Tag: atlanta - Page 2

Touch down! Atlanta here I am. I've conquered the first leg of this international trip and now I am ready and able to look at what is really going on in the world of Marketing Eye.

Everything has been such a cloud of recent, and for reasons out of my control. Now, we are taking the necessary steps to reach new levels in the business, and there has been a bit of a business turnaround.

Instead of focusing just on sales of Marketing Eye contracts, we are focusing on creating better career opportunities for marketers around the globe that want to own their own business.

I've never thought much about getting married... until I met the owner of Elite Pour La Vie in Atlanta. She shared her vision with me on why she was building Atlanta's most exclusive wedding and evening gown dress boutique. 

I didn't quite understand what could be so exciting about a wedding dress shop, other than the fact that she is a person with exquisite taste and style, who simply knows what is "in" and what is not. 

But now I do. She is bringing to a city of more than 6 million people, designers that brides-to-be and women wanting to make a statement or just look elegant at an black tie event or prom. 

It's what you don't have or perhaps have not yet experienced that makes you want to form a bond with a retail brand that is out of your core brand associations. Most consumers are now looking for something new. Something exciting. Something that takes them to a place that reminds them that they are who they want to be - in that moment.

But that's not new.

Today I started writing a series of blogs on our various websites: www.marketingeye.com | www.marketingeyeatlanta.com | and now www.marketingeye.com.au giving readers of these blogs an insight into who I really am. I am going to try and be raw and real, with no secrets or pretense. Feel free to give any feedback on whatever you read.

Inquisitive

I am inquisitive. I ask the "why?" every single time, usually inside my head. I don't just accept things as they are. I think about why they are as they are, or why someone has said what they have said. I think about why people do the things they do. Why they are one way with one person and another with the next.

When I see a painting, I think about why the artist chose to paint the picture like they did? What was going on inside their minds when they were painting away? Why they chose to sell their painting where they did? What they really thought of the painting that they did?

I am fascinated by design. Today I walked into Restoration Warehouse in Atlanta. It is one of the most beautiful retail buildings in the world. Each piece of furniture or fitting has a unique story to be told. 

Further on my journey today, i walked past Moncler and stood watching the window display. The robots with the mannequins dressed in jackets was so creative I wonder how anyone could have come up with it. It not only made me stare at it long enough to think that in itself it is a piece of art, but it also had me completely in awe of the designer. That's a real talent. 

Inquisitive people have a strong desire that borders on obsession. They want answers - especially one's that are not so obvious.

Good marketers are born to be inquisitive. They need to be inquisitive as to why someone would buy a product or service. Why someone chooses one brand over another. If they are not inquisitive, then they usually are not the best marketers.

In two days, I will be 42 years old. I write that with a huge smile on my face. I have in the past 12 months had the hardest 12 months of my life from an emotional perspective, but more recently, strangely, the best. As I get older, I keep learning so much about myself and others and I know how enriching that is. Getting older is exciting and allows me to grow in ways I never thought possible. 

When you are navigating life by yourself, it is hard to know whether you are doing the right or the wrong thing. The decisions you make in some way seem less important because all the mission critical one's were made earlier on, yet some are defined more by time. Finally I have hit that mid point in my life and it would be ignorant not to reflect and appreciate the good and learn from the bad. At least that's how I see it.

So many of my friends hit their 40's and have had mid life crisis; divorced or have done something crazy that I am sure one day they will regret. I was a little different. I went within myself and was probably a tad hard on myself and what I had achieved to date, and started this path which I have since gotten off, that was not going to make me happy long-term.

I won't deny that I am my own biggest critic, but mostly what I have learned is that I have grown in ways that make me extremely proud of the person I have become. Not the business woman that the world sees, or those so-called successes, but the person within. I am sure that sounds wrong when someone else reads this, but by saying it out loud, I am revealing who I am today.

There are many challenges running an international marketing agency. The first being the tyranny of distance, with travel being instrumental in providing real life face-time in front of staff and clients. The second, the fact that many marketers struggle to be abreast of the latest in marketing techniques and technologies.

