Journey To $100 Million

We are in week 6 of the Coronavirus pandemic in the US. Zoom meetings have exploded in popularity. People are attending 1, 2, even 3 meetings a day. From the time the pandemic broke out and the country shut down Erik has been bombarded with invitations to Zoom meetings. He attended many of them that first week as he was trying to gather information on what was going on, what the government loans were about, and what he should do next. But, after that first week he really scaled back on attending these. He felt he got the information that he needed in those first several meetings and then decided to take that information and put it into action. Many people are still attending numerous Zoom meetings a day and listening to the same information over and over again. However, they are failing to do the most important thing which is to take action. They are waiting to learn all the facts and analyze their next move and that's leaving them paralyzed with fear. Erik's advice is to scale back on the Zoom meetin

It's hard to believe but our deal flow has actually increased since the Coronavirus. We are several weeks into the pandemic and we are signing new deals. When the news first hit that the country would essentially be shutting down Erik was pretty scared and it put him in a funk. The next day he was starting to come out of it and by the third day we were on the offense. We quickly realized that we needed to re-think some of our strategies and marketing efforts. The first step was to cut unnecessary expenses. We regularly monitor expenses and cut back when needed so there wasn't a whole lot to cut, but we did trim off about $1,000-2,000 a month of expenses. Next, We doubled down on marketing. We realized that some industries were doing much better than others, even thriving, so we decided to tweak our marketing to reach those industries. It has really paid off. In the last couple of weeks we have signed four new deals amounting to $15,000 in monthly revenue. That kind of deal flow exceeded even our goal. Sur

We have had the journeyto100million.com domain name for quite some time now for our podcast. It used to point to a landing page on our thisisarray.com website. That landing page had information about the podcast, previous episodes and links to various podcast playing apps. The problem with the landing page was users had to click through the links that would then take them to the main page for the podcast player, which they would then still have to open up in order to listen to the podcast episode. In other words, they were having to do some work in order to find an episode and play it. Once we became aware of this problem we decided to change that. That’s when we found plinkhq.com. Plink is a program that creates smart links that automatically open a user’s preferred podcast player if they're using a smartphone, or the main page of a podcast player if they’re on a computer. This makes it much easier for a user to get right to the podcast episode, which makes them much more likely to actually listen to it

Erik receives a lot of offers from vendors to put together explainer videos to explain his offering to potential buyers. Explainer videos are animated videos, usually between 20 and 60 seconds in length, with professional voice talent, that explain your services or products in a visually appealing and concise manner. You may have seen some online. They're pretty popular. Some depict cartoon figures or even stick figures to show how your product or service works, and others might show a hand rapidly drawing a scene, depicting the same thing. In Erik's opinion humans gravitate towards other humans and trust them more. He recommends getting in front of the camera yourself and talking about your value proposition. No one can tell your story better than you - you've lived it, you are passionate about your offering, and you know it inside and out. That's what people want to see. So get in front of a camera and go for it. Even if it's a camera phone. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be authenti

It's more important than ever to remain relevant with your customers. The businesses that are doing well right now are those who had a strong social media presence before the pandemic and were already engaging with their customers. Now it's even more important. It's important to get in front of your customers every day if you can and let them know that you're still in business. Communicate what you are doing to stay safe, what you’re doing to keep them safe, and what has changed or remained the same. If you have a storefront, let your customers know if and when you're open and how you're operating. If you're a restaurant and offering curbside pickup or delivery, and you weren't before, definitely let your customers know. Leverage social media to get your message out and remind your customers you are here for them. It may not lead to growing your business right now but staying in business is just as important. — Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO o

If you've been listening to this podcast for a while you know that Erik and Kevin take turns putting out content. They’re pretty good about alternating days but sometimes it’s nice to hear from others. They know there are a lot of people out there with an abundance of business knowledge and information to share. If that's you, and you are interested in being a guest host on this podcast Erik would love to hear from you. You can email him at erik@thisisarray.com or send him a direct message on Twitter at @iamerikjolson. Let him know what you would like to talk about, and if it's a fit we might hear you on one of our upcoming episodes soon. — 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

What are you doing to innovate during this time? There are a lot of things we can't control about the pandemic, but when it comes to our businesses there are a lot of things we can control. A massive change to the economy like this means you have to make changes too. It may mean making changes to your sales process, your operations, your target client, or even your offering. There are lots of workarounds to help get through this. One example is a roofing client of ours. They decided to start providing estimates using aerial footage. Instead of coming out to the house and providing an in-person estimate, they are using things like Google Maps and other things to get a sense for the project and provide an estimate. Then, if they win the project they inform the client how they will provide the service safely while practicing social distancing. That’s smart. Another example is a client of ours who is an entertainment place for children. They have been completely shut down for a few weeks now. Kevin suggest

