“All things are difficult before they are easy. “
Thomas Fuller
I am not a person who writes anything personal on the web.
I have always kept all my articles and contributions online as part of my business related work.
Anyone who has worked with me or knows me, knows I go above the call of duty.
I love helping people. I enjoy teaching and empowering people online.
Recently I have hit the over 200 client mark and I guess what happens is called growing pains.
The little personal website company has to start tightening up a bit and being a bit more picky with the work and not letting themselves get taken advantage of.
I guess sometimes the cosmos send you a message.
I had a new customer referred to me by someone in one of my training classes. This person who asked me to redo a site for them, and move it over to new hosting. They were in a hurry and they already had a blogging website up and running. They had some other work online they do on a regular basis as well. This is more online experience then most people I work with.
I thought it would be a simple job and for the most part it was in the grand scheme of what I do. We ran into some minor troubles moving it from the paid part of WordPress.com , (please do not buy your domain name and hosting from them), just get your own hosting and buy your domain name from a domain name company.
I spent extra hours doing a banner for free, building a new design and customizing it. Then dealing with the hassles of trying to move from WordPress.com paid section and eventually we got everything done. Usually at this point I have a very grateful client and I do appreciate it when people thank me. It is a nice thing. Most people are very kind and quite thankful. It helps make all the extra unpaid hours I give feel like they matter.
When all was done I ended up with an email from this person. They told me I should not of worked with them until they knew more and until they were more educated about how to use their website. They told me I should of figured out their level of experience and turned them down or had them learn more first with an online class.
Instead of thanking me for going out of my way, working many extra hours, doing a free graphic banner for them, and rushing the work to get their site up by their deadline, they told me I should of had them take a beginner online class first.
I knew this person was annoyed that they did not know enough by their definition of “enough”.
Not mine.
Honestly this the first time I have ever been told I should not of not of helped someone because they don’t know enough.
What do you think about that? If you hire a web person to do a job, isn’t it your job to know what you know and not mine to tell you what you don’t know. Should I give a test to all my potential clients and tell them, “no sorry you don’t meet the standards, since you don’t know what an URL or browser is, therefore I can’t do your web work for you”? What are the “standards”. Whose standards?
I would love to get some feedback in the comment section on this.
Please leave a comment if you have some thoughts or words of wisdom.
Over 700 people a day now read this blog, so leave a comment and leave a link to your website too.
(Good SEO backlink for you.)
I find some people who want things to be perfect or are perfectionists have a very hard time working online. It is a bit of rough and tumble.
You have to find your own answers often, and one of the most important lessons you will learn while working online, is things are never perfect.
You will never know it all, and you have to let go of the need to know everything or be “perfect” at it.
There is always something going wrong, always. Browsers, computers, email, glitches, shopping carts break, photos need resizing, the list is endless! One of my other articles is “The Zen of Getting Started Online“.
This is what I believe is the best way to stay sane while working online. You have to stay focused and let go of perfection.
It will never happen. You may have one perfect page, one perfect design that works for a few years, or one perfect logo, but something always happens, it all evolves and you have to stay nimble and sharp to keep up .
Yet you only have to keep up with what you want and are interested in for your site and your work.
The Internet is too big to know it all and master it all. To all of you who have been so wonderful to work with and kind and grateful,
I am sending you all my good mojo right now and letting myself slip back into an attitude of gratitude. I work with so many lovely amazing people. I am truly blessed.
Tomorrow is a new day.