Successful Blog

Meet Sia — the Heart of a Web Hosting Company

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It’s the People

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The intimate scope of SOBCon automatically draws a certain kind of people together. I’m the luckiest one because I get to meet them all in conversations as we pull the event together. That was how I met Sia Liolios. Sia is with Top Hosting Centre, a sponsor of SOBCon08.

I wanted to share this lovely person I met with you. Sia agreed to answer some questions about herself and what she does for a living.

Sia, THC, I know you to be lady who cares deeply about your customers. Tell me how your company started and how you came to be a part.

THC doesn’t have an extraordinary birth story. It’s a branch of ProWeb Consultants Inc, the “mother” company if you want, at it was born simply because ProWeb Consultants wanted to take care personally of the hosting solutions for its clients. Many companies want to have all their web services in one place – from design to online marketing and hosting. It made sense to create THC as an option for our clients. Eric Vanier, the CEO and my husband (which tells you how I came to be a part) monitored the Web for a long time and saw a need for better hosting solutions for bloggers – which determined him to make THC public and to launch it as a hosting solution for bloggers and small businesses. We soon saw that this was the best possible choice: bloggers are a rare breed, so human, warm and real. I was “observing” how my husband ran the business for a long time, then I felt a natural affinity for the people who asked for advice and support.

If there is one thing a customer really hates, it is half answers and a closed door when he needs help. We don’t keep our clients waiting for answers and we always help. It is not only our duty as service providers. It’s our mission.

What gets you up in the morning? How do you stay so positive?

My kids – they are quicksilver! It is strange to associate your work with your family sometimes. It doesn’t feel right to think about business and the kids, does it? But in the end, aren’t the kids what we are working for? Aren’t the kids what we are living for?

We run our business with family values in mind and we always think about the possible implications and interactions between business and personal life. Positive thinking and living help keep a healthy balance between the two. I managed to make positive thinking more than just a philosophy: it’s a way of life.

Sia, I never knew a child who wanted to be a web host when she grew up. What did you dream about becoming when you were 8 years old?

I often daydreamed about being on a farm riding and caring for horses. Actually I still do, but don’t know if I still have the energy and strength it takes. Maybe one day !

Do you find that dream of the 8 year old fits with what you’re doing now?

We have many dreams when we are young. Some are forgotten, some cherished like treasures. All these dreams have some common traits: they are bold, full of hope, magic. If I only think about these attributes, I dare say that yes, a childhood dream fits in our adult lives.

If everything moves forward ideally, where will you be three years from now?

Top of the world! Hey, it’s my dream!

How do you hope THC will change the world?

We don’t aim to change the world, we just hope to make it a little better through care, respect, honesty, attention. Everything else (like sponsoring a good cause, donating something to a school, going green) comes naturally, because we care and we want people to be happy.

THC, Sia and Eric are making it possible for us to have a second professional signer, so that our deaf participants will be able to fully understand what they won’t be able to hear.

Thank you, Sia! I feel lucky I met you.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

A Word from Our Local Baker

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When we launched our corporate site last year we had a clear vision of where we wanted to go and we understood pretty fast that we were not choosing an easy path. The web hosting industry is extremely competitive, but the competition was a secondary concern. This sounds hard to believe, especially since we promise to match any competitor’s price guaranteed, but the promise has more to do with our commitment to customer satisfaction than it has to do with fighting to becoming the most popular web host. We are not even aiming to go there, but we want to be bloggers’ first choice for web hosting.

Last year we read a lot about SOBCon and the fine bloggers who attend this extraordinary event. This year the event sounds even more promising and we are proud to be among the first companies to sponsor it. It simply makes sense for us to promulgate our corporate values by sponsoring excellence. If you take a look at our online history and read the numerous testimonials about our company, services and customer support, you will see that excellence is something we also strive for.

We host hundreds of websites and we carefully monitor their activities. There are many reasons why we do this and we can easily summarize the most important ones. We pledge to be a family safe web host – meaning that we will not allow mature content on our servers. We will also delete any website that promotes any type of questionable content without further recourse. These are serious concerns that help us maintain our integrity as a brand. However, when we monitor the sites we host the most rewarding experience is to learn from our customers, to grow with them and to promote their work if we can. This is how THC differentiates itself from other web hosting companies.

Our company philosophy is: to treat our customers with utmost respect, to create a bridge between our company and them, to offer room for real conversations and real relationships.

Do you remember the small neighborhood bakery where the cakes tasted better because the seller knew how to be a baker? Do you remember the little cookie he always kept aside for your child and do you remember the way he hand it out to your child with an open smile? He didn’t charge you more to be kind, did he? Besides, you always knew that if there was something wrong with the cake you bought, the baker would have solved the problem immediately. No false excuses. No extra charges. Well, THC is your local baker.