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Why Your Digital Presence Is a Business Asset, Not Just a Website · Business Roundtable

0:13
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast. I am your host,
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Speaker 1: David Carr, bringing people together to accomplish great things, founder
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Speaker 1: or steward your business. We are back this week with
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Speaker 1: a brand new guest, Paige We We're super excited to
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Speaker 1: have her here from touring digital and Page is not
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Speaker 1: only the founder, she's been doing award winning digital agency
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Speaker 1: work helping businesses for over fifteen years, and so we're
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Speaker 1: super excited to have you come and share a little
0:38
Speaker 1: bit about your leadership journey, how you've helped work with.
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Speaker 1: I think you'll like over two thousand clients. You've worked
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Speaker 1: with many, many people across different industries. Welcome to the
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Speaker 1: podcast page.
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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having I'm excited to be
0:49
Speaker 2: here with you, David.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely, I'm excited to have you here too. One
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Speaker 1: thing I like to do before we get into the
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Speaker 1: kind of the meat or the problem oftentimes that you're
0:58
Speaker 1: facing our guests are facing, is hearing about your own
1:01
Speaker 1: entrepreneurial journey, like what got you to where you're at today?
1:04
Speaker 1: What got you to you know, birthing this cool company
1:07
Speaker 1: now tree Ring Digital And if you wouldn't mind, case
1:10
Speaker 1: just trying to take us back a little bit of
1:12
Speaker 1: our listeners that are encountering you for the first time,
1:15
Speaker 1: so they can know a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey.
1:19
Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Absolutely, So I started cheering digital back in two thousand
1:23
Speaker 3: and eight, twenty ten ish when the economy was not ideal,
1:28
Speaker 3: and obviously I've been through several other times of that
1:31
Speaker 3: over the years, and you know, really was just like
1:34
Speaker 3: trying to figure out how do I make money. I
1:36
Speaker 3: was twenty three out of architecture, which was not a
1:39
Speaker 3: great industry to be in at the time, and really
1:42
Speaker 3: just at a crossroads what do I do with life?
1:44
Speaker 2: Where do I go from here? What's next?
1:46
Speaker 3: And decided why not give web design a try, you know,
1:50
Speaker 3: started learning and teaching myself web design WordPress most specifically,
1:55
Speaker 3: and from there I decided, hey.
1:57
Speaker 2: How do I get business?
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Speaker 3: I didn't have anyone like you know, I left corporate
2:01
Speaker 3: bringing a bunch of clients with me, or I didn't
2:03
Speaker 3: have a bunch of us you know, student colleagues with
2:06
Speaker 3: me where I'd be like.
2:07
Speaker 2: Oh, hey, let me bounce this idea off of you.
2:09
Speaker 3: So I really just head down and started putting some
2:12
Speaker 3: ads up on Craigslist. Understood their algorithm, what was working?
2:17
Speaker 3: What wasn't all of that? And then about a year
2:18
Speaker 3: and a half in, I had a pretty full client
2:21
Speaker 3: list where I no longer had to rely on Craigslist,
2:24
Speaker 3: and from there just really developing and cranking out websites,
2:28
Speaker 3: but always listening to the clients of like I can
2:32
Speaker 3: design pretty sites, that's not the problem, but like, if
2:34
Speaker 3: they're providing content, it's usually not that great. So we
2:37
Speaker 3: started bringing writing indoor service offering, and then we were
2:40
Speaker 3: running into hosting issues, so we started bringing hosting into
2:43
Speaker 3: our services and just kept growing that agency into Hey,
2:48
Speaker 3: what else is not working? I joke with my team
2:51
Speaker 3: and I'm like, if we get one call too often,
2:54
Speaker 3: we're gonna figure out how to fix that issue, Like
2:56
Speaker 3: for good, I don't want to keep hearing why is
2:59
Speaker 3: this happening?
3:00
Speaker 2: Right, So.
3:01
Speaker 3: Let's fix that for good. If it's emails, let's fix
3:05
Speaker 3: that for good. So that's another way that we really
3:08
Speaker 3: developed out the company was listening to like what's working,
3:10
Speaker 3: what's not working? And how do we solve that problem?
3:14
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's great. And knowing that you you
3:17
Speaker 1: you started this business back, I remember that time when
3:20
Speaker 1: the kindom was really tanking in you and I share
3:22
Speaker 1: the background and the a's a AEC industry. I've been
3:25
Speaker 1: in environmental consulting world for twenty five years and I've
3:28
Speaker 1: seen the ups and downs as well. But the fact
3:30
Speaker 1: that you've been able to weather the storms manage that,
3:33
Speaker 1: and I think to your point of communicating, well, what
3:36
Speaker 1: you're trying to do, how you're helping people, because you're
3:38
Speaker 1: helping businesses. What I thought was impressive, as we talked
3:41
Speaker 1: before this recording was the use of multiple types of
3:45
Speaker 1: groups from restaurant groups, a fee back company, a variety
3:48
Speaker 1: different folks, so you have some flexibility and adjusting and
3:51
Speaker 1: that that's challenging because sometimes people aren't as flexible in
3:54
Speaker 1: that way.
3:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's what we noticed.
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Speaker 3: I mean, like it's not a one size fit all shop, right,
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Speaker 3: I mean, in general, marketing shouldn't be.
4:01
Speaker 2: Websites shouldn't be.
4:02
Speaker 3: And I remember having a lot of some conversations with
4:05
Speaker 3: my business coaches growing the business, and like, go to packages,
4:09
Speaker 3: go to packages, it'll be so much easier for you. You
4:11
Speaker 3: won't spend all the time on proposals. And I was
4:13
Speaker 3: just like, I can't. I can sit here and say
4:15
Speaker 3: a five page site is going to be blank, but
4:18
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, they might not need five.
4:21
Speaker 3: They might need four pages in some really robust contact
4:24
Speaker 3: form that's a request to quote, right, And so we
4:27
Speaker 3: just really learned to keep that flexibility and found that
4:30
Speaker 3: we can keep a process, keep the customer journey very consistent,
4:36
Speaker 3: but still allow for that fluctuation and that customization. And
4:40
Speaker 3: that's really what's allowed us to, you know, work with
4:43
Speaker 3: so many different clients on so many different levels, and again,
4:46
Speaker 3: what's the issue. Let's not create new issues, let's not
4:49
Speaker 3: touch what's not broke, and you know, really dive into
4:52
Speaker 3: let's just get to the root of that. And if
4:54
Speaker 3: we can do that, you're off and running and we'll
4:56
Speaker 3: be back when you're ready for us again.
4:58
Speaker 1: Kind of thing. Yeah, No, I love that. And one
5:02
Speaker 1: of the things that we when we talked before we
5:05
Speaker 1: start this recording, and I think I liked your philosophy
5:08
Speaker 1: and why I wanted to have you on a guest
5:09
Speaker 1: because you look at this and I think, as I
5:12
Speaker 1: get it, as the digital presence is a business asset,
5:15
Speaker 1: it's not just a marketing tool, and I think it's
5:17
Speaker 1: a little different then sometimes you get a lot of
5:19
Speaker 1: digital agencies that are just trying to sell you a
5:21
Speaker 1: tool and like you to your point, it may not
5:23
Speaker 1: be the best tool or the resource or how they
5:25
Speaker 1: do that, right.
5:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we see it in a few different ways.
5:29
Speaker 3: One we see that businesses look at I need a
5:32
Speaker 3: website because everyone's telling me I need a website, or
5:35
Speaker 3: people are online. I need to be on social media
5:37
Speaker 3: because that's where my audience is. So while I absolutely
5:41
Speaker 3: hate it, that's where I got to be. And so
5:43
Speaker 3: you know, I think that's one place where like, no, no, no, no,
5:45
Speaker 3: that's an asset, like a digital presence is really like
5:49
Speaker 3: a foundation and really aids your business's growth in a
5:53
Speaker 3: variety of ways.
5:54
Speaker 2: And a lot of them don't look at it.
5:55
Speaker 3: They just I think look at it as the necessary
5:57
Speaker 3: of evils, if you will. And then on the other front, yeah,
6:01
Speaker 3: it's like you have all of these assets. Though as
6:04
Speaker 3: far as your CRM is still a digital tool, and
6:07
Speaker 3: I'm not here to tell you what CRM to use.
6:10
Speaker 3: As we've worked with so many different industries, we've seen
6:13
Speaker 3: there are reasons for certain companies to use certain pieces,
6:17
Speaker 3: and so we really like to say, what's going to
6:20
Speaker 3: be the best one for yours or where are you
6:22
Speaker 3: at sometimes Mailchimp is better than active campaign and it
6:26
Speaker 3: just comes down to pricing and functionality and tools and
6:29
Speaker 3: what are you trying to run? And I think a
6:31
Speaker 3: lot of agencies get caught up in like that's the
6:34
Speaker 3: one we know, so that's the only one we're going
6:36
Speaker 3: to do. And for us, it's like, no, how do
6:40
Speaker 3: we make your business make sure it's successful with these assets?
6:43
Speaker 3: And then from there, how are we keeping track of
6:46
Speaker 3: all of these assets that make your business run and
6:48
Speaker 3: function well?
6:50
Speaker 1: So, speaking of digital assets, you're bringing that up? Is
6:55
Speaker 1: I guess I'm the question I'm supposing. I know we've
6:58
Speaker 1: talked about this, but you know, you've worked with all
6:59
Speaker 1: these clients. What are the biggest mistakes that you see
7:04
Speaker 1: with when it comes to their websites or their digital
7:06
Speaker 1: presence out there page? What are you seeing as a
7:08
Speaker 1: big problem?
