We all have those moments where we encounter a long lost friend or even a best friend in the seemingly most random of places. I can remember meeting a childhood friend a decade later in the Pueblos in Taos, New Mexico as the most notable for me personally. However, this was a new experience for me. It wasn't meeting a friend in a random places, it was having your friend meet the same person in a random place.
I was discussing some business ideas with a friend of mine and we were talking about travel. I was telling the story about when I visited Prague a few years ago and I still to this day remember having the best tour of my life there from a professor who I believe spent his summers there. He had a very intimate knowledge of the city and avoided the well traveled routes of the normal tour guides. He even went as far as laughing at them and pointing out their mistakes. We stood under the church and watched everyone's reactions when the hour changed. We ate in a local restaurant not catering to tourists at all. We heard stories and history which most tours wouldn't even mention. It was an remarkable 6 hours walking tour in Prague. The memory is still quite clear in my mind because of the many tours I have taken, none have ever come close to this one.
Why was I talking about this? Because the way this guy marketed himself was entirely word of mouth. We were in a hostel and some people in the room came back that evening telling the rest of us they just had to best tour of their lives. The next day 7 of us from the room joined the tour. Word of mouth marketing at its best.
So where does that connect to my original reason for the story... well, my friend started to recall his own experience in Prague and the tour he had. As we pieced details together we realized we had the same tour guide and it stuck just as well. His story was similar to my own as to how he found out about it.
Moral of the story? Don't really have one, simply this guy was the best tour guide and perhaps had the best viral marketing of any tour guide on earth. So much so that years apart and many years later, two people who hadn't met until recently both vividly remember the experience.
