What to Know Before You Hand Over the Keys to Your Website

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I’ve seen it too many times: 

A business owner hires someone cheap to fix their site or “just update a plugin,” and everything breaks. 

Or worse? 

They get hacked—because the person they trusted didn’t follow secure practices. 

In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on what really happens when you hand your website over to the wrong support. 

I’ll share stories from over 20 years in the industry—plus the red flags to watch for, and how to find support that won’t just fix problems but prevent them in the first place. 

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Episode Transcript

Carrie Saunders (00:00):
I've seen it too many times.
A business owner hires someonecheap to fix their website or to
just update something small andeverything breaks.
Or worse, they get hackedbecause the person they trusted
didn't actually follow properprocedures with their sense of
information.
In this episode, I'm pullingback the curtain on what really
happens when you hand over yourwebsite to the wrong support.

(00:24):
And I'll share stories fromover 20 years of experience in
the industry, plus red flags towatch for and how to find
support that won't just fix yourproblems but will prevent them
in the first place.
And one of the most expensivecleanups we've ever had happen
started with a $20 an houroverseas hire.
I'll share what unfolded andwhat we had to do to repair the

(00:45):
damage coming up.
So let's dive in.
Struggling to turn websitetraffic into real sales, you're
not alone and you don't have tofigure it out all yourself.
Welcome to Smarter OnlineBusiness, the podcast for course
creators, coaches, ande-commerce entrepreneurs who
want their websites to convertvisitors into buyers without the
tech overwhelm.
I'm your host, Carrie Saunders,a website strategist and

(01:06):
conversion expert with over 20years of experience.
Each episode delivers simple,proven strategies to help you
generate more revenue and makeyour website your smartest sales
tool.
Welcome back to the show.
Today we're talking about whytech help isn't just super
straightforward.
We need to make sure we'refinding the right person to help
us with our website.
So tech support isn't just atask, it's access.

(01:30):
It's access to your systems.
So I want to get this clear.
Giving someone access to yourwebsite is like giving them a
key to your home or to youroffice.
You're trusting them with yourcustomer data.
You're trusting them withproduct delivery system, whether
that's a service or a physicalproduct.
You're trusting them with yourbrand's reputation.

(01:51):
It's not something that youshould take lightly.
And I see people taking thislightly way more lightly than
they should.
So many people treat techsupport like it's no big deal
until it is.
Think about it.
You wouldn't let somebody, astranger, walk into your house
without knowing them first,right?
Or without vetting them first.
So that's what we need to bethinking about with our

(02:14):
websites.
We need to be vetting, we needto be making sure that they're a
trustworthy person as much aswe possibly can.
Obviously, we're, you know,there's no perfect test for that
other than long-termreputation, but we need to make
sure that we are findingsomebody that is trustworthy to
work on our websites.
So that $20 an hour hire, theydidn't use secure login

(02:38):
protocols.
I want to give you a little bitof clue what's going to happen
here.
They left an old admin useractive and the site got hacked.
The client came back to usmonths later.
And after thousands of dollarsin lost sales and reputation
damage, they had to pay usthousands of dollars to fix
their website and get itunhacked.
So, not to really scare youthere, but I do want to say that

(03:01):
just to make sure that it'svery clear and serious to you,
because this obviously canhappen.
We've seen it happen multipletimes.
It's definitely not the norm.
But we have seen also moreminor versions of this where
they just completely like messup the site.
They or they have left backdoors, is what it's called, for

(03:24):
other hackers to get back inlater.
One time they basically werepassing along the password in an
insecure manner, and so somehacker just got direct access to
everything very easily, withoutany effort at all.
So, to help you prevent this, Iwant to give you some red flags
on what to look for when you'relooking to hire somebody to

(03:46):
help you with your website.
So, one thing I want you tolook for is they ask for full
access right away without aclear scope, without a clear
idea of what they're going to bedoing.
This can many times showimmaturity.
Whenever we are, say, let's saywe're quoting a website.
Sometimes we need to look atthe files and look underneath

(04:08):
the hood, is what I like to callit, when we're quoting a site.
I will ask and say, hey, is itokay if you give me, you know,
FTP access so that I can lookunder the hood, see what's going
on.
This would be in particularwith e-commerce stores.
And I said, you know, we won'tbe changing anything.
Is it okay if I take a look?
You know, I am askingpermission.

