Posted by: Clayton Makepeace
May 14, 2009
Originally Posted On: September 4, 2006

Confessions of a Direct Marketing Chauvinist Pig – Part 2

Two real life case histories that prove
only savvy marketers are fit
to run growth-oriented companies

Dear Business-Builder,

It’s so predictable, you can set your watch by it …

Armed with only a skeleton staff, meager resources and big dreams, an eager young entrepreneur slaves 60, 80, and often 100 hours every week for years to grow his business.

He does everything right: He develops or acquires top-notch products. Watches overhead like a hawk. Reinvests every penny of profit. Becomes a student of great marketing and sales copy strategies – and a past master at implementing winning campaigns.

When it comes to sales copy, he never pulls a punch. He goes for the jugular – as far as the law and his ethics will allow – demonstrating the value his products bring to customers’ lives with edgy, can’t-put-‘em-down promotions:

• Sales copy that grabs prospects by the eyeballs …
• That ruthlessly differentiates his company, lifting it head and shoulders above the competition …
• That positions the owner and/or spokespeople as honest advocates for customers and against those who use and abuse them …
• And that super-glues customers to the company in ways that have them spending more and more with him, each passing month.

Armed with these edgy, un-ignorable, in-your-face promotions, the owner’s dreams of success soon become reality.

Suddenly, tens-of-thousands, then hundreds-of-thousands of new, paying customers are flocking to the company. Products fly off the shelves faster than pickaxes and rotgut in an Old West gold rush. Millions of dollars cascade into the company’s coffers every week.

And that’s when “it” happens …

The owner, eager to continue or even accelerate his company’s growth rate – and at the same time cut his own workweek down to a more reasonable size – begins recruiting what he mistakenly believes is a “better class” of top executives.

Maybe it’s a new President to lighten his workload … or perhaps a Chief Financial Officer to keep an eagle eye on expenses and manage the company’s rapidly growing cash reserves …

But typically, there’s a problem: Typically, these hired guns don’t know one goldarn thing about the company – let alone about its business: Direct Marketing. And typically, they won’t lift a finger to learn.

After all: They’re here to be teachers – not students!

They’re the experts. They’re the ones who read all the right business books. They’re the ones with fancy-schmancy degrees and six-figure salaries.

Their job isn’t to learn – it’s to teach the poor, dumb business owner and his poor, dumb staff how to do it right!

And so, these private sector bureaucrats go to work …

• People who have never risked their own money or chunks of their lives to build a successful business of their own are suddenly in control of an entrepreneurial enterprise still in its growth phase …
• Neophytes who have never created a successful direct response promotion in their lives are lording it over veteran marketers who previously thrashed the competition with industry-beating promotions …
• And worst of all, these talentless functionaries who are genetically bred and scholastically brainwashed to focus on reducing risk rather than nurturing and accelerating growth … and on cutting costs instead of investing in the future … begin running the show.

Now, I’ll give you three guesses at what happens next – and I seriously doubt you’ll need all three …

Bingo: Revenue growth slows, then stops. New customers become as rare as hen’s teeth and old customers stampede for the exits. As profits dwindle to zero – and then to less than zero – the company’s hard-won cash reserves quickly evaporate.

Finally, after the company’s best employees have either been laid off or have quit in disgust – the self-important gas bags who precipitated the crisis … and who still don’t have a clue as to why the company self-destructed (but waste no time pointing their fingers at everyone who helped grow the business just fine before the bureaucrats showed up) – are unceremoniously fired.

And suddenly, the business owner finds himself right back at Square One:

Armed with only a skeleton staff and meager resources, the older but hopefully wiser entrepreneur sadly licks his wounds and goes back to work – 60, 80, even 100 hours a week – in a desperate attempt to return his company to its former glory …

This cycle is repeated hundreds, perhaps thousands of times in America every day: The bell-shaped curve that rises from modest growth … to explosive growth … and then to the plateau and plunge into near-oblivion that inevitably follows “The Experts” arrival on the scene.

