This blog post is coming to you from Indianapolis, IN – also known as the home to the Super Bowl in about a week. By the way, in case you’re wondering how early the parties and festivities start prior to a Super Bowl, it is about 10 days. At least in Indy. Incredible to see the excitement and energy on the streets this early. But, I digress.

I just completed the first day of a seriously great CEO Mastermind Group, with another half day tomorrow to finish it up. I’m a participant for this mastermind so I get to present my business and talk about my challenges confidentially to the rest of the group; I do also host my own elite mastermind group 2x/year, called The Power of 11, which I obviously recommend though it is very exclusive and only for serious candidates.

What is this thing called a CEO Mastermind Group? Well, it is obviously an event catered mainly to CEO’s or solo entrepreneurs building businesses or companies. Some people try and call it a series of brainstorming sessions, but that’s not accurate because most brainstorming sessions lack structure and any real agenda. Mastermind groups have structure and agenda. Some people try and call it group therapy, but that’s not accurate because most group therapy is somewhat depressing and down. Mastermind groups have amazing energy and they’re very fun.

What a Mastermind Group really is is a (usually) 1.5 day gathering of a group of high-powered, smart people. Groups I’ve hosted and attended range anywhere from 8 people to 20. Each CEO has a chance to “present” their business, business model, challenges, strengths and weaknesses for about 45 minutes typically. Though it is a presentation, it is usually very interactive which is where all the value comes in. You get a group of insanely bright people punching holes and making suggestions about your business. And when you have all of these other people present, you get to hear everyone else’s ideas that you can adapt to your own business too. However many participants are in the group is how many different sets of ideas you take away from it. It is like having a room full of “best in breed” people as your personal consultants for 36 hours.

I was fortunate to participate in this one in Indianapolis, and in general I believe these are invaluable to do. If you’re serious about growing your business, becoming a better businessperson or anything close to that, I would recommend participating in at least one CEO Mastermind Group. It keeps you sharp, and on your toes, and eliminates your blind spots since no one in the group is ever a competitor.

Participating in a CEO Mastermind Group is not cheap, typically, not by any means. But you get what you pay for. Never once have I regretted forking over the dough for participating in these.

Tip of the cap to my wife for sending me Thomas Friedman’s latest op-ed from the New York Times. In it, he makes the (I think correct) correct assertion that an American worker today needs to do more given the changing landscape and economic climate:

In the past, workers with average skills, doing an average job, could earn an average lifestyle. But, today, average is officially over. Being average just won’t earn you what it used to. It can’t when so many more employers have so much more access to so much more above average cheap foreign labor, cheap robotics, cheap software, cheap automation and cheap genius. Therefore, everyone needs to find their extra — their unique value contribution that makes them stand out in whatever is their field of employment. Average is over.

That phrase in bold print is one of my favorites. And, it applies to marketing too. I was happy to see Mr. Friedman use this language which closely mirrors my company (Sprouse Marketing Group) and our feelings on how average marketing can no longer work much less survive in today’s world.

You can read our take on it right here. The gist of it is:

Most marketing is average – whether it refers to advertising, social media or print campaigns – and hardly any of it is award-winning, much less “acclaimed”. Because of this, secondly, marketing is sometimes viewed through a lens of being a below-the-line expense and somehow not as critical to incremental sales, branding or profit growth. This makes sense, we guess, because if you’re “average” at something, it is easy to be overlooked.

Sprouse Marketing Group knows these views to be false (because, we’ve proven them so), and we have seen over the past decade that the collective marketing industry has not done a good enough job in foreseeing and explaining a complete marketing story to customers, our own employees, shareholders or Boards.

So the questions are: what areas of what you do are “average”? Is your marketing average?

The article rightly points out that there are no American men left in the Australian Open (the top 16). When Serena Williams lost, that was it for American women, too. The underlying sentiment is that we have to do more at the grassroots level when kids are young and getting into sports, and it will ultimately produce more competitive players on a worldwide scale. The USTA created “QuickStart” which basically scales down the size of the courts, the racquets and tennis balls for young kids. They are doing it to entice more kids to play tennis and have early success rather than get frustrated and quit.

There were a few quotes that were disturbing to me about this new program:

1) The United States Tennis Association thinks it has found the answer. It had a “duh moment” in 2008, said the U.S.T.A. chairman and president Jon Vegosen, and realized that “we had to kid-size the game.”

