Journey to $100 Million: Entrepreneurship & Digital Marketing

About 5 years into Kevin’s first business, he started to take on bigger projects outside of his wheelhouse. In episode 219 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in to Kevin as he shares how one of these projects didn’t go as planned, and how he went about handling this situation.

One of Kevin’s projects was for a large organization and required designing a website, which posed a challenge for Kevin as it was more complex than other work he had done. However, based on his research, proposal, and eagerness for a challenge, he took on the project. The desired website required things such as a membership portal, a classified section, and advertising. The project was successful at first as the requirements were met and the design was receiving positive feedback. However, soon after, Kevin ran into a few problems.

When Kevin got into the complexity of the membership portal and setting up different systems needed for the site, he found the workload to be overwhelming. There were various requests from the client regarding the website during this time as well. Kevin, being young and not an expert project manager, found himself in a predicament as he did not want to reach out to the client and say “No, this is out of scope” and seem unprofessional. This was a stressful situation as he and his team had been working extremely hard in order to keep this client happy, but realized they were not being as profitable as they’d hoped.

Eight months into this project, Kevin made the decision to go to the company’s board meeting and communicate about the status of the project. When Kevin arrived, he was told that the board members were surprised he had the guts to show up, knowing that the client was unhappy with the progress being made. Regardless, he knew he had to go to ensure that everyone was on the same page and gain a further understanding of what could be done in order to make sure this project would get finished. After the meeting, this project was back on track; some aspects were cut out and fine-tuned which allowed them to come up with a final scope that made sense and worked.

All in all, when problems arise during a project, you must own up to mistakes and be open with the client, company or individual. It is important to always be communicative and keep focusing your energy on completing the project to the best of your ability. If you have a project that isn’t going as planned, communication is the best thing you can do to help the situation and come to a resolution.

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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.

When completing work for a client, do you run a credit check beforehand? Do you obtain a promissory note? Do you have anything besides their acknowledgment of a proposal or contract to ensure you get paid? In episode 218 of Journey to $100 Million, Erik explains how you are extending credit to a company or individual when completing work for them.

When you send a client the bill for your work, you are extending credit to that client. This is due to the fact that you are essentially giving them a loan for the funds needed in order to complete this work. Often times this can pose a huge risk as you may be unaware of the client’s credit situation.

Think of it like this: if you put in a week of work for a client and you have to wait a month for that payment, you just wasted a ton of time that you could’ve put into another client’s contract. Ultimately, you want to get paid for your services in a timely manner and make the most of your time, especially because companies have to pay their employees as well. It is very important to make sure you are maximizing and making the most efficient use of your time.

When doing work for a client, the finances that accompany this work could greatly affect your company. If you see these having a negative impact, think about ways you can mitigate this risk, or avoid it as a whole. Here at Array Digital, we are starting to move away from invoices and starting to request the payment upfront. Be on the lookout for future episodes on what tools we are using to do this and how we are planning to implement this process.

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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.

Losing a deal is not fun whatsoever, especially when it is $500k. In episode 217 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in to Kevin as he explains how a deal lost, led to a company formed.

About two and a half years ago, when Kevin and Erik’s individual companies had been collaborating with one another, they lost a $500k deal. This deal was brought about by Kevin meeting the COO of a German company (also located in the US) through his membership in the HRIC. The COO reached to Kevin not knowing if the work could be done by them - but recommended Kevin should bid on the project.

So, Kevin took one of Erik’s employees and had a meeting with this company which ended up going well! They had two other subsequent meetings, and it was looking like Kevin and Erik would get the deal. But, at the last minute, this deal got derailed.

Someone higher up in the company decided they would rather work with one local company, rather than using two different companies. Since Kevin and Erik were two different companies working together, it looked a little wishy-washy, unprofessional, and as if they were not as capable. The deal ended up being given to a single local company that had redundancy, multiple project managers, and all the resources needed.