There are many pros and cons to working and one of the cons is noise. Like many people Erik is working from home these days, and has been for about the last five or six weeks. Before the pandemic broke out he was in the process of creating a home office space but he hadn't finished. So he has been working from his unfinished office, and it hasn't been the ideal setup, but it's getting him by. Sometimes he has to work around noise from his family, noise from the HVAC system and pool pump just outside his window, and even his six birds which can be heard from across the house. Earlier he tried to record this podcast episode but he couldn't because his neighbor was mowing their grass. There always seems to be something but he doesn’t mind too much. He loves the commute and the extra time. The slight disturbances are just 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 a

We have been able to sign new clients since the pandemic broke out. In the last three weeks we have signed on about $15,000 a month in recurring revenue. That's pretty exciting given the current economic situation. This has been a combination of new clients and existing clients who have added more services. This is promising because it means they are stable during a time like this and eager to grow their business for the future. Those are exactly the types of clients we want to attract. Not all industries are able to do this. Many have been forced to close. But, just like there are industries that aren't doing well, there are those who are stable, and others who are actually thriving. We want to go after the ones who are determined to come out on the other side of this crisis. — 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 Marke

Not having a commute has meant having a lot more time. Before the pandemic Erik used to get up early every morning and drive to the gym to swim or run. He had been training for a Half Ironman, so he was spending a lot of time training in the mornings before work. He would then commute to the office, work a full day, and a few times a week he would go back to the gym in the evenings to lift weights. He would spend about an hour and a half there and then drive home. That often led to him getting home around 7 or 8 in the evenings. Now that the gym is closed he has found he has a lot more time these days. He's still running or biking every day from home. He’s also working from home. However, he no longer has those commutes to the gym or the office, or the hour and a half to lift weights and socialize, and he's even cut out the time that it takes to pack his gym bag and his clothes. He estimates this has shaved off about an hour and a half to two hours of time every day, and he kind of likes it. He finds

The Paycheck Protection Program, otherwise known as the PPP was signed into law on March 27, 2020. This was part of a larger bill that was passed to help businesses and individuals recover from the economic fallout from the Coronavirus. From the moment information started circulating about this potential bill Erik started looking into it. He wanted to be one of the first in line to apply if and when it got signed into law. He started calling his local bank and asking about it. At the time it seemed we knew more about the loan program than they did as the details around the loan kept changing. Erik and Katya spent the next several days doing more research and preparing all of the paperwork that might be needed to apply. Approximately two and a half weeks after the bill passed we applied through our bank. We had the funds within a week. So, it took three weeks from the time the bill was passed until we received the loan. Like so many other things in business time was of the essence. We jumped on this opp

Times are tough right now for businesses and individuals. It's possible if you're listening to this you may have recently gone out of business. There aren't many businesses the Coronavirus pandemic hasn't affected. Some industries are doing better than before the virus outbreak but many others are not. For the last couple of years Erik and Kevin have struggled to pick a niche for their business. Everyone told them that they should, but they were never able to decide. That has turned out to work in our favor during this crisis. Had we decided to niche in retail businesses for example, we would be out of business right now. We have taken a hit in revenue but we are stable for the time being. We have had to make big decisions quickly. When we saw that some of our clients were doing better than others we decided to focus on getting more of those types of clients now. We quickly created a sales process focused on getting more of those clients and we started creating web pages to add to our website aimed at a

Most of us are homebound these days due to the Coronavirus. We're having to work at home and find new ways to network. Kevin loves to network and meet new people. Normally it's what gets him up in the mornings. Lately however, he and others have had to find other ways to get in front of people since he can't physically meet with them. Creating videos, going live, and social media are critical during this time. People still need to know who you are, and going live and making videos is a great way to do that. We have seen a tremendous increase in Zoom calls and videos on social media. Kevin has been invited by fellow business owners and taken part in a few Zoom calls to learn about their businesses and talk about his. At Array Digital we have moved our usual monthly networking meeting online and we are cranking out content for our Lunchtime Livestream on Fridays. Think about how you can get in front of your audience through video, livestreams, and social media. When things eventually get back to normal you’

Facebook has pledged $100 million dollars to help small businesses during the Coronavirus crisis. To be eligible you must be a small business between 2 and 50 employees, you must have been in business for at least a year, you must have experienced challenges in your business due to the Coronavirus, and you must be near a location where Facebook operates. Facebook has locations all over the US and around the world. To find out if you qualify or if you are near a Facebook operations center visit the following website: https://www.facebook.com/business/boost/grants These are grants that are meant to help small businesses that will not have to be repaid. — 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 co

