2 things my daughter’s eczema taught me about marketing:

My eldest daughter Isabella has eczema. She gets it on her legs and arms. It’s not really bad, but it’s bad enough that we wanted to do something about it.

So eschewing the steroid creams, we set off to the naturopath.

Interestingly, we went choose this naturopath because of a referral from a friend.

Referrals are still the cheapest and most effective way to market any business.

We trust our friend, so when they told us to go see this particular naturopath, there was no question.

It just so happens that we had to drive for an hour to see her. There are plenty of local naturopaths we could have gone to, but because of the power of a referral, we made the trip to the Northern beaches of Sydney.

That’s a 2 hour round trip

She’s also (relative to other naturopaths) expensive.

But despite the fact she was more expensive and MUCH further away, we happily took up our Saturday morning to go.

That’s the power of referrals.

2 great things to note.

Referrals like that cannot be systemised.

Sure you can ask people for referrals and that has some power, but the real power comes through a chance conversation amongst friends over dinner.

That’s not something that can be systemised.

That comes from providing brilliant service and doing what you say you will do.

2 very unsexy things in the digital marketing world.

The old things still get the best results.

So now we’re at the naturopaths and she’s doing allergy testing on Isabella… She’s using kinesiology to muscle test my daughter’s response to various substances.

She holds a vial of sugar solution… Her muscles are strong, so she’s OK with sugar.

She holds a vial of household dust… Her muscles are weaker; she’s not OK with household dust.

It’s VERY strange, but it works.

Anyway, the marketing lessons comes at the end.

The naturopath has tested my daughter and she’s allergic to 3 things.

She then offers to show me what’s it’s like and test me for a couple of things (for free).

Naturally I say yes and we start the testing.

• Fruits, fine
• coffee, fine (phew)
• Beer, not so fine 🙁
• Cheese not so good
• Nuts, fine

And on it goes.

Until I have a mini list of things I’m not so good with.

Now I’m thinking, holy crap, I gotta get that sorted!

And so another customer is born.

Very smart!

Neil

P.S For more info on kinesiology check out this site and if you want to go deep into it then I recommend a book by Alexander Lowan called the voice of the body.