They had this moment four years ago? What’s happened since then? The tennis world has passed the US by, mainly on the men’s side. Was it bureaucracy? I don’t know. Listen, folks. Tennis a hard sport. The quicker kids learn that, the better they will be long-term. Dumbing the game down is no good for anybody. Unless you’re 8 years old. Let’s keep analyzing, though.

2) “Other sports have done a better job at creating that progression,” said the former top-ranked pro Tracy Austin, now a Tennis Channel analyst. “Kids want success very quickly, and tennis deters a lot of them from continuing with it. In T-ball you get success right away.”

With all due respect to Tracy (was a big fan back in the day, and she’s a great analyst), I think she is dead wrong on this. I believe the expectations and the environment set for the kids is wrong to begin with. It isn’t about making the court smaller or using lighter weight tennis balls. It is about the kids and their families. I spoke at length with my old tennis coach over the holidays. He believes, as I do, that the pressure to be “well-rounded” (mainly stemming from parents) is what is driving the regression of American tennis. Nowadays, kids go from basketball practice to tennis practice to ballet to piano lessons. It is no wonder they have difficulty “sticking with” something for any period of time.

Further, kids want success quickly? That’s wrong. 8 year olds don’t know what they want, even if they say they do. The parents want their kids to have success quickly. I believe when kids are starting out, and showing some initial promise, the tennis pro should have a conversation with the kids’ parents telling them tennis takes discipline and a lot of time, and involves frustration along the way. If they want success quickly, they should practice hard, win a local tournament and get to know what competition is about. The fact that we’re catering the entire sport around 8-10 year old’s who have about 10 other competing interests is pathetic to me. It is a “jack of all trades, master of none” mentality stemming from the family unit. Don’t evolve the game in a way that has never been done. The sport of tennis is not broken, everything around it is.

3) Patrick McEnroe, the U.S.T.A.’s general manager for player development, said that among 8- to 10-year-olds, 75 percent had major technical flaws that came in part from “using the wrong balls and the wrong equipment on the wrong court.”

Again, with all due respect to Patrick (and in fact, I’m very familiar with his opinion and like him a lot as coach & commentator), this again is a head-scratcher. When I was 9 years old, and starting to play competitive tennis, I can tell you I had all kinds of technical flaws. I used the equipment everyone else did, and regulation tennis balls. It took me years to work out all the technical flaws, and in fact, there were some flaws I never did get fully rid of. To gloss over this, and adapt the game to kids who are that young, is silly. Again, the sport of tennis is not broken and never has been. QuickStart makes for a great press release, but it is not dealing with the root issues (which do not include the court, equipment or tennis balls; it is having a proper mentality).

What US Tennis officials are overlooking are the following which I think are the root of the issues. Like:

1) History

Like anything, history is always a terrific benchmark for future events. Sure, most things become evolutionary over time. But, not revolutionary as this QuickStart program aims to be. There were two golden ages of American tennis since I’ve been alive. The years around the late 70′s and early 80s conjure up household names (even today) of McEnroe, Connors (and even Lendl) fighting the likes of non-American names like Borg, Becker, Edberg, Wilander. Also, for American women: the Navratilova & Evert rivalry! Then, the early to mid-90′s when we had Courier, Sampras, Chang, Martin and Agassi (who actually played the longest). Since then, equipment has evolved and the game has undergone a lot of changes, but not what I would call major changes. Don’t believe me? After the mid-90′s dynasty, we had names like Roddick and Blake who got very well-deserved attention, both were very high in the world rankings, and praised for their physical style of play. They were the two biggest names in the sport on the American side who evolved with the changes in the game through power, speed and guile. None of the names I typed above did anything close to the “QuickStart” program when they were young. Do US tennis officials really believe they’ve found something revolutionary that the rest of the world hasn’t? Which leads me to the next point:

2) Marketing

The USTA should put some more money into marketing of the sport and players. In fact, they should have done this a long time ago. One problem is that tennis is hardly ever televised in the States and certainly not nearly as much as the 4 major sports and not even close to golf. Why not televise and market more solely American junior events? Or college tennis matches outside of once a year? Aside from these, marketing individual personalities is a great way to get past this. How often – now and historically – have you ever seen any product endorsed by a tennis player with American roots? And when something is endorsed by a tennis player, that person’s name is usually Federer or Sharapova. So you have American companies using foreign players to promote their stuff. If corporate America won’t change this stance, the USTA should by funneling more marketing dollars to the cause and making their own celebrities. If anyone has achieved a high world ranking, I could make the case they’re still incredibly marketable. You can start marketing players on a local basis first, then state, then national.

