Journey To $100 Million

In this episode Erik continues his interview with Marcus Sheridan, the author of “They Ask, You Answer”. When consumers are searching for products or services they are usually searching for answers to some basic questions every time. One of those questions is how much the product or service costs. As a result, it is important to be transparent about your pricing on your website. This doesn't mean that you have to include your pricing list on your website, but you should give buyers a clear understanding of your offering and how that affects your pricing. Sellers often assume that buyers should know how much something costs, but often they do not, especially when it comes to services. If you don't take the time to educate your buyers on your offering, they might go to one of your competitors who advertise cheaper prices, because they don't know what's involved in your service offering. — Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, h

In this episode Erik interviews Marcus Sheridan, the author of “They Ask, You Answer”. Erik states that if you go to our website you will see a drop-down item called pricing. We are very transparent about our pricing, and this is thanks to Marcus’s advice in the book. Marcus believes that 95% of SEO is common sense stuff, and only 5% is technical. Search results boil down to who,on the Internet, can best answer a question. Buyers are looking for answers to the following five questions when searching for products or services. If you can answer these from the perspective of the buyer, you will be in good shape. How much does it cost? What are the known issues or problems? Comparison between products Reviews Which is the best? — 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

When committing to something big it's often easier to do it with a partner. When starting this podcast Erik and Kevin decided to do it together for a few reasons. One, having both of them on there would mean two unique views, personalities, and set of experiences. Another big reason was having a partner in this endeavor made it easier to hold each other accountable as neither wanted to let the other down. The same was true when they started their company together. Having a partner made things easier and more enjoyable. Outside of business this is often also the case, as Erik has found while he trains for a half Ironman next month. He has been training with a couple of buddies and it has made it easier to stick with it. — 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

It took Erik a good eight years to get to the point of making $1 million a year in his business. The first few years were about deciding what direction he wanted to go in, figuring out how to get there, and making a lot of mistakes. Now that we're at the point of bringing in a little over $2 million a year, things are a little bit easier. He and Kevin are no longer part of the day-to-day operations like they used to be. Kevin manages Sales, and Erik oversees Operations, but the team is really responsible for most of the daily operations. Many businesses get to the point of topping out somewhere between $3 to $5 million a year and that’s great, but that's not what Erik and Kevin have envisioned for themselves. They've been very public about the goal of reaching $100 million a year by 2030. They know that to get to that point they need to keep working hard and not let up just yet. — Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he

Every single morning we hold a huddle: a company-wide meeting at 9:17. It’s an opportunity for everyone to get together and provide an update on what they’ve done recently, what they need help on, etc. As we’ve grown, we’ve questioned whether or not it still makes sense to have a huddle. We’ve also noticed that after the huddle there’s a lot of meetings that go deeper into the things that have been brought up in the huddle. So does the huddle make sense or is it a waste of everyone’s time? Erik feels that the majority of the time, information is conveyed in that venue that likely wouldn’t have been conveyed otherwise. There’s also an important aspect of the huddle and that’s the cultural aspect. We all get together at the same time and have a format where we talk about what you’ve got going on that day, any issues that you’re facing, and a win from the day prior. During that time, we get to know each other’s personalities and it is really the only opportunity to do so particularly for the people who work

Kevin saw that Elon Musk threw it out there that in addition to having baby showers, we should also have business showers. If you have a friend or former colleague or someone in your life starting a business, you should celebrate them and give them referrals, business help, business books, and other stuff that will ensure they start off successfully. Think about supporting your friends. Business is very important and starting your own is a struggle; those people would certainly appreciate some encouragement and support. — 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 B

Many years ago, Erik read an article in Harvard Business Review that he still thinks about nearly 10 years ago. The gist of the article was which do you want to work for: a lovable fool or the competent jerk? The lovable fool is great to be around, you like them, they’re a friend but they don’t do good work. On the other hand, you have the competent jerk: someone who’s expert status at their job but they’re awful to be around. It’s a tough situation but most people would prefer to be around the lovable fool. Why? Life is short. Who wants to spend it being miserable? But the thing is, if you have too many fools in your company, you may have a great time but you’re not getting the work done efficiently. You need a blend of people that you want to be around but are also competent. These are people you’re going to spend a lot of time with every day so hire around your core values and skill set. — Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he i

