As a marketing consultant I can't tell you how often people tell me they feel their marketing efforts are a waste of time. Small and medium sized business owners in particular feel that with a small marketing budget they are at a huge disadvantage in comparison to their larger rivals. No, you can put it in even stronger terms; they feel their ability to compete is hopeless.

But if you talk to the marketing director of a large company you will soon realize that a large budget brings with it larger expectations and traditional advertising methods just aren't delivering the kind of results the big budget advertiser requires either.

The truth is we are in the middle of a revolution. One day people will look back on our time like we look back on the agricultural revolution or the Industrial revolution and study how we coped with the changes.

 That's you they will be studying.

In any period of transition but especially in the beginning, there will always be those who deny it is happening and moan about the way the world is "going to the dogs". They are the stalwarts (A person who is loyal to their allegiance especially in times of revolt) and they will see it through. They are a legend in their own mind.

They boast how they are the last bastion fighting for the good old values. They persist in doing what they have always done because it "always worked before". They look at their statistics and instead of seeing the tsunami they see the lifeboat bobbing on the waves of change. Surviving but taking on water with all hands bailing like crazy. There is no island paradise or safe harbor in sight but they believe because they need to believe, that over the next horizon they will encounter good weather and a fair wind. It is a temporary storm. It will blow over because they always have.

These are the marketers that believe that one big television campaign can or will solve their problems. Why not it always worked before?

I could go on but I am sure you get the point. I'd like to say that these are the people that stick their head in the sand and hope for the best but my allegory doesn't allow for it besides; we know where they have stuck their head.

And then there are the others. At first they are a small group or even a spattering of individuals dotted here and there across the landscape. They're in small business and big business. They are entrepreneurs. They are staff. They are young, they are old but they all have one thing in common.

Marketing is not for the Faint Hearted

In Australia we call it guts. You might call it courage, backbone, chutzpah or something else but it is that inner confidence that says there must be a better way and I am going to find it. It's being prepared to do things differently even though its harder because,  instead of following a path well trod you will be carving out a track in unknown territiory.

Yes you will be held responsible for your actions and you will get a lot of stick (be laughed at) from the "do it the way we all do it" crowd. But when you find the trail to glory, the winning formula, it  will be you on the podium getting the accolades not the crowd.

In the 1970's and 1980's when a main frame computer cost millions of dollars, the decision which one to buy could make or break a financial controller. There were a number of brands to choose from but if a financial controller looked like he was going to recommend something other than IBM there was a legendary story that he would receive a call from an IBM director reminding him that "nobody ever got sacked buying an IBM". "Go with the crowd, make the safe decision and even if it is wrong at least you can point out that most financial controllers made the same decision".