There’s a dynamic that creeps into a lot of web design relationships, and once you’re in it, it starts to feel normal. You follow up on a request you made last week. You send a second email when the first one doesn’t move anything. You check the site to see if the change was made, because you’re not sure it was. You start keeping a mental list of what’s pending and what’s overdue.
At some point you realize: you’re managing this person.
And managing your web designer is not what you signed up for. It’s not what you’re paying for. It is, if we’re being direct about it, a sign that something is wrong with the relationship — and has been for a while.
Managing your web designer is exactly like managing a bad employee
The parallel is exact. You’re paying somebody to do a job. You don’t trust them — not because you’re paranoid, but because you’ve learned you can’t trust them. They’ve shown you who they are. So you manage them, because if you don’t, things don’t get done. And managing them takes time away from your day. Real time. Time that should be going toward your actual business.
And then you get frustrated. And you go home and you complain to your significant other: you know, so-and-so is doing this again, and it’s been a week, and I don’t know why it’s so hard to get a simple thing done. And this significant other always rolls their eyes and says: why don’t you just fire them?
And your answer is some version of: it’s such a hassle to change.
That’s the trap. The hassle of switching feels bigger than the cost of staying — so you stay, and you manage, and the cost keeps accumulating, only it’s invisible. It’s your attention. Your bandwidth. The mental overhead of tracking someone else’s job on top of your own.
Here’s the thing: what do you normally do with that employee? Eventually you let them go. Not because the hassle of finding someone new disappears, but because the cost of keeping them finally becomes impossible to ignore. The same math applies to a web designer you shouldn’t have to manage.
If you’re having to manage your web design company, you need another web design company.
There’s a caveat worth naming: if there’s something outside the web company’s control — a third-party issue, a platform doing something unexpected, something that isn’t their fault — give them a chance. That’s a different situation. But if it’s a repeated problem, if the same thing keeps happening, that needs to be addressed and corrected once so it doesn’t happen anymore. So that you’re taken seriously and respected. Or you move on. Simple as that.
The daughter photo story — and what it reveals about how most web companies think
We were building a site for the owner of an assisted living group home. One of the sections was a bio — her as the main contact person. It had her initials as a placeholder. No photo.
That bothered us. Initials next to a bio are cold. A photo is so much nicer — especially for a business built on trust and personal care. So we kept following up. Asking for a photo. Hounding her, if we’re being honest. She had a business to run and photos weren’t at the top of her list.
She got it to us, and we were grateful for that. But what came through wasn’t just one photo — it was a group of photos that included her daughter.
Back and forth followed. Should the daughter be on the site? It turned out that had been the original plan — the daughter was part of the business. But as the conversation developed, it became clear the daughter was still in school. Not ready to take over yet. Not ready to be publicly featured as part of the operation.
So we made the decision together: just the primary owner now. The daughter later, when the time is right.
Here’s where most web companies and we part ways.
What a lot of designers would do — and this isn’t cynical speculation, it’s just human nature and the path of least resistance — is upload the one photo they need and move on. The other images? Gone. Either deleted or sitting in an email that will be impossible to find in fourteen months.
What we did: optimized all three images to webp — the primary owner individually, the daughter individually, and the combined photo. Compressed them so they’re small and fast. Loaded all three into the media library. Labeled and ready. Then built the site with the owner’s photo in place.
That took maybe ten extra minutes. Those ten minutes are the entire story.
This kind of thinking — anticipating what a client will need before they ask — is exactly what the best client relationships make possible. When a client trusts you enough to hand things over, you owe them the discipline to handle it right.
Will your future self thank you for what you’re doing today
This is a concept we come back to constantly — my wife and I use it as a gut check for decisions in all kinds of contexts. Will your future self thank you for what you’re doing today? It sounds simple. It’s surprisingly clarifying when you apply it to small choices that don’t feel important in the moment.
Fast-forward the daughter photo situation by a year. She finishes school. She’s ready. The owner emails us: okay, let’s add my daughter’s photo to the site.
Version one — we didn’t save the images: we have to ask for them again. And the owner, reasonably, says: I already sent those to you. And we have to say: I know, I’m sorry, I can’t find them. And she has to dig through her phone, find the photos, send them again, and the whole thing takes longer than it should and creates friction in a moment that should feel exciting — her daughter is joining the business, this is a milestone. Instead it’s an errand. We made her do an errand.
Version two — we saved everything: she emails us. We pull up the media library. Her daughter’s photo is already optimized, already sized correctly, already there. We say: I’ve got it, give me a few minutes. Done before she finishes her next cup of coffee.
The difference in those two scenarios is remarkable. The first one makes us look disorganized. The second one makes her wonder how we were even ready for that. The answer is: we were thinking three steps ahead, back when we first talked.
This is what should I manage my web designer really comes down to at the operational level. You shouldn’t have to think about whether the right files are saved, whether the original email is findable, whether the person managing your site is thinking past today. That should already be handled. Your future self — and theirs — should already be covered.
Why web companies put this burden on you in the first place
There are a few structural reasons this happens, and they’re worth understanding.
