Journey to $100 Million: Entrepreneurship & Digital Marketing

Do you have a communication plan? Well, Kevin is here to talk about the communication plan we’ve worked hard to put together over the years. Communication is the most important thing you can have with your clients. Often times when we’ve had issues in the past and we’ve sat down with the team and had a lessons learned breakdown of what went wrong and where, it usually comes down to communication.

Our communication plan starts from when you’re a prospect to officially becoming a client and it’s not just how we’ll communicate with you but also how you’ll communicate with us.

So let’s start from the very beginning at sales. We set up a 15-minute call or a meeting on-site and then a more formal digital review. We have a kick-off meeting once you come on board then a strategy meeting once you’re a client. Throughout the entire process, there’s communication between the client and our project manager, Jamal, who will also send you a welcome packet once you officially become a client. This is an extensive packet with contact information for our entire team, billing support, and the whole onboarding process laid out for the client’s overview.

We have a 30-day call with every single client, Erik or I take the client out to lunch once a quarter, and we send digital marketing reports to update the clients every 2 weeks. And that’s just the planned stuff; there’s constant communication between the team and the client.

This allows us to be successful because we’re ahead of every issue and are able to tackle it in a timely manner. If the client needs something, they know they can always talk to us and we’ll respond. They know they can approach us without fear of being charged because our pricing is all-inclusive.

If you don’t have a communication plan, start with the basics: I’m going to call the client every month. You can’t just sit back and assume that everything is fine just because the client isn’t contacting you; they could be silently stewing before they fire your company and hire your competition.

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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!

Many years ago when Erik and his wife owned a bakery, they were pretty unsure of how to go about advertising. They tried different things: coupons, running ads in the paper, he even applied for co-op dollars to offset advertising.

Facebook advertising was really successful because it was highly targeted and he was able to target brides with wedding cakes, just for one example. He thought one time that they could run a print article in a local newspaper because it would cover an entire area. In this area, there’s a regional newspaper and one specifically for each city in the region. For Chesapeake, it’s called The Clipper and it’s an insert in the regional paper. So Erik ran ads in The Clipper which was focused on the geographical area where the bakery was. And it was pretty successful so he thought if he could advertise to the whole region, that would really improve their business.

So one Sunday, the most popular day for the newspaper, he ran an ad that went to the entire region: 1.7 million people. He prepped the staff saying they were going to get slammed. So, the ad ran and...nobody called. And it wasn’t cheap: about $300. And nothing came out of it, not a single phone call, email, or new customer.

Fast forward when he was in business for himself, Erik decided to run print ads in the same newspapers but in the business section which is called Inside Business. He ran print ads for a year at a cost of $10,000 and once again, it resulted in no calls or new customers.

Lesson learned? Won’t be doing that again...

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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 retells a story of how he flew all 472 employees to Las Vegas for the holiday party. The company finally broke $100 million and they've been saying they'll throw a huge party when they do.

There's a large room with many round tables that seat 8, there's a dance floor and a band, and people dancing and having fun. The emcee, Zack Miller, grabs the microphone, tells a few jokes, and then he introduces me and calls me to the floor.

As Erik walks out to the middle of the floor, he sees many employees he's known for a long time. But there are many new faces too because the company has grown so fast. He then proceeds to tell the story of the long journey to get to where they are at that point. The Journey to $100 Million.

By the time this happens it's Dec 7, 2030. Erik's story is about a future event that hasn't occurred yet, and it's told in the present or past tense. The concept is called a Painted Picture. The more details that you can provide in a painted picture, the more realistic it is that the event will come to pass.

This journey to $100 million in revenue will take a long time, and it will be harder than even Erik anticipates. To accomplish such a challenge, you have to visualize it and tell yourself the story of what it will be like when you succeed. The more detail, the better. If you can visualize what success will be like - if you can see it, hear it, smell it - then there's a much better chance that you can actually make it happen.

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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!

If you're like Erik then you likely have a lot of information about the company in your head that others in the company need to know about. Erik has written that information down in two separate documents.

First, there's The Company Cheatsheet which is shared with all employees. It includes things like the company's pitch - what we say to people to explain what we do. It also includes out address, zip code, phone number (not everyone knows it), the number to our conference line, the WIFI password, and everyone's cell phone numbers.

There's a second document named Corporation Information. It includes things like the company's EIN (employer identification number) aka taxpayer ID, where and how we register our domain name, our bank account numbers, and other important administrative data. That document is provided to a smaller group - Erik, Kevin, and Katya - those who need it.

Make sure that you get as much information out of your head and into a document. Give your employees what they need so they don't need to come to you asking basic questions. Do that, and it'll free you up a bit!

—

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!