Now, the argument to this is that outside of Roddick, the US doesn’t have any players on the men’s side highly-enough ranked to merit marketing dollars being thrown behind them. Hogwash! Mardy Fish is #8 in the world. Roddick and Isner, #16 & 17. On the women’s side, Ana Ivanovic from Serbia is #22 and one could make the argument she’s had more marketing behind her than most male players in our country, or female players outside of Serena & Venus. Which leads to me to:

3) The importance of creating true Idols in this country.

Why do most kids do anything in this country? It is usually because they see someone intriguing on television or the internet. Pre-internet, I had any number of people I looked up to in the sport, which then spurred my interest in the game. I picked up a racquet and started hitting tennis balls against my garage because I looked up to players and the game looked fun. It was not because the game was “easy” or “hard”. I didn’t care how big the court was or what racquet I was using and certainly didn’t ask my Dad if we could play with lighter tennis balls. The thought didn’t even occur to me. I think this is much the same as any competitive player when they were starting out. Unfortunately, the USTA has now planted the seed that the sport of tennis is not really the sport of tennis when you’re young. I disagree with that.

So, has the game itself changed? I don’t believe so. I believe everything around the game has, to our detriment as Americans. If the game is not broken, why are we trying to fix it? I believe it all starts with family and this seeming disinterest in competition and the virtues of sticking with something for any period of time.

QuickStart will have nothing to do with changing the fundamentals of the game to adapt to kids at such a young age. I think this is about money, and getting more people engaged in the interest of money; because surely, it can’t be about producing champions.

Further, you can’t compare compare this program with Little League T-ballers. I’m sorry, you can’t. They are two completely different sports; one is individual, one is team-oriented. In a team-oriented environment, it is inevitably more fun for kids; but also tougher at that age to stand out and to know if you’re really good (elite) at something or if it is just the kid/fun factor of doing something with friends and relying on teammates. Tennis is, and always has been, a fairly individual sport. The sooner kids understand it, and everything that goes along with it, the better.

Adapting the entire sport of tennis and its historical significance to be more like baseball is a short-term fix, a short-term outcome to entice involvement and revenue and to get more kids to play tennis. Only, the sport kids start out playing in no way resembles tennis! In my opinion, it will do nothing to produce more champions in the future and will do nothing in terms of a long-term solution. It may help kids feel better about themselves from ages 8-10 (which I think is akin to giving kids a trophy for 14th place), but then they switch to a larger racquet on a larger court with regulation tennis balls – and then what? They get frustrated because they have to adapt, quit, and they look back on their years during QuickStart and wonder whey they did it and why the sport they played for three years is suddenly different.

One more thing: A large part of success in tennis is movement and learning how to move. This is one thing at very young ages is very important, probably more so than teaching technical excellence like Patrick said above. With QuickStart, you’re holding kids back from learning to move properly. They get used to moving one way on one-sized court and then find out it is a whole lot different in regulation size. QuickStart might unintentionally crush a kids confidence, too. He or she could be super-quick on the small court, without the ability to translate that quickness to the larger court.

As with anything, it takes a lot of work to become great at tennis. That is just a fact. Champions become champions because they want to put in the work and want to be dedicated to something. And that starts at the family level with proper expectations and candid communication.

The name of the program, QuickStart, implies “short cut”. The problem is: the easy way seldom works, especially in tennis.

One of the things I’ve noticed year after year is that largely the same companies are the ones running :30 and :60 spots. This isn’t surprising, really, since the ads aren’t cheap and typically require deep pockets. Who has the deepest pockets? Either big businesses or brands (beer companies, car companies, etc), or in some cases start-ups that are heavily funded (think Groupon). There are exceptions to this, but by and large, this is how it goes.

I would love to see some variation, to see some new advertising faces in Super Bowl ads. In other words, give the little guy a chance. Since there is so much money involved and at stake for the TV network broadcasting the Big Game, I doubt that will ever happen under the current structure.

But what if that network agreed to give away one :30 spot in the big game for a small or medium sized business, and use the ad revenue they would have received to give to a charity? In return, smaller business could compete for the spot (since there would likely be thousands of entries) and the network could post videos from the entrants and have regular people like you and me vote on the winner. The video entered would not be the actual spot they would run, it could be a representative of the company or business that gives a short monologue about why they deserve the spot or basically anything else other than the actual spot so the cat doesn’t get out of the bag so to speak.

