There are many challenges running an international marketing agency. The first being the tyranny of distance, with travel being instrumental in providing real life face-time in front of staff and clients. The second, the fact that many marketers struggle to be abreast of the latest in marketing techniques and technologies.

We have built a business on education and the training of marketers through on-the-job experiences. When someone has worked for a year at Marketing Eye, they are equipped to do any marketing job. It's something we pride ourselves on and has set us apart from the rest of the pack of small to medium sized business marketers.

When a marketing manager starts at Marketing Eye, they often feel overwhelmed. They need to learn fast and efficiently, and face-time with clients is always within weeks of starting through meetings and online communications, which require them to know everything there is to know about the client and exactly what the clients marketing expectations are.

Companies put in place inside sales models to excelerate sales performance. The problem with this is that when it actually occurs, you need to be prepared. That means having all the systems and processes in place to take on new clients and onboard them in a manner that keeps them engaged long after signing the contract.

Marketing Eye has a well-documented strategy. We work with a flat organizational structure with no defined hierarchy, just a team of self starters and people capable of making a difference to the businesses in which they work.

We collaborate our efforts and always work using a team approach preferring to hire all fulltime employees rather than bring teams of people together that are not able to collaborate at the same level as an internal team may be able to do so.

Every now and again I have to take stock and start all over again. It's not necessarily because I have gotten something wrong. Instead, it's usually because I travel so much and am exposed to some of the most brilliant minds in business, who kindly share their thoughts and philosophies with me, that somewhere along the line, I become inspired or a thought makes more sense than the original plan.

A catalyst for change is the inate desire to be better. To do things in a way that transcends what may be normally expected, and sets in motion a purposeful action leading to an end goal.

The world is your oyster... yet so many of us still spend far too much time behind our desks.

It's hard to leave the comfort of your cushy office chair, surrounded by what has become our most familiar items; our desk, our computer, our coffee cup and an endless ream of notepads.

I challenged myself as the new year came around to be more effective in the office. While I will never have a 4 hour work week (who really does?), I certainly plan to utilise my time in the office on productive "on the business" not "in the business" tactical items.

Today I rocked up to the office in Melbourne with casual Friday attire. 

A few days back I wrote a blog "9 Fears and Insecurities That I Have". 

It's the type of blog that people think about, and talk about. It's something that gives food for thought. As I dined last night with two of my girlfriends in Melbourne, I decided to bring up the blog. Immediately, they asked me to read it out.

As I went through point by point, they shared their own experiences. What I found fascinating is that so many of our fears are the same. "Are we good enough?", "do we have purpose?", "who will love me when I am old?". For women, it is so much about love and a fear of losing their looks. For men, its primarily about being a good provider and being admired by their peers.

What is right for one, may not be for another.

Never die wondering. It's not just what I say, its what most people would say, even you, had you not been so afraid to take the risk.

I don't know about you, but I am tired of people coming to me for advice, and then never doing anything about it. I am not talking about coming to me for advice and not following my advice. I am talking about coming to me with an idea, and never executing it, mostly due to fear of failure.

The other day I read an article that Ashton Kutcher shared on Facebook "8 Fears and Insecurities Everyone Has". Of course, like the millions of other people who clicked through to the article, I wanted to know what insecurities and fears other people have.

Ashton outlined his fears in the retweet:

No. 1 I'm not good enough
No. 2 My work isn't good enough
No. 6 I'm afraid of failing/disappointing
No. 7 If people knew the real me, they wouldn't like me

It got me thinking. What are my fears and insecurities? Like most people, I have many but I possibly don't dig deeply into them too often, because who wants to be confronted by what we fear most?

I don't want to be reminded about my fears/insecurities but after reading the article, I decided that it's possibly not the worse idea to confront them head on and by doing that, share them on this blog.

They are a bit 'girly' in some ways and not at all the same as Ashton's (but hey, he is gorgeous, successful, smart, hot blah blah blah). But they are something I think a few readers may relate to.

After a bit of soul searching, this is what I came up with:

For those who read my blogs, you may have read about the fact that I grew up in a country town in regional Queensland. Charters Towers was once called "The World" and for many still is. It's known for gold, cattle and country music, but to me, its just this quaint town more than an hour outside of Townsville, that I proudly called "my hometown".

Today, after a few emails backwards and forwards, I connected with an old childhood friend, Sonya Gough.

There are blogs and then there are, well, blogs. Some bloggers are one hit wonders, others stay around for the long haul continually reinventing themselves and bringing out new material.

I asked Ursula Meyer to give me an insight into what she believed was the top 50 blogs that every entrepreneur should read at least once. This is what she came up with:

1.             http://neilpatel.com/blog/

Neil Patel has run two successful software companies, Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics, he has worked with clients of all sizes in almost every industry, in return getting results in some of the most competitive online niches like car insurance.