Thanks for visiting me and taking the time to read the story of why I do what I do and how I got there.
How I Got Into Inbound Marketing
Ever since I was kid, I just ‘got’ computers. When my dad bought his first computer, in 1988 or 1989, I was the one who spent the most time with it. In college, in the early nineties, all computer rooms would be overbooked by the end of a trimester. Now can be very patient explaining things, but I loathed waiting in line. Total waste of time. Luckily, I had a wonderful part time job and with a bit of a stretch, I could purchase a computer of my own, saving me oodles of waiting time and frustration. I skipped most software classes, I liked figuring it out on my own much better and did that in a fraction of the time the classes took.
Hospitality first
Despite the fact I liked computers, I liked traveling and being amongst people of different nationalities even more. When I was 16, I traveled to Austria and worked there for 6 weeks during my summer holidays. I did the same thing a year later. Those were exciting times and I realized the opportunity: working in hospitality would enable me to see the world. I enrolled for a degree in Hospitality Management after my high school graduation, traveled even more and finished in 1996.
2001: First website
Fast forward 5 years. In 2001, the company I worked for hired a temp to create a website. The young man messed up by visiting undesirable websites during work hours and got himself fired. We were left with a website that was only half way done though. Now, I seem to have been born with an intense desire to make people around me happy and an unstoppable urge to want to fix what is broken and a never ending itch to learn new stuff. I crossed the street and borrowed a book from the library. Within 2 weeks the website was done. Fully functional but, visually, mmmmmmm, ……let’s say very nineties style. Still people were impressed. The whole website thing was still very new to a lot of people.
2005: back into website design, this time for real
Fast forward 3 years, a move overseas and 6 months pregnant, I was approached by a friend. She needed an intranet website urgently, and everyone remotely skilled was fully booked and not available anytime soon. She learned I had created a few sites before and asked me to help out. From that point one thing lead to another. I got more and more assignments and got the opportunity to help many business owners in various aspects of their online and offline marketing. Brainstorming, analyzing, designing, programming, copy writing. No more changing jobs every year or two. No more boredom. There was always new stuff to research, discover and apply.
Also, I found out that I am one of that rare ‘breed’ of people that likes to interact with people just as much as with computers. People would make me explain how to do things all the time! But there was more: I also liked to play around with colors, shapes, letters and words. Yet, since I got bored so easy, it took me a long time to find out the right mix to keep me both useful and inspired. And the more inspired I am, the more useful I usually get…
Teach Mentor & Assist
For you as business owner this is a great benefit: not only am I able to give you sound advice, but I am also well able to explain why and how things need to be done. I can teach you, or your assistant the technical skills to get things done, I can mentor you in brainstorming and organizing content, finding the right tone of voice and creating visuals that attract attention and invoke emotion, and If needed I can give you hands on assistance.
What makes me different from other inbound marketers?
I am the last one to state that I am better than all others. I like to keep myself grounded and even tend to think that there are so many others around that know their stuff much better. But then again, there are others that are still working to get at the level of knowledge and experience that I have too.
Inbound marketing is all about translating your personality, your vision, your dreams into an online presence. That is very personal, emotional even. For that to succeed, you need to choose someone that you resonate with. Strongly. Positively. I may be your person, or I may not be. And that is fine.
There are a few things that I think that make me unique and I feedback from current and previous clients confirms that.
- I am a strong associative thinker. I connect dots to pictures that others don’t see. I see connections where others don’t see them.
- I have strong skills and ample experience in idea generation, visual design, programming and copy writing. Not many people can assist and mentor you in all of these at the same time.
- I am on a mission to bring more happiness and contentment to the marketing world. To inspire you, as entrepreneur, to use your marketing to light up the world around you. To encourage and inspire people. To help make the world a better place.
- I focus on training and mentoring you (and your staff) to keep your marketing in-house. This as opposed to focussing on getting you to outsource as much to specialists. I strongly believe that marketing is such an essential part of your business that it belongs in-house. But I will be there every step of the way to inspire, encourage and challenge you.
- I am a Christian. I believe in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I feel his presence and guidance every day and the more I get to know him, the more confident I feel. I know lots of people fear God. I don’t. Anymore. And looking back I think it was a good decision to stop fearing him. Start loving and trusting him like you would love a father that sometimes needs to correct you. You will find sprinkles of my faith in my communication. I am always open to conversation about my faith but will never push it onto you. If the sprinkles annoy you, we may not be a good match [end of sermon].
Why I Think Bliss Is And Should Be Contagious
It never ceases to amaze me what effects synergy (combining your vibe, experience & knowledge with mine) can create. Being able to help people reach for the stars, inspiring them to set goals, helping them to brainstorm and organize ideas and watching their confidence grow makes fills me with thankfulness and intense contentment.
Work With Me
Are you in need of guidance or assistance with your inbound marketing? Send me a message and we’ll schedule a video call to get to know each other a bit better. Find out if we resonate.
