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Making a business that’s worth talking about is a far more sustainable model than one promoted on transactional advertising or viral gimmicks. The latter two don’t affect how you make people feel. How you make people feel is what they will talk about.

It’s hard work to promote a business on legitimate word of mouth. It means constant attention to your customer service, product quality, environment, character, passion, mission, change … every aspect of your business.

I termed this process “the sweat equity of Word of Mouth,” in responding to a discussion at SWOM, the Society for Word of Mouth, where co-founder Ben McConnell began a discussion about Gordon Ramsay, from his autobiography “Gordon Ramsay’s Playing with Fire:”

I’m hooked on Ramsay’s BBC program Kitchen Nightmares which, while about restaurants, applies keenly to any business. Ramsay’s key to success is in the sweat of running a business and earning loyal customers rather than trying to buy them with what can best be called old-school marketing and advertising.

For more thoughts, Mark Nagurski picked up on the phrase “sweat equity of Word of Mouth” on his blog, Really Practical Marketing.

SWOM is great inspiration. You can join here.

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