796)review

Step 1 Audit all the places in your brand where your audience first hears from you. First, identify the different ways and places people hear from you after initiating their relationship with you—the first email they receive or the getting started page on your website is a good place to start. Step 2 Ask, does what I share in this email or on this page provide the person with a quick win … or am I just hitting them with more information? Step 3 Brainstorm ways you could transform the content of that page or email to give the person a small, quick win. And if that email or page already contains guidance on getting a quick win, how could you make that win more impactful or quicker to achieve (or both)? (Location 808)review

There are two aspects to this strategy: painting a picture of the future of what life will be like if they DO take action with you, and what life will be like if they DON’T. (Location 835)review

You see, your audience won’t be buying your product or service—they’ll be buying the change that product or service offers them. They’ll be buying the way it will help them transform their lives. (Location 858)review

Gather at least five stories that show how what you teach or provide can help change people’s lives or businesses (or both!) for the better. Ask people to give you the before (what their life was like before they learned from you or worked with you), the after (what their life was like after doing so), and the what if (what life would be like if they hadn’t followed your advice). Step 2 Incorporate these stories into the messages you share with your audience. Think of five specific ways you can share these stories, whether that’s in a blog article or in a podcast episode (Location 889)review

Don’t leave anyone hanging. Follow up with everybody, especially when it’s their first interaction with your brand. (Location 912)review

In the early days, when a person commented on my blog, I’d reply to the comment, then I’d go to their website, read their latest article, and comment on the article. Then, I’d send them an email thanking them for the comment and complimenting them on their article, pointing out something specific I enjoyed about it. (Location 945)review

The crux of this strategy is to ask your audience for an answer—even if you already know it yourself. Now, you might be worried that by asking for an answer it may seem like you don’t know the answer yourself. That’s not true. You’re simply allowing your audience to talk amongst each other, which you may find to be valuable, not just for the reasons above, but because—guess what—your audience likely knows a thing or two! (Location 1064)review

This strategy is beautiful because it’s about letting people in and allowing them to tell part of the brand’s story. It’s like inviting your entire audience into your “writers’ room,” where they can share their opinions on where the story should go—and connect with each other in that process of storytelling. It also works really well when you ask people to answer a question that doesn’t have an obvious, “correct” answer. (Location 1080)review - Note: I could do this with an upcoming eInk video about which brand or size works best for you?

On your favorite social media account, ask a question that you already know the answer to. It can be related to your business, but it doesn’t have to be. If you can support the choice with an image or video, even better. (Location 1091)review

A little “font help”? Amy has people who do this kind of work for her, so why is she asking her audience for “font help”? Because, like I said, she’s one of the smartest people I know. Involving her audience in this decision isn’t about the final outcome. The decision on which email header to use isn’t going to change any lives or affect her business in a meaningful way. Instead, it’s about participation and communication. (Location 1130)review

Letting your audience help influence your business isn’t something new, but it’s something everyone can easily do. Have a YouTube channel? Ask your viewers what your next videos should be about, (Location 1146)review

They run the challenge just four times a year, which creates excitement and a sense of scarcity. People can’t access the challenge whenever they like, which makes it special—but they also know when it’ll come back around, which means they can anticipate and plan for it. (Location 1226)review

Brainstorm your challenge. Here are some questions to help get you thinking: What are activities related to your brand that will bring people together? How long should the challenge be? (My 100 Email Challenge is just three days. Some challenges can be less than an hour.) When will you host the challenge, and how frequently? Is it a one-time thing, or ongoing? (Location 1256)review

Step 2 Decide how you’ll deliver the challenge. Will it be through daily emails? Videos hosted on your website? Or instructions delivered in a series of daily messages or livestreams on social media? (Location 1261)review

Share something behind the curtain or behind the scenes that will be super interesting for people to know about how you and your team do what you do! (Location 1381)review

As a tip, whenever possible, make sure you do your best to call out people’s names. This creates a trigger that makes people feel instantly connected to you. (Location 1430)review

Gladwell goes on to say that when a Connector “looks out at the world … they don’t see the same world that the rest of us see. They see possibility … ” Connectors like Lois see value in every person they meet. They like everybody for who they are. They find real potential in everyone they encounter. (Location 1617)review

In general, people love to be highlighted, especially if they’re with a group of like-minded people who are sharing and enjoying the same experience. (Location 1676)review

Every once in a while, highlight some of the amazing things your community members are doing. (Location 1679)review

If you have customers, showcase them in some way using your product. But don’t make it about your product—make it about their experience: where they were before, and where they are now. Show examples of things that have happened to them since using your product. Instead of you selling your product, your customers will do it for you, but in a natural, organic, nonaggressive way. (Location 1697)review

When people see others like them succeeding using the ideas you teach, they’re more likely to see themselves and their own potential in a similar light. And they’re going to want to stick around and engage. (Location 1744)review

Generate a list of all the possible ways you can feature people from your community: blog posts, podcast interviews, video interviews, social media posts, email newsletter, etc. (Location 1765)review - Note:todo

When you give people something to root for, you give them a reason to stay connected. So be the team that brings people together. Open up your brand and your business to your audience. Ask them questions, and give them a forum to share their answers. Allow them to have a hand in the decisions you make in your business. Challenge them to reach their own goals, and to support each other along the way. (Location 1790)review

They had paperwork and seemed to discuss really important things, which was a sign for me to keep the chatter to a minimum. (That’s another tactic I used to get more tips: be just like your customer. If they talk to you a lot, talk to them a lot. If they’re short with words, then don’t talk more than you have to.) (Location 1872)review

you could send an email, or a direct message on Twitter or Instagram. But if you really want to make an impression and bring out someone’s inner superfan, send a video message. Videos, maybe more than any other kind of digital communication, are personal. They suggest more time and effort went into producing and sending them, and since there’s a real person with a voice and a face on the other end engaging with you and you alone, it can make a very powerful impression. (Location 1953)review

When a person sends me a message or has a question on Instagram, I’ll often send a quick video reply. It goes a long way, and people really appreciate it. (Location 1997)review

I also like to connect with ten of my new email subscribers each month. I’ll reach out to them and ask them to get on a fifteen-minute Skype call. And that’s really cool because it gives me a chance to talk one-on-one with someone who may be new to my brand and could have fresh ideas to share. Plus, it’s even better when we get to talk live and see each other’s face. And video makes that happen. (Location 2002)review

Get sleep. Sleep is when your body gets a chance to rest and your brain does some cleanup. The brain is actually highly active during parts of the sleep cycle, consolidating memories, processing emotions, and cleaning out waste products. Basically, if you don’t get enough sleep, your brain won’t work properly. (Location 2494)review

I believe the best and most lasting businesses are the ones that focus on serving first. Money is important, but guess what? At its best, money is simply an amazing byproduct of building a small but potent set of superfans. You don’t need millions of dollars, or millions of people following you to build a successful business and lead a successful life. You just need a core group of raving fans who will follow you wherever you go. (Location 2651)review

So go do some superfan-making things. Learn the names of your first ten email subscribers and send them an individual note thanking them for joining your list. (Location 2694)review