00:00:00
casual to audience so let's move up this
00:00:02
pyramid we're gonna now go from active
00:00:04
audience subscribers followers etc now
00:00:06
to a connected community and remember
00:00:08
this is where magic happens it's not
00:00:09
just you talking to them them talking to
00:00:11
you but it's them talking to each other
00:00:13
people actually have an identity as a
00:00:15
fan of something
00:00:16
right like what do they call like they
00:00:18
even have names for their groups right
00:00:19
like fans of taylor swift
00:00:21
are called
00:00:22
swifties fans of lady gaga or little
00:00:26
monsters beyonce's beehive uh fans of
00:00:28
justin bieber just weird right just
00:00:31
weird no i'm just kidding
00:00:33
he's got a little bit better uh
00:00:35
believers yes that's right
00:00:37
are you a belieber
00:00:38
no you said no i'm not a believer
00:00:43
so this idea of community is really
00:00:44
important i'm gonna give you some
00:00:45
strategies to help make people feel like
00:00:47
they belong because that's really what
00:00:48
we want we want people to okay they've
00:00:50
activated but now we need proof we need
00:00:52
to show that there's other people like
00:00:53
them there and we need to be relatable
00:00:55
in some way shape or form so i'm going
00:00:57
to take you back in time again to high
00:00:58
school and remember how i was an 11
00:01:00
pound 12 ounce baby
00:01:02
well i
00:01:03
at some point when i was eight or nine
00:01:04
just stopped growing like i just stopped
00:01:08
i was like the i like i was ready to
00:01:10
play football i was ready to play all
00:01:11
these things and all of a sudden all my
00:01:12
friends started growing and i didn't and
00:01:14
then i was like okay i'll just play
00:01:16
soccer
00:01:17
because i'm fast
00:01:18
well i stopped growing i didn't even
00:01:20
grow in high school just to give you
00:01:21
some perspective here's my senior photo
00:01:25
in high school
00:01:26
yes young pat flynn
00:01:28
to give you some perspective trumpet is
00:01:30
18 inches tall
00:01:36
yeah
00:01:37
now the band was nice because i found
00:01:38
people who were like me who were
00:01:40
different who were weird and in the band
00:01:42
the cool thing is you dress the same as
00:01:43
everybody else so that you can blend in
00:01:44
so this was like my refuge right
00:01:46
unfortunately a lot of my friends were
00:01:47
also really tall
00:01:49
i had the weird tall friends and we
00:01:50
liked they liked to play basketball and
00:01:52
they were nice so they asked me to play
00:01:53
basketball with them but you know what
00:01:55
to me this is just was my view the
00:01:57
entire time
00:01:58
so of course because i wasn't great at
00:02:00
basketball they were never passing me
00:02:02
the ball i was always last to get picked
00:02:04
so i never had a chance to shoot so even
00:02:06
though i was on the court with them even
00:02:07
though i was invited to play basketball
00:02:09
was i actually
00:02:11
getting any value there no i was
00:02:13
actually feeling worse about myself how
00:02:15
many of us just answered this in your
00:02:17
head are inviting people to the court
00:02:19
and never passing on the ball we're
00:02:22
never giving them a chance to shoot
00:02:24
we're just kind of dictating everything
00:02:26
to them and kind of sharing things
00:02:28
without getting them involved we want to
00:02:30
number one give people attention
00:02:33
right this is what people crave today
00:02:35
attention that's the new currency online
00:02:38
and then make them feel like they belong
00:02:40
so how might we do that let's start
00:02:41
small let's actually start simple let's
00:02:43
start by
00:02:44
you know this is an easy way to engage
00:02:46
your audience if you have a community or
00:02:47
facebook group linkedin twitter whatever
00:02:48
ask questions but i think we can take
00:02:50
that one step further don't just ask
00:02:53
questions ask for
00:02:55
the answer
00:02:57
what do i what do i mean by that well
00:02:58
there's a guy named steve spangler
00:03:01
awesome scientist he's very like kid
00:03:03
friendly my kids and i watch him all the
00:03:04
