Ten years of word of mouth, and three questions we couldn't answer

For ten years, nobody asked us what we sell.

They didn't need to. They arrived already knowing.

That's what word of mouth does. A client recommends you to a friend, the friend calls, and half the sale is done before you pick up the phone. You don't need a pitch. You just need not to mess it up.

It works. It also hides things. This week I found out what.

Growing beyond word of mouth, with a bit of nerve

Since Yeray and I started Foxnice in 2014, almost every client has come through someone else. We've tried ads and lead generation agencies before. Either nothing came in, or cold contacts came in who had no idea who we were. Each time it felt like burning money.

So this month we did something that, for us, takes some nerve. We signed with a small marketing agency to build a proper system: a sales video, ads, a landing page. Starting with one product, Foxnice Booking, instead of four sectors at once.

At the end of the first call we told them something I'm glad is now in writing: before anything else, we need to settle the offer.

We said it. I'm not sure we understood it.

Three questions before the camera

Yesterday the scripts arrived, with a note I liked: check that everything we say about the product is true as it is today, and if a figure doesn't match what you see in your hotels, change it. Better a real number than a pretty one.

By the evening the scripts already said what we wanted: accommodation from a single room. And then, before recording, three short questions.

• On the call, what do you sell? The monthly subscription, a custom build, or either one depending on the size of the place?
• How much would you charge a place with two or three rooms, and how much a 30-room hotel? It won't appear in the videos. It's so they don't fill our calendar with the wrong people.
• Your website says 99 € a month, no setup fee, no lock-in. If someone sees the ad, visits the site and then hears something different on the call, we start badly. Keep it, or change it before the campaign goes live?

I read them twice.

They weren't hard questions. They were questions word of mouth had let us skip for ten years.

What word of mouth lets you improvise

When a client arrives through a recommendation, you can improvise. You listen, you see how big they are and what they need, and you shape the offer during the conversation. It works because there's trust before there's a price.

I'm a developer who had to learn to sell, and I learned the way most small companies do: one conversation at a time. It's a skill. It doesn't scale.

An ad can't improvise. It says the same thing to everyone, with the same words. And whoever clicks doesn't know you. If the video says one thing, the website another and the call a third, they don't think you're flexible. They think you're not serious.

Word of mouth forgives a fuzzy offer. An ad shouts it.

The funny part is that our website already answers the second question. It says it works the same with one place as with twenty, and the price doesn't change. We wrote that. What the agency was really asking was whether we'd stand by it on a call with a 30-room hotel.

That's not a marketing question. It's a business question. And it's ours.

I once wrote that outsourcing sales means outsourcing what you know about your market. This is the other side of it. When you pay someone to talk about you, the first thing they do is ask who you are. If you don't know, they can't make it up for you. Well, they can. That's the problem.

It's the same lesson as the quote I sent with a number and nothing else, one size bigger. A price without context is a question you leave one client to answer alone. An offer without a definition is a question you leave everyone who sees the ad to answer.

The answers have to be ready before the recording. I'm not going to write them here yet: they aren't decided, and I'd rather decide them than announce them.

But I already know what I've learned. Ten years of clients recommending us gave us a business. They didn't give us a sentence that explains it to a stranger.

Now we have to write it. Before the actor reads it.

P.S. If you're about to pay for ads, try this first: answer those three questions about your business, in writing. If it takes more than ten minutes, the ads can wait.