Journey To $100 Million

One of Erik’s 2020 new year’s resolution was publishing a book on how he grew the company from nothing to $1 million in revenue which doesn’t happen for nearly 96% of businesses. It took 8 years and a lot of lessons learned along the way and Erik wants to help other entrepreneurs to learn how to avoid the mistakes people commonly make when starting a business. The book has been written for over 6 months and now he needs an editor to reorganize the book and make sure there are no typos. He’s decided to hire his own book editor. He had to do some research because there are so many different specializations within the editing segment of the industry. — 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

There has been quite a bit of unrest among the civilian population. We’re still in the first wave of COVID and that has greatly affected everyone and we’re all realizing that we’re in this for the long haul. But there are also the events that have happened as a result of the murder of George Floyd and many other black people at the hands of the police. As a business, how can you properly address civil unrest while still being true to your business and getting the marketing message out? It’s a hard thing for anyone to understand if it’s even the place of a business to comment on events like these. But some of the events that have happened are just so profound that it’s ridiculous to ignore them and just continue with your own messaging. These are significant events in our country and if you’re not at least commenting on them, you are not in tune with what’s going on in the world. — Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also th

It’s often easy to start something, but it's much harder to maintain it. At Array digital we often come up with great ideas for new things we want to try. We tend to start off with a bang then slowly lose momentum as the novelty of it starts to wear off. One example is our Friday Lunchtime Liivestream. When the staff first came up with the idea we were all excited at this new thing we would be doing. After a while it became work, and took effort. It slowly became an Erik and Kevin Livestream, with us having to book speakers to join us, when initially the team was hosting most of the Livestreams. It happens. The excitement of new ideas wears off over time. This podcast is another example. We are a year-and-a-half into this, and it’s work. Erik is recording 10 episodes today, as is Kevin, because we're running low on episodes. But, it’s something we believe in, and we want to continue doing it, so we have to have the fortitude to keep it going. — Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer

Whether you’re a freelancer or a huge business, start saying no to project work. It’s hard to not take on project work but what we’ve done at Array Digital is gone from 100% project work to 100% recurring. It’s been a life-changing experience. Every time you take on a project, it’ll set you back. We had to quit cold turkey in order to make it work with monthly recurring revenue. Think about ways you can build everything into your pricing and start charging a certain amount monthly. — 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

A podcast is audio-only but it’s easy to record the video and use that on social media to double the amount of content you are creating. For a while, we were promoting audiograms on social media where we would use the audio from our podcast with show notes as the caption and put them on our various social media platforms. This did not resonate with our audience and it would get very little engagement. So instead, Erik has started recording on video and audio. — 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 Marke

One thing that has helped our cash flow tremendously is the fact that we bill and get paid in advance. It took a long time to get to this point in our business but once we made the shift we noticed immediate benefits. Many service Industries bill in arrears, meaning they bill after work has been completed. Contractors will often take a deposit and payments after completing milestones, and their final bill will come sometime after all work is complete. Then, if they have payment terms of 14 days, 30 days, 60 days, or even 90, they often have to wait weeks, if not months, to get paid. Most of our clients are on auto-pay, meaning we draft their account or charge their credit card automatically every month. There are a few that pay us by check, but if they do our payment terms are seven days. Sometimes prospects will question that, but overall it works for us and helps us get paid faster. — Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, h

We love ACH! ACH Stands for Automated Clearing House. It’s essentially a transfer from one bank account to another. It is our preferred way for clients to pay us. We used to accept many forms of payments, but in the last two years we moved to ACH and we love it. We get paid faster, there is less admin work, and there are minimal fees. We use Quickbooks to set up ACH payments and bill clients. It's a simple process that requires you to connect your bank account to Quickbooks one time. Then, when you want to get a client on ACH you ask for your client’s account information to make the transfers. QuickBooks does all the work by drafting the client’s bank account every month and sends them a sales receipt for their records. It’s a win-win. — 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.