time he does he's really cool
00:03:05
experiments he was one of the first
00:03:07
people to upload content to youtube
00:03:09
after it transitioned from a dating app
00:03:11
i don't know if you knew that but it was
00:03:12
actually launched on
00:03:14
valentine's day i think 2004 2005 as a
00:03:16
dating app and they're like this isn't
00:03:18
working but we have this video
00:03:20
capability anyway he was one of the
00:03:21
first to create content and when he
00:03:23
created content on youtube it was
00:03:25
scientific it was educational and he'd
00:03:27
position his videos like this he would
00:03:28
share the experiment
00:03:29
for example he would suck in air from a
00:03:31
balloon
00:03:33
and then his voice would be really low
00:03:35
and he'd be like okay this is what
00:03:36
happened it's a sulfur hexafluoride
00:03:38
which is much denser than air so the
00:03:39
voice sounds like darth vader hi cool
00:03:41
leave a comment below tell me what you
00:03:42
think
00:03:43
and you would get the comments that you
00:03:45
would expect from a video like that cool
00:03:47
or first right there's always a first
00:03:50
cool where do i get that gas awesome
00:03:53
amazing
00:03:54
that's it
00:03:55
but then he was like i want to engage my
00:03:57
audience more i want this to be like a
00:03:58
community on youtube how do i do that so
00:04:01
he changed his positioning
00:04:03
now and you can even see this today he
00:04:05
does an experiment
00:04:07
and then he doesn't tell you how it
00:04:09
happened
00:04:10
he actually asks why do you think this
00:04:12
happened this way
00:04:14
and just that one little change asking
00:04:17
for the answer i mean he knows the
00:04:18
answer i mean obviously
00:04:20
but he's asking to see if anybody in the
00:04:22
audience knows it and you know what
00:04:23
happened there's like fights breaking
00:04:24
out in the comments sections people are
00:04:26
pulling out their physics books from
00:04:28
college and they're trying to become the
00:04:29
best comment and of course
00:04:31
he'll pin the best one those people feel
00:04:34
special and then everybody fights even
00:04:35
harder the next time this became so
00:04:37
popular that he was the first if not
00:04:40
maybe the first person to get asked to
00:04:42
do a youtube original series by youtube
00:04:45
because he was just getting so much
00:04:46
engagement from his videos simply
00:04:48
because he was asking for people's input
00:04:52
and then rewarding those or sharing
00:04:54
those who had the best answers so ask
00:04:56
for the answer every once in a while
00:04:57
this is a great way to teach and get
00:04:59
people involved and allow people to make
00:05:01
them like they're being heard because
00:05:02
they are
00:05:04
now we'll go from that company a more
00:05:06
personal brand to a big corporate brand
00:05:08
this is lego any lego fans
00:05:10
in the house yes lego is awesome lego i
00:05:12
don't know if you knew this but back in
00:05:14
2003 they were 800 million dollars in
00:05:17
debt
00:05:18
we almost lost lego
00:05:21
that might have helped my feet
00:05:24
but
00:05:25
not not a lot of the experiences that
00:05:26
i've had with my kids since then so
00:05:29
fast forward
00:05:31
they are now worth over 150 billion
00:05:34
that's more than mattel and hasbro
00:05:36
combined
00:05:38
um only second to i think like pokemon
00:05:40
or something like that
00:05:42
which is crazy so what did they do well
00:05:44
the reason they got bankrupt or almost
00:05:46
bankrupt was because they were just
00:05:47
turning out product after product after
00:05:49
product they were just
00:05:51
soaring off the manufacturing line and
00:05:53
they were trying to get them in front of
00:05:54
everybody but they weren't listening to
00:05:56
their fans so a new ceo came on board
00:05:58
and they started to change up
00:05:59
what products to create based on
00:06:02
fans and what they thought right so they
00:06:04
slowed down to production but they
00:06:06
increased their level of engagement with
00:06:07
their audience and that flipped the
00:06:09
script so there's a few things that they
00:06:10
did specifically co-creation was
