Jay Conrad Levinson passed away on October 10th.
I just discovered this news this morning.
Every small business owner should stop just for a moment and pay tribute to a man who changed everything for us.
Until Jay took up the cause of small business marketing and sales, we had no champion, no one to teach us the difference between how we were all taught to market and sell—as though small businesses were large businesses.
Until Jay made it his cause to enable small businesses to succeed, we were just the little guy at the bottom of a barrel no one really cared about.
Until Jay stood up and told us that we could achieve greatness by investing energy rather than car loads of money, small businesses thought we had little-to-no chance against the big machines.
Jay showed us the very best marketing method…ever…was to care.
Jay has left a mark on your business and mine.
And he has left a very special mark on Chris and I. We approached him three years ago about this book we were writing. He read our email and responded. He took our phone calls and tackled our naïve questions. He read our book draft and said “this must be published.” He introduced us to our book publisher. And he wrote the foreword to the book.
Chris and I owe a very special debt of thanks and gratitude to Jay. Thank you, Jay.
In an uncertain, high-priced world, Jay has handed every one of us–small business owners–a delightfully unfair advantage. His website says it best.
“Guerrilla marketing creates ‘certainty in an uncertain world, economy in a high-priced world, simplicity in a complicated world, marketing awareness in a clueless world.’”
Thank you, Jay. We will miss you.
Go forth and do great things in the name of Jay,
Martha and Chris