This past week I listened to The Tom Farris Show podcast that a mentor of mine recommended. The particular episode was with Seth Godin on How to Say “No,” Market Like a Professional, and Win at Life. There’s gold throughout the whole episode, but what stood out to me was the “Yo-Yo Union” story referring to how some companies become so successful, especially when other people can’t figure out why.
The podcast refers to Supreme clothing line and how popular their Supreme t-shirts are. Essentially they look like a $3.00 t-shirt, yet people stand in long lines to pay $40.00 for it.
How come?
Seth Godin explains by using what he refers to as the yo-yo union. If you work with kids or have kids of your own, you’ve definitely experienced how this plays out. Yo-yos are regularly banned and frowned upon in school, especially elementary school. It goes in phases. Every few years a kid shows up with a yo-yo. If the kid is of low status then it’s the end, nothing to worry about. What if this kid is well liked though, someone who people want to be around? If a well-liked kid brings in a yo-yo to school then the next week you can expect 2-3 more kids to bring in a yo-yo. The week after that there will be 6 more kids with a yo-yo. Every week more kids will be bringing in yoyos until it gets out of hand that it needs to be banned. The secret to the yoyo becoming popular again is that the right kid needs to bring in a yo-yo the first day.
Are you an entrepreneur who is selling something that you want others to buy? Well, maybe it’s not the product that you’re selling. It could be that you need to follow in the footsteps of Supreme and find the RIGHT kid or consumer to buy into your product.
I know from personal experience how this phenomenon works, especially in middle school. I work at a day treatment facility for middle schoolers and we have had to ban Rubik’s cubes, fidget spinners, and other objects because the well-liked kid is the one who was first interested in it and brought one in. From there on every other kid starting purchasing and bringing them in as well.
You may be reading this and thinking, “But Jenna I’m not an entrepreneur trying to sell something, I’m a coach, a parent, or an athlete.”
Yes, this pertains to you as well.
The yo-yo analogy is an important story for you all to remember. We are all selling something. As coaches, you are selling a vision, a goal, a mission, or a set of expectations to your team. If you are a parent you are also selling expectations for your child. As an athlete, you are in theory selling your athletic abilities to your team and coaches to essentially “purchase” either a successful performance, season, or scholarship.
In order for whatever you’re selling to blow up, you have to create buy-in. To do this you need to find the “right” person to start the trend, just like the right kid for the yo-yos.
A great example of this is a coach attempting to get their team to buy into the team values. At the beginning of the season, you may have spent the time to collaborate with your team on establishing values that you want them to all live by throughout the season. How will you get your team to buy into these values and actually implement them in and out of practice? Find that athlete on your team who once they buy into the values, everyone else will follow. Every team, group, or friend circle has this person. It’s the one person who is just so well-liked and fun to be around that they start fads without even realizing it.
Find that person on your team, create a strong trusting relationship with them, get them to buy into the values and implement them. Once they do that the rest of the team will start to see the importance of the values as well and follow suit.
Tune into the podcast I mentioned here!