Experience I started my first business in my early 20's but within a few years I'd screwed up, gone bust and buried myself under a mountain of debt. By the age of 26 I'd 'lost my shirt', become start-up failure statistic and was on first name terms with a local bankruptcy solicitor. And I guess that's where the story starts... The Biggest Lesson Having a great product was only a small part of the equation. I learned the hard way that marketing is far more important - and a skill I needed to develop before I had another go. I read every marketing book I could get my hands on, attended every seminar my credit card could bear, and burned the candle at both ends to hone my marketing skills. I loved it. It became my passion. It consumed me! Over the last 25 years I've started several businesses and helped friends take that great leap into the unknown. Some were successful, others less so! When I focused on my customers and applied what I learnt, things usually turned out well. At least until the Internet came along and started to turn the marketing world on its head. Expensive Frustration I spent several years grappling with the swarm of new developments and trying to understand how the whole thing pieced together. Not to mention burning a hole in my credit cards attending weekend seminars run by the self-proclaimed experts of the day peddling the latest Internet fad. The digital snake oil salesman left me frustrated, confused, deep in debt and with literally hundreds of hours of DVDs to wade through to find a single nugget of wisdom I could use in my next venture. The stress of life in the fast lane eventually took its toll and I was diagnosed with a pretty serious heart condition. That stopped me dead in my tracks and my doctors insisted I quit work and take things easy! Back to School But I had to do something, so I went back to college and started to formalise my marketing and management experience, which was a really useful exercise - and actually kind of fun. I began to understand the theory around what I'd been doing all those years, but the big digital picture still eluded me. That was until I enrolled for a Master's Degree in Digital Marketing at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2012. The fog gradually lifted and all became clear during my final year. My research dissertation focussed on the impact of the digital marketing skills gap on small business owners - and boy - was that an eye opener! I'd finally solved the puzzle and it all made perfect sense. The Next Chapter Graduating in 2015 set me up for my next career move - to help fellow entrepreneurs and small business owners get to grips with the modern marketing landscape rather than drown in a sea of social media and digital information overload. Every entrepreneur I interviewed during my research told me that if they only knew how modern marketing actually worked before they started their business, their lives would have been so much easier! That inspired me to continue my journey and the concept of the 21st Century Marketing System was born shortly before I started my part-time PhD. A New Mission In August 2017 I published my first book based on my research entitled 21st Century Marketing: What it is, why it matters and how to do it. My goal now is to help every willing entrepreneur and small business owner build a solid foundation in modern marketing before they repeat the mistakes I made when I first started. You have to put marketing at the very heart of your businesses if you want to break through the noise and get your voice heard in our 24/7 connected world dominated by technology, social media and 'digital everything'. And that's not easy! This book has been specifically written to show every entrepreneur and small business owner exactly what they need to do to harness the power of the internet, why it's important to their business, and precisely how to do it.