Journey to $100 Million: Entrepreneurship & Digital Marketing

You want and need to be the company that people first think about when they hear something from your industry or about the product or service that you offer.

Here are some tips and tactics we’ve used here at Array Digital to make that happen:

1. Create a bold mission statement.

2. Have an even bolder vision statement.

3. Think about doing a nonprofit giveaway.

4. Apply for awards.

5. Think about getting key board positions in your industry.

6. Start a podcast or flash briefing to talk about your industry or area of expertise.

7. Book speaking events - as many as you can.

8. Start a meetup.

9. Expand and talk about expansion.

10. Get into video and heavy on social media.

11. Use perception to your advantage.

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Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

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Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

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For more information on the show, and to check out past episodes, go to journeyto100million.com!

Recently, Erik went to call a client from his car and he was using a voice prompt to do this. The client’s name is very similar to that of an employee who Erik had fired 2 years ago. So, of course, he ended up calling this person and Erik realized it as soon as the guy answered the phone.

Instinctively, Erik wanted to just hang up but the guy probably had caller ID and would know it was him.

It turns out that when Erik fired him, there were a lot of things going on in the guy’s personal life that escalated and affected his capability to do his job. It was a really bad time in his life but it was really affecting his work here.

So right off the bat, Erik admitted what had happened but then said, “Hey, we haven’t talked in a while, how are you doing?” It turned out to be a very nice conversation and the former employee actually ended up thanking Erik for letting him go because the personal thing he was going through was not allowing him to perform to the best of his ability in a business environment.

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Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

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Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

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For more information on the show, and to check out past episodes, go to journeyto100million.com!

Have you ever thought of using a virtual assistant for some of your everyday tasks? If not, you should consider using them for one-off tasks or tasks that your team is too experienced for.

Take a look at the daily tasks you have and ask yourself if there are any that could be performed by a virtual assistant. Next, ask your team if there are any tasks that they do that they feel isn’t the best use of their time. Compile a list of all these tasks and find out how many hours it takes to complete them. Then look for a virtual assistant online to help complete some of these. It will be a relief to you, and your team will be able to focus on the bigger stuff.

You can look for virtual assistants overseas in places like the Philippines, India, or Indonesia. The money that you pay them is good money for them and it helps them. You can also look for virtual assistants on places like Fiverr or upwork.com.

Keep your core services for yourself and your team to work on, but see what everyday tasks you could hire out. Those tasks will get done quickly, you will be able to focus on scaling your business, and your team will be happier doing the work they were trained to do.

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Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

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For more information on the show, and to check out past episodes, go to journeyto100million.com!

How many times has a client or customer hired you to do something but you’re actually dependent on them to get your work done?

This happens all the time at Array, especially with new clients because at the beginning of a contract, we need access to many of their accounts and need them to approve our creative strategies. Sometimes if we don’t get it, we will be blocked and have to just keep reminding the client that we can’t do what they’re paying to do.

Now, beyond that point in the project, we often block ourselves because we ask for their feedback and when we don’t immediately get it, we forget about the task until it becomes late. One of our core values is urgency so worst case, we want to get it to them on time.

The best course of action is to go about your work, assuming that what you’re doing is what they want (they hired you for that reason, right?) but allow them to make changes if they want to, giving them a deadline by which to do so.

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Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

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For more information on the show, and to check out past episodes, go to journeyto100million.com!

Think about the State of the Union address or Economic updates that banks and economists hold. We’re doing the same concept but we’re going to tell the local market about what’s going to be trending in digital marketing this year.

This allows us to own this space and say that we are experts in digital marketing. Our event is going to hold between 150-200 people, we’re getting sponsors, we’re selling tickets but that’s not what matters to us. We want to position ourselves as experts, get in front of prospects, and help the marketers and business owners in our local community.

We’ve already got sponsors locked in, we’ve sold a lot of tickets, so we’re really excited about the event!

Take a look at your industry and see if there’s existing events like this. If not, claim it yourself. 

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Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

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For more information on the show, and to check out past episodes, go to journeyto100million.com!

Erik’s wife, Lia, recently had a horrible shopping experience at JoAnn Fabrics and wanted to share all the things that go wrong so that you can avoid making these mistakes at your own retail establishments.

So, Lia went in knowing exactly what she wanted to buy, coupons in hand knowing exactly how much she would end up paying. She presented the coupon to the cashier and the point of sales (POS) system was not set up to take off the discount automatically meaning the sales clerk would have to manually calculate the discount. That’s lesson learned #1: the POS system should be configured so that the cashier doesn’t have to do it on her own. If you have a POS system, make sure that the calculations are done for you.

Now, the cashier originally gave Lia 50% off even though the coupon was for 65%. Lia pointed out that this was incorrect and the cashier recalculated it 2 or 3 times before getting so frustrated that she rolled her eyes at Lia. That’s a big no-no. Lesson learned #2: If you have a discount coupon, make sure your cashiers know how to do the math and the tools to figure it out. Lesson learned #3: Teach your staff to treat the customers with respect.

