The marketing team in corporations are stepping up their 'marketing game' to help the human resources department secure top talent.

When it comes to employee appraisals, it is important for the appraisee to look at industry standards, benchmarking and peer group feedback. It's not just managers that know what is happening on the floor and numbers are can never truly reflect an employees contribution to an organisation.

Every marketer has tricks up their sleeve. If they didn't, they are not trying hard enough. Having been a marketing consultant for many years, I have had the pleasure of rolling up my sleeve and showing the world (well, mostly people in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney) how they too can use some of the tricks of the trade to accelerate their marketing reach.

I have spent my weekend looking at the big picture. Where is my business going? How am I and the rest of my team going to get it there? What is going to make the company more unique? How do we retain our talented team? What incentives do we need to have in place? All the normal questions really.

For the past five months I have been incredibly picky about who would be the right person to spearhead the business in Sydney, a very important market to the Marketing Eye organisation.

While many have felt that I have sat on my hands, I have been quite deliberate. I needed the right person to be in the position that had the skills and passion to take the business forward.

What makes our agency special? It's a question that I am asked frequently, and it always makes me think "what is it that is our secret sauce?". What makes us different from the marketing company down the road?

Being a marketing consultant is truly insane. Trying to explain what you do on a daily basis, is like talking another language to most people that are not in the industry - and for reason. We all work at different levels and few of us really talk to each other about marketing because everyone wants to be the top marketing expert that clients go to for advice.

If you are a small business owner, you would have had many occasions where you were ready to tear your hair out. There is so much to think about; finances, staff, customers, your product/service and of course marketing – bringing in the business!