Heading into the holiday period without confirming your critical systems are working creates unnecessary risk. Discovering your website is down, your payment processor has stopped working, or your contact forms are routing to deleted email addresses whilst you are trying to enjoy time off forces stressful emergency responses. Running systematic tech checks now means you can actually take your break knowing your business systems will function reliably without constant monitoring.
In this episode, Charly covers:
✅ Setting up website uptime monitoring and email delivery verification
📌 Testing payment systems, contact forms, and automation workflows
🔗 Creating proper backup systems with off-site storage before you leave
✅ Checking SSL certificate expiration dates to prevent website errors
📌 Ensuring team members have appropriate access to critical systems
🛡️ Configuring auto-responders, email forwarding, and calendar blocks
Small oversights compound during holiday periods when response times are slower and technical support is limited. An automation that failed a month ago but went unnoticed suddenly matters when it was supposed to handle customer enquiries whilst you were away. An SSL certificate that expires on December 28th prevents your entire website from displaying. A backup system that stores files only on your hosting server becomes useless when that server experiences problems. These scenarios are preventable through systematic verification. The episode walks through practical checks for website stability, payment processing, email systems, backups, and team access to ensure nothing critical breaks whilst you are unavailable.
Links
Join the discussion in my community: https://askcharlyleetham.locals.com
Follow us:
Locals: https://askcharlyleetham.locals.com
Rumble: https://rumble.com/askcharlyleetham
Odyssey: https://odysee.com/@askcharlyleetham:4
YouTube: https://youtube.com/askcharlyleetham
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/askcharlyleetham
Twitter: https://twitter.com/yourbizmgr
Instagram: https://instagram.com/ask_charly_leetham
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/charlyleetham
LinkedIn Company: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ask-charly-leetham/
Spotify: https://askcharlyleetham.com/likes/rise-and-shine
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ask-charly-leetham-online-business-manager/id1659738721
iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-ask-charly-leetham-online-105944212/
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/662f1e44-115d-4094-862b-efe9307e0df4/ask-charly-leetham-online-business-manager
Music and Credits to:
Paradise Found is covered under Creative Commons.
"Paradise Found"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/licenses/
https://rumble.com/v71xtps-what-tech-checks-should-you-complete-before-the-holidays-2025640.html
Life is busy and there's just so many things to remember. What tools do you use to help you keep on top of ALL the things?
You deleted the app, so your data is gone too, right? Not necessarily. When you sign up for a service and hand over your details, that information lives on the company’s servers, not just your phone. Even if you stop using the app, your data could still be sitting there years later, and if that company gets breached, your details could be exposed.
In this episode, Charly covers:
✅ Why deleting an app doesn’t remove your data from the company’s servers
➡️ How to think about the information you hand over when signing up
⚡ Steps to log in and cleanse your account before deleting an app
✨ How to request data removal under Australian privacy principles
⭐ Why you should revoke app permissions before uninstalling
☑️ How to track down old accounts through your app store and emails
❗ Checking Sign in with Google, Apple, or Facebook for linked accounts
Take the time to go through your phone and clean up properly. Deleting the app is only half the job.
Book a Free 30 minute Breakthrough Session: ...
The Redirection plugin is a plugin that handles redirects, branded affiliate links, and 404 monitoring on your WordPress website.
If you rename or delete a page, the plugin ensures that the old URL is redirected to the new one so visitors and search engines don’t hit a dead end, which is great for your SEO. Redirection also provides some stats on the links without needing to touch server files. Charly has been using it for years and walks through the full setup in this episode, from install to first redirect.
In this episode, Charly covers:
✅ What the Redirection plugin does and how Charly uses it
➡️ How to install and run through the setup wizard step by step
⚡ Setting up redirects for affiliate links and tracking click stats
⭐ How permalink monitoring automatically catches URL changes before they cause 404 errors
✨ Organising redirects into groups so you can find them later
☑️ Using the log and 404 monitor to see what’s happening on your site
Book a Free 30 minute Breakthrough Session: ...
If you are a small business owner wondering whether AI is about to make your skills obsolete, the biggest tech companies in the world just answered that question for you. They fired experienced staff, replaced them with AI tools, and discovered the AI costs more than the people did.
In this episode, Charly covers:
⚡ Why this matters to small business owners who are being told their skills are about to become obsolete
✅ How the Australian government’s 1990s IT outsourcing mirrors today’s big tech AI strategy
➡️ The real numbers behind tech layoffs, AI spending blowouts, and hiring freezes
✨ Why companies are experiencing a corporate-level Dunning-Kruger effect with AI
❗ Whether QA staff cuts and a string of serious Windows update bugs in 2026 are more than coincidence
⭐ The two questions every small business owner should ask before replacing a person or process with an AI tool
Your experience is not becoming obsolete. Make informed, thoughtful decisions before swapping people for tools.
Book ...