Journey to $100 Million: Entrepreneurship & Digital Marketing

You probably know a couple of companies that specialize in a certain platform. There’s a common phrase, “The riches are in the niches,” and while that can be a good route to take, it can also be dangerous. Why? Because platforms come and go.

For example, what if you were one of the influencers who focused solely on Vine? Then when Vine became uncool all of a sudden, they stuck with it until it shut down. The people that stuck with it until the end went down with the sinking ship that was Vine. That is very risky.

So you can’t just focus on one platform. If you don’t have a lot of time for social media and decide to curate and build up your audience on just one platform, that’s different than focusing your entire business around it. That’s one thing we do not do at Array Digital; we are very platform-agnostic.

For example, we are not a company that advertises solely on Facebook or solely on Google so if either one of those platforms falls to the wayside, we just shift our business to whatever is new and hot. Array Digital is not reliant on any one platform.

Go where the clients are and don’t worry about the platform; go to whatever platform your ideal customers prefer.

—

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.

—

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

A lot of times in business, you have to counter between making a profit and growing your company. Some companies have the best of both worlds but unfortunately, we are not one of those companies. We are in the early stages of growth and in order to maintain that growth, we have to cut our profits.

We’ve been 100% focused on digital marketing for over two years now and though we started with one person doing all aspects of digital marketing, we have hired quite a few people that specialize in different aspects of digital marketing. We’ve expanded to 2 web developers and that digital marketing manager, Jake, needed a lot of specialists that report to him. We only have 12 people but it was a quick upgrade and it required money, of course, namely the profits we’ve made from our clients.

Kevin and Erik decided to defer profit for a couple of quarters to continue making the additions to the team that were necessary to take on more work. So they’re making salary but not that additional profit. It’s more important right now to grow the company and then hopefully later, the profits will come.

—

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.

—

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

Erik and Kevin decided to hire another salesperson in addition to Kevin who is a business developer. Instead of simply putting an ad in a newspaper (which you should really stop doing) or online somewhere, we wanted to first get the message out ourselves. So Erik got in front of the camera and laid out exactly what he wanted out of a prospect. That message was put out on all of the company’s social media channels.

That same day, multiple resumes came through that were super highly qualified and have been following our company for a while. This was great because it was people who we’ve been following and who have been following us, have a genuine interest in our company, and took action. That is the power of social media. You can put any message out into the world and craft your message for your audience and it’ll register with them much more than going the typical route.

Build an audience and see how you can use it.

—

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.

—

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

Back in the days of Erik’s software development business, he got a lead about a company that had an application that’s PHP, a programming language that Erik didn’t support. But he went ahead and took the meeting thinking there might be some other way he could help them. Turns out, they wanted to replace their application and could be an opportunity for Erik to transfer it to a new platform.

This was really a lesson learned for him because a lot of freelancers close the door on opportunities because they’re just overwhelmed and when it seems like something you might be unable to do, you just avoid it. But he’s here to tell you don’t turn away those opportunities or refuse to speak to the client until you figure out what exactly they need. Don’t worry about what they have, worry about what they need. Or, even better, what they want which can be more powerful than their needs.

We apply this now at Array Digital all the time. Glen, our sales manager, is really good at this because he will take just about any meeting he can get even if it seems like a dead end. If you want to grow your business, take the meeting and communicate with that prospective client. Don’t make assumptions; get in front of them, find out what they need/want, and see if there’s an alignment with what you need/want.

—

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.

—

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

Kevin loves when people ask him for entrepreneurial advice and his advice is simple: Invest and save money right away. That doesn’t mean quitting your job with no backup plan just so you can get started. When it is time, you’ll be able to feel it.

His advice is to start right away: figure out who the right people are for you to talk to (because you’re going to need help), save up your money, decide who you want for a partner, you may need a marketing or branding company. There’s a lot of pieces out there that you’re going to need, so start your research early.