7:09
Speaker 3: Well, a big problem, Yeah, I'd say the biggest problem
7:12
Speaker 3: that we run into with clients is just not knowing
7:14
Speaker 3: who has ownership, not knowing where logins are to the
7:17
Speaker 3: important pieces that make their business run, or not knowing
7:21
Speaker 3: when those things are going to expire, just working and
7:25
Speaker 3: really betting on the fact that it's on auto renew
7:27
Speaker 3: or that the credit card is going to just run
7:30
Speaker 3: the next time it's set to run. And so that's
7:32
Speaker 3: the one that we see more and more. And I
7:35
Speaker 3: think as we've gotten thus far in technology and still
7:39
Speaker 3: obviously continuing to advance at a rapid pace, it's more
7:43
Speaker 3: often than ever every phone call we get in there's
7:46
Speaker 3: someone looking to hunt down log in details, and so
7:49
Speaker 3: it's just really frustrating for the client. I mean, we're
7:53
Speaker 3: used to it, we know how to recover a lot
7:54
Speaker 3: of things, but for the client it does. It slows
7:57
Speaker 3: us down. It doesn't make the edits as fast as
7:59
Speaker 3: we want, and it doesn't make recovery as quickly as
8:01
Speaker 3: we want.
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Speaker 2: It's usually halting business.
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Speaker 3: It's usually halting leads or marketing efforts in some capacity.
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Speaker 2: So it's not just like, ohh, I'll keep I'll find
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Speaker 2: that log in when it's available and ready.
8:12
Speaker 3: It's no, we need it now if you want your
8:15
Speaker 3: business to be back up and running.
8:17
Speaker 1: In some companies, yeah, that makes sense, and I think
8:20
Speaker 1: probably when you're starting with small companies that gets lost.
8:23
Speaker 1: I work with clients and they have like a lot
8:25
Speaker 1: of procurement sites I all go to and like one
8:27
Speaker 1: person signed up for this one per person signed up
8:29
Speaker 1: for this one. It's like, does we have any like
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Speaker 1: master one of this.
8:33
Speaker 2: No, I'm guilty of it.
8:34
Speaker 3: I mean same thing with the procurement side, right, I
8:36
Speaker 3: mean yeah, like, hey, okay, this is something an intern
8:39
Speaker 3: can set up and if we can just have the
8:41
Speaker 3: standard fields all ready to go that we know they're
8:43
Speaker 3: going to ask go set up another one and great,
8:46
Speaker 3: here's a new portal.
8:47
Speaker 2: Let's go set that up.
8:48
Speaker 3: And I mean that's one example of yeah, there's a
8:51
Speaker 3: lot of logins and if you let something like that go,
8:54
Speaker 3: you might be missing a lead that could be impactful
8:58
Speaker 3: for your business right out of the procurement ones really
9:02
Speaker 3: come with the heavy price tag and so you close
9:05
Speaker 3: that deal that can be mean so much for your business.
9:08
Speaker 3: And so I think that's a great example where we
9:10
Speaker 3: start to see more so in smaller companies with like
9:14
Speaker 3: the use of VAS that has really taken off in
9:16
Speaker 3: the last few years. We're seeing more interns coming in.
9:19
Speaker 3: Sometimes not profits. We see a lot of interns come
9:21
Speaker 3: in and yeah, they're just tasked to set stuff up
9:24
Speaker 3: and sometimes they're like, great, I'll use my personal because
9:28
Speaker 3: you never gave me an email address to use this
9:30
Speaker 3: or you know, they set it up under their own
9:32
Speaker 3: because they didn't know that company policy was to use
9:36
Speaker 3: info at or webmaster at or marketing at, you know,
9:40
Speaker 3: so that there was always that consistency. Well, then that
9:43
Speaker 3: employee leaves, and do you guys shut down the email
9:46
Speaker 3: address that goes along with it, and no one's getting
9:49
Speaker 3: the recovery emails anymore, and no one knows how to
9:51
Speaker 3: recover it because it's not going anywhere. When they do,
9:54
Speaker 3: the password resets. So now it's again an even lengthier
9:58
Speaker 3: recovery process of who do we have to contact and
10:01
Speaker 3: support to get this, you know, back up and running
10:03
Speaker 3: and prove that we.
10:04
Speaker 1: Own this right well, and I would imagine a page.
10:08
Speaker 1: I was in a networking group today and I was
10:10
Speaker 1: talking with an intellectual property lawyer and she was talking
10:14
Speaker 1: about a lot of people hire folks or even their employees.
10:17
Speaker 1: We'll just grab digital assets out there, pictures, videos, that's copyrighted,
10:22
Speaker 1: and they don't realize that they're using that and the
10:24
Speaker 1: damage that they can do being sued or you know,
10:27
Speaker 1: you know, litigated. They'd be like, you know, and if
10:29
Speaker 1: they don't know or I haven't accounted for all that stuff, right,
10:32
Speaker 1: So is that something that you guys look into as well.
10:34
Speaker 1: Let's make sure there were.
10:35
Speaker 2: We look at.
10:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, we look into it a bit. I mean the
10:38
Speaker 3: photos get a little bit harder. Is it's like who
10:40
Speaker 3: is the one getting it? You know, is the graphic
10:42
Speaker 3: design vendor? Is it this vat When we look at
10:45
Speaker 3: like our digital asset management services, we've got about seven
10:48
Speaker 3: pillars that all fall into like where all of these
10:51
Speaker 3: assets go. And you're bringing up a good point that
10:54
Speaker 3: the brand elements are. So who's got the logo? Is
10:58
Speaker 3: this the right version of the logo? Is this the
11:00
Speaker 3: logo from three years ago? And we've made tweaks? You know,
11:03
Speaker 3: what does that look like? But it does go even
11:05
Speaker 3: further into here are the set videos that we want
11:08
Speaker 3: to use. Here are the set photos that we want
11:10
Speaker 3: to use. These are brand photography that we've had taken.
11:13
Speaker 3: Can the team easily access that if you're, you know,
11:16
Speaker 3: doing some sort of speaking event or workshop or something,
11:19
Speaker 3: does the team know what photo to pass along? That
11:22
Speaker 3: is an approved photo? And so you know, you get
11:24
Speaker 3: into it a little bit there and then yeah, beyond that,
11:26
Speaker 3: you start hitting some of the IP stuff too, And
11:28
Speaker 3: you're correct, I think you know a lot of agencies
11:31
Speaker 3: aren't fully paying attention to how are we providing you know,
11:35
Speaker 3: rights and copyright and I'm spacing on the word but
11:40
Speaker 3: ownership like icons and stuff right, like, great, we added
11:45
Speaker 3: the icon to the site, but do we site where
11:48
Speaker 3: we got it from? And so you know, those are
11:50
Speaker 3: areas for sure that can definitely create a lot of
11:53
Speaker 3: issues for clients. And I think as that owner starts
11:56
Speaker 3: to get removed and hand things off as they should,
11:59
Speaker 3: and they're growing, but as they start to do that,
12:02
Speaker 3: it really does go like, so what happens when you
12:05
Speaker 3: get the ce some desist letter?
12:06
Speaker 2: Right?
12:06
Speaker 3: And who because it's gonna come and so now who's
12:10
Speaker 3: responsible for that? Was this approved? Where's the copy of
12:14
Speaker 3: the receipt that was purchased? Whose account was it purchased under?
12:18
Speaker 3: Sometimes we run into is fonts are purchased through like
12:22
Speaker 3: an account, but they don't actually allow commercial use.
12:27
Speaker 2: It's personal use.
12:28
Speaker 3: And so if you're just going and grabbing fonts off
12:32
Speaker 3: of the Internet and then using them in your print media,
12:35
Speaker 3: you might not actually have the commercial license to use
12:38
Speaker 3: it in that capacity. And so all things you're bringing
12:41
Speaker 3: up really really great points that businesses aren't paying attention to.
12:44
Speaker 2: You. They're just like, it looks good, put it out
12:46
Speaker 2: the door.
12:47
Speaker 1: Put it out there. So you mentioned page you've got
12:50
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear you go through your approach of
12:53
Speaker 1: how do you do this? You said you have got
12:55
Speaker 1: these pillars that you go through. So what if you
12:57
Speaker 1: wouldn't mind just walk us through? What is it that
13:00
Speaker 1: that's you know, the trieering approach different? And you know,
13:03
Speaker 1: why did you pick these pillars? What are these that
13:05
Speaker 1: you're kind of holding up the business house so to speak.
13:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know, one thing that's different is a
13:11
Speaker 3: lot of agencies are going to focus on the marketing side,
13:13
Speaker 3: the website side, sometimes both, and that's going to go
13:16
Speaker 3: into social media platforms, Google analytics, Google my business. You're
13:20
Speaker 3: hosting your domain name, your website. But that's usually where
13:24
Speaker 3: a lot of agencies start to stop. They made, you know,
13:28
Speaker 3: maybe don't even handle the hosting that's handled through a
13:30
Speaker 3: different company, or you start to get multiple vendors involved,
13:33
Speaker 3: and so it's like who's taking ownership of this.
13:36
Speaker 2: Piece of it? What does that look like?
13:38
Speaker 3: And so that's where we really started noticing that gap
13:40
Speaker 3: is when we started asking the questions of where are
13:42
Speaker 3: the log in details?
13:44
Speaker 2: It was always with somebody else.
13:46
Speaker 3: It was never with the owner or the person we
13:48
Speaker 3: were speaking with, right, And so we started realizing how
13:51
Speaker 3: much of a disconnect there is and a lack of
13:54
Speaker 3: ownership in these digital assets. So, for example, we had
13:58
Speaker 3: a client callus a couple of weeks ago and they
14:00
Speaker 3: were like, hey, can you help me? And I was like, yeah,
14:03
Speaker 3: let's do what we can. Tell me what's going on?
14:05
Speaker 3: And they're like, our web designer just passed away unexpectedly.
14:08
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, geez, I'm so sorry to hear it.
14:10
Speaker 3: I thought they were just calling us for like, can
14:12
Speaker 3: you update our website with some changes?
14:14
Speaker 2: Right?
