Name Your Audience
Give your fans a name and you give them a way to find each other.
- Difficulty
- Starter
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 82%
Name Your Audience is Flynn's simple but potent branding move: give your followers a collective name. He calls his audience 'Team Flynn' because they're all a team and he's just the captain passing the ball. A name lets fans instantly recognize a fellow member — the way a Swiftie or a member of Beyonce's Beehive knows something about a stranger the moment they share the label. Sometimes the name emerges on its own; sometimes you nudge it, with a bit of choreography, but it should still feel natural. Naming creates substance people can rally around.
Origin
Flynn adopted 'Team Flynn' for the SPI audience and points to peers like Team Gary Vee and Team Tim Ferriss, citing Seth Godin's observation that naming things creates substance people can connect with.
Core principles
- 01Naming a thing creates substance that people can talk about and connect with.
- 02A shared name lets fans recognize and bond with each other instantly.
- 03The name should reflect the relationship you want — a team, a family, a movement.
- 04You can nudge a name into being, but it works best when it feels natural rather than forced.
How to run it
- 1
Decide the relationship the name signals
Clarify whether you want fans to feel like a team, a family, or a movement — the name should encode that dynamic.
Pro tip Flynn chose 'team' to signal everyone plays and everyone celebrates together, with him as captain.
- 2
Choose or nudge the name
Pick a name, or gently guide your audience toward one, letting it feel organic rather than imposed.
Watch out Forcing a name feels inauthentic — it takes a little choreography and patience.
- 3
Use it consistently
Repeat the name across your content so followers absorb it as part of their identity.
- 4
Let fans connect through it
The name becomes a common language that helps members recognize and bond with each other in an instant.
In the wild
Flynn named his SPI audience 'Team Flynn' to convey that everyone is in it together, with him as team captain passing the ball so members can score and everyone celebrates. He points to Swifties and Beyonce's Beehive as proof that a shared name lets fans recognize each other instantly.
→ The name made people feel more connected to Flynn and to each other as fans of the brand.
Common mistakes
Forcing the name
Hard-pushing a label that doesn't feel natural reads as contrived and fails to take hold with the audience.
Is it for you?
Best for
Creators and brands with a community they want to give a sense of shared identity and belonging.
Not ideal for
Brands with no ongoing audience relationship or where a group identity would feel contrived.
From the transcript
“I ended up calling my audience team Flynn so team Flynn why because we're all a team we're in this together and I'm just the…”
“I think it was Seth Goden who said you know naming things is really important that's when you start to create substance for something that…”
From the episode
Pat Flynn: Online Business 101, How to Generate 6 Figures of Passive Income and Create a Cult of Superfans
Pat Flynn