October 30, 2025 • 28 mins
Most business owners treat their website, hosting, and logins as afterthoughts—until something breaks, gets hacked, or a vendor disappears. In this episode of the Business Roundtable Podcast, host David W. Carr talks with Paige Wiese, founder of Tree Ring Digital, about why your digital presence isn’t just a marketing tool—it’s a critical business asset that can either fuel growth or expose costly risks. Paige shares her journey from launching Tree Ring Digital during the Great Recession to serving over 2,000 clients across various industries. Together, David and Paige explore:
Connect with Paige Wiese:
Website: https://treeringdigital.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paigewiese
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support.
Watch more episodes on YouTube and subscribe here:
https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business
Connect with Steward Your Business:
Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr
- Why ownership of logins, domains, and hosting details is often the #1 blind spot for business owners
- How missing logins or expired assets can halt revenue and marketing overnight
- The seven pillars of digital asset management that protect long-term growth
- How to balance flexibility with consistency when managing websites, CRMs, and integrations
- Why proactive digital management saves time, money, and legal headaches
Connect with Paige Wiese:
Website: https://treeringdigital.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paigewiese
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support.
Watch more episodes on YouTube and subscribe here:
https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business
Connect with Steward Your Business:
Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast. I am your host,
David Carr, bringing people together to accomplish great things, founder
or steward your business. We are back this week with
a brand new guest, Paige We We're super excited to
have her here from touring digital and Page is not
only the founder, she's been doing award winning digital agency
work helping businesses for over fifteen years, and so we're
(00:36):
super excited to have you come and share a little
bit about your leadership journey, how you've helped work with.
I think you'll like over two thousand clients. You've worked
with many, many people across different industries. Welcome to the
podcast page.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Thank you so much for having I'm excited to be
here with you, David.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Absolutely, absolutely, I'm excited to have you here too. One
thing I like to do before we get into the
kind of the meat or the problem oftentimes that you're
facing our guests are facing, is hearing about your own
entrepreneurial journey, like what got you to where you're at today?
What got you to you know, birthing this cool company
now tree Ring Digital And if you wouldn't mind, case
(01:10):
just trying to take us back a little bit of
our listeners that are encountering you for the first time,
so they can know a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Absolutely, So I started cheering digital back in two thousand
and eight, twenty ten ish when the economy was not ideal,
and obviously I've been through several other times of that
over the years, and you know, really was just like
trying to figure out how do I make money. I
was twenty three out of architecture, which was not a
(01:39):
great industry to be in at the time, and really
just at a crossroads what do I do with life?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Where do I go from here? What's next?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
And decided why not give web design a try, you know,
started learning and teaching myself web design WordPress most specifically,
and from there I decided, hey.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
How do I get business?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I didn't have anyone like you know, I left corporate
bringing a bunch of clients with me, or I didn't
have a bunch of us you know, student colleagues with
me where I'd be like.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Oh, hey, let me bounce this idea off of you.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
So I really just head down and started putting some
ads up on Craigslist. Understood their algorithm, what was working?
What wasn't all of that? And then about a year
and a half in, I had a pretty full client
list where I no longer had to rely on Craigslist,
and from there just really developing and cranking out websites,
but always listening to the clients of like I can
(02:32):
design pretty sites, that's not the problem, but like, if
they're providing content, it's usually not that great. So we
started bringing writing indoor service offering, and then we were
running into hosting issues, so we started bringing hosting into
our services and just kept growing that agency into Hey,
what else is not working? I joke with my team
and I'm like, if we get one call too often,
(02:54):
we're gonna figure out how to fix that issue, Like
for good, I don't want to keep hearing why is
this happening?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Right, So.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Let's fix that for good. If it's emails, let's fix
that for good. So that's another way that we really
developed out the company was listening to like what's working,
what's not working? And how do we solve that problem?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Well, I think that's great. And knowing that you you
you started this business back, I remember that time when
the kindom was really tanking in you and I share
the background and the a's a AEC industry. I've been
in environmental consulting world for twenty five years and I've
seen the ups and downs as well. But the fact
that you've been able to weather the storms manage that,
and I think to your point of communicating, well, what
(03:36):
you're trying to do, how you're helping people, because you're
helping businesses. What I thought was impressive, as we talked
before this recording was the use of multiple types of
groups from restaurant groups, a fee back company, a variety
different folks, so you have some flexibility and adjusting and
that that's challenging because sometimes people aren't as flexible in
that way.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, well that's what we noticed.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I mean, like it's not a one size fit all shop, right,
I mean, in general, marketing shouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Websites shouldn't be.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
And I remember having a lot of some conversations with
my business coaches growing the business, and like, go to packages,
go to packages, it'll be so much easier for you. You
won't spend all the time on proposals. And I was
just like, I can't. I can sit here and say
a five page site is going to be blank, but
at the end of the day, they might not need five.
They might need four pages in some really robust contact
(04:24):
form that's a request to quote, right, And so we
just really learned to keep that flexibility and found that
we can keep a process, keep the customer journey very consistent,
but still allow for that fluctuation and that customization. And
that's really what's allowed us to, you know, work with
so many different clients on so many different levels, and again,
(04:46):
what's the issue. Let's not create new issues, let's not
touch what's not broke, and you know, really dive into
let's just get to the root of that. And if
we can do that, you're off and running and we'll
be back when you're ready for us again.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Kind of thing. Yeah, No, I love that. And one
of the things that we when we talked before we
start this recording, and I think I liked your philosophy
and why I wanted to have you on a guest
because you look at this and I think, as I
get it, as the digital presence is a business asset,
it's not just a marketing tool, and I think it's
a little different then sometimes you get a lot of
(05:19):
digital agencies that are just trying to sell you a
tool and like you to your point, it may not
be the best tool or the resource or how they
do that, right.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, I mean we see it in a few different ways.
One we see that businesses look at I need a
website because everyone's telling me I need a website, or
people are online. I need to be on social media
because that's where my audience is. So while I absolutely
hate it, that's where I got to be. And so
you know, I think that's one place where like, no, no, no, no,
that's an asset, like a digital presence is really like
(05:49):
a foundation and really aids your business's growth in a
variety of ways.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
And a lot of them don't look at it.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
They just I think look at it as the necessary
of evils, if you will. And then on the other front, yeah,
it's like you have all of these assets. Though as
far as your CRM is still a digital tool, and
I'm not here to tell you what CRM to use.
