Journey to $100 Million
1,008 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 16 ratingsAccelerate your entrepreneurial journey by learning from our mistakes instead of making them yourself.
Join Erik J. Olson and Kevin Daisey, the founders of Array Digital, through their ups and downs and lessons learned as they grow their digital marketing agency to $100 million in revenue. In each daily episode they'll discuss what's working now, and what's not. They'll share entrepreneurial and marketing tips and tricks picked up while becoming a dominant player in the ever changing digital marketing industry.
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Episodes
How We Are Doing During COVID-19
April 17, 2020 07:00 - 3 minutes - 4.35 MBThis 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 s...
How To Get Your Team Working Remotely
April 16, 2020 07:00 - 5 minutes - 5.11 MBAt 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, sl...
2020 Goal: Book 12 Online Speaking Engagements
April 15, 2020 07:00 - 2 minutes - 2.26 MBAt 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 o...
We can advertise on media competitors' websites
April 14, 2020 07:00 - 4 minutes - 4.39 MBWe 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 ...
Guest Host: Evan Knox
April 13, 2020 07:00 - 5 minutes - 6.96 MBToday’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 ...
Rip Off The Band-Aid: Fire Bad Clients
April 12, 2020 07:00 - 4 minutes - 4.45 MBWe recently let go of a client that we had only had for about two months. There were a lot of red flags from the very beginning of this deal. Even before we signed the contract he was asking for us to make changes to our contract and changes to the scope of work. We have a rule that we only allow one concession per contract if needed, but we broke our own rule and gave in to all of the requests because we wanted the deal. Erik met the client for the first time after that contract was signed....
When Giving a Talk, End with a Pitch
April 11, 2020 07:00 - 5 minutes - 6.88 MBErik has always felt comfortable speaking in public and actually enjoys it...we know, shocking! But his point in being there is not just to have an enjoyable time speaking in front of people. There are people there to learn from you and what you’ve done. Erik used to talk about whatever topic he was told to talk about even if he didn’t actually sell those conversations. He realized after years of doing this that if he’s not pitching his services in these talks, then he’s losing a great oppor...
The Status Of Erik's Book
April 10, 2020 07:00 - 5 minutes - 7.16 MBErik has mentioned in previous episodes that one of his goals for 2020 was to publish a book. His book is going to be about his entrepreneurial journey to getting to $1million dollars in revenue. The reason he chose $1million dollars as the threshold is because his research has shown him that only 4% of businesses ever reach the $1million dollar mark. That means the vast majority of businesses never make it to that point. He wants to see other entrepreneurs succeed and the goal of his book...
Coaching New Entrepreneurs
April 09, 2020 07:00 - 5 minutes - 4.52 MBLately on Twitter Erik has offered to coach new entrepreneurs or agency owners that are looking for a little help. He’s doing this because he wishes he had received this kind of coaching when he was starting out. He's a big believer in learning from other's mistakes and he enjoys coaching aspiring entrepreneurs. The way he sees it is entrepreneurialism is a journey that everyone is on. Many people are ahead of you and many are behind, but eventually everyone will get to where they need to be...
Not Niching Has Turned Into A Strength
April 08, 2020 07:00 - 4 minutes - 4.41 MBErik did not expect it but not having a niche has worked out to our advantage. We are in the middle of the Coronavirus crisis and it has impacted everyone. Many businesses have been forced to shut down, and others have slowed down significantly. Some industries are taking a hard hit, like travel, restaurants, bars, entertainment venues, and retailers. Others are doing really well, like accountants, lawyers, and medical offices. For a long time Erik considered not having a niche one of our ...
Start Going Live
April 07, 2020 07:00 - 3 minutes - 3.37 MBGoing live is something that we started doing on a regular basis a couple of months ago. We started doing a live stream every Friday at noon and we called it lunchtime live streams. Every week one or two of us will get in front of the camera and talk about a different topic. These days we might be talking about the Coronavirus or marketing or how to market during the Coronavirus crisis. We talk about things that are important, relevant, and relatable to the business or marketing world. Somet...
Social media IS your communication channel to the world
April 06, 2020 07:00 - 4 minutes - 3.66 MBThanks to the Coronavirus the purpose of social media changed drastically overnight. At the time of this recording, in March of 2020, we are in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic. Before now you could say the purpose of social media for a business was to put out content and engage with its audience. Today, in the middle and this pandemic, social media is serving a very different purpose. Today it is being used as a tool for mass communication. Websites only work for communicating inform...
