Having more than 18 years of experience in the field, I can assure you that I can teach you how marketing is done and eliminate unnecessary steps I had to take to learn what’s working and what’s not working.

But you might wonder, why did I ever choose marketing as a career path? Did I know from the start that this was the core engine that keeps any successful business running?

No.

I grew up in a suburb of Buffalo New York (or Niagara Falls) called North Tonawanda. I was a wild child in elementary school. Think the kid chasing the neighbors down the street with sticks and playing with fire. Things changed in 5th grade.

And now you’re probably raising your eyebrows or rolling your eyes. What kind of epiphany is someone going to have in 5th grade?

Well, it was a big one and one that turned the axis of my universe quite fast. I won a simple award: the citizenship award at my graduation ceremony. According to my teachers, I had the potential. I displayed admirable character traits in final year at elementary school, they said.

Up until receiving that award, candidly I had felt disappointment. I did not get good grades, I wasn’t a model child, not by a long shot. Something clicked after receiving that award. I realized I wasn’t giving life my full potential.

It All Starts With A Decision

That summer, I decided I was going to do a bit of a pivot. I decided to bury myself in books and focus more on my studies. From grades 6-12, I was on the honor, rolling every report card and only missed three days of school in total. I was a new man, I thought to myself.

But, the book piece is where the story gets interesting.

I didn’t grow up with a lot of money. My parents always put our family first. They provided everything they could for myself, my brother and sister. I knew I wanted to find a way to make some extra money so I strolled to the business section at the library for ideas.

One day, at the age 14, a book jumped out at me (mainly due to the sheer size) on Microsoft front page.

It was proposing the best way to get yourself or your business on this thing called the world-wide-web. What was even better: the CD for the software was at the back of the book.

Now, I only needed someone to pay me to make them a website.

Within a week, I landed my first “client”: my parents’ tax lady. I pitched her when I was with my parents doing their taxes for the year. Within a week of bicycling back and forth to the public library to use their computers and software. I had made my first website and gotten my first check.

I used the money to get my business a license (MST Designs) and to buy my first computer. This way I could start doing things at home. I even splurged on CD of templates and animated gifs to enhance the websites I was doing.

Key Takeaways

This allowed me to learn two very important lessons at an early age:

1. Supply and demand was the key. I was one of the only people in town that could make websites, so I had the market cornered despite only being 15.

2. Marketing was the name of the game. I was not putting out an amazing product: in fact, most websites had typos, broken links, and issues. To this day, I do not know how to “code” a website. But… I could outmarket everyone. Marketing was bringing home the bacon, and marketing is what I did.

Despite a hard time in high school, I graduated with honors and I was ready to head off to college.

With the new found money, I was able to pay for my college tuition. I studied marketing and entrepreneurship at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. After my first course on branding, I realized I needed a new brand and a name, so I changed the company to Taz Solutions.

We were the marketing agency that solved your marketing, design, and development challenges.

During my time in running Taz Solutions, I got top-notch at marketing, I mean, extraordinary. I knew how to market even the most boring product using a great landing page and people were willing to buy.

I got to work with some of the most amazing companies on the planet. I was the one helping them spread their message, their brand. I knew how to market their products and services.

Using insights from the work I’ve done, I wrote a bestselling book, “Marketing In the Moment”. I was the one to coin the phrase Web 3.0 Marketing.

Writing this book has led me to meet the legendary Jay Levinson of Guerrilla Marketing. I went on to become a Guerrilla Marketing Master Trainer; CMO of Guerrilla Marketing International and founder of Guerrilla Marketing Training & Coaching. It was a great honor to get to run the marketing for the most well-known marketing brand in the world.

The Biggest Challenge

Thousand different types of businesses later, I learned what the biggest challenge for each one of them was. Business gets tough when the leads stop coming in or demand starts to slow. This has been true for me and for everyone I’ve worked with. The challenge is that you go from being in a state of flow to a state of desperation.

Bad choices get made, the team gets stressed, and weathering the storm becomes a challenge. How do you solve this? You put a system in place to consistently drive leads and businesses. I have spent the last 18 years mastering the formula and I am ready to share it with everyone who wants to learn it.

Learn My Top Secrets

I currently own No Joke Marketing, company that focuses on helping businesses fire up their marketing engines on all cylinders. My goal is to help you get to the place of work-life balance you deserve using the proven system that is easily adjusted to your type of business.