I had my flight booked, my car arranged and my hotel ready to go to Andy Sernovitz’s Supergenius event in Chicago on Dec, 16. Then I called MomGoesGreen (my wife) and was reminded of a family obligation I cannot miss. Doh! Note to self: Always call the wife first when booking a trip.

Here’s the good news. Since I can’t go, they’ve given me two, count em, two 50% off tickets to give away to someone who wants to go to the event. I’m so jealous because this is the 2nd time I’ve been unable to go. Take a look at the brands and personalities that will be presenting and tell me you don’t want to be there.

So here’s the deal, I’m going to pick two people to give the coupon code to out of the comments on this page. So leave a comment telling me you can go and if you win I’ll send you the 50% coupon code so you can register. Please only enter if you know you can attend.

You can watch a video review of Andy’s book here on my video book reviews page.

David Meerman Scott follows up his first book about the New Rules of PR with a book called World Wide Rave. My video review is below. If you’d like me to review your business or marketing book contact me. View all of my other video book reviews by clicking the link at the top of the page.

Remember the podcast I did with Andy Sernovitz about word of mouth marketing? Well, Andy sent me a few copies of his book ‘Word of Mouth Marketing‘ to give away. All you have to do is take a short video of yourself telling me why you should get one of the copies of the book, send it to me, and I’ll send two lucky winners their free copy, stamps on me.

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Podcast I did with Andy Sernovitz on Word of Mouth Marketing

I walked out of the HHgregg store disgusted. The salesman had just assured I’d never walk into that store ever again. How dumb. I’ll never shop at HHgregg again, ever.

I don’t care what discounts or coupons they may have in the future. One employee, with one horrible sales tactic and personality destroyed their brand for me. That’s how easy it is to do. Scary, huh? Remember, here I am now blogging about it to potentially millions of people, and I will tell my story to every single person I meet for the rest of my life. Bad word of mouth is not good for your brand.

For the full story, watch the video below. Suffice it to say, I have some harsh lessons for bad salespeople and for the brands that employ those people. This is why it’s so important to hire the right people, who understand your brand and who won’t work to destroy it.

Have you experienced bad sales teams? Have you written off entire brands because of people like this? I’d like to hear about it if so.

Do NOT miss this podcast. Andy Sernovitz (THE mast of word of mouth) from Gaspedal.com gives some unbelievable advice about how anyone can get started with word of mouth marketing.

Buy Andy’s Book at Amazon.

We talk about what WOM is and how anyone can do it, with examples of how real companies are doing it every day, and get this… with no real money spent! Andy gives two major things that you need to know about WOM. Huge tips that will make you start thinking right away.

Consider this: “Never let anyone walk out the door without something to share”. Think about that for a second. Are you letting the WOM get away from you?

Oh yeah, be on the watch here on this blog for some free copies of Andy’s book!

Here are the show notes:

What is word of mouth marketing?
How to get started?
Who’s gonna talk about my stuff? How do I make it easier for them to share it?
Identify the talkers.
Offline wom principles, never let anyone walk out the door without something to share.
(examples: bloomingdales big brown bag)
Send everyone back to office with 6 extra desserts, they’ll talk about it.
Email is a huge part of wom.
Emotional reasons wom works. Does it make me feel good? Does it make me look smart?
Makes me feel important (give away discount code).
Fun gets forwarded.
Potbelly restaurant sent coupon for 10 free sandwiches to old customer to giveaway.
Freshbook invoices, hosted dinners for travelers in every city.

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