Book Of The Week: "Go Big" by Cory Cotton

What started out as a group of friends shooting buckets in the backyard just trying to one-up each other, turned into a 52 million-subscriber YouTube channel and over 11 million following on Instagram. You may have heard of these guys, they are the Dallas-based group of buddies known as Dude Perfect. 

The group of friends - Tyler Toney, Cody Jones, Garrett Hilbert, Coby Cotton and Cory Cotton - did something that anyone could have easily done. They quintet bought a basketball goal, put in their backyard, and starting doing trick shots with a camera recording all of it. It was quite simple. But they didn't didn't stop at trick shots. 

They expanded their arsenal. Tyler put it best "you don't keep people's attention and keep them coming back by giving them the same thing over and over again, so each video had to be better than the last." Creating battles where the five of them went head-to-head for an object freshly spray-painted in gold provided fans with new content and an opportunity to see each one of their personality. 

Fans saw the athletically-gifted Tyler seemingly win every single battle, while it took poor Coby over 18 individual battles to get his first victory. The trials and tribulations of watching Twin #1 try to gain his first battle victory was akin to Phil Mickelson winning his first major and the Red Sox and Cubs breaking nearly a century long World Series drought. Tired of seeing Tyler win all the time, fans began to jump on the Team Coby train (even Tyler was on-board at one point).* 

But the group didn't stop there. They are always looking to go bigger in everything they do - after all they are from Texas; every's always bigger in Texas. 

From battles, they moved to developing their 'Stereotypes' content - where they would pick one activity and poking fun at almost every type of person one would encounter. This is where fans fell in love with the "Rage Monster" - a character played by Tyler and destroyed everything. But they didn't stop here. They continued to go bigger. 

CMT picked up DudePerfect for their own TV series, which was then carried on by Nickelodeon for additional two seasons. More time for fans to see more of a behind the scenes. They granted loads of "Make of Wish" wishes, including making a trick shot video with them. 

Once fans were starting to attach to their personalities, they branched out again and went bigger, creating the Overtime Series. Overtime is the the crew's variety hour skit which incorporates the team's personalities of being "The Tall Guy" (Cody), "The Beard Guy" (Tyler), "The Purple Hoser" (Garrett) and "The Twins" (Coby and Cory). It was a success once again. 

Every time they grew and continued to try new things, they succeeded, in part because each time more of the crew's authentic personality came out. Which raises the importance of being authentic. People flocked to these guys because they showed their genuine emotions and viewers were able to empathize. 

Fans could see the disappointment and heartache when it seemed Coby could never win a battle - always coming up short. Just like when a professional sports team such as the Yankees or Patriots constantly win gets boring, fans saw the same thing with Tyler winning virtually every single battle. They saw Cory's frustration for picking his name EVERY SINGLE TIME during the "Wheel Unfortunate" segment, but Cory owned it and had some fun with. (Best one was when he had to fly to Wisconsin for absolutely no reason.) 

So everyone out there: Be genuine. Be Authentic. 

* - hint Coby finally did win his first battle after 29 attempts holding off Garrett in the Giant Sumo Battle. And unlike Jimmy Eat World, Coby wasn't a one-hit wonder. Another 19 battles later, he knocked off the Battle King, Tyler, winning the RC Airplane Battle. (A little luck went into this one.)