[00:00:09.120] - Gordon
Hello.
[00:00:09.930] - Taylor
Hello.
[00:00:09.930] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.
[00:00:11.700] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:00:13.740] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week With," a weekly podcast and vidcast where we talk about things that have been happening in the last seven days in our businesses as self-employed people. For those who haven't joined us before, we both are business owners. We both have a website design business. Each of us have our own different one. And I also do entertaining, I'm a magician as well. And it's been another busy week. We are in London, so we are in the high tier at the moment, which means we can't have anyone come and visit us in the house. We can't go and visit someone else in their house. You can't go out and meet people in restaurants and have more than one household group in. But apparently you can have business meetings, which is a very interesting loophole.
[00:01:05.430] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:01:05.890] - Gordon
Yeah. So, if we do want to go out and meet up with our customers, we are legally able to do so as long as we go to a restaurant or a bar. So there you go, helping the economy as well. So it's been a busy week. One of the things that I've been looking at is something we touched on last week, which is "Rate This Podcast." So this is a service that I came across, that I thought might be quite useful for us. And in fact, we've already implemented it on our thisweekwith.com?
[00:01:44.200] - Taylor
co.uk.
[00:01:44.870] - Gordon
.co.uk. Thank you. thisweekwith.co.uk website. And it's a service that allows you to have a little button on your page. And if people click on it, it will then allow them to go through to all the big players. So that's going to be Apple podcasts...
[00:02:04.920] - Taylor
Spotify, Stitcher.
[00:02:05.910] - Gordon
Spotify, Stitcher. There's one other I hadn't, I didn't know of which was on there as well, and leave a review. So if you have a podcast or you listen to podcasts, you will know that having reviews is always a good thing because it will push you up the search results and more people will be able to find you. So this is a really interesting service. It does one thing basically, that is to collect and encourage people to leave reviews. And it does it really, really well. And so I've been playing with it for the last week or so and it seems to do exactly what it's supposed to do. I have another podcast that I'm going to add it to as well. And it's very easy to add to your site. All you need is a little bit of code which goes in the header of your website and then another little bit of code that goes where you want the button. And we have our's floating, haven't we?
[00:03:03.630] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:03:04.650] - Gordon
And that is over all the pages as you scroll. And we would like to invite all of our viewers and listeners to go to our website, click on that link and test it out for us. We haven't had any reviews to it yet.
[00:03:22.830] - Taylor
No not yet.
[00:03:22.830] - Gordon
But we are hoping that after I have now told everyone all about it, you will go and do that. And if you have a podcast, I highly recommend it. Go and get yourself this service. It's not expensive. It's pretty cheap. I couldn't tell you what it is off the top of my head, we'll put the price in the show notes. But it's really, really reasonable. And the guy who runs it, I've spoken with and he's a really nice guy as well. So if you've got any problems, he'll be there to help you. So that is ratemypodcast.com, highly recommended.
[00:03:55.140] - Taylor
Great. So I had an interesting week actually. I was on an interview, I was interviewed.
[00:04:02.400] - Gordon
So you were.
[00:04:04.140] - Taylor
So I was interviewed.
[00:04:05.280] - Gordon
This was last week, though.
[00:04:06.600] - Taylor
Yes.
[00:04:07.140] - Gordon
Last week.
[00:04:08.130] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:04:08.700] - Taylor
But we wanted to wait and see how it came out before we mentioned it.
[00:04:12.870] - Taylor
So I was interviewed about "BNI." So BNI, if you don't know, is my networking organisation I'm part of.
[00:04:21.300] - Gordon
What does BNI stand for, do you know?
[00:04:22.890] - Taylor
"Business Networking International," I believe.
[00:04:26.670] - Gordon
Oh, very good.
