Guerrilla Marketing

by Jay Conrad Levinson

Let's start with the bad news. Much that you have learned in the past, although God's own truth at the time, has changed, leaving you misinformed or uninformed, so that a lot of what you know is wrong. In social situations, your lack of information is inconvenient, but in business, it's suicidal.

You've got to realize that in business, just as in sports, people are constantly trying to become better than you, and some of them succeed. The ones that do have mastered the art of learning. To do that, you simply acknowledge to yourself that learning should never stop and is an endless process.

Seagulls fly in circles in the sky, constantly searching for prey. When they find that prey, they land and eat their fill. Then, they return to the sky, only to fly in circles once again. It is their most powerful instinct. Guerrilla marketers have one instinct that is equally strong -- the need for constant learning. They gobble up data with an intellectual appetite that can never be sated.

But anybody can read books, listen to tapes, watch the tube, attend seminars and browse the Internet. How do guerrillas learn differently from other marketers? They learn with two-way brains. That means that in addition to merely learning, they act upon their new information. They do things to take advantage of their newfound wisdom. This action is the essence of guerrilla marketing.

Learning is different these days than when you were a kid. The key to succeeding in your own business is not learning all about something but learning one thing after another. The information changes and it pours in from all over the place. So you've got to be selective in your learning. Learning something will always be possible and learning everything impossible, which is why guerrillas learn with a filter in their brains.

Never before in history has so much information been available to so many people with such simplicity. In one hour in your own office today, you can learn more than you could a decade ago with a week in a library. You can learn theories and facts, up-to-the-minute information, and competitive intelligence galore. You can learn about your prospects, your customers, your industry, and your marketplace. Key information, every bit of it.

The information that is so available has never been as important as it is right now -- in The Information Age. You can give it away for it is often far more precious than any hard goods. Brochures and newsletters are very much appreciated by people who can honestly benefit from the information imparted. Because information is the currency of the times, guerrillas do all they can to help their customers learn how to succeed. They do it by providing information.

Guerrillas also know well the immense power of repetition in learning and in teaching. They've seen its potency in marketing. They know, too, the joy of learning -- for its own sake, and for the sake of propelling their businesses to the top. Non-stop learning -- that describes their journey there.