How do I know? Well, for one thing, I’ve seen it happen more than once among my own clients. And for another, I deal with companies who are making the very same mistake every day – both in my professional and personal life.

And since like me, you’re a business-builder – whether building our own businesses, or as a marketing pro or copywriter building both your own and your clients’ businesses – I figured today would be a good day to be reminded of one of the dumbest things smart business owners like us do: Subjugate marketers to these drooling morons.

NOTE: These stories are true. However, in our first case history, the names have been changed to protect the innocent – namely, ME – from getting drawn into a public pissing contest with the guilty.

Case History #1:
“Big, Gay Al”
and His Office of Business Prevention

OK – so his name wasn’t really Al. And the fact is, I have no idea what sexual team he plays for – nor do I care in the slightest.

But dammit, he just reminds me so much of “South Park’s” “Big, Gay Al,” I couldn’t resist.

Anyways, when “Al” assumed a top position with one of my clients, he immediately began filling the owner’s head with horror stories about how, out of literally hundreds of direct competitors, two (including his former employer) had been slammed by one of the U.S. government’s regulatory agencies.

• Nevermind that those two errant companies comprised less than one-half of one percent of our industry …
• Nevermind that they had blatantly lied in their promotions, openly thumbed their noses at regulators and/or shamelessly ripped off their customers …
• Nevermind that our products were above reproach and that every fact and figure in our promotions was scrupulously substantiated …

 … Al filled my client’s head with images of the public humiliation and financial ruin that would surely follow if and when the regulators attacked.

The solution, said Al, was to hire a full-time employee – a compliance officer – to gut our sales copy, kill response, obliterate our stellar growth and push the company to the brink of bankruptcy.

Wait – that’s not quite right. What Al actually said when I screamed bloody murder was, “Don’t be silly. You’re just over-reacting. It’ll be fine. These changes won’t affect response one iota.”

So, Al established what quickly became known (behind his back, of course) as “The Office of Business Prevention.”

And from that moment on, all sales copy was subjected to excruciating scrutiny and all kinds of gross indignities …

• Our products were instantly neutered: Unlike our competitors’ products which actually did wonderful things and promised real benefits, The Office of Business Prevention made sure we never claimed our products would really do anything specific for our prospects.

  Instead, our products could only “aim” to do things or “strive” to do things or “shoot for” a particular benefit.

  And of course, every vague, unspecific benefit that slipped through was hedged six ways from sundown: Every “will” was changed to “could” … “should” … “may” … or “might.”

  Deprived of any real benefits to sell, we became a company whose only product was a pocketful of good intentions.

• Any implication of a benefit claim that somehow slipped through was quickly DISclaimed: Just in case The Office of Business Prevention somehow accidentally allowed the copy to imply a benefit, they made sure that every promotion prominently presented an ominous reminder of the catastrophic worst-case scenario that would follow if the product failed.

 … And of course, the return on investment our promotions produced promptly plummeted more than 30 percent.

Predictably, the company stopped growing and started shrinking. Cash reserves began evaporating faster than water in the Sahara sun. Good employees quit in disgust. And the company that had once been the fastest-growing in its industry began slouching towards bankruptcy.

Now, all this would have been bad enough if these changes had been necessary.

If Al could have pointed to one, single competitor who had been nailed by a regulator because he said “will” instead of “could” … or because he failed to follow every promised benefit with a vivid and disturbing word-picture of the worst-case scenario.

But he couldn’t. Nobody could – and for one, simple reason: There wasn’t – and still isn’t – a single precedent where this kind of thing had happened in the entire 100-plus-year history of my client’s industry.

“Big, Gay Al” was no marketer. He couldn’t point to a single success in his career that came close to approaching the sales and growth miracles we had been producing before he showed up.

Worse, by putting his Office of Business Prevention in a position above the marketing pros who had built the company, he changed the businesses’ entire focus: From an obsession with ethical growth to an obsession for risk avoidance at all costs.

