The SDM Show

"The SDM Show with your host Rob Cairns," where Cairns interviews guest Cary Prejean, a strategic business and ontological coach. The discussion centers on the challenges faced by entrepreneurs, highlighting the need for business owners to understand their financial statements and the common difficulty of entrepreneurs transitioning from visionary to effective manager. Prejean, who moved from accounting to coaching, explains that the mindset and personality traits that make one a successful entrepreneur often hinder their ability to be good managers. The conversation also explores the importance of clear vision, focused leadership, and established business processes for sustained growth, concluding with practical advice on financial health and personal well-being for business owners.

The provided text is an excerpt from a podcast episode of "The SDM Show," hosted by Rob Cairns, which focuses on business, life, and digital marketing. Cairns is interviewing Alfredo Borodowski, an expert in positivity and resiliency, who shares his compelling personal journey, including his dramatic shift from being a prestigious rabbi who was arrested and diagnosed as bipolar to becoming a social worker and positive psychology expert. Their conversation centers on the practical application of positive psychology, such as identifying one's top five character strengths to foster personal and professional excellence. Borowski also discusses his upcoming book, "The Human Upgrade," which explores the necessity of implementing a "human plan" alongside technological advancements like AI to mitigate the associated increase in anxiety and fear in the workplace, stressing the importance of culture, purpose, and self-care for achieving peak performance.

The source provides excerpts from The SDM Show podcast, hosted by Rob Cairns, featuring a conversation with Jess Frick of Rocket.net about the web hosting industry. The discussion covers the significant financial requirements for running a hosting company, often involving private equity or VC funding, as well as the importance of trust and support in a good hosting partnership. Cairns and Frick specifically address security measures, mentioning the complexities introduced by AI and the value of having comprehensive, non-tiered security, while also touching upon e-commerce scalability and the preference for using dedicated providers for email and domain registration.

The source is an excerpt from "The SDM Show," hosted by Rob Cairns, featuring guest Tim Nash, a security expert. The discussion centers on various cybersecurity topics, including recent security incidents like an AWS outage and a vulnerability used in airport PA systems, as well as the risks of using end-of-life operating systems like Windows 10. A primary focus is the "circle of trust" in the WordPress ecosystem, where they examine the security of popular form plugins like Contact Form 7 and Gravity Forms and the challenges of trusting third-party vendors and individual developers. Finally, they discuss the controversial timing and potential issues of the upcoming WordPress 6.9 feature release during the busy retail season, advocating for separate streams for security and feature updates.

The SDM Show hosted by Rob Cairns, featuring guest Dave Burnett, a fellow Torontonian and expert in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The conversation primarily focuses on the evolving relationship between AI and SEO, with Burnett sharing his background in both fields, from owning a promotional products company during the Great Recession to becoming an OpenAI beta tester. Cairns and Burnett discuss common anxieties about AI, emphasizing that it is simply reshaping work processes and requires users to master prompt engineering to avoid receiving "average" content. The experts also explore the enduring relevance of SEO, particularly for local search, and discuss strategies for businesses to build online authority and integrate AI effectively into their marketing and business models, concluding that success requires consistent effort and time rather than quick fixes.

The SDM Show, hosted by Rob Cairns, which focuses on various business and marketing topics. In this segment, Cairns and guest Bridget Willard discuss the critical importance of holiday marketing preparation, specifically addressing the year-end buying season that includes Black Friday and Cyber Monday. They debate whether it is already "too late" to plan for holiday sales and analyze the logistical and strategic pitfalls of offering deep discounts, especially for small businesses and the WordPress industry. The conversation also touches on the need for technical readiness for increased web traffic and the fundamental necessity of tracking marketing analytics for effective business growth.

This episode of The SDM Show Podcast, hosted by Rob Cairns, which features a conversation with guest Al Schuster, the founder and owner of Polaris Brand Promotions. The discussion centers on the role of brand ambassador agencies in providing experiential marketing services, such as in-store product demonstrations, trade show staffing, and event activations, for various consumer goods, particularly alcoholic beverages and packaged snacks. Cairns and Schuster explore how these promotions drive brand awareness and sales, emphasizing the importance of planning for peak retail seasons like October, November, and December (OMD), while also touching on the complexities of regulation and effective strategies for client engagement.

The is a conversation between Rob Cairns and Adam McLaughlin, focusing on McLaughlin's new business venture, pieceofcakevideos.com, which provides easy, subscription-based social media video content for small and medium businesses. They discuss the challenges of creating consistent video content and how McLarin's service simplifies the process by recording a conversation with the client, then using AI and manual editing to chop the footage into short, engaging, evergreen clips for platforms like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. The speakers emphasize the importance of authentic, unscripted content for building trust with an audience, contrasting short-form video as a "Costco sample" that funnels viewers to longer-form content. They also address the role of AI in their workflow, noting that it assists with efficiency but does not complete more than 60% of the final product, with human oversight necessary for quality and timely content monitoring.

The source is an excerpt from a podcast discussion between Rob Cairns and Ryan Waterbury on an episode of "agency chat," focusing on the challenges and strategies of managing and growing a business. The conversation centers on the crucial role of mindset for business owners and the difficulty of delegating tasks and letting go of control, especially when hiring others. Both speakers emphasize the importance of working on the business (strategic development, systems, and processes) rather than just working in the business (day-to-day tasks), advocating for scheduled time to focus on growth. They also discuss the need to re-evaluate and update systems, including contracts, client onboarding, and toolsets, suggesting that AI can now automate certain tasks to save time and reduce the need for manual work or new hires.

The source material consists of excerpts from an episode of The SDM Show, hosted by Rob Cairns, featuring guest Caleb Mattingly. This podcast conversation primarily focuses on the multifaceted field of cyber security, covering topics such as personal experiences entering the industry, the importance of user awareness and education, and challenges related to password management and keeping software up to date. Key security concepts are explored, including the necessity of disaster recovery and offsite backups, adhering to the principle of least privilege for user access, and addressing modern threats like business email compromise and increasingly sophisticated phishing scams—including those augmented by AI. The discussion also touches upon enterprise security, cloud environments (like AWS), and the risks associated with inadequate security protocols in both large and small organizations.