Small Cuts To Avoid Deep Cuts
April 05, 2020 07:00 - 2 minutes - 3.04 MBRunning a business can be very challenging. Oftentimes you have to make hard decisions and sometimes you have to make them quickly. During this time of the Coronavirus crisis, we have had to make some of those decisions. With some of our clients going out of business and others having to shut down for the unforeseeable future, we have had to make decisions to help keep the company going. Erik and Kevin quickly decided to make small cuts in order to avoid deep cuts. They decided to cut back o...
Texting Videos To Clients
April 04, 2020 07:00 - 5 minutes - 4.5 MBEmail is great for communicating on a daily basis, but when you have an important message to get out email isn't always enough. At the time of this recording, we are in the second week of the Coronavirus pandemic. Early on, when it was apparent that we were all going to have to make some major changes as a result of the Coronavirus, Erik decided to get a message out to our clients. He had Jake record a video of him with that message. He then asked Katya to email the clients with the link to ...
Emergency Stimulus Package
April 03, 2020 07:00 - 4 minutes - 4.38 MBErik has never been a big fan of discounting his rates. He is a strong believer that when you set a price for something you should stick to it. In fact, we have written it into the sales process that we will not discount our rates. We've done it in the past and often it ended up causing problems down the road. At the time of this recording in March of 2020, we are in the middle of the Coronavirus crisis. This is unlike any time we’ve ever seen before and it's requiring us to re-evaluate bu...
Responding to Twitter DMs (Zapier to Asana)
April 02, 2020 07:00 - 5 minutes - 7 MBErik has mentioned many times in this podcast he's a big fan of Twitter. It's his social media platform of choice for business purposes. He's very active on there and over time it has paid off. Erik regularly has public conversations with people on Twitter but oftentimes it will then move into direct messages. He believes that's where the magic happens. That's where leads are created and more meaningful conversations take place. With so many new followers every day, and many conversations ...
Social Media DMs - Just Say Hi
April 01, 2020 07:00 - 3 minutes - 3.29 MBErik has been advising colleagues and listeners to communicate with followers on social media through direct messages. It's something he has been doing a lot himself and he finds it very productive. The question he often gets from those he recommends this to though is, “Isn’t it awkward? What do you say?” He believes it's no more awkward than striking up a conversation with someone at a networking event. It's the same idea with the same end goal in mind. When people ask him what they should...
Joining An Agency Specific Mastermind
March 31, 2020 07:00 - 6 minutes - 5.29 MBAlthough Erik is part of numerous professional organizations there were a couple of questions that he had about scaling an agency that he couldn't get answers to from those organizations. That's when he turned to a Mastermind program for digital marketing agency owners. He joined this organization earlier in the year, along with Kevin, and it's been very beneficial to the both of them. The first question he had was about the role of sales within operations. He had a gut feeling about how in...
Never Be Beholden To A Single Client
March 30, 2020 07:00 - 4 minutes - 4.08 MBArray Digital is Erik’s third company. His first business consisted of him being a third-tier subcontractor for the Navy. All of his revenue came from one client and his client wasn't the decision maker. Whenever something needed addressing it would have to go up the chain of command to the decision maker. When the project was eventually awarded to another company it put Erik out of business. That's when he learned the importance of diversification in the client base. Diversification is imp...
The Benefits of Batching Your Meetings
March 29, 2020 07:00 - 2 minutes - 3.62 MBA few days ago, Erik was in several internal meetings that he held back-to-back-to-back. Seems like a large chunk of time to be spending in meetings, right? And yea, it does kinda suck when you’re in back-to-back meetings but when you make your meetings incredibly targeted and all at one point in the day, you get it out of the way. We used to have much longer meetings but Erik put a stop to that saying that internal meetings should be limited to 30 minutes. Get in, get out, and get onto some...
180 Days In The Gym
March 28, 2020 07:00 - 2 minutes - 2.81 MBKevin set a goal to make it to the gym 180 days this year. He's been going to the gym regularly for a while now, but he's been averaging about three days a week. To make it to the gym 180 days this year he has to go to the gym about 15 days out of the month or four days a week. That's really only one more day than he is so used to doing, but when it comes to going to the gym it is a big commitment. Often things come up, sometimes he'll get sick, so four days a week might not always be f...
Coaching: Business and Triathlon
March 27, 2020 07:00 - 5 minutes - 4.48 MBOne of Erik's New Year's resolutions for 2020 is to kick ass at a Half Ironman. A half Ironman consists of swimming 1.2 miles, biking for 56 miles, and running 13 miles. It's a lot of activity. Erik started training for this at the beginning of 2020. He realized he needed the guidance of a coach in order to do really well. He debated between hiring a coach to work with him one-on-one or buying a program written by an Ironman training coach. He decided to go with the written training program...
