Guerrillas don't try to grow only in linear fashion by adding new customers. They grow geometrically by mining current customers.

There are three ways to make a business more profitable and two of those ways lack something in the way of marketing wisdom. The first way and least likely to generate substantial profits but most likely to generate substantial heartaches is by waiting for word-of-mouth marketing to bring those clients and customers to you.

An astonishing number of businesses follow this course and eventually learn that it leads directly over a cliff and into despair. This is called no-growth and it is very inexpensive but no fun.

A second way to make a business flourish is to market the business to the world and to your prospects. You can never stop doing this because it's a superb source of new customers, but if you follow this highway and no other, you'll find that it leads to a dead end.

But even before you hit it, you'll run out of fuel or money because this method, known as linear growth, is very expensive, not to mention frustrating. Glamorous? Yes. High profile? Yes again. Profitable? No. Not profitable. It costs the linear growth people six times more to market their products and services than it costs guerrillas with the identical offerings -- because guerrillas know a third and better way to beautify their treasuries.

The third way to create profits is to fully comprehend the remarkable worth of existing customers, then lean upon them for repeat business and referral business. This is called geometric growth because it has more dimensions than linear growth and greater magnitudes than no growth. In the quest for profits, it's the best way to fly.

Guerrillas are sure to offer enough quality and service, enthusiasm and flexibility, to earn word of mouth recommendations hand over tongue. They are also assiduous about marketing their offers and benefits to attract prospects, even create prospects out of disinterested humanoids. And they are nothing short of awesome when it comes to converting those prospects into paying customers. But linear growth alone is not good enough for them.

Geometric growth is where it's at and guerrillas do it by focusing big-time on follow-up, which leads to repeat sales, and on referrals which lead to referral sales. By combining good word of mouth, consistent linear growth and abundant geometric growth, they soon learn that marketing is easy, business is fun and life can be a dream.

Of the three ways to grow, no growth is the cheapest because it costs absolutely nothing but faith, and linear growth is the most expensive because it costs absolutely nothing but money.

Geometric growth, as all good guerrilla marketing, asks you to make an investment of time, energy and imagination. Spend actual time developing a follow-up plan, one which calls for you to stay in touch with existing customers about six times a year. Do it with snail mail letters and postcards, email, faxes, phone calls, personal visits, gift packages, greeting cards and anything else your imagination can cook up. This is no time to be cool. This is when to be effusive.

After you've got a fully-loaded follow-up plan, ready to put into force within 48 hours of every sale you make -- for that timing is part of superb follow-up, devote the time to create a referral plan. Many guerrilla businesses report that up to 70% of their business comes from referrals. And they don't just sit around and wait for those referrals, lighting candles and praying.

They begin going for referral business right from the start. The guerrilla dentist receives a phone call to make an appointment and asks, "Is this appointment for you or for your entire family?" The guerrilla always asks new customer "Who referred you to us?" and then mentions that referrals are a very important part of the business.

That same guerrilla probably brings up the gifts that he gives customers who refer new people. He writes to his customers at least twice a year asking for the names of people who might benefit from getting adding to his mailing list -- asking only for the name of five people and enclosing a postpaid reply envelope to make everything easy. That guerrilla realizes that there are about ten good referral systems and he's using five of them.

The more you market geometrically, the less you invest in marketing. Because it costs only one-sixth as much to sell something to an existing than a new customer, follow-up is paramount. Referral customers bring down the cost of doing business as well because they come to you at no cost or very little cost.

You don't need me to herald the benefits of growing geometrically. You only have to talk to a guerrilla. Better yet, try implementing aggressive follow-up and referral plans for yourself. Be your own guerrilla. Then you won't need me to give you any geometry lessons.

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