Perhaps no single book has had as much impact on the world of marketing in the past half-decade as Permission Marketing; it has certainly been the most discussed, scrutinized and oft-evoked marketing book in the world of network marketing. The ideas now made famous by Seth Godin in Permission Marketing and its sequel, Unleashing the Ideavirus, are by no means wholly new - nor wholly original, as Seth himself is quick to point out. But nobody had put them together quite this way-or with nearly the impact.

Serious network marketers have flocked to the Godin table: finally, someone was articulating what we have viewed for years as the "high road" of person-to-person marketing: forget the "three-foot rule," and instead, listen before you speak. Ask, don't tell. Go for permission!

After getting his MBA from Stanford, Godin says he "circled around the world of marketing" as a brand manager for quite a while. "I was spending millions of dollars buying ads in People magazine, getting invited to the U.S. Open with sponsor tickets … and discovered that it wasn't working very well." Seth encountered Jay Levenson's Levinson's book, The Real of Guerrilla Marketing; it was an eye-opening encounter. He went on to co-author several books with LevensonLevinson, and found himself developing an entirely new perspective on what makes marketing work-or not work. Starting in 1990, he worked on a project that became perhap ... Members have full access to this article. Become a member now using the links above.