Has your company been orphaned by a website designer?
Last week was record breaker. I met two business owners who were orphaned. They were not orphaned like children in the traditional sense, but were left out in the cold by a "Buddy" who was helping them design their company's website and bailed. I hear these stories all too often. One of the business owners told me that they got the site produced by a professional, but at a steep discount. They realized that after being online for a few weeks that the contact form wasn't working and that they had lost untold potential business because of that. You'd trust a professional with your $80,000 car, why wouldn't you with your $500,000 business?
Now they are at the back of the line waiting to get the code fix. Then a few days later, I had a meeting with client who hired a part time web designer to build their community website. They paid in advanced. The result; the web designer built the webpage in Dreamweaver (for those not into web design this is the equivalent to learning Chinese as your primarily language) so the only person who could update it was the designer. That designer got a new full time job and the website is now live and hanging out there with half the pages saying; "More Coming Soon!". We've heard of the "Housing Crisis", and the "Banking Crisis", I now believe that we are also in a "Media Decision Crisis".
Many small businesses call it quits every day because of lack of sales due to a bad media strategy. They chose to cut corners relying on a "Buddy" to build their website or produce a video for YouTube.
Here's a few things to consider before you hand your media over to friend or even someone who claims to be a pro at media. This from my brand new free Ebook that I'm proud to be releasing in a few days here at ONDOMEDIA.COM.
- To correct the issue may cost more than building it right the first time
- You can't put a price on the lost business due to a bad first impression
- Your competition is watching you.
Don't get orphaned and left out in the cold with your media. You'd trust a professional with your $80,000 car, why wouldn't you with your $500,000 business?
- John Ondo is an Emmy Nominated Filmmaker, Media Consultant & Author. His company, Ondo Media,specializes in helping emerging businesses and non-profits develop and produce a media strategy. Based in Columbus, Ohio. John Ondo, can be followed on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and our Ondo Media Vimeo site
