After putting up with some email and web site issues for a while, I thought now would be a good time to sort everything out, once and for all. I gave a local IT guy a call and started the process by telling him what I was experiencing and what I needed from him but asking “Can you help?”
When I investigated the issue myself I found that our web site was not being hosted by the company that I thought it was, and had paid for, it was somewhere else. The browser was showing ‘Not secure’ when viewing the web site so I wanted to find out why but no-one really knew what was going on, which is why I decided to get some professional help.
We arranged a meeting and he also introduced me to his ‘web site team’, as I had an issue with an SSL certificate being activated but not downloaded (????) and, after a lengthy discussion, we have agreed to get some things changed. This does mean that the web site is now useless until the web site team have worked their magic, but time to take action.
The thing that motivated me to take action was the fact I was looking through some old (2018) emails and there was one describing a ‘bounce back’ I’d had with a client and an email. So, for 4 years I have been putting up with a system that was starting to cause problems – 4 years! Why hadn’t I sorted things out sooner? I remember thinking it was not our system that was at fault, it was our clients fire wall system blocking us and I spoke to our contacts and asked them to check and put us on a white list, but, it happened with other clients as well.
This time of year, for us, does tend to slow down and so it’s a perfect time to do some in-house repairs. It’s also a great time for Mark (business partner) and me to get our heads together and plan 2023. Of course we discuss this all year long, but, setting some targets and looking how to progress as an organisation, is nice to align and agree the way forward.
So here we are at the end of 2022, investing in our IT and web site (which does need refreshing) and getting some training on the new system as I, apparently, am using something from the dark ages, so we need to understand how the newer version works. I realise that a little knowledge can be dangerous and, as we do not have the support of an internal IT team, I tended to ‘wing it’ a bit, just to get by. This is why it’s taken 4 years to get it sorted!
Do you have something similar going on for you? Are you holding on to and old version of something because it feels comfortable? What is the cost of doing that?
I advise people to identify issues, problems, challenges or objectives and plan solutions, but now it’s time for me to take some of my own medicine and take action. It feels great to be getting this resolved and I look forward to feeling confident that our emails will be getting through to our clients. Phew, about time!