Unknown 0:00 I'm going to call this meeting to order at 532. How's everybody doing tonight? Thanks for coming out. Did everybody get signed in, put their business card in the box if they're eligible to win again. Unknown 0:28 Okay Unknown 0:33 our minutes from last month are on the website if anybody wants to hear them or read them. They're available for everybody to see. And is there any new members? Well, we can welcome back. Carly Carly, who is now with the Last Green Valley so the Last Green Valley has always been a member. But now Carly took over the position there. And so she's coming out to the meetings again, which is awesome. Thanks for coming. And, and then everybody signed in and we get a few last minute ones done now. And then we're gonna go around the room and do 45 seconds each about your business. You can talk about whatever you want. Maybe you need a new employee, you need to meet a certain contact, whatever it is you want to talk about. Tell us what you got. Going to start. Unknown 1:24 Hi, I'm Vicki Julie. Here's my husband Bob is an IVR. Together with primerica financial services that our goal is to bring financial education to home schools, one on ones whoever wants to learn about finance. We show people that there is hope to get out of debt to properly save for retirement and a whole lot more I'm looking for referrals from customers if they're happy with what we did. I'm also looking for groups that we can do presentations for and to see how different our businesses I welcome you to sit with either bottle of wine those have been a little show you why primerica sticks out among the rest Thank you very much. Our offices in Melbourne guys. Unknown 2:08 Just go straight back. Dave. You're up. Dave shuffling along. Great. Unknown 2:13 Nice. He's clean out some handyman services. Just a local contractor. Maybe a little jobs. Raj estates you do it all. Mike Wallace claim painting currently trying to book interior jobs for what there and we're still looking exteriors for a spring and summertime for next year. Thanks, Mike. Carly. Hello, everybody. Again, Unknown 2:49 my name is Carly DeLuca. I worked for the last Spring Valley and I brought explorer guides with us if anybody would like one of those and also partnership forms. You can learn about what your partnership with us will do for you. Our explorer guides are fantastic. We have a lot of Thomson businesses already in them. I know the library isn't actually just as a library. But as a partner, you get to be in one of these and we distribute them they're professionally made and distribute 25,000 of that. So Wow. They're great. Yeah, she's able to see me if you have any questions. Unknown 3:25 Thank you, Kara Unknown 3:28 Terrapin, Director of Planning and Development for town Thompson. I think you all know me anyway. I come here not as a member and per se but as a resource for you guys. If you have any questions about what's going on in town. I usually have a little moment on the agenda and I will talk to you about the 65 main planning project and how you can be a part of it, which I certainly hope that you will and other than that, yeah. Always just here for whatever information I can make up for you. Unknown 4:03 All right, Matt, at your Unknown 4:08 one, stop. Shop for all your signage needs. A little story today. All right. So I was working on mine. I have a laser machine that cuts out letters and stuff like that. And I was dialing it in, I guess the best way to put it so the machine works on basically a three mirror system where the leader has to hit one mirror to mirror to another mirror then drops down. I was adjusting it and I was noticing that the laser wasn't hitting one of the mirrors and I was like in this country what's going on and kept pressing the tested test statistic that smells on burnin. burnin was my shirt Unknown 4:52 want to do that? Alright, that's top that Unknown 5:05 she said nothing on fire today. I've Unknown 5:08 been working on working from home more rather than the events get put together. Nice Unknown 5:15 cool. You did did you I saw something maybe you had but I was gonna say you could you know bring some more stuff with you when you come to the meeting so people can touch it and feel it. Unknown 5:27 Okay Unknown 5:31 she made a lot of pictures with accurate pricing with them too. So your rates for facebook click on the picture and it tells you how much it is so you can order with her that sounds great. I'm not good at talking. Unknown 5:44 You're better than you were the first. You're better than you were the first time you came here and if you keep coming, it's gonna get better and better. Before you know it. You'll be up here Unknown 5:56 scheduled with Winnie radio in December 201. Unknown 6:05 Everybody I'm Phil with sight and sound tech solutions. We do everything involved techie. If it involves tech, just give me a call. Audio Video. Home Theater, security cameras, doorbells, smart thermostats, all that stuff. Any TVs I can get TVs and do a lot of church work for church sound and video. Some commercial work, but yes, so getting busier and busier. It's a good thing in a way but so I'm very thankful for that. But yeah, please give me a call. I'll be glad to help you out. I'm helping out somebody Joanne with some smart TVs in her house Joanne Chanel. So anything that you might think that you need, please give me a call, don't buy anything. Many times people will buy stuff and then they come to me and say hey, I bought this. Yeah, but you shouldn't have bought this. So that happens a lot. Give me a minute, please. Missy. Hi everybody. Unknown 7:05 I'm busy. i My husband has j&j construction excavation. It's got dirt and he can do it for you. See me I'm winning. I'll talk about