Journey To $100 Million

When completing work for a client, do you run a credit check beforehand? Do you obtain a promissory note? Do you have anything besides their acknowledgment of a proposal or contract to ensure you get paid? In episode 218 of Journey to $100 Million, Erik explains how you are extending credit to a company or individual when completing work for them. When you send a client the bill for your work, you are extending credit to that client. This is due to the fact that you are essentially giving them a loan for the funds needed in order to complete this work. Often times this can pose a huge risk as you may be unaware of the client’s credit situation. Think of it like this: if you put in a week of work for a client and you have to wait a month for that payment, you just wasted a ton of time that you could’ve put into another client’s contract. Ultimately, you want to get paid for your services in a timely manner and make the most of your time, especially because companies have to pay their employees as well. It is

Losing a deal is not fun whatsoever, especially when it is $500k. In episode 217 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in to Kevin as he explains how a deal lost, led to a company formed. About two and a half years ago, when Kevin and Erik’s individual companies had been collaborating with one another, they lost a $500k deal. This deal was brought about by Kevin meeting the COO of a German company (also located in the US) through his membership in the HRIC. The COO reached to Kevin not knowing if the work could be done by them - but recommended Kevin should bid on the project. So, Kevin took one of Erik’s employees and had a meeting with this company which ended up going well! They had two other subsequent meetings, and it was looking like Kevin and Erik would get the deal. But, at the last minute, this deal got derailed. Someone higher up in the company decided they would rather work with one local company, rather than using two different companies. Since Kevin and Erik were two different companies working

You know what’s frustrating? When you have something that you need to get done in a timely manner and you’re blocked by a third party system that you have to mess with before you can even get to work. Today, Erik talks about how Array Digital has adopted G Suite and although there are a lot of systems offered out there, he finds that this one works best for his team. With so many systems out there, it can be tempting to take time to weigh the pros and cons and assess all the different offerings when in actuality, they offer very similar things, so you should really just choose one. One of the pros of Google is that it doesn’t take long to set it up and in order to add someone, you don’t have to jump through hoops, it’s all very simple and user-friendly. With G Suite, you get access to Drive, Calendar, Email, Hangouts, and quite a few other applications. If you’re in start-up phase or moving towards that point, Erik highly recommends G Suite because it’s easy to set something up for a team. And by the way, i

When Kevin is out there selling, he is selling strategy and partnership - the rest of the services offered come along with that. He’s selling these prospects on how Array Digital is going to partner with them: the communication, the activity with our team, the access to our team, and the fact that we genuinely care about their business. If there isn’t a good strategy in place and there isn’t good communication between the clients and the team, neither side will grow and neither side will benefit. Everything else falls into place when there is that strategy and partnership present. If you want to know what makes Array Digital different, that’s it. We actually care, we’re available for calls and check-ins and need clients who are the same way, otherwise it’s not a good fit. — 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

Have you ever heard of the phrase “Valley of Death”? Erik was introduced to it in the Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) that provides a lot of learning opportunities that he takes advantage of because they’re very relevant to running a business and can be applied immediately. One of them was about cash flow and how as you grow your company, your cash flow requirements change and grow. So the Valley of Death is from the book Scaling Up by Verne Harnish. It shows that as your business’s revenue increases over time, you’ll reach a certain point where the revenue will probably drop off as you go to the next big threshold. For example, your revenue will probably climb to about $1 million then likely plateau out and then as you continue to scale up towards $10 million, it won’t go laterally to that point, it’ll probably drop below $1 million before it gets there. It plateaus out again at $10 million as you continue to grow beyond that point. The valley of death is there because what got you to that point probabl

Between the years of 2006 and 2011 the year he hired his first employee, Kevin made 6 figures working in a condo on the beach with very little overhead, just a nice computer, some software, and a suit and tie. He was able to build up a business making over $100,000 a year, something he never saw possible. It was a result of a lot of hard work around the clock, going to meetings, growing his network, doing great work, and getting referrals as a result. He didn’t seem to have a problem being too small and actually, the downturn in the economy around 2008 helped him to get more work because he was the lower-cost option in an industry that people saw the value in but didn’t want to spend tons of money in. Slowly he raised his prices as he learned more things and added new services. He did anything and everything but that resulted in him getting no time off. Still it was a 6-figure business built in a short amount of time. It was difficult being so young, people certainly doubted him and while, no, it’s not the

As a young employee, Erik always thrived off the praise of his employer; it was the ultimate compliment and it improved his work ethic. Now with 11 people on the Array Digital team, when one of his staff gets positive feedback from a client, that’s what really resonates with him. Recently, he received some positive feedback on Jamal, the project manager, from a previous employee, Bruce, who’s now created his own custom software development business called Forloop, that Jamal is still involved with. Bruce messaged Erik at 8:37 one night saying how grateful he was for Jamal who works late with him many nights on the project and Bruce just wanted to make Erik aware of how much work Jamal has put into it. Frankly, Erik wasn’t aware of how much work Jamal put into it; he knew that he did some work here and there based on what he said in the daily morning huddles. He really appreciated Bruce telling him this and made the whole team aware that he now knew and gave kudos to Jamal. Clients praising the team happens