And so, after the dust settled, and armed with only a skeleton staff and meager resources, the older but hopefully wiser entrepreneur had no choice but to lick his wounds and go back to work – 60, 80, even 100 hours a week – in a desperate attempt to return his company to its former glory …

THE MORAL(S) OF THE STORY:

Lesson #1: If rapid growth is your objective, never, EVER put anyone but a super-savvy marketer at the helm of any entrepreneurial company.

Oh – and talk is cheap. Make sure it’s a marketer who actually has decades of spectacularly successful same- or similar-industry promotions under his or her belt.

Instead of appointing a marketing imbecile – or worse: A marketing imbecile like Al who is also a hopeless bureaucrat – you’d be better off to just quit the business while the quitting’s good. Take your money off the table and enjoy life.

And if you’re a marketing consultant or copywriter and you’re approached by a company with a marketing imbecile like Al running things, do yourself a favor: Be “too busy” to accept the assignment.

Lesson #2: Play the odds. In a vain attempt to avoid the possibility of a regulatory nightmare that had befallen only one-half of one percent of our competitors – and only the most blatantly dishonest .5% – Al doomed our already-highly ethical company to the 100% certainty of a sales disaster.

He did it by putting marketing under the thumb of a compliance officer (a very nice person whom I personally like and respect very much). And this nice person was given a very clear-cut but impossible-to-fulfill mandate: “Your job is to make absolutely sure this company is never, EVER questioned by a regulator or sued by a customer.”

And so, the Office of Business Prevention kicked itself into high gear, applying far more restrictive standards to our marketing than any – and I do mean ANY direct competitor – did to theirs. Far more restrictive, even, than the U.S. Federal Trade Commission had ever applied to any of our competitors.

And unsurprisingly, the result was a huge competitive disadvantage, plummeting response rates, dwindling cash reserves, massive layoffs and all the rest.

I say there’s a better way to go.

Now, I am definitely no lawyer, but I am a pretty darned good at business-building – and here’s how I see it …

The compliance officer’s mandate is impossible to fulfill. There is simply no way to make any company impervious to regulatory or legal hassles.

You can tell the truth, do your dead-level best to ensure you sales copy doesn’t mislead or give prospects or customers the wrong impression and do your best to follow all the other applicable laws and regulations …

 … But there are gray areas and loopholes in those regulations and laws big enough to fly the space shuttle through – and 99.99% of all businesses LIVE in those gray areas.

And that means any regulator or customer can cost you a king’s ransom in legal fees any time they damn well feel like it.

A thoroughly honest compliance officer charged with the impossible responsibility to ensure zero legal hassles would immediately tell his or her boss, “There is only one way to make absolutely sure you are never questioned by a regulator or sued by a customer: Never promote, sell or ship anything.”

“Just quit. Go out of business, and I personally guarantee you won’t be bothered about anything you do from now on (DISCLAIMER: This guarantee does not apply to past promotions or previously sold products.)”

Not ready to hang it up? Well, if your top priority is to stay in business – and if you’re more afraid of the legal risks than the risk of total business failure – your next step would be to do what Al and his Office of Business Prevention did:

Impose greater restrictions on marketing copy than the law requires. You probably won’t go broke right away – and when you do, at least you’ll have a fighting chance of going to the poorhouse with a clean legal and regulatory record.

Still not good enough for you? Then there’s only one solution: Change the compliance officer’s job description.

Instead of “Responsible for ensuring the company avoids all legal hassles,” give the legal beagles a share of responsibility in the company’s continued success: Change it to …

“Help the marketing department ensure the company’s continued growth while complying with directly relevant regulations, laws and ethical standards.”

In short, tell the ambulance-chasers, “Figure out ways for marketing to say what it must to grow this company without getting us in hot water.”

A special word to marketing consultants and copywriters: If a client’s lawyers have the final word on your copy, raise your fees. I’d recommend a flat fee of, say $300,000 for a direct mail package, ‘cause you sure as heck won’t be earning any royalties!

Better yet, be “too busy” to accept assignments from clients who won’t allow you to work “with” the compliance people – instead of “for” them.

POSTSCRIPT: After nearly destroying my client’s company, Al was righteously and unceremoniously canned.