As we've worked with so many different industries, we've seen
there are reasons for certain companies to use certain pieces,
(06:17):
and so we really like to say, what's going to
be the best one for yours or where are you
at sometimes Mailchimp is better than active campaign and it
just comes down to pricing and functionality and tools and
what are you trying to run? And I think a
lot of agencies get caught up in like that's the
one we know, so that's the only one we're going
to do. And for us, it's like, no, how do
(06:40):
we make your business make sure it's successful with these assets?
And then from there, how are we keeping track of
all of these assets that make your business run and
function well?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
So, speaking of digital assets, you're bringing that up? Is
I guess I'm the question I'm supposing. I know we've
talked about this, but you know, you've worked with all
these clients. What are the biggest mistakes that you see
with when it comes to their websites or their digital
presence out there page? What are you seeing as a
big problem?
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Well, a big problem, Yeah, I'd say the biggest problem
that we run into with clients is just not knowing
who has ownership, not knowing where logins are to the
important pieces that make their business run, or not knowing
when those things are going to expire, just working and
really betting on the fact that it's on auto renew
or that the credit card is going to just run
(07:30):
the next time it's set to run. And so that's
the one that we see more and more. And I
think as we've gotten thus far in technology and still
obviously continuing to advance at a rapid pace, it's more
often than ever every phone call we get in there's
someone looking to hunt down log in details, and so
it's just really frustrating for the client. I mean, we're
(07:53):
used to it, we know how to recover a lot
of things, but for the client it does. It slows
us down. It doesn't make the edits as fast as
we want, and it doesn't make recovery as quickly as
we want.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
It's usually halting business.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
It's usually halting leads or marketing efforts in some capacity.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
So it's not just like, ohh, I'll keep I'll find
that log in when it's available and ready.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
It's no, we need it now if you want your
business to be back up and running.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
In some companies, yeah, that makes sense, and I think
probably when you're starting with small companies that gets lost.
I work with clients and they have like a lot
of procurement sites I all go to and like one
person signed up for this one per person signed up
for this one. It's like, does we have any like
master one of this.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
No, I'm guilty of it.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I mean same thing with the procurement side, right, I
mean yeah, like, hey, okay, this is something an intern
can set up and if we can just have the
standard fields all ready to go that we know they're
going to ask go set up another one and great,
here's a new portal.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Let's go set that up.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
And I mean that's one example of yeah, there's a
lot of logins and if you let something like that go,
you might be missing a lead that could be impactful
for your business right out of the procurement ones really
come with the heavy price tag and so you close
that deal that can be mean so much for your business.
(09:08):
And so I think that's a great example where we
start to see more so in smaller companies with like
the use of VAS that has really taken off in
the last few years. We're seeing more interns coming in.
Sometimes not profits. We see a lot of interns come
in and yeah, they're just tasked to set stuff up
and sometimes they're like, great, I'll use my personal because
you never gave me an email address to use this
(09:30):
or you know, they set it up under their own
because they didn't know that company policy was to use
info at or webmaster at or marketing at, you know,
so that there was always that consistency. Well, then that
employee leaves, and do you guys shut down the email
address that goes along with it, and no one's getting
the recovery emails anymore, and no one knows how to
(09:51):
recover it because it's not going anywhere. When they do,
the password resets. So now it's again an even lengthier
recovery process of who do we have to contact and
support to get this, you know, back up and running
and prove that we.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Own this right well, and I would imagine a page.
I was in a networking group today and I was
talking with an intellectual property lawyer and she was talking
about a lot of people hire folks or even their employees.
We'll just grab digital assets out there, pictures, videos, that's copyrighted,
and they don't realize that they're using that and the
damage that they can do being sued or you know,
(10:27):
you know, litigated. They'd be like, you know, and if
they don't know or I haven't accounted for all that stuff, right,
So is that something that you guys look into as well.
Let's make sure there were.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
We look at.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah, we look into it a bit. I mean the
photos get a little bit harder. Is it's like who
is the one getting it? You know, is the graphic
design vendor? Is it this vat When we look at
like our digital asset management services, we've got about seven
pillars that all fall into like where all of these
assets go. And you're bringing up a good point that
the brand elements are. So who's got the logo? Is
(10:58):
this the right version of the logo? Is this the
logo from three years ago? And we've made tweaks? You know,
what does that look like? But it does go even
further into here are the set videos that we want
to use. Here are the set photos that we want
to use. These are brand photography that we've had taken.
Can the team easily access that if you're, you know,
doing some sort of speaking event or workshop or something,
(11:19):
does the team know what photo to pass along? That
is an approved photo? And so you know, you get
into it a little bit there and then yeah, beyond that,
you start hitting some of the IP stuff too, And
you're correct, I think you know a lot of agencies
aren't fully paying attention to how are we providing you know,
rights and copyright and I'm spacing on the word but
(11:40):
ownership like icons and stuff right, like, great, we added
the icon to the site, but do we site where
we got it from? And so you know, those are
areas for sure that can definitely create a lot of
issues for clients. And I think as that owner starts
to get removed and hand things off as they should,
and they're growing, but as they start to do that,
(12:02):
it really does go like, so what happens when you
get the ce some desist letter?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Right?
Speaker 3 (12:06):
And who because it's gonna come and so now who's
responsible for that? Was this approved? Where's the copy of
the receipt that was purchased? Whose account was it purchased under?
Sometimes we run into is fonts are purchased through like
an account, but they don't actually allow commercial use.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
It's personal use.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
And so if you're just going and grabbing fonts off
of the Internet and then using them in your print media,
you might not actually have the commercial license to use
it in that capacity. And so all things you're bringing
up really really great points that businesses aren't paying attention to.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
You. They're just like, it looks good, put it out
the door.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Put it out there. So you mentioned page you've got
I'd love to hear you go through your approach of
how do you do this? You said you have got
these pillars that you go through. So what if you
wouldn't mind just walk us through? What is it that
that's you know, the trieering approach different? And you know,
why did you pick these pillars? What are these that
you're kind of holding up the business house so to speak.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah, so you know, one thing that's different is a
lot of agencies are going to focus on the marketing side,
the website side, sometimes both, and that's going to go
into social media platforms, Google analytics, Google my business. You're
hosting your domain name, your website. But that's usually where
a lot of agencies start to stop. They made, you know,
maybe don't even handle the hosting that's handled through a
(13:30):
different company, or you start to get multiple vendors involved,
and so it's like who's taking ownership of this.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Piece of it? What does that look like?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
And so that's where we really started noticing that gap
is when we started asking the questions of where are
the log in details?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
It was always with somebody else.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
It was never with the owner or the person we
were speaking with, right, And so we started realizing how
much of a disconnect there is and a lack of
ownership in these digital assets. So, for example, we had
a client callus a couple of weeks ago and they
were like, hey, can you help me? And I was like, yeah,
let's do what we can. Tell me what's going on?
