The Art of Business: Guerilla Management and Marketing
Remember Jay Conrad Levinson? In 1983, he wrote the wildly successful “Guerilla Marketing,” a book that sold millions of copies and was subsequently printed in dozens of languages. You can never accuse him of not working to extend his brand; since then he’s written 13 additional Guerilla titles and he markets Guerilla seminars relentlessly through many of the same low-cost strategies he suggests in his books.
His new mantra is guerilla management, and he’s partnered with “Fortune 500 super strategist” Chet Holmes to deliver the new message via three-day seminars at $2,000 a pop, which doesn’t quite sound like guerilla prices, but, hey, everyone’s got to make a buck.
I attended a preview session of the seminar and while some of Levinson’s new message is a repackaging of the old, he did offer a trenchant checklist of strategies that defines leaders of successful companies, be they companies of one person or 10,000.
Here are the 12 strategies tweaked a bit by me to reflect the world of creative professionals.
1. Focus on strategies not tactics. Levinson says most company owners spend too much time working in their business rather than on their business. It’s easy to get caught up with client demands, technology problems, tactical issues, but how much time is spent growing (now there’s an ’80s term!) your business? Levinson suggests that you dedicate one hour a week to these 12 leadership strategies, one per week until you’ve cycled through each strategy. If you follow Levinson’s suggestion, you’ll hit all 12 areas in the span of three months. He then suggests completing the cycle again three more times during the year.
2. Promote time management. Ah yes, we’ve heard this one before, but in this incarnation time management doesn’t mean packing in more things into a day, rather it means deleting those chores that can be delegated or postponed. Put the most strategic items on your to-do list first and work backwards toward the most mundane. If you start with the mundane, you may never get to the strategic, and where will that leave your company?
3. Learn to sell. Why do most businesses fail? Not lack of talent, but the inability to study, learn, and apply the fundamentals of selling. Selling is the art of discovering the client or prospect’s problem or opportunity and crafting a solution that includes your services. It’s always about the client and her problems or opportunities and only secondarily about your skills, achievements, and awards. According to Levinson, companies should spend 60 percent of their efforts selling and properly servicing current clients, 30 percent attracting a small set of potential “dream clients” (see # 6) and 10 percent selling to the rest of the universe.
4. Architect your company. Imagine your company is going be the first of 1,000 franchises. Under these conditions, it’s paramount that you lay out a detailed and repeatable business plan, which specifies procedures and policies that can be easily shared among employees. Even if you have no intention of setting up branch offices, the strategy will help you streamline operations and provide an avenue for internal growth through. You can’t rely on others if all the vital information about your company is trapped inside your brain.
5. Master the telephone. Despite the advent of all e-mail and other communication technologies, the telephone is still the communication king. With prospects, learn how to write a pitch and speak it confidently on the phone. It doesn’t have to be a hard sell. With clients, learn how to use every phone call as an opportunity to sell capabilities.
6. Identify your “dream” prospects. Funny how we often chance upon clients through serendipity or coincidence. A much more reasoned approach is to spend time identifying your dream prospect through research and then tailoring your marketing campaign accordingly. This proactive approach to selling will help you land clients who are more profitable and loyal, according to Levinson.
7. Follow up and follow through. Like great artists, great company owners are relentless. Says Levinson, give up the tepid approach to everything you do and work on taking it to the limit, be it marketing or art.
8. Hire right. It’s become a cliché but it’s truer than ever: You’re company is only as good as the people you hire. Hiring is a science not an art, and there are several techniques that you can use to find the stars among candidates.
9. Constantly improve standards of achievement. Don’t settle for second best in any aspect of your work. As soon as you improve yourself and your company, improve it again and again. Make excellence your mantra even if you’re a company of one.
10. Set specific, measurable goals. You can’t get there if you don’t know where you’re going. Build short and long-term goals and place them on a timeline, then do your darndest to hit your goals. Think of all the companies and people you’ve worked with no other goal but to slog through the day. Don’t be one of them.
11. Train, trian, train. The best big companies constantly train their people, from CEO to line workers. Somewhere, someone is offering training on each one of these steps and on all the additional skills you need as a creative professional. Your initial one hour on this strategy would be well spent finding classes in your area that pertain to these subjects.
12. Represent yourself 24/7. Every interaction is a potential marketing moment, whether it’s with a print vendor or a major client. Act professionally, positively, and consistently wherever you go and whatever you do. This doesn’t mean losing your personality. On the contrary, it means sharpening your personality and making it work for you every time you meet someone.
Only you can decide if these strategies are worth your time and effort, but if you follow Levinson’s advice you’ll spend a scant 48 hours during the next year on improving these skills. Not a bad investment for the potential payback.
This article was last modified on December 14, 2022
This article was first published on September 30, 2002
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