We are living The Zoom Life… With offices being shut down all across the country and the world more and more businesses are turning to video conferencing like Zoom and Google Hangouts. I'm sure by now you have been a part of at least a few video conferences. It's something we are very familiar with here at Array Digital as we have used Google Hangouts daily for at least the last three years. Every morning we have a daily huddle with the whole team. Four of them work remotely so we always use Google Hangouts. Now that our clients and prospects are also working from home we are using it more and we're even helping them set it up in some cases. Between daily huddles, monthly client check-ins, sales presentations, and prospect meetings, we are on video all the time now. We even had a team virtual happy hour one Friday afternoon, and we all really enjoyed it. If you're not living The Zoom Life think about how you can start using video. We believe it's going to be the new norm. Video isn't going anywhere any

This is a quick status update about our business during the Coronavirus crisis… We are a few weeks into this pandemic and as of now we are doing fine. The things we have learned over the years, processes we have put in place, and the things we preach have all helped put us in a position to be able to handle this. Things like the Profit First method for finances and not niching have helped us. Sure, we have lost clients and a considerable amount of revenue but we were doing fine from a cash standpoint before this so we are okay now too. Some of our clients have cancelled, others have put advertising on pause, but a few of our clients are doing well themselves and some are busier than before. Not being contained to only serving one type of client has definitely helped us during this time. We went into this not having any debt or loans, but we do have a line of credit we can use if we need to. We have applied for the Payroll Protection Program from the SBA and we expect that to help soon. We are also still clo

At the time of this recording we are in the midst of the Coronavirus crisis. Like many other businesses we have made the decision to shut down the office and work from home. This was a fairly easy transition for us as many of the productivity tools that we use are cloud-based, and working remotely is something that we do from time to time anyway. If working from home is new to you we have some recommendations for tools to use: G Suite - Use for calendars, email, spreadsheets, documents, slide presentations, and cloud storage - Similar to Microsoft Office tools - Inexpensive and easy to use - All cloud based so you can access from any kind of computer or smartphone as long as you have an internet connection Asana - Cloud based task manager - Multiple ways to use - Robust task tracking Slack - Online messaging tool - Use to communicate with others on your team - Can also be used with other teams/people who use it Calendly - Use to coordinate meetings with others outside your team - Sends available time sl

At the beginning of the year Kevin had a goal of booking 12 public speaking engagements in 2020. With the Coronavirus that has changed a bit. No one is going out anymore and gatherings of large groups of people are no longer allowed. Up until now he was doing pretty good. He had booked three or four public speaking engagements, but he's had to change his goal. He decided to tweak his goal to book 12 online interviews for the rest of the year. He is actively seeking opportunities to speak on others’ Zoom learning events, podcasts, livestreams, or Facebook videos. At Array Digital we do our own weekly livestreams, but this doesn't count. He is looking to get in front of other audiences aside from our own. Think about the goals you had for 2020 and how you can still reach them, even if you need to tweak 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

We are in the midst of the Coronavirus crisis and as a result Erik has had a lot of news sent to him. The news isn't something that Erik goes out searching for on a normal basis. For the most part he waits for the news to come to him. Whenever there is something big going on usually he hears about it from other people around him. Recently his wife told him to check out an article about the Coronavirus in the local online newspaper. As he went to read it he saw one of our ads for our clients posted on the website. He was shocked. He couldn't believe that one of our competitors was allowing our ads to be placed on their website. He understood that they were probably looking for a short-term gain, and given the fact that they probably aren’t making as much money these days it's probably important, but he was still very surprised to see this. When it comes to business don't fall into that trap. It is almost always better to think about the long-term gain than the short-term. — Erik J. Olson is an award-winnin

Today’s guest is Evan Knox, owner of Caffeine Marketing in Atlanta, Georgia. As the owner of a marketing agency he and his team have had to reevaluate marketing tactics for themselves and their clients during the pandemic. One example is the fly fishing guide company that he is a part of. They decided to turn off all paid advertising online during this time. Normally they run ads for guided fishing trips, however, since they don't know when they will be able to resume trips they have turned off those ads. Instead, the team is researching keywords and writing blog posts about fishing trips. This will create content that they will be able to use far into the future. Another example is a jewelry store client of theirs in the Atlanta area. This client has both an online store and a brick-and-mortar store. Most of their revenue comes from the brick-and-mortar shop, but they have had to close for the time being. Thankfully they have the capital to rework their marketing and invest in it now so that when all of