“Superfans” by Pat Flynn is a book dedicated to growing your fanbase. Not only is it about building your fanbase, but also about building Superfans. A Superfan is someone who will do almost anything for you, mainly because they love you and your work. I personally am a Superfan of Pokemon. I will buy anything remotely looking like a Pokemon. Now that I am in Japan, my Pokefever is even worse. Pat Flynn guides the reader on how to slowly building a Superfan. Pat has 4 distinct layers of fandom, with the top being a Superfan. Since I am in the process of growing a community, this book was super helpful. A lot of these ideas seem natural to me. Mainly because as a senior Marine leader, I have had to use some of these tactics to make younger Marines a Superfan of some units. Many of his tactics were new to me, and I took notes about what some of my future plans were going to be. This book is good to read before you start on your journey to build a community. It is even better to read after you start to build your community. I came up with multiple ideas to try out on my own audience. This book is highly recommended by Military Family Investing! With that, let’s get into my 5 takeaways.
1) If you only had 1000 “true fans” and each fan spent $100 a year on your products or services, you would make $100,000 that year. The idea here is that you don’t need a super huge audience to build a nice income for yourself. Work hard on enriching each person’s life.
2) To create superfans you need to create new experiences and help audiences unlock something new in their life. This seems like common sense, but I have seen people only try to extract money from their community. If you focus on the needs of the community, the money will follow.
3) Building a strong successful brand is about solving people’s problems. It’s not about upselling people things they do not need. Focus on the community. The money will follow.
4) Make as many communications with fans as possible. In order to grow Superfans, you have to take the time to respond to people’s comments, blog posts, and ideas. I know this to be true because I have commented on 4 people’s YouTube videos (1 Pokemon player, and 3 financial people). They have all responded to me. It truly makes me love their work even more. Now I watch every video as soon as it comes out.
5) There are 3 types of people in the world: the Mavens, the Connectors, and the Salespeople. In order to build a community, you have to focus on being a Connector or someone who makes people feel special and also connects people to one another. For example, I may know that Miguel is a great soccer player who would love to build a video course on this topic. I also may know that Dave is a great video editor who is between jobs. I would try to connect those two together and see if they can create a shared vision.
This book is a must-read. I believe that for anyone who is even remotely planning to build a business, this book will greatly assist them. These same tactics can be used for brick and mortar stores as well. The main takeaway is that building a community, as anything else worth doing, takes time. It is a person by person growth scenario. It isn’t about getting thousands or millions of followers. It is about enriching people’s lives. If you can do that, you will have an ever-permanent fanbase. Highly recommended!
This link is to a physical product. The link above is to the digital book. Sorry. I get no credit for digital product links.
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Disclosure: I am not a financial advisor or money manager, and any knowledge is given as guidance and not direct actionable investment advice. Please research any investment vehicles that are being considered. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
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