Journey To $100 Million

Whenever we sign a new client we have an on-boarding process that we stick to. In the past, before we implemented a formal onboarding process, we would often forget things or things would be left out. We learned that a few onboarding steps were crucial to our client’s success and now they make up an important part of our process. One of those steps is a kickoff meeting. This is a meeting that takes place between our new client’s primary stakeholders, our operations team, and the account executive who sold the client on our services. The main purpose of this meeting is to formally introduce the new client to the operations team and properly hand them off. The account executive is present at this meeting, but they are really just there to fill in any gaps and make the introductions. The operations team is who the clients work with on a day-to-day basis, and the account executive is there for support. Before the client kickoff meeting our team has an internal kickoff meeting, during which the account execu

Sometimes a client will ask us to do something they want even if it's not something they need. For instance, a client may ask us to add a press release to their website or social media sites when someone within their company gets a promotion. It may get them some attention, it may create some buzz on the employee’s social media sites, but more than likely that will not turn into any new business for them or any new leads. If they want us to create the press release or article for them, and they are using one of their paid deliverables to do so, we believe we should at least let them know that may not be working towards the strategy we put together for them. If they insist they want to do it anyway then we will gladly do that for them, but we want to make sure they are at least aware. Not everything your client asks you for will always align with your strategies to get them to their goals. When that happens it's important to remind them what the strategy is so they can at least make an informed decisio

Contrary to what you might think, you should not always be creating new content. It takes a lot of time and effort to always create new content. You have to think of a topic, research it, create the content, and edit it. It's a much better use of time to constantly find ways to repurpose existing content. This podcast episode is an example of that. Erik is recording it as an audio file, and it will air on the podcast. It will then be written up as a summary of the episode (the one you’re reading). It will also be added to our website and various social media sites as written content. We will find many ways to reuse it. One platform Erik has been using to reuse content is a website called quora.com. People go on this website to ask questions about all kinds of things. If you have a question, Quora more than likely has an answer. Erik has been reusing some of our content to answer questions people ask on there about digital marketing. Oftentimes all he has to do is cut and paste some of these written

Three years ago when Erik started working with Kevin, Erik was doing custom software development while Kevin was building websites. There wasn’t much overlap between the two but both realized they could benefit from having the other’s service. They were going to join and do this but have digital marketing as an add-on service by hiring a digital marketing manager. Then Erik started learning absolutely everything he could about digital marketing for a solid year so they started to transition more into digital marketing than custom software before realizing this is where they wanted to be. — 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 D

Every Wednesday we go over company KPIs. That stands for Key Performance Indicators. When Erik first came up with the idea to track KPIs he did so by himself, for numbers he felt reflected the health of the business. Over time those KPIs have changed, and the way we track them has changed as well. We now track high level data every week, like: -Monthly recurring revenue -Lost revenue -New revenue -New deals -Deliverables -Net Promoter Score (NPS) Lower level data, like SEO, social media, and advertising KPIs, are tracked on a monthly basis and now everyone in the company has a KPI they are accountable for. It makes KPIs a lot more meaningful when a person is assigned to them. We find they want to hit their KPI, and if they're not hitting it they can explain the reasons why and what they can do to get there. They often volunteer to take on a KPI so they have something to work toward. — Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, h

Whenever we get a new lead or a referral one of the first things we do is qualify them. This entails doing a little research on their company to find things out like how long they've been in business, how big or small they are, and if they are in a good position to grow their business. A lot of these things come to light during the 15-minute call that we schedule with every new prospect, but we also do our own due diligence. Not everyone is a good fit; we want to go after the clients that are looking to grow and we believe will be with us for a long time. So, think about how you can qualify your prospects. The sooner you figure out if your goals align with their vision the better you’ll be. — 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 &

Every day, Erik receives multiple connection requests on LinkedIn by business people who help agency owners get more clients. He also often gets invited out to lunch or coffee by some of them. In the past he used to accept many of these invitations. When he was just getting started in business he had no real network and he needed a way to meet as many business people in the area. These days he accepts much fewer requests. With the years he came to realize how much time he was spending at these meetings, usually getting pitched to buy products or services he wasn't really interested in. At this point in business we have most of the tools and services we need to operate. It isn't necessary to spend one to two hours commuting and meeting with people who want to sell us something. Erik’s approach is different these days. Before the COVID pandemic he would suggest he and the other person meet at Marketers Anonymous - the monthly networking Meetup hosted by Array Digital. It’s a good way to meet in perso

