Are there people in our ranks who are professionals or who could easily attain professional status? Absolutely. The numbers here are more rare, but more power to them.
Are there others in our ranks who are short on professional inclination or professional training? Also true.
We believe the latter group is the largest group and is the one we seek to serve the most. Professionals can take care of themselves, but the rest of us, the vast majority of us, stay engaged by tapping dedicated support systems like what we have at HopeQuestGlobal.
HopeQuestGlobal uses a “most common denominator” strategy. It is borrowed from the mathematical idea of the lowest common denominator, where fractions are simplified for adding, subtracting, and comparison purposes.
Isn’t it true that each of us brings a fraction to the table? Our busy lives and diverse priorities prevent us from full commitment and that’s okay. Life’s juggling act is underway. So, when we join a social marketing effort we are only a part or a fraction of the team. We can try to compare what each of us contributes, but in the final analysis what makes us the most common with each other is to first ask, “What is the one thing we all have as fractions that is the most common or the most true about each of us, as we all contribute to the whole?”
We believe the answer to this question in this modern marketing world of direct sales, affiliate marketing, network marketing and internet marketing and now the business changes introduced by mission-based social entrepreneurship is simple. It is the old and proven practice of word-of-mouth marketing. It is the passing of information from person to person by oral and verbal communication.
And one of our greatest advantages of this age-old practice is easily accommodated by such things as what is now called electronic word of mouth (eWoM). It’s no longer just the word of mouth of folklore and storytelling; it’s word of mouth mediated electronically via websites, social media, social network platforms, instant messages, news feeds, text messages, and email.
So with all of this in mind we conclude that one thing is the most true. That our marketing and social enterprise runs on one simple dynamic: Word of mouth endorsements—electronic or otherwise. This truth can be and is implemented by both the talented professional and, more importantly, by the untrained non-professional.
What is not the most true, what is not the most common about us, is that everyone of us are professionals or that everyone of us should become professionals. And our conclusion to that is: “That’s okay.” That’s the fraction with which we will work.
Because what we can ALL do is spread the word through a personal endorsement.
Our marketing and management premise is we do not advance in large numbers and make large social impact because of professionalism. When boiled down we change the world with simple word of mouth endorsements.
As Sam Caster, social entrepreneur, says, “Institutions have never changed the world; people movements change the world.” People care.
Social entrepreneur and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammed Yunus says that if you will find a way to compensate ordinary (italics mine) people for championing your cause they will drive your initiative to the ends of the earth.
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