This is the Business English Podcast episode 271.
Can you spread the word?
How to ask for marketing help in English.
Welcome to the Business English Podcast from all ears English.
Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business.
For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party, this is real Business English with
your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Michelle coming to you from New York City and Colorado
USA.
Hey Lindsay, how are you?
Excellent Michelle, how are you?
Good, good.
Lindsay, how do you typically find new businesses to go to?
Or maybe work coffee shops or doctors?
How do you, if you don't know, how do you find things to look at online?
What do you do?
Definitely different with coffee shops versus doctors.
On with coffee shops when I'm out somewhere, I'll just use Google Maps and just type in
coffee and see what looks good for doctors probably starting with my insurance going
into it.
The insurance portal right and then finding who will cover who's covered by my insurance.
Yeah.
Yeah, what about you?
Any secret methods that I need to know about?
Well for doctors, sometimes I know there's like where I live, there's a group on Facebook
where a lot of people will post asking for recommendations for doctors or even for a place
they'll say, oh, my parents are coming into town.
What's a good place to go with parents or what's a good place to take kids or something
like that?
And so a lot of this is word of mouth.
I think I get a lot of recommendations through word of mouth and that's a really important
expression dealing with marketing today that we're going to talk about.
It's a great expression.
Guys, we're going to get into it now.
But first go and check out episode 253 of Business English called Profit versus Nonprofit
in American Business.
Aubrey and I had a conversation because one listener asked us about how to talk about
the nonprofit world.
We talk a lot about the corporate world, startup world, but what about the non-profit?
Yeah, in terms of language.
Yeah.
Really interesting.
Okay.
So, Lindsay, what is word of mouth?
Well, it's self-explanatory, right?
From the phrase, what you hear from other people, right?
You ask for a recommendation or someone says, ooh, I tried this new restaurant.
You have to go.
That's word of mouth.
Okay.
Right.
So you could also say word travels.
So maybe your friend told you about it.
You hear others in the community talking about it.
It's really not a specific advertisement.
It's hearing from others.
And that is extremely valuable for businesses.
Word I've heard word travels or word travels fast.
Yeah.
Which is kind of more along the lines of gossip, right?
Right.
True.
That's also a subcategory of this word of mouth.
But to be right.
We're talking more about on the marketing side.
Yeah.
Well, it's really great when a business can get customers through word of mouth because
it's a great sign that it's a good business.
It means that people are really compelled to share it with others.
It's organic.
What do I mean by that?
Oh my gosh.
Organic is natural, right?
It's natural.
It's not artificial.
It's the opposite of artificial, right?
Something happens naturally.
In this case, it's a dream for businesses, right?
It's what every business wants.
Because you don't have to pay for it.
Exactly.
You don't spend anyone on marketing.
Love that.
Yeah.
Exactly.
I mean, Lindsay, what are some businesses that you may have started going to because of
word of mouth marketing?
Can you think of anything?
Definitely different doctors, like a dermatologist.
I'm about to go to a new dermatologist based on where other people are going.
My hairdresser, my current hairdresser, was word of mouth.
A lot of those types of services.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
And just out of curiosity, what do you usually, if somebody gives a suggestion, do you usually
look that person up?
Do you look at their reviews and how much do you take these reviews into consideration?
I would definitely take, I would do both.
So it's definitely a good sign to get a recommendation.
But I always think about the person that's recommending and what their scenario is.
Like for the hair, I took my recommendation.
My hair stylist is a curly hair specialist.
She specializes in curls.
Not everyone can cut curls.
They don't like it's just a new, a special method.
She had curly hair at that time, not anymore.
But that's why I took her recommendation seriously.
Someone else who maybe has straight hair, I may not go to who they recommend because I
need a special kind of stylist.
Complicated in the show.
Yeah.
It is.
It is.
Do you, Lindsay, are you somebody who posts reviews of places or do you?
I don't.
I really don't.
I'm not a helper.
Are you a helper?
No, I mean, sometimes I'll look up reviews, but I don't post.
My dad posts.
Really?
Okay, your dad's a helper.
Interesting.
So what would I always say, Yelper, what are we talking about?
Well, there's the app Yelper website.
There's also trip advisors.
These are just review, review website.
I mean, also websites.
So for restaurants and things like that, those are very good for that.
I will do.
So we say Yelper, if your Yelper is the original review site kind of, right?
It was the first real big review size of your Yelper.
But I will leave reviews if, for example, I do an Airbnb experience or an Airbnb stay
and they prompt you.
If they send me a prompt, not guess I will, but I won't just go and review my experience
at a restaurant or something.
No, right?
Right?
Interesting.
Yeah.
All right, Michelle.
We are back.
Let's go into a few more things here.
All right.
So there are some clues as to what kind of recommendation that you're getting is with
this word of mouth, or you can use these as well.
Lindsay, what's the first one?
You have to try this new place.
You have to try this new place.
You have to see my doctor.
He's the best, right?
You have to check out my salon.
It's amazing.
They're so good at cutting curly hair, right?
Something like that.
Right.
Right, right.
Exactly.
And it's always exciting when you have some place that you have to purchase something
from or your doctor, whatever.
And you feel so strongly about it and so excited that you want to share it with somebody
else.
Yeah.
Do you ever, do you ever get a little stressed, though?
What if they don't like it?
What if they disagree with you?
Do you feel comfortable making recommendations?
Yeah, I do have those thoughts, right?
I think about the person.
Will they really like it or are they different from me in some way?
It could be a little stressful.
I agree.
But if you've found, it's kind of the word about thing.
If you found something cool, you want to share it.
Because it reflects positively on you because you found this thing.
It's like a little secret, little discovery.
Right.