It was 2011. Kevin brought on a full-time contractor. Not technically an employee as he didn’t offer benefits, but someone that was dedicated to the work he was doing. He definitely allowed Kevin to focus more on what he was doing but unfortunately, they found that he did not help to grow the company. They made the same amount of money that year as Kevin did when he was working by himself. And the next year too. Except now he paid someone close to $40,000. He thought maybe this is just how business works; maybe it was taking things off his plate making him less stressed and with more time on his hands. But the reality Kevin had to face was that he was working just as hard and still doing a lot of the work himself. It was not until that person was gone having pursued a full-time job with benefits and Kevin brought on his second hire, did things really change. He hired Jason - who is still with the company today - in 2014 as a contractor and immediately saw the business double. He worked really closely with

In today’s episode, Erik gives the lowdown on the marketers meetup, Marketers Anonymous, that started in Norfolk in the fall of 2018. Right off the bat, it was a big success; there was standing room only at the very first meetup and people were literally sitting on the floor in the back. Of course, it was expected that it would simmer down over the holidays and pick up again after, which was exactly what happened. It was super exciting so Erik and Kevin decided to expand the meetup to a couple of different markets, the first being Newport News. It launched and...there was pretty poor attendance: about 10-12 people. So they decided to see what would happen in the second and third meetups if they pushed it harder than the first one. They amped up our social media posting, spent some ad dollars to really market it properly, and contacted every marketer they knew in Newport News and invited them. And the second one was...even worse: with only about 7 or 8 attendees. They did that for a couple of months hoping

In today’s episode, Kevin is talking about an organization he joined back in 2005 that also led to him starting his business. At the time it was called the Hampton Roads Technology Council. He joined mostly out of curiosity and started going to the meetings just as a bystander. He got onto the board and became super involved. It worked well for him: he got to get out of the office and meet people at grand companies and the heads of big corporations. At the age of 22, hanging out with these senior execs and company owners was a big deal and it started to rub off on him. Ultimately, this led to getting leads for website development and design that allowed him to start his own business. He is still part of this group to this day which is now called Hampton Roads Innovation Collaborative (HRIC). He feels almost indebted to the group because of the network and relationships he’s been able to build over the years. If you’re looking to start a business or have already done so, it’s in your best interest to be pa

When you first start a business, you are not going to get rich overnight. In episode 207 of Journey to $100 Million, Kevin talks about how he lost money during his first year in business, but never gave up. When he left his day job, all odds were against him as he was leaving behind a secured salary, benefits, and retirement plan. However, he was determined to recover his losses and pursue his new career path. Kevin was making money from the services he was providing but ended up taking a loss due to the computers, software, and other business expenses that were required to start his company. Thankfully, the following year he was able to gain a return and ended up reinvesting it back into the business, allowing him to earn a profit in his second year of running the company. Just because you may not have any capital, investors, etc. that doesn’t mean you can’t start a business, you don’t need all of that. All you need is the guts to start your business, and the willingness to take risks. If you work hard, g

When running a business, one of the most important things you must focus on is finances. In episode 206 of Journey to $100 Million, Erik discusses how we handle our finances here at Array Digital. It sounds easy to get an accounting package like QuickBooks and just put all the numbers in - right? It is easy but you must pay attention to this information and dedicate time to it as well. In the beginning, Erik would put in all of the numbers himself, but found it hard to find time to pay the much-needed attention to these numbers. Once he hired our executive assistant, Katya, her first priority was to manage the books and invoicing clients. She takes care of our books, enters in all of our transactions, and sends financial & revenue reports to Erik and Kevin. This financial report is crucial because Katya is able to highlight the information that is important for Erik and Kevin to know. There are a lot of expenses and things that need to be understood in order to ensure that there is nothing that would c

When Kevin first started his business, he did not have any capital, debt or investors and he didn’t have access to any money, bank loans, or credit cards. In episode 205 of Journey to $100 Million, Kevin shares how he was able to create his first business without utilizing any of these factors. Fast forward to today at Array Digital, Erik and Kevin have built their company without the financial help from outside sources. We do have lines of credit, but we have not had to rely on this credit or go into debt. With Kevin’s business, all he needed to get started was a computer, some software, and the internet. There was no need for overhead, employees, an office, etc. He didn’t want to make the mistake of prioritizing these expenses from the beginning and slipping into debt before any profit had been made. The key is to think about how you can get your work done the easy and cheap way while still getting good results for your customers. There is no need to break the bank. Before you start spending money on a

It is very easy for you to implement change within your company once you realize the need for it. But the challenge comes in when you must train your staff to successfully do the same. In episode 204 of Journey to $100 Million, Erik explains how he learned this valuable lesson and what he continues to do moving forward because of this experience. Ten years ago, Erik learned this lesson the hard way when he and his wife owned a bakery. Erik was trying to make a change in the bakery to improve the business, but he was not involved in the business full-time. Due to the fact he was not in the business full-time, whenever he left the business after making a change to return to his day job, everything fell apart. This was a result of the staff not being adequately trained on the changes he was implementing. Due to this experience, Erik became much more cautious about making changes. If he felt the change was necessary, he thinks through all the possible ramifications the change would bring and every person that w