This happens all the time: We do something whether it be making a document or writing down processes and ideas. Then we get sidetracked with new sales, new initiatives, new clients and time goes by before we start doing the same task again. Then we stumble across that old document where we’d already done all the work but we failed to put it into action. We are working towards ways to mitigate this issue that we’ve run into over and over again. — 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

We have a set of core values here that change on a somewhat regular basis. We used to have a core value ‘client obsession’ which Erik lifted straight from Amazon. We had that core value and would talk about it a lot but he realized it wasn’t exactly right. We do a lot for our clients but we don’t obsess over them to the point that we’ll let them step on us. We take pride in our work but we won’t let people step on us. We’ve resigned accounts in the past that weren’t quite a fit for us. Therefore, that core value of client obsession doesn’t make sense for us because we wanted a winning partnership with our clients and we wanted them to win. So we changed it to ‘winning.’ It wasn’t client obsession at all costs but that we are going to be winning at all costs. — 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

With COVID-19 and with most people being at home, there should be some extra time in your schedule. It’s the perfect time to work on your business if you’re still in business. Whether it’s new processes, pivots you’re making, things you’ve adapted to, new industries you want to target, now is the time to figure out how you’re going to make that work. Rather than getting down and worrying or sitting back and waiting for the worst to happen, it’s up to you to determine how you are going to make this work for your business and do the best with what you have. — 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

Erik recently received an email from a Polish author named Marek Zmyslowski. He asked Erik if he would read his business novel and Erik agreed. The book is unlike most business books that Erik reads. He typically reads how-to books and he has a clear objective on what he wants to get out of the book. This book was different. It was much more of a novel, with a detailed storyline that explained how the author got into a particular business and why he made all the decisions that he did. To summarize the book, the author was offered an opportunity to work with a start-up company to create a hotel booking website for Nigeria. The website is very similar to Trivago, which we have here in the U.S. He took that opportunity and did pretty well, but it was hard work and he faced many challenges. Since the author is Polish, and the project was for a website in Nigeria, there were a lot of international challenges to the point where the Interpol (International Police) got involved. It was full of drama and

There are several industries that are doing very well right now. IT companies and telecommunication companies are super busy these days. Many people are working from home and need extra bandwidth and the infrastructure to be able to do so. Things like telemedicine and telehealth are also keeping telecommunication companies hiring more people as fast as they can. We have a telecommunications client that is doing very well and is having a hard time keeping up with the demand for services. Other industries like accountants and CPAs are also very busy. With the tax deadline extension, and all the questions surrounding the loans for small businesses, accountants and CPAs are working ‘round the clock. Having a diverse client base has allowed us to keep working during this time too. So, think about how you can go after clients whose industries are doing well to help your company do well too. — Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he

Believe it or not, Erik loves having meetings but they need to be very focused and short. The shorter, the better. He likes to have them be very specific preferably with an agenda. One of these meetings is the 8:30 AM management meetings that the 5 managers have every Monday and now Thursday of every week. There’s a very loose agenda and things that have not been closed out or issues that seem to be occurring are generally the topics for discussion. Generally, Erik runs the meetings but he also takes requests from anyone who has other topic suggestions. Recently, we went through one of our contracts and made it much more specific and detailed. We highly recommend forming a management team, allowing them to make some decisions, and regularly bringing them together for a meeting with an agenda. — 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

Here are a few reasons we’ve turned down business from a qualified prospect: 1. When a client’s expectations far exceed what we can deliver. 2. If a client can’t agree to a 12-month, we try to negotiate a minimum of a 6-month agreement. 3. If a client wants a discount. 4. If a business wants us to market and advertise for a service or product that they can barely explain themselves, we don’t understand, and it’s hard to define a target market. We’re in this for the long haul and not the short-term gain. Think about what you should say no to and instead of kicking yourself when a client doesn’t work out, learn from 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 an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is

