The effectiveness of personal contact in building an organization frequently goes un-noticed as more obvious forms of communication such as advertising, press releases, interviews, and publicity predominate our consciousness of the organization or product that it offers. These communicative efforts serve as adjuncts to the major impetus causing the organization or business to grow—customer satisfaction.
Customers express their satisfaction by telling friends, co-workers, family, acquaintances, club members and other people within their sphere of influence about the quality and merits of the organization or product.
We recommend doctors, dentists, and lawyers to people who we like and want to help. When many people start doing this for a particular professional they develop a positive reputation and they have an assurance of success as long as they maintain their standards.
This word-of-mouth communication transcends the influence of advertising and other promotional efforts. We all have familiarity with big budget films that resulted in low box-office results, and low budget films that produced high box-office results. We have read the panning by critics of theater presentations only to find they resulted in standing room only accommodations. Word-of mouth accounted for the difference. Word-of-mouth makes and breaks organizations, businesses, and television programs; it represents the collective value structure of the people and their willingness to express it.
I recently conducted a lecture in Harlem in which only four people attended. Two books and one set of booklets were purchased. One of the attendees invited me to a meeting of male authors the following week where I sold one book and made four more contacts. If we each a had month similar to that we would have sold 30 books, 10sets of booklets and made 40 new contacts for every 10 of our supporters. If we had a similar result every month we would have a substantial following by the end of the year. Personal contact produces results like that; it takes very little time yet is effective.
The effect of those contacts goes well beyond the immediate result. Other people will peruse their books and booklets. They will log onto to our website and in turn might be motivated to order a book. I noticed that when Amazon.com first stocked my book they had 30 copies on hand. Now they have 21. These sales came from internet activity and from the thoughts of satisfied readers. Thoughts have wings—know this for a certainty. One day I will share with you how the spiritual internet altered my life.
If you believe in something, you will want to share it with your sphere of influence. At my age I no longer have fellow alumni, professional associates or friends to contact; most everyone who I contact is a stranger. You all have a significant sphere of influence at work, at church, in your neighborhood, and in your club, gym, or spa. Go out and spread the word in whatever fashion is comfortable for you. You will be amazed at the readiness of people to invest in the book or booklets, especially if they trust in you.
To properly promote this you must have at least one book and one set of booklets on had to present to others. It’s very easy. You will be doing the same thing as recommending, a doctor or a restaurant to a friend. The doctor charges a fee, the restaurant has a menu, and our book and booklets have sales prices. I ask that each one of you go out and spread the word. If you do it just once every two weeks, we will have a large membership by the end of the year.
E.G.
