Each year I receive hundreds of invitations to attend conferences and events as a speaker, media or influencer. 95 percent I decline. 

They are a weary bunch of people - those marketers. You find them hanging out at conferences, marketing events and sometimes the opening of an envelope. Other times, you find them sitting next to you on a flight, and that's really the one time you can find the one pearl of wisdom that will help you along your way.

There are many challenges fast growing companies have, and at the forefront it tends to be not only how they market their company, but how they are able to optimise their marketing potential at an accelerated rate to achieve more successful outcomes.

Have you ever wondered why you hire two people with the same skills, identical degrees and similar project experience, but one appears to be significantly better than the other?

Game on. Marketers have not only had to turn to technology to power their marketing performance and stay clear of traditional marketing methods to a large degree, they now are needing to be more nimble when it comes to the purse strings.

At Marketing Eye, we employ a lot of marketers and over the years you learn to refine what type of marketer you look for in a role such as marketing consulting.

It doesn't take long to realise that some marketing professionals are more competent and successful than others because they inherently have skills that other's don't. You can get by as a marketer with sound writing skills, a firm understanding of marketing with continuous training and development. Most employers would be happy with this, and I have to say that I find employees that have this background to be more than ok. However, if you truly want to be successful, and out-shine the rest of the pack, you need this skill:

It happens. You have all the best intentions and for some reason your marketing strategy isn't working. Believe it or not, it has happened to some of the biggest businesses on the planet; think Kodak and Microsoft. 

It's that time of year when many Australian companies are reviewing their staffing needs.

As you know I write. Sometimes on this blog, in magazines, in newspapers, books - you name it. I do it because it is my passion. So it will come as no surprise that as a writer I decided to do a #callout on LinkedIn to other marketers asking them simple questions like why they got into marketing, why they like marketing and what's next.