Whenever I’m trying to gain some recognition for a young business, I put someone on my marketing team in charge of finding some low cost opportunities to promote the business online.  That person performs a deep dive into our content niche and sources opportunities to find backlinks, get mentions on other pages, build connections with others in the industry, etc.  It’s a time consuming effort, but in the long run it’s so worthwhile.

Take a simple backlink for example.  In this graph, check out those two spikes.  That’s from when we had new backlinks live from good authority sites.  Even though our traffic dropped back down, consistent links and mentions over a long period of time will build up our own recognition in the industry, reputation in the niche, and our website’s authority.

A lot of the time, backlinks and mentions aren’t free.  Leaders in the industry and high authority website owners are savvy to their power, so they’ll often charge a fee for that outbound link.  This can range anywhere from $50 to $1000+ depending on the site.  It depends on things like their traffic, the page that the link is going on, if you’re asking for an image or other content to accompany that link, etc.  Sometimes you can get lucky, or you have a buddy with a high authority site that owes you a favor, but, more often than not, this is one more thing that you’ve gotta work into your marketing budget.  (P.S. Don’t spend $1000 on a backlink.)

And then we tried something new.

Podcasts.

Nowadays, it seems like every guy and his cousin run a podcast out of their garage. (“Hey, we are geniuses about Bill Murray movies and classic rock history—let’s start an Americana Movie & Music podcast!”)  An April 2018 news article from Fast Company states that there are currently “over 525,000 active shows, with more than 18.5 million episodes available, including content in over 100 languages.”  In the world of business, digital media, and marketing, there are literally thousands upon thousands of podcasts available.  Plus, most of those include interviews with leaders in the field.  So, with this in mind, my brain started spinning some ideas:

1. Those podcast episodes are always published to an associated website, with a backlink to the guest’s website.
2. Podcast appearances look great in a media kit.
3. There have got to be people out there, already in some podcasting networks, who can help us get connected to podcasters.

I had to test it.  So I took to UpWork (my favorite place to find freelancers) and posted a couple of jobs.  This was an initial trial, so we wanted to cover all the bases; we needed someone with some podcasting experience, maybe some PR experience, and digital media connections.  Here’s the strategy: Offer this ideal person $50 for whatever podcast they can get us booked on.  For someone who’s in a network of podcasters, it’s easy money.

After a couple of hours, there was radio silence (pun intended).  24 hours went by–still crickets.  So I started actively searching on UpWork for freelancers who fit the description.  I just searched for terms like “podcasting”, “podcaster”, “PR”, etc.  A ton of people with good looking experience showed up right away.  I invited them all to the job, and within about a day I had a few people working away!  I asked them to look for podcasts that were specific to our field (in this case, ‘digital marketing’, ‘entrepreneurs’, and ‘start ups’, etc.).

The person doing this outreach usually has a tracking system, like this spreadsheet, where they can keep a record of everything.  It’s a good way to make sure they’re following up with opportunities, getting things booked on schedule, and take notes of any new ideas.

Two months later, we’ve recorded FOUR podcasts!  There are a few of these ‘podcast specialists’ working for us, actively seeking new shows for us to record on, and they’re happy to get $50 per booking.  It’s perfect for us, because they do all the time consuming work, then we get our company name out there at a low cost, with in depth interviews about our company’s origin story.  We also get to add a new podcast appearance to our media kit, which looks great.  Plus, we get a backlink from the podcaster’s website.  All this for $50 each.

This podcast hack has gotta be one of my favorites.  If you give it a shot, leave me a comment about your experience!

As your business grows and your team expands, there could be a lot of passwords that need to be shared across team members. But what happens if you fire one of your team members? How do you know what passwords to change and how it will possibly affect your business?

Over the last year, I have thought about this dilemma and have tightened my teams security levels across all business’ and have worked hard to put in place systems so that if one member leaves, it can easily be mitigated and the impact to myself and the businesses are minimal. There are a lot of moving points in my businesses but password protection is something that can be fixed with the proper hand holding the start. The solution; password management system.

To see our exact procedure we use to make sure people are using password management tools correctly checkout this remote staff guide.

Don’t get me wrong, this process took a bit to get into place and took a while to get all team members on board and using it correctly. But at the end of it all, our security when it comes to passwords is stronger than it ever has been and the ability to deal with people leaving has become a lot easier and less worrisome.

Before when someone left, we would have to change all passwords ever shared with them, then we would have to send the new passwords out to team members. Now with a password management system, we just upload the new password in one spot and those that we have allowed to use that tool will have the updated password there for them the next time they need it. No need to send passwords over emails!

Below I have listed 3 of the top password management systems you could use to implement into your systems.

Top 3 Password Management Systems

LastPass

LastPass is a great password management tool to use. It works with a variety of different browsers and is also available on iPhone, Android and Google devices, which is convenient if you are not at your computer. LastPass upon signing up makes you and your team members set up a your master password, this will be the only password anyone on the team will need to remember and this is set by the individuals so no two team members will have the same master password. Upon signing into their account with their master password, they will also need to set up two-factor authentication. This will provide even further protection because if someone can guess your password, they would need the two-factor authentication code in order to enter your account.

