This is an unusual blog post, because I rarely get this personal. Today, however, I want to share some secrets with you. This will likely no t be the most well-edited post on this blog, but bear with me if you would like to hear me speak my mind.

It has been sixteen months since I made the leap to start two businesses. It was not a sudden decision, but something I had in mind for a much longer time. Sixteen months ago I finally had all the right pieces for the puzzle.

This story is about having the right reason, passion, focus, timing, business partners, and a little bit of luck.

Reason

I believe that the key to success is neither a desire for wealth, nor wanting to get away from an annoying boss. Wealth is sometimes a result, but if it’s your goal then the road there will be much more boring, and you’ll focus on the horizon rather than the speed bumps straight ahead of you. Heck, you might crash.

If you just don’t want a boss, forget about it. You always have a boss. Be it your customer, or be it your shareholders. There’s always a boss, trust me.

If you just want to be rich you’ll be focused on solving your own “problem” (not having enough money) rather than the problems of others, and it’s solving real world problems that leads to success and wealth.

I decided to start a company (actually, two companies) because I wanted to be part of something new, something that will solve problems. I also wanted to leverage the experience I had gained in life, and build a company the way I believe it should be built.

I believed (and still do) that it should be possible to combine profitability, a fun and healthy work environment, good employee benefits, charitable work, and a business culture that rewards reaching common goals. Never forget that most companies are what the employees bring to the table. No people, no business. That’s true even for product companies. Less so, yes, but still true.

To sustain in the long term, you have to stay focused. If you don’t feel strongly about what you do, chances are you’ll get distracted and change focus along the way.

Passion

I don’t think you’ll be set up to succeed unless you focus on a line of business that truly interests you. It’s a plus if you’d work with it for free if nobody would pay you. Why? Because when you start something new you have to be prepared to work for nothing, or little, in the beginning. At a minimum it means getting less money. Financially, I still would have been better off being employed. It would have been a lot more comfortable too.

Think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Do you need the icing on the cake, or is the cake enough to fill you up? Maybe you can sacrifice the icing to get to do what you really would like to do? If you’re a die-hard entrepreneur you’ll sacrifice the entire cake, but often sacrificing just the icing is enough.

I have made sacrifices to get to live the dream of being part of something new, and I have no regrets. I get to work with something I believe in, and something that qualifies as a hobby of mine. It’s worth it. Maybe it’s worth it to own less stuff if you get to do what you love? Think about it.

Cooperation

It’s not only important that you do things for the right reasons, it’s also important that you work with the right people. You shouldn’t always work with whoever is tossing the most money your way, because it may be better to opt for the better match with less money.

After all, you’ll likely have to live with your decision for a long time. A business partner/co-owner who understands you, gets along with you, and shares your goals will make your life a lot easier. It’ll also be more likely that you’ll succeed.

I didn’t want a business partner with a lot of cash but no passion. I advice you to look at the big picture. Maybe someone’s experience, knowledge, and skills are worth more than capital.

I discussed with several parties before settling on whom to found the companies with. You need to engage both brain and heart in your decision.

Lesson

What’s the best business school around? Life. It really is, and I’ll tell you why.

My parents have told me that I never nagged to get anything as a child. It’s true, I rarely even politely asked for anything. Instead I decided whether getting something was important, and if so how to get it. Don’t get me wrong, I got stuff. But that was my parents’ call, not mine.

Speaking of parents, the most intense, and soul-searching, experience I’ve had came from spending time with my father as his life was coming to an end due to cancer. I learned more about life, myself, and prioritization during a couple of weeks than I ever had before. I learned how to step up, how to let go, and what willpower can do.

My Dad lasted more than half a year despite doctors believing he had only a couple of weeks left. He fought. We all have our battles to fight in life. I learned so much during that time that I could write several chapters, if not an entire book, just on that topic.

