Guerrilla Marketing for

Consultants and Service Providers

Jay Conrad Levinson

Michael McLaughlin
Tom Sant
Today’s Speakers
Jay Conrad Levinson
ƒ Author of Guerrilla Marketing and 28 other books
ƒ More than 1 million copies sold
ƒ Translated into 37 languages
ƒ Required reading in MBA programs worldwide
ƒ Chairman of Guerrilla Marketing International
ƒ Former vice president and creative director at J. Walter
Thompson and Leo Burnett Advertising.

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Today’s Speakers

Mike McLaughlin
ƒ Co-author of Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants
ƒ Publisher of Management Consulting News,
www.ManagementConsultingNews.com
ƒ Principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP
ƒ Over twenty years of consulting experience
ƒ Former leader of Deloitte Consulting Chicago
ƒ Serves clients of every size, from start-ups to the world’s highest-
profile companies.
ƒ Sold and delivered more than $300 million in consulting services

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Today’s Speakers

• Dr. Tom Sant

ƒ Author of Persuasive Business Proposals
ƒ World’s largest selling book on proposal writing
ƒ Named one of the top 10 sales trainers
in the world by Selling Power, 2004
ƒ More than $20 billion in successful proposals
ƒ Named the first Fellow of the Association of
Proposal Management Professionals, 2001
ƒ Clients include Accenture, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Booz
Allen, Parson Consulting, HSBC, Cisco, Tektronix, Procter &
Gamble, General Electric, and hundreds of smaller firms

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Today’s Subjects

• Why Guerrilla Marketing?

• Five Rules of Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants

• The Difference Between Success and Failure

• Your Guerrilla Arsenal

• Client Marketing

• Tips You Can Bank On

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Why Guerrilla Marketing?

Jay Conrad Levinson

Why Guerrilla Marketing?
• Oversupply

• Guerrilla Clients

• Few Barriers to entry

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Guerrilla Marketing Defined

Everything you do to promote your practice, from the moment you

conceive of it to the point at which clients are doing business with
you on a regular basis.

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The Guerrilla Marketing Difference

Traditional Marketing Guerrilla Marketing

Important to the business Is the business
Consultant-focused Insight-based
Invest money Invest time, effort, energy
Show up and throw up Listen and serve
Grow revenue Grow profit
One size fits all One size fits none

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Five Rules of Guerrilla Marketing for
Consultants

Jay Conrad Levinson

Mike McLaughlin
Be Safe and You’ll Be Sorry

• Too much “sameness”

• “Safe” differentiators fail

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Seven Differentiators to Drop Now

ƒ Quality service
ƒ Best price
ƒ Methods and tools
ƒ Responsiveness
ƒ Credentials
ƒ Client importance
ƒ Testimonials

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 Nine Differentiators that Do Work

• Category authority
• Simplicity
• A real guarantee
• Give something away
• Honesty
• Highly recognized third-party testimonials
• Being first (at something)
• Innovation
• Defy conventional wisdom

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60/30/10 Rule Current clients - Existing clients should
generate the largest percentage of your
profits. Devote 60 percent of your
marketing efforts here.

Prospective clients - Your goal is to

convert prospective clients into clients—if
they fit your targeted client profile.
Commit 30 percent of your marketing
resources to win work from this
group.

The broader market - This includes

everybody in the business world not
represented in the first two groups.
Invest 10 percent of your marketing
resources in the broad market.

