"We kicked off as musicians who wanted to record punk rockers - Now we've morphed into sound designers who shape brands' physical spaces and all sorts of, well, pretty much weird audio stuff."
In 2012, four friends and I, all musicians, founded a music studio in Helsinki. It was a time when music technology was becoming increasingly affordable, making it accessible to almost everyone. However, just a few months after opening, we realized that our business model wasn't sustainable, so we knew we needed to pivot.
The podcast boom was good for us
Luckily, around the same time, the podcast boom was beginning. We shifted our focus to narrative audio, and for the past ten years, we've been producing radio dramas, podcasts, and audio commercials. The pandemic, while a global tragedy, unexpectedly benefited our business, as it led to a surge in people listening to audio content.
Audio's been growing as a media for, I'd say, the past 5 to 10 years.
Now we're becoming the number one audio agency in Finland right now, and we're getting all sorts of interesting offers. Like, for example, we were asked to make the Central Railway Station bell tower in Helsinki ring, which is pretty wild because it never even had bells in it.
Sound design makes customers spend more money
It’s really interesting to be at this intersection of art and business benefits. Take our sound design for waiting rooms — it’s got a direct impact on the net promoter score (NPS). And then there’s our sound design for brick-and-mortar stores. It's amazing how it not only boosts sales but also gets customers to stick around longer in the store.
Sound sample:
Artlabs client Vaihtokapula wanted to unify its audio-based communication and stand out from the crowd.
"Create such a bold signature tune that it provokes."
"Oh my God. But like... I am totally amazed, astonished, that you, Tuomas, captured so well what we're looking for here. This is charming, playful, and it has the strong scent of Vaihtokapula. You're quite a craftsman! Wow." - Vaihtokapula's COO Mikko Valtonen
Audio is crucial when creating emotions
"Try watching a horror movie without the soundtrack. It turns pretty funny, right? The director Danny Boyle once said that sound is like 60-70% of a movie. And, okay, I might be a bit biased, but I totally agree. Audio is like this shortcut to your emotions. Getting the right soundscape? That just ramps up the business."
Soundscape can also be used to manage crowds.
The problem of selling audio
The tricky thing with audio is that you can’t touch it, you can’t see it. It’s so much easier to talk about visual things, like how green is green. But when it comes to audio, people usually don’t even have the vocabulary and terms. Mention things like frequencies or resonance, and they’re lost. There’s a real need to educate our customers.
The best way to get a client to grasp what we do is to let them experience it firsthand. That's why we always encourage them to visit our offices, where we've soundscaped our studios.
We make it a point to play demos and set up soundscapes in customer stores for a week, just to measure the impact. It’s all about proving the concept."
We're not salespeople; we're artists.
Sales was not our problem in the beginning. Back in the day, we had one top-notch high-quality service, it was basically radio theatre recordings. We had one big client in this niche market, who would just call us. That was how we did sales, waited for the phone to ring..
“That was how we did sales, we waited for the phone to ring.. But it changed with the pandemic. We had to take control of our sales operations.”
We used to think our problem was just not being great at cold calling. Cold calling isn’t really our thing, but we absolutely love working with clients.
But then, after we started working with Sellai and Niina, we realized our challenges were more complex. We needed to build sales processes within our company, find a salesperson who gets the creative business and our unique approach, and who's also ready and able to do the sales work. Plus, we wanted them to align with our company values.
On the Sellai platform, we matched with Niina and another salesperson to start off. After a few months, we decided to go all in with Niina. She just got it – understood our problems, was a perfect cultural fit, and could really deliver on the sales work and implement the strategy.
We didn’t want a 'Wolf of Wall Street' type; it just wouldn’t fit our culture.
More than a salesperson
We knew a standard SDR service wasn't going to cut it and the world’s full of coaches and consultants who talk the talk. We were looking for the complete package, delivered in an agile way. That’s when I heard about Sellai through a friend.
Niina is a prime example of someone who not only knows how to advise on what should be done but actually rolls up her sleeves and gets it done. That’s what I really appreciate about the Sellai concept.
Niina did more than just cold call our clients. She really collaborated with us to build our entire sales organization.
Key learnings and results
Sales is a process
It’s been an eye-opener to see that sales is a process. You have to do it daily, systematically, and stick to the process. This gets particularly challenging when deals start coming in and there’s so much more to manage. This is why one person should be focusing on it with a high prio.
You need objectives, key activities, and results
From Niina, I’ve learned the importance of deciding on focus, metrics, and processes and sticking to them for months to see real results. Constantly changing the focus only complicates things, and you really never understand the market.
"Constantly changing the focus only complicates things, and you really never understand the market."
It’s not that complicated
The company has transformed massively since we started working with Niina. We went from a group of disorganized, albeit skilled, hippies, to now working with top ad agencies in Finland and sound designing for hospitals. These were clients we’d dreamt of working with for years. Then Niina comes along and is like, 'Why don’t I just call them?'
Your dream customers are just a phone call away
Two years ago, I couldn’t have imagined working with clients of this size and prestige.
Would you recommend Sellai?
We highly recommend it to our colleagues. Before, the thought of hiring a salesperson felt like a bad idea. We didn’t know what we were looking for or even how to manage one. Now, with the Sellai platform, we get a full-service platform, and it’s way more agile.
If we want to target a new customer segment, we can now easily direct more effort there instead of hiring a new person or trying to get an existing salesperson motivated to push through. It’s opened up a whole new way of doing business for us. We can test the market, and run quick trials – it’s a game-changer.
