Marketing Coach & Consultant Birmingham Midlands

Low Cost, High Impact Marketing Techniques To Help You Build A Better Business

I am a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach based in Birmingham, West Midlands, UK and have worked as an independent consultant / coach since 1995. I specialise in helping small businesses improve their profits.

While I live in Birmingham, clients can be anywhere in the UK as all the marketing coaching can be done over the telephone and through emails.

What Does Guerrilla Marketing Mean To You?

If you are not familiar with the work of Jay Conrad Levinson, the founder and Father of Guerrilla Marketing please give me a few minutes to explain.

The cornerstone of the success of Guerrilla Marketing is simple:

Guerrilla Marketing Coaches specialise in low cost and no cost marketing techniques which deliver high impact marketing results.

I am not going to hit you with a heavy sales pitch that shouts hype at you. I suspect that you are suspicious of overblown marketing and you don't want to use that kind of marketing to promote your business.

I would prefer to explain just why Guerrilla Marketing has become a global phenomenon.

Let me ask you three key questions to make sure Guerrilla Marketing is right for you:

• Do you want to discover how to market your business without spending a lot of money?
     
• Do you want to find the hidden profits that already exist in your existing customer base, just waiting for you to take action?
   
  
• Do you want to find easier and simpler ways to attract new customers at a lower average cost?

If your answers were YES, YES, YES then;

 

Please Read This Short Introduction to Guerrilla Marketing

Over 15 million copies of Guerrilla Marketing books have been sold worldwide and many universities offer Guerrilla Marketing courses as part of their business and entrepreneur programs.

The relevance to small businesses who want to improve their marketing has made Guerrilla Marketing the best known and most successful series of marketing books in history.

It all started in 1983 when Jay Conrad Levinson realised that all the marketing advice and books available were targeted at big businesses with massive marketing budgets.

These big companies could afford to say "half my advertising doesn't work but I don't know which half" and laugh about it.

When your marketing budget measured in millions it might not matter which half works but I know that it does matter to a small business. A small business can't afford to waste thousand of pounds on marketing that produces little or no result.

I know that and you know that.

Over the last twenty five years Jay Conrad Levinson and the Guerrilla Marketing Coaches have delivered the benefits to small businesses that have made Guerrilla Marketing THE trusted brand for small businesses to look out for when they want or need marketing advice.

 

Guerrilla Marketing Is For Businesses On A Shoestring Budget

I was drawn to Guerrilla Marketing when I heard Jay Conrad Levinson say that "Guerrilla Marketing is for people with big dreams but tiny wallets."

That phrase really hit home for me and I hope it will for you.

There are no silver bullets or magic wands.

Guerrilla Marketing uses time, energy, imagination and knowledge instead of money and makes sure that all your marketing supports your key message in a consistent way.

 

So What Is Marketing?

It may seem a strange question but many small business owners see marketing as a small part or function in the business concerned with advertising and sales promotion. This then becomes a self-limiting belief which holds back the business from using the full power of customer focus and marketing.

Let me set you straight.

Marketing is not a minor activity on the periphery of your success as an entrepreneur or owner of a small business that you can outsource or pass down to a low level assistant.

Marketing is everything you do from the moment you come up with the idea of your business to when you create delighted customers who buy from you regularly.

Effectively marketing is your business!

Everything you do has a marketing impact in the way it affects how customers, potential customers and other people see your business.

So the critical difference with Guerrilla Marketing is that everything you do is intentional and designed to create a positive impression on a prospective customer and reinforce the good impressions your customers have of your business.

 

How Is Guerrilla Marketing Different From Traditional Marketing?

Using Jay Conrad Levinson's words as a guide there are many ways that Guerrilla Marketing differs from traditional marketing.

1. Traditional marketing relies on spending money to promote a business. Guerrilla marketing says that you can spend money on marketing if you have it but you can also market your business by using time, energy, imagination and knowledge.
    
   
2. Traditional marketing is mysterious, confusing and intimidating. Guerrilla marketing removes the mystique and shows you that marketing is a process for you to control.
    
   
3. Traditional marketing methods have been developed in big businesses. Guerrilla marketing has been specially designed for small businesses like yours.
    
   
4. Traditional marketing measures success in terms of brand awareness and recognition. Guerrilla marketing says that the main way for you to judge marketing success by your profits.
    
   
5. Traditional marketing is based on guesswork and hope. Guerrilla marketing is based on using psychology and the laws of human behaviour.
    
   
6. Traditional marketing encourages diversification. Guerrilla marketing emphasises focus on your core capabilities and your customers.
    
