Latest / What is Business Development? / Episode 160: “The Fandom Playbook” with David Meerman Scott

Transcript

Episode 160: “The Fandom Playbook” with David Meerman Scott · What is Business Development?

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Business Development Podcast, brought to you by
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the Global Business Development Association, delivering the strategies and tactics
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to boost your career and corporate growth.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Hello, BD pros, and welcome to the BD Podcast, the
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: official podcast of the Global Business Development Association. And today,
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: we're here with our guest author, David Meerman-Scott. And we're
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: going to talk about his great new book. But folks,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: let me ask you this question real quickly. You know,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: have you ever noticed that some brands, they attract word
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: of mouth buzz and radical devotion around products as every
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: day as car insurance, B2B software and underwear? Yeah. Well,
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: they have one trick. They have one secret. And it's
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: they embody the most powerful marketing force in the world.
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  Speaker 2: It's Die Hard Fans, and we're going to get into
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: that real soon. But let me tell you what I'm
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: a big fan about. That's the business development body of knowledge.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: And you can get your copy on Amazon. This is
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: the universal guide to our profession. And once you read
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: the book, you can then take the business development professional certification.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Just go to our website at gbdassociation.org to learn more.
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  Speaker 2: And let me tell you some things about David's newest book.
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  Speaker 2: It's called the fandom playbook and it's how to create
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: passionate fans in a world of online chaos. And I'm
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  Speaker 2: sure a lot of you listening to the show really
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: would love to hear more about some of the top
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: takeaways from his book. And we're going to do that.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: But first let me tell you a little bit about David. Um,
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  Speaker 2: David Meerman Scott spotted the online marketing revolution in its
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  Speaker 2: infancy and wrote multiple books about it, including the new
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: rules of marketing and PR with more than 500,000 copies
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  Speaker 2: sold in 29 languages from Albanian to Vietnamese. And some
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  Speaker 2: of his books are really fascinating books. One's about selling
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: the moon, how the space program really sold that program.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: And one of my favorites is marketing lessons from the
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  Speaker 2: band The Grateful Dead. So he's also an advisor to
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  Speaker 2: emerging companies. He serves on the HubSpot advisory board and
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  Speaker 2: delivers keynotes and masterclasses around the world. Now, a little
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  Speaker 2: bit about the book. It's an action-ready guide for anyone
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  Speaker 2: who wants to grow a business by building genuine human connections.
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  Speaker 2: As AI-generated content floods every channel and social media algorithms
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  Speaker 2: fatigue all of us, something powerful has become rare, and
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  Speaker 2: that's people who truly belong to what you're building. The
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  Speaker 2: Fandom Playbook delivers proven strategies to create exactly that. So
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  Speaker 2: with no further ado, let's bring our guest author to
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  Speaker 2: the show. David, welcome to the show.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, Tony. Thanks so much for having me on. It's
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  Speaker 3: great to be here.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's such a treat to have you here, David,
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  Speaker 2: such an esteemed author with so many wonderful books, and
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: it's great to have you on board. David, I always
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: like to start the podcast with origin stories. How did
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: you get into the world of marketing, and why did
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  Speaker 2: you write the book?
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  Speaker 3: I got into marketing because I wasn't that great a salesperson.
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  Speaker 3: My first job was on a bond trading desk. I
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  Speaker 3: was terrible at that, and then I moved into sales.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: for economic consulting company. And I was okay at it,
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  Speaker 3: but it turned out I was pretty good at marketing.
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  Speaker 3: And they sent me to Tokyo to start a Tokyo office.
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  Speaker 3: And it was really just around marketing. I called myself
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: a salesperson, but I was really doing marketing. And I
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: worked for a number of different technology companies for the
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  Speaker 3: first 15 years of my career. Got fired three different times.
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  Speaker 3: I figured the third time I got fired, I might
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  Speaker 3: as well go out on my own. That was in 2002.
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  Speaker 3: And since then I've written and spoken about marketing and
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  Speaker 3: pioneered a bunch of ideas around things like social media marketing.
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  Speaker 3: I invented the concept of newsjacking and now I'm deep, deep,
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  Speaker 3: deep into this idea of fandom. I've got 13 books altogether.
