Why does marketing sometimes fail? A company can get so fired up about a new product that nobody asks customers how they feel about it. Marketing initiatives can get executed, sometimes reactively, without being fully aligned with the overall business strategy. Money is spent on messages that don’t differentiate, because you’re saying the same things your competitors are.

All these missteps have one thing in common: reality is being overlooked. Realities about your customers, your competitors, your business environment, even yourself. Don’t start without a strategy that comes out of a true assessment of reality.