In episode 203 of Journey to $100 Million, Kevin talks about one of the individuals that really motivated him to expedite his decision to become an entrepreneur and start his own business. This individual was a close friend of Kevin’s and one that he has not seen in a while: Ilya Pozin. Ilya is a founder of Coplex as well as Pluto TV. At the time when Kevin was toying with the idea of starting his own business, Ilya had his own company in Virginia Beach that he started in college. Kevin was blown away by Ilya’s success, especially when he told him he would be moving to LA to pursue greater career opportunities. Seeming as though they were the same age and Kevin had just as much motivation as Ilya, he decided to take the leap to start his own business. Kevin congratulates Ilya on all his success and gives credit to knowing that he was definitely an influence on Kevin to start his own business. If you have started your own business, there is probably someone that influenced you. Whoever it may be, it doesn’

Recently, we had to suspend a client due to nonpayment. In episode 202 of Journey to $100 Million, Erik explains this painful situation that left the Array Digital team perplexed. This was a priority 1 client, meaning that they were top tier. Erik recently had a long face-to-face meeting, as he does every quarter, with this client and felt that he and the owner really connected. Three weeks after this meeting and this client had not paid their invoice. They were 35 days late and the next invoice had already come around. Erik called both of the owners multiple times, left voicemails, sent emails, and even left messages to the administrative assistant that she said she had been passing along. Erik never heard back - not a word. So he ended up suspending the client’s services. One week later after the suspension, the client ended up paying the bill and their services were turned back on, but this situation left Erik on edge. He felt the lack of communication was peculiar, especially when we’d been forced to s

In episode 201 of Journey to $100 Million, Kevin dives into the experiences of starting his first business. Kevin was only 23 when he founded this company. He had no money saved, no capital investments, no loans - nothing at all to start-up his website design company. For Kevin, this experience was very challenging and scary, and he speaks on how if it was not for his wife, he probably could not have made this happen. When he first started this company, all he had was an apartment on a street by the beach with a couple of roommates. He set up a computer with basic software and started building websites. In doing this, he formulated a concept, created his own website, and started to market himself as the website guy. At that time he still had the stability of his day job and there wasn't a lot of risk at that point, until a year later when he quit his job and dropped everything to dedicate all his time to his business. Stay tuned into future episodes to learn more about this experience: how he was able to f

Here at Array Digital, we keep very detailed, meaningful KPIs (key performance indicators). In episode 200 of Journey to $100 Million, Erik explains a specific KPI that he was unhappy with after the second quarter of the 2019 business year. Starting in the first quarter of 2019, we created a “change in MRR” (monthly recurring revenue) KPI. This KPI measures how much our MRR increased and decreased over the quarter. At the end of quarter one, we ended the quarter at about +$8,000 - which we were thrilled with! During the second quarter, we got a little more sophisticated and split this KPI into two pieces. We created “new MRR” (new work we had gained) and “loss of MRR” (work we lost). What we found was that in the second quarter there was a shocking loss of MRR. We gained $25k in new MRR, but we lost $21k of MRR in the same quarter. So although we were up $4k, the amount of MRR lost was inexcusable. Every time we lose a client resulting in a loss of MRR, we call a lessons learned meeting and deconstruct what

The year was 2005 and Kevin was working for a large engineering firm. On the side, Kevin had been developing websites as a hobby, just like he had been doing since 6th grade. He had yet to consider the fact that he could continue this hobby as a career and make a profit. In episode 199 of Journey to $100 Million, Kevin shares the instance when he realized he was ready for something bigger than just sitting in a cubicle. Although Kevin loved the engineering firm at which he was currently employed and appreciated the opportunity, he ultimately knew he wanted to start his own business. He started to explore and meet different business owners and individuals that began to request website designs, and for the first time, he was being offered money to build these sites! He started making money from these websites equivalent to what he was making at the firm he was working at. Once he realized he could make the same amount of money, if not more, he was hooked. He talked to his company about leaving to start his own

Today’s episode is a special one! In episode 198 of Journey to $100 Million, Erik talks about a VERY special entrepreneur: his father, Larry Olson - and today is his birthday! Erik’s father, Larry, was an entrepreneur for years after his service in the Air Force. Once he retired from the Air Force, Larry found a franchise that he bought into and then opened a video store by the name of West Coast Video that Erik worked at while in high school. Larry eventually opened up a second store and needed help with all the inventory he had bought for the opening. Erik decided to help and took on the job of matching up the loads of VCR boxes with the actual videos (as we know back in the day they were separated in the store to prevent shoplifting.) This was a very big task and every day Erik would get some friends together and go line up the boxes one by one and start matching them together. It took weeks to get this finished, but it ended up being a lot of fun for Erik and taught him a lot about hard work and meet