Adam Street's Blog
The spiritual and practical path to freedom to do your art

How to get Die-Hard fans

One of the legs of my Blockbuster Marketing framework is to put more of YOU in your marketing.  

A lot of people deny this.  They treat talking about themselves like niching down.  They fear showing more of who they are will narrow their audience too much.

If I talk about ME and my story, isn’t that narcissistic? 

Won’t people get tired of me?

Am I even that interesting?  

Yes.  You.  Are.

Keep in mind you can explain yourself in a very BORING way, but that’s not my point today.  My point is you’re taking the most unique thing about your marketing message and… 

You’re throwing it away. 

Megan Macedo said, “a lot of how things are talked about in the world of business ignores the fact that we’re human beings. There’s this switch that people flip where it’s like, “This is my personal life and this is my professional life.” It doesn’t work like that. Your brain is not divided in two.”

Everyone has different degrees of transparency and there’s things that you do and do not want to share with your audience.  And that’s fine. 

You’ll never see Seth Godin talk his family for example. Yet Wayne Dyer talked about his kids in his work all the time.  It’s totally up to you.

Just know the more transparent you become you will lose some people.  But on the other hand, you’re separating the wheat from the chaff.  

The more you peel away your “brand” like an onion the more die-hard fans you’ll have.

Cheryl Strayed said, “ One of the most important lessons I learned though the success of Wild is that if you take that risk, if you take chance, if you tell the truest, hardest, deepest story that you have within you, you’re not going to step into the light and find that you’re there alone.  You’re going to be surrounded by people who are there with you.”

If you want more die-hard fans… 

https://adamstreet.net

Adam

Storytelling advice from JK Rowling

Want a fast and easy way to tell better stories for your emails?  Start your story the opposite of how you will end it.  

That’s why in romantic comedies they start with a girl getting dumped by her long-time rich CEO boyfriend.  And to up the stakes she was probably tossed to the curb with a text message.  Or she found out her man was cheating on her with her best friend.

When this happens you know by end of the movie she’ll have found “true love” with some broke fun-spirited guitar player.

This is exactly what JK Rowling did to start Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. In the beginning, there’s no magic, no nuttin’.  She doesn’t even talk about Harry the star of the book!

She starts immediately with the Dursleys, Harry’s anti-magical boring aunt and uncle.

Her first line in the book is:

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”

[Which means Harry is abnormal….]

“The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.”

[Which means Harry is NOT a fine boy]

For Harry Potter to graduate into a world of magic and wonder he first must drudge in the opposite of that.  

Your message is the same way.  It needs contrast.

I talk about the contrast principle in my free PDF: 7 Mistakes Coaches and Course Creators Make Promoting Products and Services with E-mail.  

You can download it for free here:  https://adamstreet.net

Adam

Adding flair, Jennifer Anniston style

The movie Office Space has so many hilarious moments.  One of my favorite scenes is when Joanna (Jennifer Aniston) gets lectured by her manager Stan for not having enough “flair”.  

Flair is little buttons and trinkets on their uniform.  If you haven’t seen the movie, you can see the scene here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vdcw415OcQ  

Here’s how their conversation went down:

Stan, Chotchkie’s Manager : Fifteen is the minimum, okay? It’s up to you whether or not you just want to do the bare minimum or…

Joanna : Okay. So you… you want me to wear more?

Stan, Chotchkie’s Manager : People can get a cheeseburger anywhere, okay? They come to Chotchkie’s for the atmosphere and the attitude. Okay? That’s what the flair’s about. It’s about fun. 

Joanna : Yeah. Okay. So more then, yeah?

Yaas, more flair Joanna!  

And the same is true for you too!  People can get your “hamburger” from anywhere.  The flair you bring to the party is what sets you apart.  

Jesse Cole who owns a minor league baseball team and more than one yellow tuxedo (cause you’d think one would be enough), said this in his book Find Your Yellow Tux.

“We have a responsibility to entertain our customers.  If you’re all about selling and nothing more, you’re going to lose out eventually.”  

Think about this…

How can you add more flair to your emails?  To the atmosphere you create?

Your processes…and your procedures?

To add more flair to your email  marketing subscribe to my daily email tips at https://adamstreet.net .

Adam “flair” Street

Lean on Pete

Sales.  We all need to have them.

But make no mistake, your clients are buying YOU just as much as they are buying your product or service.

That’s why it’s so important to use a Blockbuster strategy and add some entertainment to your marketing.  It’s the glue that creates the emotional connection between you and your tribe.  

Think of it this way.  There’s two sides to every coin.

Look at Spider-man.  He wouldn’t be as interesting without Peter Parker.  If people in New York had a problem and Spidey swooped in, saved them, and swung away.  It wouldn’t be the same.  

There’s tons of supers in New York.  Spidey would blend in like cough syrup in the cold and flue section at Walmart.  But he goes back to being Peter Parker and Pete is…  Well, flawed.

Stan Lee said this about the wall crawler:

“He’s the one who’s most like me — nothing ever turns out 100 percent OK; he’s got a lot of problems, and he does things wrong, and I can relate to that.” 

We all can.  Super and spectacular on one side, awkward teen who can’t even talk to a girl on the other.  That is contrast.  Contrast is interesting.  Contrast sells.

Chadwick Boseman said this about playing T’Challa and the Black Panther movie.

“What does this do for the world?  Is it actually valuable in the political climate, in the social climate we have?  And I have to say, yes!  Not because it makes people escape, but I think when it’s done right, it gives people hope.” 

And that’s true for you too.  When you create a great experience you give people hope.  Whether they buy from you or not.

To learn how to add Blockbuster strategies to your marketing and products join my free daily email at https://adamstreet.net

Adam

Mamby Pamby Land: Fun to visit but don’t stay there

I read a post the other day by an info marketer who struggled with getting leads.  Just about any business on Earth can relate to this problem, right? 

She said maybe she needed to create free weekly content, start a podcast, or maybe her team could do more on social media .

This gal is an accomplished info-marketer.  So I was surprised she never mentioned e-mail marketing.  Which is odd because e-mail still blows the socks off most digital sales methods.  Especially over time.   So I asked her about it.

She said, “I already crush at that.”  

Even John Holmes would call that answer cocky…

After her response, I was out.  Everyone else kept talking about SEO, funnels, limited time offers (LTO), and all the normal business paradigm stuff.

She may be “crushing” her e-mail marketing but I say she’s living in Mamby Pamby Land.  You know why?  Because she is NOT building relationships with her e-mail list if her sales are sucking wind.

She’s focused on finding a lot of people and saying YOU need to buy this before the sale price ends or before this bonus goes away.  And before you know it you’re back head-hunting for more people.

You can run a business like this but it’s exhausting.  Us artist paradigm types are different.  

And when you use a Blockbuster approach and entertain and teach with your e-mails a strange phenomenon happens.  Your readers actually give a shit about you and read what you say.  

Maybe they buy maybe they don’t but they stay on your list.  And the longer people stay on your list the more they usually buy.  

I may not have a list the size of Tony Robbins’ but I can spot an e-mail marketing problem.  I’m not a nutritionist either but I can tell you eating  a box of brownies will make you fat.

I just call them like I see em.

If you’d like to know how I could help you attract super high-quality, clients who are fans of your work holla at me:  https://adamstreet.net/contact-me/

Adam