 … But the Web is a magic place where even abject failures like Al can reinvent themselves as instant gurus.

All you need is a website – and Al’s got a nice one. It offers – get this – “GROWTH SOLUTIONS” for businesses!

Well, he’s got me there. Truth in advertising: Al certainly “solved” our growth – by ENDING it!

Can’t help but notice, Al, you forgot to include any disclaimers on your website. There’s not a breath of how you nearly bankrupted my client’s company. No weasel words in your promises of spectacular growth for your clients.

I mean – didn’t you run this website through COMPLIANCE?

Priceless.

So fair warning: If you ever come across a business-building website … notice a spokesperson who bears a striking resemblance to “Big, Gay Al” … and if you click the “Presentation” button and hear a big, booming voice saying something like, “HELLO! I’m Big Gay Al – WELCOME to …”

 … Do yourself a huge favor: Just have a good laugh and move on.

Case History #2:
“Bob”, “Skip” and “John” – and FortuneCity.com’s
Customer DISservice Department

A while back, I jumped on the Web to see what you all were saying on our blog.

It wasn’t there.

Alarmed, I pointed my browser at The Total Package.

It was gone, too!

“WENDYYYY! Someone wiped our website right off of the Internet!”

“F-F-FUDGECAKES!” remarks The Redhead, “I’ll call FortuneCity’s customer service number and see what’s up”.

So, she dials the 800 number and gets a recorded message telling her to dial a bunch of other numbers in order to connect with the proper person. She does, and is promptly exiled to on-hold music hell.

After an eternity or two, a perfectly nice guy with a thick accent – we’re guessing Indian or Pakistani – and a tenuous (at best) grasp of the English language appears on the line.

“My name is Bob. How may I be of service to you?”

“Well, ‘Bob,’” says The Redhead (wondering how many Indian and Pakistani babies are being named “BOB” these days), “my website seems to have disappeared from the Internet. I’m calling to find out why, and what we can do to get it back up right away.”

“One moment, please” says “Bob.” And before she can reply, Wendy’s once again impatiently tapping her toes to truly horrendous Muzak.

After what seems like a millennium, “Bob” is back with an announcement: “Your website should be back up in a few hours.”

Tremendously relieved, The Redhead thanked him very much and hung up. And for the next few hours or so, we both repeatedly checked. No luck: The website was still down.

So Wendy calls FortuneCity’s customer disservice number again, punches in all the extra numbers and spends the obligatory amount of time in on-hold Purgatory, yearning all the while for the assuring sound of a live, human voice – even “Bob’s”.

Finally – in just slightly less time than it took for the Earth to cool – a customer service rep answers: “Hello? My name is Skip." “How is it that I may help you today?"

“My website is still down,” says The Redhead. “I just talked to someone supposedly named ‘Bob’ about it and he said it should be ‘OK’ by now – but it’s not. It’s still down!”

“One moment, please,” says “Skip.” CLICK! More lousy music. I know that look: The Redhead, she’s getting ready to do a Vesuvius.

Skip eventually returns: “Looks like your website has been completely deleted from the server. One of your employees probably sabotaged the site. We’ll have you back up within 24 hours.”

Now, it’s Saturday night – 24 hours later – still no website.

Once again, Wendy dials FortuneCity’s customer disservice number. Once again, she clicks in all the other numbers. Once again, she endures that horrific music.

“Hello? This is John. How may I help you?”

“Look. My website disappeared from the Internet Friday night. First, you guys said it would take one hour to fix it. Then, you told me it would take another 24 hours. It’s still not up. What in the bloody HELL is going on?”

“One moment, please,” says “John.” There’s that maddening music again.

Finally, “John” returns: “We don’t know why your site is down. We don’t have access to that information. You probably didn’t pay your bill. They only do this when you don’t pay your bill. You’ll have to call accounting on Monday.”

The Redhead – who had paid for a full year’s Web hosting just three months before the incident – has reached her limit. “AAARRRGGHH!” she replies, and slams the phone down so hard even folks in India who weren’t on the line probably heard it.