Illnesses are not necessarily all bad. Yes, we all want to avoid them, and I’m no different. However, my Dad’s illness made me a stronger and wiser person, and my own struggles with health from time to time have made me a better leader. In fact, my businesses were largely born during a troubling hospital visit. You have to look ahead, and you have to take something bad and make it good. After all, what’s the alternative?

Age and education are not necessarily things that make you a better business leader. However, I have tried to work on most of the sides of business. I’ve worked for sales, marketing, customer service, and in other departments. I’ve worked as an employee. I’ve been a buyer, and I have been a seller. I have worked as a consultant. I can tell you one thing, if you have not worked, at some point, in the role of your potential clients, the risk is that you won’t fully understand their needs and behavior.

I have, like Steve Jobs, and many others, dropped out of university. I’m not proud of it, but I’m not ashamed of it either. I do not like leaving things unfinished, but things happen for a reason. My reason for dropping out was love. In Canada. Due to travels, and distance, I lost the momentum in my studies. Now, these days it may be easier to study from a distance than it was back then.

When I dropped out, I got a job to pay for my bills. I only planned to stay for six months at that job, and had formally just taken a break from my studies. That plan backfired when some people at the company apparently saw potential in me and gave me a new role. Then a new role after some time. Then yet another role. I ended up working in many different positions before leaving the company.

Remember how I told you I didn’t ask for stuff as a kid? Well, I didn’t ask for those jobs either, but it so turned out that those jobs became sort of a paid business education. It all works out somehow. That’s what my Dad told me when he was sick. I guess he’s right.

In closing I have to say that there is an element of chance in life too. Chance can give you opportunities, difficulties, and illness. It’ll likely give you all of them at some point. It’s how you deal with them that can make a difference.

I’m not finished yet. I can, and will, still get better at what I do.

I will still make mistakes, and I will still learn.

I’m not perfect, nobody is. But I’m working at getting better. It’s called continuous improvement.

Now it’s time for you go look for strength, inspiration, and knowledge in the places you least expect to find it.

I wish you a wonderful journey!

This is an article I wrote for Website Magazine. I recommend that you pick up their latest issue to read many more articles. The American magazine “reaches 142,709 qualified website owners and Internet professionals and the largest audience of website owners and managers in the field.”

---

There are many reasons why your attempts at conversion optimization could fail. If you avoid the mistakes listed in this article, then you will be more likely to succeed — it’s as simple as that. To achieve success in conversion optimization, here are the five biggest mistakes to avoid.

1. Getting blinded by your own knowledge and preferences
If your conversion optimization efforts are largely based on what you like and how you behave, then you are more likely to fail. Not everyone is like you; there are at least three other temperaments to consider.

According to renowned psychologist David Keirsey, everyone falls into one of sixteen temperaments. The temperament of the buyer influences what will convince them to buy a specific product, and what will make them buy it specifically from your company or website.

Which temperament are you trying to sell to? To learn about how to sell to people who may be different from you, read the work about temperaments done by Keirsey and the interpretations made by firms like Future Now, Inc.

My own consultancy firm, inUse Insights, has also done similar work, grouping visitors into four types that are illustrated by different birds: owl, penguin, swallow and peacock. The lesson here is that you should learn as much as possible about your audience, and don’t fall into the trap that they are just like you. Besides that, you know a lot more about your company, product or service than your visitors, and you may therefore make the mistake of assuming that your visitors know more than they do. Don’t get blinded by best practices, either; they are not always silver bullets. Your audience and context may differ.

2. Optimizing for the wrong visitors
The assumption that all visitors to your website are there to convert is wrong. When analyzing why visitors are dropping out without converting, you need to know what they came there to do in the first place.

Some visitors end up on your website by chance, some because you cater to their interests or needs, and others because of a mistake. You will rarely convert those who came to visit your site by accident. If you combine a survey (attitudinal data) with your Web analytics tool (behavioral data), you’ll be able to ask for the intention of your visits upon entry and analyze their success rate.

