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30+ Way to Take Control of Your Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Posted on September 28, 2021 by Doogie Levine

Today we’re going to talk about how to harness the power of word-of-mouth, including the six-step process to success and the 30+ (that’s right, I said 30) ways to harness the power of WOM. So, let’s get started!

There are six steps to harnessing word-of-mouth:

Understand your customers’ values and priorities; this will help you understand why they buy your products.
Understand the different adopter types: innovators, early adopters, middle majority, late adopters, and laggards.
Identify which decision stages are needed for your product to be adopted.
Use the information from steps 2 & 3 to determine which wording and word-of-mouth tactics will work using the Decision Maker Matrix (we’ll talk about this in a minute).
Put together the resources for the highest word-of-mouth impact.
Create and implement your word-of-mouth campaign.

When creating your decision-making matrix, I strongly recommend reading The Secrets of Word of Mouth marketing by George Silverman. However, if you don’t have time, I have included a brief description of the six types of adopters to get you started.

Innovators

The Innovators want to be the first off the starting block and cross the finish line. They want to be cutting edge, stand out from the crowd, and be the first to adopt the product. So, they want to hear that the product is unique and technologically advanced and that they can be the first to use it. They’re the Alpha testers and the very first users. They are driven by the desire to be outstanding.

Early Adopters

The Early Adopters tend to be visionaries who appreciate the possibilities and potential of the product. They want to hear word of mouth about the power of the product and are willing to take chances on it for its eventual advantages. These people are driven by a desire to be excellent.

Middle Majority

The Middle Majority tend to be people who are most concerned with the practicalities of applying the product. These people want to read a review before they try it, but they also don’t want to be the last in their friend group to have used it. They are not so much concerned with the far-reaching possibilities and uniqueness of the product as with immediate usability issues, such as quality, consistency, and ease of use. Even the later middle majority are most concerned with the practical nuts-and-bolts issues, such as delivery schedules, price, and availability. These people are driven by a desire to be competent.

The Late Adopters

The Late Adopters are most concerned with issues of self-protection. They want to avoid mistakes. They are not so concerned with the benefits of the products as they are with being right-not being criticized for the decision. They want to avoid undue risk. These people are driven by success without risk.

The Laggards

The Laggards will not use a product until virtually forced to do so. They are the kind of people who were told by their clients to “get an email account or I won’t do business with you.” They are extreme cynics, rejecting most attempts to change their minds. They want safety.

We are now going to move on to the 30+ ways to harness the power of WOM:

30+ Way’s

Use Experts

Experts can come in many forms, and all their opinions should be considered when putting together a WOM campaign. Some experts from whom you could gather information include:

Customers
Suppliers
Subject Matter Experts
Salespeople
Experts’ roundtables
Experts’ selling groups

Seminars, Workshops & Speeches

These venues are a perfect opportunity to gather information. People who attend these events are used to giving feedback, so you can use a survey or other method to gather the information you can look over later. Some events to use are:

Speakers program
Seminars
Webinars
Group selling
Dinner meetings
Peer selling groups
Video conference experts’ panels
Trade show events/opportunities

Referral Selling

As we’ve talked about before, a referral program can help build your business with a variety of things. Using some of the following tactics and opportunities, you can find out exactly what you need to do to generate positive word of mouth. These tactics and opportunities are:

Testimonials
Networking
Referral Selling Program

“New” Media

The concept of “new” media is the use of up-and-coming media sources and opportunities to get the word out about your products and services and listen for feedback about them. Most social media options could be considered “newer” media:

Facebook, Facebook Groups, Facebook Messenger, and Facebook Live
TikTok
Instagram
YouTube
WhatsApp
A host of others

Using Traditional Media for Word of Mouth

Using traditional media is a great way to get feedback. These are still considered mainstream ways of interacting with the public and consumers. Some traditional media outlets are:

Customer service
PR
Placements
Events
Promotions
Word of mouth in ads, sales brochures, or direct mail
Salesperson programs, sales stars, or peer training,
Word-of-mouth incentive programs (“Tell-a-friend” programs)
Customer gifts they can share with their friends (articles, how-to manuals)

Internal Word of Mouth

Encourage employee word of mouth and sharing feedback with family, friends, and others.
Offer rewards or commission for word of mouth success.

As you can see, there are tons of ideas you can work with to increase your level of positive word-of-mouth marketing. If you need help with any of this, please book complete the contact form, and in the comments section, write WOM. I give you a free one-hour consultation where you will leave with a complete word-of-mouth campaign.

9 Levels of Word of Mouth

Posted on September 21, 2021 by Doogie Levine

Last time we talked about the second part of word-of-mouth tactics which help you put together a system to help shorten your customers’ purchasing decision time, which can increase your profits immensely.

