Don’t Get Locked In
Don’t let your small business get locked in by service providers
by Stuart Livesey
Oh boy, last time it was over two weeks since I last posted. This time it’s nearly three weeks since I posted. The deafening silence hasn’t been because we haven’t had anything to say, it’s just been because we haven’t had time to say it. Work has simply been non-stop for weeks now and, in these current economic conditions, that’s very pleasing.
And it doesn’t look like stopping anytime soon. In the last few days we’ve been asked to provide so many quotes and proposals that March looks like being just as busy as February has been so far.
Two of those requests for proposals have come from small businesses here in town who are facing a real problem. Both businesses want us to redevelop existing websites for them . One couple recently bought a business and thought that the website the previous owners had a local company build for the business came with the sale.
Unfortunately they now find that the previous owners of the business did not own the domain name … instead the local media company that designed the site bought the domain name and never transferred it to their clients and the media company is also claiming ownership of the website.
The second couple had the foresight to demand that they be the copyright holders of all the material that they paid for when they had a different design business here in town build their website. Unfortunately they didn’t realise that the web designer at that business was going to use a content management script to build their site that no other web designer has access to.
Now that should not be all that much of a problem except for the fact that the script this designer used does not produce good code. Sure the browsers that have to read that code and display the site on your monitor can handle it but it’s so poor that many designers … including me … would have problems deciphering it so making additions and alterations to the site is going to be costly.
So, even though I’ve said it several times here on this site, it’s worth saying again. When your small business does business with service providers such as web designers, marketers etc. make sure that you own the copyright for all the material that you pay for and make sure that there is nothing that ties you to that service provider.
We all like to keep our clients but the ethical way to do that is by providing an unbeatable service. Any service provider who wants to keep their customers by making it too expensive to move to another provider isn’t worth doing business with.