that later. Okay, Chris. Unknown 7:19 All right. Awesome. proprietor, System Solutions, LLC. I have under my 10 minute presentation. So I have a lot more about that, including the subject that I'm going to talk about. Unknown 7:35 All right, Ali. Unknown 7:38 Hi, Ali. We've had an evolutionary consulting your one stop shop for all your marketing needs and social media management to improving your SEO. I also like to support other small businesses as well. You often find the parents services with Joey as we increase your SEO, get your blogs up to date and really start getting out there seeing and Unknown 7:57 Jody, okay. I'll get to commercial So Jody Erickson, owner of your page today, custom website design and development a good referral for me as anybody that you know who wants a brand new website for their New Year's resolution? They want something better that has higher visibility more rankings on Google. Have them give me a call or tell them to visit your page today.com We're always on the same page. God and I'm also performing with reptile shows up New England and I got a top mat story so I haven't Guana. I don't know if it is on Facebook, but my phone is in Wrath, which means it's in mating season. And he snuck up on me latched onto the bottom of my pants and I couldn't get them off. So I had to take my pants off really quick. And he decided to take my jeans back to his little love shack and he can keep them so anyways. Indoor shows for the winter and I'm bringing a different Guana to the shows a younger one who's not ready to learn more book a show, visit reptile shows of new england.com cold blooded catch it NC Unknown 9:00 top that one Brian? Unknown 9:03 Right I good enough. Unknown 9:09 I'm Brian I chair Economic Development Commission. And I think I finally retired. I'll move on to something else. So I'm done. Unknown 9:19 So I'm CMD the treasurer of tax Business Association. I'm the owner of Kerrigan Tax Service. Right now what we're doing is kind of winding down the IRS and bookkeeping for all my customers. If you wouldn't mind I do have a bookkeeper who's now working pretty much full time which is awesome. So if you know somebody who's in a panic because it's November and they haven't done a thing and are panicking about where they are financially, give us a call. We can help them I do payroll focused on taxes mostly. But I work with your sales tax, I can pay your payroll taxes, I can pay your employees every week, I can do all that number stuff. So yeah. And Unknown 10:02 my name is Dan Bennett. I'm the owner of DVC solutions where we transform the space you live into a place you'd love to be and we use technology to take the stress out of your home remodeling projects by being able to present you with photorealistic 3d renderings of what your new space will look like so that you don't have to worry the whole time that you're not getting what you what you hoped you're getting. And then also just real quick, I am not supposed to be talking about this yet, but I'm gonna the we're doing a mini Home Show slash design, construct, design, whatever you want to call it. It's going to be at TELRIC winery on January 24. We're going to have catered hors d'oeuvres we're going to be buying or anybody that's registered ahead of time we're going to be buying you one drink we're gonna have all of our trade partners out there I forgot about asking you, but I want you to come to because you can bring some cool technology stuff but we're gonna have our plumber out there electrician flawless cleaning and painting services. Gold Standard painting. Whole bunch of people out there so you can come around but there's probably going to be about a 15 to 20 minute talk about design what's hot in now in 2024 What's coming up what's not, but you can also just walk around and talk to the other people so if you need to talk to a plumber or an electrician, they're gonna be there for you to talk to him about it. Thanks, guys. Okay, next, Chris networking presentation. So we're just gonna have to swing around here to get out of the way of the project. Unknown 11:43 That's true. As Unknown 11:50 you go to the lights going off. Unknown 12:44 Might have to hold on a second Oh, okay. Thanks. Unknown 13:00 Feel interesting? Unknown 13:20 Microphone blocking Unknown 13:45 I'm Chris Nelson. My company and System Solutions, LLC. As of October of this year, I've been in business for 24 years. Just started out part time and then in 2008 went full time and been going ever since this summer. These are some of there's more that I deal with but these are some of the larger companies that I deal with. I deal with any type of computer, any type of any type of brand server. These are just some of the examples of people that I have for customers. Some of us I've had since around 2010 And what I do is I build, troubleshoot and repair computer networks computers, both commercial and residential, real malware viruses from networks computers. I mean you consider this a bit. One of the big things is backing up pertinent data for a lot of commercial customers, and that's part of what I'm going to the presentation I'm going to talk about my repeat based approaches. Now he checked for this you can't buy the pods for him and I have to delete liaison for companies that may have they don't have so much an IT person, but a lot of times they need to call for the software or something they need to call the software company and there's no one in there that talks technical so I take the technical from the software company and put it in simple terms for the customers. i One of the big things is I provide high tech, high quality replacement LaserJet toner cartridges. A lot of people say oh we can get them on online. This company is