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  Speaker 3: They're in 30 languages and I've sold nearly a million copies.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Wow. I love that story, David. And it gives hope
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  Speaker 2: to so many folks that are starting off in business
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  Speaker 2: development to Try, try and try again. And eventually you
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  Speaker 2: achieve great success like David has. And I really like
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  Speaker 2: the fact that your experience spans both marketing and sales.
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  Speaker 2: I like to say that business developers, we fill that
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  Speaker 2: gap between marketing and sales. And what I really like
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  Speaker 2: about your book is that it focuses on this concept
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  Speaker 2: of creating raving fans that And it really plays into
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  Speaker 2: the textbook definition of business development, which is customer and
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  Speaker 2: community advocacy that creates corporate growth. And you might enjoy this.
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  Speaker 2: That's a double entendre. The obvious thing is you sell
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  Speaker 2: and you convert folks from prospects into customers because you
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  Speaker 2: advocate for them along the way in the customer journey.
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  Speaker 2: But the flip side of that is if they really
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  Speaker 2: are grateful for the value that you delivered and you
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  Speaker 2: did a great job, they're going to be your raving fans.
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  Speaker 2: They will advocate for you. And so I'm really excited
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  Speaker 2: to jump into some of the key takeaways from your book.
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  Speaker 2: And for folks listening in here, I'm showing a picture
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  Speaker 2: of the cover here. It's called The Fandom Playbook, How
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  Speaker 2: to Create Passionate Fans in a World of Online Chaos.
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  Speaker 2: And it kind of comes from your pre-existing book called Fanocracy.
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  Speaker 2: And so can you tell us a little bit about
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  Speaker 2: how that plays into one another?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, of course. And as you said, I do love
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  Speaker 3: the idea that business development is a combination of both
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  Speaker 3: marketing and sales, which I've been doing my entire career.
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  Speaker 3: So it's great that we're having this conversation, Tony. I
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  Speaker 3: became obsessed with the idea of fandom about 20 years ago.
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  Speaker 3: And I've written four books on the idea of fandom.
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  Speaker 3: I wrote marketing lessons from the Grateful Dead with my buddy,
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  Speaker 3: Brian Halligan, he's the co-founder of HubSpot, and Bill Walton,
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  Speaker 3: the NBA Basketball Hall of Famer, who we sadly lost
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  Speaker 3: a couple of years ago. I also wrote a book
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  Speaker 3: called Marketing the Moon, which is about the marketing aspects
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  Speaker 3: of the Apollo Lunar Program. And both of those books
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  Speaker 3: are really about specific case studies around fandom. How did
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  Speaker 3: the United States spend 2% of our national budget for
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  Speaker 3: a decade to put 12 humans on the surface of
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  Speaker 3: the moon? Well, it required marketing to get us to
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  Speaker 3: spend that money. Same thing with the Grateful Dead. How
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  Speaker 3: did they become one of the most iconic bands in history,
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  Speaker 3: selling more concert tickets than anybody else during the 80s
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  Speaker 3: and 90s? It's because they built fans. And so I
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  Speaker 3: wanted to study this idea of fandom. And it turns
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  Speaker 3: out there's an underlying layer that not many people are
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  Speaker 3: talking about, which I dug in deep. And that's the
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  Speaker 3: idea of neuroscience. It's how and why we become a
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  Speaker 3: fan of something. And it actually goes back tens of
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  Speaker 3: thousands of years. It's a survival technique that all of
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  Speaker 3: us humans are hardwired to want to be a part
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  Speaker 3: of a tribe of like-minded people. Because when we're with
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  Speaker 3: our tribe of like-minded people, we feel safe and we
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  Speaker 3: feel comfortable and we feel secure. Much like 10,000 years ago,
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  Speaker 3: you're around the campfire near the cave. And when you
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  Speaker 3: are with your tribe, you are safe. But if you're
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  Speaker 3: off by yourself, another tribe could could come and try
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  Speaker 3: to attack you or animals could come and try to
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  Speaker 3: attack you. And you are safe when you're with your tribe.
