Journey to $100 Million: Entrepreneurship & Digital Marketing

What is better than one big piece of content? Micro content.

When you create content for your company or brand there are numerous opportunities to turn that into lots of micro content. What we mean by micro content is taking content and chopping it up into several smaller pieces of content. For example, this podcast episode is being recorded on video and audio and it's about 4 minutes long. That can be kind of long for someone to listen to or watch, especially if they’re multi-tasking. And, while we want to put out the entire episode for our audience, it's just as important to create as much micro content from it as possible. In this case that could be taking a few of the most important points from the episode and making shorter videos, videos in different aspect ratios for Instagram or Facebook, or a still picture with word overlays. All of a sudden we have numerous pieces of micro content from this 4 minute episode.

Creating content is time consuming, and editing it to put out to an audience is too. Try to find ways you can take content you're already creating and make several pieces of micro content to maximize 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.

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

We have had to hire remotely over the last few months entirely on video. We interviewed Francesca, a new member of our sales team, a guy named James out of North Carolina and now we’ve got an offer out to another employee located in Miami, Florida.

While most of our team is local, we’re almost at the halfway point where almost half of our team is remote. We want the best people with the best skills and we don’t really care where they are. We want to talk to everyone and we want to hire the best.

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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!

Something we’ve battled with for quite a while and never done is niche. We’ve been asked what we specialize in as far as industries are concerned and even though we specialize in some select services, there’s no industry that we focus on 100%. We’re always working with new clients and learning to adapt to their industry and it helps us stay on our toes and allows us to do something different.

This has probably stunted our growth a bit. We’re not niching but we’ve picked three segments, determined who our best clients are and who we get the best results for. Those tended to be in home services, medical, and law. Now that means we can get very versed in those languages, communication, and understanding of each of those kinds of businesses. Our people talk the talk of that client. If you work in tons of different industries, you constantly have to be asking questions of the client about stuff like their business, how they operate, 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.

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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!

When it comes to your business you should always think long-term. If you're a sole proprietor or you're just starting out it's easy to think you don't need to document processes because you might be the only one doing the work or there are just a few of you doing the work. But, if the goal is to one day scale the business it is important to start documenting processes early on. It might not be necessary in the beginning but it becomes a problem as new employees are hired and they don't know what the process is or who in the company knows how to do it.

It also becomes necessary when you hire an expert in their field to try to help you grow. They should start documenting their processes early on so that it can be replicated in case they decide to leave the company one day or others are hired to help them.

So always look to the future and what you need to help you scale efficiently.

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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!

Erik recently hosted a #LunchtimeLive with Brian Butler who happens to be a high school friend of Erik who has made a name for himself as a mixed martial arts agent. Think Jerry McGuire but UFC.

These LunchtimeLives dive into what different marketing techniques people have used that make them stand out in their industries and allowed them to gain some traction. We ask them what is their key to success in their industry.

What Brian said really resonated with Erik because he has a background in graphic design. He said he needed to get into some sort of physical routine so he got into mixed martial arts and the owner asked him to put on an event. The result of the event was amazing because it was marketed in a different way than most mixed martial arts events so the martial artists started approaching him asking him to be their agent.

So he brought his marketing expertise to the mixed martial arts world. He treated being an agent like being a marketer while most other agents acted as if they were lawyers. He’s doing things differently.

Think about your own marketing and how you can have the biggest impact. Try to be different from the rest of the crowd. Being like everyone else does not get you new customers.

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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!

We are hiring right now specifically a web designer, a salesperson, and a few other roles in the near future. We recently did a round of founders interviews which basically means that the team has already vetted the candidate and then the person moves onto Erik and Kevin in the interview process.

We first do a phone screening that takes about 15 minutes and if they pass that, they have an interview with the hiring manager who can then bring on other members of their team. Once they pass that step, there are about 3 remaining candidates that get moved on to the founders’ interview. By this point, the hiring manager has already confirmed that this person can do the job at hand. What Kevin and Erik are interviewing for is fit. Do they exhibit the core values that we hold?