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 A Marketing Plan in Seven Sentences

• Explain the purpose of your marketing

• Explain how you achieve that purpose by describing the
benefits you provide to clients
• Describe your target market
• Describe your niche in that market
• Outline the marketing weapons you will use
• Focus on the identity of your business
• Establish your marketing budget

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Your Most Potent Marketing Weapon

• Mastery

• Top-notch service

• Speed, competence,
lack of disruption

• Create an environment
of trust
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Dump the Bull
If your material says… Try this instead…
Deliverables Results
Enterprise-wide Company
Human capital People
Infrastructure Foundation
Knowledge transfer Train/Educate
Thought-ware Idea
Transformation Change

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Get to the Destination – The Road Map

• What
• When
• How
• Who
• How Much

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The Guerrilla’s Arsenal

Mike McLaughlin
 The Guerrilla Consultant’s Arsenal
• Publicity
• Advertising
• Public speaking
• Book and articles
• Surveys and research reports
• Charitable work and pro bono projects
• Web-based marketing
• Blogs and Zines
• Satisfied clients
• Alliances

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Master the Web
Typical Site Guerrilla Web Site

“Yellow Pages” Value

Stagnant content Content-rich

Us/Our/We focused Client-focused

Jargon-laden Simple, fast, action-oriented

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Does a Zine or Blog Make Sense?

The 5 Question Test

Do you really have something to say?
Do you want to be a publisher?
Is your market interested?
Do you like to write?
Do you have time?

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Making a Zine Work

• Trust
• Promotions
• Length
• Format
• Frequency
• Content
• Professionalism
• Administrative

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Client Level Marketing

Tom Sant
The “Seven Deadly Sins” of proposal writing

1. Failing to focus on the client’s

business problems and payoffs—
sound “canned,” generic
2. No persuasive structure—the
“information dump” syndrome
3. No differentiation
4. No compelling value proposition
5. No focus on the customer’s business,
no orientation to their industry
6. Hard to read--full of jargon, no
highlights, too long, too technical
7. Credibility killers--misspellings,
grammar errors, wrong client name,
inconsistent formats, etc.

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Characteristics of
Consultative Proposals
Client centered
ƒ Personalized throughout—high level of specificity to the
client and opportunity
ƒ Focused on the customer, not the vendor or the product
Value based
ƒ Clear value proposition
ƒ Based on meaningful, substantiated differentiators
Decision oriented
ƒ Persuasive structure
ƒ Emphasis on customer’s key decision criteria
ƒ Compliance is made obvious

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Structure of a Formal Proposal
• The Business Case
– Cover letter
– Title page
– Table of Contents
– Executive Summary
• Customer needs
• Customer desired
outcomes
• High-level presentation of
solution
• Key evidence of
competence and value
added elements
– ROI, payback analysis
• Solutions and Substantiation
– Solution in detail
• Pricing
• ROI
• Value-added components
– Scope of work
• Project plan/master schedule
• Project team, resumes, org chart
• Subcontractors
– Validation
• References
• Case studies
• Uniqueness factors
– RFP response
• Compliance matrix
• Question and Answer section
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The Most Important Part….
• The Business Case
– Cover letter
– Title page
– Table of Contents
– Executive Summary
• Customer needs
• Customer desired
outcomes
• High-level presentation of
solution
• Key evidence of
competence and value
added elements
– ROI, payback analysis
• Solutions and Substantiation
– Solution in detail
• Pricing
• ROI
• Value-added components
– Scope of work
• Project plan/master schedule
• Project team, resumes, org chart
• Subcontractors
– Validation
• References
• Case studies
• Uniqueness factors
– RFP response
• Compliance matrix
• Question and Answer section
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The Persuasive Paradigm: The Structural
Pattern for Persuasion

• Needs: Demonstrate an
understanding of the customer’s key
business needs or issues
• Outcomes: Identify meaningful
outcomes or results from meeting those
needs
• Solution: Recommend a specific
solution
Hitting it
• Evidence: Build credibility by
on the
providing substantiating details
N-O-S-E

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A Few Final Tips

• Include a compliance matrix

• Use focused case studies
– Recent, relevant, same kind of industry
– Problem/Action/Results
• Always present pricing in conjunction with your
value proposition
• Avoid “information dump” RFP responses
• Graphics increase persuasiveness

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Looking for More?

For more information: For more information:

www.gmarketing.com www.HydeParkPartnersCal.com
www.ManagementConsultingNews.com
www.GuerrillaConsulting.com

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Good Luck in Your Guerrilla Marketing Efforts

Thank You