Episode 15: Robert Cairns Answers Your Questions

Show Notes

00:37

Hey,

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everybody, Rob Cairns CEO and Chief creator of Amazing Ideas of Stunning Digital Marketing calm, the digital agency to fulfill all your digital marketing, WordPress design and development and WordPress security needs. How’s everybody doing today? First off, I want to start this week’s Ask him interview show for apologizing for not having the show out on a regular basis. And for not being there lately. As many of you may know, a month ago, my wife Jill lost her mother. It’s been about a month now it’s been a bit of a rough goal for both of us. And we just I just wanted to say thank you to everybody that’s reached out in text messages, emails, online on Facebook said, Oh, big concerned, we we love you all for it. And we appreciate it. Man, thanks so much. And we’ve missed Joe’s mom, Jacob McDonald very much. And it will get better. It’s just a question of getting there. This week, I wanted to do something a little different. And make a couple quick announcements. Let’s start with the little difference. First of all, this show was now moving to Mondays. It will be produced and put out by 8pm on Monday evenings, starting this week, to be a little more consistent. I’ve already got the next couple of shows lined up. So we’re gonna get back on track, which is absolutely awesome.

02:16

please

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jump on our website is dying digital marketing.com catch the show. And this we’re going to do a little different. It’s an extra pile questions that people have asked me on the internet. Some are fun questions. Some are not so fun questions. Some are business questions. Some are more personal questions. And I hope it gives you some insight. And I’ve done this before on some of the things that I do, my agency does and why we do what we do. So let’s start with the first one. What did I do before I got into digital marketing? Great question. I’m originally was a problem analyst in the life insurance business, I spent five years in that business I got out of it. And then I basically work towards my love of working with personal computers. And my first job and my only job in personal computers was as a project leader, and Team Leader, doing technical support for a large hospital, Client Services area nit in Toronto, I absolutely loved the job for most of it. The last couple years was a little rough. There were changes being made. I didn’t really like the changes. And it was time and nine years ago, I got out.

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And

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one question I get is how did I start my agency? And what did we start doing? Nine years ago, I started doing websites. And then over time I branched into a full digital marketing agency. The reality is I truly believed that websites are a part of the package. There’s other things like SEO, PPC, digital products and more that you need to do in order to help your business succeed. So I branched out pretty quickly. How do I start doing websites? Oh, there’s a question I love. First site I ever did was actually HTML based site. And it was called dot dash tech shop.com. And what I did was I did a quick little website for friends and family, just to kind of say to them, if you want these resources, go to this website, check them out. Don’t bug me. Don’t email me Don’t call me because I was getting lots of calls. I mean, I’ve always been sort of a go to person in my circle for help. And I got at one point fed up with providing net help. So that’s how I got around it. I created a website. That website was HTML based. It was hosted on one on one.com before I knew it Better. And I even took a free domain. Also, before I knew any better, as many, you know, I really not into free domains. And I really disliked one on one calm as much as also just like endurance international group at GoDaddy for hosting and there’s reasons for that. And we can talk about those later on this episode. What is the biggest challenge I have running an agency for me? Really, it’s time management, I have so much on the go right now that sometimes time gets away from you. And I use a combination of daily to do list and a running calendar and a project management tool called notion, which I absolutely love to help manage that time. So notion I used to manage projects. my to do list is also kept in notion. And then I used my Google calendar to manage appointments and things like that. What is the biggest challenge I have? running my own agents? What is the biggest challenge I like most of all, to run my own agency. I love helping business owners succeed with their business. That is my challenge. That is my satisfaction. That’s what I like to like to do. And that’s what I’m driven by, is if I can help you succeed with your business? Great, let’s do it. Let’s get it done. And let’s make it fun. How do I learn? First of all, I tend to surround myself with people I consider smarter than me. That helps the learning big time. I’m also an avid reader, I have a large library. And I’m an avid podcast listener, it’s not uncommon for me to listen to 15 or 20 podcasts in a week I’ve been known to do. I have about 16 podcasts on my podcast player. And I just cycle through stuff. So have podcasts. To me, that’s the best invention going also like audiobooks, by the way. Audible is an amazing site, great way to learn. Join a library, I take courses online and offline. So that’s a couple ways now. Many people say the internet is all bad, what are my thoughts? Not at all. So here’s where I get a little bit personal. As I said in the intro for the show, I would get a little personal night. 21 years ago, I met a lady whose name was Joe. We met in the Yahoo chat group, Yahoo chat groups don’t exist anymore. So tells you long before dating sites were even fashionable. They’re probably just starting out about that time. We dated for a while. Joe had two young girls, I had a young boy. We we decided after a while really wasn’t working, but we stayed just friends. And we stayed just really good friends. And we went through life.