7. Traditional marketing encourages growth by adding new customers. Guerrilla marketing says you should grow geometrically by increasing the size of your average transactions, by encouraging customers to buy more often and by tapping into the referral power of your customers as well as adding new customers.
    
   
8. Traditional marketing focuses on making the first sale. Guerrilla marketing preaches consistent follow up after they have bought.
    
   
9. Traditional marketing encourages aggressive actions to smash the competition. Guerrilla marketing looks for partners to cooperate with.
    
   
10. Traditional marketing is "me" marketing while Guerrillas practice "you" marketing.
     
    
11. Traditional marketing focuses on what can be extracted from the customer. Guerrilla marketing concentrates on what you can give to your customer to make their lives better and to deepen the relationship with you.
     
    
12. Traditional marketing says that advertising works, having a website works, direct mail works. Guerrilla marketing says that the return on individual marketing efforts is reducing as the world is overloaded with commercial messages. What works is a combination of marketing methods.
     
    
13. Traditional marketers count money at the end of the month, Guerrilla marketers count relationships which are the key to long-lasting streams of profit.
     
    
14. Traditional marketing ignores technology. Guerrilla marketing embraces technology.
     
    
15. Traditional marketing talks to big groups and mass markets. Guerrilla marketing talks to individuals within a tightly targeted group because purchase decisions are made by individual people.
     
    
16. Traditional marketing is based on continually interrupting your thoughts. Guerrilla marketing builds on the power of consent to develop meaningful relationships.
     
17. Traditional marketing is a monologue, Guerrilla marketing is a dialogue so the Guerrilla marketer can respond to your customer's needs.
     
    
18. Traditional marketing relies on the common marketing techniques of advertising (TV, radio, press), direct mail and the Internet. Guerrilla marketing has identified 200 Guerrilla Marketing weapons for you to use, many of which are free or low cost.

That is a long list but I hope that you know understand what makes Guerrilla Marketing so different and so successful.

 
What Are The Benefits Of Guerrilla Marketing?

The short answer is "a bigger business with higher profit."

How does it happen?

• More customers
   
• Who make more referrals
   
• And buy more
   
• More often
    
• With less wasted expense on marketing that does not work.

 

The ideas are simple although not always obvious. The methods and techniques have been honed over the last twenty five years and include all the latest time and cost effective uses of modern technology.

 

What Are Your Specific Benefits?

Can I say how much you will gain?

No. I told you there was no hype and no promises to double your sales in 90 days.

I don't know what you are doing at the moment, how well you are performing, how much potential there is in your market, how strong your competitors are or which marketing mistakes you may be making.

So you won't be getting any "Increase your leads by 59.6%" promises from me.

I need to get to know your business and you need to decide that you will commit to applying Guerrilla Marketing techniques to your business.

It all starts with a telephone call to me, Paul Simister on 0121 554 4057 to explore the potential for Guerrilla Marketing to work in your business.

 
Marketing Consultants v Marketing Coaches v Marketing Trainers

It can be confusing and you may not be sure exactly what marketing service you want or need.

These are the differences I see between a marketing consultant, a marketing coach and a marketing trainer.

A marketing consultant will do the activity for you.

If you want a new advert, a marketing consultant will write it for you. If you want market research for a new product, a marketing consultant will perform the market research project. If you want a new brochure, the marketing consultant can coordinate the design and write the contents for you.

This "done for you" service may be exactly what you want but I believe there is a better way that makes you and your business much stronger.

Remember I said that your entire business is marketing.

"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime." (Chinese Proverb)

A "done for you service" by a marketing consultant is very convenient but it can be expensive. If you don't understand marketing, you will find it difficult to assess the quality of the work supplied before spending a fortune on an advertising campaign.

There are two ways for you to learn marketing:

A marketing trainer can teach you how to improve the marketing of your business. You will probably receive your marketing training in a series of seminars but you are left to implement the ideas on your own. You may be taught how to write a good sales letter but you will have to write it, review it and test it on your own.

This blog has a stack of recommended books and audio programs if you want to learn marketing on your own.

I believe that there is a better way if you have the money.

A marketing coach teaches you how to improve your marketing but focuses on helping you to put the ideas into practice in your business and holds you accountable to make sure that you do take action.

I may teach you how to write a compelling sales letter but we will agree that you will draft a letter and send it to me within 3 days (or whatever is reasonable). I will then review it and explain what is good but also suggest ways that the letter can be improved. This combination of accountability, deadlines and feedback makes sure that you get the job done and it is done well.

Do You Need A New Approach To Marketing?

