Friday, March 27, 2009

Website Fiasco - Lessons Learned

Yesterday I spent a good part of my day on the phone with Hostgator.com hysterically trying to find out what happened to my brand new website. One minute it was there and the next it was gone – as if nothing had ever even been there before.

The designer I hired has been incredible – she created a unique, professional looking site that I was falling in love with. I also feel like it represents my growth as a professional freelance writer much better than the previous sites I struggled to create on my own. Being taken seriously as an expert is now more important than ever – especially as I begin narrowing my marketing focus on specific industries.

I don't speak web hosting...

Anyway, I was panicking. They were asking me all sorts of weird questions about what type of file/database was used to upload the site – and the technical jargon they were speaking was all Greek to me. I finally contacted my designer and she took over communicating with them for me and of course managed to get to the root of the problem much better than I ever could have.

Things happen

As devastated as I felt, I couldn't help but laugh at the timing. I was just preparing to send out emails to current and past clients letting them know about my new site and email.

Things like this happen all the time and my freaking out wasn't really helping, so I took a few deep breaths and suddenly remembered that I'm paying a professional designer to handle issues like these. While it's not want I want to be dealing with right now, the fact that she can and will take care of this frees me to continue operating my business.

Releasing the reins and letting the experts take over

I can't control everything. As my business grows I see the necessity of outsourcing certain tasks as an important part of business operations. Having competent, professional people you can depend on makes all the difference. So tell me: how do you feel about outsourcing for your business? Are you a control freak like me?;-)

2 comments:

Lori said...

Oh gawd, isn't that the scariest thing? I had that happen once - only I accidentally deleted my husband's website (I uploaded my file over top of his). Yikes! Luckily, it wasn't the critical one he'd just finished updating, but a test one. Whew! I lived to tell. :)

Kimberly Ben said...

^^ OMG, My husband would have lost his mind! Lol

 
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