Thank you to the Parrotheads who shared their love of Jimmy Buffett.
It was interesting to me that only a handful of Parrotheads replied to share their raving fan stories, after my post the other day.
Dozens of you had the same sentiment as me.
We like Jimmy Buffett's music and his vibe, but we never attended a concert or invested in his albums (do we still call them albums?)
I first heard about the concept of herds of raving fans from Dan Kennedy.
He said you need to create a community of people who will devour every email and buy every product you create.
Did Jimmy Buffett pick up a guitar one day with the intention of creating a community of Parrotheads?
Or did he play music because he loved to play music, which attracted his raving fans?
Did the Grateful Dead play music because they wanted to create a community of Deadheads or did they just love smoking dope and jamming?
Did Taylor Swift start writing songs because she wanted to create a community of Swifties or does she love singing and entertaining?
What comes first, the chicken or the egg?
Do thought leaders create their community first and try to fill it?
Or do they just do what they love and attract like-minded raving fans?
In the early 2000s, I was sitting in a hotel conference room near O'hare Airport at 8 AM on a Sunday morning.
This was my first Dan Kennedy GKIC conference.
It was day four of a four-day conference, so we were braindead.
The room was pretty empty because most attendees had a very late night of drinking and carousing.
The scheduled speaker had to leave because of a family emergency.
The fill-in speaker was Perry Marshall.
I think this may have been Perry's first speaking engagement.
He was nervous and he didn't command the stage like he does today.
He was talking about a new way to advertise online.
It was called Google AdWords.
Perry scrolled through endless screenshots of Google Ads.
He sounded like an engineer explaining how nuclear fusion works.
Most of the audience lost interest and left to get breakfast.
I was hooked.
After his presentation, I introduced myself to Perry and told him I really enjoyed his presentation.
Little did I know this was the beginning of a twenty-year friendship.
I invested $97 in his Google AdWords eBook, which was his only offer at the time.
I devoured the eBook.
As Perry grew his business with courses and coaching, I was all in.
Over time, Perry attracted thousands of like-minded people who were a lot like me (a bunch of techie nerds who liked to experiment with online ads and liked to make money).
The community of Perry fans grew and eventually became known as Planet Perry.
Perry did what he loved and attracted raving fans.
Planet Perry evolved from Perry just being Perry.
Over the years, I've seen many people fail because they tried to create a herd of raving fans, but weren't authentic.
They tried to be the next Tony Robbins or the next Oprah.
They created a fake persona instead of being authentic.
They created an empty community hoping to fill it with raving fans.
It doesn't hurt to set an intention to create a herd of raving fans.
Just be you, do what you love, do it every day and you will attract your herd of raving fans.
Isn't that why you're reading this post today?
P.S. If you enjoy my content, please share it with a friend. I appreciate your support.
- Ted
