The Word-of-Mouth Phenomenon Is Working

By Tom J. Kennedy

SDI (Self Directed Income) entrepreneurs have identified the word-of-mouth phenomenon as the optimal strategy to share information about their selected products and/or services. The Direct Selling Association http://www.dsa.org reports that approximately 15 million Americans are enrolled as SDI entrepreneurs marketing their favourite products and/or services.

Since Canada has about one tenth of the population of the United States of America, we can assume that there are a minimum of 1.5 million Canadians who are enrolled as SDI entrepreneurs. That is a total of 16.5 million SDI entrepreneurs in North America who are networking and sharing information about their favourite products and/or services with families, friends, neighbours and working colleagues etc. In turn, a high percentage of these SDI entrepreneurs pass along the information to others and this is the essence of the word-of-mouth phenomenon as it applies to the SDI industry.

Andy Sernovitz writes in his book, Word of Mouth Marketing: “When people trust you, they are willing to put their words on the line for you. Please them, inspire them, and they’ll bring their friends to you. Word-of-mouth marketing works for any size business. You don’t need to have a hot website, to be in a sexy industry or to have a cool, new technology. You can make it work for a single store with no advertising budget. You just have to give people something to talk about.”

The word-of-mouth phenomenon works optimally within the SDI industry simply because people like to tell stories about their favourite products and/or services. Since SDI entrepreneurs market these products and/or services, they earn respectable commissions when a consumer purchases any product or service from them. This is a unique and appealing aspect of the SDI industry, for as we know we do not earn such commissions when we apply the word-of-mouth phenomenon to the movie industry, the restaurant industry, the franchise industry or the retail industry involving big box stores as owned and operated by the major transnational corporations.

The growing number of online, social networks like Facebook, MySpace, Ning, Twitter, etc. are advancing the word-of-mouth phenomenon to ever-evolving levels as we progress into this 21st Century. According to Andy Sernovitz, about 20 percent of word-of-mouth marketing currently happens online, and this percentage is likely to keep increasing. The remaining 80 percent of word-of-mouth marketing is comprised of face-to-face conversations.

It is noteworthy that a survey by emarketer http://www.emarketer.com reveals that approximately 53 percent of online traffic is initiated by family members and/or friends who share links to recommended websites.

Indeed, the combination of face-to-face and online communication is causing the word-of-mouth phenomenon to create annual sales of more than $30 billion. Yes, the word-of-mouth phenomenon does impact the bottom line of millions of SDI entrepreneurs who are dedicated to spreading the good news about the selected lines of products and/or services that they are excited about.

Permit me to share the good news about the products and/or services that I have selected for my personal, SDI Portfolio by reading the article “An SDI Backgrounder and Unique and Timely SDI Opportunities” (see the link below) and clicking on the various links about products for more information.

At your request, I will answer any questions and offer you any of my selected products for your consumption. Should you wish to add a particular opportunity to your SDI Portfolio, I promise whatever support that I can offer as well as additional support from my team of SDI entrepreneurs. Please forward any emails to: tom@cyberclass.net with “SDI products/services” in the Subject line.