It's old, it's new and it will always be vital...it's called marketing!

I saw an old business forms printers joke recently where a caveman is holding a club and chisel in front of four stone tablets. His supervisor is saying, "Hit hard, your making four copies.".

My thoughts? Who sold him the four stones and how would you market them? Was the salesman's business card a river stone? Who did he show the value of his stone tablets compared to the competitors?

Marketing is a vital key to any successful business whether you sell stone or RDIF tags. Understanding the role of marketing in the sales cycle is equally important. Many companies view these as the same function however marketing does not create sales as much as it creates an environment for a sale to occur. What's a good environment and where does that environment exist? How do you get a customer or prospect to visit that environment? When do you want them to visit? Good marketing can answer these questions and begin the ongoing process of bringing customers and prospects to the sales funnel.