In this episode, Nicole and Ben discuss the minimum technology components any business needs to establish an IT starting point for your business.
Mayhem and MISfits
Episode 6 – IT's Fundamental
Transcript
Nicole Grimm
Hello and welcome. My name is Nicole Grimm.
Ben Rockey
And I am Ben Rockey.
Nicole Grimm
And this is mayhem and misfits where we take a fun look at business gone awry, and the systems that save them. Today we're going to talk about the technology fundamentals.
Ben Rockey
It's all about the fundamentals.
Nicole Grimm
All about the fundamentals. What are the fundamentals? Should we care? It's the basics. The foundation. The minimum pieces that you need to run. Any we say business? We're actually using the any card.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, we're throwing the any card there like this is this is the bare.
Nicole Grimm
For this one. Minimum bare minimums. So where would you start if? You are just starting out or even where should you start? If you need to make sure your fundamentals are cared for. This episode is intended for both of those perspectives. So we may. Say where do you start? But we're not necessarily talking about where do you start? If you're a startup, unless you truly are. Right? Other than that, if. You wanted to check your fundamentals because we're going to give you a checklist for which you can validate that your house is in order. Your basic house is in order, and your foundations are cracking underneath you. You can use the same checklist as though you were.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, it it's a.
Nicole Grimm
Just starting out.
Ben Rockey
It's a fundamental structure. These are the these you do these things and you have the pieces in place to build on.
Nicole Grimm
Right, if you might be missing a piece here or there, maybe the piece that you have is slightly different than we're talking about. That might be all right, but for today we're going to. Start off with. The fundamentals and what it looks like in today's world. What you would get if you were purchasing a basic fundamental today? Maybe some of our customers who have legacy systems have some version of. That same fundamental 20 something years ago. Maybe they've done some upgrades to that extent, but they may be missing some piece of parts. We'll kind of point. That out as we go.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, it's it's not just about what you need to go get, but it's it's more about with what you have. Have you got it set up the right way?
Nicole Grimm
Right, and do you have all those? Basic pieces of what you have. Are you missing anything? So let's explain. The basic mayhem entry level here.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, so here's what happens when you. Maybe don't have all the tools or you haven't taken the time to set the tools up the right way. A lot of businesses, when they get started, make a lot. Of quick decisions. Buy things that meet the need in the moment. You you you you, you get phone service because you need to get phone service and you you call a person to throw up an Internet web page for you because you got to have a home page and while they're set up the web page, they say hey, you should probably get a main name and they set up a domain name for you and you get some basic set up with e-mail just. Just so the business can turn on. And it's not uncommon. Quite frankly, it's pretty common, especially for the small to medium sized business to to run on those systems for a long period of time and keep them the way you got them. Because you don't find the need to change them until. Mayhem steps in.
Nicole Grimm
If it ain't broke, don't fix it kind of thing.
Ben Rockey
But when it breaks.
Nicole Grimm
Yeah, we have a story about that.
Ben Rockey
One so one story that's going to lead into a lot of the fundamentals is. What happens when you don't take care and understanding of what your domain name really means for your business? So there was a customer in the ag industry who sold the direct to consumer. Poultry and. The fundamental way the main way they connected with customers and have customers come find them was just a web page. They made sure the web page had all the information on how to get out to their farm. A number to call if they needed some information. They weren't using it for e-mail, they weren't using it. For any of the modern, you know portal interface. Things you might do for a customer. It was an online brochure, but it was an important online brochure because it was the number one way. People found them. When they first set up the service. They found a great. Guy to come in and make a web page and set up a domain name. Had all the information they needed. Gave them some information about how to maintain it. And it ran great for about three years. Well after three years. Something very unfortunate happened. They got a phone call from somebody saying I found your number, but I can't seem to get to your website to tell me how to get to where you guys are at. How do I get out to you and they're like, well, what do you mean? The website didn't tell you where to go. I don't know. It's got some like domain parking. Thing on it and and many of you guys have seen that before you go to a domain that maybe the company has gone under or any number of things.
Nicole Grimm
In a domain would be the website itself. So you go to www.mycompany.com. We'll use an example here.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, well.
Nicole Grimm
And you go to. That that is the domain basically.
Speaker
Right?
