I fell for it

A little after 2am on Tuesday evening, security cameras caught a black bear walking up to the back door of a wildlife rehabilitation center with something in its mouth.

Staff came in the next morning and found an injured raccoon laying by the door.

But the raccoon was still a live, and this was a black bear, a total apex predator…

“Weird”, they thought. One of those things you tell people at a party and they don't believe you.

But then it happened again.

Two days later, this time at the side entrance, about the same hour of the night. A bear sets an injured fox down by the door and walks away.

Someone finally pulled both recordings up next to each other and realized that both bears had the same white patch of fur on it’s chest. So they went digging through old intake files. And sure enough, years earlier, a young bear with that exact marking had come through the center hurt, got treated, and was released back into the wild.

The bear they saved came back and it was bringing them new patients.

Or so I thought.

Turns out this whole story is fake. But I didn't find out until I started digging for the details to write this email. No named center, no location, no records, and the photos, as it turns out, were simply AI generated.

But it still brings me to what I wanted to say in today’s email.

I've been paying a lot more attention to word of mouth in my business lately.

In my opinion, it’s the single most valuable marketing asset you’ll ever own and most people either take it for granted, or simply don’t take it at all. But when I ask business owners where their best clients came from, more often than not, they’ll say it was through a referral.

But they’ll talk about it the way they talk about the whether.

Like it’s something that just happens to them and it’s completely beyond their control.

So here's what I've been doing instead.

When someone sends me a referral, or takes a few minutes to write me a testimonial, I look for a way to give something back. It’s not something I announce in advance, but something I always try to do after the fact so that they know I noticed and that I appreciate it.

Maybe I’ll unlock a training they didn’t pay for.

Or give them a free coaching call.

Or some extra DFY services.

And sometimes it’s nothing more than a straight up “thank you” that names the specific thing they did and let’s them no I appreciate it. I’m not perfect at it, but I’m trying to make it more of a reflex.

And here’s why…

This is another story I can’t fully verify, so take it as folklore. But I heard it from Tad Hargrave, and as far as I can remember it was about Dan Kennedy.

Apparently Dan was talking to a group mastermind about his bookkeeper.

Turns out, this guy was a really great bookkeeper. So much so, that Dan Kennedy sent him client after client through word of mouth referrals for many years. And Dan was quite certain that many of them turned into clients, and that the bookkeeper knew very well who sent them.

But Dan never once got a thank you.

And he wasn’t expecting piles of money or anything, just a simple, “Thanks Dan, for the recommendations, I really appreciate it.”

But it never came.

And so, again, this is hearsay, I can’t find anything that points to this being true, but as the story goes, Dan said, “Now I know this is petty, but since I never got a thank you from him, I just can’t recommend him anymore. I still using him for my own bookkeeping, but I’ll never recommend him to another person ever again.”

Now whether or not that story is actually, I think there’s a grain of human truth to it.

People are petty.

But we’re also quick to forgive when you address those things head on.

So all to say, if it’s true what they say, “the best marketing is often the work at your desk,” then who do you have to thank for having that work in the first place?

That’s it for today.

Your pal,

Kevin Hood