Journey to $100 Million: Entrepreneurship & Digital Marketing

Erik did not expect it but not having a niche has worked out to our advantage.

We are in the middle of the Coronavirus crisis and it has impacted everyone. Many businesses have been forced to shut down, and others have slowed down significantly. Some industries are taking a hard hit, like travel, restaurants, bars, entertainment venues, and retailers. Others are doing really well, like accountants, lawyers, and medical offices.

For a long time Erik considered not having a niche one of our downfalls. Everyone everywhere told him that we should have a niche. “Niches are where the riches are”, he was told. He believed this, but not having a strong background in any particular niche put him and Kevin in a position where they never knew what niche to settle on. They segmented on types of industries, like retailers, home services, medical offices, and lawyers, but not one specific industry.

Today they are thankful they didn't. Had they picked a niche that isn't doing well during this crisis we would be in big trouble. Looking back Erik feels he should have known this all along since he lost money in the stock market years ago when his investments weren't diversified.

Erik now believes diversification is important - whether it’s the stock market or client base.

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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!

Going live is something that we started doing on a regular basis a couple of months ago. We started doing a live stream every Friday at noon and we called it lunchtime live streams. Every week one or two of us will get in front of the camera and talk about a different topic. These days we might be talking about the Coronavirus or marketing or how to market during the Coronavirus crisis. We talk about things that are important, relevant, and relatable to the business or marketing world.

Sometimes we'll have guests on our live stream, as is the case this week. This is a great way to present different points of view and also double your audience. We have our audience and they have theirs. It's an effective way to reach both and really get some exposure.

If you've never gone live you should consider doing it. These days when most people are cooped up at home, it's a good way to meet with people, have people get to know you, hear your message, and learn what you're about. 

Think about how going live could help you and your audience.

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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!

Thanks to the Coronavirus the purpose of social media changed drastically overnight.

At the time of this recording, in March of 2020, we are in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic. Before now you could say the purpose of social media for a business was to put out content and engage with its audience. Today, in the middle and this pandemic, social media is serving a very different purpose.

Today it is being used as a tool for mass communication. Websites only work for communicating information if someone goes to your website. Email newsletters only work if you’ve invested the time to create one with a big following. Nothing serves up information quite the way social media does - from informing the public about what's going on with your business, whether you're open or closed, whether you need the public’s help, to using it as a tool to communicate with employees. For many businesses social media is the only method of communication right now.

Quite frankly social media has become essential for communicating important information. That's why it's so important to invest the time to grow your audience so it reaches as many people as possible. History tells us this will not be the last time something like this happens. There will always be something serious that happens that will require being able to put out a message quickly and effectively.

Invest in social media!

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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!

Running a business can be very challenging. Oftentimes you have to make hard decisions and sometimes you have to make them quickly. During this time of the Coronavirus crisis, we have had to make some of those decisions. With some of our clients going out of business and others having to shut down for the unforeseeable future, we have had to make decisions to help keep the company going.

Erik and Kevin quickly decided to make small cuts in order to avoid deep cuts. They decided to cut back on software that isn't essential to our operations, cash awards for our monthly staff award winner, company lunches, and IRA company matches.   They weren't decisions that were made lightly but they were necessary. Cuts like this avoid deep cuts like having to let go of employees. That's what we want to avoid.

When tough times hit it's important to make decisions quickly. It could make the difference between small cuts now or deep cuts later on.

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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!

Email is great for communicating on a daily basis, but when you have an important message to get out email isn't always enough.

At the time of this recording, we are in the second week of the Coronavirus pandemic. Early on, when it was apparent that we were all going to have to make some major changes as a result of the Coronavirus, Erik decided to get a message out to our clients. He had Jake record a video of him with that message. He then asked Katya to email the clients with the link to the video on YouTube. She used HubSpot to get the email out quickly and to have insight on the open rate. The day after sending the email she reported to Erik that only a small portion of the recipients actually read the email or clicked the link to watch the video he recorded. So Erik decided to text the message to the 70+ client point of contact we have. A few days later he was happy to hear from a couple of clients who had obviously watched his video based on the question they had for him.

The point is when you have an important message to get out, email isn't enough.  Many things can cause an email not to go through. It isn't good enough to just say you sent the email, you need to verify your message got through. Text, call and follow up. That's effective communication.

