Levinson, Jay Conrad

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LEVINSON, Jay Conrad

PERSONAL: Male; married; children: two.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—Guerrilla Marketing International, P.O. Box 1336, 260 Cascade Dr., Mill Valley, CA 94942. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Avon Books, 1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Played professional hockey in Europe until 1989; has taught marketing at University of California, Berkeley; former creative director and member of the board for Leo Burnett Advertising; former senior vice-president of J. Walter Thompson (advertising agency); Guerrilla Marketing, Inc., Mill Valley, CA, cofounder and chair; also founder of other businesses. Has served on the 3Com Small Business Advisory Board and Microsoft Small Business Council.

WRITINGS:

Earning Money without a Job: The Economics ofFreedom, Holt (New York, NY), 1979, revised edition published as Earning Money without a Job: Revised for the '90s, 1991.

555 Ways to Earn Extra Money, Holt (New York, NY), 1982, revised edition published as 555 Ways to Earn Extra Money: Revised for the '90s, 1991.

Guerrilla Marketing: Secrets for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1984, 3rd edition, 1998.

An Earthling's Guide to Satellite TV, illustrated by Jane Marriott, Quantum (Mendocino, CA), 1985.

Quit Your Job!: Making the Decision, Making theBreak, Making It Work, Dodd (New York, NY), 1987.

Guerrilla Marketing Attack: New Strategies, Tactics, and Weapons for Winning Big Profits from Your Small Business, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1989.

Guerrilla Marketing Weapons: One Hundred Affordable Marketing Methods for Maximizing Profits from Your Small Business, Plume (New York, NY), 1990.

The Ninety-Minute Hour, Dutton (New York, NY), 1990.

(With Bruce Jan Blechman) Guerrilla Financing:Alternative Techniques to Finance Any Small Business, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1991.

(With Bill Gallagher and Orvel Ray Wilson) GuerrillaSelling: Unconventional Weapons and Tactics for Increasing Your Sales, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1992.
Guerrilla Marketing Excellence: The Fifty GoldenRules for Small-Business Success, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1993.
Guerrilla Marketing for the '90s: The Newest Secrets for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1993.

Guerrilla Advertising: Cost-Effective Techniques forSmall-Business Success, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1994.

(With Seth Godin) The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1994.

(With Charles Rubin) Guerrilla Marketing Online:The Entrepreneur's Guide to Earning Profits on the Internet, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1995, 2nd edition, 1997.

(With Seth Godin) Guerrilla Marketing for the Home-based Business, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1995.

(With Charles Rubin) Guerrilla Marketing OnlineWeapons: One Hundred Low-Cost, High-Impact Weapons for Online Profits and Prosperity, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1996.

Jay Conrad Levinson's Guerilla Marketing (computer disk), HMI (Somerville, MA), 1996.

The Way of the Guerrilla: Achieving Success and Balance As an Entrepreneur in the 21st Century, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1997.

(With Seth Godin) Get What You Deserve!: How toGuerrilla Market Yourself, Avon (New York, NY), 1997.

Guerrilla Marketing with Technology: Unleashing theFull Potential of Your Small Business, Addison-Wesley (Reading, MA), 1997.

(With Orvel R. Wilson and Mark S. A. Smith) Guerrilla Trade Show Selling: New Unconventional Weapons and Tactics to Meet More People, Get More Leads, and Close More Sales, John Wiley (New York, NY), 1997.

(With Orvel Wilson and Mark S. A. Smith) GuerrillaTeleselling: New Unconventional Weapons and Tactics to Sell when You Can't Be There in Person, John Wiley (New York, NY), 1998.

(With Mark S. A. Smith, Orvel Ray Wilson) GuerrillaNegotiating: Unconventional Weapons and Tactics to Get What You Want, John Wiley (New York, NY), 1999.

Mastering Guerrilla Marketing: 100 Profit-ProducingInsights You Can Take to the Bank, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1999.

(With Kathryn Tyler) Guerrilla Saving: Secrets forKeeping Profits in Your Home-Based Business, John Wiley, (New York, NY), 2000.

