If you don’t have the keys, it’s not your electrical business | 134

I’ve seen a few electricians lately locked out of their own business. Emails down, websites untouchable, Google profiles gone. 

And every time, it comes back to the same thing: they handed over access too early and never took it back. 

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Transcript

Hand over the keys to your IP.

Welcome to Simplified Sparky Marketing.

I want to speak about a few experiences I’ve had with members in the last few weeks, and that is accidentally allowing too much access for developers — predominantly, but not only developers — just people that are going to be doing stuff in the back end of your business.

Now, this happened to me as well. This happened to me way back over 10 years ago now. When I was setting up my company email, I had no clue how to do it, so I paid somebody to do it. It was actually on Airtasker, and to this day, I still pay that middleman. It’s quite a strange arrangement.

And I actually went into my settings and tried to see if I could get rid of them — and it’s very difficult to do. But the weird thing is, his price and Google’s price are essentially the same. So I don’t mind. He’s actually based in Australia — Aussie guy — and it’s sweet, it’s fine.

But it was a lesson learned.

And it’s something I teach the members in the Off The Ground micro course — setting up these little things like getting your domain, setting up your email, doing all these things that you own. The fucking keys to your company IP.

And I think that is paramount.

I’m going to tell you a few stories about some of the members’ experiences that I’ve observed and picked up in the last few weeks.

If this is happening in my group, I can only imagine what’s happening out there — particularly to you as a podcast listener as well. You’ll probably go, “Yep, that’s me.”

Member number one — like me — set up his email through a company. I don’t know exactly how it came about. I think he didn’t know how to set up his email, and they either approached him or he approached them.

What happened was they set up his emails, so it ran through them — might’ve been their servers or something like that.

Now, his email went down for about two weeks in the early stages of his business.

Sending quotes. Getting email enquiries. Sending invoices. All of it — gone.

Nothing coming in. Nothing going out. Couldn’t log in.

And these guys had a blip, and it took them two weeks to fix it.

He ended up going through Google to retain his email address again.

So don’t be fooled when people reach out and say, “We’ll set up your email.”

You can do it yourself. It is so bloody easy.

You should own your URL — your domain — whatever your company website is called. There are companies you can get that from very simply. Costs peanuts.

Your email address — I highly recommend linking that to Gmail. Again, very easy.

All of your socials — you should own all of your handles.

You should have access. You should have the logins.

Your website — whatever you build it on — you should have full access to that as well.

Now, member number two.

They’ve built him a fantastic-looking website.

Now we’re trying to run some automation, so we need to log in to link it to a tool.

And they’re like, “Oh no, it’s very technical. It’s not built here. It’s built on the cloud. You need technical experience.”

And I’m pretty angry over this.

Because I know what they’ve done.

They’ve created a lockout — a bridge between the electrician and the developer.

Where a normal setup would just be built on WordPress, with a login.

Now he has to jump through hoops just to do a simple automation.

This is why you need it in black and white — once the website is built, you have full access.

What I like to do is guide members on what to buy, they set it up, and then we add the developer as a user inside the portal.

They build it. Everyone’s happy.

That’s the correct way to do it.

Another one — Google Business Profile.

A very good mate of mine — not a member — let a company set it up for him.

They either fell out or the company disappeared.

He had maybe 10 reviews, but it had been live for years, which helps with ranking.

Age matters. Same with domains.

But he lost access.

Ended up shutting it down and starting again.

Then trying to merge profiles.

Absolute mess.

So what I stress to you — especially if you haven’t set up your business yet — this is all very easy to do.

It’s so fucking easy.

And if you’ve already handed over the keys, I’d be reaching out this week and just asking:

“Can I get a login to the website?”

Watch the reaction.

And when you get access, make yourself the main user.

Then add them as a user — not full control.

Lastly — developer choice.

I’ve got a few I trust, depending on budget.

But if you’re choosing someone yourself — background check them.

Look at their past work.

Make sure they actually built those sites.

Call the businesses if you have to.

Because it’s very easy for someone to say, “Yeah, we built that site.”

And they didn’t touch it.

I know a story where an SEO guy claimed credit for a plumbing company ranking well — and he did nothing.

There are good developers and SEO guys out there.

But there are some fucking sleazebags as well.

It’s a snake oil industry if you’re not careful.

So just be aware.

And I hope this hits home.

I was going to do a podcast on the colour red, but I might save that for next week.

Catch you then.