A sound marketing strategy is an essential component of any successful business. However, it is important to remember that it is only ONE component. This says a lot coming from me; you would be hard pressed to find someone who believed in the power of marketing more than myself. But marketing is only a piece of the puzzle that, when combined with other pieces, creates the masterpiece that is business success. Even the best marketing can’t save a poor product or service. Evidence? How about New Coke, Ford’s Edsel, or Microsoft’s Zune.

Ask customers what they want » you do it » they buy more. This seems like such a good and simple idea, but unfortunately it never works out as planned. What really happens is you implement the customer’s suggestions and it flops, big time. Your customer may say they want something, but the reality is that they have no idea what they want…that is your job to determine. Let me give you an example.

Unlike most people, I actually enjoy going to the grocery store. The whole process — cutting coupons, making a list, and going to the store — is sort of like a game to me and it fits perfectly into my ‘logical’ way of thinking. I went shopping a few weeks ago and one of the things on my list was a head of lettuce. As I started looking through their selection, I was really having a hard time making a choice. They were all very fresh and they were all a decent size, but I couldn’t make a choice. So what did I do? I continued shopping...without putting any lettuce in my cart. Even though I needed lettuce, I didn’t get it. Why? Simply because I couldn’t choose.

--Excerpt from Selling the Invisible: Sam Walton’s brilliantly profitable strategy for Wal-Mart was to go where no sane competitor like Woolworth or Kmart would dream of: to towns that seemed too small to support a large discount store. In 1962, Sam opened his first store in tiny Rogers, Arkansas. Two years later, he christened his second store in Harrison, Arkansas, population 6,000. He opened six more stores before he finally opened a store outside Arkansas, in little Sikeston, Missouri.

The number one factor in building your brand is not a good product, good service, or good marketing…it is your customer’s experience. And this experience can’t be “good” because good is no longer good enough! You must create a remarkable experience. Bass Pro Shop has taken this message of creating a remarkable customer experience to heart. (AdAge.com) -- Can't afford summer camp? Pack the kids off to Bass Pro Shops, where they can spend six weeks learning BB-gun shooting, archery, fishing, casting, tent-pitching and bird-watching. And it's all free -- including the s'mores.

I don’t get it. Why is it so hard for businesses to see the value of being nice, honest, and going the extra mile to actually earn the business of customers? I don’t care what line of work you are in, if you don’t treat your customers with respect, it’s going to come back to bite you. If Jesus was in marketing, all he would preach is the gospel of Word of Mouth. It rewards the righteous and is the downfall of the wicked. Nothing can come from corn but corn, nothing from nettles but nettles. The same is true in business, good actions can never produce bad results; bad actions can never produce good results.

Jimmy Carter is quoted as saying “Go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is.” In today’s business environment, this is not simply an opinion…it’s truth. To survive and, more importantly, to excel, today’s brands must creatively challenge both consumer perceptions and industry boundaries. This means taking risks. Risk-taking will excite some and scare other, but make no doubt about it, brands who don’t take risks will never fulfill their potential. Below are a few brands that are where they are today because of the simple fact that they took a chance.

Last Friday, as I sat down with my coffee and my latest edition of Ad Age, I was quickly drawn to an article titled “The (Burger) World Is Not Enough For McDonald’s”. The article takes a look at McD’s push to become a beverage destination in order to get a bigger slice of the $153 billion U.S. beverage market. In 2006, they launched their premium coffee, followed by espresso, frappe’s, iced tea, hot chocolate, and smoothies (launches this month) in the following years. This has really had me thinking over the last week, how can McDonald's sell everything (breakfast, burgers, chicken, salads, coffee, smoothies, etc.) and still remain a strong brand? How is it that such a strategy has kept McD’s at the top, but been the downfall of so many others (i.e. Boston Market). That is, how can McDonald’s be all things to all people?