Marketing is like an oatmeal raisin cookie.

A really smart marketing guy told me once, "Bill, you can't create a market. The market is already there, you just can't see it."

He used this example:

"Look at this map. Bill, do you see those four or five dots?" I said, sure I see them. What's the big deal? He said, "Bill that's us." He continued on, "Think of us like an oatmeal raisin cookie. Our markets are the raisins, our competition is all of that oatmeal you see there in yellow." I sort of understood. But, while sitting on a United Airlines flight, I was given my snack sack and it was an oatmeal raisin cookie fresh from Cheryl & Co. (the makers of gourmet cookies in Columbus, Ohio).

When I got home, with my wrapper stuck in my briefcase, I phoned Cheryl herself and said I wanted to use her oatmeal raisin cookies for a marketing promotion. I developed the idea to photograph the cookie and use it in print advertisements for my products. I contacted the best customers of the company I was working for at the time. With the okay from everyone involved, I sketched out the campaign's headline, "That's One Smart Cookie." We photographed the customer holding one of Cheryl's cookies. I wrote copy about our products and placed it below the customer. This explained how the smart customer was a raisin that stuck out in a crowded marketplace. It worked great! We sold lots of stuff, the customer got recognized, and Cheryl got a nice promotion out of the deal.

(Oh, I forgot. We sent dozens of fresh cookies to my customers' offices for staffers for participating in the promotion.) The market was already there. From that point on, I have based my marketing thinking with this as a foundation. If you think really hard, the market usually is already there. That's how I market. I know how to think, be creative, execute and produce results.

And, I eat oatmeal raisin cookies whenever I can.