After this loss, Erik and Kevin knew something had to be done so that they could avoid future losses. They realized that if they merged their two companies, this issue could be quickly resolved - and it was done! This one project loss was what lead to the formation of Array Digital as we know it 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.

You know what’s frustrating? When you have something that you need to get done in a timely manner and you’re blocked by a third party system that you have to mess with before you can even get to work. Today, Erik talks about how Array Digital has adopted G Suite and although there are a lot of systems offered out there, he finds that this one works best for his team.

With so many systems out there, it can be tempting to take time to weigh the pros and cons and assess all the different offerings when in actuality, they offer very similar things, so you should really just choose one.

One of the pros of Google is that it doesn’t take long to set it up and in order to add someone, you don’t have to jump through hoops, it’s all very simple and user-friendly. With G Suite, you get access to Drive, Calendar, Email, Hangouts, and quite a few other applications. If you’re in start-up phase or moving towards that point, Erik highly recommends G Suite because it’s easy to set something up for a team. And by the way, it’s super cheap, about $5/month and everything is cloud-based and accessible everywhere.

Don’t waste your time messing around with IT companies; make it easy on yourself and get productive on day one!

—

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.

When Kevin is out there selling, he is selling strategy and partnership - the rest of the services offered come along with that. He’s selling these prospects on how Array Digital is going to partner with them: the communication, the activity with our team, the access to our team, and the fact that we genuinely care about their business. If there isn’t a good strategy in place and there isn’t good communication between the clients and the team, neither side will grow and neither side will benefit. Everything else falls into place when there is that strategy and partnership present.

If you want to know what makes Array Digital different, that’s it. We actually care, we’re available for calls and check-ins and need clients who are the same way, otherwise it’s not a good fit.

—

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.

Have you ever heard of the phrase “Valley of Death”? Erik was introduced to it in the Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) that provides a lot of learning opportunities that he takes advantage of because they’re very relevant to running a business and can be applied immediately.

One of them was about cash flow and how as you grow your company, your cash flow requirements change and grow. So the Valley of Death is from the book Scaling Up by Verne Harnish. It shows that as your business’s revenue increases over time, you’ll reach a certain point where the revenue will probably drop off as you go to the next big threshold.

For example, your revenue will probably climb to about $1 million then likely plateau out and then as you continue to scale up towards $10 million, it won’t go laterally to that point, it’ll probably drop below $1 million before it gets there. It plateaus out again at $10 million as you continue to grow beyond that point. The valley of death is there because what got you to that point probably won’t work to get you to the next point; you’ll need to make systematic changes in how you operate your business, changes in your policy, changes in people, possibly even changes in the industry that you’re in.

We are at $1.4 million in annual revenue right now coming out of a quarter where we lost a lot of clients and, as a result, had a lot of lessons learned and made a lot of process changes. We really had plateau’d out and potentially even went down before this period where we are on the incline. Erik believes that Array Digital hit the bottom of the Valley of Death between $1 million and $10 million. In order to get to $100 million, your business will have to go through these plateaus where things feel stagnant. It just means you have to pivot, make some changes, and keep learning in order to continue growing.

—

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.

Between the years of 2006 and 2011 the year he hired his first employee, Kevin made 6 figures working in a condo on the beach with very little overhead, just a nice computer, some software, and a suit and tie. He was able to build up a business making over $100,000 a year, something he never saw possible. It was a result of a lot of hard work around the clock, going to meetings, growing his network, doing great work, and getting referrals as a result.

He didn’t seem to have a problem being too small and actually, the downturn in the economy around 2008 helped him to get more work because he was the lower-cost option in an industry that people saw the value in but didn’t want to spend tons of money in. Slowly he raised his prices as he learned more things and added new services. He did anything and everything but that resulted in him getting no time off.

Still it was a 6-figure business built in a short amount of time. It was difficult being so young, people certainly doubted him and while, no, it’s not the easiest thing, it can be done...YOU can do it!

Kevin went in with no business plan or capital or assistance; he just started seeking the work and doing it and that was the best way to learn.