Ben Rockey
That website name, if for no other for all, for all services we say domain and we say website, we're talking about a mycompany.com name. Well, what had happened was. The subscription had run out on the domain name on the website name and so it needed to be paid and renewed. So the client we went to their notes and. The notes they had didn't tell them how to log in to the service that provided it, and in this situation I believe it was good. Nobody, so they're like, well, OK, I'll just reset the password well. It turned out that the e-mail address that was associated with the website wasn't their e-mail address. They thought, well, I'll I'll just go go call GoDaddy. So they call GoDaddy and they go through all the steps and GoDaddy says, well, we have a process of arbitration to grant access to this. But the problem is you're not listed anywhere on the domain. Turns out the person that had set the domain up for them did everything for them had taken care of the first three years when they charged them for the invoice, they just put everything on their credit card. The consultants credit card to to create the website and. Pay for the domain name and. All of the pointers to it were pointed to. That that consultants e-mail address. Well, the consultant had left the country to go work on a job halfway across the world and wasn't paying attention to things like domain name registrations for a simple website he had thrown up three years ago and so. There was a very. Critical moment where this business, who was relying on information on that website was stuck without any way to recover. Their website quickly.
Nicole Grimm
They didn't own it anymore and it was officially expired. No longer paid for.
Ben Rockey
And it may have had their name all over that domain, but it has having your name all over that domain has nothing to do with ownership of that domain. It is a title. It is a piece of property, and whoever's name is on the titles. Who owns that domain?
Nicole Grimm
Right, so I guess the number one point of. Our topic here would be. A domain name and making sure that. You basically own it.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, another scenario where we have with clients. That's kind of a constant mayhem is when they don't take. Document storage and document management into consideration. How many times have you had a document you're working on and the way you share it with somebody to work on is you put it in the e-mail? And then they make a revision and send it back to you. And then you read it, open it, send it back again and after a few passes of that you start to lose what really changed where.
Nicole Grimm
I also I also shared it with my. With my teenage Kid, who's really better at. Putting in those graphics and stuff and then he's got to send it back to me or she does and and then I'll send.
Ben Rockey
Right? With their edits.
Nicole Grimm
It back to you again, right?
Ben Rockey
Yeah, and then you makes more changes to the document. It's surprising how many businesses rely on e-mail as their document management and. Also their communication tool. How much time do you spend having to go back and looking through emails to understand a decision you've made? About how to help a customer or what the resolution was to a an incorrect quote and. You've had to go jump back in to emails searching and searching and searching to find that one e-mail that told you what decision you just.
Speaker
Right?
Ben Rockey
And what happens when you know person leaves the company that you're at, and they're the ones made the decision and you you know back up their e-mail or what have you and new person comes in. You give a new e-mail account. They don't have any of that information. They don't know how to go look up that past history about what decision was made with that client. We've had countless scenarios where customers find themselves struggling with how to deal with this data. That's just in eight different places, with no cohesiveness around it.
Nicole Grimm
Right, so e-mail would be another fundamental functionality that you need, but we're also alluding to something better than e-mail.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, something very better than e-mail exactly or at. Least not e-mail alone.
Nicole Grimm
Right, so that. We put these basic fundamentals in in this list or in this hierarchy in order to just keep the sanity at some. Basic acceptable standard right? Well, then, let's let's jump. Right into the misfit. What does Misfit look like for these basic fundamentals and what is our list that we're going to jump into? I suppose the first one that we've already kind of identified through that crazy mayhem story about losing their web domain or and or their.com in a lot of cases. Dot Nets my company name at dot com or.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, let's talk real real briefly about how important the web domain is to you through that mayhem story. You know we have the scenario where you're losing connection to your customers because you've lost access, but your domain represents so many other things for organization. And actually, today we're going to talk how kind of about the layers that build on top of this web domain. In every situation. On the on the Internet, in the electronic world, your web domain is your identity. That's how you establish who you are electronically in the world, and then how you grant access to others in your business electronically in the world. If I have a been at mycompany.com, you know Ben works for mycompany.com.
Nicole Grimm
Right, it's a. Underlining assumption or knowledge that people carry with that, they may also take your company more. Seriously, if you have a. A name at mybusiness.com as an example versus.
Ben Rockey
Zuzu yeah zuzu's petals@gmail.com
Nicole Grimm
Having a. Exactly a Gmail account or some other third party account where you also have a domain and a website, but you haven't actually connected them all together, so it it does appear more secure, trustworthy. And more sophisticated, I suppose, of a business when it's all tied together.
Ben Rockey
I'm still surprised by the number of businesses, small businesses, but nonetheless, businesses relying on aolandexcite.com e-mail addresses to contact. The business about orders.
Nicole Grimm
And posting it on their website right?
Ben Rockey
On their.
Nicole Grimm
So aside from the fact that it may appear more professional or pulled together, it it also offers some basic fundamentals when you actually do have all of this under one roof and that one key to get you in that door is that domain name. That's the most critical point we're starting from.
