Journey to $100 Million: Entrepreneurship & Digital Marketing

We have an entry fee of $375 a month that we charge all new clients. This is the base fee for professional services upon which all other services get added to. This fee tends to disqualify smaller businesses and startups from working with us. It is not as much a concern for bigger companies that have more money to spend.

Recently however, we were talking with a new client who said our entry fee was a deal-breaker for them. This potential new deal was going to be between $15 to $20,000 a month. They said they were already spending a lot of money with us didn't feel should have to pay the professional service fee. Glen, our sales guy, brought this to Erik and Kevin's attention. They all agreed it was not worth losing a potential big deal over $375 a month. The larger deal meant they would still be making a profit and they could afford to waive the fee if needed.

We don't discount our services here at Array Digital, instead we like to add value. However, we are currently working on a process to decide when it's okay to waive fees for a client. As much as we try to avoid it sometimes it's necessary in order to win the deal. We want to make sure that Glen has this protocol available if he's ever faced with a similar sales situation in the future, and not waste precious time waiting to get Erik and Kevin’s approval.

Do you have any type of extra fees that you’re willing to waive in order to make a sale? Most of us do. It’s a matter of knowing when it’s okay to make an exception.

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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!

One of the things that Erik has noticed when running a business is that he made a lot more money in the early days. Years ago, Erik was working on DoD contracts with one other partner. They were working 40 hours a week and charging big bucks for their work. It was a fun time financially. Erik and his partner were putting all the extra money aside for the business in hopes of one day growing it. But, it became apparent they had different visions for the business and frankly Erik hated the work.

Over the course of the next 6 to 12 months they slowly started draining the money from the business and taking it for themselves. There wasn't a foreseeable future for their business together.

After that, Erik started working on his own in the commercial world. It was just him and his laptop at the dining room table. He was making even more money than he did with his previous partner. It was a lot! About six months into it he hired his first employee. That ate away at some profit. Next he moved into a small co-working space. Overhead was still low but slowly expenses started chipping away at profit. As more work came in Erik had to hire more employees. He started to add benefits for his employees and profits really began to shrink.

This isn’t said to scare you...

There are two trains of thought on business: One train of thought (which is Erik’s train of thought) is that you sacrifice some revenue now in hopes of growing an organization that will become very profitable in the future. The other train of thought is to stay small and enjoy larger profits.

Erik and Kevin have a strategic motivation of deferring larger profits now and growing the business by reinvesting in it. They do that by hiring more employees. They believe that at some point the payback will be great.

It can be really tempting to stay small and enjoy those large profit margins, but there are downsides to being a one-man show and having to do all of the work yourself.

If you're just getting started in business or thinking about hiring your first employees you have to ask yourself what your ultimate goal is: Are you in this to grow a business or are you in this for the paycheck?

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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!

We recently ran into a problem with a new client about the activity that was happening within the first couple weeks of signing them. Erik and Kevin traveled out of town to meet with this client knowing there were some areas of confusion on the client’s end. When they met for coffee, the client just started to vent his concerns about being burned in the past by agencies. He was concerned about how he had paid for advertising and wasn’t really seeing the level of activity that he expected or proof that we’d been doing all this work.

We do a ton of behind the scenes work so we realized that the client can’t always see that work so they may become anxious and concerned even for the clients that don’t bring this concern to our attention.

It’s led to a small change in how we update the clients with constant communication telling them what we’ve done and where we are. It’s a small tweak but it was important.

What small change can you make to make your clients more comfortable?

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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!

For 2019, Erik tried something new when it came to his New Year’s resolutions; by actually setting resolutions he couldn’t just achieve with one event. They were resolutions they’d take all year to accomplish: some behavioral changes and others were big events that he couldn’t do all at once.

He set 3 resolutions:

1. Run 1,000 miles by the end of the year.

2. Get the company’s annual recurring revenue to $1.8 million.

3. Always stop at stop signs and red lights

He hit the first one by Halloween, 2 months early! The 2nd goal, we hit and surpassed and we’re currently up to $2.2 million. The stoplight one was no problem, just a bit awkward at first.

Most people give up on New Year’s resolutions early in the year because that’s just kind of the thing to do. But it’s truly a missed opportunity because it’s the perfect time to reset your life and start changing your habits.

So, it’s December 2019 right now. Start thinking of your New Year’s resolutions for 2020 and get them going come January 1st.

Here are Erik’s resolutions for 2020:

- He’s going to write and publish a book about the journey to get to $1 million in revenue which took him 10 years. It was not easy (only 4% of companies make it to this number). He’s already about 2 chapters in.

