Journey To $100 Million

When we are talking to a new prospect, one of the things we actively try to do is put ourselves in their shoes. In episode 176 of The Journey to $100 Million Podcast, Erik talks about the strategy we use when trying to acquire new clients. When we are selling to these prospects, we want to understand exactly what their challenges are when it comes to running their business, while also focusing on getting this prospect leads. Here at Array Digital, we work with a lot of different businesses, and we’ve seen quite a bit. We actually act a lot like consultants for most of our clients when it comes to giving them business advice. A lot of times when we are talking to a brand new prospect, we have a pretty good idea what is going on within their business, and the problems they may face. But, the best thing to do is get them to explain to us exactly what is going on. We need to understand, from their perspective, what their problem is that we could possibly assist in solving. When Erik first started off on his own

In episode 175 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in to Kevin as he talks about a very exciting comment that a prospect shared with us. Kevin recently met with a prospect for a second time, that happened to be a franchise business with a couple partners involved. Over the course of these meetings, Kevin and our sales team had been spending about an hour per meeting talking business & marketing, sharing how Array Digital could help their organization. What happened that was so exciting, was that this prospect called us a strategic partner for their business. Why is this so important? Because Kevin strives for prospects to think this way about our company. Not only that, but we still have not sold this prospect yet, they are currently in the sales process, yet still referred to us as a strategic partner. Furthermore, they also referred to our competition as vendors, allowing us to stand out. We have been trying to drive home this message that we are a strategic partner, and Kevin was flattered to have alre

As you may of heard in a previous episode, we have recently discontinued one of our services here at Array Digital. In episode 173 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in to Kevin as he shares with you the outcome of discontinuing this service. We had 30 clients that had previously used this, and from these 30 clients, the total revenue per month was $891 combined. Unfortunately, we had to reach out to each client and let them know that we were discontinuing this service. We let them know there were a few options for them, as well. They could either upgrade to a different service, or we could refer them to a company that could help them out. Some of these clients were upset and some were worried, however this led us to an opportunity where we could upsell and give them better services. As a result, we transitioned from having 30 clients using this service to 3 clients in this category. Not only that, but we went from $891 a month from 30 clients, to $5,200 a month from 3 clients. That is a 480% increase! Plus,

Do you use social media to express your personal thoughts and views on the world? Or do you use it for personal satisfaction? Maybe you use it to try to get business value out of it? In episode 172 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in to Erik as he shares some tips on how to use social media in the business world. There is no right answer to these questions, and a lot of people use platforms like Facebook or Instagram for purely personal reasons. Some use it to share pictures of their kids & family, drinks/food, or whatever they want. These posts are perfectly fine if you use those platforms for personal reasons, but with business purposes, really think about the strategies you wish to employ. Are things like posting about drinks by the pool, hanging with friends, or going to a party going to help you business? The key here is to think about how you can separate social media from your personal and professional aspects. With a platform like Facebook, you can have a personal profile that you lock down an

In episode 171 of Journey to $100 Million, Kevin talks about our sales policies we have recently put together here at Array Digital. We have never created sales policies before - it used to just be Erik and Kevin hitting the streets and closing deals. But, now that we have Glen (our new sales manager), and plan to hire more sales team members, we realized a need for structured sales policies within our organization. If we hope to hire new sales team members in the future, it is crucial to have sales policies in place. These sales policies include standard procedures and regulations within our sales teams. These sales policies are not yet complete, and still a work in progress, but as we continue forming this, we are going to add to our policies and fine tune it just like any other document that we have. Throughout these sales policies there are many different aspects, and in this episode, Kevin goes into depth about a couple. One of the aspects we cover is a minimum commitment term. This is something you mu

Happy 4th of July everyone! As you may recall, Erik spoke on a previous episode about how we analyzed all of our clients and grouped them by how much revenue they produce on a monthly basis. In episode 170 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in as Erik explains why we got rid of our hosting only clients here at Array Digital. After grouping our clients, we found that we have a rather large bottom-tier group of clients. These clients pay us less than $100 per month, and all have one service in common: hosting only. What is hosting only? In the past, when we were building websites over the years, we would get paid by project. After we finished building the website, we could either give the code to the client and they could host on a server of their choosing, or we could host it for them - thus birthing our hosting only service. We started to host for these clients as it brought in extra revenue for us. We were charging about $10 a month at first for hosting, which is the going rate. We were not trying to make a

In episode 169 of Journey to $100 Million, Kevin talks about how we are now using our CRM platform to stay organized and track performance within our sales process. We currently use HubSpot as our CRM platform here at Array Digital, but have not really been using it for all of its worth. Recently, we have just been using HubSpot loosely to store contacts and deals, but it is not something that we fully live in. Only recently, has HubSpot become something that is really important for us to fully utilize. Glen (our sales manager) and Kevin sat down and re-did our entire sales deal pipeline. This is because, if we plan to grow our sales process beyond Kevin, Glen, and Erik, we must be able to have faith in our CRM platform. When there are just a few individuals running sales, it is easy for everyone to know what is going on, talk, and meet all the time. Between the three, there is very good clarity.  Not only that, but as of now, we are not a high transaction type of business. We usually bring in a client or tw

