We have been very privileged at Marketing Eye to keep our key team for almost the entire duration of the company. What that has done is establish a firm foundation of people who understand the business, it's vision and what expectations are key to ensuring its ultimate success.

Christina Kortesis who has run the Melbourne office without any interference since the company started has been the backbone of the business. She has continually shown what a good leader should do. Her nurturing skills and ultimate knowledge of marketing is second to none. She has empathy and understands the predicaments that our clients face, as well as that of her own staff.

You are currently walking down the road and you come to a cross roads; if you go one way, you may be successful, if you go the other, you are not so sure. What do you do?

Of course, none of us can answer that question because "may be successful" is not a certainty and if you go the other road, you have no idea, but it could be good, or it may not be.

Life is a bit like that.

Ideas are usually the driving force of an entrepreneur, and many of them have not only a great idea but a way in which they believe will help make it successful; and that includes marketing.

The problem is that not all entrepreneurs are born marketers. Some may be born sales people and perceive this to be "marketing" but there is a distinct difference and once an entrepreneur is completely across this, only then are they are to make the right decisions for their businesses. Do not confuse sales with marketing! 

As the world continues to change dramatically, marketing is a career that is becoming increasingly difficult to keep on top of. 

As a company, we are invested in training and developing our people to ensure that they don't lag behind with a majority of marketers today. This is further endorsed by the fact that in comparison to the US, the update of marketing automation in Australia has been dissimal. It's darn-right embarrassing that marketers or whoever is holding the budget have not yet adopted marketing automation as a way in which to feed the sales funnel and give sales people hot leads rather than cold ones.

Outsourcing your marketing has advantages and disadvanges. 

It's come to that stage where my own capital is being exhausted and I have grown an international business with no loans or investment in the past 5 years off my own back.

It's worked a treat and my lifestyle hasn't changed, but I have some bigger moves to make now and may need investment.

Fortunately for me, I have friends who are always willing to help out and also are aware of the bigger picture.

Now it's time to get the business into shape. No-one wants to sell off a percentage of their company if they have been wasting cash left, right and centre - because they can.

In the past few years I have become an exporter of marketing services. I became one a few years back when I decided to expand Marketing Eye into new markets. The most suitable market after much research was America, so I did what any buddying entrepreneur would do and I completed a market research study to make sure that if I started a business there, it was not set up to fail. Market research is crucial! 

A mixture of gut instincts, business acumen, networks and of course a business model that no-one else had, gave us a head start. I also chose a city where the cost of setup was low, the Australian dollar was sitting pretty at $1.06 to every American dollar, and where few people knew who I was.

Last week I encountered a business bully, except it was personal and they just happened to also be a business person. Someone with deep pockets who tried to "scare me" as he put it. He finally apologized but I have thought deeply about how often in my career this has happened, largely because I am a woman or a small business owner. There are a lot of dishonest people around. People who deliberately don't pay bills as they know it costs more to sue someone, or those who are just not nice people and want to be bullies because they get kicks out of it.

I use to be scared of this and get anxiety over it. I use to fall apart and perhaps even shed a few tears.

For years, Marketing Eye stayed with the same brand messages and continued to push through to the market key points that we believed were different to what everybody else was saying and doing.

The problem is that when you are online everyone can see for themselves what you are saying and doing, and for competitors to copy, it really is quite simple.

All of a sudden, prospects where ringing up and saying "oh, you do the same as such and such".

I can't believe I am saying this just a few days after I reminded my blog readers that I refuse to reward bad behavior - that I am in fact, not going to put any more energy into someone who I can't change or rectify their bad behavior. At some stage, people just won't change. They will laugh it off and pretend it didn't happen.