A Danger In Outsourcing Your Website Work

There is a danger in outsourcing your website work and other online activities that are seldom uncovered until disaster strikes.

I am a fan of outsourcing. It will serve you well. Just plan your activities out in advance and have an organized way to keep trak of it all.

Outsourcing begins simple enough. You need someone to set up your website. Then you choose someone else to install plugins, widgets and themes.  Then you have someone else integrate additional tools for marketing, social media and email. Then you have someone else that needs access to one or more of these services or sites.

Have you ever had one of these moments?

You can see where this is headed. Way too many hands in the pie, no centralized list of who is doing what, and little ability to restrict or delete access after each of these respective projects are completed.

One of the fallacies of the internet era is that it is all point and click, drag and drop simple.

Nothing could be further from the truth. It is a confusing mess, especially if you have not maintained a master list that contains who has done what, access they have been granted, and their responsibilities, along with all of your service provider links, ID’s and passwords, expiration dates, etc.

When you began your online adventures it was all pretty simple. As time went on, you had family members, friends, co-workers, guru’s and even company representatives all getting their fingers into things. One small piece in the middle of this breaks because it was not updated, the developer shut down, or changes occurred that created a problem somewhere else.

When a problem occurs, and it will, who do you call? Reaching out to the wrong person will delay a fix. Contacting everyone just causes a flurry of emails, phone calls, and hair-pulling.

Problems will happen – guaranteed. I have a form that I call the Client Asset Listing (CAL). This form is designed to capture and organize, in one place, every relevant tool, service, company, and provider that is involved with your website and/or online presence.

I don’t begin any client relationship without having this in place. It is stored in a central, shared online storage services like Dropbox or Amazon S3. Both my client and I have access. Any time a new service or tool is used on my client’s behalf, it is added to the CAL and saved.

My Two Recommendations:

1. Pick one person/company that will be your go-to person. Someone who you trust, who understands your business and your strategy, and make she/he responsible for maintaining your Client Asset Listing.
2. Complete your Client Asset Listing, keep it up-to-date, and store in multiple local and online storage locations.

I am providing my Client Asset Listing for you to use. It is a .doc file so that you can enter your own information and save it for your own use. I encourage you to download and use this – it will benefit you in the future – guaranteed. Get your copy and fill it out. Add additional services as needed. Do it now and you will not have to panic at some time in the future.