One of the first people I ever came across who had really mastered the art of Word of Mouth was an Australian dentist named Paddi Lund.

In fact in “Word of Mouth Magic”, the whole of Chapter 4 is devoted to just a few of Paddi’s ideas and leverage points. It’s that powerful.

Paddi is famous for such quirks as:

• not having a front counter, but instead having individual private booths with your name on the door
• serving 23 types of tea (on a menu) in Royal Doulton tea cups
• having a “V8″ cappuccino machine in the entrance way
• giving his clients “dental buns” to take away which are delicious but good for your teeth
• having a locked front door
• doing zero advertising
• being unlisted in the phone book
• saying he is not in dentistry but in the “happiness business”.

More importantly, and the reason I followed Paddi’s material, is that he had found a way to make his solo practice By-Referral-Only, AND make 6 times the money of the average Australian dentist only working 3 days a week AND have fun too.

That’s a model worth copying!

So I dove head first into Paddi’s stuff.

First I read his small book “Building the Happiness Centred Business” which is actually about his personal transformation from pathological depression to happiness, in business and in life.

Then I took on his complete series of workbooks on all aspects of his business.

No I did not follow all his methods in my own practice. In fact I discovered many ways in which I either couldn’t, or more often, didn’t want to mirror what he had done. However many of the attitudes, and some specific things did fit for me.

One of these is in fact one of the biggest WOW! factors in my practice. That is having a “Welcome Book”.

I already had introductory information that I sent, but I restyled it to more match Paddi’s suggestions and took the name “Welcome Book” to heart.

To this very day I use it in my counseling practice, and it still receives admiring comments and guides people into my practice even though I have updated it only in minor ways since my first development phases back in 2001.

Any business can use the Welcome Book idea.

When people first come to you they are thirsty for more information about you, and your best word of mouth advocates will want you to tell them more.

It was hard for me to set it up initially, but I began with a simple template and let it grow, and now it a vital part of pre-educating people about how I run my practice so that, as Paddi says, “I wouldn’t work without it.”

Want a simple WOW!?

Make up a Welcome Book.

Hey, copy mine if you wish from my consulting section at www.DrMartinRussell.com, or get Paddi’s full How-To package which currently costs Aust$599 (about US$550)…

Whatever you do, make sure you have some way to educate your best clients right when they want to learn more about you.

But I was reminded of Paddi’s stuff because I was sent an email from the publisher of his books.

Yes, that’s right. They have been following me up by email and by mail for 6 years now!

Is your follow-up system that long and that reliable?

And think of this…

I first bought his material for my own solo practice, and his followup means that I am sending referrals all these years later - and many more than I could have ever imagined sending him back then!

[Update: I'm now told that this post itself gets referrals (are you reading this from someone else's recommendation?) Paddi gets the flow on from those secondary referrals too!]

Martin Russell

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