Step-by-Step Advice for Business Owners

Marketing is simple when you focus on only the few things you really need

About the way I do marketing…

You can look at any complex topic in many ways. That’s true of marketing, as well. The way I look at it is this:

1. People buy things when they understand that those things are valuable for them. It has little to do with marketing tactics or strategies. It’s about what you say with your marketing. Do you make people understand that your offer would be valuable for them? So, first figure out what are the most impactful things you can say with your marketing. The top 3 things you can say are your “core value message” (or value proposition).
2. Individual tactics don’t generate sales. They need to work together to create a path that leads from first hearing of you all the way to buying. Usual sales funnels are extremely complicated. And since they’re one-size-fits-all strategies, they don’t leverage what you know or what has worked for you. So, start with a simple “conversion path” that creates consistent results.
3. When you have your marketing set up, you can improve it with conversion optimization. Or you can focus on the things you really enjoy doing in your business. Or maybe you take more time off. As long as you stay focused on the highest-impact things in your business, you can get great results.

Learn the details in this video…

About the content on this site…

A few things make this site different compared to most marketing blogs:

1. About 50% of my clients are other marketing experts, so I can’t publish the usual “5 tips on social media” type of filler content. That said, even if you’re quite new to marketing, you can use almost all the content you find here.
2. I focus on the fundamentals that make marketing effective. I might write about how people make decisions—not just how you can influence their decisions. That is to say, I don’t focus on tactics, tools, or strategies, but rather what makes those effective.
3. There’s no guest content, and I do my best not to share conflicting information about things. So, instead of creating more confusion around marketing, the content should clear things up. I also recommend you stop doing most of the marketing you’re currently doing. Most people already try to do too many things at once. It’s better to get a few things to work well than to get 100 things to almost work.

Here are the categories of content:

• Messaging (core value messages, value propositions, marketing messages). This is about what you should communicate with your marketing. The goal is to make people see the value they could get from you.
• Strategy (conversion paths, sales funnels, marketing strategy). This is about how you structure and set up your entire marketing system. It’s about creating a path that reaches people and leads them to buying.
• Optimization (conversion optimization, focused improvement). This is about how you can improve your results when you have your marketing set up.
• Smart business. This is about making good business decisions. It’s about focusing your efforts on the right things and taking smart steps forward.

About me (professionally)…

I started a couple of businesses and got bored with both of them as soon as I figured out the marketing side. Even then, I didn’t think of going into marketing. Only when my wife pointed out that I spent most of my time thinking about marketing I even considered it.

I was raised to think marketing is wrong—or evil. As a child I thought it was about manipulating people into buying unnecessary things, so the marketer can get rich. With the first two business attempts, I knew that what I was selling was unique and good. Marketing was a way to make other people see what they could get, so they could decide if it’s worth buying for them.

50% of my clients are other marketing experts. The other 50% includes SaaS companies, local service businesses, e-commerce, local shops, authors, coaches, teachers… 80% of my clients make $300k to $3mil. 95% of them are in English speaking countries.

I offer help with a few things:

• Core value message development. Figure out what to say with your marketing to make people see the value they could get from you.
• Conversion path building (=sales funnel building). Build the core of your marketing, so you have every piece in place to get consistent results.
• Optimization and focus coaching. Stay focused on the highest-impact things without wasting time trying to find them or figuring out how to do them.
• Website planning and structuring (including writing the copy).
• Sales copywriting.

If you’re interested in working together, check this page.

About me (personally)…

My favorite questions:

• What don’t you usually tell people you meet professionally?
• What do only the people closest to you know about you?

My answers to those questions:

• I always thought that the idea of “love at first sight” is silly. But when I met Em, the very first time we looked at each other, we both thought there’s a weird connection. It wasn’t a crush or normal attraction, but instead a connection. We’ve now been together for well over a decade.
• I find people who don’t take responsibility for their lives boring. I avoid spending time with them and don’t want to work with them. I understand people can’t control many things that affect their lives. But I don’t like the attitude of “I blame things outside of my control for what I don’t like about my life.”

And here are a few random tidbits:

• I dislike most music because of the poor dynamic quality. I know most people don’t ever notice it (or know what it means). But I’d like to see a law requiring music producers to maintain near realistic dynamic range in music. (In case you’re interested to know what I mean, look up “loudness war.”)
• Our dogs’ names are Bamboo (bichon frise) and Cocoa (mix-breed rescue dog).
• My favorite hobby is climbing (specifically bouldering).
• I play a computer game called League of Legends (not very well).
• I’ve had plenty of hobbies. Classical guitar, magic tricks, table tennis, football, sailing, music recording, sewing…
• We have a lot of plants in our house. At last count, around 100. Some are small—and just a “green wall” in my office has 40 plants—but the amount of greenery still surprises most people.
• I started speaking English with my wife a few weeks before an interview with a Canadian business friend. We meant to only talk English until the interview as practice. But we never switched back to Finnish because, for some reason, English felt more natural.

What to do next…

What some marketing experts say about me…