Journey to $100 Million: Entrepreneurship & Digital Marketing

Recently Kevin interviewed Stephanie Messas, a lawyer based in New York City but originally from France. She helps French businesses do business in the United States.

She launched her practice last January and it’s been very busy during the pandemic. But there are certainly plans that have been put on pause just like most businesses have experienced.

—

Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

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

We’ve talked about niching in the past and it’s something we are exploring at Array Digital and at our new company, Rival Digital. The riches are in the niches.

What’s been especially interesting is a pattern: when you niche down, you plant the idea in everyone’s head of what specifically you are going after. If they happen to hear of someone who needs that particular service, they automatically think of you. In this episode, you’ll hear several examples where that’s happened with Erik and the people in his network.

—

Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

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

It's really interesting to Erik to see new entrepreneurs who start off billing by the hour. He's not quite sure why they do it but he has a few theories. He himself started off billing by the hour as a new entrepreneur. He saw so many problems with it though that he knew there had to be a better way. He moved toward billing by the project, but that had its shortcomings too. There were always issues with estimating how long a project would take, tracking time, and ultimately working for free.

One of Array Digital’s biggest turning points has been moving toward monthly recurring revenue. It eliminates all the problems with billing by the hour or project, and provides stable revenue you can count on. If you’re a service provider think about how you could move toward recurring revenue and providing ongoing services. It has been a game-changer for us.

—

Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

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

After George Floyd was murdered, there were a lot of protests around the country and we spoke internally about what that meant to us and whether we felt like we should say something publicly about it. Erik felt it was important for the company to make some sort of a statement. But he felt that if he personally came out and said something, it would automatically be making a statement for the company since the Erik J. Olson brand is very intertwined with Array Digital. He knew that making a statement could cause the company to maybe lose some clients so it had a big impact on the business.

Erik pitched it to the company, everyone supported it, and he then worked with Briana and Shannon to craft a statement that we put up on social media and on the website. And guess what the response was… Listen in to find out 😏

—

Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

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

One of the fundamental things in marketing is to know who your audience is and speak directly to them. This is something we’ve struggled with at Array Digital for a long time. We didn’t know who our ideal prospects were by industry or by the level of the position they hold at their company.

We had to look at all of our clients and figure out what kinds of titles our clients or our direct contacts had in those organizations. It fell into two big camps: owners/operators of a business or the marketing director/coordinator. We usually come across these kinds of titles at bigger organizations where you’re not going to get a meeting with the owner.

In an ideal situation, we want to have messaging that speaks to each of those personas. If you’re talking to an owner, you’ll have different pain points than for a marketing director. They have different concerns but a lot of the time we can’t separate the two and have to speak to both at the same time. So we have to find what they have in common: they want marketing that will advance the business.

Take a look at the different people that hire you and look at what concerns that you address for 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.

—

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

One of the things that takes up a lot of Erik’s time - and probably yours too - is meetings. He plans his days around the meetings by starting out looking at his calendar and seeing what meetings he has coming up. Those he has to attend and everything else he has to get done have to fit around those meetings. When a large majority of your days are taken up by meetings, you want to ensure that the people you are meeting with are there.

In order to ensure that, Erik sends out meeting reminders. Tune into this episode to find out the different ways he does this and how you can do it too.

—

Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

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

Ever since Array Digital came to be we have given away a free website to a deserving nonprofit every year. We do this for several reasons but the main one is because we want to give back to the community that has helped us so much. It's good for company morale, and it gives us something to look forward to.

As we have dealt with Coronavirus this year, we have decided to focus on giving away a website to a medical nonprofit organization this time. We have received submissions for the giveaway and we have gone through them. Soon it will be time for us to announce the winner. So stay tuned in the next couple of weeks to find out who our winner is for this year's giveaway.

—

Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

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

Erik hates mail. Whether email or snail mail, both are terrible and it’s a constant struggle for him. Erik likes to keep a clean inbox which means he archives stuff when he doesn’t need to see it anymore but has addressed it. What’s nice about archiving is that he can bring it back up if he ever needs to.

Snail mail is a totally different thing. It lands on your desk and all of a sudden, it’s urgent and requires your attention to get rid of it. But you can only do that if you actually give it some attention and do what needs to be done.

—

Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

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

Kevin recently got to speak with Joel Ankney, a Virginia Beach-based lawyer who focuses on business and entrepreneurship.

Joel helps his clients by taking on the stress and anxiety that comes with creating a brand new business because he’s done this a lot that he can help to put their minds at ease. He’s been around a long time and has done a lot of deals with larger law firms in addition to much work with entrepreneurs in his own practice. His approach is to help his clients understand what’s going on and make it clear without all the lawyer jargon.

Personally, Joel has done what he calls the Pandemic Pivot. Because the pandemic has impacted his clients, it has, in turn, impacted him to a degree. The pandemic helped him, like many others, to realize that he didn’t need his main office and could cut back on expenses in that way. He has a smaller office in a coworking space and it’s been a great pivot for him and his practice.

—

Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

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

Straight out of college Erik started his career as a civil engineer. He got an idea for a software project so he started doing that on nights and weekends. Eventually freelancing in software development turned into a full-time job which later required hiring help. When Erik and Kevin got together to form Array Digital it was with the intention of offering digital marketing in addition to creating web and mobile apps.

Digital marketing is not something Erik really understood so he decided to spend an entire year learning everything he could about it. He read books, blogs, listened to podcasts, and absorbed everything he could on the subject. Together with Kevin, and Jake, who we had hired to be our digital marketing specialist, Erik learned the value of digital marketing, and that was enough to turn the company around to focus on just that.

—

Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

—

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