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October 5, 2008

Marketing the Extra-ordinary

There is a beauty parlor in our apartment building. For my wife this is like a drug addict living in a crack house, but it does provide her with a certain level of convenience.

She has been there a few times, and was relatively impressed with their work. However, recently when she went there everything changed  - dramatically.

She needed highlights in her hair. This is a pretty long process (so I am informed) and it has been a long time since she was truly happy with the results of any salon.

The team at the salon in our building started work with her at 7:30. They worked with her until 12:30 that evening, and then again from 11am the next morning to finish off a few odd ends and to make sure that she was truly happy with the results. (They closed at 10 pm)

The results were startling.

My wife was ecstatic! To date (a week later) she has sent 7 of her friends to this salon through a combination of showing them the results and evangelizing them about the service, the attention to detail, and the after sales care that she received there.

She has also set up one of the girls working there with a few of her other friends so she can earn some additional income on the side as well. (So good was this particular ladies work and service)

The financial impact to the Salon has been immediate, the revenue from repeat revenue - from my wife at least - will continue to reward them for this work for months if not years.

Wow, what a fantastic example of word of mouth advertising.

Before this fateful day she thought they were pretty good. Not fantastic, not over the top brilliant - but good enough for her to go there, they were ordinary.

But they have since shown that they are willing to go to extra-ordinary lengths to make sure their custoimers are happy. Extraordinary efforts, skills, dedication and follow up. So extraordinary inf act that my wife felt compelled to tell all her friends about it.

Actually, better than that! She was determined to drag her friends along so they could experience just how extraordinary this salon is.

Brilliant. The stuff that consulting and service industry word of mouth campaigns are made of.

What is your extra-ordinary offerings? Is it your service, attention to detail, knowledge, products, value (vital) or your concern over your clients well being?

Are you able to put her in touch with other like minded people using your extra-ordinary network? Or maybe you could provide him with extraordinary value through some of the articles, analysis and reports you have generated through your years?

One thing is for certain - if you want word of mouth, then you need to be worth talking about. And nobody wastes their very precious time talking about the ordinary.