As a business owner, many times you don’t know what you don’t know when you set-up the technical part (or any part) of your business. Sometimes even almost 8-years later , in my case, you realize you still don’t know it all.
Let me tell you a little story, it may seem a bit “techy”, but there is a point to it for business owners, so bear with me.
Recently I requested a change be done with my website. In order to get this process completed, I needed access to something with my business email. This email was created within Google Apps and I needed my G-suite admin account. That seemed simple enough, since I am the business owner, right? I just login with my business email and it would be there. Not so fast! I didn’t have the admin rights to my G-suite account. This meant that I couldn’t make changes etc.
After some investigating and brain searching, I was able to discern who probably had those rights and reached out to him. Luckily, he was able to make the switch to my account and all is well. I have to tell you; 8 years is a long way to trace back! I was really lucky!
Here’s the thing, if this wasn’t the right person and he hadn’t been able to provide me the rights, I may have been in a world of hurt.
So, you see, it’s something I didn’t know about, but when I found out – almost 8 years later, I had to do quite a bit of scrambling. What if I couldn’t reach him? What if he refused to make the change?
Here’s another story:
A colleague reached out to me when someone that was the Admin for a Facebook Business Page suddenly died. She wanted to know if I had a contact at Facebook (I wish!) that could help this business gain access back to the page. Unfortunately, in cases like this, unless someone else is an Admin for the page, there is very little you can do. Sometimes, there is a way in, but I have found it harder and harder to find these little loopholes.
Here’s my point. Too many times I find this happens with people who own a business and are just starting out. They think they are doing the right thing by letting someone else set something up, like a website, email or Facebook Business Page and they fail to realize that whomever did the set-up has all the access. They don’t know what they don’t know!
Here are a few things to watch out for when you are a business owner setting up a business:
- Buy your own domain(s). When you want a domain for your business, buy it yourself. If someone else buys it for you, you do not have rights! Too many times I have heard that a business doesn’t own their domain and the “owner” wants to sell it back to them or won’t sell it back to them. THEN, the business owner is held hostage by the owner of the domain OR may need to create a different one. Neither one of these are great options.
- Be the Admin. If you have someone else set-up your email (like in my case, my business email account via Google), be sure YOU have the Admin rights to the account.
- Buy your own website theme. When creating a website, buy your own theme. If there are any updates and you happen to not be with the original creator of your website, you have to repurchase. (Yep, I learned that one the hard way too!)
- Make sure you have the role as Administrator of your website. If you have someone else creating a website for you, be sure it’s in the contract that YOU are the “owner” of your website and will be given the Administrator Role. This one may sound strange, but I have heard horror stories where a website has been fully paid for and set-up, but the web designer will not give full access rights back to the owner. Anything less than Administrator means someone else has full access and you do not.
- Have more than one Admin on your Facebook Business Page. Be sure that on a Facebook Business Page that there is a trusted back-up Admin on the page. If you don’t have this and you get locked out for any reason, there is almost NO WAY you are getting back into that account. Since I am an entrepreneur, I have my husband as my back-up.
- Tell someone where your logins are. Many of us don’t think about these things until it’s too late, but if you are suddenly incapacitated or die, who can get access to all of your business entities (website, social media accounts, emails, etc.)? I know it’s not something we like to think about, but it is important.
These are some life lessons I wanted to pass on to you today. This still goes back to my first sentence, you don’t know what you don’t know. But, now you DO know! I hope this provides you with some tips that will help you or someone you care about make some more informed decisions as a business owner.
Do you have any tips you want to add?
