WOMA and Referrals

Brian Tracy says that "Fully 84 percent of sales in America take place as the result of word-of-mouth advertising" (WOMA). It goes back to the Law of Remarkability: Remarkable things get remarked about! Luckily, ISPs only have to give better service than clunky ILECs. It takes small things to ensure that your customers have a WOW experience. And when they do they will talk about it. In the Harvard Business Review, Fred Reichheld "suggested that a customer's propensity to recommend or tell others about a product or service is the most important measurement in business today." Today, one form of WOMA is blogs. "Everyone has always known that word-of-mouth is the best form of advertising....Blogs provide the ultimate word-of-mouth manifestation." Word of mouth marketing cannot be faked, although many companies including Sony have tried Stealth Marketing and Shilling. Paid WOMA lacks passion and enthusiasm (two things that can't be faked). BTW, P & E are also the two things a good salesperson has for his service offerings that he transfers to the prospect to close a sale. Referrals are when partners or customers refer your service to a friend usually for compensation; this is a form of sales. Bob Burg is the king of Endless Referrals (the third edition of his book is out now). It's all about networking, following up, and as Zig says, "If you help enough other people get what they want, you will get what you want." Keith Rosen (our ISP Expo Keynote) has a tele-seminar on CD called "Creating Your Own Referral System". Either way, you want to get people talking about your company. But it requires a system (a plan, a marketing plan). Need help with that? Contact me. The founder of BNI talks about WOMA here. And Word of Mouth 101 is here.