In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge talks to the founder and CEO of Merit, Adam Vasquez. The basics of the ‘market’ is community, Adam shares - Merit literally creates markets in order to solve problems for like-minded individuals. Merit facilitates market growth for their clients and also for themselves. They’re passionate about innovation and seek to create other market inventors who can change their industries as they know it. Merit is leading the charge in how the conscious economy affects sales and marketing. Marketing is outdated, plain and simple. If you’re not already the leader in a market, you’re very truly just emulating the market leader. If you’re not the market leader, your advertising will only serve to send business to the market leader. You need your own market. This starts with building community. Authenticity is critical now more than ever, and the transparency of the internet is shifting the marketing and advertising spaces. Merit doesn’t just consult with their clients, they eat their own dog food and create their own markets.But how do you demonstrate that you’re a market leader and innovator? Any aspect of your business can be negatively impacted by the market leader – many entrepreneurs get caught up in the fallacy that the market leader is the ‘standard’. Flip this misconception on its head; innovators don’t copy their processes or products from others. Innovators look at problems that others have already tried to solve and look at things from a different perspective. This is what sets them apart and turns innovators into market leaders. Market invention is about recognizing opportunities and collecting perspectives and insights from those who have created markets before. Market invention is more holistic and not only addresses opportunities but actually seeks to change the status quo on a wide scale (this is where innovation comes in!)According to their website, most marketing and advertising agencies rely on decades-old formulas where they swap out businesses and logos and collect fees. Merit believes in strategic marketing with purpose, where the goal and outcome is sector leadership. Can a company move from fifth place to first in market share within the average CMO tenure of 41 months? According to Merit, yes. Market Invention is their philosophy and practice. Adam and his team seek to understand the business of your business and then get to work growing your brand to create or own your market.Want to learn more? Check out Merit’s website at https://madewithmerit.com/. Check out Merit on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/madewithmerit/. Check out Adam Vasquez on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamvasquez/. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.