Long story short: After two, long, weekend days on pins and needles, Wendy calls FortuneCity’s New York office first thing Monday morning.

The good news is, the folks she talks to this time are fluent in the only language Wendy knows: English.

The bad news? They’re just as clueless as to why our website is down as their customer disservice people were. They do promise, however, to call as soon as they get it sorted out.

The minutes turn into hours. Still no word from FortuneCity. Finally, in mid-afternoon – some 68 hours after our website first disappeared – I call and get a nice lady who promises to call me right back with answers.

She does: Our account is paid in full. Our website was NOT sabotaged externally. It was FortuneCity’s fault: An internal screw up.

What’s more, they really are fixing the problem now, and our site will be back on their server in an hour or so.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is, it will take ANOTHER 48 to 72 hours for our site to replicate across the Web. It could be Thursday night before our subscribers can access it!

That’s the final straw for me. My faith in FortuneCity’s ability to do anything right has been unalterably shattered.

“Heck,” I figure – “Since we were going to be down anyway, why not just tell FortuneCity to ‘shove it’ and move our site to a better host?"

“Certainly,” I posed, “there must be a Web host that a) will refrain from obliterating our website, b) that offers customer service reps who actually know what’s going on, c) that has reps who can explain problems to us in English, and d) that has reps who actually have been given the tools fix it quickly.”

So we called GoDaddy.com, established that their customer service speak our native tongue and have the resources to help us immediately in the event of a similar disaster – and signed a one-year contract that costs us ONE-THIRD of what we were paying FortuneCity.com.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY: FortuneCity.com is a big company. On its website, it boasts that it has hosted more than 1.7 million sites since 1997.

But at some point, FortuneCity’s top executives evidently decided they’re so successful, they could afford to treat their customers like crap. And so they exported their customer service to people who barely speak their customers’ language, but who’ll work for slave wages on the other side of the globe.

And if that isn’t bad enough – unless “Bob,” “Skip” and “John” are bald-faced liars, FortuneCity even failed to give them the tools required to give customers straight answers when things go wrong over a weekend – let alone FIX THEM.

You can bet your bottom dollar that no marketing person – or anyone else charged with maximizing revenues or extending customer lifetime value – made that idiotic, insulting decision.

I’m betting that decision was made by a bean counter – probably a Chief Financial Officer – whose only responsibility is cutting costs.

Now, do you think that FortuneCity even cares that they lost us as a customer?

Heck no.

But then – how could they possibly know I’d tell thousands of business owners and entrepreneurs who read The Total Package™ every Monday how poorly FortuneCity treats its customers when things go wrong?

And how could their bean counters possibly calculate how much business they’ll lose as you guys avoid FortuneCity like the plague – and go with a Web host like GoDaddy.com that offers solid customer service AT ONE-THIRD THE PRICE?

So once again, the lesson is clear: If you’re a business owner, don’t make a move without your marketing people. Better yet, let them – not your bean counters and certainly not guys like “Big, Gay Al” – run the show.

And once again, if you’re a marketing consultant or copywriter working for a company run by accountants, it’ll pay you handsomely to find a better class of client.

Hope this helps …

Yours for Bigger Winners, More Often,

Clayton Makepeace
Publisher & Editor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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18 Comments »

1. Comment by Garry — May 14, 2009 @ 10:30 am

   Here’s real quality.

   “private sector bureaucrats”

   In just three words you’ve described a whole legion of egotistical useless self proclaimed experts with no real experience. I see more and more of them every day.

   Can we have permission to use that phrase as a well aimed insult please?

   Garry

2. Comment by Silas Lieberman — May 14, 2009 @ 11:10 am

   Daniel,

   This is an article that I printed and I intend to keep it on my desk for a long time.

   Thank you very much and keep up the good work, you’re brilliant.

   Silas

3. Comment by Paul Flood — May 14, 2009 @ 11:32 am

   And on the seventh day, the entrepreneur known as Adam rested as he saw things were good and sales were up.

   But… He became complacent. His will was weak and he was tempted by the Tree of Branding where the Serpent of No Accountability resided.