Today is not so much of a blog but a tool to evaluate where your word of mouth stands and how it affects your business. We’re going to talk about the nine levels of word-of-mouth which gives you a scale to measure the word-of-mouth circulating around your company, products, and services. You can then see where you are getting negative or weak word of mouth and find ways to correct it.

So, launching into the nine levels of word-of-mouth, it should seem relatively obvious that the negative levels are, well, negative, and the positive levels are positive.

Word of Mouth Scale

Minus 4-Death Blow

This is the worst of the worst and means your product or service is creating a scandal. Remember when the popular over-the-counter pain relievers, like Tylenol, were deemed unsafe? Yea, you won’t want that kind of word of mouth.

If this is where you are, it is most likely a death blow for your business and you have most likely done something very wrong.

Minus 3-Karen is Out for Blood

Disgruntled customers are going out of their way to convince other consumers from purchasing your products and services. They are boycotting you.

They are actively making a seen, leaving bad reviews, making their tik toks. In some respect, this can be the worst place to be. Karen does not allow you to have a minute to respond and fix the problem.

Minus 2-Unacceptable and Unhappy

While not outwardly boycotting, when customers are asked about you, they will give a negative response. They will take the time to leave a Yelp or Google review and most likely leave it at that.

Minus 1-Solvable

At this level, people are mildly dissatisfied, and while not outwardly talking about it, they will have an opinion if asked. Now they may purchase from you despite their negative feelings; this can be a little confusing.

These people may stick with you because it is easy or the pain is not enough to change. It is important to spend time giving them a better experience.

Level 0-Neutral

This is sort of a neutral place to be. Customers are using your products, but don’t really talk about it. People rarely ask them about it, so they aren’t sharing their opinion with others. This can be a slippery slope because you don’t want to turn that neutral experience into a negative one. You should work to make it a positive one.

Plus 1-Satisfied

At this level, we are finally starting to work our way into the positive word-of-mouth about your company, products, and services. Plus 1 signifies that people are generally pleased with your products, but unless asked, don’t really say anything about them.

Plus 2-Tip of the Tong Solution

When asked, your customers will talk about how much they love your products or service. They will be a person who says something like, “o I use …” or “consider trying …”. These people need to be prompted but once they have been you’re their go-to.

They may give a review but most likely need to be prompted before they will do it.

Plus 3-Have You Heard About

Customers will go out of their way to talk about your products, services, company, and shopping experience with you. This is most evident when you see how people recommend movies to their friends and family.

These people will leave an unprompted review and 5-star score. These tend to be your 7-9 net promoter scores.

Plus 4- Champion

Your product is the toast of the town. There is an obvious buzz going around, and your business is the place to be. People are not only talking about your great products and services, but they are talking about their shopping experience, your customer service, and how they perceive the company to help them in the future.

These are the people who do not only leave a review but also go out of their way to make a social media post. These are your 9-10 net promoter scores.

Some great examples of Plus 4 companies are:

Lexus
Harley Davidson
Lululemon
Tesla
Apple
Costco

We’re going to leave this lesson for you to mull over and take a look at what kind of word of mouth you are generating. If you need help with this process, try our FREE test drive to get help from our experienced business coaches.

Next ti, we will talk about the 30 ways to harness the power of word of mouth.

Are People Talking About You the Way You Want?

Posted on September 7, 2021 by Doogie Levine

Take Control of Your Word of Mouth

It is time to start a new series, all about Word of Mouth and how it can make or break your business in an extremely short amount of time. In this first lesson, we’ll explore exactly what word of mouth is and give you a chance to know if you’re using it correctly.

Word of Mouth is easily the most powerful form of marketing and is absolutely free. People talk about ads they see, experiences they have, and the products they purchase. So if you treat people right and spread the word about your new products/services in a positive way, you’ll attract the right customers and clients who will sustain your business for a long time.

Now, as positive as word of mouth can be for your business, the other side of the coin is how negative it can be as well. Unfortunately, bad news seems invariable to travel faster than good news. If you have a less than high-quality product or weak customer service system, then your customers will tell everyone they know not to buy your products and services.

The age of technology has proved to be an amazing benefit in the world of word of mouth. With blogs, podcasts, online marketing, forums, social networking, and other online mediums available, it is easier and easier for consumers to share their experiences. And remember this is all free advertising for you.

Shorten Customer Decision Cycle

The decision cycle or more commonly known as your sales cycle. This is your first opportunity to influence your client experience. There are three great ways to shorten & streamline your IAC decision cycle, plus they have the added benefit of impacting your revenue. They are:

Decision Speed
Friction & Stress Reduction
Operational Flexibility

Decision Speed

Let’s take a deeper look at decision speed. Offer simplicity, ease, and a fun purchasing atmosphere, and you’ll help your customers make their decisions quicker and more confidently. When this happens, your customers will buy more frequently, spend more money than usual, refer friends, and decided to purchase more quickly. This can raise your market share by over 100 times.

