Word of Mouth Goodness in Salt Lake on Monday (Dec 17)!

Come join me as I attend the Word of Mouth presentation by Andy Sernovitz, flying in from Chicago. As I mentioned before, Andy is awesome, and one of my favorite speakers of the year.

You can RSVP for free at https://www.JibberJobber.com/andy (payment is $10 at the door, and Barnes and Noble will have his book there to purchase).

Let me share some thoughts about Andy, and his book, and his message.

I saw first met Andy on May 12, 2007, in Chicago. We were at the Successful and Outstanding bloggers conference, and he was one of the amazing speakers that Liz Strauss lined up (thank you Liz!). I remember a couple of key things from his presentation, but mostly I remember a growing excitement as I listened to his stories, lists, ideas, and examples, and thought about what I could do to create more word of mouth buzz for JibberJobber.

In fact, he was so inspiring that I knew I needed to get off my duff and finish my LinkedIn book! Why? I’ll paraphrase, but he said something to this effect:

If you can’t figure out what to do to get more word of mouth buzz around your brand, find a brand or company that is getting a lot of word of mouth and figure out a way to attach yourself to that.

LinkedIn was getting a lot of buzz, and has gotten a lot of buzz since May 12th. I had one of the first books on LinkedIn, and the first one with the message “I know you are busy, and you don’t want to try and figure this out on your own, and you aren’t an early adopter… read this book and I’ll cut through all the noise and crap and tell you what is important and what you can disregard.”

Up to that point I had a contract with a publisher, I had a table of contents, and I had some pages written. But I didn’t have a sense of urgency. I didn’t have a compelling reason to get the book to print, as I was being pulled in so many directions (while asking myself how I could generate more buzz around and towards JibberJobber).

Andy gave me that sense of urgency. You know what has happened since then? I have been interviewed by places that I never would have imagined. In fact, in January’s Money magazine I’m quoted as a LinkedIn expert. This is because LinkedIn is buzzworthy and I attached myself to the buzz (Money has yet to do an article on JibberJobber ;)). Undoubtedly this will create buzz for JibberJobber, which was a primary goal with the book.

It works. And I’ll be thankful to Andy forever.

In addition to the emotion, feeling, and energy from his presentation, I just found the notes I took and was surprised at how much content he packed into his presentation. It was rich and full of real, useful stuff. I swear, Monday will be a day you won’t want to miss.

I want to also talk about his book, with a foreword by Seth Godin and an afterword by Guy Kawasaki, but I’ll save that for Monday.

If you are in Salt Lake on Monday, come join us! It’s going to be awesome – details and RSVP here!

This event is sponsored by Mountain America Credit Union, the Miller Business Resource Center, JibberJobber, Utah First Fridays and Buzz Boosters!