And they're like, our web designer just passed away unexpectedly.
(14:08):
I was like, oh, geez, I'm so sorry to hear it.
I thought they were just calling us for like, can
you update our website with some changes?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Right?
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Well, no, they said, hey, he controlled the domain name,
the email addresses, the hosting and the website, and even
though he had at some point passed along the log
in details to the website, it had changed. And so
we're sitting there going, is there any way we can
recover these things? What does that look like? And they
(14:37):
immediately had shut off Google Ads because the website was
displaying an air that couldn't be reached, and so, you know,
that was one issue. Then we had to go through, well,
your emails aren't working because your domain's not working and
so and so we can get the domain working, we
you know, really can't do too much on some of
the recovery systems either. And then we had to start
(14:57):
working through, hey, how do we go to the who's
hosting it? It was a resold account, so even that
was hidden in lockdown, and so we into all of
our tools and everything we knew, And so, I mean
it just turned into a headache.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
That shouldn't have been that way.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
They should have had some sort of seapanelog in details.
They should have had full ownership of their domain name
and been able to quickly just reset a password and
move on, or already had it and didn't need to
reset a password. And then the same thing with the website,
where that typically would have been, you know what, let's
grab a backup, let's move it to a new server,
we'll keep your on in and we'll figure out what
we want to do with the hosting later. We couldn't
(15:32):
even log into the site to pull the backup. So
then the conversation starts, are we going to redesign? Are
we just going to try to mirror what's currently there
into a new environment? And gets you going that way?
And so I mean it just turned into this huge
headache for the client and so much lost business that,
you know, like it's still weeks and we're still find like,
(15:53):
how do we fully get everything back up and running?
Speaker 2 (15:55):
How do we work through proof of death certificate?
Speaker 3 (15:58):
That's a bit of an extreme example, but yeah, and
that's just because they didn't they thought their vendor had
it under control. So that's how we you know, kind
of starts the domain and the hosting. Then we get
into the marketing. Then we get into analytics and social profiles.
Then we get into the brand development and what you
mentioned with the images and the logo files everything there.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
How are those all set and stored?
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Then we move into more of like the third party
tools and integration. Do you have stripe integrated into your website?
What do we need to do to make sure that's
recovered in the future should something happen and that you
do in fact have ownership CRMs, all sorts of tools
like that. Then we go into security and backup recovery.
Are we having all of the right tools in place
(16:42):
and what happens should something go down? And then finally
we get into compliance and legal, So do we have
the right disclaimers the ADA compliance, the privacy policies, all
of those aspects that go into the site as well
to make sure that you are staying compliant with the
various pieces. And to your point, what is the standard
of practice and the policies. When an employee comes in
(17:03):
or a vendor comes in and starts purchasing these things,
do they go straight to you for ownership? Do they
stay with the vendor? You know, are they providing you
proof that they purchased it? So we really start to
go through. First we do an assessment where we check
on all of the like we just identify the gaps, yeah,
and then we'll dive into the digital asset audit where
we'll really work through with the client to go through
(17:24):
every piece they have and gain ownership and not just
of the log in details, but whose recovery emails on file?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Whose credit cards on file?
Speaker 3 (17:33):
When do things EXPRID, what's the two factor and work
through all of this. Roughly at the end of the day,
there's over three hundred digital assets that go into a
business being online and having an online presence. And I
say usually when we ask clients, they're basically identifying domain hosting, website,
a couple social profiles, right, maybe analytics, but we really
(17:55):
start to see that they're not identifying that there's so
much more than that out there that goes into their
business being online and successfully online.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah, I mean, gosh, there's so much you just outline
their page. But one of the things the word that
popped up to me was ownership, not like owning it,
but I think and then there's a owners of our
delegation or people are given certain authority to do certain things.
But I'm sure you're seeing that's probably unclear in the business, right,
and then you're probably trying to get this done and
(18:25):
work with people like who is maybe not the owner
but delegated a responsible party and there's a breakdown because
that's one thing I work with is the people side
of things, and how are they working together and collaborating
And you just listed a whole bunch of different groups
of people that I heard. Yes, we've got to pull
these different people together right.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Right, And most of them aren't talking most of the time,
Like nobody knows who's you know, handling the it compared
to the Google analytics, right, Like those two pieces aren't talking,
whether it's internally in a team or whether it's vendors
and whatnot, and so you know, yeah, and same thing.
Boys and vendors are two very different things. If they
set up Google ads, is it the company's property or
(19:06):
is it the vendor's property? And if you cancel that relationship,
what happens? And are you losing all of the key
words and historical data of the ads you've ran? Is
that you're staying with the company, Like what does that
look like? So you know, there's more people just like, yeah,
we'll hire this company and we'll be good and we'll
deal with it later.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
And it you know, like yeah, sure that works to
some extent, and.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
So it's more you know, of an issue or just
like that if they disappear, how are we going to
get that back?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
How are we going to get the locked back in?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
We had that happen with the client where I mean
they even just hey, we've contacted the web hosting companies
so many times they're unresponsive and now we literally have
no idea how to access our hosting to move our
site to a different provider. And so you know, that's
where we see it way too often. And I think
it's because where businesses are growing at such a rapid pace,
(19:58):
and then there's more and more tools out there and
available than ever before, and so trying to keep track
of it. But yeah, we just most agencies won't go
into that entire of everything that's covered. They're really going
to stop at No, we handle marketing. You can go
talk to somebody else about that or Nope, that's not
in our wheelhouse.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
We can't answer those questions.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
So you to me what we're hearing you Pagees. You've
developed a team at Tributing that understands this process, this journey,
if you will, so that they're asking those questions because
like you said, you're probably like finding the gaps. They're like, yeah,
nobody is really responsible for that. And then that's where
I love having you on here because I love working
with the business owners. The team's like, okay, Pages identified
(20:40):
this problem. The true ring is, these are these problems.