From the TV network’s point of view, it would drive tremendous buzz, traffic to their site, and also involve a philanthropic component. The “competition” could run from, say, September to November, with a winner determined in early December, giving the small/medium sized business enough time to produce the spot. The network could even support the production of the spot to ensure quality. The network could even run the commercial during the 4th quarter, since that is less valuable inventory if the game turns into a blowout.

For one small/medium sized business, it would be a huge boon!

Again, I’m sure this will never happen. But it would be cool for the TV Network to combine online (with the competition) with broadcast, have a philanthropic aspect (since everyone knows these commercials are run by the almighty dollar), and create great positive buzz from a PR standpoint.

Just an idea.

I’m waiting for your call, CBS, for next year’s broadcast.

On many fronts, this is a momentous day for me personally. Any time you switch gears and change jobs – whether it is leaving to go to another company or starting your own new gig – it meets with some parts excitement, some parts extra motivation, and some parts scariness. I think to be really effective, the exciting and motivating parts should far outweigh the scary parts in terms of your mindset. Nevertheless, I believe a little bit of paranoia is never a bad thing and actually can add to motivation too – not that I need any more motivation in this particular case.

Starting my own agency means I’m attaching my own personal brand to the brand of the company. This is, quite simply, exhilarating. A majority of the American workforce – including me for the last 15 years – hitches their wagon to someone else’s brand. Even if you’re a CMO, as I have been, most people don’t “own” the brand in the way they rightfully should (for a variety of reasons too complex to talk about here). They never get to truly own their own brand and have it meld with their professional persona. This is exciting for me, but also for my team which – no matter how “big” we get – will always remain relatively small because I want them to be a part of the brand and feel ownership of it too. Nothing is as demotivating as not feeling truly vested in what’s going on, or having no belief whatsoever in the business you’re apart of.

Plus, it also means that if my team and I succeed, we weren’t reliant on anyone else to do it. This is something that has always been a great formula for me dating back to my tennis career. Likewise, if we fail, we have no one else to blame but ourselves, which again, can be extra-motivating.

I appreciate the support of the readers of this blog! You’ve actually provided me the highest-trafficked month since this blog started, and we’re only 2/3 of the way through January. The best part about hitching your wagons to your own brand is that it allows me to write more on this very website. And that will continue. Sprouse Marketing Group purposely doesn’t have their own blog; if you’re wondering our opinion or outlook on something, this is the place you come. I want people to know me and know my viewpoints, because those viewpoints are extensions of what Sprouse Marketing Group – and our entire staff – believes.

Finally, I had a small support system that has provided encouragement over the last month or so to get me across the finish line, which has included some close family and friends. I had an even smaller support system that have helped me create this company and get it going, market it behind the scenes, etc. That very elite and small group of folks starts with my wife, and also extends to a very few special individuals in my innermost circle. You know who you are. Thank you.

Feel free to check out our website here or at http://www.SprouseMarketing.com to see everything we do. I believe it is a very comprehensive list of services that is unique. If you or anyone you know are perhaps in the market for an award-winning team with deep expertise on seriously all facets of marketing, I’d be thankful if you thought of us.

I believe there should be some sort of class for people that handles how they market themselves and their own brand. Because, no matter what company you work for, increasingly today people have their own brands that are at least as important as where they work.

Here is my problem with the old “results-oriented professional” qualifier: 1) it is cliche (and, as if people that don’t use that description could care less about results – I don’t think so); 2) if you have to overtly say something, it implies weakness about your past results to an employer. In other words, I would immediately question that person’s past results. It is kind of like an old colleague of mine who used to talk about how much he/she worked. There’s some semblance of insecurity when you have to say something that cliche. Results-oriented? Plus, it is more often than not subjective; 3) One final comment about the “extremely motivated”: same goes; work ethic and motivation would be the first things I’d question if this is the headline descriptor for someone.

I just believe that people need to pay more attention to their own description which pertain to their own personal brand. The one thing people will always have is their own branding. Your own branding withstands jobs and career stops – why is it not more carefully thought about?

I read this quotation in a comments section, oddly enough, of a recent WSJ journal article. It immediately resonated with me, because it really is so true. I had subconsciously always believed it, but never read it quite so succinctly.

If you’re really good at what you do, and lead people the right way, you become dispensable over time. Not dispensable in the sense that you can be shitty at your job and get away with it; rather, dispensable because you have done so much good in whatever it is you do, that you can’t possibly do anymore.