- He wants to do really well in a Half Iron Man.

- He wants the company to get up to either $3.5 to $4 million in revenue. He also wants the company to collect $2 million in revenue. There’s a difference between an amount you collect and you’re annual recurring revenue. $2 million is the minimum amount you need to qualify for the Inc. 5000 list.

- He wants to put out weekly email newsletters for his own personal brand.

- He wants to create a weekly interview podcast.

- He wants to start mentoring other entrepreneurs; 4 of them by the end of the year.

What are you thinking about for 2020? Email Erik at [email protected] or hit him up on social media @iamerikjolson.

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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!

Kevin has spent a lot of time networking, he built his business on networking, and it has served him very well. As an entrepreneur, you should never stop networking because it’s all about who you know no matter where you are or what you do. But in addition to growing your network, you should also maintain your existing network because they can be great to fall back on.

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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!

Every month, Erik looks at the company’s financial statements - bank statements and credit card statements. He looks through each line item one by one and questions whether or not the company needs that thing still. Almost without fail, he finds something every month that we can either cut or reduce. Each time, he’s cutting probably at least $100 in recurring fees. He’s happy to spend the money if it’s going to get us ahead.

It’s important to be ruthless about your expenses. If it’s unimportant or wasteful, you should cut it. These expenses could start popping up all over your company and while some are fine, you should pay attention to lowering your expenses.

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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!

Recently at a black-tie event, Erik ran into his lawyer, Gabe McCoy, whom he talks to a lot about entrepreneurialism. Gabe has been going out to Dallas for several years getting work.

Gabe was the one that originally planted an idea in Erik of doing something similar in Orlando which Erik has talked about many times before. Gabe said things are going very well for them there as the rates are better and the economy is much better in Dallas. The difference between what he’s doing and what we did is the amount of time he’s spending networking in Dallas. What we did was schedule meetups, fly in the day of, host the meetup, then fly back out shortly after. We were busy so we didn’t dedicate enough time to cultivate relationships with people down there in between the meetings.

What Gabe is doing is much more calculated. He started off once a quarter then increased the frequency to once a month and now he’s going for a whole week every single month. And it’s working for him!

This is a great model if you want to cultivate a new market that you’re not already in. It’ll require sacrifice of you and your time.

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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!

Every once in awhile, Erik has to come in and do extra work outside of the regular 9-5 because most of that time is dedicated to assisting employees, conducting meetings, etc. He’s realized that his work here is not to get his own work done but to make sure that the team is on course for the mission and remove any barriers that might show up.

If he wants to do something extra like record podcast episodes or write a blog post, he has to do it in the early hours or on the weekend. Find what time works for you and reschedule yourself so you can get your work done as well as helping out your team.

Have you ever had a subscription service that kept charging your credit card even after you tried to get them to stop?

This has happened a couple of times for Erik. The first time was when he and Kevin first merged companies over 2 years ago. There was some overlap in the services that they used and they’d cancel service for the redundancies. One such service was Vonage that Kevin used at his old office. Vonage refused to cancel it and wouldn’t even discuss the account with Erik when he called because the account was under the name of an employee who no longer worked for the company.

After 2-3 months of continuing to get charged, Erik came up with a plan to get a prepaid VISA debit card for about $20. He went into the account and changed the payment method to the prepaid card. And all of a sudden they were out of it.

In a more recent and slightly different circumstance, you have to give Google a credit card if you use Google Maps on your website. He did the same thing with the prepaid account and gave the team $100 on a debit card to figure out an alternative method.

If there’s ever a situation you are trying to get out of, think about going this route; it’s worked several times for Erik and is a great way to stop the bleeding.

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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!

In business when you’re done doing work, you send out an invoice complete with a payment term which is how many days you allow your client until they’re supposed to pay you in a system called Accounts Receivable. We track all of it down to the invoice and client levels. The higher your AR, the more money you don’t have that you’ve already done work on.

Your goal should be to get your AR down as low as possible and that doesn’t mean just not working for the clients; it means collecting your payment as quickly as possible. We are moving towards net 0 which is how many days you give your clients in order to pay their bill which means on the first of every month, we bill their credit card or ACH and then do the work for the rest of the month. That’s what we’re doing for all new clients but we have old clients who are on terms.

When Erik first started working for himself, he followed the terms that the government does which is net 30 meaning he wouldn’t get paid until a month after he’s started work for the client. This means you have to bankroll your operations which, as a one-man show isn’t so bad, but when you have a team, it becomes a problem.

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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!