14:15
Speaker 3: Well, no, they said, hey, he controlled the domain name,
14:20
Speaker 3: the email addresses, the hosting and the website, and even
14:25
Speaker 3: though he had at some point passed along the log
14:28
Speaker 3: in details to the website, it had changed. And so
14:32
Speaker 3: we're sitting there going, is there any way we can
14:34
Speaker 3: recover these things? What does that look like? And they
14:37
Speaker 3: immediately had shut off Google Ads because the website was
14:40
Speaker 3: displaying an air that couldn't be reached, and so, you know,
14:44
Speaker 3: that was one issue. Then we had to go through, well,
14:46
Speaker 3: your emails aren't working because your domain's not working and
14:50
Speaker 3: so and so we can get the domain working, we
14:53
Speaker 3: you know, really can't do too much on some of
14:54
Speaker 3: the recovery systems either. And then we had to start
14:57
Speaker 3: working through, hey, how do we go to the who's
15:00
Speaker 3: hosting it? It was a resold account, so even that
15:02
Speaker 3: was hidden in lockdown, and so we into all of
15:05
Speaker 3: our tools and everything we knew, And so, I mean
15:08
Speaker 3: it just turned into a headache.
15:09
Speaker 2: That shouldn't have been that way.
15:11
Speaker 3: They should have had some sort of seapanelog in details.
15:13
Speaker 3: They should have had full ownership of their domain name
15:16
Speaker 3: and been able to quickly just reset a password and
15:19
Speaker 3: move on, or already had it and didn't need to
15:21
Speaker 3: reset a password. And then the same thing with the website,
15:24
Speaker 3: where that typically would have been, you know what, let's
15:26
Speaker 3: grab a backup, let's move it to a new server,
15:28
Speaker 3: we'll keep your on in and we'll figure out what
15:30
Speaker 3: we want to do with the hosting later. We couldn't
15:32
Speaker 3: even log into the site to pull the backup. So
15:34
Speaker 3: then the conversation starts, are we going to redesign? Are
15:38
Speaker 3: we just going to try to mirror what's currently there
15:40
Speaker 3: into a new environment? And gets you going that way?
15:43
Speaker 3: And so I mean it just turned into this huge
15:46
Speaker 3: headache for the client and so much lost business that,
15:50
Speaker 3: you know, like it's still weeks and we're still find like,
15:53
Speaker 3: how do we fully get everything back up and running?
15:55
Speaker 2: How do we work through proof of death certificate?
15:58
Speaker 3: That's a bit of an extreme example, but yeah, and
16:01
Speaker 3: that's just because they didn't they thought their vendor had
16:04
Speaker 3: it under control. So that's how we you know, kind
16:06
Speaker 3: of starts the domain and the hosting. Then we get
16:08
Speaker 3: into the marketing. Then we get into analytics and social profiles.
16:13
Speaker 3: Then we get into the brand development and what you
16:15
Speaker 3: mentioned with the images and the logo files everything there.
16:19
Speaker 2: How are those all set and stored?
16:21
Speaker 3: Then we move into more of like the third party
16:24
Speaker 3: tools and integration. Do you have stripe integrated into your website?
16:28
Speaker 3: What do we need to do to make sure that's
16:30
Speaker 3: recovered in the future should something happen and that you
16:32
Speaker 3: do in fact have ownership CRMs, all sorts of tools
16:36
Speaker 3: like that. Then we go into security and backup recovery.
16:40
Speaker 3: Are we having all of the right tools in place
16:42
Speaker 3: and what happens should something go down? And then finally
16:44
Speaker 3: we get into compliance and legal, So do we have
16:47
Speaker 3: the right disclaimers the ADA compliance, the privacy policies, all
16:51
Speaker 3: of those aspects that go into the site as well
16:54
Speaker 3: to make sure that you are staying compliant with the
16:57
Speaker 3: various pieces. And to your point, what is the standard
17:00
Speaker 3: of practice and the policies. When an employee comes in
17:03
Speaker 3: or a vendor comes in and starts purchasing these things,
17:06
Speaker 3: do they go straight to you for ownership? Do they
17:09
Speaker 3: stay with the vendor? You know, are they providing you
17:11
Speaker 3: proof that they purchased it? So we really start to
17:14
Speaker 3: go through. First we do an assessment where we check
17:16
Speaker 3: on all of the like we just identify the gaps, yeah,
17:19
Speaker 3: and then we'll dive into the digital asset audit where
17:22
Speaker 3: we'll really work through with the client to go through
17:24
Speaker 3: every piece they have and gain ownership and not just
17:27
Speaker 3: of the log in details, but whose recovery emails on file?
17:31
Speaker 2: Whose credit cards on file?
17:33
Speaker 3: When do things EXPRID, what's the two factor and work
17:36
Speaker 3: through all of this. Roughly at the end of the day,
17:38
Speaker 3: there's over three hundred digital assets that go into a
17:42
Speaker 3: business being online and having an online presence. And I
17:46
Speaker 3: say usually when we ask clients, they're basically identifying domain hosting, website,
17:51
Speaker 3: a couple social profiles, right, maybe analytics, but we really
17:55
Speaker 3: start to see that they're not identifying that there's so
17:59
Speaker 3: much more than that out there that goes into their
18:01
Speaker 3: business being online and successfully online.
18:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, gosh, there's so much you just outline
18:06
Speaker 1: their page. But one of the things the word that
18:09
Speaker 1: popped up to me was ownership, not like owning it,
18:12
Speaker 1: but I think and then there's a owners of our
18:16
Speaker 1: delegation or people are given certain authority to do certain things.
18:19
Speaker 1: But I'm sure you're seeing that's probably unclear in the business, right,
18:23
Speaker 1: and then you're probably trying to get this done and
18:25
Speaker 1: work with people like who is maybe not the owner
18:28
Speaker 1: but delegated a responsible party and there's a breakdown because
18:32
Speaker 1: that's one thing I work with is the people side
18:34
Speaker 1: of things, and how are they working together and collaborating
18:37
Speaker 1: And you just listed a whole bunch of different groups
18:39
Speaker 1: of people that I heard. Yes, we've got to pull
18:42
Speaker 1: these different people together right.
18:44
Speaker 3: Right, And most of them aren't talking most of the time,
18:47
Speaker 3: Like nobody knows who's you know, handling the it compared
18:50
Speaker 3: to the Google analytics, right, Like those two pieces aren't talking,
18:54
Speaker 3: whether it's internally in a team or whether it's vendors
18:56
Speaker 3: and whatnot, and so you know, yeah, and same thing.
19:00
Speaker 3: Boys and vendors are two very different things. If they
19:02
Speaker 3: set up Google ads, is it the company's property or
19:06
Speaker 3: is it the vendor's property? And if you cancel that relationship,
19:10
Speaker 3: what happens? And are you losing all of the key
19:13
Speaker 3: words and historical data of the ads you've ran? Is
19:16
Speaker 3: that you're staying with the company, Like what does that
19:18
Speaker 3: look like? So you know, there's more people just like, yeah,
19:21
Speaker 3: we'll hire this company and we'll be good and we'll
19:23
Speaker 3: deal with it later.
19:24
Speaker 2: And it you know, like yeah, sure that works to
19:27
Speaker 2: some extent, and.
19:27
Speaker 3: So it's more you know, of an issue or just
19:30
Speaker 3: like that if they disappear, how are we going to
19:33
Speaker 3: get that back?
19:34
Speaker 2: How are we going to get the locked back in?
19:35
Speaker 3: We had that happen with the client where I mean
19:38
Speaker 3: they even just hey, we've contacted the web hosting companies
19:41
Speaker 3: so many times they're unresponsive and now we literally have
19:44
Speaker 3: no idea how to access our hosting to move our
19:47
Speaker 3: site to a different provider. And so you know, that's
19:51
Speaker 3: where we see it way too often. And I think
19:55
Speaker 3: it's because where businesses are growing at such a rapid pace,
19:58
Speaker 3: and then there's more and more tools out there and
20:01
Speaker 3: available than ever before, and so trying to keep track
20:04
Speaker 3: of it. But yeah, we just most agencies won't go
20:07
Speaker 3: into that entire of everything that's covered. They're really going
20:12
Speaker 3: to stop at No, we handle marketing. You can go
20:15
Speaker 3: talk to somebody else about that or Nope, that's not
20:17
Speaker 3: in our wheelhouse.
20:18
Speaker 2: We can't answer those questions.
20:20
Speaker 1: So you to me what we're hearing you Pagees. You've
20:22
Speaker 1: developed a team at Tributing that understands this process, this journey,
20:27
Speaker 1: if you will, so that they're asking those questions because
20:30
Speaker 1: like you said, you're probably like finding the gaps. They're like, yeah,
20:32
Speaker 1: nobody is really responsible for that. And then that's where
20:35
Speaker 1: I love having you on here because I love working
20:37
Speaker 1: with the business owners. The team's like, okay, Pages identified
20:40
Speaker 1: this problem. The true ring is, these are these problems.
20:43
Speaker 1: How are we going to solve that? How are you
20:44
Speaker 1: going to get those people? You've you've got solutions, but
20:47
Speaker 1: it's ultimately too you've got to figure out I find
20:50
Speaker 1: sometimes empowering certain some people like I don't want to
20:52
Speaker 1: do that, that's not my area that somebody else is like, well,
20:55
Speaker 1: who else is going to do that, How are we
20:57
Speaker 1: going to develop how are we going to work to
20:59
Speaker 1: get you any because I've been on your side of
21:01
Speaker 1: working with folks and like, hey, we really to help you,
21:04
Speaker 1: but there's nobody there getting me what I need?
21:06
Speaker 2: Right Well, they just don't know. You know.
21:08
Speaker 3: We see marketing teams come to us and hire us
21:10
Speaker 3: out and then I'm like asking questions and they're like,
21:14
Speaker 3: we didn't know we needed to look for that, or
21:16
Speaker 3: how do we recover it?
