Word of mouth...Overated?

[killerman]

Nowadays I'm trying to build my guitar teaching business and there's one thing i've been thinking about...is word of mouth overated? Because the thing is, you have to rely on other people talking about how good your service/product is. And most people won't talk about it to other people. I remember when I was taking lessons from one guy...he was good, but I didn't rave about him to all my friends. I just went home after that and kept it to myself. Plus if they DO talk about you to someone else, it's unlikely that person will just happen to be looking for that kind of service or product. Also, as a business you want to be exposed to as many people as possible to maximise the odds of people buying into your product. It's like pickup. You have to be exposed to thousands of people to build up a clientelle of customers. And I just dont think that word of mouth can get you exposed to hundreds or thousands of people. Also in my opinion, the worst thing about word of mouth is that you're relying on other people getting you business. it's like the whole destiny mentality that most people in society have where one day they hope that what they want will somehow miraculously fall into their laps without them looking to get it themselves. What do you think?

 

[Bboy100]

To be honest, I've never ran a buisness, so I'm not very familiar with this stuff. But what I can tell you is that I used to work for Kirby- a vacuum sales company which has been around and flourishing for 101 years. They do no advertising other than word of mouth. So to answer your question, no I don't think its overrated. But perhaps there are some tricks and nuances to using it which we don't know about.

 

[Mr.Rob]

My father started a prosperous lawn care company completely through word of mouth referrals.

It grew so much he had to and still does decline business.

 

[Thedoctor]

K.M.,

From my personal experience (albeit, a bit limited), I'd say word of mouth can work under the following criteria:

-For small, personal businesses, where it's just yourself or maybe a small crew you run. The reason this works is that people are personally recommending you, not a faceless company or brand.

-That your offering something most people need. For instance, if you're a mechanic wanting to start a small shop, chances are you'll know lots of people who have cars that need fixing/maintenance. Or like Rob mentioned, a small lawn care company.

Guitar lessons may be a bit harder since it's a bit more of a niche market. Though, I guess it depends if you network among people who may want lessons. But in my opinion, you'd probably want to rely on other mediums to build up your business as well.

-John