How are we going to solve that? How are you
going to get those people? You've you've got solutions, but
it's ultimately too you've got to figure out I find
sometimes empowering certain some people like I don't want to
do that, that's not my area that somebody else is like, well,
who else is going to do that, How are we
going to develop how are we going to work to
get you any because I've been on your side of
(21:01):
working with folks and like, hey, we really to help you,
but there's nobody there getting me what I need?
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Right Well, they just don't know. You know.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
We see marketing teams come to us and hire us
out and then I'm like asking questions and they're like,
we didn't know we needed to look for that, or
how do we recover it?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
And I'm like, how do you not know how to
recover this?
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Like it's just it's part of marketing or it's part
of you know blank, and but they just don't or
if the company is not pushing pushing them harder to
document all of these things, then it is just like
we don't know where the receipt is for that stock
image that we've you know, purchased to prove that we
did in fact purchase it and it's not just a
stolen version, so you know, it's it really is honing
(21:40):
it all in, And You're right, it's a mix of
what's the people say, what's the company standards of practice side,
and then what's the you know, where do we store
all of this.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
How is that all in place?
Speaker 3 (21:51):
And so yeah, that's where we come into and are like,
is this all in one location? Do you have it
scattered amongst Dropbox, Google Drive and something else?
Speaker 2 (22:00):
You know?
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Is it all written down on the you know pad
of paper next to the owner's you know, desk, because
the owner even no. I think that's one that we've
seen often is we're working with a marketing team and
while we set up something, they're like, hey, can we
have ownership or access of Google my business? And we're
like absolutely, But then we always kind of stop for
a second, like shouldn't the owner they'll have access to that,
(22:23):
Like I don't mind giving it to the employee, but
should the employee leave for any reason, the owner still
does not have access to that. And we try to
keep ourselves on a lot of these things. Is just
a second point of backup. We've seen the really save us,
like clients by us still having something in place. But
if they delete us, which sometimes they do as they
(22:44):
come in like oh we don't need you anymore, We're
going to delete this. That employee is the one who
has sole ownership, and so you know, good luck trying
to recover that and does anybody know that that happened?
And those are usually personal Gmail accounts, it's not necessarily
a company account because Google won't accept Microsoft. So now
(23:05):
we're even getting more into the like, hey, owner, we
should probably have a talk about how you guys are
setting these things up, because they're going to own your
Google my business at the end of the day, or
they're going to own your Facebook profile at the end
of the day. If you don't also have some sort
of adamant here and recovery of some of these things
are extremely difficult, if possible at all, and it's gonna
(23:27):
end up coming down to cost sometimes legal fees of
how do we get the lawyer involved to ask them
to hand that information over so it can really quickly
turn into a huge nightmare.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, I think to your point, it's how quickly it
can be. I was just talking to a soloopreneur here locally,
and he had a whole Instagram account and build up
to like over forty thousand followers, all those things doing
cool video stuff, and it got hacked and then it
was tied to as meta account and then it shut
that down too. And you know, these people are sophisticated
(23:58):
and they're really trying to trick you up. Unfortunately, I
get emails all the time, and if somebody doesn't just
doesn't know this, and like you said there that they're
the gatekeeper, they're one way in you have a vulnerability,
and I think the cost of the ret Unfortunately, we
preach on this podcast and why you're here pages to
be proactive rather than reactive and investing the money. Yes,
(24:22):
it might cost you a bit more than you anticipate
at first, but it's going to cost you a lot
more right in the back end, all the time and effort.
If they didn't do this well, I made.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Ans it right and out of the blue, so it
might be like, sure, we know in the future we'll
have to redesign our website. But the company that called
me with the web developer or the past, they weren't
expecting that that moment, you know, So then it's like,
here is this unexpected expense. And especially at a time
where businesses are a little bit tighter and watching money
a little bit closer with everything going on, they're not preparing,
(24:54):
you know, or they don't have the massive cash flow
that they used to have, and so you know, we
see it really impact them more, or if your marketing's down,
your revenue starts to go down, and so to then
offset and be able to cover these, you know, unexpected
expenses really do start to set you up more for
failure when it can be something that we can easily
get ahead of and be proactive on to your point,
(25:16):
and not have these and just saving the headache. I
you know, we get so many calls of just frantic
panicking nine to one one phone calls of like I'm lost,
I'm stuck, I don't know what to do, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (25:29):
What does this look like? And I don't mind them.
I just prefer not to.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
That's not how I want to see a business, you know,
I want to see them in a hey, we're really good,
we're ready to do more, We're ready to grow further.
We want to do something different with our marketing efforts
so that we keep growing and expanding.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Those are the calls we prefer to a yes, yeah, but.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
You know, inevitably we get a lot more calls that
are on the reactive, panicky side, and so yes, I'm
with you.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
How do we be more proactive over well.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
And that's why we have you on the podcast page
because we want others to listen to this and they're
they're like, I picked up the podcast and we're talking
at digital assets and you're like, oh, yeah, that's not covered.
That's not covered. Maybe I should do something about this today.
So I know we're getting close to the end of
the podcast today, I would love, you know, to that point.
If I'm a business owner, I'm listening, We've covered a
lot of different things. What is one action that they
(26:17):
can do today to protect or maximize their digital presence
right now? Page? What would you say to them if
you know is they're listening to us.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Yeah, one thing I would say would be start documenting everything.
But second thing I would say is we actually have
a digital asset checklist that they can download for free
at tre ringdigital dot com slash Roundtable, and that's the
best way to just start identifying a what are digital assets?
What is she talking about? But to you know, like
(26:47):
start to identify the gaps. It's a checklist you really
can just like go through and like do you know
who owns this? Can you access it this second? You know,
are you thinking about these things? What do you have
in place for recovery? And so it'll walk you through
all of that, and then as you start to identify gaps,
it'll you know, start to help you see great, we
do you need to start taking some action or well,
we're actually doing fantastic, Like we're ahead of where we
(27:09):
thought we were. So I would definitely recommend that they
start there with the checklist. It's it's a really valuable tool.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Well, thank you, Paige, We're going to put that in
the show notes. I want you guys to make sure
you reach out connect with page. We're also on LinkedIn.
