I've heard this term a few times in past two weeks, on TV and radio advertisements, and it got me to thinking. Anyone see smoke? So ... I wrote the following about not knowing what you don't know. Your thoughts?
You don't know what you don't know
Of course you don’t know what you don’t know, but how important is it to know what you don’t know? Personally, I don’t know a lot about astrophysics, but that’s not really important to me. LOL. My wife and I own a hair salon, so understanding beauty products is essential. Knowing the difference between hi-lites and lo-lites, or how to apply color is a must.
Making assumptions
In most industries, vendors take knowledge for granted – and by that I mean they assume most clients know more than they really do. Here’s an example. Most of us have dealt with printers, specifically replacing toner cartridges, but how many of us understand toner yields – how many pages you can reasonably expect to print from that new cartridge. Vendors use terms like yields 250 pages at 6% coverage. They don’t tell you that if you use any shading whatsoever on your prints, coverage jumps over 12%, cutting the yield of that cartridge in half – to just 125 pages!
Not knowing what you don’t know could put your online business at risk
In web hosting, an awful lot of prospects buy on price. Hey, the economy is tough – we’re all trying to stretch our dollars. When a few of the larger providers started offering unlimited disk space and bandwidth on their shared webhosting plans, it raised some eyebrows because everyone in the industry knew unlimited was unrealistic. Of course, there were limitations on their unlimited plans, buried in their Terms and Conditions, but how many of us really read Terms and Conditions? In this instance, not knowing what you don’t know could put your online business at risk.
Don’t have a clue?
In the web hosting industry, there are shared hosting plans, virtual plans, semi-dedicated, reseller plans, VPS, clouds, dedicated servers and colocation. If I asked my wife to tell me the difference between them, she’d be like, “What?” Most small business owners realize on some level that they need a website, but probably more than a few are just like my wife. They know they need an online presence, would love to sell their product or service online, but have no idea how to go about doing that – so they do what most of us do now. We search the Internet for info, and try to decipher what makes one provider, developer or vendor more appealing than the next.
Would not knowing what you don’t know hinder your ability to select a new vendor?
A common theme I hear from business owners is, “I have a website, and I need or want to make some changes, but the firm or person who designed my site went out of business and now I’m stuck and need help.” Would not knowing what you don’t know hinder your ability to select a new vendor? How would you know what questions to ask? If I were to tell you that your landing page size was 1.03 megabytes, could you relate that to return traffic or conversion ratios? If you reduced that page size to under 60 kilobytes, would that increase your sales?
We can’t be expected to know everything
Of course none of us can be expected to know everything. That’s why we leave certain things to the experts, like brain surgery. In web hosting, stuff like bandwidth and disk space are important, but so is the stability and expertise of the provider you host with. I’ve always heard that the measure of a great company is not so much what they offer, but how they respond under pressure or stress. How do they treat their customers? Companies that survive the test of time are those that understand the lifetime value of their clients.
What separates web hosting providers?
Aside from the obvious like plans and pricing, why would you select one web hosting provider over another? If I’m a growing mom and pop shop or even a small business with thousands of dollars tied into IT infrastructure and online marketing strategies, there is a common thread – the need to know what you don’t know. I always recommend asking lots of questions in your search, but equally important are the questions your prospective provider asks you. Do they genuinely show an interest in your business, and offer solutions based on your specific requirements and growth projections, or do they simply offer packages. As you grow, can you upgrade your plan – for example from shared to dedicated? And is knowing that important? It’s important for your provider to know what you don’t know, and that they help by partnering to grow your business and theirs.
To Your Success
- Steve
You don't know what you don't know
Of course you don’t know what you don’t know, but how important is it to know what you don’t know? Personally, I don’t know a lot about astrophysics, but that’s not really important to me. LOL. My wife and I own a hair salon, so understanding beauty products is essential. Knowing the difference between hi-lites and lo-lites, or how to apply color is a must.
Making assumptions
In most industries, vendors take knowledge for granted – and by that I mean they assume most clients know more than they really do. Here’s an example. Most of us have dealt with printers, specifically replacing toner cartridges, but how many of us understand toner yields – how many pages you can reasonably expect to print from that new cartridge. Vendors use terms like yields 250 pages at 6% coverage. They don’t tell you that if you use any shading whatsoever on your prints, coverage jumps over 12%, cutting the yield of that cartridge in half – to just 125 pages!
Not knowing what you don’t know could put your online business at risk
In web hosting, an awful lot of prospects buy on price. Hey, the economy is tough – we’re all trying to stretch our dollars. When a few of the larger providers started offering unlimited disk space and bandwidth on their shared webhosting plans, it raised some eyebrows because everyone in the industry knew unlimited was unrealistic. Of course, there were limitations on their unlimited plans, buried in their Terms and Conditions, but how many of us really read Terms and Conditions? In this instance, not knowing what you don’t know could put your online business at risk.
Don’t have a clue?
In the web hosting industry, there are shared hosting plans, virtual plans, semi-dedicated, reseller plans, VPS, clouds, dedicated servers and colocation. If I asked my wife to tell me the difference between them, she’d be like, “What?” Most small business owners realize on some level that they need a website, but probably more than a few are just like my wife. They know they need an online presence, would love to sell their product or service online, but have no idea how to go about doing that – so they do what most of us do now. We search the Internet for info, and try to decipher what makes one provider, developer or vendor more appealing than the next.
Would not knowing what you don’t know hinder your ability to select a new vendor?
A common theme I hear from business owners is, “I have a website, and I need or want to make some changes, but the firm or person who designed my site went out of business and now I’m stuck and need help.” Would not knowing what you don’t know hinder your ability to select a new vendor? How would you know what questions to ask? If I were to tell you that your landing page size was 1.03 megabytes, could you relate that to return traffic or conversion ratios? If you reduced that page size to under 60 kilobytes, would that increase your sales?
We can’t be expected to know everything
Of course none of us can be expected to know everything. That’s why we leave certain things to the experts, like brain surgery. In web hosting, stuff like bandwidth and disk space are important, but so is the stability and expertise of the provider you host with. I’ve always heard that the measure of a great company is not so much what they offer, but how they respond under pressure or stress. How do they treat their customers? Companies that survive the test of time are those that understand the lifetime value of their clients.
What separates web hosting providers?
Aside from the obvious like plans and pricing, why would you select one web hosting provider over another? If I’m a growing mom and pop shop or even a small business with thousands of dollars tied into IT infrastructure and online marketing strategies, there is a common thread – the need to know what you don’t know. I always recommend asking lots of questions in your search, but equally important are the questions your prospective provider asks you. Do they genuinely show an interest in your business, and offer solutions based on your specific requirements and growth projections, or do they simply offer packages. As you grow, can you upgrade your plan – for example from shared to dedicated? And is knowing that important? It’s important for your provider to know what you don’t know, and that they help by partnering to grow your business and theirs.
To Your Success
- Steve
