Fire Your Marketing Consultant; Most Business Comes from Word of Mouth


By Lance Winslow


Having been in the Franchising Industry and set up franchised units in 23-states and 4 nations, which did business in 450 cities and 110 major markets, we learned early on that once we had set up the initial marketing “Bonzai and Blitz” mission that most of our franchised outlet’s business came from word of mouth, not on-going advertising.

This is why I have always said that you should; Fire Your Marketing Consultant, as most of your on-going business will come from Word of Mouth. Now then many of the most disreputable marketing consultants who write three or more books on Marketing will call this true observation into question. They will tell you that referrals and word of mouth business is not what brings in the majority of your clientele and that you must buy their books, tapes, go to seminars and even hire these scoundrels as consultants? Not so.

Oh they say things like; “I would be skeptical of Word of Mouth and its benefits to your business; you must market and advertise if you want to maximize your potential”

Look I hate to brag, well, actually now that I am retired and could care less what anyone else thinks, I guess bragging does not bother me too much; but we literally creamed our competition in every friggin market and laid them out for the count and we rarely advertised at all. We asked for referrals and we had people following our service units around town, honking to pull us over and give us accounts or business on the spot. So, let me tell you anyone who says that; word of mouth is not all it is cracked up to be is full of horse dung.


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