I Don’t Need Marketing. I Got Word of Mouth.

"I don't need marketing — I get all my business from word of mouth."

That sentence is exactly why your business isn't growing. And in this episode, Juming Delmas explains why word of mouth IS marketing — and why using it as a reason to skip real marketing strategy is just a polished way of saying you're broke.

In this short, sharp solo episode of the Un-Traditional Entrepreneur Podcast, Juming breaks down the three phases of marketing (paid, owned, and earned), the four pillars of the marketing funnel, and why "word of mouth only" businesses plateau every single time — because awareness alone doesn't build a business.

Topics covered:
- Why word of mouth is earned media — the third phase of marketing
- The 4 pillars of the marketing funnel: awareness, consideration, conversion, loyalty
- Why word of mouth only covers one of those four pillars
- What "I don't need marketing" really means (hint: you can't afford it)
- Why 81% of consumers still research a business online after a referral
- Why 90% of consumers read online reviews before buying — even after word of mouth
- Why small businesses that rely only on referrals plateau and stagnate
- The real reason business owners avoid investing in marketing
- Why the average business owner makes less than the average employee

No fluff. No filler. Just the uncomfortable truth about why word of mouth alone will keep your business stuck.

The Un-Traditional Entrepreneur Podcast with Juming Delmas. Real talk. No filter.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Man, all right, all right, all right. All right, listen, I'm about to share some shit real quick. Listen, I ain't gonna be on this long. I got a meeting that I gotta run into, but I damn sure had to have this motherfucking conversation. Um, and I want to share it with you guys, and it's about uh business owners really truly not understanding what the fuck marketing is. I'm your host, Jeremy Delman's, and welcome to the untraditional entrepreneur. Welcome to the other side of motivation. All right, listen, listen, man, listen. I'm about to okay, listen. I had an encounter. Um, I was I was I was watching something, um, you know, strolling on social media because you know, I like looking at dumb motherfuckers and listening to dumb business owners or entrepreneurs, or well, a word that I learned today is wontrapreneurs, wannabe entrepreneurs, and talking some shit. And I heard somebody over say some bullshit about um, you know, it was mentioned to them to say, you know, hey, you know, we do marketing. This motherfucker came out and said, Um, oh no, I don't need marketing, I'll get all my business from word of mouth. That's why you dumb as fuck, right there. You dumb as fuck. That that word of mouth is fucking marketing. So when you're talking about some you don't need no fucking marketing, you you got word of mouth that is marketing. Let me help your ass out, okay? So um, um, so there's there's three phases of of marketing, right? There's three of the motherfuckers. The first one is is is is paid, right? That's paid for marketing, that's a type of marketing. That's where you get paid advertisement, you pay for like posts, you boost shit to get more views, recognition, etc. The other one is own. This is owned content that you create, uh, content marketing that you deliver, and then there's earned, earned, earned media. That that's fucking word of mouth, people talking about your shit, people boosting your shit up, kind of shit. So motherfuckers came in here talking about some, you know, offering a marketing service, and they said, I don't need marketing, I get word of mouth. That goes to show you right there why the fuck you need motherfucking marketing because you don't even know what the fuck marketing is. You talking about some you don't need marketing, you got word of mouth. You sound goofy as fuck. What the fuck is that? You that like I don't even nigga, I don't understand what the fuck are you talking about? This is exactly why you need word marketing. What you're really saying in a nutshell is you're broke. Basically, what you're saying is I can't afford marketing right now. I get my business from word of mouth. Word of mouth does not guarantee marketing. I mean, that is not guarantee that your business is gonna grow. That just that's you just skip the primary piece of the marketing funnel, which is awareness. You know what I mean? That's all word of mouth is there's four pillars, four of the five pillars to marketing, and that is awareness, which that part you skipped. So you brought somebody brought it to your attention about a brand or about a business that's awareness. The next one is consideration. That's where you're not fucking considering do I want to go with this services, do I not? And you do that shit by doing research off the business, making sure the business makes sense, making sure the views are there, digital assets, whatever the case is. You're you're you're you're considering the business from a word of mouth from your homie or whatever the case is who told you about this brand. Then there's conversion. That's when you bring your ass over there and at least try the service or try the product, right? And then there's loyalty. Now you now you locked in, now you booked in like a motherfucking iPhone user. You don't you done tapped into just not just the iPhone, you got the computer, the iPad, the the Apple Watch, shit. You got Apple TV and the whole thing. So, like, word of mouth is not marketing, that just defeats the top portion of the marketing funnel awareness. Word of mouth just basically told you that you are now you have now been made aware of the motherfucking business. That's all that shit means. It doesn't mean your fucking business is gonna grow out to this substantial shit. And you're the reason why you're making excuses as to why you're not using fucking marketing and that you get word of mouth right, you get word of mouth, and how come you don't got multiple motherfucking businesses? Why come if word of mouth is working and that's the only thing you need? Why how come you're not this multimillionaire company? Why don't you have hundreds of millions of dollars? Are you saying that you're capping? Are you saying that you are stagnant and you're comfortable with where you're at with your business that you don't give a fuck to grow it? Then why the fuck are you in business, entrepreneur? Like, why are you in business? If you're not in business to grow that motherfucker, why be in business? That don't even make sense. Your objective is to grow the business. And basically, you're saying I don't need to bring in more people because I'm already stagnant. No, what you're really saying is you're fucking broke, you're absolutely broke, you have no money, you're trying to make excuses as to why you don't want to grow your spend money to grow your business. That's what you're doing. You're being escaped, you're using uh word of mouth as a scapegoat. It ain't like your building looked all that, it ain't like your business looks all that, it ain't like you