The vision is clear...

It is a well-known cliché that a large percentage of new businesses fail in their first few years - by some counts, as much as 75% of them. There are several reasons for this but in our observation, the most common mistake in small business is a lack of sound, professional marketing management. We have observed that many people who start small businesses proceed on this basis: "Hey, I have an idea....let's invest a ton of time and money designing and building a product or developing a service, create an organization around it, then see if anyone wants it." This kind of thinking is flawed at best - in many cases it is a recipe for disaster. We believe that all business life cycles, beginning with the new product development phase, through marketing, promotion, advertising and yes, even customer service, should be based on sound market research, not guesswork. This doesn't just mean startups - it applies to established enterprises as well. If you think research is expensive, think again - it's dirt cheap compared to staking your entire business on playing someone's personal "hunches", blind assumptions or "now we're supposed to..." expectations.

The Topside Vision includes making the principles of sound marketing management available to small business at an affordable cost. It includes listening to and understanding your marketplace and the ability to measure, track and evaluate return on investment for all forms of marketing. It includes laying the groundwork for defending your intellectual property against competitors, it means developing your unique identity and image and it means crafting your message and getting that message across - couched in language your public can hear and understand.

The Topside Vision further includes a combination of the strategic and the tactical with a healthy dose of "devil's advocate" contingency planning. If you trust us with your marketing, we will take every possible step to make your product or project a success. We have no interest in being your "Consultant" - our vision is to become your outsourced Marketing Manager - a hands-on, in-the-trenches coworker with our sleeves rolled up and a determination to put your business over the top.

The Topside Vision provides a consistency and singleness of voice that is lacking in many small business marketing efforts. When the same person that did your market research is also designing your website, writing your ad copy and creating your promotional materials, you present a consistent, unified message to your public and often save a tremendous amount of money and time in the process.