The Desired Result…
Everyone on the planet doing any kind of business wants more Word-of-Mouth…that’s a given. I have never met anyone who ever told me they have enough and don’t want any more.
The Problem…
Most are not willing to invest the time and commitment to building the foundation that delivers the result…the foundation of Trust.
True Word-of-Mouth…the kind that really works and causes people to take action always starts with a foundation of Trust. Put yourself in the customers role and you see exactly how it works. For example…
Someone comes up to you and asks you for your opinion on who to do business with (product or service) or where to go for a certain experience (food, lodging, etc.). Three possibilities are available…
- You don’t know where to send them or who to tell them to go see…you simply don’t have a good answer to their question.
- You know of someone, maybe someone you bought from, but it was just a “transaction” and not an incredible experience…so you might give them a name. BUT, and this is a big BUT, you “qualify” it and tell them that while you bought from them, you can’t say that you trust them or highly recommend them…it was just a transaction that went OK.
- You know of someone and it was an incredible experience and highly recommend they buy from this person/company…because they took really good care of you and you TRUST them. Your trust in them is because they gave you and experience and something to talk about that was awesome. You immediately tell them “they should buy from them” without question.
Determine where you and your company are on this list of 3 options when it comes to your customers. Anything other than #3 above won’t give you the desired result of passionate, excited, committed, and TRUSTED WORD-OF-MOUTH.
True Word-of-Mouth comes about because you trust someone or the company…explicitly…completely…so you have no problem passionately telling someone they should buy from them.
Getting your company to deliver this level of an experience and create this level of trust is not easy…but it is so, so, so worth it to the success and differentiation of your business. At the end of the day, this is what separates those that get talked about (a lot) and those that don’t. Customers keep telling us this in so many ways…it’s just a matter of whether or not we decide to listen to them.