It’s not unusual to find out that the group you have a reasonable chance at converting constitutes 10 percent or less of your visitors. With that new knowledge, you can focus your conversion analysis on the segment that came to your website to convert but never did. Work hard to make that group convert, and forget about the rest — for now.

3. Focusing on only one metric or goal
Testing and conversion optimization is often based around the idea of increasing the rate for a specific metric, a specific goal. Nothing wrong with that, but you may forget to check how your efforts are impacting other goals and metrics.

Maybe you are increasing one goal at the expense of others? Maybe your conversion rate has gone up, but your average order value, margin or return on ad spend has decreased? Always make sure to look at the big picture. If you’re just looking at — and optimizing for — one metric, there’s a risk that you’re fooling yourself.

4. Making testing a goal in itself
I’ve come across organizations that have set goals on how many A/B or multivariate tests they should run in a set period of time. That’s a bad idea.

Think about what incentives do to people, particularly if there is a reward involved. If the goal entitling an employee to a bonus is the number of tests executed, be prepared for lowperforming tests and maybe even ones that decrease rather than increase your conversion rate.

A good goal is not addressed as the number of tests run. Instead, focus on the monetary goal you want to reach, or actions that you want your visitors to take, and run as many tests as you can based on hypotheses and traffic volume. Your goal should be to increase something (purchases, downloads, etc.) or decrease something (visits to the contact page from visitors who have read the FAQ, etc.), not to run a certain number of tests. If you focus on the number of tests, chances are that you will be too eager to test that you forget about building a solid hypothesis, and run tests that don’t have enough traffic to complete within a reasonable amount of time.

5. Coming to the conclusion that nothing works
Have you run tests and not seen any improvement? Rather than conceding that there is no way to make a difference and simply giving up, it is more likely that you overlooked something. There may be something further you could do to collect more relevant data.

Has your Web analytics tool been implemented properly? Have you integrated attitudinal and behavioral data in your analysis? Have you done usability testing? Have you used a tool such as ClickTale that shows behaviors that are not necessarily linked to what you can actually do on the website? One way to quickly get new ideas is to ask your non-tech Web-savvy friends to perform a task on your website without your guidance.

Conversion optimization is for everyone
Keep in mind that conversion optimization is not just for e-commerce. It’s for everyone. It does not matter whether you’re selling a product, a service, information or an idea. We all have specific actions in mind that we want website visitors to take. Conversion optimization is about making a larger share of visitors do those actions. It could be about making a donation, becoming a member, changing an opinion about something, or many other actions.

As long as it’s measurable, it’s a candidate for conversion optimization.

I’ve asked my employee, and colleague, Antoaneta Nikolaeva a few questions about her presentation at the upcoming eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in Stockholm.

What are you going to talk about?

I will share techniques and insider tips on how to work with web analytics to understand your audience better. It will help you increase your conversion rate.

I will show you how several non-profit organizations do it, for example Operation Smile and Doctors Without Borders.

Is your presentation only for non-profits, or who should listen to it?

Any organization wanting to boost online efforts can learn something from the presentation. Non-profits are under a continuous pressure to increase online conversion with limited resources, so I believe they make a perfect example of how you can be smart without using expensive technology. It’s all about people and process.

This will be your second time speaking at eMetrics Stockholm, what do you like best about the conference?

The engaged and enthusiastic people that I meet there. The attendees at the conference come from different industries, so I find it really inspiring to mingle and discuss web analytics with them.

What’s the first thing anyone new to web analytics (non-profit or not) should do?

Define your business objectives, goals and needs. Then look at how they can be applied to your website.

Start analyzing and optimizing!

---

Tip from Lars! If you buy tickets through the eMetrics website and use the code INUSEINSIGHTS011 you’ll get a 15% discount. Other speakers at eMetrics Stockholm include Bryan Eisenberg, Stéphane Hamel, Jim Sterne, Brian Clifton, and Steve Jackson.