[00:04:26.670] - Taylor
And so what it was, is it was done by someone called Greg Davies, who is the regional director in my area. So in BNI South East London. And he has come up and created this kind of movement, I don't know what you call it, but basically it's called "lead to legacy," so kind of lead as in you know, getting a customer or whatever, to legacy. And it's all about kind of empowering people and trying to get them more leads; trying to make people, businesses more successful; and kind of just pushing the idea of 'givers gain,' which is BNI's philosophy. And he is going around all the chapters in the region and he wanted to talk to one person from each chapter, you know, ask them, you know, how you're finding it; how has BNI helped you during lockdown and covid; you know, one heartwarming thing that I've seen over the past six months; and you know, how I how I could be helped basically, how people watching could help me. And it was really interesting. And it was really nice to, you know, have a chat about how BNI has helped. And it really has helped. It's given me a community of people to be able to socialise with over the Internet during lockdown. So, you know, I had people that were going through similar things where they had businesses they had to run, try and keep them afloat and things like that. And as well as you know, getting me more work.
[00:05:51.330] - Gordon
That's great. So this interview is it actually publicly available? Can people go and watch it?
[00:05:56.460] - Taylor
It is on Facebook. It's a YouTube video, which has been linked on Facebook and LinkedIn.
[00:06:02.280] - Gordon
OK, so we can probably put the link for the YouTube...
[00:06:05.640] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:06:06.060] - Gordon
Connection into the show notes. So go and watch it. Taylor's being a little bit modest because he talked about being on the top table, which is like the leadership committee?
[00:06:17.310] - Taylor
The leadership team.
[00:06:18.270] - Gordon
Leadership team, which he mentioned a week or so ago, and he is actually the youngest BNI member to be a top table member, top table...
[00:06:31.920] - Taylor
In the region.
[00:06:32.640] - Gordon
In the region. Well, no, probably ever.
[00:06:34.580] - Taylor
No, there was a, I think there was a 16 year old at one point, but yeah.
[00:06:41.520] - Gordon
We think, we don't know, we think.
[00:06:44.370] - Taylor
In the region, at least, I know that.
[00:06:46.140] - Gordon
In the region. Yeah. So he's being a little bit modest. He's done incredibly well with BNI. And it's a great video to watch, actually. I enjoyed watching it. So we'll put a link to that in the show notes and please go and watch it yourselves.
[00:06:59.682] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:06:59.700] - Gordon
And well done to you.
[00:07:00.840] - Taylor
Thank you.
[00:07:01.320] - Gordon
Were you pleased with the interview? Were you nervous? Were you...?
[00:07:04.120] - Taylor
Yeah, I thought it went really well. No, it was it good fun. I enjoyed it.
[00:07:05.940] - Gordon
Yeah, good. Cool. And so I have some important news which happened last week. Zoom, that everybody's been using, earlier in the year got a bit of press in the fact that they were talking about end to end encryption. Now, what this means is that, from your end, when you're at your computer, the data, the video that's being sent, the audio that's being sent is being encrypted and then it's being decrypted at the other end where people watch it. And the problem is that they said that they had end to end encryption. The reason, sorry I should mention, the reason for it is to stop people intercepting the data and grabbing the content. So if you've got a private conversation going on, you don't want someone at some point between you and the person you're talking to, to be able to go in and grab the data and be able to view it themselves. That's what the encryption is all about. And they got themselves in a bit of hot water by saying that they had this end to end encryption. And then people who actually knew what they were talking about went and said, "no, actually, this isn't end to end encryption. You are not using what you need to use to be able to do this." And so Zoom decided at that point, because it was taking off and this could very easily have stopped them getting their market share that they have at the moment, they decided to bring in some experts and it's taken them about six months to implement. But as of last week, you now have completely end to end encryption with 256 bit, which is military grade, really high. And you just need to make sure you've got the latest version of Zoom. So if you are running Zoom, make sure you've updated. I will put the version number that you need to be on for end to end encryption in the show notes. I can't remember what it is off the top of my head, but there's basically if you're on a computer, there's a 'check for update.' It will tell you if there's an update, it'll probably give you new features as well, if you haven't done this before, and you just install it over the top of what you already have. If you're on a mobile device, then just go to the play store or the Apple's iOS store.
[00:09:32.160] - Taylor
App Store.
[00:09:32.610] - Gordon
App Store, thank you. And you can just update it from there and you'll have fully end to end encryption, which is great news. It makes it a lot more secure. It also means the people at Zoom can't intercept your calls as well. So there's no way they can see or hear what you're talking about, which makes it much better.
[00:09:53.550] - Taylor
Yeah, it's great.
[00:09:54.630] - Gordon
Yeah, really good. Have you got any news you want to share with us?
