Sometimes word of mouth travels to thousands of people within one or two minutes as this story illustrates. One evening at the Los Angeles Hollywood Bowl, an outdoor concert facility nestled in the secluded hills, a famous saxaphone artist entertained the crowd. Without warning right during the middle of one of the artist's songs, the five thousand plus crowd began to talk, then laugh, then clap, and then much to the consternation of the musicians on stage, the crowd wildly cheered. The word had taken a couple of minutes to pass from one binocular-toting spectator to another. It seems that on the hill above and behind the Hollywood Bowl stage, two unclothed lovers were intimately "exploring" in plain view (only in Los Angeles, right?) of the crowd. I heard this reported on the radio news in Los Angeles the next day. This sounds similar to the event that took place at a major league baseball game in Canada a few years ago. Remember the couple in the hotel room overlooking the playing field?

"When Warner Books published John Naisbitt's Megatrends, they sent copies of the book to the chief executives at the 500 largest corporations in the country. As a result, they generated very effective word-of-mouth for the book. And the book went on to become a best seller." From 1001 Ways To Market Your Books, by John Kremer.

3. AN EXAMPLE FROM PROFESSIONAL SPEAKING INDUSTRY

Here's my story about a round-about word-of-mouth marketing pay-off. I live in Spokane, Washington, on the eastern side of the state. Spokane is about 300 miles from Seattle, about 350 miles from our state capitol of Olympia. In July of 1995, I received a telephone call from a company in Minneapolis. They ask if I were available to speak at a conference in Olympia on a date in November. It seems that the Minneapolis company was doing business with a particular state agency, and was conducting a training program for a group of state employees. They wanted a "Motivational Speaker" to liven up the program. After I had confirmed my availability, and had reached an agreement on a fee for what they thought they wanted, I asked them how they had gotten my name. The answer really confirmed the power of word-of-mouth. Two of the state agency's employees were in charge to developing the program for this training program, and they were discussing some of their desires while having lunch in the State Capitol dining room. They mentioned the desire to have a "really good speaker" to fill the time slot after lunch so that people wouldn't just nod off. The cafeteria was crowded, and several other state employees had joined them at their table. When they mentioned the subject of a speaker, one of them insisted that he knew someone who was exactly what they were looking for, and would call them right after lunch with a name and telephone number. This person had heard me speak in October of 1992, when I was the keynote speaker at a Toastmasters District conference in Tacoma, Washington. I always have a handout that lists my complete contact information, and they had it in their files. (I got my start as a professional speaker from the encouragement and bookings I received from people I met in Toastmasters. I am always happy to help them when I can, and, of course, this was an absolute freebie. As a matter of fact, it was worse than a freebie, because I had to pay for my own room and pay a conference registration. Since I an still a member of Toastmasters, that just comes with the territory.) As I worked with the company and the state agency, this engagement grew from a twenty minute "humorous motivational" speech into a full-blown program that had me doing a great deal of the training for the vendor, and being paid for doing all of that. Despite my best efforts to identify the source of the referral, it still remains a mystery. It does prove one thing - never give any speaking engagement, even a freebie where you think there is no potential for further business, less than your absolute best.
Joe McBride

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