Soon after the merger between the two companies that formed Array Digital, Erik tried really hard to put together the first management team. He wanted to loosen the reins a bit and let others help make decisions for the business. Until this point all decisions fell on him and Kevin and he wanted to lighten his load. He hired someone he thought would help him with this, he gave them what he thought was a suitable title, but it didn't quite work out the way he expected. Issues came up and that person ended up leaving soon after. Erik and Kevin were back to being the main decision-makers. Luckily a couple of our existing team members stepped up to the plate and asked for more responsibilities. It was a great fit and a natural flow to how we operate. We have since added another person to the management team and it's been working out nicely. Erik and Kevin no longer have to make every big decision by themselves. It's made things much easier and as we see now, it's imperative in order to scale the busine

Recently Erik sat down to watch a recorded new employee orientation between Katya and our newest employee, James. Katya works remotely from Florida and James works from North Carolina. He is the second employee we have hired without ever meeting in person. Because of COVID we have had to do things a little differently, and that is likely to continue. Erik asked Katya to record the orientation, which she conducts over Google Meet. Google Meet is one of many virtual meeting applications, but the one we use the most for ourselves. Katya came up with the idea of conducting these orientations a couple of years ago as we started to hire more employees, but Erik had never actually seen or heard what takes place during these orientations so he thought he’d check it out. He was happy to see she covered all the important points like company culture, benefits, pay, and what to expect working with the team. It’s an important part of the onboarding process and we will continue to do it. It’s possible and even e

Mental health is tough to guard these days, especially working in social media. Our Social Media Manager Shannon touches on the tough topics flooding our feeds & gives advice on how can we not be drowned by the darkness while still staying informed. Here's her tips: 1) Don’t check your phone in the AM & set a screen limit - create pockets in your day where you don't look at your phone, and don't start your day with scrolling through the feeds. 2) Daily routines - Instead of turning to your phone right when you wake up, do something to set your mind right first thing when you wake up. 3) Keep your phone away from you while working - If everything is accessible on your computer & you're able, keep your phone a few feet away or even in another room if you have no important phone calls potentially coming through. 4) Extensions to block distractions - It's easy to get lost in the scroll from time-to-time, even in a regular news cycle. Shannon's favorite distraction-blocker is News Feed Eradicator

We recently hired two brand new employees who we never actually met in person. It’s something we’ve never done before and Erik wasn’t really sure if or how it would work out. When COVID started, we needed to hire someone but it wasn’t possible to meet in person and especially not in a group like we normally do. But we did it entirely over the Internet. It’s something new to us but it’s something that has worked out extremely well for us. Both of these employees are crushing it and it made us realize that we don’t need to see our new hires face-to-face in order to interview, hire, and train 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

In the early business days Erik used to bill by the hour. Then he moved onto project work but that had its downfalls too. Years later Erik and Kevin got a taste for recurring revenue. That's when they realized that's what they wanted from that point forward. Recurring revenue is money that we know we can count on from a client, month after month, unless or until they end services with us. When we sell services to a new client we promote the idea that we are going to provide these services on a continuous basis. There is a minimum time commitment involved, but otherwise the services, and therefore the payments, continue. If a new client asks for a shorter-term or they want to put an end date on the contract, we don't count that as recurring revenue. That is what’s known as re-occuring revenue. We want recurring revenue (as in no end date). One way to get more of the type of revenue that we want is to incentivize our salespeople to sell recurring services by lowering the commission on any contract that ha

Sometimes to get experience, you have to make it! Just take it from our Social Media Manager Shannon, who Erik found and hired through her own projects.  If you’re someone in their mid 20’s worried about not having an adult job yet, don’t stress! Shannon was really nervous when she started at Array Digital about a year ago. Three years out of college and still working at a coffee shop, she applied to jobs to no avail. Right after college Shannon didn’t have any prospects, so she figured she'd make her own experience. With the encouragement & help from a couple friends, she grew a Tumblr page she started during college into a professional music blog with a domain at popscuremedia.com & writing for free on altdaily.org (RIP). It got her freelance writing work, but she wanted a salary, benefits - an "adult job." So she beefed up Popscure - threw events to get folks to know the blog, reached out to artists to interview and cross-promote, and got writers on board to jump-start their careers. It cost mor

