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I’m worried. 

For my clients and my friends. I worry that in less than two years they’re not going to know what the hell hit them. For my friends in banking, manufacturing, professional services, technology, recreation, digital services, education, real estate, food and beverage, transportation, insurance, construction and health care.

Each year, with quite a bit of fanfare I might add, Reader’s Digest releases their 40 Most Trusted Brands in America. And each year it’s pretty much the same song and dance. It’s easy to pick apart the findings; after all, with only a very few exceptions, all the brands are national advertisers, some with marketing budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars and a few with budgets that exceed $1 billion.

In the Ad Nauseam Hall of Fame, in the Sales Wing, you’ll find no shortage of sales techniques including SPIN Selling, N.E.A.T. Selling, Conceptual Selling, SNAP Selling, Challenger Sales, The Sandler System, CustomerCentric Selling and MEDDIC Selling (Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain and Champion).

41 years ago, when I started my career in sales, marketing and thought leadership, I became fixated, if only for a short time, on the numerous definitions of marketing. From Ogilvy and Kotler to Leo Burnett and the American Marketing Association (who better to know what marketing is), there was just no rhyme, reason or consistency in the definitions.

Much has been written about the significance of storytelling in sales and marketing. In fact, much has been spoken about the importance of storytelling in everything business related. It’s not surprising that this is a favorite topic of professional speakers throughout the country. 

When I speak to CEOs around the country about corporate ethics, one thing’s for certain; they don’t understand its genesis. And that’s the critical unknown about corporate ethics that needs to be known. When you understand its origins, its derivations, and its original intent, then you can better wrap your arms around the significance of what’s transpired over the last 2,500 years (very little), and gain a deeper realization as to why the absence of corporate ethics today bodes a rather chilling future for businesses of all shapes, sizes and formats.

Emails don't have to look stark, canned, stale and boring. There are more design options available than ever before, ready to spice up your next campaign. 

Let’s face it, everyone’s looking for an edge. An edge over their competitors, a service edge, product edge, sales edge and a relevant differentiation edge. In fact, in the 1980s and 1990s, in political campaign management, we called it the “wedge”. It was as simple as exploiting the opposing candidate’s greatest weakness and staking a messaging "wedge" between the two candidates in an effort to deepen the differentiation.

TMA+Peritus and Thomas R. Marks, President of the 35-year-old strategic marketing, web design and thought leadership firm has announced expanded services through Tom’s new professional speaking website thomasrmarks.com. TMA+Peritus will now be offering businesses and organizations Tom’s keynote speaking services as well as one and two-day workshops.