Journey to $100 Million: Entrepreneurship & Digital Marketing

Kevin has recently been talking about how he plans to guard his time in order to better prioritize his tasking. In episode 189 of Journey to $100 Million, Kevin talks about how he plans to increase his work efficiency through a useful time management method called time blocking. Kevin does not have this strategy fully incorporated into his everyday schedule yet, but he knows what it is, how to use it, and plans to implement this strategy ASAP!

Time blocking is a type of scheduling method that allows you to block off fixed portions of time to work on specific tasks. For example, in a previous episode Kevin talked about how he needs sales to be his main focus for now. With time blocking, Kevin would set aside a specific time to solely focus on sales and prospecting. For him, he is going to have time blocked on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (Monday and Fridays are not the best times to sell and prospect). During these days, he is going to set aside a specific amount of time every week, on a recurring basis, to focus on everything sales (prospecting, pipeline meetings, etc.). Doing this allows Kevin to focus solely on the task at hand, and not worry about anything else at all.

The #1 thing you need to understand before you start time blocking is that you need to respect your calendar. If a time block is on your calendar - you need to fully respect that timeframe, and do exactly what you say you need to focus on. If you are strict with your time blocking, you can manage your time much more efficiently. The point is to focus on one task in that period of time and nothing else, which will help you get work done that must be finished, and allow you to avoid work that is not as critical to your success. If followed strictly, you can reduce wasted time, while also focusing on work that is of a higher priority. For time blocking to be successful, you must stick to it!

Kevin plans to start implementing this time blocking tactic by coming up with a whole calendar of time blocks, while also working in the meetings that are already in place. If you have a tool or tip on what works for you to focus on the important tasks, and makes your day more efficient - reach out! You can hit Kevin up through email: [email protected], or reach out on Facebook or LinkedIn!

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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 the 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 Erik continues to do more speaking engagements, he realized the need for some sort of contract for these extra business ventures. In episode 188, listen in as Erik explains the contractual process he has created for these engagements, and his reasoning behind it.

Erik felt the need for a speaking engagement contract because he wanted to set expectations for the customers he plans on speaking for. Erik wants zero ambiguity between him and the customer, and aims to make it clear what the customer will receive from him. Within this contract, Erik lists out all the different things the customer should expect from Erik based on the conversations he has had with them. Things like how Erik will promote, when he is going to arrive, and the talk he plans to give are included in this contract. Erik’s goal is to handle these speaking engagements the same as any business transaction.

This contract is about one or two pages, has a signature block, and that's about it. Erik wants to keep these contracts simple for now. All that is done, is Erik sends the contact as a PDF by email and gains a signature from the customer, and countersigns as well to ensure what was talked about is agreed upon by both parties. Once he gets the contract back, he then knows everyone understands what the commitment is, and must stick by it.

If you’re doing extra activities where you have to commit to something, especially when there is money exchanged, Erik encourages you to come up with a simple engagement contract. This has helped Erik already, because someone that Erik spoke to about a speaking engagement never signed the engagement, thus Erik did not block off his schedule, and no time was wasted. These contracts help confirm that people are serious about hiring Erik for speaking engagements, just like any other business opportunity!

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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 the 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 187 of Journey to $100 million, listen in to Kevin as he shares why it is important for him to guard and protect his time. Kevin’s time is very precious as the founder and CMO of Array Digital, where there is so much to do, with only so many hours in the day.

There is not any particular reason Kevin plans on figuring out how he can guard his time, but instead because he is tired of working full days (as well as nights and mornings), and still not being able to get to his important tasks. Kevin realized the need to focus on tasks that are not only important to himself, but the company as a whole. Not only that, but work is not all that is important - Kevin wants to ensure he is also leaving room for family time as well.

So, Kevin is going to start putting different processes in place to ensure he is utilizing his time in the best way possible. Kevin understands that there are certain things that he’s gotta be working on - and right now that is sales. But, if you look at Kevin’s day in a nutshell, there is a lot of administrative tasks, meetings, and client interactions that he has to take care of as well. All of those things are important, but there is not a whole lot of Kevin actually doing sales, calling prospects, or sitting down with Glen to hammer through a list of top prospects that we want to go through - which is the priority right now.

Time can get away from you really quickly and the next thing you know *boom* the day is over. It is important to block out and guard your time so that you can prioritize the tasks you must take care of. Be on the lookout for future episodes of Kevin talking about what he plans to do to guard and block his time in order to focus on the tasks that will help Array Digital continue to grow!

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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 the 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.

