You won't find "talkability" in any dictionary. But it has everything to do with your personal marketing program. This article explains what it is and how it can help you grow your business.

Lets start with a definition:

Talkability (noun) 1. The ease with which a product or service can be talked about. 2. The likelihood that a product or service will be talked about.

Ever experience a product or service so incredible, so above and beyond the norm, that you couldnt wait to tell someone about it? Thats talkability. Talkability is more powerful than noteworthy and more interesting than interesting. It lives in the remarkable neighborhood.

So what does it have to do with real estate? Well, if you realize that most real estate business comes from referrals, youll begin to see the true power of talkability in helping you grow your business.

Increasing Your Talkability Factor
To increase the talkability of your services, you must offer something so unique its virtually impossible for people to keep to themselves, something they cannot resist talking about. A first step is to ask yourself the question, If I were my own client, what would be remarkable to me?

This is the fun part. Its called the What if game. First, turn off your internal critic, that little nagging voice that says things like Thats silly or That will never work. Next, make a list of What if statements about your services:

• What if I found a way to offer free interior design consultations to buyers, redeemable for 30 days within move-in?
  

• What if I offered around the town tours to relocation clients, showing them local schools, shopping and recreation?
  

• What if I offered sellers a free Curb Appeal consultation from a local landscaper?
  

• What if started a monthly home-buying seminar and promoted it on the news?
  

• What if I took a photography course and offered clients professional home photos for their listing?
  

What if ... what if ... what if.

The point is to keep going until you exhaust your imagination. If you produce nine ideas and keep only one, you havent lost anything. Youve gained a great idea that will create talkability.

When youre screening ideas and deciding which to keep and which to cut, imagine somebody telling their friends about each item. Does it seem like something they would want to share? Can you imagine them saying, Tom, you wont believe what my agent did for me...?

If so, youve achieved talkability.

Marketing Alone is Not Enough
A remarkable service with average marketing will outsell an average service with great marketing. Remarkable products and services have talkability, so even with average marketing their messages will reach farther and wider than the average product with great marketing.

Talkability Success Stories
If a product or service has extremely high talkability, it hardly needs any marketing at all. Red Bull and Starbucks had high talkability when they launched (still do).

As a result, they grew to epic proportions with virtually no initial advertising. Red Bull only started advertising a couple years ago, and Starbucks still does virtually no advertising. Yet people couldnt resist talking about these products. These products surfed on waves of talkability.

Those are products. Now lets look at a service with talkability. Here in Austin, Texas, theres a barbershop called Sexy Scissors. Their name says it all, and their motto drives it home: Hot stylists. Cold beer. Great haircuts. They have sports on all the TVs and a beer keg built right into the receptionists desk!

See what Im doing right now? Ive succumbed to the talkability of this service. As a result, Im giving them free publicity. Whether or not you agree with their angle, you have to acknowledge the talkability of it. Can you imagine the number of men whove said, Hey, Joe, have you heard about that place called Sexy Scissors?

Has it worked? Well, as of this writing, theyre building a new location in Houston and putting out the call for additional franchisees. I predict their growth will continue for years to come.

Im not suggesting you start a sexy real estate service. (Although, if youre in Los Angeles...) Im suggesting you find a way to put more talkability into your service. Think of it as a way to recruit an army of marketers for your service. The higher the talkability, the more people there are to spread your message.