If you’re a regular visitor to Self Help Daily, you undoubtedly recognize changes. As someone with 10 successful blogs, five business websites to maintain, a family, spoiled rotten cats, and a “modern day Snow White” personal to live up to (birds and wildlife don’t feed themselves, you know) – I pack a lot into my days. The last thing I ever want to do is have to devote hours to redesigning a blog.
Switching themes and doing the customizing that goes with it is a pain in the…. nevermind.
It’s especially unsavory when there were a lot of things I loved about the “old” theme. In this case, the old theme was the Get Noticed Theme (read my Get Noticed Theme Review here). She was a beauty. Potential? Forget about it – she had more potential than you could contain in all of Texas.
She had the potential to revolutionize blogging as we know it and she was, for the most part, a lot of fun to work with.
As I pointed out in my review (and as several individuals pointed out in the comments), support wasn’t the strong point with this theme. As in, there basically wasn’t any. If you’re familiar with themes, you know that when you buy the theme, they offer you support. There are active forums and/or support tickets available and you can expect a reply within a very short amount of time. After all, if you’re building a website (whether for yourself or a client), you don’t want to wait weeks or even days to move from STEP 1 to STEP 2.
Theme developers realize that, not only is it cool to do right by those who have trusted you, it’s good business to keep everyone as satisfied and buzzing along as possible. When your customers are happy and buzzing, it will attract others.
This is a good thing.
What’s more, the happy buzzing crowd will
Recently, the Get Noticed Theme sent out an e-mail that basically said they’d now actually offer support… after you paid nearly $200 that is.
This is on top of a very pricey theme.
Hence the changes you see here.
As I said in an edit I just did on the review, all I can hear is the adorable lady in the commercial, “That’s not how this is done. That’s not how any of this is done.” I mean, why didn’t they just ask me, I’d have told them, “NO! Anything but that!”
I’m not trying to bash them – far from it. I’ve got nothing but respect for everyone involved with the Get Noticed Theme. They aren’t just good people, they’re great people. They’re Barbara Bush level great people.
But she probably wouldn’t make a lot of great of decisions with a theme either.
It’s as though they came to a fork in the road. They saw that they were completely failing at offering support. They saw two options…
- Buckle up, hire more people, and support the individuals who entrusted them by buying their theme. Apologize for underestimating the success of the theme and possibly offer a few great, free “child themes” to everyone who has stuck with them through thick and thin. Or….
- Basically put the onus on those who have stuck with them by saying, “You didn’t get support because you didn’t pay for it! Pay now and maybe you’ll get it.”
Wrong choice and it frustrates me because, as I’ve said, the potential was SO there. Someone, somewhere along the way, simply made a bad decision. It happens to all of us. The thing is, sometimes people are good… and I mean really good… at justifying bad decisions. Especially if money is involved. The average person is simply not as interested in giving as they are in getting, so if the bad decision involves money, the odds of people (even great people) righting the wrong is butterfly wing thin.
I encourage you, if you are interested in the Get Noticed Theme, to do your own research into the theme. Just because I don’t personally recommend it any longer doesn’t mean there aren’t those who do.
As for my personal blog theme recommendations:
- Studiopress (I use their themes on my food blog, tea review blog, and others)
- DIY Themes (in use on my Mental Fitness blog)
- Appfinite (I use these beauties on ALL of the business websites I maintain)
Sigh… now I have two more blogs I have to redo. The birds will have to wait. ~ Joi
Mark Collier says
Thanks for your honest review. I share your concerns as well. In fact I’ve been trying to make some updates on a site made with the GN theme and can’t find any support online anywhere – user or otherwise. Is there a user group anywhere you’ve found?
Joi says
Mark, No I’m afraid I was never able to find anything resembling support. I just found it easier to get another theme. It is really a shame because Get Noticed had/has so much potential.
Nate says
Thanks a lot. I looked at the theme in mid-2015 when I was making the tough decision to go with word press. Before giving up on GN, I looked at the various reviews, contacted their support desk to understand the support options, etc. My answer was they were still working on understanding the support portion of their theme — very disappointed that was the answer. I cancelled my interest and also my Platform University Membership. I looked at Divi, Rainmaker, New Kajabi, Studio Press, and so many more and ran away. I am now using thrive themes to re-build my brand — starting with http://www.nathanielrobinson.com. Even as late as yesterday, I looked at the GN theme because it appears to have all of the functionality that I needed, BUT saw the renewal price and also the emphasis on “… maybe needing expert assistance…” so I am sticking with thrive folks Joi, once my site is up I may want you to guest post or participate in my virtual academy once I get the Thinkific Platform (http://www.betterlifestylers.com) up and running. I am on vacation in Greece for 3 months, so doing very little work.
Joi says
I was recently working on another one of my blogs and thought, “Curse you, Get Noticed Theme! Why didn’t you just play right?!” It truly has a lot of things about it I love and actually miss, however, the renewal price just beat all I ever saw. When someone thought up that idea, someone should’ve been brave enough to say, “That’s not how it’s done.” I’ve moved my themes back to Studio Press and Thesis themes, now (go figure!) renewal fees and they have excellent support.
Enjoy your vacation – what a beautiful place to spend three months! – Joi