The Power of Nice by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval

The Power of Nice: How To Conquer the Business World With Kindness 

Let’s face it- “nice’ hasn’t exactly been touted as an executive power tool.  After all, isn’t the goal to learn how to swim with the sharks, not how to kill them with kindness?  And how about the question burned into every MBA student’s mind: What would Machiavelli do? And is that a dog-eared copy of the The Art of War sitting on the CEO’s bookshelf?

If all the saber rattling advice and chest puffery in the conference room makes you, well, sort of roll your eyes, there is some great news.  There is a new philosophy making its way to the corner office (and to center stage), and advertising industry giants Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval are leading the charge.  In this book, they demonstrate how Nice and Successful go hand-in-hand.  A little kindness used intuitively and intelligently is the surest strategy for rising to the top in your professional and personal life.  Now that’s a philosophy I can get behind!

Indeed, Nice works!  Whether it’s a door held open, a smile in the hallway, or a well-deserved compliment offered with a handshake, nice gestures sincerely delivered are appreciated and often unexpectedly rewarded.  Being nice is the surest way to live up to your potential. 

The Power of Nice is an inspiring guide to the best-kept secret in the business world- nice people do finish first– as well as live longer, are healthier and have more lucrative lives!  Now that’s worth paying attention to.  This book is chock-full of stories about nice powerhouses like Jay Leno, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Warren Buffett.  The authors use their experiences, as well as those of other very successful people, to show how using common courtesy, thoughtfulness, and gratitude can help you ge ahead in a highly competitive world.

The authors don’t just spin a good yarn and talk up the other team.  They support their nice philosophy with hard data from authoritative sources.  Here is a sample of the research you will find in the book that demonstrates the power of nice:

• Nice people are less likely to die prematurely
• Nice people have a lower divorce rate
• Companies that foster nice behavior in their corporate culture enjoy higher revenues

Here are the six principles of nice that are discussed in the book:

1.  Positive impressions are like seeds– goodwill is contagious.  Every time you smile at a memssenger or laugh at a coworker’s joke, you plant a seed of positive energy and underneath the surface, that seed grows and expands, often exponentially.

2.  You never know- that person you offer to share a ab with today may be the cliet at tomorrow’s big sales pitch, so treat everyone you meet as if he is the most important person in the world- because in reality, he is!  You never know what culd happen.

3.  People change – assistants do eventually run successful companies . . . perhaps one you might want to work for one day!  One common mistake is believing that you only ahve to be nice to people in positions of power, not the assistant or security guard.  But you have no idea who might become important in five, ten or even twenty years from now.

4.  Nice must be automatic- small things like holding a door or offering a seat can actually make the difference in someone’s opinion of you.  However, you can’t turn on nice when it benefits you.  Nice needs to be a habit and without a second thought.

5.  Negative impressions are like germs- they infect you and everyone around you.  Just as positive actions are like seeds, rude gestures and remakrs are like germs- you may not see the impact they have on you for a while, but they are there, silently infecting you and everyone around you.

6.  You will know. Ultimately, it’s about how you live your life and what you value.  Even if you never again see a person you have treated badly, you will know.  It will be in your mind and heart when you walk into a room and try to convince others to put their faith in you.  Because you won’t believe in yourself, you could jeopardize the outcome of a business meeting or relationship.

Wo where ahs their nice philosophy brought the authors?  Together at the Kaplan Thaler Group for one thing.  Linda Kaplan Thaler is the CEO/Chief Creative Officer and Robin Koval is the company’s President.  The Kaplan Thaler Group is one of the fastest-growing advertising agencies in the U.S.  How did these two women climb the corporate ladder?  Not by being pushovers, that’s for sure, but both credit much of their success to living by the principles of nice.  These two powerhouses are living proof that nice delivers.

Summary:

Foreword by Jay Leno

“Doing the right thing makes you feel better . . . doing good things will improve your life. Let’s face it, you cannot eat the whole pie or you’ll make yourself sick.  Eat some, and then give whatever is left over to other people.”

“Try giving a little.  You would be surprised at how much you get back.”