Ben Rockey
Yeah yeah, branding and identity. So First off. This is what you need to realize about this identity. This identity is property just like any other property you have in your business. The other asset you have in your business, you know whether it's a a tractor or a computer or or inventory. The web domain is an asset to your company, and just like a tractor or a car, you need to register. That to somebody who's actually in the company. And then you can hand off access to that tractor or truck or that web domain to whoever you need to, but it's your name on the title.
Nicole Grimm
Exactly and you know. Where it? Is you know where the keys are. You have a copy of the keys.
Ben Rockey
You're going to get the letter letting you know. It's time to renew.
Nicole Grimm
Right and pay attention to that, especially since a lot of these domains you know you can set them up for anywhere from one to five years. Maybe some companies even forget that they have to pay this because it doesn't come up on their annual budget as an example, or remind them in this normal cadence so. Whomever is. Owning that domain activity that domain account needs to be aware you should probably go put that on your checklist to just go and check it out and make sure that it's someone who's actually working there still.
Ben Rockey
And that's an excellent point. Step one if you don't know who owns the domain name for your company, go find out and if you find out that it's. Still, the marketing company you are working with or. The person you found on fiverr.com. Or that kid you hired for one summer to come in and set things up. You need to go find them and then help them make you the owner of that website.
Nicole Grimm
Sure, maybe you start with your domain provider. If you can't find it. Out there's ways to Google. It and find it out. If you really have nowhere to start, you're actually not quite sure where to start. Worst case scenario you can find out by finding out who's hosting it and contacting them. They'll give you some. Ideas of where to go from there? Hopefully if you have the right contact information, make sure that you are the owner that you do have it routing to the correct communications and make sure that you are paid up and what time, what date. What expiration does that that payment have?
Ben Rockey
And as long as you're as you, as long as you or a some person on the team that you know is watching the emails, I guarantee you whether it's Network Solutions or GoDaddy or any of the other providers out there, they will start sending you emails four months out from the registration due.
Nicole Grimm
Right, so you want to make sure that you own it. Who is in that communication chain, and then you know while you're there, maybe just take a note about like where it might expire and give yourself a reminder.
Ben Rockey
One side note about this that we can go deeper in the mayhem is if you go too long without re registering your domain. Now most people it doesn't go this far, but what could happen is you could lose your domain and then it gets purchased by someone who can then try to resell it on. The open market. If you go too long and you don't come back in and and pay for your registration in a timely fashion, you could lose your domain and there are limited ways to regain that domain in that. Once it's on the open market, whoever you know. Just like if someone somehow got a hold of your of your pink slip for your car and was able to sign off on it and get. It turned into the DMV. It's a process to get.
Nicole Grimm
It back right? Obviously it's a bit of a. A heavy load process and a confusing and overwhelming one. If you did get yourself into this situation, but there are people that make a living if you will buying up expired domains just for the fact that they know that someone purchased it at one point so they know there's a market for that name. And since they know the value of. This quote UN quote property. They treat it as a property. There's a whole industry that treats it as a property in order to maintain this lifestyle that they have. And then they'll sell it back to you for a painfully marked up. Price in most cases.
Ben Rockey
Ohh, sometimes numbers that you would not believe.
Nicole Grimm
Exactly, so there might be times where you have to bite the bullet and either pay this, you know, quote UN quote ransom for something that you actually gave up by not paying attention. This and get it back or you have to start over and rebuild this entire foundational piece, which we would say is essentially the lock and key and front door to your entire technology portfolio.
Ben Rockey
Now there is one more component to having a domain name. There's two we'll talk about. But the the next important step when you when you register a domain name, domain name or get control of your domain name, or if you already have control of your domain. Name also consider getting an SSL certificate and what an SSL certificate does, is it? It's a process by which a third party, in this case, usually the the provider who sold you the the. Web domain name in the 1st place validates you are who you say you are, so you get that. Happy little green. Lock sign in the browser address bar. If you've ever wondered why some sites say unsecured, it's because they haven't gotten a valid as a self certificate yet, and that's a way for. Other people to know like oh this business that claims that they're mycompany.com. I can see they've got the happy green lock, so I know they've that the third party has taken steps to verify that these people are who they say they are.
Nicole Grimm
They are my company.com and not some other source. If you're already selling online, you've probably already had to jump through these hoops and based off the latest security measures that the industry has pushed, saying that everyone has to have quote, UN quote everyone, any business as we claim before has to have this lock and load. Key if you will.
Ben Rockey
And then finally, just like a a a vehicle you might lease for your business. Sometimes you need to hand off keys to the to the vehicle so someone else can use it. The the vehicle might be registered and your name. You might be the one making the payments, but other people need to use it. Same thing with the domain name. You may have reasons. For other people to have. Access to the back end of your domain so it can be pointed at things like websites and e-mail services, and a number of other resources that are available on the Internet. In those scenarios, after you've. Gotten your Your website. Cleaned up and our website domain name registration clearly under your ownership you can assign access through shared access, so most of these providers like Network Solutions and GoDaddy will allow people to go in and log in with other accounts that you can then grant access to those accounts for them to come in and manage. Certain aspects of your domain without. Having full control over it.
Nicole Grimm
Yeah, just like anything else inside of. There, your company that you may be used to if you already have emails and and that kind of thing, same idea.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, granting access. But don't give out your password to your master account. That's for you.
Nicole Grimm
Right? Definitely keep the master key. And that I guess dovetails right into the next portion, which is pick a suite.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, so we're going to. Talk about in a minute. We'll come back to why all this domain information has extra layers of importance, but the next thing fundamentally for your business is you need. Something in your business that you're going to work from for your office applications. You know word, word processing, spreadsheets, presentation tools, e-mail system, some type of system that allows you to create users and manage them. You need a suite of tools to do that, and so there are two major providers. There's a few others out there, but for the most part this makes up the the 90% mark of what's in the market, and that's. Microsoft 365. Which a lot of people might be familiar with already and Google Workspace, which is many people are very familiar with. Those are the the two top suite tools that are out there. So both these packages offer. An assortment of tools that every business needs. The word processing the spreadsheets, the identity. E-mail instant messaging. These are all rolled up into into these packages.
Nicole Grimm
Right, so we're basically talking about picking a suite. We're not necessarily recommending or diving into any details around, you know. Should you pick level one basic to premium? We're not diving into that space, but the basic idea would be that you are picking a suite that's going to cover that identity as you mentioned. Where I can grant access to the employees of the company or vendors or or any third parties you might have helping you that need to have. A A e-mail address at mycompany.com as an example. And also gives you a basic fundamental to attach to this space around security so we can make sure that you're at least have some basic level of protection against threats, online threats, this kind of thing and your documents are safe from that as well. And then also that next layer that people are probably more familiar with is that like the office suite is Microsoft would call it or G suite is Google would call it, which is that package of the word processing and the outlooks and the. PowerPoint presentations and all those kinds of tools inside your office suites the the basic suite that we're talking about, and as a general topic, though, goes beyond just the office products, so we are definitely not recommending you go and buy office products.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, e-mail clients that you would work from, yeah.
Nicole Grimm
Especially some people are like, well, I bought a computer. And office is on it, so I'm good, right?
Ben Rockey
No, you need more.
Nicole Grimm
So we're talking about a suite and you mentioned Microsoft product Microsoft 365. Some people get confused around that. Well, I have office so I don't really what is Microsoft 365 versus Office 365. And that's your point here.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, so Microsoft 365 and it's been rebranding and I want to. Be clear Google. Workspace and Microsoft 365 share many of the same types of services. They just have different names for their tools. But what what these tools do is offer extras like.
Nicole Grimm
Right?
Ben Rockey
Document management, document backup, document versioning. Controlled and restricted sharing of of documents. In addition, have instant messaging video collaboration.
Nicole Grimm
For online meetings, these kinds of things right?
Ben Rockey
Yeah, there's a. It doesn't stop at one tool.
Nicole Grimm
And it goes beyond the office tool set that you may get already installed on a computer that you get, so that's why the importance of this suite is what we're highlighting here.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, they they also start to bridge into. Other nice features that you may not know that you need immediately, but because they're in the suite and they're included in what you are to receive automation tools, auto response tools that as you mature your processes and you're looking for ways to make things easier to do, you'll have the toolkit. Already built into what you've purchased that you can start to leverage and a lot of these things happen. In the moment, oh I didn't know I could do this and and someone on the team goes. Oh, did you know that with? Power automate when we receive this kind of e-mail, we can actually have it go to a SharePoint list that we can track and alert you and now we don't have to. You know, move that along and there'll be episodes in the future. We kind of talk about what those suite of tools can do.
Nicole Grimm
Yeah, we'll jump into that later.
Ben Rockey
The point is, is that there's when you buy these suits these you get the minimum you need, but then you have a lot of extra tools on.
