If you want marketing inspiration, study the marketing visionaries listed below, who dared to dream dreams and then achieve them.

Make it your monthly goal to pick a visionary as a marketing mentor. Learn all about him or her. Search for articles about their visions, their plans and the results. Read the many books about their lives and achievements. Be open to inspiration. Just do it.

• Anita Roddick,The Body Shop
• Fred Smith, Federal Express
• Steve Jobs, Apple Computer
• Bill Gates, Microsoft
• Michael Dell, Dell Computer
• Ray Kroc, McDonalds
• Walt Disney, Disney Corporation
• Sam Walton, Wal-Mart
• Tom Monaghan, Domino’s Pizza
• Akio Morita, Sony
• Nicholas Hayek, Swatch
• John W Nordstrom, Nordstrom
• Gilbert Trigano, Club Med
• Ted Turner, CNN
• Frank Perdue, Perdue Chicken
• Richard Branson, Virgin
• Soichiro Honda, Honda
• Simon Marks, Marks & Spencer
• Luciano Benetton, Benetton
• Charles Lazarus, Toys R Us
• Les Wexner, The Limited
• Colonel Sanders, KFC
• Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA
• Bernie Marcus, Home Depot
• Charles Schwab, Charles Schwab & Co
• Herb Kelleher, Southwest Airlines
• Paul Orfalea, Kinko’s
• Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com
• Jim McCann, 1-800-FLOWERS
• Phil Knight, Nike

PS Don’t stop there. Search for other marketing entrepreneurs and soak up their stories as well!

Tags: visionaries