21:17
Speaker 2: And I'm like, how do you not know how to
21:19
Speaker 2: recover this?
21:20
Speaker 3: Like it's just it's part of marketing or it's part
21:22
Speaker 3: of you know blank, and but they just don't or
21:24
Speaker 3: if the company is not pushing pushing them harder to
21:27
Speaker 3: document all of these things, then it is just like
21:30
Speaker 3: we don't know where the receipt is for that stock
21:32
Speaker 3: image that we've you know, purchased to prove that we
21:35
Speaker 3: did in fact purchase it and it's not just a
21:37
Speaker 3: stolen version, so you know, it's it really is honing
21:40
Speaker 3: it all in, And You're right, it's a mix of
21:43
Speaker 3: what's the people say, what's the company standards of practice side,
21:47
Speaker 3: and then what's the you know, where do we store
21:49
Speaker 3: all of this.
21:50
Speaker 2: How is that all in place?
21:51
Speaker 3: And so yeah, that's where we come into and are like,
21:54
Speaker 3: is this all in one location? Do you have it
21:56
Speaker 3: scattered amongst Dropbox, Google Drive and something else?
22:00
Speaker 2: You know?
22:00
Speaker 3: Is it all written down on the you know pad
22:03
Speaker 3: of paper next to the owner's you know, desk, because
22:06
Speaker 3: the owner even no. I think that's one that we've
22:08
Speaker 3: seen often is we're working with a marketing team and
22:11
Speaker 3: while we set up something, they're like, hey, can we
22:13
Speaker 3: have ownership or access of Google my business? And we're
22:16
Speaker 3: like absolutely, But then we always kind of stop for
22:19
Speaker 3: a second, like shouldn't the owner they'll have access to that,
22:23
Speaker 3: Like I don't mind giving it to the employee, but
22:25
Speaker 3: should the employee leave for any reason, the owner still
22:30
Speaker 3: does not have access to that. And we try to
22:32
Speaker 3: keep ourselves on a lot of these things. Is just
22:34
Speaker 3: a second point of backup. We've seen the really save us,
22:38
Speaker 3: like clients by us still having something in place. But
22:41
Speaker 3: if they delete us, which sometimes they do as they
22:44
Speaker 3: come in like oh we don't need you anymore, We're
22:46
Speaker 3: going to delete this. That employee is the one who
22:48
Speaker 3: has sole ownership, and so you know, good luck trying
22:52
Speaker 3: to recover that and does anybody know that that happened?
22:54
Speaker 3: And those are usually personal Gmail accounts, it's not necessarily
22:59
Speaker 3: a company account because Google won't accept Microsoft. So now
23:05
Speaker 3: we're even getting more into the like, hey, owner, we
23:08
Speaker 3: should probably have a talk about how you guys are
23:10
Speaker 3: setting these things up, because they're going to own your
23:13
Speaker 3: Google my business at the end of the day, or
23:15
Speaker 3: they're going to own your Facebook profile at the end
23:17
Speaker 3: of the day. If you don't also have some sort
23:19
Speaker 3: of adamant here and recovery of some of these things
23:23
Speaker 3: are extremely difficult, if possible at all, and it's gonna
23:27
Speaker 3: end up coming down to cost sometimes legal fees of
23:30
Speaker 3: how do we get the lawyer involved to ask them
23:33
Speaker 3: to hand that information over so it can really quickly
23:36
Speaker 3: turn into a huge nightmare.
23:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think to your point, it's how quickly it
23:40
Speaker 1: can be. I was just talking to a soloopreneur here locally,
23:44
Speaker 1: and he had a whole Instagram account and build up
23:47
Speaker 1: to like over forty thousand followers, all those things doing
23:50
Speaker 1: cool video stuff, and it got hacked and then it
23:52
Speaker 1: was tied to as meta account and then it shut
23:54
Speaker 1: that down too. And you know, these people are sophisticated
23:58
Speaker 1: and they're really trying to trick you up. Unfortunately, I
24:00
Speaker 1: get emails all the time, and if somebody doesn't just
24:03
Speaker 1: doesn't know this, and like you said there that they're
24:05
Speaker 1: the gatekeeper, they're one way in you have a vulnerability,
24:09
Speaker 1: and I think the cost of the ret Unfortunately, we
24:15
Speaker 1: preach on this podcast and why you're here pages to
24:18
Speaker 1: be proactive rather than reactive and investing the money. Yes,
24:22
Speaker 1: it might cost you a bit more than you anticipate
24:24
Speaker 1: at first, but it's going to cost you a lot
24:26
Speaker 1: more right in the back end, all the time and effort.
24:29
Speaker 1: If they didn't do this well, I made.
