I don't believe much in paid advertising.

For example, I always know who charges far too much for their product by how many times I see their commercials on TV. Which is insurance and pharmaceuticals. Way overpriced.

Sorry Flo.

I believe that anyone who develops a product learns more about how attractive and exciting their product is by how much word of mouth it gets. So, the challenge I give myself is to see how little I can spend on something to push it into the world.

(Marketing champ of all time, by the way, is Jesus. The fact that Christianity grew from one man and twelve disciples by word of mouth despite endless persecution across the centuries is remarkable. But he's the Lord, so perhaps he has an advantage...)

I haven't paid out any money to promote my book, for example. My risk of a few hundred hours writing the book and $8,535 buying 1,000 self-published copies last fall has paid off - I'm in the black. I just booked my first seminar out of state - in Tennessee.

Or take Grassroots Priorities. GAWTP has spent no money on advertising, but the website is becoming a fixture in Texas politics. We're not quite halfway through May, but we already have over 1 million page views for the month. During this session alone, over 37,500 unique visitors.

When you listen to people and give them what they want - to empower them and improve their lives - they will come to you for what you offer.

Any time you create something and offer it to people, a conversation begins. You try to find the best way to articulate what it is and how it can help and then you begin to hear whether it resonates with people or not.

If it doesn't, you have two choices: you either modify the product or the pitch, or you can push it harder into the market with money.

Sometimes, the money is smart because if you don't have an organic way to reach people initially, then the money can lift you to get to people. It's an investment and a boost. But if you keep having to plow money into advertising, that might be worth looking into. Something is amiss.

Can a product get major market share without any advertising? Yes, of course. Ever seen a Tesla ad on TV, for example? No, you haven't. Why? The product and its word of mouth are that good.

Guerilla marketing is hard. But it's street-level and forces you to really listen to those who might want what you offer. If you do it right, you get the maximum return on investment. There is no advertising better than word of mouth.

I spend a great deal of time thinking about how to apply that to politics and elections.

We lament the money in politics. How much is spent selling us on bad incumbents peddling bad policy? That would be an example of working too hard to sell a bad product. It's so artificial.

As Grassroots Priorities shows, people want the facts. They don't want a spin or an interpretation of the facts. People want to be empowered with knowledge and a means to share that with others. If you do that right, then people will come to it organically.

And the more you practice that discipline, the better you will get at doing it. It's about listening and creating something of real value that improves lives. People are smart enough to know whether their life is better for what you offer, and if what you offer does that, you don't need money to push it on people. It's attractive all on its own.