Just one year ago, we hired our first salesperson, Glen. Then about a month ago, we hired our second salesperson, Francesca. We went quickly from having no sales team to having a (albeit small) sales team. We’ve decided we’re going to hire another digital sales specialist. Already, Francesca has closed her first deal and has several more deals on the way. A lot of marketing companies have hunkered down because of COVID and have gone on the defensive. We decided very quickly into the pandemic, however, that we were going to go on offense. — 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

We are at least 3 months into COVID and the shutdown that’s gone along with it and one of the things we’re struggling with is what to do with our office. We’re not so sure that we actually need it. We have employees in 4 different states now and we’ve been communicating with our staff so effectively without seeing each other in-person. We’ve hired new people, brought on new clients, expanded with old clients. We’ve had great operations this whole time. I don’t think there’s a downside to working remotely and there’s many benefits over working in the office. — 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-hos

Erik started working for himself about 11 years ago. At the time it was just him, a laptop, and his cell phone. All the work he did was done on the laptop or through the phone. Now, 11 years later he is back to just him, a laptop, and a cellphone. As his business grew, it became more complex. He added employees, equipment, an office, and other tools. But just to get started, all he required were those basic pieces of equipment. Even now, all he really needs to get work done are those same basic pieces. He can work from anywhere as long as he has those. Many new entrepreneurs believe they need to have everything in place in order to get started. They think they need a detailed business plan, clientele, a lawyer, a CPA, an office, supplies, and lots of equipment. The reality is you don't. You just need a few basic pieces of equipment and the will to start. If you are in the service or technology field, like many service providers are, this is especially true. Even if you are more of a h

Ever since the beginning of this company, we have benefited from the nearly exclusive use of cloud-based software. Things such as Google Suite and our cloud-based task manager Asana, have been immensely important to us. When COVID-19 arrived moving to remote workplaces was a non-issue for us while other companies struggled to conform to their new reality. We estimate over 90% of the programs we use for work are cloud-based. We have a server that’s about 10 years old, but it hasn’t even been plugged in for at least four years. (We just can’t bear to part with it yet). We have no need for the server though or even an IT department. Everything is in the cloud! If you’re just starting a new business Erik recommends making everything cloud-based. It will make things easier in the long run. Two well-known suites of office products are Google Suite for email, documents, spreadsheets, calendar, storage and more. Office 365 is another one, and it offers similar features. — Erik J. Olson is an award-winning

We have been around in one form or another for going on 10 years now. Kevin started his business in 2009 and Erik started his first business in 2009 as well. They formed Array Digital 3 years ago and when that happened, a few of the employees who had existed with either of those two companies came along. Because of that, there are some employees who have been around for 5 years even though Array Digital has been around for only 3. The “problem” we have now is that people have already celebrated a milestone anniversary and you lose track of time. — 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 Jour

Why Do We Focus on the Exceptions While Neglecting the Basics? Erik was recently asked this question by Zack Miller of Zack Miller Says. This is a great question because a lot of the time when we’re running our business or reading the news, the exceptions become the norm. The mundane becomes unexciting so they focus on what gets you excited. The same happens in business. Business can start to look the same day in and day out; it’s part of the grind of doing business. Those things you don’t focus on too much. You usually put a lot of focus into the boundary conditions, the things that haven’t even happened yet. It’s a mistake to do 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

Recently Erik and Katya were talking about how great monthly revenue is as opposed to the other means of billing clients like hourly or project-based. Before starting with monthly recurring revenue, Kevin and Erik had no way of projecting out to the future. When they were working on projects, at some point it would go down to 0 eventually but your expenses continue to increase because you have all these people working for you and expecting a raise. Recurring revenue gives you the ability to track how much revenue you get each month and you can then project out into the future. With recurring revenue, you can plan, budget, forecast, and see into the future. — 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 fir