Nicole Grimm
But true, and like we said, we wouldn't dive into if if you should do basic or premium. We can save another episode for that, but essentially if you buy into their basic and you have a word processor in that and then maybe the next level has an Excel processor in it. Just to give a crazy example, at least you already know that the basic fundamentals are just solved for you, and they know that every company would need these. Basics inside of it it's baked into it. You don't have to think about it when you do mature. Do take on more. You can always. Move up in the stack and go to the premium from basic to premium. If you find that there is a demand for those extra tool sets that they might offer at that higher level.
Ben Rockey
One thing Nicole was referencing as we starting talking about this section when you buy into these suites, you're also buying into. Mindset and some. Best practices that are baked into how the tool works and also kind of hook back into why this domain identity is so important. One of the fundamental things that will happen when you purchase the suite is you're going to connect your web domain into the suite to create user accounts. And those user accounts, as we were kind of referencing become identities in the company that can be trusted and have you know access assigned to them if you will. And in addition, gain protection because both these suites, even at their most basic level, offer ways to ensure higher levels of security by tracking logins. If something you know somebody logs in from, you know Sacramento CA every day and then suddenly is logging in from. Shanghai, China. Well, if they traveled, that's great, but we better put an alert out so someone knows that there's this. Bizarre log in. From halfway around the world. These are the kind of feature sets you get that you need today. But you don't naturally know that you need to set up well these suites of tools give you those baseline security profiles built in.
Nicole Grimm
Right, you don't have to come up with the problem in order to understand you need the solution they've already solutions it for you, so it's kind of a no brainer to just start with that that suite. So if you are going through your checklist or going through this checklist. They and you figured out that, oh, shoot, I only ever bought office and installed it on my desktop. At one point you can go back to the drawing board of it there and see what kind of suites are available for. For you, and you can oftentimes start with your domain provider too to see if they even can give you a a source for that. Or you can go directly to these providers and they can walk you through that process of linking them together. If you found that you really only have what you have installed on your desktop.
Ben Rockey
One more fundamental that comes with these suites that I've kind of mentioned, but I want you to think about is how often have you had a problem when you're working? You know we're making references earlier to. Managing documents and e-mail and so the versioning becomes what was the last document I sent. Well, when you work from documents in these sweet scenarios, people can work from the same document. You can share links back to the document. What's important to know? Is that these suites? Track every time they're updated, so if something suddenly. Missing from the document, you can go back and look to the version history and go Oh well. You know? Nicole deleted this one paragraph from this section. 3 versions ago I go ask her why she made that change. Oh, it was it was an oopsie. No problem. We just restore that version and and copy that data back in and. It's not lost.
Nicole Grimm
Right, it creates a lot of. Calm in the chaos if you. Will if you can just go. Back to what you had. A bit of go or what someone else had. Another version without digging through emails and hoping and praying that someone didn't delete the one copy inside their one e-mail box.
Ben Rockey
Right exactly so it goes beyond just, you know, the in native data backup where like if you lost your computer or your hard drive.
Nicole Grimm
At one point.
Ben Rockey
Are died, those files are are are backed up in in those suites to also offering a solution of versioning that makes it easy to know that hey if changes are made, we have a way. To go back or you know. Maybe use it for things like seeing how policy changes or Gee, we changed this process a few times. We always update the Word document. But when did we jump from doing it this way to doing it? That way you can go back to your your versioning and actually have that tell you. Oh, this is when we made that change.
Nicole Grimm
Yeah, there is some basic fundamentals about how you would use these tools in order to take advantage of. These topics, but they have it baked in and it's just a matter of getting your head wrapped around it and getting the knowledge to actually use it the way it's intended to take care of these extra features that come built into it.
Ben Rockey
And and I think that's the the good point. You don't need to know everything it does, but what's good to know is that when you buy. Into these suites. It's going to be offering you more than you realize.
Nicole Grimm
Right, and possibly as we go into this next topic offer you more than you realize, but what others are automatically expecting, right? It is the way of the world today. If you're operating any other way. It's archaic in nature, I suppose, right?
Ben Rockey
So, so that moves us into communication. Now we're not going to spend a lot of time talking about e-mail because. Pretty much everybody knows about e-mail.
Nicole Grimm
Sure, right, that's achievement.
Ben Rockey
So these suites have e-mail. There's some really interesting features with the e-mail that you can get, but what we want to focus. On is. Other ways to communicate and collaborate, and maybe for a lot of people. This is something has. Come up in the last few years. You know, with work from home being predominantly. More mainstream than it has been in years past, and something that even now people are considering to keep mainstream.
Nicole Grimm
Right, there's. A paradigm shift if you will, from the way that you used to work in an office primarily on e-mail or everything functions, e-mail and seeing the wrongs of our ways, I suppose and and working in that archaic function of emails and copies and versions and. Who you didn't send it on to and who you blind copied. And all this drama, right? That's drama world and we've moved on past that and communication tools are much bigger than e-mail and they go into things like. Instant messengers.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, collaboration tools like video conferencing and instant messengers and and.
Nicole Grimm
Like, yeah, they're they're conglomeration, I suppose, of different kinds of tool sets that you would use for communication. So on top of e-mail you'd have your instant messaging and these collaboration and chat tools that we'd also use for online meetings. Those are happening a lot more often today and a lot of times you can have your own individual tools along these lines, like a zoom account. If you will, but. We would recommend you kind of consolidate it all under one roof and these suites offer these packages generally under one roof. It's kind of an all in one process now.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, with with Microsoft you're going to see Microsoft Teams with Google Workspace. You're going to see Google meet. We don't also don't want to shy away from Slack, which is a a very big player in the collaboration and messaging market.
Nicole Grimm
They have a wonderful tool.
Ben Rockey
Zoom is a great tool for video conferencing and they are looking to make their tool also more of a a standard communication tool and not just something focused on. Thing, but for the for the bundled tools where you're getting the conferencing and the linking and the direct integration with with document management, you're going to see that from. Microsoft Teams, Google work Workspaces, Google Meet and then. Microsoft offers a lot of integration or I should say Slack has taken the time to work with Google and. And Microsoft to make sure there's a lot of tight integration with their tool and access to those services.
Nicole Grimm
Right, so we're not necessarily saying that you have to have a G suite or a Microsoft suite of services, but you can and they do offer these packages all in one. If you did have some of these tools or response to these tools, third parties, then yeah, you would check this box off your list. As long as you've gotten something. The the world as a whole nearly expects that you'd have some sort of instant messaging. It's been around for decades and decades from its basic function into now, integrating its way into the. Fabric of how business runs and how people communicate within the business beyond e-mail.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, I mean there's a whole generation of of people coming into the workforce. Frankly, have already been in the workforce, so I think this trope is is maybe overused because of the people who the you know the younger generation coming into the workforce. It's maybe about 10 years of of that now. Because a lot of where this started was people who were already communicating electronically, and they moved to platforms. Gaming was one of the first areas where messaging was used, so people could talk to each other to play the game they were working on, and then they just converted into these collaboration tools that really started to expand. In the business market, so you have a workforce coming in who's already working from their mindset was hey, I'd rather text than call.
Speaker
Right?
Ben Rockey
I'd rather put something in this chain once than write an e-mail to 15 people who only two care.
Nicole Grimm
Right, we've had the example in the very first episode about a company who was calling each other to see if each other was around and then. We just simply suggested they turn on an instant messenger and it it changed their entire world and how they work. Sharing desktops, sharing examples, communicating much smoother than they had had in the past with that traditional e-mail and phone option.
Ben Rockey
We shouldn't take anything away from. People who want to work together collaboratively. There's reasons for that. And if your work environment benefits from getting together, obviously, still keep that. Process and play, but it doesn't remove the value of the collaboration tool for documenting the meeting or making sure those who can't be there are involved.
Nicole Grimm
Right exactly you may end up having a situation where you have it and you might end up using. It more or the world forces. You to as it has in the last. Couple of years.
Ben Rockey
And I think the the final note in. This is. People are moving towards the collaboration tool to replace e-mail communication and we should really put a point on that. Businesses where collaboration tools like teams or or Google meet are are in play, are using it in a way to move away from having these side load e-mail conversations into having these conversations in a place where anybody who needs to be a part. Of the conversation can be. And can be retroactively as people come into the business. Or are joining the team. They can go back and see the thread that if it was an e-mail, would never be. Available to them.
Nicole Grimm
Exactly, there's there's definite upswings and fixes that e-mail can't offer in these tool sets. From there, we'll jump right into. VoIP or voice over IP.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, voice over IP so. Most people know what phones are.
Nicole Grimm
It's a communication tool.
