“When you speak from your heart about what’s true for you, the energy behind the words is very different from when you’re trying to convince someone else that this is a good thing.”

-Sami Minkkinen-

Linked In: Marika Sarajärvi
Facebook: Marika Sarajärvi
Instagram: marikasarajarvi
Twitter: @m_sarajarvi
Snapchat:@m_sarajarvi
TikTok:@marikasarajarvi

Now

After a four-year break, I decided to return to full-time entrepreneurship on 9/2022.
I have over twenty years of experience in various sales and marketing communications roles in a variety of industries.
I have a great enthusiasm and fire to make things happen and help people succeed!
In addition to developing my own business, I am responsible for developing the sales and marketing of our family business (Fiscal Ltd).
A little bit of pride: it is a great pleasure and honour to be part of this qualified team!

Check out my followers and read more about my trip below.

Why and when

My journey in the corporate world started in primary school with computers.

In secondary school and vocational school, evenings and weekends were often spent at work.
At that time, my father’s company was a subcontractor to a computer manufacturer.
We were assembling computers at a rate of several hundred units a week,
which meant that motherboards, memories and processors became familiar.
However, at that time, assembly of computers on a conveyor belt
was not exactly my dream job and for some reason, when it came time to think about my career choice after primary school, entrepreneurship was not the main idea.

I was drawn to sales and marketing by blood, and after graduating from vocational school with a degree in cookery, my career, with a few exceptions, has taken me into these fields.
After years of searching for “my thing”, in August 2009 I joined our company as a full-time employee, working on the Info TV system product, which had just been launched on the market.
I had worked for our company for a few years before that, but my ideas for the future were not yet clear at that stage.

Even after I started my career in 2009, I still sometimes wonder what I want to do in the future.
For several years, I had been dreaming of starting my own business specialising in consumer retailing.
Eventually, a long background in dogs and the dream of a “dream oak” won out, and I started my own pet food store in 2015 (online store + brick-and-mortar store) in Muhokki.
It was a tough business, but it never became profitable.
The business had to close in 2018.

You had to go far to see close up.
It was time to look at things with new, more experienced eyes.
Today, my passion is channelled into developing my own and our family business.
I work with a big heart, and I get a huge amount of positive energy from helping other people.

I have more than twenty years’ experience in sales and marketing – most of it in the entrepreneurial sector, but I have also become familiar with the consumer sector over the years.
Along the way, I have attended several courses in sales development and marketing communications in addition to the Professional Qualification in Business (sales and marketing communications).
I am currently studying for a Master of Business Administration (Business Administration) at Kajaani University of Applied Sciences.
Studying is fascinating and engaging.
Things are familiar at the same time, but different in a new way.
Years of experience in the field now need to be put down on paper and in words, which is different from working in the field in practical tasks.
The motivation to study is high, and I take great pleasure in how I see studying as a positive stimulus to my own work and to the development of my company’s business now and in the future.

Steps + training

Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration 1997-2000
Professional Qualification in Business, Sales and Marketing Communication 2021
Event Production 2021
Solution Selling 2021
Bachelor of Business Administration 2021-

2001-2001 Cafe worker, Oulu Bowling House
2001-2002 Sales negotiator, Pohjanmaan Mikro Oy (Pomi), computer sales and assembly B2C
2002-2005 Computer assembly, installation and testing, Software production Fiscal Oy
2005-2006 Sales negotiator Cafe Bar, Sales representative and sales of coffee machines B2B
2006-2008 Waitress/chef, Fazer
2008-2009 Sales consultant, Duell companies Oy, representation and sales of first aid supplies B2B
2009-2015 Sales consultant, Software production Fiscal Oy B2B
2015-2018 Own company, animal food store (brick-and-mortar store + online store).
B2C work for Fiscal through my own company.
2019-2019 Temporary job in the municipality of Vaala, responsible for a wide range of cross-departmental municipal vitality promotion, such as tourism and business development, as well as internal and external communications marketing for the municipality
2020- Return to Fiscal
2021- Return to full-time entrepreneurship

Acts of trust

2022-2023 Ranuan Deer Association, Board of Directors

2017-2021 Muhoksen Yrittäjät ry, Board of Directors

• 2017-2018 vice-chairman
• 2018-2020 President
• 2020-2021 spokesperson & secretary

2016-2017 Entrepreneurs of North Ostrobothnia, Board of Directors

• 2016-2017 North Ostrobothnian Entrepreneurs, Member of the Working Committee
• 2016-2017 Entrepreneurs of North Ostrobothnia, Member of the Committee for Young Entrepreneurs

Confessions

The Entrepreneurs of North Ostrobothnia awarded me as President of the Year in 2018, and the association I represented in the same year, Muhoksen Yrittäjät Ry, as Local Association of the Year in North Ostrobothnia.

We managed to increase the membership of the local association by a staggering +26%, while coordinating entrepreneurs and municipal officials and councillors to regular
monthly meetings around the same table.
That year saw the development of the slogan “Speak good backwards”, which has served as a good red thread even after the fruitful years of the presidency.
Business is the most important asset of a municipality.

Family and hobbies

My husband and I live in Ranua, on the shore of Lake Ranuanjärvi.
Ranua attracted me with its vitality, which I had admired through the eyes of a cottage dweller
for several years.
Finally, the seed of enthusiasm for the idea of moving to Ranua sprouted in my husband’s heart, and after some forty years of living elsewhere, the move back came true in June 2022.

Nature is close to my heart, I like to hike in the woods and reset my thoughts in the evenings with an extempore evening fire.
I sing, play the piano, read, listen to audio books, watch TV series without listening to anything, go to the gym intermittently and develop myself under the tutelage of several different “self-awareness trainers”
, but my favourite hobby is dancing!
I get a lot of energy and joy from dancing in the middle of everyday life.
The mind stops spinning like a wall when the dance practice starts!

Thank you for reading! <3

Marre
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