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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 has never been a big fan of discounting his rates. He is a strong believer that when you set a price for something you should stick to it. In fact, we have written it into the sales process that we will not discount our rates. We've done it in the past and often it ended up causing problems down the road.

At the time of this recording in March of 2020, we are in the middle of the Coronavirus crisis. This is unlike any time we’ve ever seen before and it's requiring us to re-evaluate business. Erik recently looked at our competitors' social media posts and found that many of them haven't posted since all of this started, or they’ve re-posted the information everyone else seems to be posting about, like washing your hands and funny pictures of telecommuting. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of action geared toward getting new customers. Erik thinks this is a mistake.

Erik is super focused on getting new business right now. As a result we have decided to offer our first month of service fees FREE to any new client who signs with us now. We've never done anything like this before but we think it's the right time, while the economy gets back on its feet. We are appropriately calling it the Array Digital Emergency Stimulus Package. We're going to keep going and we hope others will join us.

What do you think about our plan? Is it a good idea or not? Let Erik know 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!

Erik has mentioned many times in this podcast he's a big fan of Twitter. It's his social media platform of choice for business purposes. He's very active on there and over time it has paid off.

Erik regularly has public conversations with people on Twitter but oftentimes it will then move into direct messages. He believes that's where the magic happens. That's where leads are created and more meaningful conversations take place.

With so many new followers every day, and many conversations taking place, it's sometimes hard to keep track of who needs to be replied to. One way he has simplified this for himself is by using Zapier. Erik is a big fan of Zapier for everything it does. He has talked about it on this podcast numerous times.

The way he uses it for his direct messages is he has Zapier create a task for him in our daily task manager (Asana) anytime he receives a new direct message on Twitter. The task contains a hyperlink to the direct message in Twitter. He clicks on the link to take him to the direct message where he can then respond. Automating these tasks ensures he will respond to every direct message, which is important for any entrepreneur looking to get leads.

Think about what open loops you have in your processes and think about how you can automate them in order to close them. Zapier is a great resource for 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.

—

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 has been advising colleagues and listeners to communicate with followers on social media through direct messages. It's something he has been doing a lot himself and he finds it very productive. The question he often gets from those he recommends this to though is, “Isn’t it awkward? What do you say?” He believes it's no more awkward than striking up a conversation with someone at a networking event. It's the same idea with the same end goal in mind.

When people ask him what they should say he simply tells them they should say what they would say if they were talking to someone in person. In other words, if you were meeting someone for the first time you would probably say hi, you would probably tell them your name, you might ask what they do, and let them know what you do. Social media direct messages aren't much different. As Erik’s good friend Zack Miller would say, “Just say hi.” It doesn’t have to be awkward.

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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.

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

Although Erik is part of numerous professional organizations there were a couple of questions that he had about scaling an agency that he couldn't get answers to from those organizations. That's when he turned to a Mastermind program for digital marketing agency owners. He joined this organization earlier in the year, along with Kevin, and it's been very beneficial to the both of them.

The first question he had was about the role of sales within operations. He had a gut feeling about how involved sales should be within operations, and many times his gut feeling is the right way to go, but he wanted reassurance. He found that within the Mastermind program.

The other question he has, which he has not asked yet, is whether we should be going after bigger brand name clients as we scale the business or if we should continue to pursue smaller owner-operator type businesses. Again Erik has a hunch as to which would be better but he would like the input of other agency owners who have been there.

It's great to be involved in different types of professional organizations but Erik recommends looking for Mastermind programs in your specific industry. They can offer you insight into your specific issues.

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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.

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

Array Digital is Erik’s third company. His first business consisted of him being a third-tier subcontractor for the Navy. All of his revenue came from one client and his client wasn't the decision maker. Whenever something needed addressing it would have to go up the chain of command to the decision maker. When the project was eventually awarded to another company it put Erik out of business. That's when he learned the importance of diversification in the client base.

Diversification is important in the number of clients but also the industries those clients serve. Ideally you want to have numerous clients that pay smaller amounts rather than a handful of clients that pay you large sums of money. That way if you ever lose one client or a couple you stand a far better chance I'm going on without them.

These days, the way Array Digital is set up, we could lose our biggest client and still be okay. Erik regularly checks on the health and diversification of our client list to make sure no one client or industry provides the bulk of our revenue.

Think about your client base and whether its diversity is good for business longevity.

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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.

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