(With Rick Frishman and Michael Larsen) GuerrillaMarketing for Writers, Writer's Digest Books (Cincinnati, OH), 2001.

Guerrilla Marketing: The Best of Guerrilla Marketing, edited by Ginger Conlon, Aspatore Books (Boston, MA), 2001.

Guerrilla Creativity: Make Your Message Irresistible, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2001.

Guerilla Marketing: Make Your Message Irresistible with the Power of Memes, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2001.

Guerrilla Publicity: Hundreds of Sure-Fire Tactics toMaximum Sales for Minimum Dollars, Adams Media Corporation (Avon, MA), 2002.

Guerrilla Marketing for Financial Advisors, Trafford (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada), 2003.

Guerrilla Marketing for Free: One Hundred No-CostTactics to Promote Your Business and Energize Your Profits, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2003.

(With Theo Brandt-Sarif) Guerrilla Travel Tactics:Hundreds of Simple Strategies Guaranteed to Save Road Warriors Time and Money, American Management Association (New York, NY), 2004.

(With David Perry) Career Guide for the High-TechProfessional: Where the Jobs Are Now and How to Land Them, Career Press (Franklin Lakes, NJ), 2004.

Columnist for Entrepreneur, Inc., and America's Network; author of online columns for Microsoft and GTE. Contributor to periodicals, including the San Francisco Examiner and Guerrilla Marketing Newsletter. Levinson's books have been translated into thirty-seven languages.

ADAPTATIONS: The "Guerrilla Marketing" series of books has been adapted to audiotapes, videotapes, a CD-ROM, and a Web site.

SIDELIGHTS: The self-styled mahatma of management, Jay Conrad Levinson is a writer specializing in moneymaking tactics as well as unconventional business, advertising, public relations, and time-management strategies. Over a career that has spanned more than two decades, he has published more than thirty titles in his "Guerrilla" series, which is geared to the nonspecialist and has rivaled the "Dummies Guide" collection for giving novices the need-to-know information on the subject at hand. Levinson's widely read books have been translated into some thirty-five languages and are required reading in some master's in business programs. While some professionals have criticized various of the Guerrilla guides for trivializing what it takes to become a professional in such disciplines as public relations and advertising, the sales figures for the books prove their popularity among general readers.

Levinson published his first book, Earning Money without a Job: The Economics of Freedom, in 1979 after forsaking a career in advertising and finding success as the founder of various businesses. In Earning Money without a Job, Levinson recommends sales and mail-order ventures as certain moneymaking businesses for independent workers, and he urges readers to seize opportunities for realizing income independent of conventional employment.

Levinson followed Earning Money without a Job with many more titles, including several volumes on what he describes as "guerrilla" business, financing, and marketing practices. In 1984, for example, he produced Guerrilla Marketing: Secrets for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business, which concentrates on various advertising practices. Levinson's advice was deemed "practical guidance for the target, small-business audience" by a Kirkus Reviews writer. Levinson was prolific in the 1990s, publishing such titles as Guerrilla Marketing Weapons: One Hundred Affordable Marketing Methods for Maximizing Profits from Your Small Business, in which the "weapons" include pricing, brand-name awareness, and customer service, and Guerrilla Financing: Alternative Techniques to Finance Any Small Business.

In The Way of the Guerrilla: Achieving Success and Balance As an Entrepreneur in the 21st Century, Levinson makes the surprising assertion that "time is not money . . . [and] achieving balance in life is preferable to workaholism," according to a writer for Library Journal. A Publishers Weekly reviewer echoed this sentiment, stating that Levinson believes that "entrepreneurs of the future . . . will better blend work, health, family and fun." The critic concluded, "Those looking to gear down from the fast track will find Levinson's encouragement bracing." Similarly, another reviewer for Publishers Weekly said "there is a lot to like" in Get What You Deserve: How to Guerrilla Market Yourself, Levinson's book on how to use personal style to one's advantage. Realizing that many of the rules that govern the business world are senseless, Levinson and coauthor Seth Godin give tips on how to understand this concept and to dress and act accordingly.