   “Build your brand,” hissed the viper. “All the world will know your name. Furthermore, nobody wishes to read long copy as it wastes their precious time. We must therefore get your name out there.”

   “But serpent, I know not of graphic arts and the mysteries of a pretty advertisement. Prithee, tell me please. Where do I turn?”

   “Ahhh grasshopper, the city is full of award-winning agencies who will beat a path to your door. Your ads will win awards and you will be known as a creative genius. The world will indeed know your name.”

   It came to pass that the Lord looked down upon Adam and his now failing business. Adam hid behind a billboard to mask his shame and the Lord took pity.

   Said the Lord, “My son, I gave thee the tools of direct response and you forsook them in favor of building your brand. For what reason would you pursue such folly?”

   “Time is short, prospects beckon. Throw out and pay no heed to the serpent. Speak to your prospects with excitement and emotion. Give them reasons to buy now and buy more frequently.”

   Adam heeded the word of the Lord, who smiled, knowing all was again well with him.

   He cast out the serpent and condemned him to return his ill-gotten profits to businesses throughout the land. But, several others were waiting for the unwary in the business jungle.

   And… the beat goes on

4. Comment by Dave — May 14, 2009 @ 11:33 am

   I’ve heard war stories from GoDaddy too.

   It is extremely difficult to find a hosting company who can provide inexpensive quality service. And since hosting is a commodity now everyone has to compete on price.

   In the case of hosting, the problem is market saturation.

   I know. I’ve been on the other side.

5. Comment by Bill Murray — May 14, 2009 @ 11:48 am

   A bureaucrat is a bureaucrat is a bureaucrat. Often a “tall stool, quill pen, green-eyeshade accountant-type,” to use a phrase I heard years ago ( wish I knew the source).
   That said, there are far more of them in government agencies than in the private sector. And there are no checks and balances any more there. No feedback system that makes free enterprise self-correct. Yes, there can be casualties. it can be messy. but necessary lessons can be learned only if there is an opportunity to see that when we do X,Y happens. (Or S happens.)
   Governmental agencies rarely fix anything that doesn’t work; they just reward the guilty and pile on more money in hopes that doing the same thing (more) will get a different result. (See Einstein’s definition of insanity.)
   You may have noticed that CFO’s are a different Type from VPs of Marketing. Which is probably as it should be (my business is personality Type.) I have noticed that not only are there economic cycles, but there are corresponding management cycles. When the economy is tough, companies (if not governments) tighten up, watch costs, appreciate the CFO who can squeeze the last drop of values out of a dollar of receipts.
   Result: a greater percentage of green eyeshade-pessimists are promoted —to CEO, or other position over the Sales and Marketing optimists. That’s the time to dump the stock. A downturn is not the time to kill the ad budget (or in the words of Phil Wrigley of chewing gum fame, “disconnect the locomotive”).
   I understand that’s now being dictated to GM and/or Chrysler, the federal government’s two new car companies. Tell me, what DOES happen to a train when you disconnect the locomotive?

6. Comment by Ekene — May 14, 2009 @ 12:04 pm

   This so called experts with fancy certificates but dumb in their heads are just every where, their decision is always from theory books and experimental research junks.

   But then this is like a follw up of Daniel’s post yesterday, most successful business owners just want to appear like the universities, forgetting that, business is more practical than theory.

   I also want to point out that this post is a good control COPY, which appear to market GoDaddy.com services.

   I noticed how it triggered almost all the human emotions, laughter, smiles, anger, regret and even the will to take action like moving your website to GoDayy.com.

   I’m not just reading it, I’m going to study this copy very well.

   Thank you.

7. Comment by Dale — May 14, 2009 @ 1:53 pm

   RE: Bill Murray: What does happen to a train when you disconnect the locomotive?

   That depends on where the train is. If it’s on level ground, nine times out of ten it will just sit there and not move. However if the train is going up hill, the ensuing crash will be spectacular.