Have you ever heard the concept of a mastermind group? In episode 168 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in as Erik shares with you what a mastermind group is, as well as how it has benefited him throughout his career. When in a mastermind group, you are surrounded by minded individuals, and get together on a regular basis to talk about your business, how you can grow your business, and discuss different techniques you can try in order to get ahead. Erik goes to a couple different mastermind group meetings, but one in particular is interesting. This is because, this mastermind meeting in particular, is a mini-mastermind; meaning he meets with just one other person: Kevin Griffin. Kevin Griffin is an old buddy of Erik’s from his software development days. Kevin and Erik still keep in touch because they have a lot in common and are both trying to grow their agencies. They have been getting together for coffee about once every two months for many years. This meeting is always last minute. Erik and Kevin schedu

On episode 167 of The Journey to $100 Million Podcast, listen in to Kevin as he shares with you the common fears a client may have before and after a sale. These fears arise with any business, and we have dealt with them at Array Digital on multiple occasions. These fears that clients may have, are both real and imagined. Your client may be imagining some of these fears, but at the end of the day, these fears are still in their head. In the first 90-days of signing, a client is on edge, and they are looking at every single thing that you are doing. These new clients are very particular, easy to make mad, documenting everything, and are looking for you to mess up. The key to these fears, is to be aware that they exist. As a sales person, your goal is to close the sale, and hand them off to the operations team. Obviously, you still stay in contact, but the operations team are the ones communicating after the sale, meeting with the client, and doing the work. Because of this, it is essential to let your operati

Recently, we have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out who our “best” clients are. In episode 166 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in as Erik explains how and why we are categorizing our clients here at Array Digital. Believe it or not, Erik had been in business for 9 years, with Array Digital the past 2 years, and still did not know who our top clients were. Erik had an idea about who the top 1 or 2 clients were based on revenue. But, after the top 2, he really did not know. Erik decided he had to work out a process for figuring this out. He went to Katya (who runs our books) and got a list of all our clients, and the amount of revenue they pay us on a monthly basis. After we sorted that, Erik had a rough understanding of who was at the top of the list. Even though Erik now had this list of our top clients, he did not have any way to demark between our different types of clients. So, Erik looked at the data and saw a couple of patterns. Erik realized that some clients were spending a lot with

If you are an observant individual, you may have picked up on the fact that Erik is now referring to himself as Erik J. Olson. On episode 165 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in as Erik explains why it is important to differentiate yourself from others for the sake of personal branding. Erik’s name has actually deviated quite a bit over the years. Sometimes he would just say Erik, sometimes Erik Olson, and he has always signed his name as Erik J. Olson - but he rarely referred to himself that way. The reason he uses his first name, last name, and middle initial is because he needs to distinguish himself from the other Erik Olsons in the world. Ironically, just down the street from Erik, there is an owner of a construction company by the name of Erik Olson. Not even a week ago, someone asked if Erik ran that company. Erik realized that when it came to his name, there was brand confusion. Erik has been referring to himself this way on this podcast, as well as social media. Even though the spelling might not

On episode 164 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in as Kevin talks about everything new dealing with sales going on here at Array Digital. As you may already know, Kevin’s main focus of the company is to bring in new revenue. Recently, we hired a sales manager to bring on to the Array Digital team. Glen, our new sales manager, has had a lot of experience in the sales world, while also building large sales teams Glen has surprised Kevin over the past couple of months. This is because Kevin did not have that high of expectations when hiring a new sales manager. He assumed that no salesperson could bring in more revenue than himself or Erik. This is because Kevin and Erik know their business the best, sell hard, are confident and passionate, and feel that their expertise allows them to make the most sales. With Glen, this was not the case whatsoever. Kevin and Erik don’t do cold calls, they don’t prospect, and they are not sales people - but Glen embodies all of this. Glen has been with us for about 2 and a h

Erik recently had a discussion with one of his buddies at the gym that had to do with how people dress at work. On episode 163 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in as Erik discusses his opinion on dressing up in the workplace. This individual Erik had a conversation with comes into the Array Digital office every once in a while, and sees that our employees are dressed casually. He was confused, because in his day job, he works at a corporation where everyone dresses up in nice slacks, a button up shirt, and sometimes a tie. Here at Array Digital, we rarely do that. This is not the first time Erik has been questioned on why he does not make his employees dress up - a couple of different individuals have asked him this over the years. Erik’s answer is simple: he doesn’t care! What Erik cares about is if his employees are producing quality work, getting this work done on time, and if they are meeting our core values. That is what is important! No where in Array Digital’s core values does it say you must dress