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  Speaker 3: So the idea of fandom is how can you build
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  Speaker 3: a tribe of like minded people that can support one
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  Speaker 3: another and then ultimately will love to do business with you,
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  Speaker 3: will continue to do business with you, even if a
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  Speaker 3: lower cost competitor comes along. And we'll share that they
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  Speaker 3: love to do business with you, building a referral network.
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  Speaker 3: So the roots are in neuroscience. And the new book,
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  Speaker 3: The Fandom Playbook, that you were kind enough to talk about,
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  Speaker 3: is nine individual plays. You don't have to do all
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  Speaker 3: of them. They're individually chosen. You might do one, two,
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  Speaker 3: or three, or however many you like. And those plays
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  Speaker 3: are individual things that you can use to build fans.
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  Speaker 2: All right, great. Well, let's jump into some of the
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  Speaker 2: key tactics or the plays. I think we're going to
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  Speaker 2: talk about the first three plays from your book. So
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  Speaker 2: let's talk about play number one.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, cool. They're not in the order of the book,
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  Speaker 3: but the ones that I think are most important for
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  Speaker 3: this discussion for business development. Most important one that I
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  Speaker 3: can think of is so important, yet so few people
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  Speaker 3: do it in business development. And that is show yourself
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  Speaker 3: as a real, full, well-rounded person. So here's what I've noticed,
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  Speaker 3: 20 years of research. The vast majority of business development
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  Speaker 3: people have built a wall, a brick wall between their
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  Speaker 3: personal self and their business self. So in their personal life,
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  Speaker 3: they have things they love. Maybe they love a particular
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  Speaker 3: sports team. Maybe they love to go fly fishing. Maybe
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  Speaker 3: they love vintage Ferraris. Maybe they're a surfer like I am.
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  Speaker 3: And they share those loves with their friends. They share
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  Speaker 3: it on Facebook, but then they're very, very buttoned down
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  Speaker 3: and professional over here in their business life. And they
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  Speaker 3: talk on LinkedIn. in these very, very formal ways. I
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  Speaker 3: say break down those barriers and show us who you
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  Speaker 3: really are. And in fact, as I was researching these
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  Speaker 3: ideas of how to grow fans, it turns out that
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  Speaker 3: personal passion is one of the best ways that you
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  Speaker 3: can build fandom. So I'll give you two real quick examples.
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  Speaker 3: I mentioned briefly just a moment ago that I wrote
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  Speaker 3: marketing lessons from the Grateful Dead with my buddy, Brian Halligan.
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  Speaker 3: Brian co-founded HubSpot. I joined the HubSpot advisory board way
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  Speaker 3: back in 2007, 19 years ago. And when I joined,
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  Speaker 3: HubSpot had eight employees and they had something like a
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  Speaker 3: quarter million dollars in revenue And we've grown that. I'm
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  Speaker 3: still on the advisory board. In fact, tomorrow I'm speaking
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  Speaker 3: at their event. Tomorrow, as we're recording this, I'm speaking
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  Speaker 3: at their event. And now they have 8,000 employees, over
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  Speaker 3: $ 3 billion in revenue, and they have millions and millions
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  Speaker 3: of fans. So Brian, the CEO, is a huge fan
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  Speaker 3: of the Grateful Dead. So we wrote this book, Marketing
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  Speaker 3: Lessons from the Grateful Dead, together. And Brian... shares his
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  Speaker 3: love of the Grateful Dead in his role as the
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  Speaker 3: co-founder of HubSpot and his role as a partner at
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  Speaker 3: several different venture capital firms. And he actually teaches a
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  Speaker 3: course at MIT, a class at MIT around the Grateful
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  Speaker 3: Dead's marketing. And many people in HubSpot said, don't do that, Brian.
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  Speaker 3: That's not professional to share your love of the Grateful
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  Speaker 3: Dead And he said, hey, I'm the CEO. I can
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  Speaker 3: do whatever I want. But it turned out to be
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  Speaker 3: a great thing because many, many people know Brian for
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  Speaker 3: his love of the Grateful Dead. It makes him well-rounded.