(04:28):
I'm not demanding it.
That is also kind of a cluehere is when they're asking for
certain access and permissionsfor it, rather than, you know, I
have to have this or I can'tdo, you know, you gotta look at
underneath the lines of theattitudes as well.
Another thing is if they saythey don't make backups or they
don't make sure that you aregiving them uh your passwords

(04:52):
and your access in a securemanner.
So, what do I mean by a securemanner?
And we'll go back to thebackups in a second.
A secure manner is not emailingit.
Do not, if at all at allpossible, email any passwords to
somebody that's gonna beworking on your website.
Email is very insecure.
Anybody watching your email onthe internet can read it.

(05:14):
It who knows where it's goingto go into their computer and
system.
What if they had some sort ofvirus on their system and it can
read their password, you know,whatever you sent to them.
So we want to have a secureencrypted way to send passwords.
So make sure you're usingsomething that is secure and
encrypted.

(05:35):
And then let's go back to thebackups.
I kind of put backups andsecurity in here at the same
time.
So when somebody's working onyour website, they should be
backing up when possible beforethey make the changes.
It's something we always do isback up any files that we are
changing.
So ask, do you back up my sitebefore you make changes?
It's a great question to askand see what their reaction is.

(05:56):
And then if they can't explainwhat they want to do or are
going to be doing in plainEnglish, and then what I mean by
plain English is not literallythe language English, but in a
clear manner to you as to whatthey're doing, then that can be
a bit of a red flag because thatmight mean that they don't
understand what you want, ortheir communication, there's a

(06:18):
bit of a breakdown there.
So make sure the communicationis very, very good.
Another red flag is that theyghost you after fixing
something.
That's a huge red flag and agreat way to know that you
shouldn't be using them again.
And sometimes their prices feeltoo good to be true.
Now, you can find goodinexpensive labor out there, but

(06:41):
I also want you to be followyour gut and be cautious.
You know, if it is too good tobe true, there might be a
reason.
Many times the people whocharge more for their work, it
they charge more because of theexperience behind it.
And the user can do the jobalmost all the time faster, and
i.e., either cheaper or the sameprice as those who charge less

(07:03):
per hour.
So just go with your gut on howwhether something feels too
good to be true here.
And there is no shame here.
We all want to save money, andit's very important that we are
very money conscious in ourbusiness.
But with the wrong techsupport, it doesn't save you
money.
It actually costs you more toclean up any chaos or any mess
that happens.

(07:24):
And just to be clear here, Iwork with some great, amazing
overseas developers.
It's not really where they'refrom.
And so I'm not talking aboutoverseas developers in
particular.
And Matt currently hassomething about this too.
It's really about how theperson works because I have also
found, you know, localdevelopers that also are not
kosher and are not somebody youwould want to work with.

(07:45):
So really look at who you feellike they are.
Do they do secure protocols forgetting passwords and sharing
information?
Do they communicate well?
Do you feel comfortable withthem?
Use your gut here.
Many times your gut will reallytell you.
It's really how they work.
Communicate and protect yourbusiness that ideally really,

(08:05):
really, really matters.
So then let's flip the coin andtalk about what the right tech
support looks like.
Great tech support should feellike a partnership, not a
gamble.
It should feel like somebodywalking side by side with you,
helping you along the way, andreally guiding you in your
business from a tech perspectiveand having your back.

