“You Should Try This Website Designer, Doctor, Book, Accountant, and Computer.”

• I mentioned to a couple of my colleagues that I was in the market for a new website designer. They both recommended Brian Kraker. I hired him and he's great. I have since recommended him to others who have hired him.
• My doctor, Dr. Lee Fentriss, was recommended to me by my sister. Lee has now been my doctor for over 10 years.
• The last book I bought was recommended to me by my friend, Mark Sanborn.
• My accountant, James Weinberg, was recommended to me over 25 years ago. He's still my accountant.
• The reason I use a Mac laptop is because years ago I asked a group of business associates their opinion on the PC vs. Mac question. They overwhelmingly recommended Mac. The rest is history—I've been a Mac guy ever since.

A huge number of the products you buy, the services you buy, and the people you do business with were recommended to you by friends, family, or by total strangers on the Internet.

What your customers say about you is the most powerful magnetic force you can possibly have working in your favor. So don't leave it to chance. Be in control of it.

Everyone Gets It

I work with hundreds of business owners and managers each year, and when we talk about the power of word of mouth and how it is the key to attracting business and driving growth, everyone “gets it.” Everyone understands and accepts the idea that positive word of mouth is the key factor in their future success.

Beyond that, though, the thought process seems to be “I know how important positive word of mouth is, and I sure hope our customers are saying great things about us.” They go back to work with a firm resolve to encourage everyone on the team to do a really great job and get that customer recommendation machine working for them.

Which, of course, is useless. “Do a really great job” means nothing. You've got to get specific. You've got to be intentional.

What Do We Want Our Customers to Say about Us?

Consider the logic and strength behind this incredibly simple approach to your business: What do we want our customers to say about us?

The key to this idea working is to not settle for something like “we want them to say good things.” That's meaningless. They key is to be focused and specific on exactly what you want your customers saying about you. This is the starting point for being a truly magnetic business.

You will need to give this some serious thought and discussion. First, you identify the specific things your customers say that will indicate extreme satisfaction with your business and will drive new business to you through the power of positive word of mouth. Let's call them our “what we want them to say” statements. Then you focus the attention and efforts of your entire business on creating the customer experiences that result in those statements. The end result is that you have satisfied, loyal customers who become your never-ending source of new business.

In case you're wondering why I suggest that you should choose three ideal customer statements, it's simply because the number three is so effective. We can wrap our heads around three things. Fourteen things? A lot tougher to think about. You can certainly go with one, two, four, or five things, but I recommend three.

Make An Emotional Connection

No matter what kind of business you are in, to be truly magnetic you have to make an emotional connection. If you sell light bulbs on the Internet for industrial use, your goal should be to have all of your customers saying “I love these guys.” The emotional connection comes from how they feel when they do business with you.

It goes beyond the rational connection you might make with price, quality, and value.

The Journal of Marketing Research reports that research by Keller Fay Group found that brands that inspire a higher emotional intensity experience three times as much word of mouth activity as less emotionally connected brands. That same study also found that highly differentiated brands have greater word of mouth.

There's an accounting firm in Nashville, Tennessee, whose entire marketing effort is built around customer testimonials in which they all say “I Love My CPA!” Love is the ultimate and most powerful magnetism in business. Love is pure emotion, and to get to the point where your customers love you and tell others about it, you simply have to make that emotional connection.

To drive significant positive word of mouth, you can't just do a good job. You have to be so good at what you do that it inspires your customers to talk about you. The companies that get the greatest amount of word of mouth are found at both ends of the performance spectrum—the positive end and the negative end.

Those companies that do an extraordinary job inspire positive comments, and that magnetic force brings additional customers to them. The ones that are perceived as doing a poor job inspire negative comments, terrible reviews, and one-star ratings both online and in person. More and more, this kind of negative word of mouth will cause potential customers to immediately eliminate you from consideration.

Don't Overthink It

As you think through what you want your customers saying about you and the word of mouth buzz that you want to create, please don't overthink it. What are three rock solid statements about you that, if heard over and over again from lots of people by potential customers, would be likely to drive them to you like steel balls to a powerful magnet?

Keep it focused on those core things that attract your customers to you and keep them loyal. It can help to think in terms of what you really don't want your customers saying about you.

A few years ago, I was approached by a firm that does marketing for people who speak professionally. They wanted to build a marketing campaign for me that would have “everyone saying you're a rock star in the speaking business.” I told them that very few, if any, of my satisfied clients use the words “rock star” to describe me, and that it's really not a description that I wanted to cultivate.

Neither do I want to be known for “lowest fee,” “trendy programs,” “really unusual thank you gifts,” “will negotiate anything you want,” “loves to work overseas,” or any number of other things. Knowing what I don't particularly want my customers to say about me helps me get clarity on what I need to do well in order to get them to say the things that I do want them to say. More about that in the next chapter.

Your Three “What We Want Them to Say” Statements

Come up with three “what we want them to say” statements that you want from your customers. These can be different for everyone, as they depend on a multitude of factors including:

• the nature of your product or service;
• your competitive strengths (i.e. price, service, customization, the ability of your people to make positive connections with customers, your particular processes, the ease of doing work with you, etc.);
• where your customers will be making their recommendations. For the Nashville CPA firm, it's on their own website and in their advertising. For your business, it may be on TripAdvisor, Google Search, or on your Facebook page.
• the kind of customers and new business you want to attract. If you are priced higher than your competition, you certainly don't want to identify “they've got the lowest price” as one of your ideal “What We Want Them To Say” statements. You might, however, want to target “they're the best value.”

In my Magnetic: The Art of Attracting Business keynotes and workshops, I give participants a list of possible “what we want them to say” statements to get them thinking about what would work for them, their business, and their growth strategy.

It's a take-home exercise, because to make it really work requires some thought and most likely input and discussion from your team. This list serves as a starting point for you to consider further, and I encourage people to come up with their own wording for “what we want them to say” statements.