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And nine years later, we got married, believe it or not, we got we got back together later in life. We got married. It’s a good example wedding life takes its natural course and letting it figure itself out. And we’re happily married to be two years of soccer state. So without the internet, I wouldn’t have met Joe. I wouldn’t be working on the internet. And I have amazing friends that I have both locally and across the world. And you know, I’m pretty rich for that. And that’s so the internet’s not all that bad. Twitter is dead. What do I think? Wow. Not at all. Twitter is still relevant today as ever, ever before. And let me give you an example of that. For current events, for things timely in the news for search, Twitter is still one of the most searched websites out there. And also, when Facebook goes down, or Instagram that goes down or WhatsApp goes down, where do everybody go to complain? Twitter, so Twitter still relevant. And by the way, if you’re a business, you should have placed all your eggs in one basket anyway. So if you’re doing Facebook, I’d be building the community on Twitter as well. That’s my personal opinion. And that’s really important. Why streaming thoughts? How do you feel about live stream? Well, I’ve been involved in live streaming events for over 10 years. I’ve live streamed in conjunction with a perfect, professional team, as well as in conjunction with even live streaming off webcams. And frankly, I think live streaming is where it’s at. It’s been proven And that Facebook Lives do really well I need to get back and doing them. I actually want to get into doing some YouTube lives as well. So that’s coming. And I think to do well to show, especially if they’re of an event or of people, they show the human side, and I really, really think it’s important. If you want to learn more about live streaming, go look up my friend, Ross brand live stream deals.com. Ross is a pro. So much better than me. And I’ve been doing it for a long time. But Ross, shout out to you. He’s also a great resource. So good friends, so feel free to cross up. Ah, how do I handle people who disagree or hate me online? Wow, wow. Well, so I have a long association with Toronto Police have had for many, many years. And the reality of it all is I don’t block people anymore. I used to get blocked. I used to get frustrated. Now I just say X Factor being on like, we actually do is I I don’t unfriend them because I like to know what they’re saying. So unless it gets really, really threatening, I tend to sort of keep an eye out on them. Just because I can’t do damage control for me or my business if I don’t know what my enemies are saying. There’s an old saying in life, hold your friends close, but your enemies closer. So I adhere to that. I also have Google alerts on all kinds of key stuff and haters. So I kind of know what’s going on there a little bit. So that helps. Someone also asked me recently, when I started doing websites, what did I do about themes, and I’m a WordPress developer, so I do all my websites on WordPress. They said, What themes Do you like and what themes did not like? I originally started off with several free free themes. And then my friend Owen greens shout out on in Abbotsford bc introduced me to a theme called headway things and headway worked on the pro ciplox. And unfortunately, headway like many other teams fell upon some hard times and went into some financial difficulties at one time and some issues not uncommon in the website design business to be honest with you. And

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blocks were kind of the first page builder as far as I was concerned. So it was a way to develop pages. And then I was introduced to Aveda. by seven some mentors and Aveda for those who don’t always seem forced number one selling theme of all time, sold over a million dollars worth. And the VEDA has in it what’s called the fusion builder. And the fusion builder is a page editor. So VEDA is great. So I use the VEDA for 90% of what I do. I also have couple clients running Elementor based websites, Beaver Builder based websites and WP Baker based websites. And really these are all Elementor Beaver Builder and WP Baker are all you know, page builders and they’re all designed to help you do your layout they all have their nuances. I’m not going to get into the which one is better. I personally prefer VEDA but my friend Devinder Singh can will tell you lots of Beaver Builder defenders of Beaver Builder guy want to follow up he’s a good one. My friend Mark Cohen is an elementary girl gal. And Mario loves Elementor both good resources by the way shout outs to them and what they do. But the point is I I’ve learned to master VEDA my websites all Aveda build it’s what we do for clients. VEDA works really really well for us. And then the other thing people say to me all the time hosting Who do you like these days? I told the story earlier how I fit into one on one I’ve been to eg hosts Bluehost power web Hostgator and GoDaddy I’ve never hosted with I used to register domains with I don’t even do that. I used to use managed WP which is a WordPress management tool. Don’t even do that. My host of choice per se is siteground these days I think they’re really good value for the money and our tech support is really really good. For you know a lot of people WP engine would be a good choice five wheel would be a good choice. There are other good choices. out there, liquid web, and so on. If you jump in any of the Facebook developer groups, people generally gravitate around the same six or seven hosts. Keep in mind hosting is part of your security solution. So that’s really, really important. So that’s talks about hosting, for the web, email hosting a little different. I use G Suite for my corporate email, Google spam filters, and their and their, their filter, there’s general filters for sorting out mail, and their speedy use is probably the best out there, as far as I’m concerned. So why run the mail server G Suite works really well. Now, the next set of questions are just some quick fun. Not so fun questions. Some are some aren’t. But just for now, throw them out there. So let’s go PPC or SEO. Depends what you’re trying to do. PPC Pay Per Click is more of a short term strategy. SEO is more search engine optimization is more of a longer term strategy. I would do both. But, you know, sometimes finances are an issue. And results are i did i this weekend. I did a podcast A while ago. For the with our CEO, we talked about PPC is the shortest way to ROI return on investment. There’s no question about that. Coke or Pepsi. I’ve a coke guy all and actually Coke Zero. iOS rankling for me, it’s Android. I love the Android devices. I love what they do. I love how they function.

