What is Marketing? It seems like a stupid question. Most people think of marketing as a glossy flyer, a business card, an advertisement in the telephone directory or a sign out front of their store. After years of fine-tuning my business, my definition of marketing has changed.


Marketing is everything you do. Its the uniform you wear, its the way you talk, its the bag you carry, its how many rings it takes for you to answer your phone, its everything. We now live in a world where we don’t trust a business just because it has fancy brochures and a guy in a suit; consumers are much less trusting now.

I’m sure many of us have come across a shady salesman who looked immaculate, his sales pitch was great but there was still something not quite right. It might have been his cheesy smile, his beat up car parked around the corner or the fact that their phone line redirects to some other country; but something turned us off. The funny thing is, that sales person will probably think it was his pitch that made you not do business with him when its really something he didn’t even think about.

You need to look at your own business from the outside in and see what can be improved because it is the “whole picture” which makes up how your business looks to customers. It is often a good idea to get an outsider to suggest improvements for your business because after a few years you becoming blind to things which may be extremely obvious to your customers. Ask them to be brutally honest because even though it may be painful while they are telling you how you do things wrong, its worth it in the long run when more customers feel comfortable doing business with you.