24:31
Speaker 3: Ans it right and out of the blue, so it
24:34
Speaker 3: might be like, sure, we know in the future we'll
24:36
Speaker 3: have to redesign our website. But the company that called
24:39
Speaker 3: me with the web developer or the past, they weren't
24:42
Speaker 3: expecting that that moment, you know, So then it's like,
24:44
Speaker 3: here is this unexpected expense. And especially at a time
24:47
Speaker 3: where businesses are a little bit tighter and watching money
24:50
Speaker 3: a little bit closer with everything going on, they're not preparing,
24:54
Speaker 3: you know, or they don't have the massive cash flow
24:56
Speaker 3: that they used to have, and so you know, we
24:58
Speaker 3: see it really impact them more, or if your marketing's down,
25:03
Speaker 3: your revenue starts to go down, and so to then
25:05
Speaker 3: offset and be able to cover these, you know, unexpected
25:08
Speaker 3: expenses really do start to set you up more for
25:11
Speaker 3: failure when it can be something that we can easily
25:13
Speaker 3: get ahead of and be proactive on to your point,
25:16
Speaker 3: and not have these and just saving the headache. I
25:19
Speaker 3: you know, we get so many calls of just frantic
25:22
Speaker 3: panicking nine to one one phone calls of like I'm lost,
25:26
Speaker 3: I'm stuck, I don't know what to do, what's going on?
25:29
Speaker 2: What does this look like? And I don't mind them.
25:32
Speaker 2: I just prefer not to.
25:33
Speaker 3: That's not how I want to see a business, you know,
25:35
Speaker 3: I want to see them in a hey, we're really good,
25:38
Speaker 3: we're ready to do more, We're ready to grow further.
25:40
Speaker 3: We want to do something different with our marketing efforts
25:43
Speaker 3: so that we keep growing and expanding.
25:44
Speaker 2: Those are the calls we prefer to a yes, yeah, but.
25:47
Speaker 3: You know, inevitably we get a lot more calls that
25:50
Speaker 3: are on the reactive, panicky side, and so yes, I'm
25:53
Speaker 3: with you.
25:53
Speaker 2: How do we be more proactive over well.
25:55
Speaker 1: And that's why we have you on the podcast page
25:57
Speaker 1: because we want others to listen to this and they're
25:59
Speaker 1: they're like, I picked up the podcast and we're talking
26:01
Speaker 1: at digital assets and you're like, oh, yeah, that's not covered.
26:04
Speaker 1: That's not covered. Maybe I should do something about this today.
26:06
Speaker 1: So I know we're getting close to the end of
26:08
Speaker 1: the podcast today, I would love, you know, to that point.
26:12
Speaker 1: If I'm a business owner, I'm listening, We've covered a
26:14
Speaker 1: lot of different things. What is one action that they
26:17
Speaker 1: can do today to protect or maximize their digital presence
26:21
Speaker 1: right now? Page? What would you say to them if
26:23
Speaker 1: you know is they're listening to us.
26:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, one thing I would say would be start documenting everything.
26:29
Speaker 3: But second thing I would say is we actually have
26:32
Speaker 3: a digital asset checklist that they can download for free
26:35
Speaker 3: at tre ringdigital dot com slash Roundtable, and that's the
26:39
Speaker 3: best way to just start identifying a what are digital assets?
26:43
Speaker 3: What is she talking about? But to you know, like
26:47
Speaker 3: start to identify the gaps. It's a checklist you really
26:49
Speaker 3: can just like go through and like do you know
26:52
Speaker 3: who owns this? Can you access it this second? You know,
26:55
Speaker 3: are you thinking about these things? What do you have
26:57
Speaker 3: in place for recovery? And so it'll walk you through
26:59
Speaker 3: all of that, and then as you start to identify gaps,
27:01
Speaker 3: it'll you know, start to help you see great, we
27:04
Speaker 3: do you need to start taking some action or well,
27:06
Speaker 3: we're actually doing fantastic, Like we're ahead of where we
27:09
Speaker 3: thought we were. So I would definitely recommend that they
27:11
Speaker 3: start there with the checklist. It's it's a really valuable tool.
27:14
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Paige, We're going to put that in
27:16
Speaker 1: the show notes. I want you guys to make sure
27:19
Speaker 1: you reach out connect with page. We're also on LinkedIn.
27:22
Speaker 1: You can reach out there and Truberingdigital dot com. You
27:26
Speaker 1: want to go check it out. Paige, I want to
27:28
Speaker 1: just thank you for being on here, sharing your story,
27:31
Speaker 1: your insights. This has been refreshing. I think people haven't
27:34
Speaker 1: we talked about it in this way and just recognizing
27:37
Speaker 1: these these digital assets aren't just you know, technical details
27:41
Speaker 1: or really strategic levers that help build your business value.
27:45
Speaker 1: And so I'm so grateful that you came on the
27:47
Speaker 1: podcast with us today.
27:48
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, thank you so much for having me.
27:50
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it absolutely. We appreciate you always joining us
27:54
Speaker 1: on the podcast. Everybody liking and subscribing, whether you find
28:02
Speaker 1: us on YouTube, LinkedIn, whatever your favorite podcast platform it is,
28:06
Speaker 1: we hope you will come back and join us. Make
28:08
Speaker 1: sure you protect your digital presence out there, and thank
28:12
Speaker 1: you again Page for joining us.
28:13
Speaker 2: Thank you