You can reach out there and Truberingdigital dot com. You
want to go check it out. Paige, I want to
just thank you for being on here, sharing your story,
your insights. This has been refreshing. I think people haven't
we talked about it in this way and just recognizing
(27:37):
these these digital assets aren't just you know, technical details
or really strategic levers that help build your business value.
And so I'm so grateful that you came on the
podcast with us today.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah. Absolutely, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
I enjoyed it absolutely. We appreciate you always joining us
on the podcast. Everybody liking and subscribing, whether you find
us on YouTube, LinkedIn, whatever your favorite podcast platform it is,
we hope you will come back and join us. Make
sure you protect your digital presence out there, and thank
(28:12):
you again Page for joining us.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Thank you
Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast. I am your host,
David Carr, bringing people together to accomplish great things, founder
or steward your business. We are back this week with
a brand new guest, Paige We We're super excited to
have her here from touring digital and Page is not
only the founder, she's been doing award winning digital agency
work helping businesses for over fifteen years, and so we're
(00:36):
super excited to have you come and share a little
bit about your leadership journey, how you've helped work with.
I think you'll like over two thousand clients. You've worked
with many, many people across different industries. Welcome to the
podcast page.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Thank you so much for having I'm excited to be
here with you, David.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Absolutely, absolutely, I'm excited to have you here too. One
thing I like to do before we get into the
kind of the meat or the problem oftentimes that you're
facing our guests are facing, is hearing about your own
entrepreneurial journey, like what got you to where you're at today?
What got you to you know, birthing this cool company
now tree Ring Digital And if you wouldn't mind, case
(01:10):
just trying to take us back a little bit of
our listeners that are encountering you for the first time,
so they can know a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Absolutely, So I started cheering digital back in two thousand
and eight, twenty ten ish when the economy was not ideal,
and obviously I've been through several other times of that
over the years, and you know, really was just like
trying to figure out how do I make money. I
was twenty three out of architecture, which was not a
(01:39):
great industry to be in at the time, and really
just at a crossroads what do I do with life?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Where do I go from here? What's next?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
And decided why not give web design a try, you know,
started learning and teaching myself web design WordPress most specifically,
and from there I decided, hey.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
How do I get business?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I didn't have anyone like you know, I left corporate
bringing a bunch of clients with me, or I didn't
have a bunch of us you know, student colleagues with
me where I'd be like.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Oh, hey, let me bounce this idea off of you.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
So I really just head down and started putting some
ads up on Craigslist. Understood their algorithm, what was working?
What wasn't all of that? And then about a year
and a half in, I had a pretty full client
list where I no longer had to rely on Craigslist,
and from there just really developing and cranking out websites,
but always listening to the clients of like I can
(02:32):
design pretty sites, that's not the problem, but like, if
they're providing content, it's usually not that great. So we
started bringing writing indoor service offering, and then we were
running into hosting issues, so we started bringing hosting into
our services and just kept growing that agency into Hey,
what else is not working? I joke with my team
and I'm like, if we get one call too often,
(02:54):
we're gonna figure out how to fix that issue, Like
for good, I don't want to keep hearing why is
this happening?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Right, So.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Let's fix that for good. If it's emails, let's fix
that for good. So that's another way that we really
developed out the company was listening to like what's working,
what's not working? And how do we solve that problem?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Well, I think that's great. And knowing that you you
you started this business back, I remember that time when
the kindom was really tanking in you and I share
the background and the a's a AEC industry. I've been
in environmental consulting world for twenty five years and I've
seen the ups and downs as well. But the fact
that you've been able to weather the storms manage that,
and I think to your point of communicating, well, what
(03:36):
you're trying to do, how you're helping people, because you're
helping businesses. What I thought was impressive, as we talked
before this recording was the use of multiple types of
groups from restaurant groups, a fee back company, a variety
different folks, so you have some flexibility and adjusting and
that that's challenging because sometimes people aren't as flexible in
that way.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, well that's what we noticed.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I mean, like it's not a one size fit all shop, right,
I mean, in general, marketing shouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Websites shouldn't be.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
And I remember having a lot of some conversations with
my business coaches growing the business, and like, go to packages,
go to packages, it'll be so much easier for you. You
won't spend all the time on proposals. And I was
just like, I can't. I can sit here and say
a five page site is going to be blank, but
at the end of the day, they might not need five.
They might need four pages in some really robust contact
(04:24):
form that's a request to quote, right, And so we
just really learned to keep that flexibility and found that
we can keep a process, keep the customer journey very consistent,
but still allow for that fluctuation and that customization. And
that's really what's allowed us to, you know, work with
so many different clients on so many different levels, and again,
(04:46):
what's the issue. Let's not create new issues, let's not
touch what's not broke, and you know, really dive into
let's just get to the root of that. And if
we can do that, you're off and running and we'll
be back when you're ready for us again.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Kind of thing. Yeah, No, I love that. And one
of the things that we when we talked before we
start this recording, and I think I liked your philosophy
and why I wanted to have you on a guest
because you look at this and I think, as I
get it, as the digital presence is a business asset,
it's not just a marketing tool, and I think it's
a little different then sometimes you get a lot of
(05:19):
digital agencies that are just trying to sell you a
tool and like you to your point, it may not
be the best tool or the resource or how they
do that, right.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, I mean we see it in a few different ways.
One we see that businesses look at I need a
website because everyone's telling me I need a website, or
people are online. I need to be on social media
because that's where my audience is. So while I absolutely
hate it, that's where I got to be. And so
you know, I think that's one place where like, no, no, no, no,
that's an asset, like a digital presence is really like
(05:49):
a foundation and really aids your business's growth in a
variety of ways.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
And a lot of them don't look at it.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
They just I think look at it as the necessary
of evils, if you will. And then on the other front, yeah,
it's like you have all of these assets. Though as
far as your CRM is still a digital tool, and
I'm not here to tell you what CRM to use.
As we've worked with so many different industries, we've seen
there are reasons for certain companies to use certain pieces,
(06:17):
and so we really like to say, what's going to
be the best one for yours or where are you
at sometimes Mailchimp is better than active campaign and it
just comes down to pricing and functionality and tools and
what are you trying to run? And I think a
lot of agencies get caught up in like that's the
one we know, so that's the only one we're going
to do. And for us, it's like, no, how do
(06:40):
we make your business make sure it's successful with these assets?
