The Importance of Asking for Help for Entrepreneurs

This week was quite a scary one for me: there was a point where I thought I had lost my blog!

I had purchased a new domain mindyourbusiness.bz and wanted to connect it to my website.

I thought “how hard could it be, I’m a pretty tech savvy millennial, surely I can figure this out.”

After watching a few videos and reading a few articles, the process seemed straightforward.

I followed all the steps, took my time, and made sure that I understood everything I was doing.

After completing the process, I hit refresh to see the final result: Your website no longer exists.

My heart sank. I couldn’t believe it. Had I just lost all of my work over the past few months?

After some panicking, there was only one thing left to do: get in touch with customer support.

I entered a live chat and spoke with a representative, explaining everything that happened.

I was a little sceptical. I never have good experiences with these chats, but I’d no other option.

To my surprise, after an hour and a half of chatting, the representative had retrieved my site!

Not only that, but they even managed to connect my new domain to my existing website.

I thanked them immensely, left a glowing review, and went to bed very relieved that night.

So for this blog, I thought I’d share my key takeaways from this nerve wracking experience!

1. Keep Calm and Carry On

It’s very easy to panic in these kind of situations; I know I have done it many times!

It’s also very easy to assume the worse; I thought that was it, goodbye blog forever.

Rather than trying to figure out a solution these emotions can cripple you if you’re not careful.

One of the things I did well in this situation was that I took a deep breath and remained calm.

I then started thinking of all the possible options I have available to me to solve this problem.

I knew that watching more videos and reading more articles was not going to help, I needed to speak to an actual human being. This ended up being the best action I could have taken.

It is very important to stay calm in these situations. It helps by starting to take a deep breath.

Start by analysing the situation and think about the different ways you can solve this problem.

Unfortunately, you may have to go through multiple iterations before you solve the problem.

But by staying calm, you will get you through it. Panicking, stressing, and crying doesn’t help!

2. When in Doubt, Ask for Help

Upon reflection, I realised I should have just asked for help from the very beginning.

From the start, I was very uncomfortable in undertaking this process, yet I still did it anyway.

As entrepreneurs, we’re part of a culture where we think we have to do everything ourselves.

Asking for help is not regarded as an initial possible option, but seen as more of a last resort.

Had I asked for help from the beginning, I could have avoided all this unnecessary headache!

Had I gotten in touch with customer support, asking them to connect my new domain to my website, they could have done it in a matter of minutes, saving me 1.5hrs of troubleshooting.

This has taught me that if I encounter a similar situation again, to just ask for help right away.

Asking for help is not a sign of weakness, but strength; don’t let your ego tell you otherwise.

3. Always have Hope

As mentioned earlier, it’s very easy to assume the very worst possible case in these situations:

“That’s it, my blog is lost forever. All my work down the drain. There is no way to get it back.”

I think as humans, we’re conditioned to always assume the worse, not our best characteristic.

For me, I genuinely thought that I had lost my blog.

Not because I was being pessimistic, but the facts were right in front of me.

It literally said “your website no long exists”, there is really no other way to interpret it!

My lack of experience and knowledge in this area did not help in this situation either.

However, regardless of this, I still had hope. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have contacted support.

I wasn’t sure what they could do, if they could even do anything, but knew that I had to try.

To my surprise, they not only retrieved my site, but achieved what I was trying to do in the first place. This show that regardless of how bleak things may seem, you have to have hope.

For when you have hope, you will not give up, and will end solving the problem in the end.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

What a week it has been. It was certainly unexpected to say the least!

However, I believe these experiences happen to us for a reason, so that we learn from them.

I have certainly learnt a lot from this experience, as painful as it may have been.

What’s more, I am certainly much more optimistic if this were to happen again!

It’s unlikely this exact same situation will happen again, but certainly other variations of it.

I think what’s invaluable is that I will know how to react better next time: stay calm, ask for help, and have hope. You will find that things are not always as detrimental as they seem!

I hope you have enjoyed reading this blog on The Importance of Asking for Help for Entrepreneurs.

Have you experienced a similar situation? Please share in the comments below!

If you enjoyed reading this, check out my other blog: Your First Steps to Writing a Business Plan.