Journey To $100 Million

Kevin has a passion for sales. Since hiring our Business Development Manager, Glen, last year, Kevin has changed the way he approaches sales himself. Before he used to take on leads from every funnel, but these days he's focusing more on networking and his business profiles to get him personal referrals. He isn't focused as much on leads that come in through phone calls or through our website. Instead he is getting out there on the front lines and building relationships with business owners whenever he can. When Glen was first hired on, he and Kevin teamed up frequently to close deals together. But after about six months Kevin decided to go out on his own again and look for leads the best way he knows how. His approach is different from that of Glen’s, but together they work. Kevin puts himself out there as an expert in his field and the owner of his agency to bring in the leads he’s interested in pursuing. He still steps in to help Glen close deals when it’s needed, but for the most part he’s working his

One of the most helpful ways to find out what your audience wants from you or could benefit from is to ask them. You could ask them one-on-one or you could direct your question to your entire audience on social media. One way Erik likes to do this is by using Twitter Polls to ask for opinions which has been helpful in the process of writing his book. When you’re not sure what direction to take something, consider your audience. They’ll be happy to tell you if you ask 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 of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organi

Kevin talked recently about expansion, applying for awards, getting yourself out there with video, etc. What this does is create buzz and build a perception within your local community or market. Plan things out and push things out to the masses. — 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. — For more information on the show, and to check out past episodes, go to journeyto100million.com!

Recently Erik attended a fireside chat with the CEO of Morgan James Publishing. Morgan James is a New York based publisher but the CEO, David Hancock, lives near Erik in Virginia. Erik thought that was pretty interesting and during the talk he found out how that came to be. Essentially Mr. Hancock started his publishing business in Virginia but his customers believed a publisher should be based in New York City. So, he opened a location in New York and just like that his publishing business took off. Erik was interested in attending this talk because he is writing a book himself about what it took to get his business to $1million a year in recurring revenue. So far Erik has written about 75,000 words for this book. However, during this chat with Mr. Hancock Erik learned that a non-fiction book such as his should be between 40,000 and 60,000 words. This was a huge eye-opener for Erik as he had no idea about the recommended length. He realized he is going to have to cut 1/3 of his book, especially consider

Whether or not you are experiencing expansion and growth, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be portraying that. You need to have a job/career page that lays out the job openings for jobs you would normally want to fill even if you are not actively searching for them. It gives people the perception that you are really growing and it’s that perception that helps you stand out and gets people to talk about you, driving business and sales. Other companies want to do business with companies that are stable but are pushing forward and being innovative. If you’re not coming across as if you’re doing that, then people won’t want to work with you. Always be expanding and talking about that expansion. — 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 & entre

In this episode Erik talks about his experience being a PMP. PMP stands for Project Management Professional. It is a certification from a professional organization called the Project Management Institute (PMI). Erik got started with project management straight out of college when he became a construction project manager. He was paired with a more experienced project manager who showed him the ropes. He did that for a few years until he started working as a software developer. While working in software development Erik went back and forth between actual programming and managing projects in software development. Project management is one of those things he kept going back to no matter what field of work he was in. About 10 years into his career he realized that PMI had written a book about best practices in project management. Up until then he had been relying on trial and error to work through projects, but after that discovery decided to get involved with PMI, and it paid off. The things he learned a

Kevin’s first job was when he was about 10. A little backstory: his dad started his own business at 8 years old carving decoys that are used for duck hunting. It’s become a piece of art and a collectible so people pay a lot of money for them. He still does it to this day. When Kevin was little, he started to make his own too. When he was about 10, he would go to art shows with his dad and have his own work there. His stuff would sell out within an hour. That was his first business: making the ducks and selling them. Think to yourself if there’s anything you did when you were little as a business. Business starts when you’re young. You might not have the same goals or motivation or purpose for the money that you make but business is engraved in all of us. — 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 mee

You are probably on social media. A lot of people tend to accumulate followers or connections on social media and then don’t actually talk to them. They may post on their timeline and hope they see what they’re posting without any kind of engagement. On social media, people try to keep their connections at an arm’s length while still hoping these people will buy from them at some point in the near future. You must try to find some commonality between you and the individual. — 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-organiz

Have you heard the phrase “drip email marketing”? This is when you provide your email to a company, brand, or influencers and they send you a series of emails over a specified amount of time. The idea here is that you are slowly building up the other person’s level of knowledge as far as what you do and how you can help them. We do that a bit with our own newsletter but Erik also wanted to do it through social media. Erik was able to be notified whenever he got a new follower on LinkedIn or Twitter and would follow up with specific messages to send to these new followers. Often, people will immediately send a long, hard pitch without really introducing themselves, their products, or services and that is a mistake. You have to wine and dine these potential new customers. — 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 Ano

When setting goals for yourself people may tell you not to set them too high because they will be hard to achieve, you may fail, and you'll be disappointed in yourself. But, Kevin is here to tell you why you should do the opposite. We were recently talking about our revenue goals for the coming year and we were considering moving the goal down a bit because our initial goal seemed aggressive. However, we decided against it. In his book, The 10x Rule, Grant Cardone says to never move the target, instead increase the action. He’s absolutely right. Working hard to reach $4 million in recurring revenue and ending up $3.8 million is much better than setting the goal at $2 million and surpassing it by reaching $2.1 million. It puts us that much closer to our initial goal, and that’s where we want to be. When a goal seems easy to achieve your efforts tend to decrease. When the goal seems out of reach you work your butt off to try and get it. In the end you may not achieve your goal but that's okay. You’l