And then from there, how are we keeping track of
all of these assets that make your business run and
function well?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
So, speaking of digital assets, you're bringing that up? Is
I guess I'm the question I'm supposing. I know we've
talked about this, but you know, you've worked with all
these clients. What are the biggest mistakes that you see
with when it comes to their websites or their digital
presence out there page? What are you seeing as a
big problem?
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Well, a big problem, Yeah, I'd say the biggest problem
that we run into with clients is just not knowing
who has ownership, not knowing where logins are to the
important pieces that make their business run, or not knowing
when those things are going to expire, just working and
really betting on the fact that it's on auto renew
or that the credit card is going to just run
(07:30):
the next time it's set to run. And so that's
the one that we see more and more. And I
think as we've gotten thus far in technology and still
obviously continuing to advance at a rapid pace, it's more
often than ever every phone call we get in there's
someone looking to hunt down log in details, and so
it's just really frustrating for the client. I mean, we're
(07:53):
used to it, we know how to recover a lot
of things, but for the client it does. It slows
us down. It doesn't make the edits as fast as
we want, and it doesn't make recovery as quickly as
we want.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
It's usually halting business.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
It's usually halting leads or marketing efforts in some capacity.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
So it's not just like, ohh, I'll keep I'll find
that log in when it's available and ready.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
It's no, we need it now if you want your
business to be back up and running.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
In some companies, yeah, that makes sense, and I think
probably when you're starting with small companies that gets lost.
I work with clients and they have like a lot
of procurement sites I all go to and like one
person signed up for this one per person signed up
for this one. It's like, does we have any like
master one of this.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
No, I'm guilty of it.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I mean same thing with the procurement side, right, I
mean yeah, like, hey, okay, this is something an intern
can set up and if we can just have the
standard fields all ready to go that we know they're
going to ask go set up another one and great,
here's a new portal.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Let's go set that up.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
And I mean that's one example of yeah, there's a
lot of logins and if you let something like that go,
you might be missing a lead that could be impactful
for your business right out of the procurement ones really
come with the heavy price tag and so you close
that deal that can be mean so much for your business.
(09:08):
And so I think that's a great example where we
start to see more so in smaller companies with like
the use of VAS that has really taken off in
the last few years. We're seeing more interns coming in.
Sometimes not profits. We see a lot of interns come
in and yeah, they're just tasked to set stuff up
and sometimes they're like, great, I'll use my personal because
you never gave me an email address to use this
(09:30):
or you know, they set it up under their own
because they didn't know that company policy was to use
info at or webmaster at or marketing at, you know,
so that there was always that consistency. Well, then that
employee leaves, and do you guys shut down the email
address that goes along with it, and no one's getting
the recovery emails anymore, and no one knows how to
(09:51):
recover it because it's not going anywhere. When they do,
the password resets. So now it's again an even lengthier
recovery process of who do we have to contact and
support to get this, you know, back up and running
and prove that we.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Own this right well, and I would imagine a page.
I was in a networking group today and I was
talking with an intellectual property lawyer and she was talking
about a lot of people hire folks or even their employees.
We'll just grab digital assets out there, pictures, videos, that's copyrighted,
and they don't realize that they're using that and the
damage that they can do being sued or you know,
(10:27):
you know, litigated. They'd be like, you know, and if
they don't know or I haven't accounted for all that stuff, right,
So is that something that you guys look into as well.
Let's make sure there were.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
We look at.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah, we look into it a bit. I mean the
photos get a little bit harder. Is it's like who
is the one getting it? You know, is the graphic
design vendor? Is it this vat When we look at
like our digital asset management services, we've got about seven
pillars that all fall into like where all of these
assets go. And you're bringing up a good point that
the brand elements are. So who's got the logo? Is
(10:58):
this the right version of the logo? Is this the
logo from three years ago? And we've made tweaks? You know,
what does that look like? But it does go even
further into here are the set videos that we want
to use. Here are the set photos that we want
to use. These are brand photography that we've had taken.
Can the team easily access that if you're, you know,
doing some sort of speaking event or workshop or something,
(11:19):
does the team know what photo to pass along? That
is an approved photo? And so you know, you get
into it a little bit there and then yeah, beyond that,
you start hitting some of the IP stuff too, And
you're correct, I think you know a lot of agencies
aren't fully paying attention to how are we providing you know,
rights and copyright and I'm spacing on the word but
(11:40):
ownership like icons and stuff right, like, great, we added
the icon to the site, but do we site where
we got it from? And so you know, those are
areas for sure that can definitely create a lot of
issues for clients. And I think as that owner starts
to get removed and hand things off as they should,
and they're growing, but as they start to do that,
(12:02):
it really does go like, so what happens when you
get the ce some desist letter?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Right?
Speaker 3 (12:06):
And who because it's gonna come and so now who's
responsible for that? Was this approved? Where's the copy of
the receipt that was purchased? Whose account was it purchased under?
Sometimes we run into is fonts are purchased through like
an account, but they don't actually allow commercial use.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
It's personal use.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
And so if you're just going and grabbing fonts off
of the Internet and then using them in your print media,
you might not actually have the commercial license to use
it in that capacity. And so all things you're bringing
up really really great points that businesses aren't paying attention to.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
You. They're just like, it looks good, put it out
the door.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Put it out there. So you mentioned page you've got
I'd love to hear you go through your approach of
how do you do this? You said you have got
these pillars that you go through. So what if you
wouldn't mind just walk us through? What is it that
that's you know, the trieering approach different? And you know,
why did you pick these pillars? What are these that
you're kind of holding up the business house so to speak.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah, so you know, one thing that's different is a
lot of agencies are going to focus on the marketing side,
the website side, sometimes both, and that's going to go
into social media platforms, Google analytics, Google my business. You're
hosting your domain name, your website. But that's usually where
a lot of agencies start to stop. They made, you know,
maybe don't even handle the hosting that's handled through a
(13:30):
different company, or you start to get multiple vendors involved,
and so it's like who's taking ownership of this.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Piece of it? What does that look like?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
And so that's where we really started noticing that gap
is when we started asking the questions of where are
the log in details?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
It was always with somebody else.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
It was never with the owner or the person we
were speaking with, right, And so we started realizing how
much of a disconnect there is and a lack of
ownership in these digital assets. So, for example, we had
a client callus a couple of weeks ago and they
were like, hey, can you help me? And I was like, yeah,
let's do what we can. Tell me what's going on?
And they're like, our web designer just passed away unexpectedly.