—

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.

As a young employee, Erik always thrived off the praise of his employer; it was the ultimate compliment and it improved his work ethic. Now with 11 people on the Array Digital team, when one of his staff gets positive feedback from a client, that’s what really resonates with him.

Recently, he received some positive feedback on Jamal, the project manager, from a previous employee, Bruce, who’s now created his own custom software development business called Forloop, that Jamal is still involved with. Bruce messaged Erik at 8:37 one night saying how grateful he was for Jamal who works late with him many nights on the project and Bruce just wanted to make Erik aware of how much work Jamal has put into it. Frankly, Erik wasn’t aware of how much work Jamal put into it; he knew that he did some work here and there based on what he said in the daily morning huddles. He really appreciated Bruce telling him this and made the whole team aware that he now knew and gave kudos to Jamal.

Clients praising the team happens pretty often now to the point where that’s what Erik is aiming for, not the personal praise that he used to.

—

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.

It was 2011. Kevin brought on a full-time contractor. Not technically an employee as he didn’t offer benefits, but someone that was dedicated to the work he was doing. He definitely allowed Kevin to focus more on what he was doing but unfortunately, they found that he did not help to grow the company. They made the same amount of money that year as Kevin did when he was working by himself. And the next year too. Except now he paid someone close to $40,000.

He thought maybe this is just how business works; maybe it was taking things off his plate making him less stressed and with more time on his hands. But the reality Kevin had to face was that he was working just as hard and still doing a lot of the work himself.

It was not until that person was gone having pursued a full-time job with benefits and Kevin brought on his second hire, did things really change. He hired Jason - who is still with the company today - in 2014 as a contractor and immediately saw the business double. He worked really closely with Jason who was - and is - a very hard worker. They were able to get an office and start to actually grow the business. If it wasn’t for Jason and being such an efficient new hire, Kevin admits that he probably wouldn’t be where he is today. He can’t thank him enough for being there and sticking with him.

So if you’re in business and thinking about your first hire, yes, it can be challenging and scary because it’s unknown. But you need that first hire that’s going to double your business. If you don’t see any sort of growth in your business as a direct result of that hire, they’re just going to cost you a lot of money and growth.

Go out there, hire great people, and hold onto them!

—

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.

In today’s episode, Erik gives the lowdown on the marketers meetup, Marketers Anonymous, that started in Norfolk in the fall of 2018. Right off the bat, it was a big success; there was standing room only at the very first meetup and people were literally sitting on the floor in the back. Of course, it was expected that it would simmer down over the holidays and pick up again after, which was exactly what happened. It was super exciting so Erik and Kevin decided to expand the meetup to a couple of different markets, the first being Newport News.

It launched and...there was pretty poor attendance: about 10-12 people. So they decided to see what would happen in the second and third meetups if they pushed it harder than the first one. They amped up our social media posting, spent some ad dollars to really market it properly, and contacted every marketer they knew in Newport News and invited them. And the second one was...even worse: with only about 7 or 8 attendees.

They did that for a couple of months hoping it would get better with the increased efforts but it didn’t. They even had a hard time getting speakers. It was a hard market to penetrate and yet they repeated this same mistake in Orlando, Florida. It was the exact same result there, with a couple of people that came out to each meetup but always 10 or less.

They realized they were spending time, energy, and thus dollars to support these two meetups when so few people would show up. They did it for about 6 months and finally cut Newport News first and then Orlando. It was and still is an ego blow to admit have to pull the plug on those meetups because of low attendance but Erik would rather admit defeat and take a little bit of a hit now than to keep going with something that isn’t working and take a massive beating in the end.

In entrepreneurial culture, there’s this adage that says DON’T QUIT. And Erik agrees with that to some extent but if it’s obvious something isn’t working and you’ve pivoted and that still isn’t working, it wouldn’t be wise to continue. Focus on the things in your business that are working and cut those that aren’t.

—

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.