Journey to $100 Million: Entrepreneurship & Digital Marketing

In this episode Erik talks about a book he just finished listening to called Never Split the Difference. It was written by Chris Voss, a retired FBI hostage negotiator. Erik has been listening to more audiobooks as he has been working out a lot. He likes exercising and learning something new at the same time. There were two main takeaways from this particular book:

First, when negotiating a deal with someone, and they are asking for more than you are willing to give, let them know the problem they are causing for you and ask them how to solve it. An example would be you are trying to sell someone a website for $10,000. They want you to do it for $5,000. Instead of going back and forth ask them, “How do you expect me to do that? How do you expect me to be able to pay my people”, etc.? This puts the problem solving in their lap. They may offer suggestions but you keep asking them how you can do that.

The second takeaway is when someone asks you to do something you repeat back the last couple of words they said in the form of a question. An example is someone asks you to build a website cheap. You reply with the question, “cheap”? This does two things: iit acknowledges what they said and then forces them to elaborate on what they mean by cheap, in this case.

Overall, this book was a good read. In fact Erik listened to it twice to really soak up the information. He 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 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!

In December 2019 Erik started dedicating two hours every morning to write his first book. At the time of recording this podcast episode it is now mid January 2020. Erik has been writing pretty consistently and is up to about 75,000 words in his book. He has a few more sections left to write. The goal is to have the finished book be about 50,000 words so in the end he will have to trim down the book considerably and leave only the best 50,000 words. Once he is done writing he will edit it himself once or twice, trim down on the wording, and then send it to an editor. He anticipates having the book complete by the Summer or Fall of 2020.

The purpose of the book is to chronicle the journey of getting his business to $1 million a year in revenue. This is a major milestone as statistics show that 96% of businesses never make it to $1 million of annual revenue. Not only is $1 million a cool sounding number, but it is statistically very hard for businesses to achieve. Erik wants to help other entrepreneurs by telling the story of what it took to get to $1 million in revenue and the many lessons learned along the way.

This podcast covers many of those points, but the book will go into detail about everything it took to get there.

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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 in a new year now and that got Erik thinking about New Year's resolutions. He was recently talking to people about his 2019 resolutions and what he would be doing in 2020. When asking others about their New Year's resolutions he noticed often times they responded jokingly. It was almost as if they didn't believe what they were saying at that moment.

Erik doesn't really understand why people lie to themselves when it comes to New Year's resolutions. He doesn't understand why someone would make a resolution to improve some aspect of their life and not mean it. It's one thing to lie to someone else but why lie to yourself? He doesn't understand why someone would go through the ritual every year of making resolutions they don’t really intend to keep.

Do you lie to yourself about New Year's resolutions? If so, let Erik know why so he can understand. You can find 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.

—

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!

Today we have a guest speaker, Tatsuya Nakagawa (aka Tats).

Between 2006 and 2008, Tats and his business partner wrote a book about creating strategies to become successful on new product innovations. They got a testimonial from the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, the perfect person for the testimonial.

But Tats felt he messed up by not promoting the book enough and missed an opportunity to help his business grow and increase his contacts. Why? Because he’s always been fairly shy and introverted. He’s always found different ways to accomplish his marketing goals but this time it didn’t work for him.

Entrepreneurship is about your ability to fail publicly but to move forward with continued enthusiasm for what you’re doing. When you first start a company, no one knows who you are until you start growing, getting more media coverage, and hiring more and more employees. If you don’t like that, you’ll naturally do things that counteract that and it’s going to become a problem.

Since then, Tats has worked on being in the spotlight and being the center of attention whether it be met with positive or negative repercussions. Every business is going to need that spokesperson who is able to take on that role head-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.

—

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!

A good part of our monthly revenue comes from client ads spend. This is client money that we use to buy ads on Google and Facebook. In the past we used a debit card to make these media purchases. The debit card was linked to the checking account where all the client ad spend sits.

One day we met with our American Express representative to talk about things. We have had an American Express credit card that we use to pay for things we need for the company. Our representative asked if we use the credit card for our client ad spend. Erik told her we didn't. She asked him why not. He replied that it wasn't really our money to spend so he felt more comfortable paying for the ads directly with a debit card then getting a big bill and paying it later. He asked the representative what the benefit would be to use a credit card and she pointed out a kind of obvious fact - that we would accumulate points that could be used for travel.

Since that conversation we now have another American Express card that we use solely for client ad spend. The Google and Facebook expenses quickly add up on that card but the money is always there in the client ad spend account to pay the bill. The points have really added up too. We're up to about 450,000 points. Those are points we can use to travel just about anywhere for free. It really opens up the possibilities of meeting new high value prospects face to face they are not nearby.

