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I am sure you have heard the old saying “No man is an island unto himself”. It was written by John Donne, a 17th century English poet, by the way. This is never more true than in the world of Internet Marketing. As much as you may want to be an island, sitting all by yourself working away on your success story, it is nearly impossible to do.
In another life, about 15 years ago, give or take a year, I was a loan officer at a mortgage company in Northern California. I struggled along in this position for almost two years until a rogue band of us left and started our own mortgage company and I went on to other things like starting the IT and Marketing departments for the new company that went on to become one of the largest, most successful mortgage companies in Northern California at the time.
I hated being a loan officer for one primary reason; my very future and success depended on far too many other people or entities to suit me. You had to depend on appraisers to make an intelligent and unbiased valuation of the property you were trying to arrange a loan on so you would have enough room to make the loan your client needed. You had to depend on title companies to get title reports on the property in a timely fashion so you could beat your competition who was probably trying to get the same loan for the same client at the same time. Not the least dependence was on your very client who you had worked your butt off to get them the best loan you could who would sell your soul to the devil for a mere 1/8 of a point loan fee less than I was offering them (and the devil probably could not really deliver the discount anyway) and snatch the business right out from under your nose. It was a dog eat dog world back then in that business.
I did not like having my income potential in the hands of so many and I often felt like I had no control over my own destiny. While I did not do bad, making upwards of $100,000 a year in 1992, the stress was not worth the money. The difference between this and the mortgage business is I own this business and I have more choices as to whom I do business with, thus more control.
The world of Internet Marketing has some similarities, although not nearly as bad, and I was reminded of that late Friday night or early Saturday morning when during the migration of servers that one of my primary web sites, Menstrual Cramps Help, sits on, from one location to another, had a hiccup and I lost my online store for untold hours and lost untold business. The problem was eventually resolved and all is well now but there I was again anything but an island unto myself. Fortunately putting in an emergency request ticket to the help desk kept me from being down far longer I am certain.
Could I have done anything to prevent this? Maybe if I had unlimited funds and owned my own servers in a completely controlled environment complete with redundancy upon redundancy accounting for everything that could go wrong and probably would. That however would not be practical and even some of the biggest players in our world do not host their own servers, in fact many using the same company that I employ for this domain and numerous others I have hosted with them.
The point is you have to weigh the chances and consequences of this type of thing occurring and make the best decision you can to protect your business. I know that this migration in the long run will only make my hosting company better and the chances of this occurring even less likely. The moral of the story is you cannot be an island and you do have to depend on others for much of your success. You just need to build good, lasting relationships, do your due diligence when choosing other businesses you will depend on and trust your instincts and your island will be a place that is inhabited by friendly natives.
I took several days off here recently from our Health & Wellness business to put the finishing touches on a pet project of mine; my new web site dedicated to the mighty 
