Just the other week I took a nice four-hour drive down to Joliet, IL to see the band Our Last Night. Once my friends and I got there, we had to wait another five hours while other bands played. Bands we either didn’t know or they dragged on stage last-minute because the originally scheduled bands didn’t show up. After plenty of headshaking, not headbanging, Our Last Night was up to play.
As the saying goes in the hood, the music was “an orgasm in my ears”. However, this post isn’t about to promote Our Last Night, it’s what I discovered from constantly checking their Facebook page, waiting for them to upload this photo that I shared above. While I waited I saw other photos of the lead singer wearing the same shirt that he wore to the concert I saw. Even in the pictures that were taken at locations they played at after Joliet, he was still wearing the same shirt.
Finally, curiosity kicked in and I once again went on their Facebook page only to see a professional photo-shoot of Trevor (lead singer) and his brother sporting Johnny Cupcake t-shirts. Trevor was, of course, wearing the same shirt that you see in the photo above. The link was provided, I was sucked in.
The creator of Johnny Cupcakes was, you guessed it, Johnny! Look above! There he is showing off his “Make Cupcakes Not War” t-shirt. Johnny is a multi-millionaire and he has his story. He doesn’t have a specific motto, he doesn’t have a thousand testimonials (although it would be all too easy to get them), and he doesn’t have a college degree. Most rags-to-riches stories you hear have some special opportunity in them: a person runs into an investor, an idea gets picked up by the newspaper, an anonymous person donates a hundred thousands dollars to a persons blog post of an idea, they use Kickstarter, or they know someone who knows someone. Very rarely are the stories… simple.
Johnny has a very simple story, a story that represents so many noteworthy themes and lessons.
- Never giving up
- Waking up early or pulling all nighters
- Avoiding drugs and alcohol
- Start selling whatever you can, buy in bulk and sell
- Even having a smashed up car won’t stop you from making sales out of the trunk of it
- Everyone loves surprises
- Take risks
- “These trade shows cost an arm and a leg…but you gotta spend an arm and a leg to make more arms and legs.”
- Sometimes you have to leave what you like to do what you love
- Add value to you and your product, no matter how crazy people think you are for the choices you have to make
- Confusion sells
- Upset customers sell even more.
- In response to the question “why don’t you sell cupcakes too?”, Johnny says, “Well, if I did that then people wouldn’t be upset. And, if you think about it, those upset people advertise for me!”
- Turn your customers into friends and truly connect with them. You can become a millionaire due to the help of 10,000 people. You don’t need 100,000.
Just an FYI: You’re going to see Johnny Cupcakes everywhere now. Congratulations, you’re part of the tribe!
You can visit Johnny Cupcakes website by clicking on the picture above.
Stay Positive &Vote Cupcakes For President
Garth E. Beyer
