Journey to $100 Million: Entrepreneurship & Digital Marketing

In today’s episode, Kevin is talking about an organization he joined back in 2005 that also led to him starting his business. At the time it was called the Hampton Roads Technology Council. He joined mostly out of curiosity and started going to the meetings just as a bystander. He got onto the board and became super involved. It worked well for him: he got to get out of the office and meet people at grand companies and the heads of big corporations. At the age of 22, hanging out with these senior execs and company owners was a big deal and it started to rub off on him.

Ultimately, this led to getting leads for website development and design that allowed him to start his own business. He is still part of this group to this day which is now called Hampton Roads Innovation Collaborative (HRIC). He feels almost indebted to the group because of the network and relationships he’s been able to build over the years.

If you’re looking to start a business or have already done so, it’s in your best interest to be part of networks or groups in your industry that allow you to get out there, meet people, and go to cool events. Your network is something you will rely heavily upon. Look for groups around you that you can get involved in. You don’t have to be a board member but doing so will help you get more leads and job opportunities than if you’re sitting on the sidelines not getting as involved.

It’s easy to get into the wrong group too, one that just takes up your time but doesn’t offer any other value and doesn’t feel like a fit. But you’ll never know unless you try it.

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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.

Erik set a goal during the holidays of 2017 to run 1,000 miles. At the time he was running a little bit, about 3 miles a day 4 days in a row. It sounded like a great idea and like it would be a piece of cake but frankly, it ended up being very painful.

For the first 6 months of running, his calves constantly ached and were always tight to the point where most days he could barely walk normally. He would roll out his calves, wear a compression sock under his pants, stretch constantly but nothing helped.

Finally, on July 1st, his calves stopped hurting! Six months into the cycle, he was able to run more than ever before, further than 3 miles which is basically the minimum number he needs to run daily to reach 1,000 miles by the end of the year.

Getting this break in his running made him think about it from a business perspective. When you start something new in a business, it’s not going to be easy. If you don’t already do it regularly, then it’s a habit that you don’t yet have and will have to develop. It’s also very easy to make up an excuse to stop doing something. It may take you 6 days, 6 weeks, 6 months, even 6 years if you’re starting a business from scratch. When you start something new, you have to commit to doing it for the long haul. Anything that you’re thinking about starting, it’s going to take much longer than you anticipate to actually get to where you want to go.

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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.

When you first start a business, you are not going to get rich overnight. In episode 207 of Journey to $100 Million, Kevin talks about how he lost money during his first year in business, but never gave up. When he left his day job, all odds were against him as he was leaving behind a secured salary, benefits, and retirement plan. However, he was determined to recover his losses and pursue his new career path.

Kevin was making money from the services he was providing but ended up taking a loss due to the computers, software, and other business expenses that were required to start his company. Thankfully, the following year he was able to gain a return and ended up reinvesting it back into the business, allowing him to earn a profit in his second year of running the company.

Just because you may not have any capital, investors, etc. that doesn’t mean you can’t start a business, you don’t need all of that. All you need is the guts to start your business, and the willingness to take risks. If you work hard, get in front of the right people, and do good work, you will make it! The first-year Kevin could have been negative and just given up, but instead he decided to keep going and would not change a thing about that.

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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.

When running a business, one of the most important things you must focus on is finances. In episode 206 of Journey to $100 Million, Erik discusses how we handle our finances here at Array Digital. It sounds easy to get an accounting package like QuickBooks and just put all the numbers in - right? It is easy but you must pay attention to this information and dedicate time to it as well.

In the beginning, Erik would put in all of the numbers himself, but found it hard to find time to pay the much-needed attention to these numbers. Once he hired our executive assistant, Katya, her first priority was to manage the books and invoicing clients. She takes care of our books, enters in all of our transactions, and sends financial & revenue reports to Erik and Kevin.

This financial report is crucial because Katya is able to highlight the information that is important for Erik and Kevin to know. There are a lot of expenses and things that need to be understood in order to ensure that there is nothing that would cause concern. Not only that, the revenue report is just as important. When running a company, you must know what is going on with revenue, where it is coming from, and what the projections are.

Overall, finances are super important and easy to overlook. The key is to find someone that can help you and dedicate time to this like a bookkeeper, CTA, or your own Katya. You want to make sure this is getting done and that you are paying attention to your finances one way or another.

—

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 first started his business, he did not have any capital, debt or investors and he didn’t have access to any money, bank loans, or credit cards. In episode 205 of Journey to $100 Million, Kevin shares how he was able to create his first business without utilizing any of these factors.

Fast forward to today at Array Digital, Erik and Kevin have built their company without the financial help from outside sources. We do have lines of credit, but we have not had to rely on this credit or go into debt.

With Kevin’s business, all he needed to get started was a computer, some software, and the internet. There was no need for overhead, employees, an office, etc. He didn’t want to make the mistake of prioritizing these expenses from the beginning and slipping into debt before any profit had been made. The key is to think about how you can get your work done the easy and cheap way while still getting good results for your customers. There is no need to break the bank.

Before you start spending money on all these extra expenses, make sure that you are good at what you are doing, people are accepting your product or service, and you have the ability to make money. Once all of that is done, you can start to reinvest by getting an office and hiring employees, but you don't have to jump on that from the get-go.

