221IntroductionWhat business are you in? The answer to that question must be
MARKETING. You might be great at what you do but unless you understand
and get really efficient at marketing, you won’t make it in today’s economy. There
are new marketing realities. Those who know about these critical shifts in the
marketplace can capitalize upon them; those who don’t are destined to continue
to suffer poor business performance or even perish in the marketplace.
It’s getting much tougher to win in a big way today. Profits will continue to be
squeezed. As companies try and gain market share by competing and by doing
more of what continues to be ineffective, a new breed of marketers are emerging;
those who create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant.