Learning the Hard Way

I thought I had said goodbye to having to learn things the hard way when I left my Youth, however thing year I was reminded once again that some of life’s most important lessons are painful ones.

Having had the idea for We Want 2 Work in May 2010, I immediately purchased the URL's and set about finding a developer to construct the website for me. Before the developers started work they asked for the login details for my internet provider account, I felt uneasy doing this but they assured me that it was a standard practise and that they were just going to change over the hosting to their server so that they could construct the website. Having never had a website built before this all sounded plausible, so I gave over the details they needed, and hosting was moved to the developer’s server.

During the construction period things grew a little wobbly at times but I just put that down to the nature of the Techie Geeks building it. They were constantly late with deadlines, were very difficult to get hold of on the telephone and took an age to answer my emails. They did however keep reassuring me that everything was going fine and the site would be completed on time by the beginning of December.

We Have Lift Off

We launched the website on 10th January 2011 and things went great, we had over 700 Job Seekers sign up in the first 5 days. The site was designed to help SME’s save time and money on recruitment and the feedback I was getting from them was amazing. Then it all started to unravel, first off we realised that certain functions we had asked for were totally missing, then it became apparent that the search engine within the site was a massive fail, it was key to the whole site being able to function so at that point we had to stop marketing it to our paying customers i.e. SME's.

Things then went from bad to worse when we realised that the guys had stolen my URL's and therefore controlled my whole business, including having access to my Paypal account. Instead of just redirecting the hosting as promised, they had taken ownership of my URL’s by re-registering them into their own name.

It took 4 months of hard fighting to get my URL's back in to my name and under my control. I then had to refinance getting a whole new website built which I’m sure you can imagine has been a massive financial strain; I certainly did not have it in my contingency budget to get the main aspect of my business rebuilt.

                                    Peaceful Protest is still a powerful tool


The whole experience has been devastating and is to end in the Small Claims Courts in October, certainly NOT the way to launch a new enterprise!

I would urge everyone to check that they are the registered owner of their website, and to NEVER give out the details for their internet provider, however convincing the request. Although what happened to me is fairly rare, it is not unheard of, and so easily preventable.

The show must go on

Luckily for me I’m as stubborn as a mule and refused to let them beat me completely, the new We Want 2 Work website launched without hiccup on the 1^st of June 2011. I have no money left for marketing so we haven’t made much of a fanfare this time around but I’m a strong believer in Karma and the concept behind We Want 2 Work is still receiving 100% positive feedback. If you find yourself in a similar situation, don't despair and don't give up – wewant2work.co.uk got through it – you will too.

I'm looking forward to the future for We Want 2 Work, I don't suppose it will an easy ride from here but I must surely be over the worst ?!?

Why Everyone Should Have A Telephone Voice.

As a youngster I used to roll on the floor in hysterics when my Mum answered the telephone, her usual London accent with replaced with what I used to call her 'Pathe News' voice. H's made an apperance in her pronounciation and R's used to roll on forever, her usual 'Ello' became 'Hellow' and 'Darlin' never got a look in.

When I asked her why she spoke like that when she answered the phone she said it was because she didn't know who was calling. This was of course in the days before Caller Display or mobile phones so there was no way to know who was ringing. If it was anyone other than a friend or family she adopted her telephone voice not only so she sounded slightly posh but also so that she was properly understood.

I got to thinking about Mum and her Hyacynth Bucket voice recently while making calls to job applicants, I was amazed at how many people answered the phone with 'Alright' 'Ello' and 'Who's that?', considering I'm currently looking for Telesales staff I felt right from the get go that I was NOT speaking to a new member of our team. Mum was right (again)it is important how you sound on the phone, especially if you are unsure who is calling.

Next time your phone rings and you are not sure who is calling try to remember that you've sent off 101 CV's and that it may be a prospective employer calling to discuss your CV.