What Weird Al Taught Me About Business

Part of what you’re selling is how you live your life.

I don’t care that much about celebrities.

But I totally 110% freaked out when I met my childhood idol, Weird Al Yankovic.

It was 5 years ago, in the livestock barn at the fairgrounds in Bozeman, Montana.

I’d been working for 8 hours as a “runner” for the band. I drove Weird Al’s drummer, guitarist, and bass guitarist around town. I picked up organic treats for Al (can I call him Al?) at the local co-op. I took tickets and checked people’s pockets for beer bottles.

And I did all that to get a free ticket to see a guy whose albums I hadn’t listened to in 13 years.

It wasn’t just idle curiosity. It was loyalty.

I gave up a perfectly good Sunday to work.

For free.

Just to see him.

Now, I’ve been to plenty of great concerts. But there are very few artists I will work that hard to see.

There’s a business lesson in here, somewhere. Let’s see if we can dig it out.

1. You get a loyal fan base by doing your own thing.

What makes Weird Al awesome is that he is totally 100% himself—AND figured out how to make a great living at it. 12 million records sold (through 2007), and 3 Grammys (with 9 nominations). Is Weird Al a “professional”?

Absolutely.

But no one would ever accuse him of having a “professional” persona.

Take heart: you don’t need one either. You need to BE a professional, but your marketing message can have a whole lot more personality, warmth, and sass than you’ll find in most cubicles or “professional” circles. Use this to your advantage: you were born with a voice. Use it.

2. It’s okay NOT to take the whole “you must have a niche” thing too seriously

Of course it’s useful to know WHO you are selling to (so you can express what you do in a way that matters TO THEM)… but at the same time, I am seeing way too many newer business owners spend WAY TOO MUCH time “working on” their niche.

This is literally like saying “I’m working on making money”…

… without actually making any.

Weird Al draws a crowd of pre-teen kiddos, their folks AND a bunch of people, like me, who grew up with such hits as “Eat It,” “I Lost on Jeopardy,” and “Like A Surgeon” (to which, I’m pretty sure, I still know all the words). Sure, we may all be comedy lovers, but there’s an argument to be made here that his work is a niche-buster.

Yours might be, too. The caveat here is that if you aren’t making money, you may need to take a harder look at what you’re putting out there.

But at the end of the day, there’s only so much “behind the scenes” work you can do to your niche, before you just have to get out there, TEST it, and see who you attract.

This goes triple for your writing. Oh, how I wish I could give you the magic formula that made people’s wallets fly open and give you lots of money. But that’s marketing hype, my turtle dove. REAL marketing momentum is built on experimenting with your message, and getting it out there in multiple ways. Regularly.

3. Love what you love, publically and in your marketing message, and you will attract great clients and even greater opportunities.

Even before I started writing sales copy for a living, I wrote fundraising letters for a non-profit community center in Montana. Because I wrote about what I loved and wanted to see grow (art classes for kids, a place where people could hang out and relate without having to buy anything, a thriving community center in a small town), it wasn’t hard to invite people to share in that vision.

I wrote about what I loved and valued.

And that ended up becoming my business.

Again, look at Weird Al here. He started with what HE LOVED DOING—making parodies, playing the accordion (!), and wearing Hawaiian shirts. And he’s made a great living at it!

You don’t need a huge following to grow your business, when a couple hundred loyal clients and fans will do. The secret is to take what the business coaches and marketing gurus show you and make it your own.

Weird Al teaches us that there’s room for quirkiness in this crazy world. And that if you run with it, you too can build an empire doing what you love.

Mighty thanks to NatalieMaynor flickr photostream for the veggies