Where it all began and
how I got here, now...
About
Marketing Strategist
- Attract more (and better) clients and customers
- Make more sales and increase your revenue (without feeling “salesy“)
- And grow your business… without needing to become a workaholic or dying of stress in the process.
The Importance Of Marketing
I truly, deeply, right down to my core believe that marketing is the single most important element to business success. This is because, fair or not, it’s not the best business that wins today, but the business with the best marketing.
After all, it doesn’t matter how great you are if nobody knows about you. And this is a shame. Because I know you’re great, that you care, and that you have a business that truly helps people. So not doing everything in your power to get your message in front of them so you can help them solve their problems is a huge disservice to them, and to you.
My Philosophy
Most marketers today focus on tactics, tricks, hacks, and how they can “beat the algorithms”. My philosophy is (and always has been) “Strategy First” which has allowed me, my clients, and students, to consistently build, grow, and scale powerful, profitable, and freedom providing businesses – regardless of what channel, network, or platform we use.
This is because when you create marketing that works WITH your clients and customers brains, and how they naturally process, consume, and evaluate information…
…you’re able to present your marketing messages in a strategic, sequential, and non-salesy way, where your clients and customers arrive at their own natural and logical conclusion that you are the BEST one to help them with their problem.
Rather than needing to be convinced and coerced, they show up pre-sold, pre-qualified, and have self-selected themselves as ideal prospects for your business.
No pushing. No hard-selling. And most importantly, no sacrificing your integrity in the process.
And that’s powerful stuff. (…but more on that later).
First, I need to clear up the fact that while it sometimes looks like magic from the outside (i.e. the ability to predictably channel market demand towards you – so you can grow your business at will) it wasn’t always this way.
Oh no. Far from.
So let me take you back over a decade ago to where it all began.
The Early Years (1-3)
“Maybe you should do marketing”
This was the advice that changed everything for me.
I’d just left my cushy corporate job as a business jet pilot and had no clear prospects, ideas, or future lined up for what to do next.
“Did I just make the biggest mistake of my life? What am I even doing? How am I going to survive? What am I going to do now? Maybe I could sell a kidney? How much do kidneys sell for these days? You only need one right?”
And this is where my wife stepped in. The one person who knew me better than anyone else in the world and said that fateful line that changed everything for me:
“Maybe you should do marketing”
I’d like to tell you that it was at this exact moment that everything became clear.
But truthfully, I just stood there, stunned, stumped, and confused.
Because I had no idea what marketing was.
But still something about it just sounded right.
So I started digging. And the more I learned, the more I liked.
Marketing it turns out was so much more than just selling people stuff.
It was the perfect combination of art and science, psychology, influence, persuasion, and economics.
Yes, marketing could be used for evil, (…like selling junk food to kids) but it could also be a force for good. To create change and to make an impact (…and make a darn good living too).
Soon this interest in marketing became a full-blown obsession and a fire was lit inside unlike anything I’d ever felt before. I was hooked.
At first it was ugly. 16-hour days. Working 7 days a week. And I did this for months (which turned into years) on end. And while I don’t advise or support “hustle culture” those early years paved the path for what was to follow so though I now advise a much “smarter” approach to my clients and students, I wouldn’t change a thing.
*Fortunately there are plenty of ways to avoid the minefields and mistakes I made on my way up which can save you years off your learning curve! This is the value of working with a mentor who has gone before to help you avoid the mistakes they made so you can accelerate your progress and success.
The Growth Years (4-6)
I wish I could say that I rose from ashes to a meteoric marketing magician “overnight”… but the truth is it took me longer than I hoped. And much longer than I wanted.
(…turns out my experience is not unique in this regard which is why I hold such a high disdain and skepticism for the “get rich quick” and “make money overnight” crowd of marketers)
I made a lot of mistakes in those early years. Chased a lot of shiny objects. And while I worked “hard”, I wasn’t working “smart”. Certainly not as smart as I could have/should have been.
Sure, I was successful enough, I’d more than doubled my old corporate salary and was living on my own terms. But compared to where I wanted to be I had a long way to go.
The good news though was that at least I found myself starting to truly understand how (and why) certain marketing principles and strategies worked. And more importantly, how I could apply them for myself, my clients, and teach them to my students.