With LastPass, you will have a central control system where you will be able to setup, manage and edit different teams and team members. You can only share specific passwords with them members that need it.

The passwords are all encrypted with  AES-256 bit with PBKDF2 SHA-256 and salted hashes to ensure complete security in the cloud. This means even people at LastPass will never be able to access any of your passwords, keeping it safe. The two things about LastPass that are unique and very helpful is it seems to have the best activity audit and can have people use the password without actually being able to see it.

• Available on all browsers and mobile devices
• Each member creates their own unique master password which grants them access to the teams passwords
• Two Factor Authentication for added security measures
• Central control system to easily see team members and the passwords they have access too.
• AES-256 bit encryption for security in the cloud.

Here is the pricing for LastPass:

1Password

1Password is quite similar to LastPass in terms of features and usability. 1Password doesn’t have a Two-Factor Authentication factor available, however upon your team members setting up their account, they will be provided with a 128-bit identifier which will be their secret key. And since it never gets sent to you or your teammates, your secret key can’t be reset, intercepted, or evaded, unlike two-factor authentication. Another differences is with 1Password, it allows you to delegate responsibilities to your business leads so they can manage their own teams with custom groups and vaults. Again, just like LastPass, it works on all types of browsers through an extension or computer app, as well as it being available for most phones through the app store and is accessed by the team members independent master password. 1Password major difference is it is a more user friendly and slightly less expensive when compared to LastPass.

• Each team member creates their own master passwords which allows them to view all passwords they have access too.
• 128-bit secret key will be presented upon signing up, and will be used if you cannot remember your master password and you need to reset it.
• Allows you to give business leads the ability to manage their own teams by allowing them to share passwords and well as managing members in each group.
• AES 256 encryption technology is used when storing your passwords.

Here is their pricing:

TeamPassword

TeamPassword is also available on all different types of internet browsers and mobile devices just like LastPass and 1Password. Like, LastPass, Google Two-Factor Authentication is required in order to access your account after you input your master password. Get email notifications whenever someone adds or removes any team member, you can also use this to get notified whenever new passwords are added. You can also view an activity log of all passwords which, allows you to see when passwords were used and by whom. TeamPassword also uses AES-256 bit encryption which is the top of the line encryption for passwords when storing them in the cloud.

• Works on all browsers and mobile devices. Just download the extension on your browser or the app through your mobile devices.
• Google Two-Factor Authentication required after inputting your master password
• Get email notifications when team members are added and removed or when new passwords are added to the system.
• Activity and logging allows you to see which passwords are being used and which ones aren’t and when they were accessed, allow you complete knowledge of your teams usage.
• AES-256 bit encryption for all passwords

Here is their pricing:

Final Comments

As with any new system, it takes some getting use to and takes a little hand holding to get setup. But once setup, sharing passwords with team members and revoking passwords has never been simpler.

If you have used any of these which ones your go to? If there is another one I should add, please let me know!

Well it has been a weird few weeks here!

I am going to share some personal painful stories here…

Two businesses (not adbank) have both had issues of employee theft which is a first for my business! We are not talking hundreds of dollars but over 6 figures!

I won’t get into the exact details but one is solved and one is in the process of being solved.

The key anytime we have a major f-up in our business is to dig in and understand why it was allowed to occur, if the risk of it occurring again is worth putting in stronger systems.

This article will cover the 2 scenarios the systems that were in place and why they failed plus the 5 keys everyone should do if they have any team members with access to hurting your business financially.

Swiss Cheese Model for Losses:

One of the ways I like to think about the risk mitigation systems inside my business is the Hazards – Losses path through multiple layers of swiss cheese. No system can be completely bulletproof but the idea is if all layers are in place and working the probability of all holes lining up is very low.

Failure 1: Speed vs Control Accepted Risk

An employee wired himself funds, oversight was not in place fast enough.

There were 3 layers of mitigation

• Mitigation #1 – Trusted employee & controlled access
  • Never a sufficient mitigation on its own!
• Mitigation #2 – Accountant monitoring monthly numbers
  • The accountant was unfortunately months behind not revealing the problem.
• Mitigation #3 – Bookkeeper/Controller onboarded
  • The controller for the business was not up to speed fast enough leaving a window of time where things would go undetected.

In the end we were not pushing the pace fast enough on the 2 financial oversight systems resulting in a window for theft to occur.

Although this was the far larger of the 2 thefts it is one where no major systems upgrades are needed as there was some acceptance of risk due to prioritization and low probability of someone repeating with the systems that were too slow to get in place now in place.

• Note – All funds from this theft have been recovered + consideration for time/fees.

Failure 2: Execution

Although the dollar amount is smaller than failure/theft #1 this one has me much more upset.

