We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Max Sadik a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Max, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

I’m on a mission to help ambitious entrepreneurs own their zone of genius, build a business that scales, and become wildly in demand.

There are so many amazing, smart, and ambitious entrepreneurs nowadays but the one thing a lot of them have in common is burnout. There is a belief that it is supposed to take constant hustle in order to just make ends meet in your business, and I don’t believe it should ever be this way.

Why is that large companies can have employees work only 40-45 hours per week and still be wildly profitable yet a small business owner must work 100 hours per week and still have issues meeting income goals? I don’t believe it should be this way, at least not anymore.

Back in the day, the big companies had access to something we did not, large audiences. They could spend money to appear on TV, newspapers, radio, etc. and get their message spread, which in turn brought in sales and revenue, while the small business owner could hardly reach further than their immediate community. Even a couple of decades ago if you were Godiva then you could sell your chocolates all over the world, but if you were a local small chocolate maker you could hardly sell beyond a few miles from your location (even if your chocolate was way better than Godiva’s).

Today we live in a very different world. The marketing tools and reach that were only available to very large companies are now available to even a solo entrepreneur, and that is extremely exciting!

A local music teacher can teach students 3 miles away and 3,000 miles away at the same time. A local accountant in Miami can easily have a client in Tallahassee, and a local candle maker in Atlanta can just as easily sell her candles a mile away as she can to someone in Los Angeles… And best of all, not only can they all do business that far away but more importantly they can all train and teach new people who want to enter their industry and share their knowledge (for an additional stream of income of course).

Back in the day when a person decided to buy a pizza shop, if they had any questions a few months into their ownership, who would they ask? Today that same new restauranteur can buy a course from a seasoned (no pun intended LOL) pizzeria owner.

What I specialize in is getting the messaging of these small business owners in front of the exact perfect customers using the same marketing methods the big companies use, only on a small budget. The tools that we have access to nowadays truly do level the playing field and I feel very passionate about helping level that playing field.

For example, I helped a local elopement photographer in Colorado reach the exact couples that would be interested in an adventure elopement, which helped her expand her business and hire additional people. Then when her business was extremely successful I helped her create a course that tought the exact methods she was using and sell that course to other photographers so they can find the same success as well. Her education business alone is now a multi-7-figure business grossing already more than a million dollars in sales this year in just 4 months (and that is not even counting the income from the elopement photography business).

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I help solopreneur and entrepreneurs with small teams reach the perfect clients for them, grow their audience, and as a result grow their revenue. For those who are already successful, I help them package their knowledge into a course or a membership so that they can educate others on how they achieved success and that of course creates a second stream of revenue for them (often as large as the stream of revenue from their original business).

Originally I had no intention of becoming a marketing and growth consultant or a Facebook, Instagram, Google, and YouTube certified marketer, I simply wanted to market my own business. After others in the industry saw how quickly my business was growing I started getting a lot of questions on how my business was growing this fast. The secret was simple, I combined the technical skills needed for effective online marketing with knowledge of psychology (specifically behavior psychology).

I have always been in love with marketing and I have always been fascinated with the puzzle that human psychology is, so combining the two was eventually going to happen for me (I guess). I got a Masters degree in business with a concentration in marketing then moved on to getting certified by the Texas A&M University Human Behaviour Lab in applied behavioral psychology as well as getting certified by both Facebook and Google on the tech skills that are needed to run marketing on their platforms successfully.

Now, I design marketing strategies that are rooted in how the human mind works (humans are more predictable than toasters – if you push the right button you always get the corresponding outcome, which makes marketing very easy), then I take these strategies and I set up all of the needed tech to actually make them work.

For example, we might attract someone on Instagram with a little fun quiz, then use their answers in the quiz to determine which products and when they are most likely to be receptive to, then wait several weeks and present them the product at the precisely right time, leading to a successful sale and a customer for life.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A big lesson I had to unlearn early on is that marketing is somehow different then the normal conversation you would have with a normal person. Early on, when I was just getting started (like many others) I thought that good marketing messaging focused on selling whatever you needed to sell… Fast forward a couple of years later and I realized that the best marketing content is indistinguishable from content that has no marketing purpose at all. Yes, of course the content created for marketing is created in a very strategic way to push certain buttons in the reader’s (or viewer’s or listener’s) mind, but the consumer of that content should not be able to notice it. Good marketing is very subtle, like a gentle breeze on a summer evening. Good marketing makes the receiver of the marketing feel seen and understood, and never sold to.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I’d say it was my decision to focus on marketing that is based on behavioral psychology as well as the tech behind online marketing. Most experts in my field are either theoretical experts or they are technicians. A great SEO expert or Facebook ads expert is almost never is also certified in psychology or has a master’s degree in marketing (and vice versa). This isn’t an issue for large companies as they simply hire both and have them work as a team, but what about the solopreneur who cannot afford to hire both? This is how I make a difference, I give the solopreneur access to both without having to hire both.

Contact Info:

• Website: marketingbymax.com
• Instagram: @maxim.sadik
• Twitter: @maximsadik
• Other: max@maximsadik.com

Image Credits
Caroline Tran – https://carolinetran.net