Back when I was selling SEO services for an interactive agency I had a conversation with a guy who was much more experienced in the industry than I was at the time (this was in 2005). He said that he thought I was doing a good job on the phone because I was being sincere and not giving him a lot nonsense. Then he laid this one one me and it has stuck with me ever since:
Q: What’s the difference between a used car salesman and an SEO salesman?
A: The used car salesman knows when he is lying.
At first I was a little insulted then I realized just how pathetic the sales side of search marketing was. Hard closers with end of month deals vs. providing a service that would help a client and thus make them want to work with you. Coercion was more the main ingredient of sales success than finding the right fit for company and client.
Fast forward to 2011. I am now the Managing Editor of Marketing Pilgrim which is currently #12 on the AdAge Power 150. It’s fun and I like the work. What’s interesting is that as I scour the Internet looking for stories there are two things that jump out at me.
First, are the stories of how Groupon and LivingSocial are selling their offers. Essentially, they counsel merchants to jack up regular prices so the merchant can absorb the discount, the Groupon cut and then have something leftover for themselves. Sure, that makes great sense for the deal distributorship but the long term effects on a merchant’s customer bases can be devastating. All in all, it’s really poor business advice. But you know what else it is? It’s a sales tactic for a commission driven (likely, I don’t know that for sure) sales force that knows that the more business they close the more money they make. When that is the driver ethics and good business decisions aren’t always in the forefront of the mind.
Second, when it comes to finding stories for the Marketing Pilgrim blog I now get to wade through endless, what I will call ‘blind’, PR pitches. In a word; it’s brutal. There are very few efforts to personalize these pitches and to see if there is any real connection between what Marketing Pilgrim offers and the potential content that is being tossed about with reckless abandon. Now please don’t take this as being arrogant, but the Marketing Pilgrim blog caters to readers who are not people who just read anything. They are Internet marketing professionals who are looking for a quick snapshot of information preferably with something they can take away and use in their business that very day. Needless to say, I get pitches for stories and angles that are not even in the same ballpark as our readers and I wonder why these people (let’s be polite and call them PR spammers) are even bothering to do this. It clutters up the inbox and aggravates those who can actually say yes to a story idea.
The gist of this being that even though we are in an age of being able to be very specific about who we speak to and the ability to identify the best targets and prospects for our messages there is more haphazard ‘throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks” approaches than ever before! I think people are lazy. They may be overworked but in most cases they are just plain lazy. I can say that because at times I am too.
So my suggestion is to slow down and stop throwing your PR and sales feces around like those silly monkeys in the zoo. No one likes to get hit by s%@! and if you are selling hard then it means you are slinging it hard. Take some time, do some research and develop a few relationships like the social media era promises. I bet you will be much more relaxed and, dare I say, successful.
Last note, am I the only one that is seeing that Groupon is screwed? They passed on a $6 billion deal with Google then the rumor mill had them up to a valuation of $15 billion which they tried to back off from. Now, Twitter is being valued between $8 – $0 billion and there is NO WAY on earth that Groupon is worth half of what Twitter should be worth. Couple that with poor taste in ads and poor execution with sales and well, that’s not so good. I’m just sayin’.
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Very few people like to discuses about digital world. They have to face a lot of work in digital world. I’m auger to talk for this man. Thanks for sharing.
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