Business Monday: Buffett, Brand, and Billions – Bob Salvas

– by Bob Salvas, contributing writer

Next weekend (Labor Day Weekend) marks the third anniversary of Jimmy Buffett’s death.

“Singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett (1946-2023) regaled audiences for over five decades with songs about the faces and places he’d seen during his lifetime journey along the road less travelled. With Hemingway’s eye for detail and Mark Twain’s inclination for mischievous humor, Buffett’s music tells the stories of the hustlers, the beach bums and the pirates from all corners of the world. Through it all are woven the themes of escapism, wanderlust and an unbridled curiosity that makes life a journey worth taking.” -from jimmybuffett.com

What this doesn’t mention is that Forbes estimated Jimmy Buffett’s wealth at over a billion dollars in 2023.  For someone in the music business, that is rare air.  Only a small handful of performers have EVER hit that mark.  Not only that, but he ONLY had one song that ever cracked the top ten of the music charts.  That song was the legendary “Margaritaville” way back in 1977.  Even with the commercial success of that song, critics originally only saw Jimmy Buffet as a ‘novelty’ that would soon fade.  So how he got from a struggling musician to a one hit wonder to a billionaire businessman probably has some lessons in it that we can appreciate and even learn from.  Here are 3 things to consider:

AUTHENTICITY– We hear a lot about personal brands but the ones we gravitate to are always the ones who are really as they appear.  Jimmy Buffett found his musical voice after moving to Key West in 1971.  He lived like the quintessential ‘beach bum’ while he was there and he met all sorts of people on the edge from artists to smugglers to con men.  He was fascinated with people and used what they shared with him as inspiration for his music.  Telling stories that are on brand is always a great way to get a message across and to be remembered…be it in music or anyplace else.  Jimmy also loved having a good time and wrote about that as well.  His personal brand came to be associated with fun, vacations, and the tropical laid-back attitude.  Even in his later years, Jimmy Buffett never lost his curiosity about people or his desire to have fun.  When Jimmy performed live (and he was just as likely to perform for a small group as he was to perform in a big stadium), he ALWAYS seemed to be having fun… and he was.  Jimmy Buffett was authentically his brand.

LET THE FANS HAVE INPUT– Jimmy’s authenticity helped build a following of people who would regularly go to his concerts.  While at a concert in 1985, someone in Jimmy’s band noticed fans in the audience wearing hats with parrots on them and called them PARROT HEADS.  The name stuck and a few years later, some fans formed the first official PARROT HEAD CLUB in Atlanta, Georgia.  Jimmy encouraged his fans to become part of what was becoming a very large community.  The fans now had an identity.  Perhaps a good analogy might be the fans of a football team.  They come from wildly different backgrounds, but they dress similarly for the games.  They have celebrations before the game (tailgating) and then cheer wildly when their team scores or wins.  Jimmy’s fans also came from wildly different backgrounds, but they dressed similarly for his concerts. They had celebrations before a concert (tailgating) and cheered wildly when they heard their favorite songs.

EXTEND A SUCCESSFUL BRAND OVER TIME– The key here is OVER TIME.  Some businesses rush too quickly to brand extension when they get that first sustained success.  Yet if you look at some of the most iconic brands, you will see that it is often better to wait.  McDonalds only offered hamburgers for 17 years before they introduced the Filet-O-Fish sandwich.  It was 17 years after the first Disney movie that Disneyland opened in California.

It was also 17 years after the recording of Jimmy Buffett’s very first album that he opened the first MARGARITAVILLE RESTAURANT.  Of course it is not ALWAYS 17 years.

Amazon, for example, only spent 5 years selling books and media before selling other products.  The real key is to have some foundational success in your core competency first.  There are even some brands that cannot extend beyond what they sell or do and that is ok, too – there are other ways to grow, including investments to take your business to the next level.  If a business has found success, it is always a good idea to see where it can go from there.  Businesses are either growing or they are dying… status quo doesn’t work.

So, as you go forward growing your business, I also want you to remember to have fun (listen to some Jimmy Buffett music if you need to – guaranteed to change your mood!).

“If we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane.”
― Jimmy Buffett

Photo of Jimmy Buffet, top, courtesy Sunset Cove in Portsmouth, RI

Interesting sidenote: Jimmy Buffett’s final live performance was a surprise appearance at Sunset Cove in Portsmouth, Rhode Island on July 2, 2023.

He joined Mac McAnally and the Coral Reefer Band for an impromptu set of about eight songs, including “Margaritaville”. This performance took place two months before his death. 

___

Bob Salvas is a Professional Development Manager for the RI Builders Assn, a marketing consultant, the founder of Momentum Networking, and the co-founder of THE MARKETING CAMP, a yearly conference to help small businesses achieve success.  For more information about THE MARKETING CAMP, go to themarketingcamp.com.  Bob can be reached at 401-359-1602 or at [email protected].