(14:08):
I was like, oh, geez, I'm so sorry to hear it.
I thought they were just calling us for like, can
you update our website with some changes?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Right?
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Well, no, they said, hey, he controlled the domain name,
the email addresses, the hosting and the website, and even
though he had at some point passed along the log
in details to the website, it had changed. And so
we're sitting there going, is there any way we can
recover these things? What does that look like? And they
(14:37):
immediately had shut off Google Ads because the website was
displaying an air that couldn't be reached, and so, you know,
that was one issue. Then we had to go through, well,
your emails aren't working because your domain's not working and
so and so we can get the domain working, we
you know, really can't do too much on some of
the recovery systems either. And then we had to start
(14:57):
working through, hey, how do we go to the who's
hosting it? It was a resold account, so even that
was hidden in lockdown, and so we into all of
our tools and everything we knew, And so, I mean
it just turned into a headache.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
That shouldn't have been that way.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
They should have had some sort of seapanelog in details.
They should have had full ownership of their domain name
and been able to quickly just reset a password and
move on, or already had it and didn't need to
reset a password. And then the same thing with the website,
where that typically would have been, you know what, let's
grab a backup, let's move it to a new server,
we'll keep your on in and we'll figure out what
we want to do with the hosting later. We couldn't
(15:32):
even log into the site to pull the backup. So
then the conversation starts, are we going to redesign? Are
we just going to try to mirror what's currently there
into a new environment? And gets you going that way?
And so I mean it just turned into this huge
headache for the client and so much lost business that,
you know, like it's still weeks and we're still find like,
(15:53):
how do we fully get everything back up and running?
Speaker 2 (15:55):
How do we work through proof of death certificate?
Speaker 3 (15:58):
That's a bit of an extreme example, but yeah, and
that's just because they didn't they thought their vendor had
it under control. So that's how we you know, kind
of starts the domain and the hosting. Then we get
into the marketing. Then we get into analytics and social profiles.
Then we get into the brand development and what you
mentioned with the images and the logo files everything there.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
How are those all set and stored?
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Then we move into more of like the third party
tools and integration. Do you have stripe integrated into your website?
What do we need to do to make sure that's
recovered in the future should something happen and that you
do in fact have ownership CRMs, all sorts of tools
like that. Then we go into security and backup recovery.
Are we having all of the right tools in place
(16:42):
and what happens should something go down? And then finally
we get into compliance and legal, So do we have
the right disclaimers the ADA compliance, the privacy policies, all
of those aspects that go into the site as well
to make sure that you are staying compliant with the
various pieces. And to your point, what is the standard
of practice and the policies. When an employee comes in
(17:03):
or a vendor comes in and starts purchasing these things,
do they go straight to you for ownership? Do they
stay with the vendor? You know, are they providing you
proof that they purchased it? So we really start to
go through. First we do an assessment where we check
on all of the like we just identify the gaps, yeah,
and then we'll dive into the digital asset audit where
we'll really work through with the client to go through
(17:24):
every piece they have and gain ownership and not just
of the log in details, but whose recovery emails on file?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Whose credit cards on file?
Speaker 3 (17:33):
When do things EXPRID, what's the two factor and work
through all of this. Roughly at the end of the day,
there's over three hundred digital assets that go into a
business being online and having an online presence. And I
say usually when we ask clients, they're basically identifying domain hosting, website,
a couple social profiles, right, maybe analytics, but we really
(17:55):
start to see that they're not identifying that there's so
much more than that out there that goes into their
business being online and successfully online.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah, I mean, gosh, there's so much you just outline
their page. But one of the things the word that
popped up to me was ownership, not like owning it,
but I think and then there's a owners of our
delegation or people are given certain authority to do certain things.
But I'm sure you're seeing that's probably unclear in the business, right,
and then you're probably trying to get this done and
(18:25):
work with people like who is maybe not the owner
but delegated a responsible party and there's a breakdown because
that's one thing I work with is the people side
of things, and how are they working together and collaborating
And you just listed a whole bunch of different groups
of people that I heard. Yes, we've got to pull
these different people together right.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Right, And most of them aren't talking most of the time,
Like nobody knows who's you know, handling the it compared
to the Google analytics, right, Like those two pieces aren't talking,
whether it's internally in a team or whether it's vendors
and whatnot, and so you know, yeah, and same thing.
Boys and vendors are two very different things. If they
set up Google ads, is it the company's property or
(19:06):
is it the vendor's property? And if you cancel that relationship,
what happens? And are you losing all of the key
words and historical data of the ads you've ran? Is
that you're staying with the company, Like what does that
look like? So you know, there's more people just like, yeah,
we'll hire this company and we'll be good and we'll
deal with it later.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
And it you know, like yeah, sure that works to
some extent, and.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
So it's more you know, of an issue or just
like that if they disappear, how are we going to
get that back?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
How are we going to get the locked back in?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
We had that happen with the client where I mean
they even just hey, we've contacted the web hosting companies
so many times they're unresponsive and now we literally have
no idea how to access our hosting to move our
site to a different provider. And so you know, that's
where we see it way too often. And I think
it's because where businesses are growing at such a rapid pace,
(19:58):
and then there's more and more tools out there and
available than ever before, and so trying to keep track
of it. But yeah, we just most agencies won't go
into that entire of everything that's covered. They're really going
to stop at No, we handle marketing. You can go
talk to somebody else about that or Nope, that's not
in our wheelhouse.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
We can't answer those questions.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
So you to me what we're hearing you Pagees. You've
developed a team at Tributing that understands this process, this journey,
if you will, so that they're asking those questions because
like you said, you're probably like finding the gaps. They're like, yeah,
nobody is really responsible for that. And then that's where
I love having you on here because I love working
with the business owners. The team's like, okay, Pages identified
(20:40):
this problem. The true ring is, these are these problems.
How are we going to solve that? How are you
going to get those people? You've you've got solutions, but
it's ultimately too you've got to figure out I find
sometimes empowering certain some people like I don't want to
do that, that's not my area that somebody else is like, well,
who else is going to do that, How are we
going to develop how are we going to work to
get you any because I've been on your side of
(21:01):
working with folks and like, hey, we really to help you,
but there's nobody there getting me what I need?
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Right Well, they just don't know. You know.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
We see marketing teams come to us and hire us
out and then I'm like asking questions and they're like,
we didn't know we needed to look for that, or
how do we recover it?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
And I'm like, how do you not know how to
recover this?