This was a known risk we had put many barriers against but the systems all failed in the same way to allow this to occur.

• Mitigation #1 – Trusted long term team member & controlled access
  • Clearly this is not enough to rely on blindly! This employee has been with me for YEARS and involved on multiple projects.
• Mitigation #2 – Daily Revenue and Expense Monitoring – Temporarily Not Active
  • During this time we had taken a break from the daily expense tracking due to workload in other areas
• Mitigation #3 – Weekly unit economics review – Didn’t Validate
  • This one is frustrating as this practise was created with the intent of being able to quickly detect any issue however the theft was paired with forged numbers that were not validated. Human error on compliance to the process for validation of the numbers was the reason this mitigation failed.
• Mitigation #4 – Monthly PnL statements and review – Not setup on new system
  • We have been in the process of upgrading our proper monthly PnL and as a result were not in a position to review them. Getting these completed slipped down the priority list and as a result allowed this issue to continue.

Note – All funds have not been recovered, the length we will go to will be unreasonable 🙂

5 Steps to Take:

• Financial Risk & Access Control Matrix

1. 1. 1. There are a lot of potential attack vectors. Having an organized control list of all the places that someone could impact you financially and then understanding who currently has access is key. There are the obvious locations like bank account, paypal but then you also need to think about the revenue sources Amazon Account, AdSense account etc. Plus, don’t forget places where funds could be improperly sent from Fiverr, UpWork etc. Don’t forget your websites that make the money, swapping out an affiliate link on a few pages can be another source of theft that is harder to detect.

• Agreements Updated

1. 1. 1. Ensuring compensation agreements are in writing is key to ensure there can be no debate about the amount of funds received.

• Have Contact Information Handy

1. 1. For anyone with access to money you should have accurate information on them including name, ID, phone number, address etc.
2. Proper Login & Password Management
   1. Managing logins for a team is a daunting task! 1Password and LastPass are the tools we use for a couple different projects. The key is to be able to quickly turn on/off access while controlling the ability to provide access through either the tool as a user (with the login still in the password management system) or shared access via a password management system. Strong random never reused passwords and 2FA activated whenever possible goes beyond just internal theft but is one of the most basic steps to avoiding theft from hackers.

Conclusion:

I hope you haven’t experienced any issues like these. My hope is sharing these unfortunate events and what I have learned will be helpful in preventing future problems for you or if problems do occur arming you with what you need to resolve quickly.

Please share any other suggestions on how to help protect your business!

In 2012 I decided to document my journey of building up one of my online businesses and this site was born.

At the time I was working hard as an Engineer/Manager at a large Oil and Gas company and I didn’t want anyone there knowing I was grinding 3-4hrs/night building up my online businesses.

So I had a problem…use my real name or an alias.

I would be interested to hear feedback from the many long-time readers… apologies if anyone feels tricked!

Until I was 0% in my career I wanted to give and appear to be 110% there.

As my wife likes to remind me… I suck at lying because my memory is so bad I forget even the simplest of white lies. I almost revealed twice I was about to propose to her the day I did…I moved up the timeline so I didn’t reveal it.  

So I needed a simple solution to an alias that had everything about me being true but not as easily traced back to my employer.

So everything I have ever shared is accurate with the exception of my last name.

Haver no more… real name is Jon Gillham… but everything else is the exact same!

An Alias – NOT Alter Ego

If you haven’t seen Terry Gene Bollea talk about his alter-ego/alias Hulk Hogan it is pretty hilarious and recommended. I am sure if I had planned to create an alter-ego/alias it would have been a more exciting mystery man then a spreadsheet and systems loving family man who builds online businesses!  My point is it is not an alter-ego only a last name change.

Alias (everything but my passwords shared)…

Not Alter Ego…

So… Why Share Now?

I have my most ambitious project ever underway which has been going on behind the scenes for a while involving 5 new in house staff/co-founders including one who co-founded and sold a Digital Advertising Network which sold to Google for $xx,xxx,xxx!

My plans for a long time have been to untangle the alias as I have always had some anxiousness about having the alias and explaining to people in person my last name is Gillham not Haver.

Now is as good a time as any to make this change!

What is the new project?

I have eluded to it a few times throughout the year about a bigger project in the online space and we are very close to being able to share more details. Blockchain technology is one of those things that once you grasp it you realize it is going to change everything (especially disrupt middle-men).

A team has come together around a unique application of blockchain technology and applying some business model innovation to take a GIANT swing at the most interesting problem I have ever tackled. Our development team is working away and the alpha version is closing in on being done with more details to follow.

There are few times in life where the idea/team/resources/skill-set & opportunity all align and I am excited to see what we can do!

If you are interested in projects in the crypto/blockchain space feel free to contact me and I can share more details.

Does this change anything here?

Nope – same spreadsheet, data, systems and online business building focus moving forward!  AuthorityWebsiteIncome (although I am not a fan of the name) is a ton of fun to geek out on projects and try to provide some useful guides to people building online businesses.