Presidential Blunders are Important Reminders to ALL Business Owners

It doesn't matter if you are a Democrat or a Republican, you need to pay close attention to your business. As a business owner, there are so many things that you have to keep your eye on: the P&L, the employees, the margins, the process... but who is responsible for your brand, especially online?

Let us learn from the millionaires that are running for President. Most of these individuals are spending more money per week than many of us make in a year. With that kind of spending habits on advertising you would think that they would surround themselves with people and companies who have their finger on the pulse of all the small details, such as domain name.

Do me a favor and check out www.JebBush.com and www.TedCruzForAmerica.com.

Jeb Bush comes from a political power house family and is spending more money than any other Presidentail candidate so far. It is very clear that having access to millions of dollars does not always mean that everything will be handled correctly. When making the decision to run for POTUS I would assume that Jeb told his team to start purchasing every domain name with his name in it, especially the domain name JebBush.com. The fact is that this was never done, only a few months ago, in December 2015 the domain name JebBush.com expired and became available to the general public. It is still not clear if Donald Trump's team or if a big fan of Trump purchased the domain name, but it is very clear that Mr. Trump is benefiting from the blunder of the Jeb Bush team.

Next is Ted Cruz, same issue as Jeb. Ted Cruz most likely surrounds himself with some very smart people but how do you not purchase (no matter how expensive) every domain name with your name on it. Once again this domain name seems that it was scooped up by someone on the side of Donald Trump because TedCruzForAmerica.com is being directed to a website that is about Immigrating to Canada which is one of the topics that the Donald is debating with Mr. Cruz.

If two very wealthy and powerful men are making mistakes like this, how can a regular business owner avoid them? The answer is very simply... Surround yourself with smart people who are dedicated to handle every detail. When it comes to domains name, like the above, it is very simple to purchase the domain names from a service like GoDaddy.com and set them up to automatically renew. The only work you would have to do is ensure that the credit card on file is up to date and will not decline, thats it!

Why didn't Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz purchase these domain names and have them setup to autorenew forever?

I don't have the answer to that, but I'm sure there are some heads rolling at both political headquarters.

Our company, Vertical Marketing Group, handles services like this every day. It is our job to ensure that our clients best interests are always being met. Ensuring that their businesses domain names are locked in for years to come, their websites are running smooth, are able to be found via search, and much more. This is not brain surgery, this is business.

By no means is this article a suggestion on who you should vote for, it is a simple example of how a very small detail can harm your business in a very big way. Do me a favor and log into your domain name service now and make sure that your domain names are set to autorew, the credit card on file is up to date, and maybe even see if there are any other domains that would benefit your business and purchase them.

Mark Kaminski, CEO of Vertical Marketing Group

February 17, 2016