Connecting on LinkedIn
March 26, 2020 07:00 - 4 minutes - 5.55 MBLinkedIn is the platform that Kevin used to not pay very much attention to. It was something that he would check maybe once every couple of months and update just to keep his business profile current. But, this has changed in the last couple of years. Kevin is much more active on LinkedIn these days and it's really paid off. Kevin believes it's important to open yourself up on LinkedIn. It's not like other social media platforms, it's full of business people waiting to connect. He suggests g...
Coronavirus: Shock & Awe
March 25, 2020 07:00 - 5 minutes - 5.22 MBThis is Erik's first episode about the Coronavirus. That's largely because episodes are recorded in batches. We create evergreen content mostly and the impact of the Coronavirus is more like real-time news. Last week was "shock and awe" for Erik. After holding the State of Digital Marketing Address on March 12th, the next day the Governor of Virginia closed schools and the President declared a national state of emergency. Although 200 tickets were sold, only about 120 people showed. Although...
The Pros & Cons of Canceling Our Biggest Event
March 24, 2020 07:00 - 5 minutes - 7.26 MBFebruary 20 was supposed to be the date of our first paid event, the State of Digital Marketing Address and we sold out our 200 tickets. Then came the winter weather advisory that said it would start snowing at 3 pm the day of the event which started at 5:30. Where we’re from, the moment people hear about snow, they freak out. So we were faced with a situation beyond our control and we had a big decision to make. We had to consider whether or not it would be safe for people to travel there a...
Join an Advisory Board or Mastermind
March 23, 2020 07:00 - 4 minutes - 5.94 MBKevin has put together a list of goals for 2020 and today he focuses on 1 of them: joining an advisory board group. He’s looked into Mastermind groups and he and Erik joined one for digital marketing agencies. You might say, aren’t those your competitors? And while there may be a chance of running into them, they are business owners across the country and around the world. Kevin and Erik were placed in a group that makes between $3-$20 million group even though we are at $2 million. These ...
Live Streaming Each Week
March 22, 2020 07:00 - 4 minutes - 3.73 MBEarlier this year Array Digital started doing lunchtime live streams at noon every Friday. We started by just doing them on Facebook and we have since added them to Twitter and YouTube. The live streams focus on what's going on in marketing and sometimes we talk about events we have coming up like our monthly Marketers Anonymous meetings and the recent State of Digital Marketing Address we just had. It’s important to get the attention of your potential clients on social media and going li...
Developing a Brand Positioning Statement
March 21, 2020 07:00 - 4 minutes - 4.39 MBKevin recently read a book called “Creating a Story Brand” and he thought it was a pretty good read. He then started doing research on taglines and brand statements. He concluded that the brand positioning statement sets the tone for a brand and everything stems from that. A brand positioning statement is made up of four parts: - The target (the customer) - The category (the industry you’re in) - The differentiator (what sets you apart from the competition) - The payoff (the benefit to ...
Excuses About New Year's Resolutions
March 20, 2020 07:00 - 3 minutes - 4.18 MBOne thing Erik likes to do every year is set New Year's resolutions. It's something he's always done but just recently, in the last two to three years, he has taken it more seriously. The difference now is when he makes a resolution it's something that he really intends on keeping. In the past that wasn't always the case. At the time of this recording it is the beginning of March. Erik has spoken to people and asked them about their New Year's resolutions and found that many of them don't e...
Reading 100 Marketing Articles In 2020
March 19, 2020 07:00 - 2 minutes - 3.74 MBKevin made a goal this year to read 100 marketing articles. At first glance that may seem like a big number but it's pretty manageable. A couple of mornings a week Kevin looks for marketing articles online. He will read one to three of them at a time and record it in a Google form which then puts it into a spreadsheet. That spreadsheet is tracking how many articles he's reading. So far he's up to 17. He is ahead of pace and should easily accomplish his goal by the end of the year. The benef...
The Decline Of Instagram
March 18, 2020 07:00 - 4 minutes - 6.13 MBThese days when it comes to social media there is one platform that people believe is all the rage - that is Instagram. People believe that Instagram is growing at a rapid pace and that if a business wants to be successful and reach its customers that is where they need to be. The truth is Instagram is declining in growth. Last year, in 2019, Instagram grew 6.7%. This year, it is expected to grow between 4 and 5%, and next year even less. By 2023 it is expected Instagram will only grow about ...
