Doce fire west of town
Summer time in Arizona always brings an unwelcome guest – wildfires.
There’s one just getting under control on the west side of town.
Luckily, there’s been no injuries or structures lost.
5 super tankers were initially assigned to the fire but have since been moved to a fire in New Mexico.
When the coordinator was asked, “couldn’t they have left one or two”?
He replied, “They’re national resources and those decisions are above me”.
Without being in full control, you have to be ready for anything.
I see it all the time.
People establish their business solely on Blogspot, Facebook, or some similar service.
And that’s the only service they use.
At any time, these services can change their terms of use.
What are you going to do when they decide you can’t do anymore advertising or sell products?
Or, they decide to cease the service altogether.
If you want to take control, build your online business off a domain you’ve chosen with a hosting service.
Now your restricted to the terms of the hosting service, which are going to be more favorable for you than a Blogspot or Facebook.
But, don’t ruin it by sending emails from a Gmail or Yahoo account.
I see this all the time too.
You have a great domain but have just torpedoed your brand by making an amateur mistake.
Being inconsistent
Get with your hosting service to setup an email account under your domain.
Then start sending and communicating from that domain.
Building a solid brand doesn’t have to be complex.
Just be consistent in all forms of communication.
But you can only do that if you have complete control.
Take action by:
- Setting your website up on a domain you own
- Doing all communications through that email
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4 Comments
Ian Tomlinson
June 26, 2013Simple steps in a clearly written post. Setting up a self hosted website is so easy and cheap too these days thanks to WordPress. Thanks for the post Brett.
Brett
June 26, 2013Hi Ian. You’re right. Lack of any formal training leads to these types of simple mistakes.
Heather Stone
June 27, 2013Hi Brett,
Thanks so much for sharing with the BizSugar community. I think establishing your business quick and dirty on a social media site is OK in the beginning, perhaps to test the waters and see whether you can reach your customers. But, of course, it’s how you adapt to change long term that really counts.
Brett
June 27, 2013Thanks Heather.
I think it can be a slippery slope. You start off on a site you don’t control and plant some roots there. Then you get comfortable and begin to feel like its yours. Now you are vulnerable if the person behind the curtain decides to change something that doesn’t jive with your business model.
It can happen on a hosted site but it is extremely rare. Most won’t make such changes because they risk losing credibility.