Keep the Engines Clean
I love my dog. She's the most adorable red beagle. Her name's Luna and she's my pride and joy. And though I spend many of my waking moments with her (and she sleeps under the covers at night), I must have been so busy I didn't realize that her nails needed a serious trim. I discovered this as she whimpered when one of her nails got caught in her collar and just wouldn't let go.
I swear there's a lesson for ecommerce in here...
The truth of the matter is I got so buried in work that I shamefully ignored standard maintenance. Store owners do this all the time. In fact, it's the primary reason I have been so busy - fixing corruption and problems caused by the failure to heed attention to regular maintenance.
You'd think we'd all learn our lessons, especially when issues wind up costing us more money in the long run (fortunately, Luna's vet takes walk-ins and her annual plan provides for free nail trimming; still, it took some unscheduled time out of my day).
There are things in life and businesses we just have to keep up with. They are often the most ignored - keeping our vehicle's oil changed, replacing filters in the air conditioner, and for you cooks, seasoning our iron skillets. Avoid these necessary steps, and we wind up paying in the long run. While most older cars are getting junked, my brother just sold his '91 Saturn for a more than decent price, all the while the odometer boasted more than 200,000 miles. The reason? Regular maintenance.
My poor dog was probably a month away from having permanent problems with walking because I failed to pay attention to those nails; I'm really too embarrassed to even admit it, but if you can learn from my mistakes, all the better.
Many store owners take the statement "the store runs itself" literally, thinking the only need is to upload products and keep prices updated. Just as many don't regularly scan their computers for viruses and spyware, they ignore running maintenance on the back end of the store. Every day developers and hosts are called on to stop what they're doing to fix a problem that's root started some time before. It's costly, not only to the store owner, but also to many other clients who are awaiting necessary work to be completed.
It's easy to forget about keeping things running smoothly because, quite often, we live by the rule that if it isn't broken, it's working fine. But learn from the mistakes of millions before you - take those moments to keep the engines running clean: In your car, in your home, and with your online store. And by all means, your pets, too...
