Date: May 2017

I'm a marketer. It's been my choice of career for almost 25 years. I am the first to put up my hand and say that I know very little about anything other than marketing - and even with that, it's a daily challenge to keep up to the many changes in dynamics, technology, and human behaviours that affect our ability as marketers to do a job well.

Over a year, I speak with hundreds of marketers and potentially, more than a thousand entrepreneurs. More recently, interviewing people for roles with our fast-growth company has meant that I have been having conversations with quite a few marketers, many of whom have tried their hand at being entrepreneurs. In fact, more than 30 percent of the marketers in the latest bunch have started a company, and during the job interviewing phase, have said that the company was successful, but either exists no more or is put to the wayside.

High expectations of themselves

We will continue to have the University vs. real-world experience debate in this industry until the end of time, however, I feel this comes from those who sailed through Uni, didn’t take the information on board and showed up to every Wednesday morning lecture in the same clothes they wore out on Tuesday night. There is no substitute for education, whether that comes from practically undertaking tasks or learning theories and case studies in the classroom. In this competitive industry, you are required to wear many hats and need to be an ace of all trades to set yourself apart from other candidates. Here are the 3 best tips for young marketers breaking into the industry.

We spend a lot of time thinking about why a competitor is out-performing one of our clients, who may be smaller, but we never use that as an excuse, in the market.

It a challenge as a small business to grow exponentially, providing quality products and services, and building that brand that everyone resonates with.

As a business owner or entrepreneur, you must never forget that your employees are your most important asset. Promoting health and fitness in the workplace is one of the most effective ways to encourage your employees to reach their full potential when it comes to confidence and productivity levels. Not only does health and fitness encourage a positive outlook on life and work, it supports a positive attitude, a healthy weight and overall better health which is beneficial to the company and employee.

If you have left it until now to write your 2017/18 marketing strategy, then you are really hitting a fine line, because there is a lot to be done before executing a powerful, deliberate marketing campaign in July that will see your company hit sales targets, connect with customers and accelerate your potential in the marketing.

While I could do a flat lay of what I travel with, today, I won't, simply because I am a tad exhausted.

I arrived in Australia yesterday and as I get older, if I don't follow my own travel rules, I tend to get 'jet lag' and yes, I broke the rules and it is my own fault.

There are a few things I do that ensures that I never get jet lag:

In all walks of life, you will find that one person, or perhaps a few that hold vindictive personality disorders. It's hard to avoid because many of us are not expert psychologists and have not been trained to see signs in people before it's too late or they have weasled their way into your workplace or life.

As an avid technology enthusiast and entrepreneur, findng new and upcoming technologies that may be instrumental in either Marketing Eye's or our clients future marketing campaigns is a passion. 

Recently, one such technology asked for Marketing Eye's competitors, and did an analysis on where they sit from a digital perspective compared to Marketing Eye Atlanta. It was fascinating. Our company is a mere 4 years old in the US, and in year one, we realised that we outperformed all our competitors on Google listings/rankings and all areas of social media. It was something we were very proud of, as we don't spend all day pushing this medium, but a bit over 30 minutes in total including writing this blog.

The last quarter has been an interesting time, particularly with the influence of the global economy and in particular, the movement that has been a follow-on affect of the Trump Presidency.

The turmoil we are experiencing now, is nothing short of scary. What if one of these "fools" actually sends off a bomb and it heads in our direction? I'm scared, are you?

A year or so back, one of the Marketing Eye interns set up an Instagram account for the office dog, Pippa Smith. As interns do, they didn't give us the password and possibly had their own email address attached to it, so we were never able to retrieve it again.

Then a staff member decided that everyone loved her so much, that they wanted to set up an instagram account - and not give me the passwords. It was quite funny at the time, as they dressed her up and took the most adorable pictures. Like a true professional, Pippa Smith just stood there and looked at the camera.