What causes an idea to go from obscurity to popularity? Can word-of-mouth change behaviors, skyrocket sales and spread ideas like a virus? History is filled with cases where products and services quickly became enormously popular and profitable, from fax machines to bottled water.
Sharp introduced the first low-priced fax in 1984, but only sold 80,000 units that year. Over the next three years, businesses slowly and steadily bought more machines and by 1987 enough people had a fax that it suddenly made sense for everyone to have one. Any product or service can spread with the force of epidemics when using the influence of others.
According to Ed Keller and Jon Berry authors of “The Influentials,” “One American in ten tells the other nine how to vote, where to eat and what to buy.” To illustrate, Hush Puppies shoe sales had slipped to 30,000 pair in the early 1990s, yet six years later, sales climbed to over 2,000,000. What happened? A small number of East Village teenagers started wearing them because no one else was”¦ an epidemic was born.
Sharp sold 1 million machines in 1987 and two years later sales doubled again. Cellular phones have followed a similar pattern as they became smaller, lighter and cheaper. In 1998, suddenly everyone had a cell phone. The same is true of smartphones, the use of texting and “going viral” on YouTube.
The difference between a world filled with cell phones and one without them is much like a snowstorm and the previous day. A drop in temperature of just a few degrees causes a foot of snow, almost nothing changed, yet everything changed.
Business epidemics are highly contagious. Just as flu outbreak has its origins in a few “infected” people, business epidemics begin with a small percentage of trendsetters using a product or service. When they symbolize instant status, everyone else wants and buys them.
Sharp started with only 80,000 sales, but that small base of trendsetters helped to persuade many others to buy. As we have all seen, epidemics appear almost overnight. Fax machines did not grow gradually by 5 percent per year for 20 years. Sales exploded in just three years.
We all buy products mainly because of the influence of others or through word-of-mouth. Author Malcolm Gladwell in “The Tipping Point” says that we”™re influenced by three types of people.
- The first type is “connectors,” who have extremely large circles of friends and acquaintances, and not only know the CEO, but also the mail person and the security guard.
- The second group is known as “mavens,” who primarily know about things and share information freely.
- The third group is comprised of “salespeople,” who are the ones who sell ideas, fashions and products. They”™re incurable optimists who cultivate customers assiduously.
All three types have persuasive personalities and wield a unique talent. They control the rhythms of communications, making their own emotions contagious, and dictating the terms of their peer group interactions.
For every business, the eternal question is,” How do we get our message across at a reasonable cost?” The answer is to create an epidemic, the kind that drives customers to your door. Starting an epidemic requires the discipline of concentrating resources. Connectors, mavens and salespeople are the resources ”“the instigators of word-of-mouth epidemics.
Questions for discussion:
How can we identify the “influencers” that exist in our existing customer base and make them strong advocates of our products or services?
Could we then identify and subdivide our influencers into connectors, mavens and salespeople and customize an approach to get more business from each group?
Joe Murtagh is The DreamSpeaker, an international keynote speaker, meeting facilitator and business trainer. For questions or comments, Joe@TheDreamSpeaker.com, www.TheDreamSpeaker.com or call (800) 239-0058.