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  Speaker 3: He's not just a technology entrepreneur. He's also a fan
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  Speaker 3: of this particular rock band. That's one example. Here's another example,
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  Speaker 3: a little bit different. I speak at Tony Robbins Business
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  Speaker 3: Mastery events around the world. And I had a chance
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  Speaker 3: to meet Dr. John Marashi.
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  Speaker 2: Dr.
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  Speaker 3: Marashi is a dentist in Southern California. A little bit
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  Speaker 3: of business development there and being a dentist because you
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: always have to get new patients. And Dr. Marashi said, David,
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  Speaker 3: I loved your talk about fandom, but I don't have fans.
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  Speaker 3: I'm a dentist. And I said, well, tell me a
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  Speaker 3: little bit about your business, Dr. Marashi. And he said,
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: you know, there's tens of thousands of dentists in Southern California.
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  Speaker 3: It's really hard to choose. We all look the same.
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  Speaker 3: Our websites look the same. And it's tough to compete.
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  Speaker 3: And I said, well, what do you love? And he
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  Speaker 3: just came alive because I asked him what he loves.
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  Speaker 3: He said, I love skateboarding. So I said, well, that's cool.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe you should talk about skateboarding as it relates to
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  Speaker 3: your dental practice. And he sort of scratched his head
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  Speaker 3: and walked away. And a year later, he contacted me
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  Speaker 3: and said, David, this has been transformational for my business.
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  Speaker 3: He put skateboards on the wall of his dental practice.
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  Speaker 3: He has pictures on his practice website of him skateboarding.
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  Speaker 3: He created an Instagram that now has over 50,000 followers
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  Speaker 3: where he talks about dentistry and he talks about skateboarding.
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  Speaker 3: So now he's no longer one of 10,000 dentists in
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  Speaker 3: Southern California. Now he's the skateboarding dentist. And he attracts
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  Speaker 3: more patients that way, not people who are who are
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  Speaker 3: other skateboard fans necessarily, but people who are attracted to
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  Speaker 3: his passion. And Dr. Murashi, when he contacted me a
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  Speaker 3: year later said, David, it's amazing. Just by sharing my
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  Speaker 3: love of skateboarding, I've been able to measure because we,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: we look at the intake forms when people contact us
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  Speaker 3: of how they found us. He had a 33% increase
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  Speaker 3: in new patients and a 23% growth in revenue simply
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  Speaker 3: because by sharing his love of skateboarding. So what I
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: say to everybody listening in right now is show us
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  Speaker 3: who you really are. Don't be shy. Don't just be
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  Speaker 3: that buttoned up person on LinkedIn that nobody knows who
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  Speaker 3: you are. Show us what you're passionate about because passion
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  Speaker 3: is infectious.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. It is. And I can see you
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  Speaker 2: have passion for surfing. You have a surfboard right behind
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  Speaker 2: you for folks that are just listening in. So you're actually...
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  Speaker 2: walking the walk and you are the surfboarding marketing book author.
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  Speaker 3: There's a few things I love that I frequently share.
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  Speaker 3: In my case, I do share about the Grateful Dead.
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  Speaker 3: I do share about the Apollo Lunar Program. I wrote
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: books on both of those subjects. But yeah, I share
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  Speaker 3: about surfing. The surfboard that's behind me was produced. I
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: actually helped to build it at the factory at Grain
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  Speaker 3: Surfboards in Maine. And I also share that I love
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: dancing the Lindy Hop, which is a swing dance. So,
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: you know, people know me for these really weird, quirky obsessions.
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  Speaker 3: And in fact, it seems like the quirkier the obsession,
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  Speaker 3: the more people appreciate the passion and the more that
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  Speaker 3: helps to build fans. You know, if you love golf, great.
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  Speaker 3: But there's so many people who would say that, you know,
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  Speaker 3: I love golf. How about something quirky like dancing Lindy
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  Speaker 3: Hop or surfing on wooden surfboards? That's a little bit
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  Speaker 3: more obscure and a little bit more and shows who
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  Speaker 3: you are in a little bit of a different way.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, great. I love it. Okay, let's Lindy Hop over
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  Speaker 2: to the second key play that you would like to
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: talk about today.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I did mention briefly this idea
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: at the top of the show about how fandom is
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  Speaker 3: people wanting to be part of a tribe of like-minded people.