So the manager then got involved to tell her that the coupon didn’t apply to her item. But when they walked back to the display, it was immediately evident that the sale applied to that item.

Ultimately, the lesson learned is that if you are a sales clerk or manager working in a retail store, get to work 5 minutes early and walk the floor so that you’re aware of everything that’s going on. Think through your customer experience and make sure your employees are trained on anything that may arise.

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Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

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For more information on the show, and to check out past episodes, go to journeyto100million.com!

Today, we’re talking about money. Which is more important to you: revenue or profit? Has it changed over time?

In the beginning, when Erik was just getting started with freelancing, it was revenue. He just needed legitimate work so he could build up his portfolio. Once he was able to do that, he was able to parlay that into bigger clients with bigger budgets.

Once he became a full-time employee of this freelancing gig (when he quit his day job), it was still about revenue.

That all changed, though, when he hired an employee because he was paying her from the revenue and the profit went to paying himself. That focus persisted as he hired more and more employees.

Fast forward several years, Erik and Kevin merged and they’ve been growing ever since. They made a strategic decision in early 2019 to grow exponentially and that meant hiring an entire team. That meant profit decreased to almost 0 and in some months, it went negative.

Since that time, however, they’ve gained many more clients and are back to making a profit again so the focus is back on that.

The point is it’s not accurate to say one or the other is the right answer and is more important in your business. When you do that, you’re missing the time factor which is very important on your growth scale. These things will change over time. Think about where you’re at in your growth cycle, whether profits are important to you right now or if growth is more important. 

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Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

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For more information on the show, and to check out past episodes, go to journeyto100million.com!

One of the things Erik focuses on in the sales process is validating if the prospect is a good fit for the company. In periods of time where there are a lot of potential clients and sales activity, it’s especially important to do this because you have to figure out who you’d work with best and let the others go.

There are a couple tell-tale signs that tell us that they aren’t going to be a good fit for us. One of these signs is whenever someone emails us and asks “What’s the cheapest plan you offer?” This tells us a lot about that person and the biggest is that they don’t really value the service that we can provide them and they don’t have the funds to afford an agency like us. At that point, Erik will try to find an alternative for whatever they need that may work better for their current needs.

Another sign is when someone contacts us and we reach back out and they answer the phone and say, “I can’t talk right now, I’m at work.” That means that they are moonlighting and they want our services for their side gig which isn’t to the point where they are working only on that. They still have a main job which means they don’t have the time to dedicate to talk to us during the times that we work. If we took them on as a client, we would be working our regular 9-5 but then after hours and on weekends too for someone who likely doesn’t have the money to afford us in the first place.

What do we do in these scenarios? We try to steer them in the right direction and we’ve found that even though they weren’t a fit for us, they’ll tell someone else about us that may be a better fit.

You have to validate your prospects and if they don’t seem like a good fit, don’t put too much time into them but do make sure to send them to someone that can be a good fit.

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Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

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For more information on the show, and to check out past episodes, go to journeyto100million.com!

Erik was a paperboy in his townhouse neighborhood when he was growing up. Now, his friend’s older brother also had a paper route but he didn’t want to have to ask the customers for money to pay for the newspapers, part of which he’d keep and the other part would be given to the newspaper company. So, the brother made a deal with Erik that if he did it for him, Erik could keep 10% of the total profit. Erik would take his 10% before even giving the money to the brother just in case he wasn’t willing to pay up later.

The lesson here: make sure you pay yourself first. It’s a lesson he’s learned and implemented many times throughout his career.

If you look back on things you used to do early in your career to make money, there are lessons you learned there that you may have forgotten about but could help in your business now. Just think back on those and make sure you’re implementing those lessons today. 

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Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

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For more information on the show, and to check out past episodes, go to journeyto100million.com!

Several jobs ago, Erik was the manager of a group of software developers and there was one girl in particular there that everybody liked and was very good at her job. Erik could tell, however, that her heart wasn’t in it, she wanted something else out of her career and her life.

Erik wanted to figure out what that thing was so he asked her to go with him for a walk because this isn’t the type of thing you ask in front of everyone. They sat on the picnic table and he asked her if her heart was no longer in the job and she said that wasn’t the case, she was just in a funk. So, they went back inside and everything was fine.

About a week later, she approached Erik at his desk and asked if they could take a walk and said that since thinking through it, she was no longer into it. They talked through it, there were no issues but she did end up quitting that job and going off on her own.

It was an interesting situation for Erik because it had happened a few times before in his career of managing people but he’d never said anything, he just let it slide. From there, it almost always turned into a bad situation. This time it was different. He approached the subject, she was able to admit it without feeling bad, and her employment ended on amicable terms. 

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Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

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For more information on the show, and to check out past episodes, go to journeyto100million.com!