Answer any of these seven questions with a Yes and you need to give me a call on 0121 554 4057:

1. Are your sales mostly driven by price?
     
2. Do customers find it difficult to distinguish your products and services from your competitors?
    
3. Do you use unconnected sales and marketing methods and gimmicks.
    
4. You haven't written a coordinated marketing plan for communicating your message to your customers and prospects.
    
5. Do most of your sales leads come from your sales staff?
    
6. Do your long-time customers say "I didn't know you did that" when you ask why they are also buying from your competitors?
    
7. You haven't developed a customer or prospect database.  

So how did you do? Are you ready to call your local Birmingham based certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach, me Paul Simister on 0121 554 4057?

"......By bringing some really original thinking Paul has opened my eyes to new opportunities and even greater potential than I had imagined. He’s practical, determined, very creative and he’s given me back my motivation and enthusiasm. I now have a real sense that Paul is a member of my team and that together we are making things happen." Jiles Halling, Managing Director, Champagne Discovery 

So far I have not told you much about me. That's because too much marketing I see is "me, me, me" when it needs to be about your issues and how you can benefit, in this case by learning how to use Guerrilla Marketing to promote your business.

 

About Paul Simister BA FCA MBA Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach

I have been an independent consultant and coach since 1995 working with businesses ranging from one man businesses through to head offices of multi-national public limited companies.

I am a chartered accountant by qualification but marketing has been where my main business interests lie. It all goes back to my university days when I was studying for my degree in Economics and Accounting.

I knew that accounting was the language of business and I had to master it but unfortunately the degree was theoretical rather than practical so I took a trainee accountant's job here in Birmingham. Fortunately I passed the exams first time and more commercial opportunities opened up. While I was employed I held a wide range of commercial responsibilities including UK and export sales and marketing, warehouse, distribution and transport, production planning, purchasing and stock control.

What this means for you is that when you engage me, you have a marketing expert with a broad business background and who knows exactly how profits and cash are generated and who has been indoctrinated in the idea that measurable results are what matter.

No results, no point. I am not interested in pretty adverts that don't pull or fancy websites that don't convert.

 

Payment By Results Coaching

Perhaps uniquely in the Birmingham and West Midlands area I am prepared to put my expertise on the line and stand by a "payments on results" basis for long term marketing coaching and business coaching assignments.

Other marketing consultants will charge you per hour or a fixed fee and while I offer that option I believe that if I am not prepared to go into a long term assignment on a profit sharing basis, then you shouldn't be prepared to pay a fixed fee.

Does that make sense?

Either the opportunities are so good that I am confident that I can earn my fees by sharing in your success or prospects are limited and we shouldn't be working together.

This is a different way of working and the profit share concept relies on you having your financial records up-to-dated and properly reported regularly so that we can set a baseline performance level (profits before shareholder/directors' salaries and benefits). Any extra profits above the baseline are shared between us.

Why do I offer the payment by results alternative?

Three reasons

1. I know that  people are scared away from taking much needed advice from business coaches and consultants by the high hourly rates with an uncertain return back to the company. In my view too many consultants ask you to bear all the financial risks. I believe it's what you get out of the project that matters much more than what you put in.
    
2. I believe I can make more money. One good idea could make you a fortune but it may only take me an hour to explain it to you and show you how to implement it. I want you to pay me a fortune in fees but only because I've helped you make much more profit than you thought possible.
    
3. I can afford to because I am good at what I do and I don't need to demand cash from you up front before you've seen the real benefits of working with me.

The downside of the profit sharing arrangement is that it is more complicated but you can be sure that my interest is very much in helping you and your business make more money.

Unfortunately I have spoken to a number of people who have been excited about the profit sharing idea but they don't have the management systems in place to provide a reliable basis for measurement.

The likely recession is also making it more difficult to set the baseline since any arrangement has to be good for you but also good for me.

For shorter term assignments, it is usually easier to agree a fee basis with a satisfaction guarantee.

 

How Does Guerrilla Marketing Coaching Work?

I have plans to introduce group coaching in the future on local seminars and by teleseminars (please email me at paul@plancs.co.uk if you are interested) but at the moment my Guerrilla Marketing coaching is delivered on a one-to-one telephone coaching basis.

We will work through a structured process:

Week 0 - How to measure the results of your marketing. This is starting point. You want results and so do I and that means measuring where you are starting from and knowing that we can monitor how the business develops throughout the coaching program.

Week 1 - Learning the basics of Guerrilla Marketing, analysing your business, researching your competitors and assessing your Guerrilla Marketing competences.