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  Speaker 3: So the more that you can build in-person connections with
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  Speaker 3: the people that are already doing business with you or
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: who you would like to do business with, those in-person connections,
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: the more that people will be attracted to you. Because
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: the simple fact that's been researched and is actually, as
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: I mentioned earlier, hardwired into our brains is that the
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: closer we are to another human, the more powerful those connections,
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: the closer we are to someone else, the more powerful
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: the connections. There's actually this gentleman named Edward T. Hall,
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  Speaker 3: who many years ago measured the difference is between how
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: close you are to someone. So further than 12 feet away,
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  Speaker 3: that he called that public space. We know people are
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: in our public space, but it's not a strong connection.
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  Speaker 3: So you're walking down the street, you see someone on
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  Speaker 3: the other side of the street, they're further than 12
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  Speaker 3: feet away, you know they're there. It's not very powerful.
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  Speaker 3: The next level is called social space, between four feet
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  Speaker 3: roughly and 12 feet roughly. So that's when you enter
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: a room and there's another person in the room, that
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: sort of distance, or you're at a cocktail party, you
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: see somebody who's a little bit farther away. And then
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: what he called personal space, which is within four feet.
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  Speaker 3: The closer you get, the more powerful the human connections,
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: either positive or negative. So for example, on the negative side,
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: if you get into a crowded elevator, you feel a
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: little bit uncomfortable. That's your ancient brain telling you, that
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: there might be danger here. Or if you go into
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: a room where there's your friends, you feel comfortable and
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  Speaker 3: your brain lights up. This is a positive thing. You're
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: with your tribe. So can you build a tribe of
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: like-minded people? Let me give you an example of that.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: I love sharing the example of Hagerty Insurance. They're an
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: insurance company. And everyone hates insurance company. They're an auto
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: insurance company. Everyone hates auto insurance. Yet Hagerty has millions
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: of fans. They've quickly become the largest classic car insurance
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  Speaker 3: company in the world because McKeel Hagerty told me he's
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: built his business on the idea of fandom and how
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: he can develop fans. And one of the things that
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: they do is they go to classic car shows around
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: the country over 100 a year. And they set up
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: a little booth at the classic car show so that
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: people can come and visit with them and so that
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: their business development people can go talk to classic car
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  Speaker 3: owners who are at that show. And so what they're
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: doing is using this idea of proximity, this idea of
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: the closer you get to someone, the more powerful that
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: the human connection. And because it's a connection of like-minded people,
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: people who love classic cars at a classic car show,
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: it's already built in that those people are part of
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: the tribe. And so they're having these in-person conversations. Hey,
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: would you like a cup of coffee? They have something
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: called cars and coffee. Or would you like a t-shirt? Here,
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: have this t-shirt. And all of that's done in a
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: human in-person way, which drives fans to Hagerty making them
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: the largest company of their kind in the world. And
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: they went public on the New York Stock Exchange a
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: couple of years ago.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, humans crave connection. We all crave that human connection.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: And it's so interesting what you're saying. saying about that
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: in-person connection. We've been so virtualized ever since COVID. It's
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: great to emphasize the fact that those close human connections
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: within four feet are absolutely critical to building that fan base. OK, great. So, David,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: let's move on to the third and final play you
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: would like to share with us from your playbook.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: It's a tough one how to choose what play I'm
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: going to talk about, but let's talk about one, um,
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: which I find, find fascinating. And that is, can you
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: build a game of some kind into your business? Because
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: we humans, we love games. Um, so I'll give you
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: a couple of examples of what I mean, and maybe
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: you get your mind churning here about what kind of
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: game you can build into your business. Um, the first
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: example is of a, um, a scuba diving resort in
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: the Cayman Islands. And Steve Broadbelt is the CEO of
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: this dive resort. It's called Ocean Frontiers in the Cayman Islands.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: And Steve told me, David, people love my dive resort.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: I get five-star reviews all the time. But I was
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: perplexed because people would come They would love it here.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: They'd say we have great accommodations, great food, great guides
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: to go scuba diving, but they would never return. And
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: I couldn't figure it out. So he spent a lot
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: of time trying to research what's going on here. And
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: what he realized is that scuba divers don't like to
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: dive on the same reef again. They want to go