How do you manage all of the things that your team needs to get done? In episode 186 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in to Erik as he explains how we track our tasking here at Array Digital, and how we previously transitioned to a new software. A task tracker is a piece of software that tracks all of the tasks that need to be done within a company, and is essential to any business.

Going back to when Array Digital was a software development only company, we used a software called GitHub - which was perfect for our individual tasking when building software. As we transitioned into a digital marketing agency, we started to hack together different solutions and found the need for recurring issues, which GitHub did not offer. We did not want to switch task trackers if we did not need to, so we implemented a lot of processes in order to ensure that the tasks (most recurring) that we needed for operations could be completed.

After we fully transitioned to a digital marketing agency, we realized that we were jumping through a lot of hoops in order to get our tasks in order. We knew it was time to find a task tracker that was perfect for us. Erik gave this assignment to Jamal, our project manager, to research and find a new task tracker that was perfect for Array Digital. Jamal recommended switching to ASANA, and that’s exactly what we did!

Jamal laid out an entire plan to switch to ASANA. This plan was complex because we had to move every task from our old task tracker as well as the other systems we had put in place for our recurring tasks. After a great deal of work, Jamal got us all set up in ASANA. He set a date for us to switch over, and set up a training session for the team to learn this new software. After the switch date, we never used our previous task tracker again.

When you switch task trackers it can be very painful and complex, like if you were to switch accounting systems. Erik recommends making sure your existing tracking system is being used to its maximum capacity before switching to a new system. Switching task trackers has the possibility of being very bad and disruptive to your business, so you want to put off switching until you absolutely need to. The key here is to be patient when switching systems - and when you do, assign a team member full responsibility, and ensure they will make it happen properly without wrecking your company!

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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 the 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 a previous episode, Kevin talked about how the buzz we have created at Array Digital had a positive effect on our sales, but that is not the only aspect of our business that our brand awareness has helped! In episode 185, Kevin talks about the impacts on recruiting as a result of our brand buzz.

Recently, we posted a video that Erik recorded to our social media platforms stating that Array Digital is looking to hire a sales professional. The video explained the position while also stating some requirements that we are looking for within this position. We are currently trying to grow our sales team, and knew that this could jumpstart our process.

Within hours, this post got tons of exposure, with a large amount of likes and shares. We did not pay for an ad to boost these posts, all we did was post this video to our platforms, and we had tons of individuals reaching out to us! Not only that, but these resumes we are starting to receive are high caliber sales individuals that have the potential to be great assets to the Array Digital team. A lot of these individuals even have jobs that they are still in, but are willing to leave these jobs to come work for us!

This goes back to the buzz we have created. These individuals want to work for us so bad because of what they have heard and think about our company. What we are doing within our community is gaining traction, and it is really starting to show. We have candidates that are reaching out to work for us even when we are not hiring! They are so eager to work for us, they are just waiting to see when we have open positions. Our buzz is the fuel to this attention, and it’s all about what we are doing out in our industry.

What are you doing on the buzz front in your company, and is it affecting other aspects of your business? Are people raising their hand wanting to leave their company for you because you are doing extraordinary work? We are starting to see this happen to us here at Array Digital, and are excited to see where it takes us.

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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 the 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.

Everyone once and awhile, Erik will have our team here at Array Digital post to social media on his behalf. In episode 184 of Journey to $100 Million, Erik explains some issues we’ve had dealing with Erik’s social media postings. In the beginning, Erik would have our team post every once in a while. The team would post things like if he had a video created, they would post that on his behalf. But, over time, Erik started to ramp up the quantity of social media content he pushed out on his personal brand account.

Erik’s personal brand is on four main channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. As we ramped up the quantity of this content, Erik was not able to keep up with all the postings - and now we have a full time team member that takes care of all social media for us. Now, our social media expert is doing a lot of Erik’s social media posting for him. Most of these posts consist of a regurgitation of something Erik has already produced. We even use these Journey episodes as content on social media as well, creating a piece of content called an “audiogram.” Overall, the posts going out on Erik’s channels are something Erik has already said, done, recorded, or written about.

There have been some instances where a team member posted on Erik’s behalf in his “voice.” What that means, is that the team member would basically pretend to be Erik. A post like this would consist of a statement that would be posted on social media, and if you read it you would have no idea if it was actually Erik that said it, or someone else. But the implication was that he was the one saying this, and that is something that Erik felt uncomfortable with.