The first is simple: some companies are overworked and understaffed. There aren’t enough people to handle what they’ve sold. So things fall through. Follow-ups get missed. Edits sit in a queue. The client ends up managing because nobody at the company has the bandwidth to be proactive. That’s a resource problem, not necessarily a character problem — but it’s still your problem if you’re the client.
The second is less flattering. Some companies identify clients who are givers — people who, when asked to do something, just do it. And over time, more and more of the work migrates to those clients. Could you send us the updated copy? Could you pull together some photos? Could you describe what you want the page to say? These are reasonable asks in isolation. As a pattern, they’re the company doing its job on your time. If you know somebody is a giver or a pleaser and you get them to do things that are your job — that’s messed up. It happens. It’s not right.
The third is the one that really gets dressed up well: some companies frame client management as client empowerment. You need to have ownership interest in your website. You should be involved in every step. This is your brand, after all. It sounds reasonable. It’s often a protocol designed to reduce their workload by making your participation feel like a feature. Business owners are working hard enough as it is. The last thing they need is to be assigned homework by the company they hired to handle their website.
None of these reasons make it acceptable. They explain where the burden comes from. They don’t justify it landing on you. And the burden compounds — because a client who’s already managing their web company often ends up fixing things themselves when the management stops working.
The difference between checking in because you’re excited and checking in because you’re worried
These are different conversations, and you can hear it in the voice.
The excited check-in has energy to it. A little high-pitched. Hey, how’s it going — what’s happening with that page? That’s a client who’s engaged, invested, curious. They want to see the thing they’re building. That’s a good check-in. We love those.
The worried check-in is quieter, more careful. It’s the client who’s not sure anything is happening and doesn’t want to seem difficult by asking. They’re not checking in because they’re excited. They’re checking in because silence has gone on long enough that they’ve started to wonder.
We don’t get a lot of the second kind when it comes to the build, because we build so freaking fast that it surprises people. The site is moving before most clients expect it to be. But it does happen — and when it does, it usually traces back to a misunderstanding about what a website does and doesn’t do on its own. We explain this up and down and left and right and into the fifth dimension: a website doesn’t generate traffic by existing. It needs to be found. But occasionally someone hears that and still holds onto a quiet hope that leads will just start coming. When they don’t, the worried check-in follows.
When that happens, we revisit the conversation. Go back to the things we covered. Rekindle those nuggets. And we ask: how could we have explained that better, so it lands? Sometimes the client says no, it makes sense, I just forgot. Sometimes they give us something useful — a framing that would have worked better for them — and we take that seriously and carry it forward.
What to say in the next email — and whether to say anything at all
If you’ve been managing your web designer and you’re done, here’s the most important thing: you probably shouldn’t say anything in the next email. Not if you’ve already addressed it.
There’s a sequence to this. First time something goes wrong — address it. Say something. Give them the chance to correct it. Second time — address it again, and mean it this time. Make it clear this is a pattern, not a one-off. Third time? Stop writing emails. Start looking for someone else.
This isn’t about being confrontational or issuing ultimatums. It’s about recognizing when a conversation has been had, heard, and not acted on. At that point, another email doesn’t get you resolution — it just adds to the log of times you said something and nothing changed. Your time is worth more than that.
Find someone who takes you seriously. Takes your time seriously. And vet them hard — don’t just take a salesperson’s word for it. Bring a trusted advisor with you, someone who can ask the questions you might not think to ask and who isn’t caught up in the energy of a pitch. Make sure the relationship is set up the way you want it before you commit.
The goal isn’t to find a web company that’s slightly better at responding to your follow-ups. The goal is to find one where the follow-ups stop being necessary — because the work is already done, the files are already saved, and the next step is already thought of. That’s what the promise is supposed to look like.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I manage my web designer?
No. If you’re sending follow-up emails to get basic things done, tracking what’s pending, or checking the site to see if changes were made — that’s management. You hired someone to handle your website. The management burden belongs to them, not you. A good web company is proactive by default. You should feel the difference within the first few weeks of a build.
How do I know if my web company is taking advantage of me?
Watch for the pattern of asks. Occasional requests for your input are normal — content, approvals, photos. But if you’re consistently being asked to supply things the company should be producing, or if your participation is framed as “ownership interest” rather than collaboration, the work is being migrated to you. A company that needs you to do its job to function is not a partner. It’s a liability.
What’s the right way to handle a web designer who keeps missing things?
Address it the first time, clearly. Address it the second time with more weight — make sure it’s understood this is a pattern. If it happens a third time, stop addressing it and start evaluating your options. The third conversation rarely produces different results. Find someone who takes your time seriously, vet them with a trusted advisor, and move on.
How does Yeet Websites handle files and assets the client provides?
Everything gets saved, optimized, and organized — not just the files we need today. If a client sends photos that won’t go live until later, we optimize them, store them in the media library, and have them ready. We think past the current build because we’re the ones managing the site long-term. Your future self shouldn’t have to dig through old emails to find something you already sent us.
What should I look for when vetting a new web design company?
Don’t just listen to the pitch — ask specific operational questions. How do you handle file storage? What happens when a third-party integration breaks? What’s your response time for edits? Bring a trusted advisor who can push back on vague answers. The goal isn’t to find the most impressive pitch. It’s to find the relationship that works the way you need it to.