IAM1088- Web Developer Provides Political Campaign Website Solutions

Shane Daley has nearly two decades of experience as a web developer, with a focus on search optimization and online marketing. He is a partner of Daley Professional Web Solutions and OnlineCandidate.com, which provides political campaign website solutions. He developed the Online Candidate content management system and is the author of the book, Running For Office As An Online Candidate.

• CEO Hack: Listening to a lot of information
• CEO Nugget: (i) Adapt or be left behind (ii) Reach your ideal client early in the process
• CEO Defined: Looking ahead to address the needs of your clients in the future

Website: https://www.onlinecandidate.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/onlinecandidate
Twitter: https://twitter.com/onlinecandidate
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/online-candidate
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1976790298

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Transcription

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00:23 – Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I am CEO podcast.

00:50 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Shane Daley of Online Candidates. Shane, it's great to have you on the show.

00:59 – Shane Daley

Thanks, Gresh. Good to be here.

01:01 – Gresham Harkless

Super excited to have you on. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Shane so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Shane has nearly two decades of experience as a web developer with a focus on search optimization and online marketing. He's a partner of Daily Professional Web Solutions and Online Candidate dot com, which provides political campaign website solutions. He developed the online candidate content management system and is the author of the book, Running for Office as an Online Candidate. Shane, great to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:32 – Shane Daley

I am.

01:33 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So to kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit and hear a little bit more about how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

01:41 – Shane Daley

Sure. Okay. So, this began around back in two thousand three. We had a friend of ours who ran for office, and, she was an underdog in a local campaign. And she needed, whatever help she could get, and we wanted to help her. And, I thought the best way to help her was to build a campaign website. And, of course, back in two thousand three, this was before having an online presence was, like, a big deal in online political campaigning. So, the site we built for crude by today's standards, but it was, it was successful and had a big impact on the campaign. It raised some issue awareness of the local developments and, some of the backroom deals that were being made, without the public's input.

So, one thing that helped was that the candidate's website came up, for web searches on our opponent's name. So, there were several, like, unflattering articles that appeared, and this was due to linking out to them to influence those article rankings. Back then today, they would be back then, that was called Google bombing. A few links to a particular thing, and you could rank for it. That doesn't work as well today, but back then, it had all the effect we needed. So the campaign, they also promoted the website offline on signage and in newspaper articles, making sure the candidate mentioned it.

And the bet's publicity spooked the opponent, and it led him to spend a whole ton of money on a campaign on a competing site, at another campaign site. And he tried to give his side of the story, but, it was a flash-based site, and it didn't work too well. So, in the end, our candidate won the election, and that success gave us the idea of using our web skills to help with some, other local candidates. I thought the web was gonna be a powerful tool for organizing people, and at the time, building a website, took a pretty fair amount of technical skill. And so that idea led to the creation of Online Candidate, which, we launched at the end of o three, the beginning of o four. It didn't take that long for the original, system to get started.

So we put together a process to let people order a website package online. Originally, we'd register the domain name and manually install the content management system with a bunch of prepaid pre-premade pages and tools, And the client could then choose from different headers and color schemes and kinda get the look that they wanted. Today, twenty twenty-one, the online candidate system, is fully automated for domain registration and account setup.

And so clients can immediately register and just start building out their website. It has built-in tools and it produces sites that have a variety of features with forms that are mobile responsive, that sort of thing. And then we also and today and over time, we added additional services custom design. We also have a site setup. We also do social media setups to help the clients get their online presence going faster. That's nice. Kind of it in a nutshell.

04:58 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, I appreciate you for telling that story. I'm gonna use the word pioneer, in terms of understanding. You made a pretty good bet as far as this Internet thing working out and being impactful, especially for, you know, candidates. And I imagine there are a lot of people who might be listening to this who know somebody or thinking about running for office and wish they would've leaned a little bit heavier into your expertise and your knowledge and how that can make an impact in their elections.

