Are your customers the kind who politely come and go and sometimes leave you little hearts on social media, or are they actually obsessed with what you do? The difference between an incredible brand and all the others is how they create fans. Welcome to the brand to Fan show, where we unpack the phenomenon of fandom and how to cultivate affinity, loyalty, and trust to build more fans so you can future proof your business. Here's your host, Lauren Teague. This summer, I was at the speakers conference when someone pulled me aside and said, oh, my gosh, I have exactly the person that you need to meet. You have to have this person on the brand fan show. And I said, oh, yeah? Who's that? And they said, the Philly fanatic. Now, I've been a sports girl my entire life, so if there was literally a mascot in the hallway, I would have seen that. But when my friend took me to go meet Dave Raymond, it absolutely clicked.

Dave has such a fabulous personality. He brings so much warmth and kindness to conversations. And we went from completely not knowing each other to developing this incredible rapport in the span of like 20 minutes over bad conference cocktail appetizers. Right? So I have been looking forward to having this conversation with Dave Raymond ever since. You don't know Dave Raymond personally, but you do know him as the Philly fanatic where he originated the role and spent 16 years as the green fuzzy furball. We're definitely going to talk about what that was like and what you've been up to ever since, sir, as the mascot Whisperer, as you were dubbed by the New York Times Magazine. Welcome to the brand of Raymond.

I can't tell you excited. First of all, it's Friday, Friday before a holiday. And you're know you were a little Spitfire. You had all this energy. We were doing like the Elaine from Seinfeld within seconds. And I was thinking as you're telling me what you were doing, and you mentioned that you do a podcast. I said, oh, I bet that's a bad podcast, because your personality was just so effervescent and wonDerful. And I went, yes, this is going to be a fun one.

So I've been looking forward to it, too. I'm glad we're filing together.

Yeah. And you actually were on a podcast just after I had talked to you. You were on really know, really with Jason Alexander. And so know I've done my research on you, Dave. And I listened to the podcast the other day, and there's a big bar to jump to. So thanks for setting that nice and high for me.

I appreciate know, some of my training of being able to deal with celebrities just came know as a kid working for my heroes, all the Phillies players, and then getting to know them as people. And that's the big thing. No matter how geeked out I was that I was sitting in a room with Jason and Peter, I know Peter because he's from Philadelphia, was just to relax and know they're people. It's so difficult at times to get over your geekdom, but, yeah, that was a fun one for me. That's a member of one, but this one's going to be better.

Okay, challenge accepted. Let's talk about those early days. What were you a fan of early on? Right. What is something that you remember growing up in the Philadelphia area? Was it about sports? Was it about entertainment? Was it something else that you were a fan of early on?

Yeah, it was all about sports. I mean, I grew up in Newark, Delaware, and home of the Fighting Blue Hens, the University of Delaware. And my dad was a coach there for almost 50 years, and he was the head coach for 36 years. And all I wanted to do was to go play football for him. And then I wanted to be a coach like him. That's all. I didn't think about education. I didn't think about anything else.

I just wanted to be good in sports and be able to go there. And the end of my life would be playing football for Delaware. I had no idea where I was going after that. And it was just a beautiful existence. I know some of the viewers maybe won't understand this, but it was certainly a leave it to Beaver experience. And nothing could be more true than that analogy based on my young life up until My mid to late thirty s. And my dad was the one who said, look, you're not going to replicate this. You're not going to be at a school for 50 years.

It's just not part of the industry. Move your family around and you'll get fired once, it'll be your fault. You'll get fired again. It won't be your fault. So he said, let me help you get a job with the Phillies. And he knew ownership. The Phillies were invested in the University of Delaware football program, the Carpenter family, and they owned the Phillies. And so I got a summer job for a couple of years and then realized I didn't want to be a football coach.