The time it takes your customer to decide and purchase far outweighs any other component of marketing. When you focus on customer decision speed it forces you to take a hard look at your company and brand image, positioning, value, customer service, guarantees, and product quality.

Friction & Stress Reduction

The next area I want to talk about quickly is how to minimize the friction or stress involved with decision-making. No matter how easily people find decision-making there is a certain amount of anxiety we all experience when making a purchase, especially from a new source or for a large amount of money. When you help to minimize this emotional response, you will soothe your customers’ anxiety and they will make their decision quicker and more confidently.

There are a few secrets to accelerate the customer’s decision making progress:

Your benefits, features, claims, and promises must be obvious, clear, and concise.
The information you offer must be complete, easy to understand, credible, and balanced.
Use comparisons that show a marked difference.
Your guarantees must be rock solid and more than the customer expects.
Make trial periods easy.
You must have simple evaluations of your products or services.
Testimonials need to be relevant and positive.
Your support, delivery, and other operational systems must be perfect.

Your website can be as good as you make it. You can offer more than information; you can offer an experience that guides your customers gently through the decision-making process to make it easy for them to buy. Take it a step beyond by offering toll-free support numbers, software downloads to help with the process, or other classy and informative ways to reassure your customers that you are there with them every step of the way and have nothing to hide.

Operational Flexibility

The final area to explore is the customer journey. This might be the most important piece of any marketing strategy. A customer journey is the ideal touchpoints and behaviors you want to see your customers exhibit. A great customer journey has the following components:

A mapped out experience from prospect to fulfilled happy customer
Clear explanation of business action (items you put out in the world) and response (the action you want your customers to exhibit
The expectation of employees and responsibilities at each stage
Training on your staff should implement these experiences

Now here is where the flexibility comes in, a great liner plan like a customer journey is an ideal experience. This means you need to empower your employees to be able to make edits, changes, skip steps, expand steps, etc to get to the finished product which is a repeat customer singing your praises to everyone they meet.

This wraps up the first post in our series on word of mouth. If you need help identifying your target market and the issues they run into that lengthen their purchasing experience, complete our One Thing survey and get an implementable solution within 48 business hours.

Next time we’ll move forward with word of mouth and talk about the power of word of mouth and what exactly this powerful tool is and can be used for.

10 x Your resources to maximize your results part 3

Posted on August 24, 2021 by Doogie Levine

So far in our series, we have covered the following topics; make sure to go back and read parts 1 & 2 to catch up on anything you have missed. Call in the Troops

Bring ‘Em Out of the Woodwork
Black Sheep Clients
Olympic-Size Sales Staff
Open Water Fishing
Call for Back-Up

These topics have covered how to use your champion clients, reactivation, sales teams, and more.

Today we will make a huge step forward with the following three topics:

Go Big Online
Bartering with the Best
Give Away the Farm

Go Big Online

Some businesses solely operate online; others only operate brick and mortar, and then there are the hybrids. The hybrids are by far more successful than the previous two. This is because a physical location allows having a space to give your clients an experience. At the same time, establishing an online presence opens your business up to the entire world through a few clicks of the mouse.

To successfully sell products online, you need to:

Offer high-quality products/services that people want.
Build an attractive, effective website that’s user-friendly.
Generate high-quality traffic at a low cost.

With all of these things in place, you can find success with your online exposure.

Bartering with the Best

If you’ve ever gone to a yard sale and paid the sticker price, then you need to up your bartering game. Everything is negotiable, and you need to take the time to barter with your suppliers. Companies are always open to bartering, and when all is said and done, you could find yourself saving significantly on the things your business needs to operate smoothly.

Give Away the Farm

Ok, not literally, but you have to be willing to contact prospective clients and offer them products and services they will need. You don’t know what they need until you offer them everything you’ve got, then work with them to create the perfect package that fits their needs.

When you take the time to put yourself at the front of their minds, they are more likely to work with you going forward. You can do this by offering free newsletters, a free consulting session, or other valuable tools.

Are you taking action?

I hope through this series you have begun to rethink part of your business. If at this point your say to yourself all of this is so obvious, then good. Then I ask, are you currently doing implementing these practices in your business? If yes, can you do better? If no, why not?

If you answered yes or no to the above questions, then I have a special offer for you:

First Download My Book 8 Steps that change your business Forever
Once you download it, I will reach out to you with a complimentary business assessment guaranteed to find your business $10,000-$100,000 in additional revenue without you having to spend any more money on marketing or advertising.

Next time we’ll finish up this series with the last three ways to multiply your maximized resources. We’ll cover:

Finding Your Pot of Gold
Stay at the Top of Your Game
Wealth from the Inside Out

Do You Have Enough PD in your life?