[00:09:56.820] - Taylor
I want to touch on this. So Facebook, I don't know too much about it, but Facebook are trying to get in to the website marketplace and get a market share. So they are releasing, I think it's a builder and hosting. So you can basically host your website maybe with Facebook. And so they want to kind of get into that of the market. So they're releasing this, and it's very early, so it hasn't been fully released yet, but it's something that they're planning for the future.
[00:10:26.940] - Gordon
So they've announced it, but it's not available yet.
[00:10:29.130] - Taylor
I believe so.
[00:10:29.880]
OK, that could be very interesting because Facebook do have an awful lot of clout. They spread their reach throughout the Internet with their "login with Facebook," which means they can capture data as to what you're doing as well. And if they're now going to start allowing you to build a website with their own services and host it with Facebook.
[00:10:54.570] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:10:54.960] - Gordon
Well, I mean, that's likely to be really fast for a start, because Facebook have thousands of servers that they run to keep their system nice and fast. But also they're going to be collecting data.
[00:11:07.650] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:11:09.640] - Gordon
Do you know if it's going to be a paid for service or a free service?
[00:11:12.630] - Taylor
I don't know too much about it. I've only heard from other people, and I've read a bit in the news.
[00:11:18.150] - Gordon
OK, so we'll put a link to the news article that Taylor has found, into the show notes. Lots to look at in the show notes this week, it seems. So is there anything else you have to say today?
[00:11:30.810] - Taylor
I think that's everything.
[00:11:31.440] - Gordon
Yeah. OK. This week for me has been taking on new customers. I've got one customer who I built a website for about 15 years ago. 15 years - you were three years old.
[00:11:51.400] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:11:52.390] - Gordon
Time flies, huh? And he's just come back to me and he's said he needs to modernise his website, which is very true. 15 years is a long time to have a website. So we have just started on the process of rebuilding his website. And the technology has changed immensely since I built his website previously. And his focus has also changed, which is very interesting. So before, he's a toastmaster, so before, he was looking to bring in work, but he's got, you know, 15 years later, he's now got to the point when he's quite comfortably known in his niche and he's not looking to take on as much work as he can, he wants to pick and choose what work he takes on. So he's not wanting it to be a sales-y site. He's wanting it to be a site that's like a brochure site, as if you were giving out a brochure to someone saying, "this is what I do, if you're interested, contact me." And that way he can pick and choose the jobs that he does. So a very different focus. So we've, we went, we had a meeting yesterday and had lots of points that we were going through, websites that he liked, bits from that we looked at. But more importantly, looking at his website and looking at what he already had and deciding what was staying and what was going.
[00:13:13.250] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:13:13.840] - Gordon
And that was really interesting because more has gone than has stayed, which is very interesting. Plus, of course, he's got brand new photos. If you, this is a good tip: if you have a website with your photo on, for whatever reason, make sure it's an up-to-date photo. There's nothing worse than having a photo from 15 years ago that represents you on the Internet. You must have a most, an up-to-date photo because you're just setting that customer expectation.
[00:13:44.950] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:13:44.950] - Gordon
Which we talked about previously. And if you've got a photo of you when you were in your 20s, and now you're in your late 30s, you're going to look different.
[00:13:54.910] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:13:55.570] - Gordon
Not necessarily a lot different, but you are going to look different. So make sure the photo that represents you on the Internet is an up-to-date photo. That's it.
[00:14:05.590] - Taylor
Brill!
[00:14:06.760] - Gordon
So thank you very much for joining us. As always, if you would like to follow, like and share, we are on Facebook and on YouTube. The links for those are on the screen now.
[00:14:17.560] - Taylor
And if you want to see any of our past episodes, you can go to thisweekwith.co.uk and you can see all of our past episodes with their video, audio and also all of the show notes.
[00:14:27.280] - Gordon
And of course, you can "rate this podcast" by clicking on the link, and subscribe to the podcast if you prefer to listen to it on your mobile device. Thank you for joining us. My name is Gordon, I am from Drayson Design.
[00:14:41.410] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:14:43.660] - Gordon
We'll see you next week at one o'clock on Friday. Goodbye.
[00:14:47.470] - Taylor
Bye.