Erik recently went to Machipongo, VA to meet with someone who he bumped into on LinkedIn who is significantly further ahead in his digital marketing career (about 10 years ahead). Erik drove over for lunch and they had a meeting that Erik found extremely valuable. He gained insight on things he might do a bit differently like organizational structure, the types of clients we acquire, and how to prove to our clients that we are truly adding value and not just spinning our wheels. When you’re running a business, you’re kinda isolated so it’s smart to meet with like-minded people on a regular basis and you discuss problems you’re having in your business, things you’re struggling with, ideas you’re tossing around, etc. By meeting with people that have probably had experience with you, you can learn so much and gain insight that you might not have thought of. — 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 $

At Array Digital, we don’t typically travel for sales. We don’t go to trade shows because that’s not our kind of marketing. But if we have a prospect that reaches out to us, Kevin is willing to do the traveling and take the meeting. This came up recently with a prospect that had done a lot of research prior to calling us and were very impressed by what we’re doing and our online presence. This was a good sign and things moved quickly. Before determining that we would travel for them, we needed to know where they were in the buying process, how many people are involved, and how sold they are on our product/services. Make sure you’re not wasting your time and money by asking these sorts of questions. — 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 marke

Erik recalls the hardest decision he’s ever had to make in business, to date. That decision was hiring his first employee. Like most new entrepreneurs he found himself in a position where he was overwhelmed with work but he wasn't overwhelmed with cash. He knew and understood that hiring another person would mean that person would have to come before himself. He explained to his wife that he was getting ready to hire someone and that meant he would have to pay this person every two weeks and that meant he may or may not be able to pay himself. Luckily that didn't happen. He hired his first employee after he signed a contract for a big software development project. He was still in the middle of his first big project and knew he wouldn't be able to deliver the second project in a timely manner without help. So, he hired someone to help him finish that first project and together they tackled the second. And, it worked out perfectly. Hiring his first employee freed him up to look for more opportunities. He

“If you qualify, apply.” --Zack Miller, author of Anomaly If you’re winning awards, it is PR, free media, and free marketing for your company and it shows that you are growing, your business is active, and that you’re doing a great job. People (customers) gravitate towards that kind of success, meaning more business for you. Plus, that gets you and your team fired up to keep doing and achieving. Apply for as many awards as you can. There are some that matter more and will make a bigger difference but that’s not to say that the smaller ones are worthless. Look in your industry, your local newspapers and business outlets for award opportunities and apply if you qualify. — 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 s

We are in the process of losing $15,000 a month in recurring revenue for a single client’s ad spend. We have been talking to them for a couple of weeks and it is imminent.  As much as we don't like it there are a few important lessons that we learned from this: First and foremost, this client is a B2B company. That means they target other businesses as their customers. We specialize in B2C clients. That is our niche. It is very difficult to target business owners through online marketing.  There isn’t a good way to find them that we have seen. There is no checkbox in Facebook or Google for somebody to mark that they are a business owner. If there were it would be very different. We end up basing our assumption on their hobbies, interests, and professional designations, which people rarely post. The next lesson was it is usually pretty difficult to help a client who has previously tried numerous times to solve their advertising problem to no avail. This client came to us after they had hired other agencies i

A couple of months ago Erik posted on Twitter, asking his followers to ask him anything about starting a business or anything related to digital marketing. He received a question from Sean Burke, who works with him at Array Digital. The question was what he thought about using crowdfunding platforms to get a project started. Erik starts by saying he doesn't have a strong opinion either way on crowdfunding. Platforms like kickstarter.com offer aspiring entrepreneurs the ability to put out a feeler for their product. Instead of focusing on creating their product, they focus on building up the kickstarter campaign to see if others are willing to invest in it. The positive side to that is that they jump right into validating their product from the beginning before investing too much time and money in creating it and putting it out there. Erik believes validating your product is the most important thing you can do in the beginning and for that reason he believes crowdfunding can be beneficial. On the flipsi

Kevin opens up this episode by quoting Grant Cardone, author of The 10x Rule, “Success is your obligation”. It is your duty, responsibility, and obligation to be successful. Your colleagues, your team, and your family all depend on you. You have to try and be successful in all aspects of your life. Failure is imminent, but after you fail you have to find new ways of doing things and you have to keep pushing. Success isn't everything but it's necessary in order for you to grow. If a company isn't successful in selling its service or product the company goes under. If you're not successful in bringing home a paycheck it affects your family and your family’s future. It’s your obligation as a human being to be successful. How successful is up to you and your goals. That will be different from person to person. But working toward success is for everyone. If you’re interested in learning more about The 10x Rule check out Grant Cardone’s book, The 10x Rule. — Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer

Erik recently guest-hosted another podcast/flash briefing called The Instagram Stories by Daniel Hill. Daniel has done this in the past when he goes on vacation and either doesn’t want to record or can’t. It was, of course, great exposure for us but also for Daniel because he got exposure through our audience which he doesn’t always have access to. This is something that Erik has ripped off and replicated and so you will hear more and more often that we’ve invited guest hosts on the podcast. — 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,

Always commit, go right after it. There are a million excuses why you might not want to but just commit and then think about how you’ll pull it off right after. You won’t grow unless you jump on opportunities. It’s more likely that you’ll get to the next level if you overextend a bit. — 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. — For more information on the show, and to check out past episodes, go to journeyto100million.com!

Be bold and declare yourself an expert even if you’re still learning in your field; this will force you to learn that much faster. If you say this to people, they’re going to believe what you say but you do need to back that up. I don’t know about you but marketing constantly changes so for us to be experts, we have to constantly be learning and studying. Just claim it and you will become the expert you dreamed of becoming. — 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. —