Ben Rockey
It's becoming very commonplace to see kind of VoIP even in the home. You know if you if you have cable Internet at home, there's a good chance they talk to you and to well, would you like to switch over to our voice products where you know we put a little adapter in your house or we built it right to your cable modem and you plug your phones into it? And it works with your regular phone system. That's the basics of it. We move from using copper wire that has been around for 100 years. That transmits audio signals to using the Internet to send voice packets back and forth, but that changes dynamically. Different when you have regular phone service or you're relying on old school. Plug in the plug in the wall phones. You it requires you. To have a phone system in your office that's managing that call. Voice over IP or Internet PBX is. That phone control moves to the cloud, moves to the Internet and gives you options. You get options like instead of having one phone ring, you can choose which phones rings either multiple people or multiple phones. One of the nice features for someone who's working from an office phone that's VoIP based. You can choose to have your desk, phone, ring, but also maybe have. Your cell phone ring. So that you can take the call wherever you're at.
Nicole Grimm
Right, so we would suggest that this is a basic fundamental because that has shifted in this environment. Right today people aren't giving out multiple phone numbers. Maybe you do have multiple phone numbers on your business card.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, I have a fax line. I have a a mobile phone line and I have a a work phone and maybe I wrote my home phone in the back for some silly reason.
Nicole Grimm
Right, but those days are numbering themselves at this point, so that's why we put this one on your basic fundamentals list, because many companies, if they're that size or complex. The they need to have that system fluctuate and flex with them and grow with them.
Ben Rockey
The the next feature that comes with that. That VoIP system that that Internet based PBX system is auto attendant. I cannot praise auto attendant enough. I know a lot of companies and and we have clients who still really care about having that personal touch so that. When you make a phone call, someone's there to answer the phone. But when it's busy. And the person you have made the calls, whether it's a A secretary or a call center. If they don't answer the call, what then? So does it go to? Does it just go to voicemail? Do they get a busy signal just just to ring forever and hopefully they get through? What if instead, after that moment of being able to call in and get to? A human being, your phone system said hey, I'm going to kick you over the auto attendant and then the auto auto attendants going to have a way to let you know you've you've reached us. We're we're busy. If you need to talk to somebody in the sales department, press this number. If you need to talk to somebody in accounting, press this number. If you just want to find out when we're open or directions on how to get. Here press this number. Oh, by the way. We're closed today, that's why no one's answering. The phone so you can still hit these buttons and it'll take you to a voicemail system. And you can leave a message at. That customer now can do what they need to do. Without having to call back. And I guarantee you, they're much happier being able to finish that connection with you. Automatically than the joy they would have received from just talking to a human being.
Nicole Grimm
Right?
Ben Rockey
Because they're not wasting their time now.
Nicole Grimm
Exactly, and then there's also the example of not wasting your time. You have an example of. Doing the voice to text when you get a voicemail, it can send you in any number of ways. However you want that voicemail translated to you so you can kind of speed up the process of responding and and sharing information across that line.
Ben Rockey
And again, we're starting to see this on, you know, cell phone features. You can see it too, but in the office today. There's a lot of businesses that are working from. You have to call in to a number to listen to your voicemail. If you're using an Internet based PBX, or at least some type of electronic phone system, you'll have the ability in most of these systems to not just send you the voicemail as a a voice message that you can you know, wave file or sound file. You can play. Back, but it'll actually already have it transcribed so that if you're in a meeting. So you're just stop somewhere for a moment, and you want to just check messages real quick. You just open your e-mail, you look at the voicemail that someone sent, and you can just read it and respond to it. And then you can. Decide well, I'm not going to call him back, I'm actually just going to send this back as a as a as an e-mail message because that actually answers their question. They were calling for something because they too were on the road and they didn't have access to just e-mail me so it was just easier for them to call me. I now have that flexibility to decide how I respond back to the customer, and I'm doing in a way that's saving me time because I'm not managing a. Of voicemail, phone system and trying to remember all the details and write things down. It's already been transcribed for me.
Speaker
Right? OK.
Nicole Grimm
So a lot of this sounds like it has a ton of moving parts and you could go. On and on and on. And for days. About each one of these topics go down every. Rabbit hole that exists. But we wanted to touch base a. Little bit on how if you were even getting started or or making sure that your house is clean and orderly, you have ownership of your domain. For example, number one topic to go check. How would you even? Get started or get the right help. Where do you start?
Ben Rockey
Well, you know, I I say Google it, there is a chance here that a lot of these things we're talking about again. As vast the number of services they can have. The basics are the basics getting at control of your domain name is nothing really more than you logging in. Attaching an creating an account, adding a number, adding the domain to it, and making sure it's paid for and the rest kind of handles handles itself. With these suites. You're going to log in. You're going to create an account, you're. Pick the number of licenses you need and pay for them and then assign them off. Join the domain. There's some really great walkthroughs both on YouTube and on Google, not to mention just the providers and these providers have people you can call that will walk you through helping you set up these services. They want you to buy it. So they're going to help you set. Up so there is an element of you can do these things to yourself or you you could hand it off to somebody in the business, take, take care of it for you because you have resources to just walk you through the basic setup.
