My Guerrilla Marketing Method that Led to 65+ Loyal Buyers

I developed a highly-effective guerrilla marketing tactic when I was living in Japan. And it all started as a lowly-paid teacher at an Eikaiwa (英会話). That’s Japanese for English conversation school.

Salaries for Eikaiwa teachers back in 2014 ranged from ¥175,000 to ¥250,000+ per month.

TABLE 1: Currency conversion of japanese yen in 2014

¥YEN	$CAD	$USD	€EUR
¥170,000	$1,829	$1,652	€1,244
¥250,000	$2,612	$2,360	€1,777

That’s not a lot of money for a broke, newly graduated university student with nearly $20,000 in debt.

Now, before I got my job as an English teacher, I networked and met a lot of private teachers who shared their secrets on the ins and outs of the industry. This planted ideas in my head to start my own business as a private English teacher.

In fact, one “mentor” fed this dream with the hopes to stick his right hand in my pocket to take a cut from my future school’s earning. But that’s a story for another time.

Instead, I’m going to share the guerrilla marketing method that led to more than $2,500+ in monthly recurring revenue.

But reader be warned, this method involves:

• The ability to balance
• High alcohol tolerance
• And my favorite word: f*ck

What is guerrilla marketing?

Guerrilla marketing is a high-IQ approach to getting your business, brand, service or product deeply embedded into a person’s mind.

It makes your marketing so sticky and contagious that everyone who sees it will talk about it, laugh about it, and want to buy it.

A more proper definition of guerrilla marketing would be:

• a marketing technique that uses the elements of shock, wonder, and surprise to delight and attract strangers into becoming your next buyer.

Okay, now that we got that out of the way–and (hopefully) appeased the Search G-ds–let’s get into the specifics of my highly-effective guerrilla marketing technique.

How I used guerrilla marketing to grow my student base from 0 to 65+ in less than 8

I won’t bore you with the struggle of starting a new business in a foreigner country where you can’t speak the local language.

The short version is that I quit working at the Eikaiwa after 3 months. This job provided a total earnings of about ¥525,000 or approx. $5,000 CAD.

I used about 50% of that to cover my costs of living (and the notorious “key fee” for securing a new rental). My basic costs of living looked a bit like this:

TABLE 2: Cost of living for ex-eikaiwa teacher in shunan, Jaoan (2014 – 2016)

Expense	¥YEN	$CAD	$USD	€EUR
Accomodation	¥25,000	$261	$236	€178
Utilities*	¥5,000	$53	$47	€35
Food	¥10,000	$104	$94	€71
“Networking” (i.e., Kirin or Asahi beer with business people at a local bar)	¥10,000+	$104	$94	€71

Yes, believe it or not, you can live cheaply in Japan.

And being one of the most frugal travelers—and newly self-made entrepreneur—on the planet, I was burning about $500+ CAD per month.

Fortunately, I had already secured 4 students before I called it quits. These students came in from my initial networking before my visa run to South Korea.

In total, my net income from these initial students came to: ¥45,000.

TABLE 2: Currency conversion of Japanese yen for my first 4 students

¥YEN	$CAD	$USD	€EUR
¥170,000	$470	$425	€319

As you can see, I wasn’t making enough money to cover my burn rate. This meant I was dipping into my emergency travel funds, and, if that dropped down to $1,000—I was going to put an end to this little “entrepreneur” adventure.

My first “big” break

During the first couple months of my near-famine startup, a fellow English teacher was moving permanently to Tokyo, Japan.

Not wanting to abandon her loyal students, she kindly offered introductions to me.

Being young, fun and full of entrepreneurial energy, all of her former students said “yes” to the idea of having me as their new teacher. This bought in:

• A small group of 3 middle school boys
• A small group of 4 kickass toddlers
• A pair of Japanese moms
• And a private session with a businessman that worked at Hitachi

Ba-da-boom, baby! Business was a-blooming.

I was now at 14 students and my financials stress was put to ease.

With renewed vigor and determination, I could now unlock my creativity and market myself without worrying that the end was drawing near.

Cue the guerrilla marketing!!

My fun—and effective—guerrilla marketing technique

I’m an outdoorsy guy. As you may or may not know, I sold everything and took a one way flight to Tokyo to embark on the greatest adventure of my life.

Part of my travel gear was a 20 foot long seatbelt-life material and 4 carabiners. This was my homemade slackline.

On my days off and evenings, if I wasn’t teaching, I’d go to the local park in Shunan and slackline.

This park was perfectly located next to all the bars and nightlife. So, conveniently, many business men and woman would come strolling out for a boozy adventure of their own.

And, as a 6-foot tall white man balancing 2 to 3 feet in the air like a magician, I was catching a lot of attention.

People would come flocking over to watch me “perform” my little balancing act. I knew immediately that, if this is drawing people’s attention, maybe I can persuade some of them to becoming my next student.

Because, if you think this is fun—just imagine all the fun we’re going to have learning English together!

So, I hatched a masterplan:

1. I made custom t-shirts with my Line ID’s QR code on the back. Line is one of the most popular communication apps, its akin to America’s Whatsapp.
2. On the front of these t-shirts, I added silly slogans, like: “I hate America, too! G-d bless, Canadians!” Japanese people got a good laugh out of this.
3. I started offering free slack line lessons. Some lessons resulted in a night out with a new group of “friends” while I secretly hoped would be my next student.
4. After studying the “bar scene” in Japan, I realized I needed to up my game, so I invested in a “textbook” to teach the “best” English words and phrases for bar-loving Japanese.

There you have it, folks.

That was my guerrilla marketing technique.

I got to enjoy slackling in the park.

I got a lot of people’s eyeballs and attention on me.

I sometimes got a little drunk with strangers afterhours.

And I got to teach my all time favorite word in the whole wide world: f*ck.

Within a few months, I had 100s of people’s contacts in my community. I’d occasionally send personalized notes, messages, promos, and offers for my lessons.

I landed about 30+ students this way.

And, even though not everyone I met wanted me to be their teacher.

Sometimes, they knew someone who did, and because of that memorable connection we had, they referred their friends or relatives to me.

If you want to read more about my English teaching experience in Japan, I’ll be sharing my posts about that soon.

In the meantime…

What’s a guerrilla marketing tactic that worked for you?

Drop a comment with your tried and true guerrilla marketing technique. Share a bit of juicy details too, like what industry, who you came up with it, and why you think it worked.

If you’re curious about the “textbook” I used to teach Japanese bar goer English swear words, you recommend buying a copy on Amazon.

I’ll get a small commission, probably less than a dollar, but that’s more than enough to fuel more blog posts and stories like this.

But I guarantee if you take this to Japan and use that for your own guerrilla marketing, you’ll earn back the $15-ish dollars of the book and more.

Hm, I think I should start gate-keeping these articles instead of giving my “guru” knowledge away for free!

Oh well, thanks for reading!

And don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter to keep yourself focused on what really matters—working hard to build your dreams, making moves that push you forward, and living life unaffected by the world’s noise and nonsense.