Let's take a step out onto a limb here a bit and discuss something of concern to all. Want to throw out a scenario to you and see how you feel about this. I believe you can comment back on these postings, so please do.
A company on the internet engaged in one form of business has some bad luck doing some things, angers a bunch of people, its upper management gets into some kind of disagreement, one partner leaves, one stays and things shift.
If this sounds like any company out there...well it should because you know who you are, and you sort of brought this on yourself when you asked someone to call me on my weekend and try to sell me something :)
The sale is NOT the problem. The problem is the lack of listening (the person on the phone spoke perfect english), but when he was requested or actually informed that I was not interested, it was like talking to a brick wall to get him to stop. Finally I hung up on him after requesting that my number be removed from their list and that we not be contacted again.
The phone was silent until today. The very same individual called and when I asked him "Do you remember calling me yesterday, being told I was not interested, and asking for you to remove me from your list?" He said "Oh yeah that was you, so I'd like to sell you this product/service, what kind of business are you in?"
I was a bit taken back by it. First thought was he's green, so I'll speak to his supervisor and ask him to get me off the list
"Pardon me, do you have a supervisor I could speak with about this?" and he replied "Uh...no, so can we help you with the financial needs of your business, what did you say those were again?". I hung up on him again.What some companies do when they don't listen to people is they turn them off for future business. Now in the days of old, it was a bit difficult to get the attention of many people and some could care less about what happened at that point in time. Then along came this thing called the Internet and in recent years this thing called TWITTER. Thank GOD for TWITTER.
I say thank GOD for TWITTER because as I am writing this, I know that the CEO of that company is reading a direct message from me and that when he sees this email he's going to say HOLY SH*T I can't believe what I am reading amidst everything else that is going on with my company now this has to happen.
It's pretty simple Mr. CEO of that company that for the moment will remain nameless. There are some of us in the SEO community that do not wish to be engaged by your company for any reason, much less to be provided with funding. You're NOT in the funding business, and if you are, you're newborns compared to the people who we refer that segment of business to so we're not interested in trusting you with our capital or anyone else's that we know of. We have funding sources to refer out to and we're quite happy with them.
The lesson here is one that's pretty simple:
A. TREAT EVERY CUSTOMER Like they have a TWITTER account. Most of them do. Address their concerns immediately as this can be pretty instant a reflection on you and what you're doing out there.
B. If you have people in your organization ignoring the privacy laws and persisting in phone harassment some states consider this stalking and seek prosecution based on that.
C. There is always another customer out there, if you're doing a legit business, the only want to actually increase your NO count on the way to a YES is to call unique, new clients, not going back to the well just to get a NO. Karmically it has an opposite effect and leaves you stuck.
D. Pay close attention to all of the previous as they will save you from being embarrassed and people asking you for a refund because they don't wish to be associated with your products, nor promote them.
So Mr CEO of Mr. Company that is to remain nameless for now, do myself, my family and our privacy a favor and respect that which you and your phone droids seem to have such a blatant disregard for. It's in really bad taste what you're doing and it will not be tolerated much longer.
Thanks so much for honoring this simple yet for your people, a seemingly impossible request.
Kind regards,
Michael Murdock, CEO