Most businesses have a marketing component, and if they don’t they should, but what makes a marketing department successful is the quality of the marketing manager.

A great marketing manager can be the difference between success and failure, or growth and stagnation.

They're young having the time of their lives while studying their arses off, and as part of their University Degree or off their own bat, they have decided to do an internship. Luckily for me, it's at Marketing Eye.

First of all, they send off their resumes to hundreds of different companies requesting an internship. In Australia, they are largely not paid, so interns are volunteering their own time in reward for hands on experience.

I once said to an intern that when they finished their University Degree that they would be more employable due to their internship and ability to attract 50,000 to a blog, than those of who may have received a better score. Experience particularly in marketing counts for something.

So, I asked some of our interns, what an internship is really like. Here's what they had to say:

I have been reading some great books recently, mostly about how to build a happy and sustainable culture and build a business globally.

At the moment we are employing new people in key positions within our company. Each position is new as Marketing Eye is growing exponentially and we need to hire people to accomodate that.

I cannot describe enthusiastically enough how excited I am to be in Melbourne today, the 12th day of January.

Still calling hotels my home, but albeit for only a short time more, I woke up excited for what the day will bring. Today, I will re-engage with my Australian team and work together with them to build Marketing Eye in Australia by 40 percent over the next 12 months. We have everything in place ready to go - and its incredibly motivating.

Getting ready for the artic freeze with a 12 degree chill expected tomorrow, I am gladly sitting in my warm office in Atlanta.

The team is fired up for the start of the new year. At this time of year, many people rethink where they sit in this world; life, work, health. I for one, have been doing a lot of that lately.

As I embark on the next phase of global expansion, I am left with some thoughts on the people I employ and those who would best suit our company going forward.

There’s a lot to love about New York City.

I have been here many times and each and every time, I fall in love all over again.

New York has been kind to me. The weather, reasonably mild for this time of year, has been lovely and easy to accommodate with a few layers of clothing. The restaurants, both new and old, have been outstanding and the people have made me smile. What more can a girl ask at this time of year?

December was a short month in the office; only two weeks in length, yet it produced the most sales on record. We surpassed our sales forecast by 62 percent in the first week, and finished off hard with two contracts coming in from Geelong Grammar and Parramatta City Council on the last day in the office.

Internationally, we are in a fast-growth phases and this holiday has been spent working out how we will accomodate the extra sales and at the same time keep moving forward, leveraging our unique positioning. 

We now have three inside sales executives in the company, with that set to double by the end of the first quarter next year. This investment has paid dividends as it allows marketing managers to focus on their jobs and not be tied down by talking to prospects that are warm and not hot. They no longer put together the proposals or the contracts, which are all done by our well trained inside sales executives.

An inside sales executive at Marketing Eye is an entry level position, giving marketing graduates the first taste of what it is like to work at Marketing Eye. Their job to date is to manage incoming leads generated from social media and our website, following them through first point of contact via email or phone through to presentation of Marketing Eye services and sending of proposal documents. They then close with a contract. 

This usually takes up most of their day, but we try and keep time aside for marketing. They get to work on client marketing strategies, social media, writing of electronic direct mail pieces and copywriting for our 600 page websites.

By ensuring that they work on client marketing activities and marketing our company, they are getting experience to jump to the next level as a marketing executive. They also understand what they are talking about when a lead comes in because usually they have either done it too or have worked as part of a team to achieve a particular client goal.

Selling Licensing Agreements

We have a huge announcement to make on January 5, 2015, in relation to Licensing Agreements. Over time we have realized how unique our business model is and the fact that we have so many systems and processes, along with technologies to ensure that our people work harder, faster and smarter than our competitors is appealing to other marketers looking to set up their own businesses.

Our licensing model provides highly skilled marketers with an opportunity to build a successful business while leveraging of a well-recognised marketing consulting brand, and a sophisticated backend of marketers, branding experts, public relations, journalism, social media, web development and graphic design.

We will help licensees build a business that is sustainable, retainer based and collaborative in its approach.

One of the standouts of Marketing Eye's model is our commitment to excellence. We have identified a gap in knowledge in the market and continually strive to educate those in our team on the latest in marketing techniques and processes. 


Launching into 2015

There are many things that we need to improve in our business, and this time of year we have dedicated ourselves to ensuring that it happens. If you don't continually improve your business, you will fall to the wayside and find that other competitors capture greater market share.

Hiring new people is imperative to our growth as we don't have an issue getting clients, but finding quality marketing managers is a lot more difficult than we would like. Is there a global shortage of qualified marketing managers? I think there is. So many marketing managers don't have the opportunity to work across the entire marketing mix and therefore are not 'qualified' to be consulting on a clients business. Or they have had so many agencies at their disposal in corporate that they only know how to manage an agency, not how to do tactical marketing activities nor do they know what the latest in marketing techniques or analytics are, relying on agencies to feed them with information. Bu we are the agency, so our job is to know what we should be doing for a client in order to help them reach their business goals.

It's a fine line but education is key. 2015 is very much about education of marketing managers internally and externally. We are committed to lifting the benchmark in marketing talent around the world and will be hosting marketing strategy seminars around the US and Australia over the upcoming year.

What is your business theme for 2015?

What is one person’s tradition may not be another’s.

It’s the 24^th December 2014, and like many families around the world, we are gathered in one place to celebrate Christmas.

While I don’t necessarily think that Christmas is a good excuse to get together with family, preferring to take the one of day of the year off the calendar and instead spending that time giving to others and serving those less fortunate – I am grateful.

My life is blessed in so many ways and enriched by those around me. I am grounded by family and friends, and always aware that there are people around me that will be there no matter what.

Marketing Eye is growing at a phenomenal pace with our first licensee approved, and a new office in Seattle, Washington. As such, we need to hire new people to join our team. We have three positions available: Marketing Manager (Melbourne), PR and Communications Executive (Sydney), Graphic Designer (Sydney or Melbourne).

To give you a snapshot: our existing team is highly talented and here for the long haul. They are a mixture of marketers, creatives, branding, web and public relations professionals. Each person is dedicated to being the best they can be - and in return, they are given a highly rewarding career in marketing, PR and graphic design.

A few years back I embarked on global expansion. I say the word 'global' loosely, as I am a realist and know that global is such a big, ambiguous word used so freely in today's business environment. We have an ambitious vision for the company that hopefully will see the company expand into a global footprint capable of providing thousands of companies worldwide with a 'marketing eye'. All possible, but yet to be fully realised.

I've been challenged for my entire business life by whether or not business is more important than personal life. We all know the answer to that one and as much as we continually tell ourselves that this is the case, it is so easy to be lured into a false sense of security that only business can provide.

I love working. I really do. I wake up in the morning and cannot wait to get to the office. I've matured a little, and don't tend to work on weekends or in the evenings, although I do put in a solid 12 hour day, 5 days a week.