The Power of Unpopular: A Guide to Building Your Brand for the Audience Who Will Love You (and why no one else matters)

Praise for The Power of Unpopular "Being popular may get you elected to public office, but if you want to be successful in business, you need to understand the power of being unpopular. Erika Napoletano clearly and cleverly lays out the path to unpopularity, a critical new paradigm for business success." — Carol Roth , Business strategist and New York Times bestselling author of The Entrepreneur Equation "The dreaded ′unpopular.′ Why the hell do we accord it all manner of awfulness? Whoever convinced us that popular = good / unpopular = bad, majority rules, end–of–story anyhow? In business, or in your personal life, it′s finding YOUR right people that matters. That′s inbound marketing at its best. Figure out whom you serve and what you do for them, and paltry issues like competition basically disappear! When you′re unpopular with all of the right people—the ones who don′t want, need, or understand what you have to offer—the ones who fall in love with you will eventually show up at your door. In her hilarious, witty, read–out–loud–to–your–friends prose, Erika is that idyllic best friend you can rely on to slap you back into a reality that ′they′ never told you about." — Laura Fitton (@pistachio), Inbound Marketing Evangelist at HubSpot and coauthor of Twitter for Dummies "A brilliant concept, powerfully delivered. I′ve already ordered six copies for my closest friends." — Seth Godin , author of We Are All Weird

Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Lessons Learned from a Lippy Lady on an Airplane xi Chapter 1 Rethinking Unpopular 1 Chapter 2 Identifying Your Audience 23 Chapter 3 Personality—Pick One 47 Chapter 4 Approachability—Putting Out theWelcome Mat 75 Chapter 5 Sharability—Getting Your Audience to the Rooftops (and Letting Them Shout) 107 Chapter 6 Scalability—News Flash: You Can’t Do Everything Yourself 129 Chapter 7 Profitability—The Money’s Gotta Come from Somewhere 147 Chapter 8 Finally—They Hate Me! 165 Chapter 9 The Backyard Economy—A Bit on Nurturing What We’ve Built . . . 179 Epilogue: Shutting Up 189 Appendix A: Shit You Should Read, Who Wrote It, and Why 195 Appendix B: Getting into It—Your Guide to Resources on the Book’s Website 201

Erika Napoletano was never the prom queen, but that′s never stopped her from doing whatever the hell she set her mind to. She′s the Head Redhead at RHW Media, a digital strategies consultancy based in Denver, Colorado. The voice behind RedheadWriting.com (a destination for unpopular thoughts and blunt advice), she′s also a columnist for Entrepreneur magazine and was recognized by both the Denver Post and 5280 magazine as one of Colorado′s top Twitter personalities. Learn more about her and the book at www.erikanapoletano.com and www.unpopularbook.com .