Posted on February 24, 2021February 24, 2021 by Doogie Levine

Do you want to make more money?

If I were to stop you on the street and ask you if you want to make more money? You would probably say ” Hell Ya I do !”

If I were then to ask you what is the best investment to make more money? What would you say, probably something like; real estate, stocks, crypto, etc.

If your business owner, it might be marketing, advertising, new salespeople, a new product or service.

What if I told you were wrong that, indeed, the best way to make more money is to invest in yourself. You probably be dismissive and say like ya, of course, but. But what, do you actually do it. I mean really, do you set aside the time and money to prioritize your personal development.

I bet you don’t; you will spend thousands on any of the above improvements with the promise of 2x returns. However, it is well documented from the greatest minds of our time and history, such as Oprah, Barack Obama, Warran Buffet, Bill Gates, Lori Greiner, Da Vinci, Aristotle, and more. That the only way to get 10x ROI is investing in ourselves.

“Income seldom exceeds personal development.” Jim Rohn

With all of these great people, you would think it would be an easy argument for making personal development a priority.

Then why is it so difficult for us to make development a priority? The main culprit is the short-term mindset. It is the fear that if I don’t make another sale today, I am going to go hungry. For some, this may be true, but have you ever acknowledged that it was your short-term outlook that got you there in the first place.

“Personal development is a major time-saver. The better you become, the less time it takes you to achieve your goals.” ―Brian Tracy

I want to help; here are my top tips to start thinking long-term and to start making personal development a part of your life, business, and career.

Add Yourself to the Priority List

Start by setting aside time. You’re probably saying, how am I supposed to set aside anytime when I already feel like I don’t have enough time. What is the top priority in your life? I bet it is your family, your dog, a significant other, a child, clients.

Do you make time for them? For most people, the answer is an overwhelming yes. Then why are you not on that list? One of my favorite things is when you listen to the safety brief on an airplane, and they say put your oxygen mask on first before assisting others. They say this because the most effective way to help someone is when you’re as prepared as possible.

A quick tip: on a sheet of paper, write down the names of your top priorities. Then at the top of this list, add your name. Then keep that list in a place you can see it every day and ask yourself, “How am I making time for my top priority today?

Share what you want to accomplish.

Now that you understand your importance let’s talk about creating time. Most people will tell it is as simple as going on to your calendar and blocking off an hour or two. They’re right; however, they’re also wrong. They leave out the number one thing, which is communication.

Stop rolling your eyes because I used the buzzword communication. The number one reason people fail is that they fail to articulate the emotional importance of dedicating time. To their most important stakeholders (The other top priorities).

A quick tip: Before you embark on this mission of getting control of your time. Share your mission with the people who be impacted. Tell your significant other, colleague, boss, kids, parents, friends, and clients that you will not be available except for true emergencies. You simply explain that you are taking the time to become the best spouse, parent, manager, employee, problem solver that you can be. If they don’t believe you then show them.

Set a Strategy

Great you have set yourself as the priority; you set aside time and communicated what you wish to accomplish to those important to you. Now it is time to make a plan. Take your first few session to identify the area of your life that you want to focus on. Do not try to work in all the areas of your life at the same time.

Since I work with business owners, my suggestion will be geared toward them. The business owners I work with are looking to grow their businesses. They usually struggle with work-life balance, having control of their day, and developing trust with their employees.

To address these issues, here the top 5 areas for them to focus on at the beginning.

Personal Habits, such as time management, take the time to identify how you spend every day and how you want to spend your time. Then chose one area to improve and do it.
Educate Yourself; workout your mental muscles, read a book, newsletter, etc. or even better write about your industry.
Exercise; will lower stress and provide you a place to develop great ideas.
Visioning; spend time thinking about where you want to see your business in 5, 10, 15 years and identify what you need to change personally to get there. Also, you think about changes in your industry.
Reaffirming you’re why, take the time to remember why you started your business in the first place and celebrate the achievements you have had, and think about how to thank those that got you to where you are.

Don’t go at this alone.

You have begun to implement your strategy, and your feeling good. The first three days felt great. You read a chapter of a remarkable book, exercised for the first time in months, and even wrote a thank you letter to a loyal staff member. Then day 4 or 5 go by and things start to feel hard; you struggle with staying committed. You’re enjoying the changes you have made but you struggling to put out all the fires from your day.

Don’t fret; this is where my last suggestion comes into play. Get an accountability partner or coach. This is someone who can help you navigate these new challenges and keep you committed to the change you want to make.

Remember, it is not about the short term. It is about the long-term effects. It is a marathon; it is a hell of a lot easier to train when you what someone in your corner.

Well, there you have it, the quickest way to your 10x returns is through a long path of personal development. Remember, the first step in controlling your business is managing yourself. If you enjoyed this blog, please share it with a business owner or friend who can benefit from it. Thanks for reading.