I was inspired to write this article after reading Leroy’s post at Blogging Blog called The Secret to Making Money Online. It struck me once again how important marketing is in any venture in life. Obviously, if no one knows about your product or service then no one is going to purchase it. Likewise, if no one is aware of your blog, you won’t get too many visitors.

Let’s take this approach to other areas of life. If potential employers never hear of you, there’s no chance of you getting a job with them. If none of the single young women of the world know you’re alive, you won’t be dating them. So, what’s the common denominator?

The first goal of marketing is getting yourself or your product out there. This is also the first goal of success. You have to try at any venture before you have any hope of being successful. You have to try and then try again after the inevitable failures.

When you show up on the playing field of life, though, you also have to be able to articulate why you or your product or service is better than the others. This can be difficult at times, but maybe not as difficult as it seems. The fact of the matter is that most of the competition in any given field will not be up to par.

This was a shocking revelation for me at first. The first time I’d heard this principle was in a creative writing class taught by writer (and friend) Stephen Leigh. We were discussing the chances of a new writer getting a story or novel published. It turns out that the vast majority of submissions are discarded immediately for not following directions or conventions of the publishing field. For more information on this, check out Creating Short Fiction: The Classic Guide to Writing Short Fiction by Damon Knight.

For example, if you send in a manuscript printed in a frilly, hard to read font and printed on pink paper, guess what? Garbage can. Editors have to read many manuscripts a day and there’s very little chance of them struggling through something that doesn’t follow common submission guidelines and causes even more strain on tired eyes. Besides, if you haven’t taken the time to find out and follow the conventions of the industry, what are the chances that you’ve taken the time to produce a good story?

Take as another example a job search. If your resume contains spelling errors or egregious grammatical problems, then you know what’s going to happen? They’re going to throw it in the garbage (or file it forever without reading it; same difference). Take it one step further: When you show up for that job interview wearing jeans and sneakers, do you think you’ll be taken for a serious candidate? Probably not.

Although some will say that there are always exceptions, there are really very few. The overwhelming majority of situations require you to follow certain conventions in order to get your foot in the door. So, what’s the point of all of this?

The point is that in any given field, most won’t follow the necessary conventions and will be discounted very early on. The percentage may vary, but you can be sure it’s a high one. In a recent search to fill a job at my employer, we received over 75 resumes. Most of them didn’t meet the most basic requirements of the job posting. Of the remainder, many contained typos and other errors. We ended up interviewing 3 or 4, and out of those, two showed up unprepared for an interview.

The numbers will vary, but you can see the pattern. At each step of the way toward success, a large number are kicked out of the running for one reason or another. In the end, you may not be competing with the thousands you thought you were, but only a few select individuals (or products, services, etc).

At this level, though, the competition can get extremely tough. Just making it to the top 5 or 10 percent is no guarantee of success, but being in the bottom half is essentially a guarantee of failure. Keep in mind, though, that there is often more room at the top than is at first apparent. If you can’t make it in one venue (publisher, employer, etc), there may be another one that will work for you. If you’re constantly ending up in the top of the pile, and you keep trying, you will eventually succeed.

That’s the bottom line here. Do your research. Learn the territory and make sure you, your product, your service or whatever is the best that can be. Then get yourself out there and keep marketing until you succeed. Ultimately, whatever you’re selling, you’re selling yourself, too. You owe it to yourself to do the best you can and never give up.