Last week Kevin and Erik had 5 interviews and it ended up being quite tiring. By the end of it, both Erik and Kevin felt like they hadn’t accomplished a lot. But what they did that day was interview the next person that might come onto the team. That is very important. So although they didn’t get a lot of tasks done that day, they picked who they thought could do the best job and advanced the company significantly by identifying who the next person coming into the company would be.

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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!

We like to think of ourselves as a results-driven agency. When it comes to our clients and also our team, we are more concerned with outcomes than numbers.

We have an open paid time off policy at Array Digital. Some wonder how we manage that but for us it's pretty easy. We measure success by the progress made and client deliverables, instead of how long someone has been sitting at their desk working. That doesn't matter to us as much as quality of work and meeting deadlines.

With our clients it's similar. We measure our success by how our clients are doing and if they're happy. If one of our team members has found a unique way to get great results for our clients time and time again, we write that into our process and try to replicate it as much as possible. At the end of the day it's about results and doing what works.

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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!

Exclusivity can win deals but it can also kill deals.

Recently we were faced with being asked to sign an exclusivity deal with one of our current clients. An exclusivity deal means you will not work for one of your client's competitors. It can be a specific competitor by name, or it can be competitors within a geographic region. The general idea is that you will not help their competitors get ahead while you are working for them.

The advantage of the exclusivity deal is that it is meant to create a strong bond between you and your client. They essentially promise to work with you for a long time and be a great client, while you help them get more business. The downside is it can kill future deals for you, especially if one of their competitors wants to work with you, and that deal seems bigger.

One thing you can do in that case is to reaffirm your commitment with them. It doesn’t hurt to let your current client know that you've been approached by one of their competitors and reassure them of your exclusivity deal. They will likely confirm and that’s fine. You can use that as an opportunity to say you will not pursue that deal but ask if they know of anyone that could use your services. Never be afraid to ask for a referral from your current customers. If the working relationship is solid they will be happy to send work your way.

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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!

Every Friday we host a livestream on Facebook and stream it on Twitch, Twitter, and YouTube. Recently we had the pleasure of hosting Katherine Prescott on our livestream. She is the founder of voicebrew.com, which is a website that sends out regular updates on new features of Amazon Echo and Alexa.

Erik learned a couple of very valuable things from Katherine. The first is that your advertising, whether it's traditional ads, digital ads, or even your website, needs to have at least one very clear call to action (CTA). A call to action is something you want the consumer to do upon viewing your ad or visiting your site. It could be to call you, sign up for a newsletter, or fill out a contact form. The point is the CTA needs to be clear and effective. Erik was surprised to see Katherine has one CTA on her website and that’s to sign up for her newsletter. In fact, that is the only major thing on her homepage, which he thinks is pretty clever.

The other thing he learned was she has one of those pop-ups on her website directing people to sign up for the newsletter. He admitted he thinks those are annoying, and she agreed. But, she also told him that pop-up works better than any other CTA she has on her site, and she gets better subscribers out of it, who open her emails more, and stay subscribed longer.

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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!

We are now into month four of the COVID pandemic. Many people didn't really believe we would still be dealing with this four months later, Erik included. But here we are, still working from home, with no end in sight.

Before this pandemic it was easy to imagine that working from home might be like a vacation. But, Erik soon realized this was not the case. Even though he actually really likes working from home, he finds himself working a lot more these days. As he records this episode for instance, it is 6:30 p.m. and he still has a lot of work to do. He has spent most of the day on calls or in video meetings and hasn't gotten to many tasks. He also has a stack of mail that he hasn't opened yet.

How has working from home been for you? Do you find yourself working more or less? Let Erik know how it's been going for you. You can reach him on Twitter at @iamerikjolson.

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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!