The Evangelist. The Fan.
E, then F.
So close, and yet…
I’m a fan of a local sushi restaurant. It’s the only place we’ll get sushi in our city.
But I’m an evangelist of the documentary film “The Dawn Wall.” I will bring it up in conversation and tell you all the reasons you should go home that night and watch it. In fact, I’ve created converts: people who knew nothing about it (and would otherwise have probably never seen it) have watched it at my urging.
The fan will come back.
The evangelist will bring others with them.
Fans keep you in business.
Evangelists force you to scale or expand.
The return on the evangelist is exponential; you would need far more fans than evangelists.
What then does it take to create an evangelist?
Maybe you can share some thoughts for our collective learning. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
QUALITY. There’s no substitute for a bad product. Sandwich, software, song, doesn’t matter. It has to be good. Really good. But quality alone only creates fans.
CONNECTION. Quality plus human connection creates evangelists. (In fact, connection can overcome quality control issues). I told two people today about a singer/songwriter they’d never heard of. I’m actually not even a fan of this artist’s music, but this week I saw a promotion on their page that they were offering personal phone calls to everyone who bought a ticket to next week’s show between certain hours that day. I’d never seen that before. That’s a unique connection. Similarly, I’m an evangelist of GoDaddy because they answer the phone. Every time. Any time. Lastly, Chick-fil-A serves greasy, fried, fast food. But the attitude with which they take your order and deliver your tray is unlike any competitor.
So I’ve been asking myself variations of the following questions:
- How can I improve my connections?
- If I were a client, how would I want to be found?
- Who do my future clients need me to become?
What about you? What have you learned?