05:23 – Shane Daley

Yeah. It's it's grown. I think the watershed, the real watershed here was actually in two thousand eight, with the Obama campaign. Yeah. Even if you wanna go track before that, o four with, oh, jeez. What was his name? Howard Dean, when he raised a bunch of money online that you know? And if you go back even further, I think the first campaign website for president, was Bob Dole and Bill Clinton back in ninety-six. So it's been a long evolution.

05:54 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. But you could see those breadcrumbs and as they build up into being, you know, you know, those successes and those wins that and how important and pivotal that has been, and I think necessary, for lack of a better term now, for many people. So, I know you touched on a little bit on, like, how you work with your clients and what you provide. Could you drill down a little bit more and let us know a little bit more about that and what that process looks like?

06:16 – Shane Daley

Oh, about what we do?

06:18 – Gresham Harkless

And how do you serve your clients?

06:19 – Shane Daley

Yep. Sure. So, online candidates, it's it's a website platform for, you know, candidates and organizations. And it's pretty turnkey. The client can sign up, build their website, and access our different tools and resources. And then, like I mentioned before, we have, like, additional customization and setup services. And there are we also provide some additional marketing services like social media setup, candidate intro videos, and, we also offer IP targeting. Pretty much our system is the way we do things we set things up for the candidate or the campaign and then turn it over to them so that they can update and edit and make any changes they want. We're not actively involved in each campaign because we deal with hundreds of campaigns every cycle.

07:11 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Then that makes so much sense by getting them set up for success essentially, and to get that awareness out there so that they can have those different platforms, those, different issues that they're able to address and have that twenty-four-seven access because everybody can go and see on many different levels, like, what they are, what they stand for, and their story, and what it is they do, and plan to do if elected.

07:34 – Shane Daley

Yeah. Definitely. I mean, things move fast, so you can't wait around for a web designer to get around to updating your page after some sort of whatever blew up on Facebook or Twitter.

07:44 – Gresham Harkless

Right.

07:45 – Shane Daley

You have to be ready for an instant response.

07:47 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Being able to have those tools in place and how to use them is huge. And so I wanted to hear about what I like to call your secret sauce, which can be for yourself or the business or a combination of both. But what do you feel sets you apart and makes you unique?

08:02 – Shane Daley

Well, I think I think what makes us unique with a lot of clients is there's quite a bit of personal contact with us. I don't do this alone. My wife, Carol, handles the website design and the setup services, and she deals with the clients initially. She's good with people. A lot of our testimonials mentioned her specifically and, we've also worked to make the platform easy to use for the least technical user. Because a lot of our clients have zero experience in, you know, setting up a website or registering domains or any of that sort of thing.

So, like, our system provides very detailed, like, on-page help with pop-ups and, step-by-step articles on how to do each facet of, within the system from, like, building a page or editing a form or editing a button, that sort of thing. And we have no problem walking a client directly through the system to show them how it works. Once they get the feel for it, you know, most people can add and edit their content with ease. So I would say our biggest, unique selling proposition is probably just the hands-on aspect to it.

09:15 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to, switch gears a little bit. Okay. And I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

09:27 – Shane Daley

Okay. One thing I do is, listen to a lot of podcasts, but almost none of them are political. So I'm always looking for different information on, you know, SEO, digital marketing, client relation type things, stuff about content development. So there are several blogs like that. Not blogs. I'm sorry. Podcasts. So I listen to a number of them. And the tip that I would say is I listened to them all at, like, one and a half times speed. So the speakers are still understandable, but you kinda get through, you know, each episode in a lot less time. So I do that when I'm driving or outside, that sort of thing.

10:06 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That's huge. It's so funny you say that because I am much of the same I'm from the same camp, so to speak, where I listen to stuff at, one and a half, two times speed just because I think you can get through the information. Of course, if you can, you know, listen to it and even retain it a lot more, and it's something that I didn't even realize that you can train yourself for as well too. You could start gradually doing it, and you can start to retain more information. You can get through a lot more, and, of course, get that value and everything that you're hoping to get from each episode.

10:33 – Shane Daley

Yeah. Some I can do twice the speed, but it depends on the speaker. If they're fast speaking, to begin with, and twice the speed, then I can't.