Book Summary: Secrets of Word Of Mouth Marketing by George Silverman

The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing
“How to trigger exponential sales through runaway word of mouth”
Spread the word about your hot new product or company!

Word-of-mouth marketing is the most powerful and persuasive weapon you can use, and it doesn’t cost you anything!  Based on George Silverman’s years of consulting with successful word-of-mouth campaigns of his own clients, here is one of the first resources on how to harness the often
underestimated power of word-of-mouth, and be heard above the media noise.

1. Word-of-mouth is actually the center of the marketing universe.2. Just as it is untrue that the sun revolves around the earth, marketing does not really revolve around advertising, selling, and promotions. Much of marketing actually centers around illusion-creation.

3. Word-of-mouth offers an authenticity to it because the source is normally independent of the company, he or she is offering his or her own candid opinion and therefore, the marketing appears credible.

4. Advertising is the renting of a medium to send out a carefully crafted message to a specific audience. Everything is paid for, whereas word-of-mouth is a more effective tool; and best of all, it is absolutely free.

5. Word-of-mouth can take on a life of its own. There are no limits to how far-reaching it can be. Just study how fast a good joke on the e-mail circulates.

6. Studies have shown that a satisfied customer will tell an average of three people about a product or service she likes, and eleven people about a product or service with which she had a negative experience.

7. Because this is the age of the Internet, e-mail, websites, chat rooms, and video teleconferencing, word-of-mouth is even more important to businesses today than ever before.

8. The most important way by which sales can increase is by increasing the speed with which decisions are made. Decision speed is the time it takes for your customer to go from initial awareness to enthusiastic use and recommendation of your product or service. Simplicity, ease, and fun govern the decision process.

9. Marketing success is determined more by the time it takes for your customer to decide on your product than by any other single factor. Decision speed is more powerful than positioning, image, value, customer satisfaction, guarantees, or even product superiority.

10. Shortening the customer’s decision cycle means your product’s benefits, claims, and promises must be obvious and compelling; information must be clear, balanced, and credible; comparisons must reveal meaningful differences, your trials should be free and easy, your evaluations, clear and simple. Guarantees should be ironclad and generous. Testimonials and other word-of-mouth marketing must be relevant and believable. Delivery, training, and support offered must be superior.

11. A good way to spread the word on your company is to circulate true, positive stories about it. FedEx is famous for its legendary employee who hired a chopper just to deliver a package forgotten on the tarmac. People love a good story, and that is the essence of word of mouth.

12. There are 9 levels of word-of-mouth. They range from the public scandal of minus 4, the product boycott of minus 3, to the raving customers/advocates who tell you how great your product or service is (plus 3) to the “talk of the town” level (plus 4).

13. Examples of those who have reached plus 4 level of word-of-mouth marketing are:  Lexus Automobiles, Saturn Car Company, Harley-Davidson, Netscape Navigator, Celestial seasonings herbal tea, The Internet, and Apple Computer

14. Some ways of harnessing word of mouth are by using experts like customers, suppliers, salespeople, experts’ roundtable discussions and selling groups. Take advantage of seminars, workshops, and speaking engagements, dinner meetings, teleconferenced panel discussions, and trade shows. “Canned” Word of Mouth consists of putting out videotapes, audiotapes, using a well-designed website, or distributing CDs. There are also ways such as referral selling programs, testimonials, and networking methods, hotlines (1-800 numbers) and e-mail.

15. Using traditional media for Word of Mouth means using customer service as a word-of-mouth engine, public relations, placements, unusual events, promotions, word of mouth in ads, sales brochures, or direct mail, salesperson programs, sales stars, peer training, or using salespeople as word-of-mouth generators, word-of-mouth incentive programs (“Tell-a-friend” programs), useful gifts to customers (articles, how-to manuals) that they can give their friends.

16. Employees should be actively spreading word of mouth about your products. Spread stories around about examples of superior customer service. Give people a common mission and make rewards dependent on the accomplishment of that mission.

17. Word of mouth accelerates the process of customer decision-making, from deciding to decide, asking for information, weighing options, evaluating a free trial, and then finally becoming a customer and advocate.