00:06:12
something that they did co-creation
00:06:14
meaning they're not just creating these
00:06:15
things and sending them out like a lot
00:06:16
of us do i'm going to create this thing
00:06:17
and then i'm going to sell it to you
00:06:18
it's like hey let's create this thing
00:06:20
together this is how i create my online
00:06:21
courses now we usually do a beta group
00:06:23
we run people through but they're also
00:06:25
creating the course with me at the same
00:06:27
time they feel that a little bit extra
00:06:28
special and then at the end we have this
00:06:31
beautiful course that was created with
00:06:33
the actual people who the course was
00:06:34
built for and we have testimonials at
00:06:36
the end which is really cool their ceo
00:06:38
said you know we actively encourage our
00:06:40
fans to interact and suggest product
00:06:41
ideas
00:06:42
while we have 120 staff designers we
00:06:44
potentially have 120 000 volunteer
00:06:46
designers we can access outside the
00:06:48
community that's such a huge asset
00:06:50
your community is an asset that you can
00:06:52
use to better create the experience in
00:06:55
your brand and the products that you
00:06:56
create so what's an example of this from
00:06:58
lego lego created
00:07:00
ideas.lego.com where any of us you can
00:07:02
build something with the legos that you
00:07:04
have access to pop it onto this
00:07:06
community and the community
00:07:08
will vote for their favorites and the
00:07:09
ones who get over 10 000 supporters will
00:07:12
go through a process
00:07:13
to actually get manufactured by lego
00:07:16
as a real lego limited edition product
00:07:20
that's pretty sick
00:07:21
like that's legit
00:07:23
right so how might we do that in our
00:07:25
businesses we'll show you some examples
00:07:26
but as you might have noticed here
00:07:28
number four here was the delorean
00:07:31
i did not design that uh i i wish i did
00:07:34
but i had to support the designer
00:07:35
because that was so cool so back to the
00:07:36
future and lego i bought two one to
00:07:38
build and the other one you know to keep
00:07:40
safe
00:07:41
um cause that's what we collectors do
00:07:44
so i bought two and i was so happy to
00:07:45
support that and it made me feel closer
00:07:46
to the brand because they got a fan like
00:07:48
me to create something and reward them
00:07:50
too so here's some specific examples
00:07:51
that i've used in the past back when
00:07:53
facebook pages were a thing this is a
00:07:54
very simple framework that you could use
00:07:56
hey guys i'm creating a logo for my next
00:07:58
business or
00:07:59
a cover for it for my next book here are
00:08:01
two options which one do you like better
00:08:03
a or b this was the most engaged post
00:08:06
back then that i've ever had because
00:08:09
people are like oh you're giving me the
00:08:10
option to share what i like okay well
00:08:12
then i'll tell you and you get some good
00:08:13
data behind it too here's amy
00:08:14
porterfield amazing marketer one of the
00:08:16
smartest people i know
00:08:18
asking her audience hey
00:08:20
i need some font help
00:08:22
do we think that amy porterfield really
00:08:25
needs help with selecting the font for
00:08:27
who her newsletter cover no
00:08:30
but what is she doing here
00:08:32
she's getting people involved and
00:08:35
she's letting people know that a
00:08:36
newsletter is coming
00:08:38
that's pretty cool that's that's really
00:08:39
smart
00:08:40
all right so how else might we convert
00:08:42
people who are within our brands to
00:08:44
community well one of my favorite ways
00:08:46
to do this is to offer them a factory
00:08:49
tour
00:08:49
have you ever been on a brewery tour or
00:08:51
factory tour or chocolate tour of sorts
00:08:53
they're so fun right it's just like
00:08:55
krispy kreme you go into krispy kreme
00:08:56
and then your face is glued to that
00:08:57
glass wall because you see all the glaze
00:08:59
going over it's like wow that's how they
00:09:01
make those that's awesome and then they
00:09:02
give it to you and then
00:09:04
yeah things happen after that
00:09:07
well there are many ways that we could