Kevin Will Read 24 Business Books This Year
March 17, 2020 07:00 - 2 minutes - 3.81 MBKevin set a goal to read 24 business books this year. That breaks down to two books a month. Kevin doesn't consider reading a strong point so this was a realistic and reasonable goal for him. He's a big fan of Audible (audio books). There are some books he likes to read the old-fashioned way but Audible is a great way to consume many books. At the time of this recording it is the end of February and he has read three books. So, he's a bit behind but he's confident he will catch up. He has t...
How Erik Is Crushing Twitter
March 16, 2020 07:00 - 5 minutes - 7.96 MBErik is a big believer that you need to be in all places at all times, especially when it comes to your online presence. You need things like a website, a podcast, and a strong presence on social media. There are many social media platforms to choose from and it can be overwhelming. Here at Array Digital, we have a marketing team that helps support Erik's profiles, Kevin's profiles, and of course Array Digital’s. But, Erik wanted to focus his attention on one platform in particular for his p...
Lessons Learned From Unlimited PTO
March 15, 2020 07:00 - 5 minutes - 4.71 MBHere at Array Digital we have a policy called open paid time off. What that means is that employees can take off as much time as they need. We don't track the hours or days that they take off at all. There is a record of it but no one actually tracks it for any purpose. Everyone is free to take as much time as they need. We implemented this for a couple of reasons. When we stopped billing by the hour we also stopped tracking the hours that we worked. Since we were no longer tracking hours ...
Big Companies And Looser HR Policies
March 14, 2020 07:00 - 3 minutes - 3.33 MBErik was recently talking to a good friend of his over the phone. This friend works at a big company. A hospital to be more precise. His friend was telling him how he was trying to get time off from work to attend a conference. The friend’s boss did not approve the request stating things were too busy at work. Erik asked his friend how he put in the request for time off. The friend replied he had emailed his boss to ask for the time. Erik followed up his question by asking how he had put ...
Guest Host: Jeff "Ski" Kinsey
March 13, 2020 07:00 - 5 minutes - 4.8 MBWe have a special guest host for today's episode. His name is Jeff Kinsey but he goes by Ski or The Ski Man. Erik first met Ski in January 2019 at a conference called AlexaConf. He has done some consulting for Array Digital and he really knows his stuff. Ski starts the episode by saying he is on his second Kia. He bought it used, as a returned lease, and as he was test-driving it he noticed there was no CD player. The saleslady told him it wasn't needed anymore because everyone just stream...
You Don't Need Venture Capital; Sell Your Offering Instead
March 12, 2020 07:00 - 3 minutes - 2.74 MBOn Twitter Erik gets asked a lot about venture capital. It seems to be an excuse for many would-be entrepreneurs to not start their business. There are a lot of reasons or excuses to not start a business but if you really want to have one you have to find your way around them. A lack of funds seems to be the number one reason why people don't get started. But Erik believes it’s not always needed in the beginning. When Erik hears this reason from an aspiring entrepreneur he will publicly or ...
$50 to Parse Local Association’s Flip Mag
March 11, 2020 18:39 - 4 minutes - 4.28 MBKevin recently stumbled across one of those flip magazines on the Internet that had really valuable data, in particular a long list of contact information for an association whose members we would love to get in front of. Each listing had the company and a person of contact with their email address and phone number. The problem was that it wasn’t in a format that is downloadable. We wanted to get the email addresses of all of the people in there and then target them on Facebook and talk dire...
Guest Host: Michael King
March 10, 2020 07:00 - 5 minutes - 5.35 MBToday’s guest host is Michael King, CEO of KFE Solutions and fellow podcaster of the show called In the Trenches. Michael is often asked what the number one mistake is that business owners make when it comes to their finances. That's a pretty easy question for Michael to answer. He believes the biggest mistake made from the newest of entrepreneurs to CEOs of large corporations is not knowing the four most important metrics of their business. They are: revenue, gross profit, net profit, and c...
Book Summary: Never Split the Difference
March 09, 2020 07:00 - 4 minutes - 3.69 MBIn this episode Erik talks about a book he just finished listening to called Never Split the Difference. It was written by Chris Voss, a retired FBI hostage negotiator. Erik has been listening to more audiobooks as he has been working out a lot. He likes exercising and learning something new at the same time. There were two main takeaways from this particular book: First, when negotiating a deal with someone, and they are asking for more than you are willing to give, let them know the proble...