As the 1990s wound down, Levinson did not. With coauthors Orvel Wilson and Mark S. A. Smith, he penned titles with specific focuses on using technology, trade shows, and telemarketing: Guerrilla Marketing with Technology: Unleashing the Full Potential ofYour Small Business, Guerrilla Trade Show Selling: New Unconventional Weapons and Tactics to Meet More People, Get More Leads, and Close More Sales, and Guerrilla Teleselling: New Unconventional Weapons and Tactics to Sell When You Can't Be There in Person. At his home office, from which he has worked exclusively since 1971, he also developed audio-and videotapes, CD-ROMs, and an Internet Web site. As he had before, Levinson promoted his message that by using unconventional techniques high on creativity and energy, small business owners could be successful in competing against larger companies. Levinson himself is proof that his techniques can work.

In 1999 Levinson changed publishers, yet he continued to put out his message. He wrote Guerrilla Saving: Secrets for Keeping Profits in Your Home-Based Business with Kathryn Tyler and published the solo work Mastering Guerrilla Marketing: 100 Profit-Producing Insights You Can Take to the Bank, which Library Journal critic Littleton M. Maxwell called his "most comprehensive guide yet," one that offers a "great deal of valuable information." After his compendium Guerrilla Marketing: The Best of Guerrilla Marketing and Guerrilla Creativity: Make Your Message Irresistible rolled off presses in 2001, Levinson wrote and repackaged his message for more specific users, such as financial advisors, writers, and travelers. In 2004 Levinson teamed up with David Perry to help job hunters with their Career Guide for the High-Tech Professional: Where the Jobs Are Now and How to Land Them.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 1, 1982, p. 993; February 1, 1984, p. 778; February 1, 1989, p. 903; March 15, 1990, p. 1403; June 1, 1994, pp. 1740-1742; February 1, 1995, p. 979; July, 1995, p. 1846; August, 1996, p. 1865; December 15, 1996, p. 699; October 1, 1999, review of Mastering Guerrilla Marketing: 100 Profit-Producing Insights You Can Take to the Bank, p. 327.

Business Press (Ontario, Canada), August 12, 2002, Robert Chacon, "Small Business; Guerrilla Tactics All Fair in Unconventional Marketing War," p. 10.

Choice, March, 2000, S. A. Schulman, review of Mastering Guerrilla Marketing.

Communication World (San Francisco, CA), April-May, 2003, "Guerrilla Publicity Trivializes the Strategic Role of Public Relations," p. 12.

Inc., August, 1991, p. 87; August, 1999, "Face to Face" (interview), p. 60.

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 1984, p. 35.

Kliatt, fall, 1982, pp. 38-39.

Library Journal, April 1, 1982, p. 725; February 15, 1984, p. 371; February 15, 1989, p. 166; February 1, 1990, p. 103; November 15, 1990, p. 77; August, 1995, p. 88; January, 1997, p. 116; December, 1999, Littleton M. Maxwell, review of Mastering Guerrilla Marketing, p. 154; August, 2002, Littleton M. Maxwell, review of Guerrilla Publicity: Hundreds of Sure-Fire Tactics to Maximum Sales for Minimum Dollars, p. 112.

Long Island Business News, June 14, 2002, Jane Applegate, review of Guerrilla Publicity, p. 23A.

PC Magazine, April 8, 1997, p. 76.

Publishers Weekly, July 2, 1979, p. 103; January 12, 1990, p. 56; July 8, 1996, p. 80; December 30, 1996, p. 52; August 4, 1997, p. 57; October 1, 2001, review of Guerrilla Creativity: Make Your Message Irresistible, p. 51; May 20, 2002, review of Guerrilla Publicity, pp. 61-62.

Reference & User Services Quarterly, fall, 1999, review of The Guerilla Marketing Handbook, p. 12.

Washington Post Book World, April 25, 1982, p. 14.