Active Rain February 28, 2011

Internet Services Who Telemarket

The other day I got a call from a rude and obnoxious representative from a well known template based provider of real estate websites who sounded like he poured red bull and expresso on his morning cereal. I’ve blogged about annoying telemarketers before, but this is the second time this company has had someone call me claiming to be on my website right now and then basically insulting me. It was a short conversation. 

Coincidentally, a professional group I belong to switched their website from that very company’s to a basic wordpress format, saving them $1200 per year. When the site administrator and I spoke about the change, he had a similar story. 

In reviewing the online solutions from which I derive the most value, it is clear that I found all of them through my own searches online. Shocking, no? In reviewing the biggest Edsel-like disasters where I poured money into something that didn’t work, they all found me. As a matter of fact, I found Active Rain initially when I was researching a guy out of Colorado that scammed me. It was the subject of one of my very first blogs. 

We’ve all heard the pitches- be on the top of Google, buy our overpriced leads, use our website template, and many other things preordained to appeal to a population of people hungry to increase their earnings. Yet the biggest promises have always turned out to be the biggest busts for me.

I find it incredibly ironic and contradictory for people to chase, badger and pester me for their service which is meant to help me avoid having to chase, badger and pester people to make my living. I mean, if your medium is SEO and online marketing, why wouldn’t you prove your worth by actually doing that instead of sending Johnny Obnoxious after me? If you are so great at “pull” why the “push?” The guy got more than he bargained for after he told me my Internet presence was crummy. He said that.

I must have missed the sales and marketing principle that tells us to insult people to get them to buy from you. Was it Tom Hopkins? Zig Ziglar?  Brian Tracy? Someone help me out. And pass me a Jolt or Red Bull.