We have now learned to not do this anymore. Erik is completely fine with someone effectively repurposing content that he has created and putting it out in the world in a slightly different form - that is of great help. But, he does not want someone to pretend like they are him. It is not authentic, and Erik might not even agree with the content that is posted! This content could be a stat that Erik doesn’t know is true, could be contradicting, or maybe he does not even know what it means! Erik’s personal brand is just that, HIS personal brand! Everything that goes out on his platforms should be information that he 100% agrees with, and knows about.

The bulk of what Erik has on his social media is coming from previous content, and he is comfortable with that, he just needs a little help getting it out there from time-to-time. If you have someone running your content, Erik highly suggests that you do the same thing, especially for a personal brand. For a company brand, it is a little bit different. But for your personal brand, when someone is speaking on your behalf, make sure they are speaking your words, and not words that were created without your knowledge!

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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 the 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 a previous episode, Kevin talked about all we have done to create buzz for Array Digital within our operating area. In episode 183 of Journey to $100 Million, Kevin talks about how this buzz has impacted our sales! Creating awareness for your company is no easy feat, but the rewards you gain are well worth the hard work and dedication.

As we follow along our sales process, we are starting to see that prospects are recognizing our company from our podcast, social media, meetups, and all of the other business ventures we have capitalized on. Even our sales manager Glen experienced this while prospecting right when he started working for our company! This prospect knew who Array Digital was because Erik had previously invited them to Marketers Anonymous, and it garnered attention. This individual felt more comfortable with us, and knew where we stood within our industry. Because of this, it was very easy for Glen to talk to this prospect and get a meeting set up.

We are starting to realize that this buzz we have created is helping us out on the sales front. Take our Marketers Anonymous meetup for example. Most of our clients happen to be marketing directors and managers. These individuals are usually the decision makers in the bigger organizations, while the owners are out of the picture. Marketers Anonymous allows for us to meet a lot of these marketing directors and managers due to the atmosphere we have created, while also impressing them with this meetup we have created. While at this meetup, it also gives us the opportunity to get in front of these new prospects to warm them up, gaining leads and referrals.

Not only that, but when companies are ready to make a decision in their marketing, we are starting to see that they come to us because we are fresh in their mind. When you do good work, it gets noticed, but you have to put it out there!

This attention is only going to increase, because we are not slowing down - we are constantly pumping out this content! It is definitely a win for our sales team when you are able to walk in a room, and the prospect has already heard about our company, knows who we are, and see us as experts in our field. The buzz we have created has been a huge help, and we are excited to see what else is headed our way because of 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 the 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 been pleased to be disappointed? This is kind of an odd question, but in episode 182 of Journey to $100 Million, Erik talks about a situation where he was disappointed, but came to the realization that this specific feeling of disappointment was actually a good thing!

We previously had gotten a deal for a relatively small amount of money: $1,200/month. This was a good deal, but it just wasn’t that big compared to the deals we had recently been getting. We had recently been getting multi-thousand dollar deals (per month) upwards of $10k a month from certain clients. So for us, getting a $1,200 a month deal for a project with a year long minimum engagement felt like a disappointment. It just didn’t seem like the size of projects that we had been getting.

This was interesting to Erik, because after he got over his initial disappointment of getting this new contract (which didn’t make any sense to him,) he started to embrace it! Erik realized the reason he was disappointed was because it had meant that Array Digital had transitioned from doing small projects for smaller clients, to bigger projects for bigger clients. At that moment, Erik realized that it was a good thing that he was disappointed, because it meant that we were no longer settling for small projects! That being said, we will still take on small projects, we are not cutting them off. But, we are going to start to do larger projects more often, that are also more meaningful to us.

At the end of the day, Erik was very happy and pleased with the fact that he was disappointed. This meant that Array Digital was growing as an organization and felt more confident as to the kinds of projects we could receive. Once we felt more confident in what we were doing, Erik knew that meant we would inevitably get bigger deals. We knew we were going to get bigger clients because we are ready for bigger clients - and that is exactly what has been happening!

This was a very interesting situation for Erik to see unfold. A year or two ago, a $1,200/month deal would have been seen as a big deal for us. We would have thought that this was a big dollar amount in the past, but now it does not have the same allure as it used to. We are getting used to gaining these bigger deals, and we are eager for more! So now, it is slightly disappointing when small deals come through, but we are very happy with this disappointment.

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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 the 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.

Are you creating buzz for your company within your community? In episode 181 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in as Kevin explains how we have done absolutely everything we can to create a name for Array Digital in our operating area. The region we mainly service is made up of 7 cities, and is referred to as the Hampton Roads area. We have done everything we can to hammer away and create a buzz about our company within our community in order to get the word out about who we are, and what we do!