the best company that can buy replacement cartridges from they have less than 1% returns. Also because you better for me. If something happens, you talk to me and have talking to someone at some other country or something to try to get a replacement. I provide good quality antivirus and firewall. And I also do a lot of remote access for customers so that they can map while they're in during the during the day. These are the best referrals for me. I work in mass Connecticut, Rhode Island. And like I said up to 25 computers. After that it's too large for some I have what I want to do. Okay, this is what we're going to talk about. Does anybody know what ransomware is? Does everybody know what ransomware I'm sure you've heard of it, but you don't really know what it is. Okay. For those of you that might not know ransomware is a type of more malware that they actors, but they're really hackers, whatever you want to call them. They infect your computers and encrypt files and basically, you they actually did nice enough to put a file when they when it's all done, or when they have it all set up. They're nice enough to put a file that you can read and you can access to tell you what you need to do to get the files back. Unknown 17:10 How is it delivered? It's delivered by a couple of ways. One of them is phishing emails, a phishing email, it's something like you get it you get a an email from someone you think you might know you might not know whatever and it's got an attachment to it a link on it and you click on it. And what it does is it downloads it downloads malware, or virus whatever you want to call it to put ran to block all the files and like I said it says if you can put like a legitimate organization, someone you know, and that just make sure if you're not sure if it's really from the cup, it's from the person that you know, get a hold of them to find out if they really sent it and the drive by download again. That's a program that you can go to the internet click on what looks like a you know just a normal like video on a lot of you know a lot of websites and it's got some it's got to a file and then the downloads along with the open file with the open video, whatever. Or it could be a way of download a file a file. And what happens is it could be immediate it could be a week from now. It's time to open up a week from now. So you don't know where you got it from. What can you do to protect your data networks? backup your computer and this is the the I can't stress this one enough. You need to back up through a doing a backup of the system or and also backup all your important files and take the take the backups make sure once you backup the files whether you do your system a system backup or then go to your files backup make sure you disconnected from the network other computer. Okay, because what a lot of people don't realize they say oh I got a backup. I got a flash drive or an external drive and I backed it up to that. Well if you download the if you download if you happen to get ransomware loaded onto your computer it's gonna work for everything every computer while the network and all the all the drives whether they're on your whether it's your drive on your computer, or a drive, like I said an external drive that's connected. And maybe the other thing is a lot of companies are they used to use tape backups, and they used to do the backups, but they never checked them. But they never checked the tapes to make sure that they really weren't doing backups. It said that it was but they really did you need to ensure that that whatever you're using to backup is actually happening. hotkey for by brands when update, update your computer and people say no so stupid windows. So you know there's not so much for Mac but the stupid Windows backups Second of all do one because a lot of security updates to help protect you against things like this. Again, follow us classroom with with links and entry websites because you if you hit if you've typed in the wrong address, you might go to a look alike address that has a lot of links that have little presence waiting for you. It'll tend to on again, email attachments and you don't know who it is. Don't open it if you do know but it looks a little suspicious. Get a hold of them get a hold off people and another thing is a lot of websites. They'll come and sometimes you get a warning saying that this website doesn't have it. Have isn't up to date. Okay on this security. Don't ignore it. Don't. Don't play with it. Get up get away from it. Again, make sure the emails are legitimate. And again, install antivirus anti malware and firewall programs. And keep them updated and installed with our a lot of people may have whether it be a business or home have one computer and what they do is they plug it into their modem and the modem has no there's no protection from them or from the from what's coming in. You put a round around, now you've got a password. So it's tougher for people to get in into your system. That is a natural firewall and antivirus which most of them I that have a firewall built into it. Not only should have to two forms of security if it's if your computer's infected people laugh at this. God Yeah, yeah, I woke up Yeah, obviously. You think that this may sound Oh, that's overkill? No, because they're going to try to help you if there's any way that they can find out who this is, nobody is offshore, but they can find out who it is. They can go after and what they can also help you because they may know of other instances of this type of ransomware Unknown 22:44 and of course it's run your organization. You will call your IT department. Thank you before before I stopped when I was taking care of the town of Thompson Unknown 23:01 