Do you celebrate wins like you discuss losses? On episode 161 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in as Erik explains the importance of celebrating wins with your team, and not focusing solely on your losses. It is okay if you don’t celebrate your wins the same as losses, because Erik occasionally does the same. Losses are actually something Erik digs into deeply, and likes the opportunity to figure out why/how we lost, how to get better, and how we can ensure we do not make the same mistake again. But what about wins? There are a lot of wins that happen in your business on the way to achieving your goal. For us here at Array Digital, Erik is not going to let his guard down until we have achieved our $100 million goal. Even when we hit this goal, Erik explains there is going to be more that he wants to achieve. But, between now and the time we achieve our goal, we must celebrate wins. A lot of wins happen in our business, on a daily basis. These are small wins: things that you should recognize in the moment

On episode 160 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in as Kevin explains the importance of trading value while meeting with prospects. As you are trying to grow your business, it is essential to be prepared to trade value for the time you spend talking to prospects. For us at Array Digital, we either set up an initial 15-minute phone call, or an hour long meeting that includes a full digital marketing review in order to start a relationship with potential clients. Even in this 15-minute call, we make sure that we are giving value of some sort. If you have a 15-minute phone call with Kevin, whether you decide to hire us or not, he is going to do the best he can to give you some useful information. We might not be a good fit, and may go our separate ways, but Kevin guarantees that you will get some sort of value out of the call. The same goes for the hour-long meetings. In these meetings, we sit down with a prospect, and have a full digital marketing review for them. We spend a lot of time developing these revi

Whenever we get a new client Erik likes to do something a little bit different, and a little bit special. On episode 159 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in as Erik shares how a handwritten letter, and being different, can go a long way with clients. You may be asking, why a handwritten letter when you can just send an email? And the reason behind it is that a handwritten letter is different, and not expected. When was the last time you got a handwritten letter from anybody? Whenever we are onboarding a new client, Erik receives a task to send a handwritten letter to that client. A handwritten letter is a signal that we are taking the relationship very seriously. It is worth our time to sit down, and write a handwritten note. Because hopefully, this client sees this as an indication that they are of value to us. In the card, Erik shares his thanks for this client putting their trust in us, and that we look forward to working with them. Not only that, but he also included his business card and personal pho

Whenever we lose a client, we hold a lessons learned meeting between all of the people who were involved in the project. On episode 158 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in is Erik explains how we have improved our lessons learned process by properly holding lessons learned meetings. What we used to do, is during these meetings, we would sit together with our team members for about an hour and a half, and all take notes in our notepads about the situation that caused us to lose a client. After the meeting, one team member would write up these lessons learned in a Google Doc, in order to ensure we would always remember these lessons - and have a way for us to go back to look at them if need be. After this Google Doc was written up, Erik realized that this document was an incomplete list of what we had taken away from the situation. The person who took up the task of writing up the document, only mentioned the notes that they took during the meeting - creating a loss of certain lessons. We were missing a coup

Do you have a list of your top prospects in the area you service? On episode 157 of The Journey to $100 Million Podcast, listen in as Kevin shares how Array Digital has recently developed a top 100 prospect list comprised of our dream clients. We filled this list with the best companies in our area that produce the most revenue, are the most recognized, and could benefit from the services that we provide. For years we felt these companies were out of reach and too big for us to go after, but that is not the case anymore! Now, we have put this list together in order to pursue these organizations to the best of our ability. Throughout this process, we have gone through and verified that each of these prospects are great companies to go after, and fit our ideal customer guidelines. Within this list, we know who the right people that we want to talk to are, and how we can market and advertise to them, while also having our sales team calling and making appointments to get in front of these prospects. If you do n

Every once in a while there is a new platform that comes out and challenges the status quo. On episode 156 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in as Erik talks about a newly emerging platform taking social media by storm: Tik Tok. Tik Tok is not a major player quite yet, but the app is attracting a lot of attention. Tik Tok is a rebranding of an app called Music.ly, and is catering to a younger age group - mainly of the high school age range. This app is a way for people to make funny “skits” and videos to different music or soundtracks. Erik has heard about this app a lot recently due to the fact this platform has been seen as a potential threat to Instagram. Because of this emerging social media platform, Erik wanted to take a look at Tik Tok, since social media is a huge piece to digital marketing. Erik was not exactly interested in making these music videos on the app, but instead was interested because this app was an emerging trend in the digital marketing industry. Whatever industry you may be in, you

Have you ever gotten an email from a client and you’re not exactly sure what they are trying to say or asking for? On episode 155 of Journey to $100 Million, listen in as Erik shares how he responds to these types of emails, and how these tactics can save you a great amount of time. This happens to us a decent amount at Array Digital where a client (or really anybody) will ask us a question, but in a vague way. When this happens, it is easy to be unsure about what is being asked of you, and more importantly, you do not know what answer this individual is looking for. Erik used to try to decipher these emails, and then would answer the question he thought was being asked. If he could not figure out what the specific question was, he would reply with answers to more than one question that they could have meant to ask. Erik used to try to anticipate or interpret what these individuals were asking. What Erik found was, a majority of the time he tried to do this, he was incorrect in his interpretation. The questi