Despite being in business himself for 14 years, it’s only been in the last 2 years that Kevin and Erik feel they’ve really figured things out and dialed everything into a focus.

—

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.

—

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

About 3 years ago, Erik had an employee who worked for him, starting off with very little experience but was very talented at what he did. He worked out very well from a work-product standpoint.

He’s noticed over the years that employees come in as a model employee then sometime between the three-week and three-month mark, they let their guard down and their true personality comes out. This particular person let his guard down and a lot of problematic traits came out. One of them being, he started coming into work late, like an hour or two after the rest of the team.

The final straw was when he just didn’t show up to work at all. Erik had been giving him warnings becoming increasingly more stern over time but this was just unacceptable.

The lesson learned was that Erik saw the warning signs for weeks and months before this occurred and he didn’t take action quickly enough. As a business owner, you may see the warning signs and choose to ignore them because they’re doing good work. The trick here is that you need to take quick action. When you see something you don’t like or agree with, you need to rectify it as soon as possible.

—

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.

—

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

“Lose an hour in the morning and you will spend all day looking for it.”

Kevin used to work late and get up late but in the last 2 years, he’s been waking up at 5 am and no it wasn’t an easy change but it is one that’s changed his life and increased his productivity.

Before 9 am and by the time he gets into the office, Kevin has gone to the gym, checked his email, listed out his tasks for the day, taken his kids to school, driven 30 minutes into the office, checked the news, and maybe had a bit to eat somewhere in there. Even if he’s unable to get tasking done throughout the day, he’s at least knocked those things out of the way so that if his day is filled with client or internal meetings, he’s still gotten stuff done.

After dinner, he puts the kids to bed and does a bit more work, checking to see if he’s missed anything and following up on some tasks.

Are you a morning person? What’s your routine like?

—

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.

—

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

Do you have a recruiting process? A defined process for finding quality people that want to work for you and how do you determine whether or not to bring them in?

We have a very defined process for creating a job ad, posting that, and where we post those ads. Once people do apply, we have a set of screening questions that go to every single person that applies, looking for obvious red flags that will keep them from moving forward through the hiring process. Find out what our 5 questions are by listening to this episode.

—

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.

—

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

About a year ago, we developed a client welcome packet which is a combination of our communication plan, what the client can expect, everything from billing to deliverables, etc. This puts a lot of things out in the open and simplifies a lot of processes and communication between you and your clients. So today Kevin lists out what we have in ours to help you develop one of your own.

1. Our Communications Plan: how often we report, who you have access to and the contact information for those people.

2. Our Administrative Process: billing, invoicing, etc.

3. Professional Services: the services we offer to every client covered in detail.

4. Advertising Services: how do we bill for advertising, how does payment work, etc.

5. Website Services

6. Our Quality Assurance Plan: how we make sure the work we’re doing for you meets our quality standards.

7. Our Service Level Agreement: our deliverables and timeline for responses from us on different tasks or questions you might have.

8. Our Disaster Recovery Plan: for websites and hosting, how do we store backups, what is our plan to recover if something bad happens, etc.

—

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.

—

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

Erik now works under the philosophy that if you screw something up, it’s best to just own up to the mistake. At his previous jobs, he would play the corporate game where he just wouldn’t mention it, would imply that other people made the mistake, or he’d work around it.

When he left that company, he and a guy named Clint Stevens formed a business intelligence company that did work for the US Navy. It was mostly a two-man shop.

One time he was in a meeting and the customer was pissed because something had gone awry. Clint came out and took complete responsibility for the mistake. Erik could visibly see the project manager that was in that meeting visibly relax a bit and his anger subsided. He switched gears from complaining about the problem to helping us fix the problem.

This caused Erik to fix his own tactic and he saw the same result; people started off mad but the moment you own up to your mistake, they are a lot less angry. Now, he’s not saying take the blame for something you didn’t do but if you are involved, don’t make excuses, just own up to it.

—

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.

—

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