Town Hall they're gonna hit by ransomware twice. Okay. Bye playing field been hit by ransomware the Town Hall and the police department and it was months before they even got up to a somewhat satisfying amount of what they what they were when the kind of toxin was hit those two different times the first time within four days I had them back up and running 100% And the second time within two days I had running 100% Because they back to the they did the thing that did the best security that you could have. And they went from me. Not I did. It went for me as far as backing into the cloud. Not I don't have a server somewhere. I purchased space from one of the largest companies in the world to backup all the uploaded files into the cloud. And that's the best way to do it. Because they can't they you cannot infect those files when they're in the cloud. So all we once we go and all the computers made sure everything was clean. All we had to do was delete all the files on the server and when that happened on the computer, and we took the backup brought about brought them all down and it was covered. So if you have any questions about that ask me especially if you have an whether you do with me or not, you know as far as backing up 60 to 70% of small businesses, but any type of business goes out of business within the first year if they lose if they lose their files. 60 or 70%. It's not worth it's it's not cheap, but it's a lot cheaper than losing losing the business. Then Unknown 25:06 go ahead and work on computers or do you use smartphones because I know like I don't do a lot of videos on my laptop. I don't wear my Unknown 25:14 phone through a different animal. Okay. Unknown 25:21 All right. Well, now that we know more about Chris and what he does, let's see. Keep our eyes and ears open to get into some more business in the coming weeks and months. Going to do this, so it wasn't Unknown 25:42 I dragged my chair over there and then I'm over here man Unknown 25:54 Okay, moving on. I'm Jody, you're up. Unknown 26:00 Alright, so my VP reports and marketing is always pretty much the same. The only notable changes are you know, we're starting to get more visibility and Google rankings and traction and so forth. So I would like to invite anyone from any committee on the TBA whether it be weekend warriors, golf tournament, any sit with me have a have a meeting with me get to know me and my business and I'll get to know your business. But more importantly, you know, help me brainstorm things that we can put on the website that's good for keyword visibility, text content, more information, photos, you know, from the golf tournament gallery I want to add to that. So I definitely anybody who wants to sit with me I can do that. That would be great. search visibility in the past 20 days, we've had over 1.8 2000 impressions on the website, which is really good. It's down slightly from last month, but not by much. Our top search queries on Google are Thomson Business Association, Donohue landscaping. Oh, that's cool. Wow. Pool tournaments near me 2023 which is a cool one. PitStop pub bank Hometown. Again, they're right there. Business Insurance and Thompson, Connecticut. Again, that's just their funding the member directory. Thomson local directory, business, internet, Thomson. Again, they're finding the business directory of that one, when he is on there. And then Teague coming in 10th place so we're starting to get a lot more traction, a lot more keywords. Again, so I just invite you guys to help me brainstorm to get more content on there. And I can even work with Valerie because she's content queen. So yeah, she's so good with that. Unknown 27:29 That'd be awesome. Thanks. Unknown 27:33 All right. Thank you, Jody. Brian Yara. How's the membership going memberships Unknown 27:38 going well, we are up to 7700 Unknown 27:44 minus 77. Unknown 27:52 My brain because Unknown 27:54 I know last month we talked about AJ manufacturing in there. They did come on so they knew and we have united styles Dance Academy and and we still don't have drafters. Unknown 28:11 We have one we have to Unknown 28:12 her on the phone like three times like long conversations. It's a no brainer Of course I'm gonna join again. Unknown 28:20 Yeah, battery runs. Unknown 28:24 I text her. I text her home link to the thing where she can literally click on it. We take like five minutes to fill it out is there's no excuse and I talked to her twice, but we've all done it and she keeps promising and she won the pizza contest and was all excited and of course I'm gonna be a member. Tonight. We can't do their incentive. So hey, come on, Joe. All right. So go ahead. Yeah. Unknown 28:54 So anyway, yeah, we 23 away. We'll keep pushing anytime. Anytime I see a business I handed me a form and it does have the QR code on it if they didn't want to do a forum or go to a website. One new business with the Town since the last meeting is Mulligan's cleaning. They do janitorial services. Rhode Island number of based in North Grove well peal box in North Carolina deal. Unknown 29:29 I'll get that email from you in a couple of days. And I will call him up Unknown 29:33 Yeah, take it can take down we'll take a picture of it. And I think Yeah. Membership cuts. The other stuff that we're working on is the Thompson's winter market bonfire tree Festival, which we'll talk about later. Today, we did a benefit for the veterans along with the senior lunch and I talked to TPA months ago we promised we would sponsor some senior things so we bought them a a cake and G seven which is another one of our TBA, members supplied coffee tea. So that was in this building. It's a part of our collaboration. So that's it. 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