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Mac versus PC. I’m a PC windows guy all the way. I’ve worked in the PC environment for a long, long time. For me that works really well. Amazon or the mall. There’s an interesting one, Amazon Holland. And I live 10 minutes from Kansas biggest shopping mall, or second biggest shopping mall and I rather shop on Amazon’s just seizure and wanting to make y’all laugh, have versus the lease. I’ma have fun even though I live in the heart of least nation. That’s just the way it is. Get over it. If you don’t like couple trends I wanted to talk about real quickly. What’s Trending out there. First of all, we’re in a society where everything wants everything immediate. Keep that in mind when you’re posting. When you’re answering what your businesses and kind of what’s caused that is a smartphone. I actually tell my clients, I answer my emails a couple of times a day. I’m really good at it. I plan my work schedule out, I become very good at. And I work towards that. So that’s okay. In the web game, what else is important? voice search, Voice Search look at Amazon Alexa, Google Home Voice Search Siri, Google Assistant on your phone. Voice Search matters, though. Question about that. chatbots are becoming very big yet. I haven’t implemented one. But for some people that works. Text Message marketing, a lot of people are trying that again. I actually find it really annoying. So I try not to do in my agency would have find it annoying for other people. But, you know, text message marketing is out there. Social media trends, Facebook and Instagram are still growing strong. Despite all the issues on Facebook people starve. I’ve then found the next big thing. We all know what happens every time Google gets into social media they bought unless they buy. And Google Plus is a good example of a bomb. So that’s kind of a couple quick trends, responsive websites. And frankly, apps. mobile apps are becoming more and more trendy every every day. And that’s interesting. Now, in the agency game, you know, we’ve talked about trends, we’ve done some fun, short, you know, answers and I’ve talked a little bit about kind of what I do and how I do it. And frankly, any agency game things are changing or trends change. You know, what we do changes how we reach customers changes. And one of the things people ask me all the time is, you know, you really like what you do. It’s hard what you do, you know, you’re on the top percent or 2% of

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what people do,

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which I am. And they say to me, you know, how do you how do you stay there?

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And how do you how do you keep succeeding? And I say a couple things. First of all, I pick my clients. I choose clients that I really like, and I really want to work with. I’ve said no to many people, over the years, don’t want to work with, you can see it being a disaster, you can see it not being the right fit, or the right personalities or things. It’s not always just the money. But money doesn’t come in. I want to work with people that are serious about making their businesses grow, because I want to help them grow.

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The other thing people

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say is How do you stay up to date with trends and stay current on what I talked about that earlier in this podcast. I’m a learning junkie. And that kind of helps me and helps how I feel and helps what I do. The third thing is, life is not about working agency, life, by force about my family, my wife, Jill, kids, our extended family, my mom was still alive, unfortunately, my dad’s about my aunts, my uncles, and my friends. And that all matters to me. And if your work and all you do is work on the circuitry, so family matters. So that’s kind of how I keep saying, and I go for a walk everyday to exercise. I make a point of it. I’m diabetic, it’s good for my health. I work on my weight all the time. That’s a good thing. And I just keep motoring ahead. And I have a drive to win succeed. And Robert Herbert Chuck, many, you know being on Shark Tank, wrote an amazing book called the world. And that book talks all about Dr. afterlife, there’s just no question. So I hope that gives you some insights. And I’ve done this before. And I’m sure I’ll take another episode of the SDM interview show a couple of special things coming up. Next week, we will be posting an interview I did with my friend Jake forsyte. about community involvement. And I hope you you all like gadgets have different tastes instead of a business owner to but what he does in the community, and Jake’s really involved and I want to highlight and showcase Jake because I love what he does. If you’d like to be a guest on the SDM interview show, if that’s something you want to bring to the table, please email me at hello at stunning digital marketing comm be glad to talk to you and let’s get you on. Let’s do that. And also next week, probably Tuesday or Wednesday. On this channel, we’ll be releasing an STM interview show special. And that special will be an audio version of this Sunday’s Ontario police memorial ceremony where we honor the fallen police officers in Ontario one of the events they get back to and I’ve been involved in for many, many years. But I’m going to I’m going to release that as a special podcast. So if you want to just listen to the ceremony and not watch the video, you will have that option. And from now, that’s about all for now. If you want to reach me reach out at Hello at stunning digital marketing.com. You go to stunning digital marketing.com my agency website up at the top right, you’ll find links to all our social media sites or if you need to pick up the phone and call me please do 416624747 be glad to hear about your projects. Certified thought I’d and I left the last two surprises I mentioned that in the podcast. I have two very special announcements coming. We have two new products coming in membership prop package, which I put out there to my mailing list and do quite well in pre beta and beta back in November. And that should be launched by the end of this week. And the other thing we have coming to be launched next week or two is a special website rental package. And stay tuned for that and the details of that. So little different, more geared both kiradech to small businesses. So again, if you have interested drop us a line and that’s it. All for now I hope everybody has an awesome day. Thanks for listening love y’all. talk to y’all soon. Bye for now.

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