Erik recently recorded a great episode and his microphone ended up being muted. He went live on all his social media platforms and the whole time people were trying to tell him that they couldn’t hear him. But of course, he wasn’t checking the comments because he was focusing on what he was saying. This podcast is all about telling you about our journey, our entire journey, the good, the bad, the ugly. Well this was the ugly. Erik was engaging with his audience and yet, in actuality, he really wasn’t because he was not even listening and reading their comments that told him his mic was muted. — 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 Ar

Erik recently listened to an audiobook called You Can’t Hurt Me. Throughout the author’s journey, he used a concept called the accountability mirror where he would look in the mirror and the only person he was accountable to was himself. He reminded himself of the promises he made to himself and it was his way of keeping himself truthful to his goals. If you want to be an entrepreneur, everything that you need to accomplish is within your power as long as you hold yourself accountable. Bet on the man or woman in the mirror. — 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

Here at Array Digital we have minimum commitment for our client agreements. Our agreements are legally binding contracts but we like to call them agreements because we think it sounds less harsh. Our minimum commitment is 12 months. Sometimes a client will ask for a shorter commitment term. We will consider it, depending on the size of the deal, the scope of work we will do for them, and the size of their company. When we can't get 12 months we ask for a 9 month commitment. If that's still too much we will go down to 6 months, but no less. We want to be in it for the long haul, and we want to ensure we have enough time to produce the results they’re looking for. — 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

In this episode Kevin recalls something his father recently reminded him of. He talked with Kevin about the very first home he rented with Kevin's mom when they were newlyweds. It was his grandmother's house and it cost him $50 a month. Even though he was renting from Grandma she was a force to be reckoned with. It didn't matter if you were family, rent was due in full and on time. One thing grandma told Kevin's dad back then was, “If you can’t pay one month, you can’t pay two”. Meaning if he couldn't pay rent on time that month what made him think he would be able to pay double the following month? It was a lesson that Kevin's dad learned early on and passed on to Kevin when he was young. In business, when clients have a hard time paying their invoices for one, two, and three months, it is likely those problems will continue and they will compound. It’s usually a good idea to recognize when that happens to work something out with the client before it becomes a bigger problem. — Erik J. Olson

Here at Array Digital we have a lot of written processes. Process is important to us because we’ve seen what happens when we rely on memory or someone doesn’t know the process. Sometimes team members will ask for an exception to a process. If this happens more than once it’s a good idea to question if that exception should become the norm. If so, it should be documented and then the team should be trained on the changes. One way Erik has found useful to do this is by making the changes to the written process in “suggestion mode” in Google Docs. This shows the parts that were eliminated and what was added. He then shares that with the team member(s) that need to know about the changes. Another way is to make those same changes and then record a short video about it using Vidyard, explaining the changes to the team. — 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 d

Here at Array Digital we see a lot of websites as website design and optimization are some of the services we offer. Time and time again we come across websites that are not really optimized for mobile viewing. We often see page load times of six and 10 seconds, or even longer. That's a long time for a page to load and it can be enough to detract potential customers from navigating your site. Business owners often think that as long as they have a responsive website that also loads on mobile devices that it’s good enough, but it’s not. Sixty to Seventy percent of website visitors now come from mobile devices. Your site needs to really be optimized for a mobile experience - it needs to load quickly, and there should be clear call-to-actions like contact forms or “call now” buttons that are easily accessed with the touch of a button. Two good websites to use to check your mobile responsiveness are testmysite.com and pagespeedinsights.com. — Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & en