One of the ways we started to create buzz, was by creating a bold mission statement. Our mission is to dominate digital marketing in the Hampton Roads area. We have made this statement public, and it is completely out there including our social media platforms as well as our website. Not only that, but we created an even bolder vision statement. Within the next 10 years, we hope to grow to $100 million in recurring revenue. Stating this vision is one of the many ways we hope to stand out amongst our competition.

A couple other tactics we have used here locally includes a nonprofit giveaway contest that we run. What we do is give away a website and marketing guidance for free to a nonprofit organization that wins our giveaway contest. This giveaway is for a good cause, and we love giving back to our community - but it also creates a little buzz and gets people to know more about us. Additionally, Erik and Kevin apply for awards. Erik and Kevin apply for these awards personally as entrepreneurs, as well as apply for company awards within the industry. We have won lots of awards on both sides, and that has helped in the Array Digital branding.

Another great way that we have created awareness within our industry, is by Kevin and Erik holding board positions for multiple organizations within our industry. Erik and Kevin hold positions on boards like The Entrepreneurs Organization and the HRIC (Hampton Roads Innovative Collaborative) which allow them to make even more connections within our industry! Not only that, but this podcast/flash briefing you are listening to right now is another way we have created buzz! Journey to $100 Million gives Array Digital another outlet to get out into the world and talk about what we do!

Furthermore, Erik, Kevin, and even our team members speak at multiple events! This allows us to get in front of large groups and talk about what we know, whether it be entrepreneurship or digital marketing. Erik and Kevin are both open to speaking on a regular basis, so send them an invite! But, we don’t just love speaking, we also hold meetups of our own called Marketers Anonymous! At this meetup, we bring in expert speakers around the area to talk about marketing and new trends within the industry! This has been huge for us, and has allowed us to get in front of people that we want to do business with and creates even more awareness on a much higher scale!

There are many more things we do on a regular basis to create buzz like our expansion to Orlando, or our 100-150 social media posts a week. We are doing just about everything we can to create this awareness so that we can continue to grow as an organization. While we implement all these different strategies in order to talk about ourselves, we are not just all talk. We are walking the walk, and out there doing every single thing we say. Are you doing anything to turn some heads and get someone to notice you?It has been huge for us, and Kevin highly recommends 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 the also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer

Here at Array Digital, we have what’s called a KPI dashboard. KPI stands for key performance indicators, and this dashboard is a collection of those KPIs. In episode 180 of Journey to $100 Million, Erik shares with you all the benefits that come along with measuring and tracking your performance through KPIs.

Every Wednesday morning we look at and review our company’s KPIs after spending Tuesday afternoon gathering the data. We have a spreadsheet that is shown for the whole company at once, and it has about a dozen KPIs on there. These KPIs vary from things like how much new revenue we’ve collected over the last week, how much we’ve lost, NPS (net promoter score), the number of times we have posted on social media, and a whole bunch of other stats.

This started about a year and a half ago. Back then, we did not understand what KPIs were important, and what were not, but over time we continually refined our KPIs, and every quarter we updated our goals. We also have these KPIs color coded to where if we are below our goal, the KPI is automatically turns red, and if we have reached/exceeded our goal, the KPI turns green. What we noticed is that our KPIs always start off red at the beginning of each quarter, due to our goals being stretch goals. We are constantly stretching our goals in order to get better, stronger, and faster.

Over the course of the quarter, those red KPIs start to turn green and stay green if we do everything right, but sometimes they go back to red and toggle for a while before stabilizing as green. Recently, for the first time ever, our board was 100% green! This was very exciting and surprising for Erik because these goals were stretch goals, but also because the team was excited about achieving these goals as well. He was overjoyed to know that these KPI goals meant something to the entire team.

If we did not have a KPI dashboard, Erik is not sure how we would be able to measure success. We have defined success on a recurring operational basis based on this KPI dashboard. If something is important, and we want it done right, it must go on the KPI dashboard - because if it does not, we tend to ignore it. Not everything will go up there, but the things that we want to improve upon and are important to us, will! If it’s important, we put it on the dashboard!

If you do not have a KPI dashboard, start thinking about some of these numbers you can measure, and measure easily. You do not want to have KPIs that take a week to calculate every time you collect data. Think about numbers you can easily grasp like how much you billed last week, how many complaints you got, the amount of phone calls you receive - the opportunities are endless! Start collecting this data, and show your team what is going on! Your team and business will greatly benefit from this.

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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 the 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.