This notion doesn’t at all imply that the value, knowledge and insight you provide to a company or business diminishes over time. It is ironically the opposite. Your value greatly increases under this mantra. How is it possible for someone to become dispensable AND for their value to a business increase?

Ever hear the term “rising all boats higher”? Great leaders metaphorically make all boats in the harbor rise higher. Using that analogy in business, the best people take others around them to new heights they couldn’t have imagined previously. It is a very non-self centered mindset. The more people your leadership applies to, or the more people you are able to impact, the greater the value of the business or enterprise. These leaders not only cement a legacy, they ensure that their legacy lives on long after their days of shaping their department, business or company. Sometimes your legacy carries on through one person; sometimes it is thousands.

I’ll give you a personal anecdote. The last three career stops I’ve had have each lasted almost exactly five years. Like literally, almost five years to the date I started that particular venture. I’m not touting myself as a great leader here, but I have made myself dispensable right around the five year mark at every turn and felt great about it. I live by a very specific process and formula, in everything I do, and that formula has a life cycle of five years (as I’ve found out). What is your life cycle? Shorter? Longer? It is important to know. I’m not talking about the “I need a long vacation” feelings or the standard burnout everyone feels at some point in time. I’m referring to something much deeper.

Good leaders ensure long-term success of their people. Depending on what you do, or how much power or clout you have in a business or company, affects how many people you can impact in this manner. The point is that the great ones always seem to provide a bulletproof road map for those left behind that provides them the tools to know how to survive – and thrive – long after he or she leaves in ANY work environment.

I understand that the traditional mindset is something akin to: “make sure you are deemed the most valuable person in the interest of job or work security, so that they can’t get rid of you.” I couldn’t disagree with that more as a path to being great in anything. After all, how many people do you hear about these days who do the exact same thing for 25 years? Do people even want to do the same thing for 25 years?

The point is especially poignant in political elections. Great presidents, for instance, are typically seen as “great” years after they held office. They’re either dispensable after four years, or after eight years; yet, the common notion of greatness is seen as how things went while they were in office, sure, but even more so how things went after they left office, how they left the country, which often can’t be measured in anything close to real-time.

Having the “be indispensable so they can’t get rid of you” mentality causes bad decisions over time, and in no way raises the value of the enterprise long-term. What makes great leaders in the confines of a business or workplace is tied to the value you provide to others around you that you work with every day. In fact, it is closely tied to another mantra of mine that I have used all the time for over ten years now: “always hire people better than you for whatever it is you’re hiring for.”

The best hires I’ve made in my life were people who I truly believed were better than me in any one given subject matter or area. It wasn’t that I believed I couldn’t add more value to these people; it was simply that I knew they had a foundation in something I didn’t have that I could build upon with them. I knew that ultimately those people would be able to carry on long after I left their midst, and carry on in such a way that they would thrive either at the same role or a different one down the road.

This is why, ultimately, I believe everyone that is really good at what they do is dispensable. For one, really good people know when they need to take the next step and move onto the next challenge. Secondly, really good people know when they reach a point when the people they manage have been impacted sufficiently to carry on in the normal confines of their business, or doing something else.

The whole notion of making yourself dispensable is uncomfortable to some because it connotes weakness. Like I said, if you’re shitty at something, that is one kind of “dispensable”. But being really good at what you do is a whole different kind of dispensable. The good kind.

A few quotes from Facebook on this new development:

Now that cars have screens that are intelligent, you would expect that more and more car manufacturers will want to make those screens capable of allowing people to connect with their friends and take advantage of the social context that comes along with that.

One wonders how much the accident rate will go up after this. You thought texting caused accidents; well wait until social networking in cars rolls out. But truly, when screens and GPS were brought into cars, I thought it was a great idea. GPS and navigation services are relevant extensions to drivers while in the car, and actually help to increase safety. But social networking and Facebook in your car? That’s too much.

I guess the question is: if there is any type of screen available no matter where it is, does that always create a “social context”? Will airlines have Facebook installed in cockpits so that pilots “can take advantage of whatever social context is present”? Book me on the next flight.

About the GPS comparison, here is another quote:

One of the core things that people do on their screens in the car is GPS navigation and the ability to see which of your friends are nearby is something we think will be really interesting for people.

Actually, I don’t think this is interesting at all. But that’s just me, apparently. In fact, I wonder if there is a saturation point we’re reaching here. Is enough, enough? Or is it not enough? Again, I might be in the minority by thinking that if I’m driving somewhere to begin with, it means I want to get somewhere – not take random excursions because I just found out a friend is close by. You mean, my 4th cousin removed who I haven’t seen in 28 years is 7 miles away?!?