(08:26):
Kind of like a little tech bestfriend is what I kind of like
to think of it.
They are there for you and withyou.
You want someone who explainsthings clearly, not in jargon.
Or might use jargon and say,hey, if this doesn't make sense,
let me know and I'll explain ita little bit more.
Somebody who really does a goodjob of communicating.
They have a track wrap, Gurta,of secure and stable work.

(08:50):
They have doing been doing thiswork in industry for a while
now.
They also document what theydo.
They let you know exactly whatthey've done and how they've
done it and what's going onbehind the scenes if you need to
know that.
And they're also proactive, notjust reactive.
So many times when we'reworking on a site, we might see

(09:10):
a security issue as we'reworking on a site.
We will make sure that we tellour client, hey, we found this
potential security issue overhere.
We just want you to know if hewants to clean it up, we can add
that on.
But we want to make sure thatyou know that because many times
we would come behind anotherdeveloper, another programmer,
and find that they left someinsecure files on the server

(09:32):
that could give clues as to alittle bit more details about
the server than should be, whichcan cause hackers to have an
easier way to get into theserver.
That would be just like kind ofa simple way to say it.
They kind of know a little bitmore under the covers so that
it's easier to attack,basically.
So somebody that's proactiveand not just reactive, and

(09:53):
somebody that cares about theirwork and how their work impacts
your business.
So again, this is like apartnership.
They care about your work, theycare about not just this one
transaction, they care about itbeing a partnership.
So when you find that rightperson or team, you'll stop
worrying about break fix tasks.

(10:15):
You'll start focusing ongrowth, you'll start moving
forward again.
And if that business who spent$20 an hour with somebody had
vetted it, and if they had spenta bit more, a little bit more
money with somebody else who isa bit more trusted, they could
have saved them severalthousands of dollars in repair

(10:38):
and downtime.
It was quite the frustratingfrom us um situation to see them
go through that.
We never want to have to cleanup somebody else's stuff.
We never want to have to unhacka site.
It just shouldn't be somethingwe need to do.
It just hopefully should bepreventable, but nothing's ever
perfect.
So, yes, we do have to do thosethings.

(11:00):
And it's frustrating for us tosee a business have to put the
time, money, and effort intofixing something that shouldn't
have happened to begin with,especially in this situation I'm
talking about.
So if you've been burned bytech support before or if you're
feeling unsure about who'stouching your website, I want
you to know this.
You don't have to figure thisout yourself.

(11:21):
Inside our converting websitecourse, we help you build not
just a better website, but asmarter approach to managing it.
We talk about the tech tools,conversion structure, and even
how to protect what you'rebuilding.
So if you're ever interested inthat, you can find it on our
website atsmarteronlinebusiness.com
forward slash TCW.
And as a bonus, if you want tohave a safe place to ask tech

(11:43):
questions and find vetted help,find help that you are
comfortable with, join a freeFacebook group.
You can get to it easily bygoing to
smarteronlinebusiness.comforward slash Facebook, and that
will redirect you to our group.
So let's jump into that bonustip, that vetting checklist.
So before you hire anyone towork on your website, ask

(12:04):
yourself these questions.
Do they explain their processclearly on how they work?
Do they provide a backup planor security protocol?
Do they provide a secure wayfor you to give them access they
need?
Can they show you, you know,past clients or reviews on their
work to show you know otherpeople have trust of them?

(12:25):
If the answer to any of theseis no, I would encourage you to
keep looking.
Your business deserves supportthat protects it, not just
patches it up.
That's all we have for thisweek's episode of the Smarter
Online Business Podcast.
I hope this encourages you tofind that right tech support.
I hope it doesn't scare you.
My whole point is to hope yousee those red flags, hope you

(12:49):
see what potentially couldhappen so that you are more
diligent about finding thatright tech support so that you
can have a partner in yourbusiness guiding you along the
way every single day.
And if you love this episode,please be sure to rate and
review us on Apple Podcasts orwherever you are following our
podcast.
And we will see you next week.