Don’t Get Locked In

I was chatting to a friend the other day and she had some exciting news…

She’s been making organic cosmetic and skin care products for a few years now – quite literally from her kitchen table. She’s entirely self-taught and has built a loyal band of repeat customers.

She’s decided to take the plunge by opening her first shop, but has faced some unexpected difficulties.

It’s not that retail is on its knees thanks to online shopping – as she says you can’t sample your favourite to-die-for perfumes or skincare products online.

Her vision is to create an overwhelming fragrance experience, meaning as soon as her customers walk through the door, the fragrances hit them and their buying juices start to flow right away.

And she is absolutely right.

Her problem was landlords! 

She thought she’d found the ideal property – good location, footfall and monthly rent – and she could already visualise her business name splashed across the shop front.

Trouble was, the landlord wanted a minimum lease of eight years.

“What if my business changes over the next eight years” she said.

“I hope to grow, so I may need bigger premises.  What if things don’t go according to plan and I have to downsize?

There’s no way I can be locked into a lease I can’t escape from.”

I could see where she was coming from and that got me thinking about my own web design business clients. I wish I’d a pound in my pocket for the number of times I’ve heard from fitness professionals feeling trapped and locked in to their current website providers. All because they’ve piggy-backed.

What do I mean by piggy-backed?…

When I design a client’s website, I make sure their domain name remains totally independent of me. This gives my clients the freedom to move their finished website whenever they want – without being locked into my services. 

I’ve got enough confidence in my abilities that my clients will want to stay with me.

Once clients have paid for their website, I believe they should be free to move to any other provider if they want to. They should be able to take their own domain name which their customers use, week in week out with them.

That’s a freedom I would certainly want.

After all, a website is just like the attractive shopfront my friend visualised.

She visualised that once they walked through her door they’d be captivated – just like the personalised story I try to tell though the pages I design.

Piggy-backing means you’re in effect renting space from someone else, by bolting on to their domain.  You’re using their domain address (alias shopfront) with your name simply bolted on.  You’re probably also using a design layout being used by multiple others.

The big problem about piggy backing is if you want to change to another provider, you may have to ditch your domain – which after all is your main shopfront link to your customers.

Starting all over again with a new domain address is never a good idea. 

So, for example, if you use an (no names mentioned) international web design company to construct and host your website, you’d need their permission to move to another provider.  

Guess how difficult that can be?  Just check out the review pages.

So, the message I’m sending out to all is simply this…

Look before you leap. Whoever you use as your website designer, make sure your domain belongs to you.

Make sure you have freedom to choose your own future.

Unless, of course, you like the idea of a landlord’s eight-year lease.