Business Lesson from The Grateful Dead with Lauren V. Davis, Real Personal Branding Podcast

If you want people to love your business like a Grateful Dead fan loves the Grateful Dead, I'm going to tell you a story that I love talking about with my clients. So you might or might not know that I also used to own a record and gift store. I co-owned it for 16 years. If you do the math on my age, which is 38, you'll realize that most of my adult life was basically spent talking to collectors about their favorite music artists, their favorite records, many days of the week when I wasn't helping small businesses and speakers and entrepreneurs build their brands.

I pretty much worked at the record store many days of the week during my adult life, but then also as I grew my own business, I would work pretty much every weekend at the record store. And one of the nerdiest obsessions that I developed during that period of time was really studying how bands became super insatiably collectible, like how they built these cult-like followings and loyalists. And one of the first books I read about this was about the marketing secrets of the Grateful Dead.

I just thought it was so interesting. And I thought to myself, how can I really dissect this and apply it to businesses? So if you think of iconic bands and committed followers and you're older than 30 years old, you might think about the Grateful Dead. if you like them, love them, hate them, Grateful Dead fans are iconic for following the band around, concert after concert, self-identifying as deadheads, and they are super loyal to the band.

And every one of the shows, even with new iterations and new members, it's always sold out. It's hard to find their vinyl anywhere pre-owned, especially because their fans keep their records forever. You see their stickers everywhere on cars. It's like the little rainbow bears, dancing bears with a rainbow or the rainbow skull, like some very psychedelic looks.

Those stickers are on any car. One out of five cars driving on the highway is going to have one of those bumper stickers on it In 2024 Dead and Company sold out over 30 shows of their Dead Forever residency at the Las Vegas Sphere which is that giant sphere in Las Vegas that's a concert venue. It has 18,000 seats. It sold out 30 plus shows in 2024.

And this band has been around forever. But I want to tell you the story about one of the reasons that the Grateful Dead became larger than life in the 70s, because it's It's actually really magical. In the late 1960s and 70s, bootlegging live recordings was this massive industry-wide problem. The labels were suing distributors.

Security was confiscating taping devices at venues. Labels were taking legal action. And the response from the artists and the labels was pretty unified and loud at the time, which was stop taping our music. Stop taping.

It was just this response coming from everyone. And it really started with some Bob Dylan bootlegs, but that's a story for another time. But the Grateful Dead took this and they looked around at what was happening and they decided to go in the complete opposite direction because, of course, they did. Jerry Garcia, one of Grateful Dead's frontmen, across several public interviews basically said, hey, if someone tapes this show and shares it, it's fine.

If someone tapes it and sells it, that's when it's a problem. So by the mid 70s, the Grateful Dead not only allowed taping at their shows, but they actually created designated taper sections behind the soundboard where fans could set up their recording equipment and tape it effortlessly and without any rules, really. Besides, don't sell our music. Tape it, share it with people, share it with other fans, share it as wide and far as you want.

Just don't sell it. By 1984, it was official band policy. So fans were absolutely encouraged to share their recordings with other fans, just never to sell them. And in addition the Grateful Dead decided to change their set list every show They improvised they created this huge experience for their fans that could only be had at live shows And this increased the demand of the real life thing as people kept sharing the music with other fans The Grateful Dead went their own way and leaned all the way in while every other band did the opposite.

And it worked super well. The tapes spread through their community as they shared this internal experience that only fans could have. They built this huge roaring fan base that was dependent on their community, and they grew their community at scale. Fans who couldn't afford the tickets heard the recordings and they saved up to go.

People who went once became people who went on every tour. And the shared recordings didn't replace the experience of being there. But what they did was they created this demand to see the band live. And by the early 80s and early 90s, Grateful Dead was consistently one of the highest grossing touring acts in the U.

S., even with few traditional radio hits. They built this empire on an abundance, an abundance mindset and community in a time when their fans needed it most. scarcity, like hoarding all of your information, hoarding all of your value to yourself feels safe and abundance feels really scary.

And I can imagine that felt really scary in the music industry, especially during that time. That's really real. It's very real and very valid. And that's exactly why choosing abundance works when you do choose it and why so many people choose not to.

It's scary. So if you were going to audit yourself like the Grateful Dead, this is what I would do. I'd grab a piece of paper and I would ask yourself, what are you gatekeeping right now? So write down ideas, stories, maybe frameworks or process steps that you've been saving for later.

Ask yourself if protecting any of those is actually costing you clients who never get close enough to you to trust you right now. Ask yourself, where is your taper section, right? Find the one place that you could let people in before the sale happens, a newsletter a podcast a post a one coffee conversation at your local coffee shop Where are you sharing the real stuff before anyone pays you And then ask yourself what is your live experience quote unquote right? It's a metaphor.

Figure out what people are actually paying for when they hire you. What is the thing that exists in working with you that nobody can download or copy? That's your residency, if you will. Protect that uniqueness and make it undeniable.

And lastly, where has scarcity been running the show for you. Map out the places in your business where you've been operating from fear of giving too much away and ask yourself what abundance looks like there instead. The Grateful Dead made a choice that felt counterintuitive against the grain, against the norm, and they paired it with the product, which was them playing, worth showing up for, and their fans helped them do the rest. Their fans were the vehicle to do the rest.

You have something worth showing up for too. And I hope this inspires you as it's inspired me for so many years. Do you have a favorite music story like this? I want to know.

Tell me. I love nerding out about music stuff. I love nerding out about different artists. I've heard so many since I talked about this story in an email recently about so many other people's favorite artists and how they kind of zigged when other people's act, right?

And by the way, if you'd like to join a super highly intentional, small growth minded business mastermind, I have a few spots opening up starting at the very end of July in a couple different groups. We don't have turnover very often. So this is a great opportunity to head into fall with a refreshed perspective on your business and life. You can get a head start before everyone starts doing their end of the year resolutions and goals and all of that good stuff.

So we will meet Thursday afternoons and evenings. For more information, you can visit the link in my bio. Thank you for listening to the Real Personal Branding Podcast. I would love to know what you thought of this episode.

Please share it in your story. Every time you do it, it makes me so happy to know that you are really enjoying it. Or just message me and let me know what you liked about it. That really means a lot to me.

All right. Talk to you soon. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time on the Real Personal Branding Podcast.