Word-of-mouth IS all it's cracked up to be . . .

Curt Miller, of Millers Cleaning, was just sworn in as a member of my BNI chapter. The discussion he and I had last week is the perfect example of word-of-mouth marketing at work.

A week or two before, Curt came to our chapter meeting as a visitor. He told me he and his wife were expecting and he was going to talk to her about my store and my maternity selection. Cool.

But this last week Curt told me that when he started to tell her about my store, she already knew - not only had one friend of hers told her, but a second one had also.

Word-of-mouth business is great on so many levels: first of all, it's free. Secondly, if it's working, it's all positive.

But the two best things about it are that one, people believe in you and your business enough to tell other people about it - thus giving you credibility. And most importantly, it lasts - the effects of it keep the "buzz" going. I was fortunate enough last fall to have two feature articles written about me in local newspapers. Lots of people saw those articles and business increased because of it.

But those articles were only "out there" for a very limited time. If all they did was generate business from people who directly read them, that business would be very short-lived. But people who read it told others who told others who told others - well, you get the idea.

Have you recently had a good experience business-wise from word-of-mouth 'advertising?'