We have built a business on education and the training of marketers through on-the-job experiences. When someone has worked for a year at Marketing Eye, they are equipped to do any marketing job. It's something we pride ourselves on and has set us apart from the rest of the pack of small to medium sized business marketers.

When a marketing manager starts at Marketing Eye, they often feel overwhelmed. They need to learn fast and efficiently, and face-time with clients is always within weeks of starting through meetings and online communications, which require them to know everything there is to know about the client and exactly what the clients marketing expectations are.

"Same bed, but it feels a bit bigger now" is the lyrics in the famous Bruno Mars song "When I was your man". An apt description of Marketing Eye's business expansion into the US market. It's the same company, but it's a bit bigger now. 

What started out as a step to expand the international footprint of our brand, has taken on a whole new dimension. Australia and America have long been tied and now more so than ever. The ebbs of the economy has led to an opportunity for Australian companies that are geared for expansion to leverage the strength of the Australian dollar, and affordable set up costs in the US market without breaking the bank. The downside, is US dollars are not worth as much, as the dollar loses its grip on parity.

Historically, Australian companies that have expanded into the US have benefited immensely from foreign exchange rates. After the initial shock of start up costs, companies see the silver lining of building businesses in the US and bringing US dollars back to Australian shores.

First day back in Atlanta and I am excited! I cannot express to you how much I love my US team and how inspirational each and every one of them are.

It's been a phenomenal journey, one full of great surprises, obstacles that were easier than expected to overcome and an incredible amount of love and support that has led Marketing Eye's success.

Like all bosses that are a nuisance, I asked for a photograph of a couple of my team members who were sitting in a meeting with me this morning. They are quite use to it - as they know that nothing makes me more happy than to take their pictures and share it with the world.

This year is going to be great. Actually, better than great - it is going to be awesome!

I started the morning with a "pep talk". There are a few changes that need to be implemented and sadly, I have to divide my time more evenly with Australia, so I won't be here so much. 

If I could have a dollar for every time I didn't trust my gut instinct, I would be a very rich woman.

Like most entrepreneurs, I have failed more times than I have succeeded and every single time I have failed I have thought back to how I could have done things differently. 9 times out of 10, it was because I didn't trust my gut instinct.

Trusting in yourself and your intuition is important, but if you are anything like me, you second guess what you think you should do and find reasons as to why you should do something a different way. It's not too indifferent from taking a risk. We are all reluctant to take risks but sometimes there is this thing inside us that tells us that we must do it - even though there a thousand reasons why we shouldn't.

A simple conversation can lead to anything. Literally, anything.

Like many entrepreneurs, gravitating to other entrepreneurs or business people is natural. Talking to a Neurosurgeon is not.

"It's not brain surgery" is one of my favorite sayings. The other, "it's not rocket science". It seems quite apt that I find myself in conversation with a neurosurgeon, whose gene pool is only bolstered by the fact his father is a rocket scientist.  Was I intimidated. Hell yes! But how impressed I was to be having such an intriguing and relevant conversation with a neurosurgeon, was only interrupted by moments of wanting to be opportunistic. I had to literally stop myself asking if a sperm donation was a point I could include in the discussion. Now, what single woman wouldn't want to have a child with this gene pool?

Nevertheless, when I pulled myself together, I realized the synergies between business and neurosurgery isn't actually poles apart and much closer than one would think. As a marketer, we have certainly learnt a lot from neuroscience and consumer behaviour, but the outlook of how a surgeon views what they do, was what struck me as being something every entrepreneur can learn from.

Most founders and entrepreneurs have their heads stuck so far up their you know what, to actually take the time to truly learn something from the young guns in their offices.

Another gross generalization, but the reality is that too many of the Gen-Xers who have started businesses 5 years ago, are working their butts off and are not spending the time needed to lessen their load by giving the young, up-and-coming executives the chance to really make a difference.

Here's my experience. I was sharing a glass of wine with Maikayla Desjardins, a Marketing Executive at Marketing Eye Atlanta yesterday and I asked the question, "why did you leave your job in New York and come and work for me in Atlanta?"

Her first response was: "You sold me on Atlanta as this awesome place to live - but let's face it, it's not quite New York!"