When selling to new clients we always start with one important step: The 15-minute call. The 15-minute call is our way to feel out a potential client without investing too much of our time or wasting there's in case we're not a fit. During this call we try to accomplish a couple of things. We try to find out if they are looking to grow, whether they have a budget for our type of services, and how long they've been in business. We have found our ideal clients have been in business three to five years, they have a good handle on their finances, and they are looking to grow their business. They may or may not have a budget in mind, and that’s fine. If we find they are a fit after the call then we will move onto the next step, the digital marketing review. This takes us a few hours since we go through their current marketing tactics to come up with a customized plan on how we can help them. If we find they are not a fit we will still offer suggestions on what they can do, and sometimes we refer them to

Core values are super important to an organization. At Array Digital we have a set of core values that we live by. These core values have changed over time, but the general ideas have remained the same. We hire, fire, promote, and give recognition to our employees based on our core values. Currently they are: honesty, quality, urgency, winning, and passion. When we are getting ready to hire someone new we look at how these qualities are demonstrated by the new hire. If we don't feel they possess all of these qualities they don't pass on to the next round. If they do end up getting hired, they typically don't last very long once it becomes apparent they don't operate by these values. If you don't have a set of core values for your company you should really think about creating them. They should be values that you as the founder or owner-operator come up with yourself. This is not something you want to hire out. You want to make sure the values are ones that are important to you, and will be demonstrated

We recently lost about $30,000 a month in revenue. When the pandemic hit, and businesses were forced to shut down, we had a few clients cancel our services temporarily while others cancelled permanently. Right away our biggest client called us to tell us that they would have to stop advertising with us for the time being. It was a huge hit to our monthly revenue but we managed to pull through. Thankfully we have been able to bring on new clients in the last several weeks that have helped to replace the revenue we've lost. One thing we've learned is to have a diverse client base. We have clients in several different industries and that has helped. Some industries are doing better than others and we are now focusing on bringing on more of those clients. We had somewhat planned for a recession in the future, but we couldn't have foreseen what we are going through now, with clients going out of business or being forced to shut down almost overnight. We were in a good position in the sense that we had some m

As part of the coronavirus response from the federal government, they passed an act which has appropriation for small businesses funding upwards of 350 billion dollars. The program is called Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP for short. If you own a business you’ve probably heard of this plan or even tried to apply. It’s a way to keep employees employed so the whole system doesn’t crumble. Erik talks about his initial confusion with the program and the importance of having a relationship with your accountant, banker, or financial advisor during these times. Your network is extremely important to foster for times like these. That way when something happens overnight, you can lean into those relationships to your benefit! — 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

One of Erik's New Year's Resolutions for 2020 is to write and publish his first book. He started writing his book in December 2019 and finished the first draft rather quickly. He then took a long break from writing his book but he recently got back into it. He is now in the process of editing the first draft himself. So far he has edited the first four chapters of what is currently a 14 chapter book. He believes it will take him about another month or two to finish his own editing before he hands It off to a professional editor. He figures it will take them another two months to edit the book and get it ready for publishing so he's estimating the publish date to be around Labor Day this year. The book is about all the lessons he has learned in getting his company to $1 million in yearly revenue. It took him about eight years of being in business for himself to finally hit that mark. The vast majority of businesses never make it to $1 million a year. That's why he wanted to write this book - to help other b

There have been several times in the last three to four years where it became clear to Erik that he needed to make a change in his business.  The first time was when he was running his software programming business and working with Kevin who was running his web development business. They worked together for about a year on mutual projects before it became clear that they could do better together. But, once it became clear they decided to make the change quickly, and they did.  That's when together they formed Array Digital. Jake was hired at the time to provide search engine optimization (SEO)  services to our clients.  That was all we offered as far as ongoing services at the time.  After doing that for about a year it became really clear to Erik one day that digital marketing was the way to go. He had been studying it in depth when he finally brought it up to Kevin, and within days the decision was made to focus solely on digital marketing.  Similarly, during this pandemic, it has become clear who we shou