Here, take the wheel, you can drive

I used to be the webmaster for a large corporation. I was in charge of creating websites and web applications. I worked with internal departments to get their message and data published to the external website or the intranet. The company that I worked for had 50+ departments and over 3000 employees. Keeping up with the information and data of that many departmental clients took a lot of juggling.

Very quickly I learned that my job’s true purpose was to help people help themselves. I created tools and processes that allowed clients to control their information and manage their web presence themselves. Many clients were hungry for this, embraced it, and pushed the boundaries of what we did. I loved this. Some greeted me on our first meeting with “Oh I am so glad you are here, our area of the intranet is so out of date, I’m glad that you can finally get to it”. I would excitedly tell them – you don’t need me, you can do it yourselves. They would become confused and mumble something about it not being their job and they wanted me to update the content. I would agree to start them out on the right foot and ask them for what they wanted changed and would get a perplexed look.

This is an important difference of perception that highlights a danger for many small business owners.

My clients at the large corporation, who wanted me to do all their updates, didn’t really want me to do their updates. They wanted me to relieve them of the responsibility of managing their portion of the website.

I have found many clients (my own and others) who let their designer take control of the content and strategy portion of their website redesign. They are relieved that help is available and leave everything up to the professional. Which is fine if you are working with a professional who will bring an array of choices to you for important decisions – who will have a dialogue with you. Unfortunately, sometimes this attitude switches the goal from creating a website that reflects a business (that is unique) to just creating a website.

The point is — ultimately you control your website. You are responsible for its content and for updating it. You are responsible for the message it sends to your customers. You don’t have to build the site, or even figure out the best way to build the site – you just have to be involved and stay engaged with the process. Resist just being a passenger and navigate what you know best – what makes your business unlike any other.