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Like it's just it's part of marketing or it's part
of you know blank, and but they just don't or
if the company is not pushing pushing them harder to
document all of these things, then it is just like
we don't know where the receipt is for that stock
image that we've you know, purchased to prove that we
did in fact purchase it and it's not just a
stolen version, so you know, it's it really is honing
(21:40):
it all in, And You're right, it's a mix of
what's the people say, what's the company standards of practice side,
and then what's the you know, where do we store
all of this.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
How is that all in place?
Speaker 3 (21:51):
And so yeah, that's where we come into and are like,
is this all in one location? Do you have it
scattered amongst Dropbox, Google Drive and something else?
Speaker 2 (22:00):
You know?
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Is it all written down on the you know pad
of paper next to the owner's you know, desk, because
the owner even no. I think that's one that we've
seen often is we're working with a marketing team and
while we set up something, they're like, hey, can we
have ownership or access of Google my business? And we're
like absolutely, But then we always kind of stop for
a second, like shouldn't the owner they'll have access to that,
(22:23):
Like I don't mind giving it to the employee, but
should the employee leave for any reason, the owner still
does not have access to that. And we try to
keep ourselves on a lot of these things. Is just
a second point of backup. We've seen the really save us,
like clients by us still having something in place. But
if they delete us, which sometimes they do as they
(22:44):
come in like oh we don't need you anymore, We're
going to delete this. That employee is the one who
has sole ownership, and so you know, good luck trying
to recover that and does anybody know that that happened?
And those are usually personal Gmail accounts, it's not necessarily
a company account because Google won't accept Microsoft. So now
(23:05):
we're even getting more into the like, hey, owner, we
should probably have a talk about how you guys are
setting these things up, because they're going to own your
Google my business at the end of the day, or
they're going to own your Facebook profile at the end
of the day. If you don't also have some sort
of adamant here and recovery of some of these things
are extremely difficult, if possible at all, and it's gonna
(23:27):
end up coming down to cost sometimes legal fees of
how do we get the lawyer involved to ask them
to hand that information over so it can really quickly
turn into a huge nightmare.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, I think to your point, it's how quickly it
can be. I was just talking to a soloopreneur here locally,
and he had a whole Instagram account and build up
to like over forty thousand followers, all those things doing
cool video stuff, and it got hacked and then it
was tied to as meta account and then it shut
that down too. And you know, these people are sophisticated
(23:58):
and they're really trying to trick you up. Unfortunately, I
get emails all the time, and if somebody doesn't just
doesn't know this, and like you said there that they're
the gatekeeper, they're one way in you have a vulnerability,
and I think the cost of the ret Unfortunately, we
preach on this podcast and why you're here pages to
be proactive rather than reactive and investing the money. Yes,
(24:22):
it might cost you a bit more than you anticipate
at first, but it's going to cost you a lot
more right in the back end, all the time and effort.
If they didn't do this well, I made.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Ans it right and out of the blue, so it
might be like, sure, we know in the future we'll
have to redesign our website. But the company that called
me with the web developer or the past, they weren't
expecting that that moment, you know, So then it's like,
here is this unexpected expense. And especially at a time
where businesses are a little bit tighter and watching money
a little bit closer with everything going on, they're not preparing,
(24:54):
you know, or they don't have the massive cash flow
that they used to have, and so you know, we
see it really impact them more, or if your marketing's down,
your revenue starts to go down, and so to then
offset and be able to cover these, you know, unexpected
expenses really do start to set you up more for
failure when it can be something that we can easily
get ahead of and be proactive on to your point,
(25:16):
and not have these and just saving the headache. I
you know, we get so many calls of just frantic
panicking nine to one one phone calls of like I'm lost,
I'm stuck, I don't know what to do, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (25:29):
What does this look like? And I don't mind them.
I just prefer not to.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
That's not how I want to see a business, you know,
I want to see them in a hey, we're really good,
we're ready to do more, We're ready to grow further.
We want to do something different with our marketing efforts
so that we keep growing and expanding.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Those are the calls we prefer to a yes, yeah, but.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
You know, inevitably we get a lot more calls that
are on the reactive, panicky side, and so yes, I'm
with you.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
How do we be more proactive over well.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
And that's why we have you on the podcast page
because we want others to listen to this and they're
they're like, I picked up the podcast and we're talking
at digital assets and you're like, oh, yeah, that's not covered.
That's not covered. Maybe I should do something about this today.
So I know we're getting close to the end of
the podcast today, I would love, you know, to that point.
If I'm a business owner, I'm listening, We've covered a
lot of different things. What is one action that they
(26:17):
can do today to protect or maximize their digital presence
right now? Page? What would you say to them if
you know is they're listening to us.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Yeah, one thing I would say would be start documenting everything.
But second thing I would say is we actually have
a digital asset checklist that they can download for free
at tre ringdigital dot com slash Roundtable, and that's the
best way to just start identifying a what are digital assets?
What is she talking about? But to you know, like
(26:47):
start to identify the gaps. It's a checklist you really
can just like go through and like do you know
who owns this? Can you access it this second? You know,
are you thinking about these things? What do you have
in place for recovery? And so it'll walk you through
all of that, and then as you start to identify gaps,
it'll you know, start to help you see great, we
do you need to start taking some action or well,
we're actually doing fantastic, Like we're ahead of where we
(27:09):
thought we were. So I would definitely recommend that they
start there with the checklist. It's it's a really valuable tool.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Well, thank you, Paige, We're going to put that in
the show notes. I want you guys to make sure
you reach out connect with page. We're also on LinkedIn.
You can reach out there and Truberingdigital dot com. You
want to go check it out. Paige, I want to
just thank you for being on here, sharing your story,
your insights. This has been refreshing. I think people haven't
we talked about it in this way and just recognizing
(27:37):
these these digital assets aren't just you know, technical details
or really strategic levers that help build your business value.
And so I'm so grateful that you came on the
podcast with us today.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah. Absolutely, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
I enjoyed it absolutely. We appreciate you always joining us
on the podcast. Everybody liking and subscribing, whether you find
us on YouTube, LinkedIn, whatever your favorite podcast platform it is,
we hope you will come back and join us. Make
sure you protect your digital presence out there, and thank
(28:12):
you again Page for joining us.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Thank you
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