get in this high-end area, it ain't like like it's like your bit you like it's basically mediocre to sit there and say, I don't need it. It's not like your business is filled with clients and customers. I walk in that shit and that shit look empty as fuck. What the fuck? You could look in there and tell from the video the shit look empty. Obviously, word of mouth is not the only thing you motherfucking need, you need something else. So when they sat there and say, I don't need marketing, I you know, I get word of mouth. That's just let me know you dumb as fuck. Because word of mouth is marketing, it's still a type of marketing. This is what goes back to the point that I made about marketing, and people was talking about how marketing they don't need marketing. This goes back to that very motherfucking point of people saying, I don't need marketing. Word of mouth is marketing, everything you do about your business is marketing. If you have a fucking logo, that's fucking marketing. That's what it is. It is marketing. If you have a website, it's marketing. Stop playing, stop playing, stop making excuses. You know, black people are one of the only few businesses that make those kind of dumbass excuses. Black people, the only motherfuckers who make excuses by they don't want to use marketing. It's like it's like all of a sudden they become an entrepreneur and they've been doing it for a few years, and all of a sudden, not any motherfucking experts. I don't need marketing. What the fuck are you talking about? If marketing didn't work, then why would it even why would it still be existing? Marketing has been around for centuries. What the fuck are you talking about? You don't need it. How all of a sudden you got the magic sauce, you come into a business world, you don't need to have marketing to run your business, but all these other big ass organizations do. What make you so special? And if that's the case, why the fuck aren't you a hundred million dollar business? Why aren't you making a billion dollars that people be talking about Trump about and shit? Why you ain't doing that? It's because you're making excuses to be broke, you're trying to make excuses to cut costs because you probably don't know how to properly financially manage your business and you don't know where to allocate those funds, and that's really what it is. You're fucking probably drowning, and now you're trying to make it seem like marketing is like what the fuck? Like it's crazy. Only black people do shit like this. What like what the fuck is that about? You use your head, use your head. If it didn't work, if if you don't believe in it, then don't use it. It's like contradicting yourself. I don't believe in this shit, but I'm gonna use my logo, I'm gonna use my website. Um what the fuck are you talking about? What are you talking about? I'm gonna just use word of marketing. What word word word of mouth? Word of mouth is marketing. This is this is why you need it right here. You don't even know it, you didn't even know it. It's part of the three phases of marketing paid, owned, and earned. What the fuck are you talking about? It's the it's the earned, it was earned media, earned, meaning someone has given it to you, meaning you earned that. You you that's what that is. Like, like, what the fuck are you talking about? Anyways, man, look, I told y'all ain't gonna be on here long. I'm gonna go over some some fucking statistics behind this because when you think about people who talk that stupid shit, stop listening to them. Stop like you're gonna listen to people, especially if you start in a business and somebody tell you some shit like that. Don't listen to them, don't don't listen to them, motherfuckers. They don't listen to them, they're dumb. I'm telling you, they're dumb. There's a lot of entrepreneurs out in this world that don't know shit about business ownership. Remember, the average business owner makes under$50,000 a year. The average employee makes$63,000 a year. Doing the math, being 100 with you. Do not listen to that bullshit. Don't listen to it. They sit there and tell you it's not important. Fuck that. Tell them this here. Did you know that 81% of consumers research a business online before they buy? Even if they were referred to by one of their homies, 81% still gonna research it even after word of mouth kicked in. 90% of consumers, 90% of consumers read online reviews. So even though you gave them the word of mouth, they're gonna do again. You skip past the awareness. Now they're in the consideration phase. That's all you did. Now they're in the consideration. Now they're gonna read your reviews, make sure your shit is there, make sure your digital presence is there, not just verbally saying, Hey, go check this company out. Hey, go try this. Hey, this daycare is good, or hey, this, this, this, this, this, this grocery store is great. People still gonna read the fucking reviews. 90% of consumers read online reviews, even after word of mouth. Word of mouth referrals still Google you as a business. They still have they still gonna Google you, they're not gonna go out on a limb and just trust their friend 100% and say, Hey, listen, man, listen, listen, I know you're trying to get your teeth done, but shit, I got this dentist. Shit, they do that shit for the loaf for you know, they do a good job, bro. I'm telling you, oh, yeah, bet, yeah, bet. Hear their name, they abc dental, check them out. I bet the fuck what what you don't think nigga, I'm about to still go out and research your ABC too. Like, I'm looking at your teeth too. Like, what the fuck are you talking about? Your shit better be on point because you're talking about some try D niggas. I I'm gonna try them out, but I'm also gonna still look them up on Google to make sure it makes sense for me. And if it still don't make sense, it that shit might have worked for you, that shit might not work for me. You know what I'm saying? That's just how the that's that's that's how it works. Small businesses rely only on referral plateau factors. To be fair, growth slows once your personal network has fucking exhausted. Word of mouth might open the fucking door, but marketing gets them to walk through it, and word of mouth is marketing, it still is marketing. So stop saying that shit. But word of mouth is not the only thing that keeps a business sustained. Look, man, I'm your host, Jameen Domins. I told y'all motherfuckers I ain't gonna be on here too long. I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna talk, say what I got to say. But that's just some bullshit. If you got a homie and you out here referring them and saying some bullshit, go do what you gotta do, but don't sit there and open a business and say, I'm solely gonna rely on motherfucking word of mouth. Get the hell out of here. You just crossed out the one of four phases of marketing. You still got three more motherfucking phases you got to get through the consideration, the conversion, and the loyalty. All right, I'm your host, Jameen Dolman's. Thank you guys for tuning in and welcome to the other side of motivation. We'll see you.