Nicole Grimm
Especially since these are the basics, they shouldn't be overthought are too complicated so the vendors that are. Selling these services can definitely help walk you through it. If you did find yourself in a pickle or in a situation where you found out that you didn't own the domain and you needed to go through that process, then that might be where it has a bit more moving parts and you may need a little bit more help to get there, but you can walk through that process. Anything else if you're missing it. Or you need it. The sales process is pretty streamlined and straightforward that you could figure it out on your own. The other piece would be that we'd recommend that you do have some basic knowledge around these topics for your business because you want to make sure that you're retaining. Ownership, you're maintaining that understanding of the basics don't have to get into weeds or weigh into. You know what domains do and how does a computer actually work? You have to go that dive deep into it, but you should have at least some basic fundamentals that you know what you're talking about and what. Smells right to you for your situation.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, the the the key being whether you're doing yourself or whether you're getting help to do it. Just make sure you have the master account.
Nicole Grimm
Exactly if you're not quite sure if you hit any roadblocks in this space, then obviously there can be third parties that can kind of help you through it and make sure that they're holding your hand as we would do with some of our customers. An example, we make sure that we're holding their hand as. They go through the process so that. They're following along. They make sure they have the keys to the castle and that they can grant and take it away if you will and and even trust that process as they own it.
Ben Rockey
You know when? We talk about going through these processes. You can work directly with these providers. They can walk you through step by step, but maybe you want more help than that. Maybe you don't want to be the one figuring it out past the account being set up, and those scenarios what you can do is if. You if you don't know. Who to talk to? A good majority of the time? Microsoft and Google. Will have resources that are local to. You or nearby. By that can offer you direct support, so a third party that will come in and help you set up their services along with other other things so you know partners.
Nicole Grimm
Microsoft Partners, Google Partners. These kind of things that are vetted in there in their universe. If you.
Ben Rockey
Will yeah Microsoft and Google have done some level of checking to say these people meet some minimum requirements we you know we know where to find them. They have some legal obligations to make sure they actually serve you and setting up our services.
Nicole Grimm
Right? Especially since if you do get past these basics and really expand on technology in your footprint in your company, then you probably do have partners already laying around. That you could. Pull on as a resource if necessary.
Ben Rockey
And that's the next step, if you. If you're going to look for local resources, you can ask your local resource hey are are you Google certified or or Microsoft certified? Are you a partner and if they are, they can actually show you. Oh yeah, here's my stamp. Here's my here's a link to my to my proof that I that I'm actually a.
Nicole Grimm
Partner, yeah, and maybe you even. Take the checklist that we recommended here to that partner and see if if you can make sure that you have an understanding of all these basics. Alright, so from there. Do we have a a happy ending to that one customer that we started off at the mayhem? That lost their control of their domain. What happened to them?
Ben Rockey
Well, it's a. Melancholy ending sort of happy. The happy ending to to the customer who who lost control of their domain. They did eventually get it back, but not in a timely fashion. So what they ended up doing was creating a new domain name. Setting up the information themselves to own the ownership of that domain got themselves set up as the alert when it was time to renew. Went through the process of setting up a A a web hosting account for the domain that they had control over and then went and hired people to reset up their their pages. Granted them access to it. Ends have since not had any problem with losing their domain domain information. Now eventually the guy that had set up their service did come back and he helped figure out what went wrong and he thankfully he got back in time before they completely lost the lost the page or lost ownership of the original domain and they you know did some work to make it point back to where? Their new site was at. But going forward, they no longer had any concern about. Do I have control of my web identity because they made sure they regained control?
Nicole Grimm
They saw the importance of our step one, I suppose, and it's it's critically important, especially, I think in this case the company was using it as a brochure. Website, But beyond that it hadn't really bloomed from there. If if you're operating on a bigger scale to that, then you have even more value.
Ben Rockey
If there if there's trust in your e-mail address.
Nicole Grimm
That space mm-hmm
Ben Rockey
You want to make sure you've got control of that domain.
Nicole Grimm
You actually own that trust. Well, I guess that was somewhat of a misfit happy ending. They at least. Have learned their lesson.
Ben Rockey
They made the changes. They made the they made they. Made the turn.
Nicole Grimm
Learn lessons and and regained control and now they have no worries going forward. So I think that's it for today. That's everything we have for today. We hope you found some value in this conversation and we thank you for listening. Please join us next time for more mayhem and Misfits.