Article contributed by Dr. Ivan Misner.
It’s amazing what a word-of-mouth campaign can do for your business. People rely on recommendations from trusted sources much more than they do from mere advertisements. The best thing is, the costs associated with running a successful word-of-mouth campaign are usually a fraction of what a traditional advertising campaign can run!
However, as the saying goes, “there is no free lunch.” What you save in dollars spent, you must replace with time and effort. Simply saying to yourself that you are going to market via word of mouth does not guarantee immediate success.
I consistently tell people interested in networking that two of the most crucial things they need to do in order to achieve results from their networking efforts are to plan and execute a schedule of networking events and activities that will put them in front of people and they will also need to begin building their credibility.
So how do you begin building your credibility? There can be a variety of ways to do this depending on whom you are trying to build credibility with, however, in my experience, one of the absolute most important ways to build credibility is to always, always, always hold yourself to the highest ethical standards. Be fair in your pricing, make sure the work you are hired to do is provided with the highest standards in quality; and certainly never over-promise and under-deliver.