When Erik was back in high school, he really really wanted a skateboard and they were $120 (for the late 80s, that’s pretty pricey) and he didn’t have that money. He’d always done paper routes and shoveled snow and cut grass around the neighborhood but that was money that kind of just came and went. He needed money that was set aside specifically for that purpose and that purpose only.

So he started reselling Blow Pops - you know, those lollipops that have a big wad of gum in the middle. He bought a big bag and would sell three for a quarter and at that price, he was making good money. He did this for several months and sold them at school, raising the $150 to buy his skateboard. At the time, it was no big deal but in retrospect, the key is that he wanted something, came up with a plan, and executed that plan. It was one of those early signs of entrepreneurialism: if you set your mind to something, you can make a profit if you’re savvy enough to sell something that’s in demand and come out with happy customers.

If you have a kid, Erik would strongly recommend they put effort towards making the money for something they want - whether that be a skateboard, a Nintendo, etc.

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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 this episode, Kevin provides a sales update. In the third quarter of the 2019, the company crushed their quarterly goal of $30,000 in new monthly recurring revenue by August.

But in reality, there was a slowdown of sales activity and meetings in July, and that led to a slowdown of closings in September.

Knowing that meetings lead to sales, and there is a time delay between the two, the company has added a new KPI to track new unique prospecting meetings. By tracking that, we'll have a leading indicator of how many sales we should expect to have based on the number of meetings we had previously.

We cannot make people buy from us. All we can do is have as many meetings as possible to try to get in front of prospective clients and then eventually close them.

Kevin is very confident with the sales process. But there will be ups and downs along the way. Right now we are tracking deals, closed deals, and new unique meetings as KPIs. As we grow, we are learning and tracking more data to help us project outcomes better.

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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!

For a long time, Erik has been charging an extra 3.5% when clients want to pay by credit card because of the extra expense of accepting a credit card.

Only about 5% of clients opted for that payment option. But that meant that a lot of clients paid by check, but that lead to a delay in getting paid.

He recently changed the policy due to a complaint from a new client who didn't want to pay the 3.5% fee. Although there's a clear provision in the contract that allowed the company to collect the fee, he decided to switch the paradigm to incentivize clients to pay the way they what them to pay - by ACH (automated clearing house).

Now the company doesn't charge a 3.5% fee for credit cards. Instead they provide a discount if clients pay by ACH, and they don't accept checks except for from a few legacy clients. The extra expense of credit card fees will be offset by a planned increase in service fees in the new year.

It's easy to brush off a complaint from a single client. But for every client that complains, there are probably 10 times as many that aren't happy the same thing, but haven't said anything about it.

Think about how you can reframe your policies to turn negatives (ex: charging a fee) into positives (ex: giving a discount), but still get what you're after in the first place. It's a win/win for you and your clients.

—

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!

Kevin recently attended a leadership workshop. One of the leadership styles he learned about was the coaching style.

Coaches need to know when to draw the line between when to coach more and when to declare an employee is not the right fit.

Core values help define who should come onto the team. If you make it onto the team then you exhibit the core values and you're coachable. We owe everyone in the company the opportunity to not only be coached, but to sometimes fail on their own so they continue to learn.

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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!

At Erik's last employer, the company explicitly forbid employees from freelancing. Many of the people at the company, Erik included, had a strong desire to freelance and thus were technically violating the company policy.

What that meant was that many employees carried around two personas. The first persona was that of a loyal employee, and the second was that of a freelancer, but on the down low. It forced employees to sneak around, and they felt scared of getting caught for making a few extra bucks.

Each freelance gig that Erik took on resulted in him actually getting better as an employee because he brought that experience back into the workplace. The skills he gained while freelancing made him a better at his job.

When Erik started his company he decided to not play that game. He addressed the situation and explicitly allowed freelancing, and still allows it. There are caveats, but generally it's allowed.

He believes freelancing is a good practice. A few employees do it, most don't, and it's fine and even encouraged as long as it doesn't distract from their work at Array Digital.

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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 Kevin discusses niching for a certain segmentation of the market. We've never been niched at Array Digital.

Niching is when you focus very narrowly on a specific clientele or product. As an example of a niche, if you're a clothing company you may only create hats. Maybe just baseball hats. And that's it.

Compare that to segmenting which would mean you make all types of baseball clothing - shirts, hats, etc. You've focused on the baseball segment. You may provide similar clothing for other segments such as for basketball.

At Array Digital we work with lots of different types of clients, but we work mostly with B2C clients. As we've begun to segment we found we had a lot of clients in the following segments; medical, real estate, retail, and home services. We have a lot of experience in these areas, and they're becoming specializations. The question is, Should we segment for these specializations?

Do you niche or segment? If so, let us know.

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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!