—

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 is very easy for you to implement change within your company once you realize the need for it. But the challenge comes in when you must train your staff to successfully do the same. In episode 204 of Journey to $100 Million, Erik explains how he learned this valuable lesson and what he continues to do moving forward because of this experience.

Ten years ago, Erik learned this lesson the hard way when he and his wife owned a bakery. Erik was trying to make a change in the bakery to improve the business, but he was not involved in the business full-time. Due to the fact he was not in the business full-time, whenever he left the business after making a change to return to his day job, everything fell apart. This was a result of the staff not being adequately trained on the changes he was implementing.

Due to this experience, Erik became much more cautious about making changes. If he felt the change was necessary, he thinks through all the possible ramifications the change would bring and every person that would have to be trained in the new system. Here at Array Digital, we spend a lot of time training people, writing processes, and enforcing those processes on a consistent basis. If you are going to change anything at all, think about who it affects within your staff, how much training will be needed, and the process that needs to be implemented!

—

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 episode 203 of Journey to $100 Million, Kevin talks about one of the individuals that really motivated him to expedite his decision to become an entrepreneur and start his own business. This individual was a close friend of Kevin’s and one that he has not seen in a while: Ilya Pozin.

Ilya is a founder of Coplex as well as Pluto TV. At the time when Kevin was toying with the idea of starting his own business, Ilya had his own company in Virginia Beach that he started in college. Kevin was blown away by Ilya’s success, especially when he told him he would be moving to LA to pursue greater career opportunities. Seeming as though they were the same age and Kevin had just as much motivation as Ilya, he decided to take the leap to start his own business.

Kevin congratulates Ilya on all his success and gives credit to knowing that he was definitely an influence on Kevin to start his own business. If you have started your own business, there is probably someone that influenced you. Whoever it may be, it doesn’t matter, but look around you and think if there is someone that motivated you to do something bigger in life.

—

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.

Recently, we had to suspend a client due to nonpayment. In episode 202 of Journey to $100 Million, Erik explains this painful situation that left the Array Digital team perplexed.

This was a priority 1 client, meaning that they were top tier. Erik recently had a long face-to-face meeting, as he does every quarter, with this client and felt that he and the owner really connected. Three weeks after this meeting and this client had not paid their invoice. They were 35 days late and the next invoice had already come around.

Erik called both of the owners multiple times, left voicemails, sent emails, and even left messages to the administrative assistant that she said she had been passing along. Erik never heard back - not a word. So he ended up suspending the client’s services. One week later after the suspension, the client ended up paying the bill and their services were turned back on, but this situation left Erik on edge. He felt the lack of communication was peculiar, especially when we’d been forced to suspend their website and marketing initiatives.

The key takeaway here is this: if someone is trying to get in touch with you, just respond. No one wants to wait around for an email for 5 days until you have all the info you need to respond intelligently - they will think you are ignoring them. It is best when you get an email or phone call, even if you are not ready to have that conversation, to just let them know you got their message and you will get back in touch with them later. Just return the communication in one fashion or another. People appreciate it.

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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.

In episode 201 of Journey to $100 Million, Kevin dives into the experiences of starting his first business. Kevin was only 23 when he founded this company. He had no money saved, no capital investments, no loans - nothing at all to start-up his website design company. For Kevin, this experience was very challenging and scary, and he speaks on how if it was not for his wife, he probably could not have made this happen.

When he first started this company, all he had was an apartment on a street by the beach with a couple of roommates. He set up a computer with basic software and started building websites. In doing this, he formulated a concept, created his own website, and started to market himself as the website guy. At that time he still had the stability of his day job and there wasn't a lot of risk at that point, until a year later when he quit his job and dropped everything to dedicate all his time to his business.

Stay tuned into future episodes to learn more about this experience: how he was able to fund this company, the challenges that came along with it, and how much he ended up making!

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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.

Here at Array Digital, we keep very detailed, meaningful KPIs (key performance indicators). In episode 200 of Journey to $100 Million, Erik explains a specific KPI that he was unhappy with after the second quarter of the 2019 business year.

Starting in the first quarter of 2019, we created a “change in MRR” (monthly recurring revenue) KPI. This KPI measures how much our MRR increased and decreased over the quarter. At the end of quarter one, we ended the quarter at about +$8,000 - which we were thrilled with! During the second quarter, we got a little more sophisticated and split this KPI into two pieces. We created “new MRR” (new work we had gained) and “loss of MRR” (work we lost). What we found was that in the second quarter there was a shocking loss of MRR.

We gained $25k in new MRR, but we lost $21k of MRR in the same quarter. So although we were up $4k, the amount of MRR lost was inexcusable. Every time we lose a client resulting in a loss of MRR, we call a lessons learned meeting and deconstruct what happened in order to avoid that particular mistake from ever happening again.

We never want to lose that amount of revenue ever again. So, for the third quarter of 2019, we set our KPI goal for “loss of MRR” to $10k. Erik is pushing really hard to keep these clients because our sales team is constantly bringing in new work and we want to make sure we are keeping that revenue!

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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.