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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!

Here at Array Digital we love the automation tool we use called Zapier. We use it for everything. Recently however, Erik discovered a new program that might be better than Zapier and is way more powerful. It's called Integromat. He found out about this program when he was looking for a program that would send a daily email to our new clients letting them know where we were in the onboarding process. It would require taking information from our daily task manager, Asana, and putting it into a customized email sent through Gmail. He was not able to find a way to accomplish this in Zapier so he started to look elsewhere.

Erik knew this would require some sort of custom software, but having a long background in software development himself, he knew he didn't want to pay custom software prices. So he went on Upwork.com to look for a freelancer that could help. He found a programmer in LA that was up for the challenge. He was able to accomplish the task within a couple of days and only charged a few hundred dollars.

We now have a robust automated email process for our new clients. Erik strongly recommends you check out Integromat.com to see what it could do for you.

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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!

Today's guest host is Whitney Duenas, fellow podcaster of Bold Hustle Podcast and owner of Barre by the Bay. Barre By the Bay is a boutique fitness studio in Virginia.

One of the first things that came up in opening the studio was figuring out whether to make the instructors employees or independent contractors. This is something that Whitney discussed with her business lawyer. They went over some questions and the pros and cons of each.

Whitney realized one the benefits of being an independent contractor is a higher earning potential as it is easier to earn more if they have the ability to work at various studios. Another advantage is they have the freedom to create their own curriculums, procedures and uniforms. Another benefit is working in a smaller studio with smaller class sizes, and more individualized attention.

One of the cons is financial instability as the instructors don't have a set paycheck. Other cons are having more responsibilities over filing their own taxes and not always having subbing opportunities.

In the end it is best to discuss matters like these with a business lawyer. They can help you see the pros and cons to each situation and help you think about how your business may be impacted in the future by hiring independent contractors versus employees.

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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!

Shortly before Erik and Kevin merged to form Array Digital, they were working for a mutual client. At one point that client asked them to travel up to Rockville, MD for a meeting. As soon as Erik read that line in the email he began to dread the idea and think about the two days it would surely take to get it done. Then he read the second line. It said that a private plane had been arranged for them. That changed his mindset very quickly.

Erik had never been in a private plane before so it made a pretty big impression.

The morning of the meeting he was to arrive at the airport at 7 a.m. Upon arrival, getting through the terminal was a piece of cake. There were no security lines to deal with and breakfast food was made available. Erik and Kevin were escorted onto the tarmac, and up the steps to the private plane. It was a quick 45 minute flight up to Rockville. Once they landed a private car picked them up and took them to the meeting site. The meeting lasted about three hours and then they were driven back to the airport. On the flight back the co-pilot served a full meal and drinks. Erik and Kevin were blown away. Erik was home by 2 p.m that day - much earlier than he anticipated.

Erik and Kevin now joke about the day they get their own private plane. Erik thinks it would be a nice reward for themselves once they hit their $100 million a year goal. They might not actually buy a plane because they're very expensive, but renting one out as needed would be pretty darn cool.

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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!

Today's episode is a shout-out to our podcast listener Craig Dewart. Erik connected with Craig on Twitter through direct messages. As a result of those messages Craig was introduced to this podcast. Craig offered to leave a review for the podcast. Erik sent him the link to Amazon to leave the review, and that's when he found out that Craig is in the UK. (This podcast is heard all over the world, in English-speaking countries). Craig had to use the UK's version of Amazon in order to leave the review. In any case, Erik was very grateful to Craig and wanted to give him a shout out.

We get a lot of feedback on the podcast but not a ton of reviews. When someone takes the time out of their day to leave a great review we really appreciate it. It validates what we're doing and all the hard work that goes into it. So thank you Craig. We appreciate you.

You can find Craig on Twitter at @craigd0412.

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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!

Two years ago we started a holiday stand down period. What this means is that operations continue as usual, but the team does it all from home. We had noticed that business slows down considerably between Christmas and New Year's, and likewise the need for customer service slows way down. So, starting a couple of years ago we decided to let employees work the week between Christmas and New Year's from home. We still have our morning huddle every morning and standing meetings still take place, but they're all done over Google Hangout Meets.

This last holiday season we did the stand down for the last two weeks of the year. We noticed that business actually starts to slow down three to four days before Christmas so we figured we'd extend it. It worked out pretty well. Everyone still got their work done and they did it from home.

If you're in the business to business service industry, Erik recommends giving it a shot. You may find that the work will still get done, while giving everyone a chance to spend some time with their families at the same time.

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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!