ClickCease
top of page

Ep 42: How to Create Superfans, with Author Brittany Hodak


The old rules of business no longer apply. Being great is no longer good enough. To win in today’s world, you’ve got to be SUPER and if your customers, boss, or partner isn’t bragging to their friends about you, you’re in trouble.


Enter Brittany Hodak. She’s an award-winning entrepreneur, author, and customer experience speaker who has delivered keynotes across the globe to organizations including American Express and the United Nations.


On this episode, we discuss how to create superfans for your professional AND personal brand.



Elizabeth:

Welcome to and Transcend. I'm your coach Elizabeth, and today's guest is Brittany Hodak. She is the author of Creating Superfans: How to Turn Your Customers Into Lifelong Advocates. She's a keynote speaker and she is a fan engagement guru, which I love that title. We had such a fun chat today and we talked all about not only how to create loyalty for products and services that you may be selling or marketing, but also for your personal brand. How do you create allies and people who wanna help you and support you, and how do you leverage your stories to deepen these connections with people in your lives? She has worked with some very huge brands. She's worked with Disney, Amazon, Walmart, Katie Perry, the Red Sox, so she knows what she's talking about. We had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs on today's show, so I hope you enjoy it.


Brittany, thank you so much for being on the show and spending some time today to talk about how to create super fans and turning your customers into lifelong advocates. I think that this is huge right now. I think we're living in an age where people are incredibly brand loyal and some people are getting it right, and some people are really alienating not only their existing client base, their customer base, but anybody who was a potential. What are you seeing in the market? I know that you've got this huge extensive background, but as far as the brands that you feel like are winning right now and then maybe brands that have the most opportunity, could you take us through a little bit about why you feel that way and what you're seeing?


Brittany:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for having me, Elizabeth. I'm so excited to hang out with you and talk about the subject which I care so deeply about, and there are quite a few brands who are crushing it right now. There are a lot of D2C startups that are doing a great job of really putting their customers at the center of all their decision making and finding ways to weave their brand story into every touchpoint.


One example I really like is a clothing subscription service called Armour, and it's a little bit rent the runway, except they have real personal stylists who will help you that you can email back and forth with and say, “I've got this event coming up,” or “Can you help me with this,” or “Can we jump on a zoom for you to tell me what type of clothes I should be wearing?” So just a real high touch. And my favorite thing about the way that they package their clothes when they come to you is their logo is a little origami looking dress. And when you get a shipment of new clothes, which I think they call a case or trunk or something like that, it's tied up in twine and on top of the twine is this little origami dress that's made out of beautiful paper. It's always a different pattern, but it's just so cool and it's another touch point to really remind you that it's not just automation behind the company. You're not just talking to some algorithm. There are actually people who are working to help you feel and look your best.


Elizabeth:

And it's that personal touch. When we talk about exceeding customer experience expectations, you really like to hit on the fact that it's the before and it's also after the purchase. It's not just what's in the middle, what is maybe the first impression or what it's like once you've already purchased. But I think a lot of people might spend a lot of time on the before—they're trying to get the customer—and then they're just turning and burning and maybe they don't necessarily pay attention to what their experience is like during or after. So tell us a little bit why before and after is such a huge piece to creating these super fans.


Brittany:

Well, it’s because if you think about things through the lens of a customer, their experience is not just the sales process: it's the discovery process, it's the use process, it's the reorder process. And a lot of times companies are really designed around acquisition at the expense of retention and delight. And when you think about not just how much more expensive and time consuming it is to attract new customers versus sell something else to an existing customer, it's also just so much harder.


</