- Is this what life has taught our Millennials?
- How to harass someone and prove that you are an idiot at the same time
- Only give up your business domain if your business closes down
- Social Media is NOT a web site on which you can grow and run a successful long term business
Today’s lesson is one from personal experience and, like most lessons in life, begins with the words; “I had a client!”
This particular client ceased to be one around 3 years ago under these circumstances:
When the time came for renewal of his domain name he elected to not do so and rather use social media for his business.
At the time I strongly advised him to not do so and at least hold on to his domain name until circumstances changed and his business picked up again.
As a responsible citizen I warned him about the real possibility that his domain name would be snatched up by a domain trader and held for resale to someone else OR even back to him at a later stage and at a much higher price.
I even offered a lower priced and specced hosting package, but, to no avail.
Predictably circumstances changed:
His products are selling well again and he is not getting the right return from using Social Media as his business web site so he got hold of a friend in web development to resurrect his old web site under his present business name.
Said friend discovered that the domain name that was originally registered and subsequently lost to a different registrant is now not available.
So, former client gives said friend my details so that they can ‘solve this issue’.
Ordinarily that would be fine as I love to share my knowledge with people, BUT, the manner in which they tried to get hold of me beggars belief.
Picture this – I am hard at work editing and my screen begins pinging with the following: A Facebook Messenger request, a Facebook friend request, a WhatsApp Message, a Phone Call, a WhatsApp Voice Call – all from the same guy within 5 minutes and followed by a WhatsApp message from his web developer friend.
Now when someone does the above it is normally to ask you for money and NOT to offer you business so I decided to leave the messages and not reply for 3 hours.
Eventually when I did reply, Web Developer friend sensed my deep feelings of being harassed for nothing and apologised.
What my erstwhile friend thinks is unknown at this time as he has been blocked, deleted and scrubbed from communicating with me.
And the upshot of that poor decision to not renew the domain name and go to Social Media? Well, it is going to cost my erstwhile friend and client a lot of money to secure his domain of choice. Like around 30 times more than the annual fees he would have paid for the last 3 years.
And the lessons learned?
- Don’t give up your business domain at all
- When asking someone for assistance DO NOT begin your journey with a full on harrassment episode, rather start with a gentle kiss and not rush to full blown coitus off the bat.
If you want advice on web hosting, web development, domain name registrations, etc. don’t hesitate to ask now but, please, do it through my contact form and let me know exactly what you want. The worst thing that could happen is you will have to wait a couple of hours for a reply.