18. With customer-oriented service, your company can increase sales via word of mouth.

Specific steps in creating a word of mouth campaign:
1. Find some way to get the product into the hands of key influencers.
2. Provide a channel for the influencers to talk and get all fired up about your product.
3. Gather testimonials and endorsements, like actual letters of praise.
4. Form an ongoing group that meets once a year in a resort but once a month by teleconference or daily by list group
5. Create fun events to bring users together and invite non-users. Saturn, Harley-Davidson, and Lexus have been successful with this approach.
6. Produce cassettes, videotapes, and clips on your Web site featuring enthusiastic customers talking with other enthusiastic customers. Custom-create some CDs for each potential customer.
7. Conduct seminars and workshops
8. Create a club with membership benefits
9. Pass out flyers. Tell friends. Offer special incentives and discounts for friends who tell their friends.
10. Use the Internet!
11. Do at least one outrageous thing to generate word of mouth.
12. Empower employees to go the extra mile.
13. Network and brainstorm for ideas
14. Run special sales
15. Script!  Tell people exactly what to say in their word of mouth communication.

Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz

I initially bought this book because I thought it would be about network marketing.  I was a bit surprised to find that it is actually written to traditional businesses.  However, I found that the concepts and the tools provided will be extremely useful to me in a variety of settings, particularly with the various non-profit organizations with which I volunteer.

 Andy’s basic message is this:  You can no longer hide a bad product by putting it in a pretty package and developing a clever commercial to market it.  The minute the consumer opens it up and actually uses it, the word of mouth marketing will kick in and your bad product will be toast!  He focuses on the power and effectiveness of the word of mouth marketing, going as far as to say, “Traditional marketing is no longer the safe way to go.  It may make you more comfortable, but it is becoming gradually less and less effective for more and more companies.”  He also states that, “Real consumers, with real communications power, have added their voices to the mix.  And their voices are drowning out traditional media.  A single consumer voice, in the end, has far more impact than any ad could.”

As I thought about this message in conjunction with my current role as PTSA President and my upcoming role as Council PTA President,  I realized that PTA definitely has a product it is trying to sell– parent involvement, leadership development, membership, etc.  This book really pointed out the importance of creating a product worth talking about and then getting your ‘talkers’ talking.

I found myself thinking through the five T’s – Talkers (who will tell their friends about you?), Topic (what will they talk about?), Tools (how will you help the message travel?), Taking Part (how can you join the conversation?) and Tracking (what are people saying about you?) for each of the organizations I work with or volunteer with. 

Who are my talkers for PTA?  What have we done or what can we do that is worth talking about?  What can we do to help the message travel and how can we join the conversation in an appropriate way?  How can we track what is being said so that we can respond appropriately by thanking everyone for their feedback and making changes where changes are needed?

 Who are my talkers for YFP (the mentoring program I oversee)?  for America-Israel Friendship League? for Headstart? for Cache Inter-agency Council? for each of the other programs I care about?

This has been a very thought-provoking book and, in fact, was so compelling that I actually tracked down where I could order bulk so that each of the leaders I work with can have their own copy.

Of course, as a true believer in the network marketing industry and the incredible potential it offers people for financial security, I was also pleased with the unequivocal message Andy had on the effectiveness and power of word-of-mouth marketing.  While his intention was on helping traditional businesses stay current in their marketing practices and helping them to utilize word of mouth marketing along with their traditional marketing campaigns, his research and comments clearly support the wisdom of the network marketing model as not only a viable model, but as a significant force in today’s marketing practices. 

While I have known this all along, I hope that many other people will get over their mlm fears and realize the legitimacy and the power available to them through network marketing opportunities.  To do otherwise is equivalent to burying your head in the sand and pretend nothing has changed.  To do otherwise is to keep yourself from the abundance that is available to those who understand and master the power of word of mouth marketing in a way that will be a win/win/win for everyone involved.   There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.  Network marketing, the ultimate word of mouth marketing, is a business model whose time has come!  It is legitimate, it is effective, it holds unequalled potential.  The only remaining question is where you will stand in the word of mouth revolution.