Well, screw my sales meeting, I’m turning around.

Now, the one real downside for people really excited about this development is:

One popular Facebook feature that Mercedes drivers will not get, however, is the ability to play social games such as Zynga Inc’s Farmville. Mercedes’ version of Facebook does not support third-party apps.

Well, that’s too bad! You mean you can’t play games while going 70 mph on the freeway? That would have been such a rush.

I actually don’t think the term “get it” is accurate, to slightly disagree with my friend. I really do believe most businesses believe marketing can be a major catalyst for success, and not just some sort of below the line expense. Rather, I think the term “committed to marketing” is more applicable as the root of his frustration.

Like anything, the more you put into marketing, the more you get out of it. Too often, marketing seems the one – out of all the major disciplines – that people think you can “fake” or half-ass to success. Worse, it gets looked at in a silo rather than being looked at as an integrated part of a business. As you know, I share dramatically different opinions of this because marketing is the one area that is interconnected not just to other areas of marketing, but to the rest of a business or company. It just is, and no one can convince me differently.

There are businesses that fall into two camps, mainly, when it comes to marketing: 1) Those that commit to it; 2) Those that don’t. There really is no in-between, you either believe in the power of a successful marketing strategy – and see it through fully – or you don’t. Further, you can’t believe in one aspect of marketing and not the others – again, that whole “interconnected” thing I talk about.

Through distant and recent history, there are countless examples of marketing lifting a product, brand or service to great heights. There are also countless examples of marketing gone wrong, and becoming a drain or liability, for a business. I would argue in either case, the swinging factor begins with commitment. Obviously, execution has something to do with it, but it begins with real commitment.

What do I mean by that? It means that no longer can individual aspects of marketing be thought of as fitting into a silo. Traditionally, marketing covers a whole slew of things from public relations to social media to search engine marketing to driving retail sales to branding. In fact, I’ve used the analogy before of a carpenter and his or her toolkit. A great carpenter has many tools in the toolkit, and he or she knows how to use every tool and importantly knows when to use every tool.

So it goes for a marketer, too. A marketer has many communication platforms and tools at his or her disposal. Sometimes, it makes sense to use social media or display advertising or an event to get the desired impact, and great marketers know how and when to use certain tools.

Having said that, all of a marketers tools are linked and, in fact, interconnected. Consider the following, abbreviated list:

Public Relations

Social Media

Advertising

Direct Mail

Search

Like I said, this is a very abbreviated list. But let’s say you are embarking on a public relations campaign for your business. Wouldn’t the four things listed beneath PR be tools one could use? Wouldn’t all five of these things impact sales and/or your brand?

Consider another example. Let’s say your business doesn’t know the first thing about social media, and has no social media presence to speak of, and you’re ready to get started. You dutifully put up a page on Facebook, create a Twitter account, list your business on LinkedIn, and you’re feeling pretty good about it. This is where the interconnectedness of marketing comes in. By taking these specific steps, you are not only impacting this area of marketing called social media, you’re impacting search. Why? Because social media is highly ranked in all the major search engines. So if someone searches Google for your business or brand, it is likely social media channels will show up in the top search listings. Likewise, social media is a PR haven (or disaster, either one depending on the circumstances). By putting your brand or business on social media, you’re opening up engagement with customers, prospects and users which engages people but also opens up a discussion, or dialogue. All comments, good or bad, that show up in social media then impact search engine results, public relations and the like.

See where I’m going with this?

Let’s say you begin a direct mail campaign or an offline/print ad campaign. Well, it is highly likely someone will use a search engine to find out more about your brand or business. It is also quite likely someone will head to social media to see what others are saying about your brand or business. And, if your public relations persona is up to snuff or not, people will see that in a variety of areas.

I could go on and on. If there are dozens of aspects of marketing (which, there are), I could make a case that in some way they are all interconnected and all impact your business, your sales efforts and your brand.

This is why business owners and companies need to think about marketing differently than they ever have before. They need to think about marketing as they would dominoes. When you push one domino over, what others dominoes will fall over too? When you pull one marketing lever, what other levers follow?

I will have plenty more to say about this topic in the coming weeks when I unveil a few new things. But for now, consider how you think about marketing, or how your business utilizes marketing, and consider how your marketing endeavors might be more interconnected than you realized.