Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

Local Business Owners: GDPR Applies to You Too

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A couple of weeks ago I was talking to my good friend Jen McFarland at Foster Growth. She’s my go to gal when I have tech questions. So, as GDRP has become THE hot topic for small business owners in the last couple of weeks, I asked Jen to share her recommendations. For most of my clients we’ve talked about this already and made changes as needed. My recommendation – read Jen’s blog post and start to implement the changes with your web developer and with your newsletter signup forms in the coming weeks and months to be ahead of the game.

If you’re like me, your inbox started overflowing last week with one updated privacy policy after another. Each email referenced the need to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

What in the Hell is GDPR?

In 2016, the European Union (EU) passed GDPR to serve as a data protection stand for its citizens. The regulations went into effect May 25, 2018.

The EU was ahead of the curve in viewing email addresses and online surfing habits as personal information in need of being protected. It’s almost as if they saw the whole Facebook Cambridge Analytica thing coming… but I digress.

GDPR is similar to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) used to protect our credit card numbers and any personally identifiable information associated with credit card payments. My advice if you’re a business owner and don’t know about PCI compliance – don’t be like the City of Portland – always use a 3rd party payment processor and never take credit card numbers on paper unless you want to comply.

Like PCI DSS, GDPR seeks to protect EU citizen’s personal information. In this case, all of the data collected, stored and processed via an online transaction.

I’m a US Business. Why Should I Care About GDPR?

You might think it has nothing to do with your business, but the regulations apply to any online service or company that collects, processes, manages or stores information.

The scope of the law isn’t to enforce EU businesses. The regulation intends to protect EU citizens regardless of when or where the data collection happened.

That means you too, local business owner.

Typical cases where your business collects information and may need to update its privacy policy or processes to comply with GDPR:
• Tracking codes installed on your website (e.g., Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, Google Adwords, Bing, Twitter, et al.)
• Newsletter opt-in or a free ebook/gift
• Collecting emails as part of a point-of-sale system (or your online store saves emails to a list)
• Exchanging information with another business or individual that results in receiving, processing, managing or storing personal information from the EU (applies to all information, including information you have from years ago)

As you can tell, these regulations are pretty far-reaching. The good news is, it’s straightforward to comply (unless you fall under #4 in the list above – in which case, consult your attorney and IT department).

Here are a few simple steps to get you started:

Step 1: read a little about GDPR on Wikipedia or other trusted sources like (here or here) and comply with any updates sent by your vendors that collect information on your behalf (e.g., Google Analytics, MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, etc.)

Step 2: create or update your privacy policy (and then follow it). I used Terms Feed to create my updated privacy policy. You can also consult your attorney.

Step 3: make it very clear what people are subscribing for and that they can unsubscribe at any time. No more auto-subscribing, unless you are strictly B2B and correspondence falls under the “legitimate interest” provision.

For example, I added these words to my opt-in forms “Subscribes you to Foster Growth LLC email list. All emails include an unsubscribe link. You may opt-out at any time. See our privacy policy.”

Most point-of-sale systems allow you to add text letting people know that by giving you their email address they are consenting to be added to a list

Step 4: notify everyone on any existing lists and give them the option to unsubscribe

Step 5: add a cookies policy to your website and notification so people can opt-out of cookies (cookies are the tracking codes you use for Google Analytics, Facebook ads, et al.). I used Terms Feed for my cookies policy and CookieBot so people can opt-out of cookies.

Here’s the link to a more comprehensive GDPR checklist.

If you have questions, consult your attorney, web developer, or tech strategist.

Take action now because there are penalties for not complying. Also, it’s likely increased data protection will spread beyond the EU.

About the Author

Jen McFarland is a technology strategist and project turnaround artist. Her company, Foster Growth, helps businesses make better technology decisions. Her superpowers are listening, evaluating problems, and finding direct, simple solutions. Jen’s approach delivers substantial results like 250% increases in web traffic and a 98% reduction in data entry.

3 Newsletter Tasks to do Your First Year in Business

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3 Newsletter Tasks to do Your First Year in BusinessWhen you’re starting a business it’s hard to figure out what all you SHOULD do, versus what you want to do, need to do and have to do. When I am working with a company as they are about to launch a business I recommend three things when it comes to a newsletter.

  1. Send Out an Announcement Email –  I can’t support you and hire you if I don’t know you’re in business. It’s a big deal! You’ve started a business! Tell all your friends, family and colleagues about it! Get that announcement email out to your contacts. I recommend you do this almost immediately – but at least within the first 3 months
  2. Setup an Email Capture Form on Your Website – The sooner you can start collecting contact information from people, the better. Eventually you can setup a free gift but for now, just make sure you have a way for people to subscribe and give you their contact info. MailChimp makes this really easy with their forms – and your web developer will know how to do it too (and it’s a giant red flag if they don’t!)
  3. Start a Monthly Newsletter – You thought I wouldn’t suggest this? Once your business is up and running it’s time to have a monthly newsletter. Yes monthly. Once a month reach out to your contacts and let them know what you’re up to. What awesome tools have you discovered? What successes have you had with clients? What kinds of projects and services do you offer that people need to know about? I can’t hire you if I don’t know what you do. And I won’t hire you if I forgot you were in business.

Starting your own business is a LOT of hard work. And there are a bazillion moving pieces. It’s hard to figure out what you have to do, what you should do and what can wait. I can give you a million more ideas of what to do, but these are three things that I guarantee will set you up for success in the long run.

It’s Not too Late to Setup a CRM

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It's not too late to setup a CRMI’m talking a lot about CRM’s lately and it’s not a surprise. Your Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) is a vital piece of your growing business, but who wants to build a database?

Like it or not you need one. And ideally you setup your CRM when you’re just starting your business. But if you’re a few years into business and still haven’t done it, there’s no time like the present! Here are a few things to consider when setting up your CRM…

  • Your contact list isn’t your CRM – You need a dedicated database that contains ONLY your contacts for your business. A spot where you can save notes related to the client, or prospect, and set reminders to follow up with them.
  • Your newsletter program isn’t your CRM – I’m always surprised when people tell me that they have MailChimp setup and does that work as a CRM? It doesn’t. Technically you can make notes in MailChimp but that’s not it’s purpose. Setup a dedicated CRM that can integrate with MailChimp (I use Zoho CRM which does) so you can easily import contacts into your newsletter program.
  • Figure out what contact info you want to track – You may decide that you want all sorts of contact info available in your CRM including admins and multiple phone numbers. When you’re building your CRM you can customize the data. When you upload your lists it’ll make your life easier if you clean up the data and organize it up front.
  • Consider what kind of reminders and tagging you want to include – I make sure to reference how I met the contact – was it a client referral or a networking event? Did they come through my website or a speaking engagement? All of this should be tracked so you can follow up down the road when you have a new offering for that group.
  • Setup Templates  – Many CRM’s will allow you to setup templates so you can have a standard series of emails that go out. This is a feature that I’ll admit I don’t use, but I should. If your CRM has all the info you need, you can build a template that will even automate or plug in all sorts of details for you.
  • Use it! This is the most important thing. If you go through the trouble of setting up a CRM to manage your contacts make sure you use it! The second item on my to do list each week is “Zoho” which is my reminder to check in with my CRM and make sure I do the follow up or check in with clients/prospects as promised.

I believe you need a CRM and that it will help you grow your business and stay organized. If you need help, my friend wrote a great post a couple of years ago on how to choose the right CRM for you.