Week 2 - Developing Your Seven Step Marketing Plan

Week 3 - Choosing Your Guerrilla Marketing Weapons and taking a relationship inventory

Week 4 - Presenting Yourself With Impact - in person, in print, on the Internet and on the telephone

Week 5 - Developing Your Marketing Relationships With Others

Week 6 - Improving Your Marketing On The Internet (used correctly, a very low cost way to market to people searching for your products or services.)

This six week introduction program will be using the Guerrilla Marketing Toolkit (affiliate link) which will provide you with the training materials (audios and manual) you need.

This way I don't have to teach you the Guerrilla Marketing ideas and concepts (which saves you money) and means that our time together is based on applying these techniques to your business.

This forms a basic introduction to Guerrilla Marketing, in effect getting your house in order and providing solid marketing foundations. The six weeks program is offered as a standalone option.

Please see my main website for more details and current prices - guerrilla marketing coach

My coaching is covered by a full money back guarantee.

Some people really take to it but occasionally a person struggles. It is usually clear by week 2 and rather than waste your time or mine, I will refund your money.

Here are a couple of testimonials to read with snippets visible but the full testimonial available for download.

 "...The weekly coaching calls were fantastic and an essential part of the
learning process... The course taught me to be more organised with my
marketing activities, to produce a calendar to structure my year’s activities
to ensure a continuous and effective marketing campaign. It has made me sit
down and think about what my aims are for my business, who my target audience is
and what my niche is. It has certainly changed the way I look at my business,
my clients and my marketing..." Sally Ormond, Briar Copywriting

Download Sally_Ormond_testimonial.pdf

Within four weeks of sending me this testimonial, Sally has signed up three of her targeted four clients.

"...The course has been excellent and has changed the way I think about marketing my business - I now see far more opportunities in my day to day work for increasing my business profitability and building better relationships with clients..." Keith Cooper, Northlight Images, Commercial Photography

Download Keith_Cooper-testimonial.pdf

You will see from this testimonial from Keith that I gave him one idea that immediately started to earn him extra money by taking advantage of a resource he had.

Guerrilla Marketing After The Six Weeks

While the six weeks coaching is a standalone course, when the marketing basics are in place and with the Guerrilla Marketing mindset established we can then push on to more advanced topics in Week 7 onwards when we will look at:

1. Persuading your customers to buy more
    
2. Encouraging your customers to buy more often
    
3. Incentivising your customers to give you more referrals
    
4. Attracting new customers to your business

 

The Guerrilla Marketing Virtuous Circle

Magic happens as your learn more about marketing.

The more you understand the important concepts of Guerrilla Marketing, the more attention you will give to marketing your business.

This increased attention leads you to think of more creative and better ideas and leads to more effective marketing.

And more effective marketing leads to increased financial success for your business and the opportunity to receive greater personal rewards.

Call me Paul Simister on 0121 554 4057 to find out whether your business can benefit from Guerrilla Marketing.

If you are not quite ready to take that bold a step to improving your marketing skills, I recommend that you sign up to my newsletter up at the top right of the page and you will receive two free reports:

• Marketing Secrets For Small Businesses (this is based on the Guerrilla Marketing concepts developed by Jay Conrad Levinson plus some additional ideas from another top American consultant, Jay Abraham
   
• How To Win Profitable Business Away From Competitors. people give me great feedback on this report in particular as it is 36 pages packed with content.

You will also receive a regular email newsletter (two to four times a month) packed with ideas for improving profits in your business.

Other Guerrilla Marketing Resources

There are many Guerrilla Marketing books now but the main one, recently issued in its fourth edition is Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson

My Guerrilla Marketing coaching is based on the Guerrilla Marketing Toolkit (affiliate link) - a great "do it yourself" introduction to Guerrilla Marketing for any small business owner who wants to learn the secrets of Guerrilla Marketing.

It works very well as a standalone, low cost marketing solution but you don't receive the accountability that a coach provides or the focused help of applying the Guerrilla Marketing ideas to your business.

Finally the Guerrilla Marketing Association (affiliate link) is Jay Conrad Levinson's membership club for marketing coaches, small business owners and managers committed to keeping at the forefront of the best small business marketing techniques.

How Does Marketing Coaching Differ From Business Coaching

Marketing coaching is a subset of business coaching which focuses on the marketing aspects of your business.

For business coaching I use my own methodology called the Eight Pillars of Business Prosperity which draws on the ideas of major gurus including Jay Conrad Levinson / Guerrilla Marketing and my own business experience.

You will see that marketing - defining your marketing position, generating leads, converting leads into customers and encouraging customers to become repeat buyers - represents four of the pillars so marketing is a major element in my business coaching.

Depending on the business issues, I will often recommend that you start with the six week Guerrilla Marketing course anyway.