Progress Check On Erik's Book
March 08, 2020 07:00 - 4 minutes - 6.77 MBIn December 2019 Erik started dedicating two hours every morning to write his first book. At the time of recording this podcast episode it is now mid January 2020. Erik has been writing pretty consistently and is up to about 75,000 words in his book. He has a few more sections left to write. The goal is to have the finished book be about 50,000 words so in the end he will have to trim down the book considerably and leave only the best 50,000 words. Once he is done writing he will edit it hi...
Lying To Yourself About New Year's Resolutions
March 07, 2020 08:00 - 2 minutes - 2.43 MBWe are in a new year now and that got Erik thinking about New Year's resolutions. He was recently talking to people about his 2019 resolutions and what he would be doing in 2020. When asking others about their New Year's resolutions he noticed often times they responded jokingly. It was almost as if they didn't believe what they were saying at that moment. Erik doesn't really understand why people lie to themselves when it comes to New Year's resolutions. He doesn't understand why someone w...
Guest Host: Tatsuya Nakagawa
March 06, 2020 08:00 - 5 minutes - 4.41 MBToday we have a guest speaker, Tatsuya Nakagawa (aka Tats). Between 2006 and 2008, Tats and his business partner wrote a book about creating strategies to become successful on new product innovations. They got a testimonial from the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, the perfect person for the testimonial. But Tats felt he messed up by not promoting the book enough and missed an opportunity to help his business grow and increase his contacts. Why? Because he’s always been fairly shy and in...
Putting Client Ad Spend On The AmEx
March 05, 2020 08:00 - 5 minutes - 4.61 MBA good part of our monthly revenue comes from client ads spend. This is client money that we use to buy ads on Google and Facebook. In the past we used a debit card to make these media purchases. The debit card was linked to the checking account where all the client ad spend sits. One day we met with our American Express representative to talk about things. We have had an American Express credit card that we use to pay for things we need for the company. Our representative asked if we use t...
Onboarding Email Using a Freelancer and Integromat
March 04, 2020 08:00 - 4 minutes - 6.28 MBHere at Array Digital we love the automation tool we use called Zapier. We use it for everything. Recently however, Erik discovered a new program that might be better than Zapier and is way more powerful. It's called Integromat. He found out about this program when he was looking for a program that would send a daily email to our new clients letting them know where we were in the onboarding process. It would require taking information from our daily task manager, Asana, and putting it into a ...
Guest Host: Whitney Duenas
March 03, 2020 08:00 - 5 minutes - 7.56 MBToday's guest host is Whitney Duenas, fellow podcaster of Bold Hustle Podcast and owner of Barre by the Bay. Barre By the Bay is a boutique fitness studio in Virginia. One of the first things that came up in opening the studio was figuring out whether to make the instructors employees or independent contractors. This is something that Whitney discussed with her business lawyer. They went over some questions and the pros and cons of each. Whitney realized one the benefits of being an ind...
Flying Private
March 02, 2020 08:00 - 4 minutes - 3.63 MBShortly before Erik and Kevin merged to form Array Digital, they were working for a mutual client. At one point that client asked them to travel up to Rockville, MD for a meeting. As soon as Erik read that line in the email he began to dread the idea and think about the two days it would surely take to get it done. Then he read the second line. It said that a private plane had been arranged for them. That changed his mindset very quickly. Erik had never been in a private plane before so ...
Giving Shout-outs To Those Who Review The Podcast
March 01, 2020 08:00 - 3 minutes - 3 MBToday's episode is a shout-out to our podcast listener Craig Dewart. Erik connected with Craig on Twitter through direct messages. As a result of those messages Craig was introduced to this podcast. Craig offered to leave a review for the podcast. Erik sent him the link to Amazon to leave the review, and that's when he found out that Craig is in the UK. (This podcast is heard all over the world, in English-speaking countries). Craig had to use the UK's version of Amazon in order to leave th...
Shutting Down The Office During The Holidays
February 29, 2020 08:00 - 3 minutes - 3.22 MBTwo years ago we started a holiday stand down period. What this means is that operations continue as usual, but the team does it all from home. We had noticed that business slows down considerably between Christmas and New Year's, and likewise the need for customer service slows way down. So, starting a couple of years ago we decided to let employees work the week between Christmas and New Year's from home. We still have our morning huddle every morning and standing meetings still take pla...
Book As Many Speaking Events As You Can
February 28, 2020 08:00 - 3 minutes - 3.63 MBSpeaking events are important because they help to grow your business. It’s getting your name out there in front of prospects or people who may know someone who could benefit from your services. It generates new relationships and paints you as the expert in your industry. Kevin has a goal this year to book 10 speaking events outside of Array’s own events. As of January, he has 2 speaking engagements already booked. One way he’s passively looking for speaking engagements is with his LinkedI...