Everything started lining up and patterns started emerging. Those early years of building websites led me to learn how to rank those websites on the search engines…
…which led to me wanting even more clicks and traffic and attention…
….so, I learned social media…
…and then social media advertising…
…then email…
…then video…
…then funnels…
…and my list of interests and skills just kept growing.
The more I learned, the more the puzzle pieces started to form into a cohesive picture and understanding of how marketing really works. And with that I became more valuable to the market as I was able to take what I’d learned, install it in a client’s business, and make them (for lack of a better term) a whole boatload more money. Just by creating better marketing. My mind was blown!
They were happy. I was happy. And I was more hooked than ever before.
But something was still missing…
The Strategic Years (7 – Present Day)
I read somewhere that it takes around 7 years to become a true master at something. Others say 6 years, some say 10. I guess it depends.
But for me it was around year 7 where everything just “clicked” and I finally “got it” (…I hit that mark around 4 years ago.)
You see while most marketers, marketing trainings, courses, and programs focus on tricks, and hacks, and tactics, and beating the algorithms by creating transactional marketing (i.e. doing anything for the quick sale)…
The real money (not to mention real impact, real connection, and real freedom) was instead in focusing on creating relationship marketing (i.e. marketing that prioritizes connection, trust, and operates at the highest level of integrity).
Sure, transactional marketing may lead to a sale today – but it sacrifices the much larger revenue and profit that comes by being willing to play the long game, and to build your marketing around the way that our clients and customers naturally process information and make buying decisions.
It took me a while to figure out, but marketing wasn’t about algorithms, or social media, or advertising.
It wasn’t about pretty pictures, or fancy videos, or complicated funnels, or state-of-the-art-technology.
And it sure as heck wasn’t about tricking anyone. Pushing anyone. Or treating clients and customers like they were unable to make their own decisions.
Marketing, is about communicating your value to your clients and customers.
It’s about solving customer problems. It’s about offering solutions. And it’s about serving.
And the only way to truly create a profitable, sustainable, and freedom providing business is by learning, understanding, and then applying proven psychological marketing principles.
Essentially, marketing is about understanding why clients buy (and why they don’t)…
…and then engineering a process that guides them through a carefully crafted messaging sequence. One that takes them from where they are now, to where they want to go and positions you and your business as the absolute best way to do that.
It’s about meeting customers where they are. Validating their fears, problems, pains, and frustrations. Being empathetic and understanding. And then presenting them with a solution to help relieve their pain or solve their problem.
When you do this right. When you create marketing that works with the way your clients naturally process and consume information and make buying decisions and present it in a strategic and sequential way, your clients buy.
This is because as wild, wonderful, and unique as all of us are – we all share the same brain hardware which really hasn’t changed that much over the past many thousands of years.
And when faced with specific triggers, we all tend to react quite predictably.
This is how I’ve been able to create campaigns for clients from all kinds of different businesses, markets, and industries. As well as cities, states, provinces, and countries. It’s because one element remains consistent among them all. They all sell to people. And people, are (as Behavioural Economist, Dan Ariely) puts it, “predictably irrational”.
Other (More) Important Stuff
While I love what I do (i.e. borderline obsessed) and think marketing is the most interesting and exciting thing I’ve ever learned about (yup, I’m kinda weird). I also have a life outside of marketing.
Here’s the summary:
Family
Married, 4 kids all under 8 years old (and a dog). Family is everything to me. I stop work at 4pm each day. Take weekends off. And spend a lot of time biking, climbing, and exploring with the family.
Freedom
I live on the West Coast of Canada. Hawaii is our home away from home. I go to bed early. Wake up early (4am). And am able to work when I want (…but stick to a pretty consistent 40-ish hour work week).
Fun
I genuinely enjoy marketing so my “free time” (usually occupied with family stuff) is spent reading, writing, or creating marketing. BUT… I also play guitar, mountain bike, snowboard, and lift weights (then put them down).
The TL:DR
I believe that marketing is the single most important element to your business's success.
As you’ll discover, I take a strategic approach to coaching and consulting entrepreneurs. I believe that the best way to grow your business is by creating smart, strategic, and psychology-driven marketing – meaning, marketing that works WITH your clients and customers and how they naturally make buying decisions.
Marketing sounds complicated at first, but fortunately, great marketers aren’t born, they’re trained. And so it’s my mission to give you the tools, training, and support you need to grow your business, make a bigger impact, and accomplish your goals.