And you're just, you're generally, if you're probably pretty excited about it, the word
of mouth for me, that's hard, I would say I'm going to call out my mother, who I love.
But when my, I am always afraid to recommend a TV show to her or something like that, you
know, I just told her to watch that because I hate sometimes then my parents will come
back to me and they'll say, we didn't really like that.
So funny.
I love that.
Oh my gosh.
What are you talking about?
Yes.
What does somebody doesn't like your recommendation?
It can feel like a slap in the face.
Just different taste, I suppose, right?
Yeah.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Right.
So, but another thing you could say is I really recommend whatever.
I really recommend my doctor.
I really recommend this coffee shop, whatever.
Yeah.
And everyone is raving about X and this is a little more distanced from it.
Right.
So, that could be another way though.
Maybe you're not saying just you are loving this place.
Everyone is talking about this.
Everyone's raving.
Great word for a listener's today.
Right.
Right.
Well, actually, there's a coffee shop near me that does like very specialized desserts and
people wait on a, they'll have a certain dessert for maybe a month or something and people
will wait around the corner and get in line even before it opens.
And I've never done it because I don't, I don't do that.
You get it?
I don't do that.
I don't do that.
I don't do that.
But like, but I might say, oh, at this coffee shop, like, yeah, I actually like it as a coffee
shop.
But I might say, oh, everyone's raving about their cupcakes or something like that.
Yes.
That's amazing.
Wow.
Sounds like a great business.
Oh my gosh.
Michelle, why is this important for listeners?
Maybe in the business world, the corporate startup, nonprofit world.
What do we think?
Yeah, because as Lindsay said, word of mouth is free.
You can promote businesses through word of mouth.
And you can also just understand the concept for your own businesses, guys.
So if we have any business owners here, it's really good to think about word of mouth,
especially small business owners.
In general, if you like a place, then tell people about it because you want to help them.
I love that idea.
I love that.
Especially for smaller companies.
It's not easy for companies to grow.
And if they can have some help, if you've had a great experience, go and let people know
about it.
Right?
And so then Michelle, that leads to how do we do it?
How do we make that recommendation?
Right.
Right.
Right.
Well, this is more about how the business can ask you.
Like, you might say, sorry.
Yes.
Sorry for having us.
So business, business might ask you to tell others, right?
So you might say, well, I mean, sometimes on all those English or business English,
we'll say, oh, tell a friend, right?
We want, we also want people to know.
So you might say something like, can you spread the word?
Yeah, we'll have an ask at the end of the episode, of course.
Yeah.
But yeah, can you spread the word?
Or would you mind letting your friends know about your experience?
Right?
Or just tell your friends about us, or you might even just say, tell your friends.
Love that.
Very simple.
No pressure.
Just, hey, spread the word.
Let people know if you love something.
All right, Michelle, let's do a quick role play.
Are we ready?
We're just using a couple of these.
So we can't, we're not going to use that all in one.
But here we go.
You have a coffee shop.
A new coffee shop.
I can see you opening a coffee shop.
I would like to open a coffee shop one day.
That would be kind of cool, you know, as like a retirement plan.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Good.
So you have a coffee shop, a new coffee shop that I'm visiting.
Okay.
Here we go.
I've been so excited to try this place.
Everyone is raving about your coffee.
You guys are great.
Oh, thank you.
Oh, so glad you like it here.
Tell your friends about us.
I will.
Nice.
It seems like a dream life just opening a coffee shop and you're nerding out on coffee, different
varieties of coffee.
I love that.
All right.
So you've said, I've been so excited to try this place.
Everyone is raving about your coffee.
So here you're commenting to the business owner.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
And then you said, oh, thank you.
So glad you like it here.
Tell your friends about us.
So you're doing it.
That's an ask.
Right.
You want this word of math to continue.
Yeah.
Or maybe you want us to write a review.
Oh, we could do another episode about where people ask for more formal reviews.
For sure.
And I think this leads into our moment.
Yeah.
That's perfect.
I didn't even know we were doing this episode today.
Michelle.
But honestly, this is how all ears English has grown.
True word of mouth.
We see it in our data.
Guys, we know you love the show.
And we know that you have been telling your friends.
So keep telling them if you're a new listener of the show or an old listener of the show.
Can you spread the word?
Is my question to you?
Yes.
Can you spread the word?
Please do that.
So yeah, as far as takeaways go, this is really important for business we were talking
about.
Marketing techniques and English expressions to use dealing with this.
So try it out.
And I think that really is help a business out that you like.
If it's your doctor, if it's your coffee shop, if it's a restaurant, maybe it's a class
you've taken, a paint class you go to, right?
Help them.
We want to help good businesses.
I think especially small businesses, they have in the US this concept of small business
Saturday.
And I think that's usually around Christmas time.
I think there's another one in the fall.
Not exactly sure.
Maybe around Thanksgiving.
Maybe around Thanksgiving.
Oh, probably.
On Black Friday, when everyone's buying online, and they want to drive people.
And I think post pandemic, it'll be really interesting to see what happens to downtown's
post pandemic, right?
I mean, I've seen that Denver, unfortunately, there's not a lot going on downtown anymore,
Michelle.
Really?
Oh, no.
Kind of like a ghost town down there because people aren't working down there.
And so the small businesses have closed like the sandwich shops that used to cater to
work people.
They're all working from home.
And so yeah.
And so go downtown, support your local coffee shop or vintage clothing store.
Yeah.
Our local, whatever it is.
Yeah, that's a good message because we want to have, I mean, our economy is built on small
businesses, you know?
So we want more of that.
Yeah, good stuff.
All right, Michelle.
All right.
Thanks for hanging this fun.
All right.
Bye.
All right.
Talk soon.
Bye.
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