00:09:08
do this online because the cool thing is
00:09:10
when you do this people feel like it's a
00:09:12
special moment moments that many other
00:09:14
people might not get and then what
00:09:16
happens when you have some experience
00:09:18
that other people don't what do we do in
00:09:20
this world today when we have an
00:09:22
experience like that
00:09:24
we share it we share the crap out of it
00:09:27
right and so you can do this with your
00:09:28
business i did this for over 10 years i
00:09:31
revealed my income reports on my
00:09:32
business sharing how much money i made
00:09:34
how much money i lost and where it all
00:09:36
came from what we were doing for the
00:09:37
future this was my version of opening up
00:09:39
the factory doors right and people
00:09:41
gravitated toward that
00:09:42
garyvee hired a guy named drock to
00:09:45
follow him all around to just film
00:09:47
garyvee's life his crazy life in new
00:09:50
york with vaynermedia and of course that
00:09:52
was his version of opening up the
00:09:53
factory doors and bringing more people
00:09:55
and of course now there's like there's
00:09:57
like super fans of gary all over the
00:09:59
place
00:10:01
so open up the factory doors connection
00:10:03
opportunities creating little events
00:10:05
online offline moments that your people
00:10:07
can come together to find each other
00:10:09
let's go back to lego if you actually go
00:10:11
to meetup.com and you type in a full
00:10:14
a-f-o-l does anybody know what that
00:10:16
means
00:10:17
a-f-o-l that stands for adult
00:10:20
fan of lego
00:10:22
jeff was talking about um
00:10:24
or john was talking about riches are in
00:10:25
the niches right i mean it's true
00:10:28
people like to gravitate toward each
00:10:30
other there's thousands of meetings
00:10:31
every year where adult fans they're like
00:10:34
we don't want kids here these are just
00:10:36
for adults and we're going to hang out
00:10:38
and talk about the next sets and
00:10:39
sometimes they have tournaments and all
00:10:40
this stuff don't ask me how i know that
00:10:44
then there's bigger events like t and c
00:10:46
which is great for building community
00:10:47
right how many connections have happened
00:10:49
since then brick fair in virginia
00:10:51
there's brit khan there is brick world
00:10:54
by the way these aren't put on by lego
00:10:57
these are put on by fans of lego and
00:10:58
what does lego do do they slam them down
00:11:00
and say hey you can't do that no they
00:11:02
support
00:11:04
them much like how you know tesla right
00:11:06
they're not like they don't they don't
00:11:08
hate on the people who are on youtube
00:11:10
using all their photos and images
00:11:11
they're like here's more because you
00:11:13
guys will pro that's why they don't
00:11:15
spend money on advertising because
00:11:16
everybody's advertising for tesla anyway
00:11:18
right
00:11:19
you can create little meetups if a
00:11:21
coffee shop like here in minnesota i
00:11:22
just invited people over we had coffee
00:11:24
or maybe you have more smaller but
00:11:25
strategic events that you can bring
00:11:27
people to little mastermind communities
00:11:29
and things like that or you can go
00:11:31
online and stream this is let go day in
00:11:32
2013 let go day is june 17th i celebrate
00:11:36
the day i was let go from my
00:11:37
architecture position i celebrated every
00:11:38
year
00:11:39
literally the best thing that's ever
00:11:40
happened i didn't know it at the time
00:11:42
but i celebrate it now i bring people in
00:11:44
i've also done bigger events this was in
00:11:45
san diego a couple years ago before
00:11:47
covid flynn con
00:11:49
and the community of people who follow
00:11:51
and are fans of myself and my brand come
00:11:53
together and we created a really nice
00:11:55
space for them now we just launched last
00:11:57
year spi pro this is our premium
00:11:59
membership community using a platform
00:12:01
called circle
00:12:02
full disclosure i'm an advisor for that
00:12:04
company so if you have any questions
00:12:04
about it let me know it's like a
00:12:06
facebook and slack
00:12:08
together
00:12:09