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: somewhere they've never been. And so what he did was
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: very clever. He went all around the waters outside of
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: the resort and he mapped 55 dive sites that you
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: can visit. And he created what he calls the Green
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: Shorts Challenge. If you visit all 55 dive sites from
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: his resort, you get a special pair of green shorts
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: that only people who have done that are able to get.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: They have a brass plaque that they screw into the
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: dock with your name on it. They throw a party
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: that evening for you with cake and champagne. They take photos.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: It's a really big deal. And people, we love games.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: Humans love games. We love to win. And so people
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: are eager to achieve this accomplishment, which takes quite a
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: few weeks to be able to do because you can
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: only dive a couple of times a day. So to
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: go 55 times in 55 dive sites, you've got to
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: visit three or four or five different times for a
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: week at a time. So Steve has figured out using
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: game technology how to get people back to his resort.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: And it's super interesting and super clever way to do that.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: One more example, I mentioned earlier that I'm a Lindy
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: Hop dancer. There's a school here in Boston called Boston
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: Lindy Hop. And same thing happened with Andrew, who's the owner,
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: is people would take some classes, but they wouldn't take
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: necessarily the upper level classes. So what he did was
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: he has a jacket that you can get, a special jacket,
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: if you take all of his classes. Super interesting. One
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: more example, HubSpot. They have something called HubSpot Academy, where
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: it's free courses on marketing and sales and customer support
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: and artificial intelligence and a bunch of other topics. Every
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: time you complete a course, which takes a couple of hours,
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: you get a badge and you can put that badge
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: on your LinkedIn profile. You can put that badge on
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: your resume. And it shows that you've been able to
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: accomplish passing of this particular course. And HubSpot then gets
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: more people to take their courses and then maybe more
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: people who buy their software. So What can you do
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: to make your offering and the way that you do
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: business development into a game?
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that. I've taken those HubSpot courses. I've
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: earned the badges. It works really well. And it certainly does. And,
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: you know, it was certainly a master course today in fandom, fanocracy,
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: how to really leverage these raving fans, build these raving
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: fans to help you accelerate the growth of your business. Again, folks,
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: we talked with David Meerman Scott today at all about
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: his newest book, the fandom playbook, how to create passionate
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: fans in a world of online chaos. And David, what
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: a long, strange trip it's been in only 24 minutes
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: of this episode. But let me just kind of summarize
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: what we talked about. Play number one is show yourself.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Show you who you are as a true person. The quirkier,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: the better. The skateboarding dentist. That was a great story.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: I love that. The second thing was, you know, get
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: that in-person proximity, that personal space, that human-to-human connection that
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: we all crave. And then the third and final thing is, hey,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: make it fun. Make it a game. Make it a
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: challenge and really pull your tribe together so that they
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: all recognize, yeah, you got the green shorts. Yeah, I'm
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: in that tribe with you, my friend. And David, you
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: are always a member of the Global Business Development Association tribe.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: We would always love to have you come back and
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: speak with us. But in the meantime, David, how can
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: folks connect with you, follow your work?
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: So my full name is David Meerman Scott. M-E-E-R-M-A-N is
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: my middle name. This is actually an interesting thing for
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: business development people. My name is David Scott. Way too common.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: You Google me, you get bazillion people. But if you
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Google David Meerman Scott, you only get me. What is
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: your name? And are people able to find you? So
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: just Google my name, you'll find me. If you want
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: a lot more about fandom, I have a ton of
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: free content No registration required at all. I'm not going
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: to ask you for an email address. Just go to
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: your browser and type in fandom.marketing, hit enter, and you
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: will get a ton of free content. Yeah.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Okay. And we'll be sure to include that in the
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: show notes, folks. So you can just click on that
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: link and go right to it. David Meerman, Scott, sir,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: thank you so much for everything that you've done in
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: the land between marketing and sales, business development. We really
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: appreciate everything you've done for us.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Tony, for having me on. It's been great fun.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Business Development Podcast. Join
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: our free community of corporate partners and business development professionals
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: advancing the art, science, and ethics of the business development
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: profession at gbdassociation.org.