I just laid into her. I just got off the phone and I’m steaming.
I’m getting tired of it. I just had another sales call, essentially to use their service and promote for them. She was from Canada. I’m partial to Canadians…plus she sounded cute so I entertained the conversation.
The call ended with some frustration.
Well, A lot.
In fact, I’m frustrated at this whole notion.
So I get this phone call from a lady who is trying to sell ‘Automated Local SEO Services’ to Local Internet Marketing Agencies.
She was calling my agency. I asked her which company she was calling, and she said ‘WON Marketing’.
Great. I followed up and said “I’m not spending most of my time anymore with WON, but I am with Local Marketing Source. LMS is an education portal teaching agency owners how to grow their agency and have served over 10,000 participants and over 1000 paying members”
Her voice perked right up!!
Then I shut her down. I WISH I had recorded the call!! Here is how I responded
“First, I will never promote this service. I believe you are just recruiting sales people to grow the worth of your business and taking value away from other ‘agency’ owners.
I do not believe that automation works for Local SEO. Sure, we can automate profiles and citations, but how to automate content creation for the Sedative Dentist, or the Pediatric Dentist? How do you automate expose on the Chamber of Commerce site, or a Charitable Donation?
How do you automate customer reviews? Why would you risk this?
Her response retracted.
Well, we don’t automate everything. We have an account rep that works on those other things
Me
“…but that remaining 90% requires you to know your customer’s customer market segments, demographically and geographically. How does your rep do this?
She responded
“I will have to look into this. I’m not sure if we segment like that”
WAIT….WHAT?
How are you suppose to create marketing content if you haven’t segmented an audience?
Oh yeah, you’re trying to steal from Agency Owners.
I went on…
“I will never, ever promote your service. I think you guys are recruiting glorified sales people to grow net worth in your business, while appeasing to people’s sense of less work bring value…when in reality, you’re simply stealing value from these poor agency owners. They, the agency owners, will never own the systems, the processes and in reality, the customer relationship. These 3 things are what makes a company’s net worth, and value. I teach people to change their lives, give themselves time to spend with their family, and your company, is taking this away from them.
You see Ms. Canadian, you might not see it this way. But you are providing a service to business that takes the 3 core values away. Their business is essentially worthless if they want to exit. And what smart business person doesn’t have an exit strategy.
Ms. Canadian, along with the devaluing, you’re not offering an ounce of a competitive advantage for these poor local businesses that get your service either. You are still talking automation, and I know of NO way to automate a REAL relationship with a customer. I don’t know how to automate finding and uncovering the editors of these newspapers, chambers, local governments to build the truth, authority and exposure needs to rank #1 in a competitive market. My caveat, my lil secret to get my clients #1 is to get them published in the local newspaper and chamber of commerce in the first 60 days. It’s not profiles, or citations you might call it.
Finally Ms. Canadian, it’s my fiduciary right to serve my clients to the best of my ability. I can’t work with two, my interests are divided. Ethically and morally speaking, your business defies these values.
So, for these reasons I will not promote or consider your service”
Well, turns out they didn’t train her to handle that objection and she had no response, but get off the phone and say good bye.
Mind you, she is doing her job, she was polite and listened to me. I’d probably hire her.
I’d like to introduce Charles.
