Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days

Authors: Jay Conrad Levinson and Al Lautenslager

Publisher: Entrepreneur Press

ISBN: 193253129-7

The following review was contributed by: John Walsh & CLICK TO VIEW John Walsh's Reviews

In another slice of Guerrilla Marketing wisdom, authors Levinson and Lautenslager continue their efforts to refine the ways they hope to teach and inspire businesspeople to reach success. Anyone recognising a shortage of marketing know how in their own company would benefit from looking through the book.

The essence of marketing is to identify what people want and then to give it to them while making a profit. The truly marketing oriented company has no compunction in changing the product or service being sold if it is not attractive to customers. Research and innovation are crucial elements of success. Of course, this is not always possible for companies or entrepreneurs in real life. Instead, people must compromise with changing what they can and then selling it as best they may. It is to people such as these that Levinson and Lautenslager are primarily targeting their book – and the various other books along the same lines that they have also written. Being aware that most small businesspeople are intensely time poor, they follow the normal pattern of books of this sort by constantly seeking to refine their subject matter into a series of simple, easy to read bullet points. This makes the lessons that they have to offer more vivid and possible to focus on and remember. The lessons, of which there are 30 and which are intended to be absorbed one per day, are also extremely prescriptive. Typically, the chapter begins with an introduction to an aspect of practical marketing (the marketing mindset, for example, positioning or networking) and why it is important. It then strips away any myths attached to the subject and then divides it into fundamental building blocks and provides advice as to exactly what to do to become successful. This includes action steps, tips, points to remember, goals to achieve and the like.

Levinson and Lautenslager have carved out something of a career for themselves with their Guerrilla Marketing series which has achieved high sales and is likely to have been very useful for numerous companies. Academics such as myself are often quite sniffy about these kinds of books, as if they undermine the many years of study that we have dedicated to our subjects through providing quick and easy answers. Yet this book contains a lot of good sense about what practically to do to improve business on a day-to-day basis and it helps to fill the need or marketing skills which it is well-known is a principal cause of small business failure. Following the lessons in this book alone will not bring success – you also need a good product, hard work and most of all plenty of good luck to be successful – but it will not hurt either and the lessons are ones that can be applied in a wide range of cases.

John Walsh, Shinawatra International University, April 2005