One person looking at the whole technology picture.

Who is responsible for all of it?

For a lot of small businesses, the answer is the owner.

Which is convenient because you apparently had nothing else to do.

I created the Small Business Technology Advisor service for companies that have accumulated a lot of technology and do not have one person responsible for keeping track of it.

I help you figure out what you have, who has access, where the risks are, what needs attention and who should handle it.

Why I Started Doing This

Someone recently started emailing my own clients pretending to be me.

He used my real name, signature, phone number and actual problems he found on their websites. He did enough homework that the emails looked believable.

One client sent him about $800. Another spent two weeks emailing with him, received a proposal and tried to pay an invoice.

Both got their money back.

We got lucky.

So I did what any completely normal person would do and spent the next few days digging through every technology system in my company.

I manage more than 200 client websites.

I found outside access I had never audited, former employee accounts that still needed attention and a Google Workspace permission left over from an old migration that could read and write every mailbox in my company.

Fun.

That old permission had nothing to do with the person impersonating me. Finding it still bothered me.

I am the technology guy.

I build websites. I work with AI every day. Clients already call me when they have technology questions.

Somehow I still had technology scattered across my own company that nobody was responsible for looking at together.

That is when this service started making sense.

More on the impersonation and how to verify a real message from us is on our fraud notice page.

Small Businesses Collect Technology

Nobody sits down when they open a business and says, “I would really like 37 software accounts managed by six different people over the next decade.”

It just happens.

• Someone registered the domain eight years ago.
• The office manager created Canva.
• Your accountant recommended QuickBooks.
• An employee signed up for Dropbox.
• Your website company has access to something.
• Your IT company handles the computers.
• Someone started using ChatGPT because apparently we are all doing that now.

Then Steve quits.

Nobody remembers everything Steve had access to.

Steve may not even remember.

Five years later somebody asks who owns the GoDaddy account and everyone starts staring at each other.

That is the problem.

What I Help With

You Do Not Need to Know Where Everything Is

This is one of the biggest parts of the service.

I am not sending you a giant questionnaire asking questions you hired me because you cannot answer.

“Please list every administrator across your technology environment.”

Yeah, sure.

Right after you finish doing payroll and fixing whatever happened in the parking lot this morning.

We start with a short conversation.

You tell me what you know.

Give me access to the appropriate starting points and introduce me to the people who handle different parts of the business.

Then I start digging.

That is part of the job.

Start With a Technology Health Check

The first step is figuring out what is already there.

I review areas such as:

• Website, domain and hosting
• Google Workspace or Microsoft 365
• Employee and vendor access
• MFA and password practices
• Email security
• Software and subscriptions
• AI usage
• File storage and backups
• Accounting and payment systems
• Security tools
• Technology vendors
• Employee onboarding and offboarding
• Business continuity

Then I give you a clear report.

• What looks good.
• What concerns me.
• What should be fixed first.
• What can wait.
• What somebody else needs to handle.

You will not receive an 87-page cybersecurity report written like the author was being paid by the syllable.

You get a practical 90-day plan.

What Happens Next

Some businesses only need the Health Check.

Others look at the report and realize they would prefer somebody else keep an eye on this stuff.

That is where the ongoing Small Business Technology Advisor service comes in.

I stay involved with technology planning, cybersecurity oversight, AI guidance, software decisions, employee access, vendors and coordination with your IT company or other specialists.

You have someone keeping track of the big picture.

Who This Is For

This service is built primarily for owner-led companies with roughly 5 to 35 employees.

You have enough technology that mistakes can get expensive.

You have enough employees that keeping track of access gets complicated.

Hiring a full-time CTO, cybersecurity executive and AI person would be ridiculous.

So the owner ends up doing it.

Usually while also trying to run the actual business.

I also work with established nonprofits and selected professional service firms dealing with the same problem.

I Am Not Your Help Desk

If the printer stops working, I am probably not your guy.

I mean, I will stare at it for a minute because that is apparently impossible for me to resist.

Then I am calling your IT company.

Your IT provider handles computers, networks, printers and day-to-day support.

I focus on the bigger questions.

• Who has access?
• Are we protected?
• Should we buy this?
• Can our employees use this AI tool?
• What happens when somebody leaves?
• Who owns this account?
• What happens if something goes wrong?
• Who should handle it?

Those are the questions I want.

Who Owns the Whole Picture?

Most small businesses have people managing pieces of their technology.

• The website company handles the website.
• The IT company handles the computers.
• The accountant handles accounting software.
• Employees sign up for whatever helps them get their jobs done.

Then somebody needs to look across everything and make sure the pieces still make sense.

That is what I do.

Common questions

Related reading: website maintenance and our fraud notice.