10:40 – Gresham Harkless

I can't keep up. Twister. Yeah. I agree with that. And so I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It could be something you would tell a client, or if you have to tow a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

10:56 – Shane Daley

Well, you either have to adapt or be left behind. I think you have to try to reach your ideal client before they know they even need you. So if you can reach them early in the process, we try to reach, candidates real early when they're first starting to run for office, provide them with some solid information. And then by the time they get to the point that they need your service, you're already top of mind. Like, for example, like, we don't get to, build the website of every candidate who follows us or subscribes to our email list. But at some point, there may be other services that they need that we can provide. And if they know we provide those services, we're still top of mind and they may still contact us.

11:38 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I love that. And I think it's it's huge because I think even Henry Ford has this quote, which is somewhat related where if he would've asked everybody what they wanted to want him to build, he would've said a fast they would've said a faster horse. But understanding what they were looking for and what they needed and to be able to be there before they're potentially asking for it is so huge. So I think that sounds like it drills down to understanding as much as possible very, very deeply who you're trying to serve and making sure you are there and be able to provide them solutions so that can be successful.

12:15 – Shane Daley

Yeah. It's the customer journey.

12:17 – Gresham Harkless

Yes.

12:17 – Shane Daley

They reach them early and by the time they're ready, they reach that destination, there you are just waiting to provide for them.

12:26 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. I love that phrase, the customer journey, because understanding that aspect, what that looks allows you to make sure that you're there, not when they're asking for what you're asking for because they already know you and then they know that you provided as well.

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're open to having different quotes, unquote CEOs on this show. So, Shane, what does being a CEO mean to you?

12:50 – Shane Daley

Well, I think being a CEO means looking ahead, to address the needs of your clients in the future. In online political, campaigning, that's changed an awful lot in the last few years, especially during twenty twenty-one. I mean twenty-twenty-one with, the pandemic. So, like, when the pandemic hit, for example, like, we shifted our guidance for how candidates can use the web to to better reach donors and voters. And even as local candidates switch more and more too, like, multichannel online, offline, mail, that sort of thing, a promotional mix, We have to look ahead to see how we can incorporate those changes into our products and offerings to help better serve our clients.

13:41 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. It's so huge. And as you said so well, like, during a time, especially like this, where there's so many so much transformation and disruption, it's huge for us, especially as leaders, to be able to kinda lean into what that looks like and be able to make sure that we are making that impact for people.

13:57 – Shane Daley

Yeah. You almost have to have a little crystal ball. I know when the pandemic struck, I think I started writing about the importance of online, campaigns, I think, within a week or two after the lockdown started happening. We're in New York, so it happened. We got hit hard Yeah. Quarterly. And fast and early with it. So it did prove itself that a lot of candidates' campaigns, weren't able to do anything face-to-face like fundraising, and even door-to-door was restricted in a lot of places. So they had to work around that.

14:33 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. I appreciate you for sharing that. And I think too, like, as we were talking about that customer journey and that piece making sure and staying aware and on your hand on the pulse, so to speak, so when those changes, those disruptions are happening and what they end up being so that you can continue to provide that service, could continue to be in different spots along that customer journey is huge as well too.

14:56 – Shane Daley

That's true. Yes. It is. We gotta reach out in several different ways too in that process.

15:03 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. Well, Shane, truly appreciate that, and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know, and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on, and, of course, get a copy of your book as well too.

15:19 – Shane Daley

Sure. Anyone who wants to reach out to us can do so through online candidate dot com. You can go to the contact page and, the information for reaching me is there. We also have links to our products, the book, that sort of thing. Check out the blog section. We do have a lot of articles that would be of interest to people running for office or looking to run for office, as far as online campaigning goes.

15:49 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. Well, I appreciate that. And we will have the links and information in the show notes as well too so that everybody can follow up with you. But Shane, truly appreciate all the awesome work that you're doing. And like I said, you know, being a pioneer and ahead of the curve, to say the least with everything that you do and continue to evolve and change and innovate and make sure that you're keeping the customer in mind is something that we all can kind of remind ourselves of. So thank you so much for doing that and reminding us of that, of course, and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

16:14 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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