It's been said that only 4% of businesses reach the point of making $1million a year in revenue. There is no doubt that getting to that point is very hard; in fact it took Erik and Kevin several years of being in business before they reached that point. Forty-five percent of businesses fail within the first five years, and that number increases as the years go up. Reaching $1million a year in revenue is achievable, but it takes a lot of hard work. You have to really work on the business, continually improve on processes, and never give up. The rewards are worth the hard work. So buckle down and join the 4% club. — 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

Today Erik interview Daniel Elliot, a lawyer who focuses on the rail and logistics industry, and he will enlighten you on how he’s growing his law practice. Daniel cultivates online prospects online and through his network. He does online networking the right way. He has 14,000 connections on LinkedIn which has led to a lot of his clients. Most people don’t think about their network until they need their network but Daniel saw what he’d need for his future law practice and created it before he needed it. Gaining most of these followers was blind; the majority of people he didn’t know. — 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 Digita

Erik recorded this podcast episode at the Array Digital office, which is in Chesapeake, Virginia. This was only his second time in the office since COVID hit five months ago. It's been very strange going from working in the office every day to working exclusively from home. It was even more strange for him to go into the office to record this episode as he has gotten used to working from home lately. COVID really changed the way Erik sees work. He now sees that it's very possible to work completely from home. However, there are advantages to keeping the office, and so we will. As a small business it gives us some credibility and a central place to work peacefully, without the distractions of home. It's been eye-opening though to see there can be a balance between both. — 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 Ma

We are finally at the point where we would like to break down our profit and loss by department. For years Erik controlled all of the finances and budgets, and didn’t share much with others, until Katya came along. She started bookkeeping and helping with the finances. A couple of years later Erik decided to implement practices from the book Profit First for budgeting purposes. That has been working out pretty well but we're at a new point now. Erik is now really interested to know what our profit and loss looks like at a departmental level. Our departments consist of Sales, Operations, Customer Support, and Admin, but they can be broken down even further. Erik has tasked Katya with starting to track all expenses, revenue, and even labor by department. The point is to figure out how much money each of our services brings in and how much we spend per service to come up with departmental budgets and goals for the future. — Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. T

We are fairly new to the sales game in terms of having a dedicated sales team. For the first couple of years of Array Digital’s existence it was just Erik and Kevin selling our services. We brought on our first real salesperson, Glen, a little less than a year-and-a-half ago. When we did that we implemented some new policies and a sales quota. Our salespeople are expected to bring in $5,000 a month of recurring monthly revenue. All services that we sell are on a monthly recurring basis, so we expect that our sales team bring in new deals totaling $5,000 a month, every month. We do have a ramp-up period of four months. That means that after a couple of weeks of training they are expected to bring in 25% of their quota in their first month. The second month they are expected to bring in 50%. The third month 75%. It's not until their fourth month that they are expected to bring in 100% of their $5,000 quota. We pay our salespeople a salary plus commission on their sales for the life of the ac

We are in the process of trying to hire two new people - a salesperson and an SEO Specialist. Our hiring process has multiple steps. The first step is a 15 minute skills assessment over the phone by the hiring manager. The next step is a longer interview with the hiring manager, who may or may not ask others from the team to join in. After the first couple of interviews are conducted the top three candidates go on to interview with our founders - Erik and Kevin. The founders interview is really a chance for Erik and Kevin to see if there is a cultural fit. They look at things like personality, work ethic, and overall likeness. At this point the team has already determined they have the skills to do the job. This final interview is to determine whether the candidate is a “Hell yes!” or a no. We've learned in the past that if a candidate isn't a “Hell yes!” they should probably be a no. — Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digit

Erik is a big believer that if you don't ask for what you want there's a good chance you won't get it. When it comes to sales, promotions, jobs, and frankly, many other things in life, it is important to have the confidence to ask for the things you want. Most people are not mind readers, and it's unfair to expect them to know what you want or what's important to you. A good example is our Creative Director, Jake. He was hired at Array Digital as our Digital Marketing Manager, and within the first couple of years he started to ask for more responsibility within the company. It took about another year for him to really be ready for the role of Creative Director, but he earned it. If he had never asked, Erik might never have known that he wanted that role. — 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 m