that you can control and it's awesome
00:12:11
and now there are 600 plus members in
00:12:13
here who are paying monthly or annually
00:12:15
to have access to
00:12:17
not content there's no there's not any
00:12:19
additional content or courses in here
00:12:21
it's access to each other
00:12:23
and little events where they get access
00:12:24
to myself and my team and once we start
00:12:27
to open up a little bit more we're going
00:12:29
to have local events where people in
00:12:30
certain areas can meet up with each
00:12:31
other and again as spi being the ones
00:12:33
who facilitate that and act as a filter
00:12:36
for people who can connect when they
00:12:37
meet each other man it really helps the
00:12:39
brand
00:12:40
and we're creating lifelong fans as a
00:12:42
result
00:12:43
here's another way to convert people
00:12:44
into a community put a spotlight on some
00:12:46
of your community members it's one of
00:12:47
the best strategies that you can do
00:12:49
if you have content anywhere put a
00:12:51
spotlight on your community this was
00:12:52
episode 275 of our podcast and this was
00:12:56
published during the same week as a
00:12:57
launch for our podcasting product right
00:13:00
so just keep that in mind this is all
00:13:01
timed your content should be timed with
00:13:03
your launches they shouldn't be separate
00:13:04
they should work together right they
00:13:05
should support each other so 275 i
00:13:08
invited three of my beta students for my
00:13:10
course because this was the first launch
00:13:11
that was happening but i wanted to
00:13:13
invite people on so i invited these
00:13:15
three people dr b dr shannon irvin and
00:13:17
then rob from disney travel secrets
00:13:20
these were three of my students who've
00:13:22
gone just literally have just gone
00:13:23
through the process of starting their
00:13:25
podcast and getting some success with it
00:13:27
so i invited them on and i didn't ask
00:13:28
them to talk about the course i asked
00:13:31
them questions like well why did you
00:13:33
want to start a podcast in the first
00:13:34
place
00:13:35
why didn't you before what was so hard
00:13:37
about it what were your challenges and
00:13:38
struggles
00:13:40
what's life like now that you have a
00:13:42
podcast and dr b for example who helps
00:13:44
people who have and live with hd adhd
00:13:48
said you know what pat this has changed
00:13:49
my life
00:13:50
i have a map behind me on my computer
00:13:52
and every time i find that i have a new
00:13:53
listener a new country i'm putting a pin
00:13:55
up there to show that i'm reaching that
00:13:56
part of the world and really helping
00:13:58
people and i was like wow that's that's
00:14:00
amazing
00:14:01
and she was talking about her like
00:14:02
technological struggles she was so
00:14:04
afraid
00:14:05
this is basically the best sales pitch
00:14:07
for my product you could ever ask for
00:14:08
right and she's in 33 different
00:14:10
countries actually and that was only a
00:14:12
couple weeks after she launched her show
00:14:13
it's probably over 100 now and she's
00:14:15
changing lives which is so awesome so
00:14:17
then we sold this course and we made
00:14:19
over 150 thousand dollars
00:14:22
as a direct result of the podcast
00:14:24
it was tracked
00:14:26
and i know this for sure because people
00:14:27
emailed me and said pat uh you better
00:14:29
thank dr b because she sold your course
00:14:32
for me
00:14:32
wow
00:14:34
so
00:14:34
although we might have a podcast or a
00:14:36
video channel we want to invite all
00:14:38
these big names on it
00:14:40
what about your students
00:14:41
highlight their customer journey that
00:14:44
hero story that is from a place of
00:14:46
struggle to now a place of success
00:14:50
and the common factor in all this is you
00:14:51
are the guy that made it happen right
00:14:53
you're not the hero of the story we've
00:14:54
all heard of donald miller storybrand
00:14:56
right you're not the hero you create the
00:14:58
heroes and then other people who want to
00:15:00
be heroes
00:15:02
go to the same guide
00:15:03
right you're obi-wan
00:15:05
you're not luke skywalker or princess
00:15:07
leia