   In early 1989, One of the locomotives pulling a train up Montana’s Mullan Pass lost its heater; it was 30 below zero. Instead of riding it out to Missoula, one hundred miles away, the crew decided to remove the balky locomotive. They thought they’d set the brakes, but the cars started to roll after they were disconnected from the locomotives.

   The train picked up speed rolling down hill most of the 14 miles into Helena. The cars crashed into the returning pusher locomotives. Train parts flew every where. The crash threw wheels and axles over a tall Carrol College building that sits on a hill. The explosion broke windows up to two miles away and knocked out power over a wide area. One wheel crashed through a house roof and through a bedroom where a woman was sleeping. All this hapenned in below zero temperatures before six in the morning.

   When you apply this to businesses, some stagnate or disappear quietly, while others, like Enron and AIG, go down in noisy spectacular crashes.

   Dale

8. Comment by Jane — May 14, 2009 @ 5:20 pm

   When selecting a host for your website, it may be advisable to do a search for reviews on Google or some other search engine. I was considering switching to GoDaddy, but upon doing a search of ‘godaddy reviews’ on Google there were quite a few not so good reviews. At least I now know that FortuneCity is not an option I want to go with.

9. Comment by Barnaby Jones — May 14, 2009 @ 6:42 pm

   I agree. It was a great article, but I want to know who big, gay Al is in real life so I can see his website. I know from research and the accounts of my customers that most of these companies make outrageous claims. Then lure you in to a one year contract, and once you sign you get strange feeling, like the one that Wile E. Coyote gets just as he drops off of a cliff. There are a lot of the so called marketing companies that market to businesses that have websites online and are really full of chunky poop. Most of these companies should be tarred and feathered. They call themselves marketers when all they really do is copy your website put it on their sever and resell you adwords for profit.

   I heard one story from a client of mine who was contacted by a local sales person on marketing for his site. Once her associate flew in from Denver they worked on him for 3 hours. Oh yeah, they wanted his credit card number so they could do a test charge just to make sure that he could afford the 2800.00 a month for sending out 3 direct mail packages( a year), optimize his site which no doubt would have been a site set up on their sever and resell him adwords at a discounted price.

   Back to the article, really don’t care for Go Daddy. I like Host Gator. They have better prices and they even have live online 24 hour support, and if you have a more serious problem it gets resolved within 24hour or less.

   By the way Clayton,

   It sounds like Gay Al just may not have liked you, and wanted to associate a massive failure with your company.
   There are people out there who would go to such lengths just to show you that they have that kind of power, and then walk away while dusting of their lapel.

10. Comment by Bruce L. — May 14, 2009 @ 9:22 pm

    I have to agree that godaddy is not a good choice. I once had a few accounts with Godaddy.com, but they (like many others) offer these great deals with lots diskpace, bankwidth, etc. - But when you really try to utilize your limits, they fail to deliver.
    Godaddy.com also has horrible reputation for having a zero tollerance for anything looks, smells or taste like SPAM. If someone reports you for spamming when they forget they opt’d in, Godaddy.com will cut you off.
    Godaddy.com may be the biggest, but they far from the best.

11. Pingback by google.com » Blog Archive » rare magic books — May 15, 2009 @ 12:12 am

    [...] Vote Confessions of a Direct Marketing Chauvinist Pig – Part 2 [...]

12. Comment by Patrick — May 15, 2009 @ 5:48 am

    Thanks!

    But where is part 1 ?

13. Pingback by ‘Confessions of a Direct Marketing Chauvinist Pig – Part 2′ - ‘The Total Package’ — May 15, 2009 @ 5:50 am

    [...] Confessions of a Direct Marketing Chauvinist Pig – Part 2… [...]

14. Comment by Clayton Makepeace — May 15, 2009 @ 1:55 pm

    In the archives, Patrick!

15. Comment by Rod Newbound, RN — May 16, 2009 @ 6:36 pm

    Compelling stories Clayton.

    Thanks.

    I was considering using GoDaddy.com to host a new website I’m working on, especially since I’ve had positive dealings with them in the past. Now, the choice is easier.

    Recently had a similar experience with Comcast. I live in a rural area by choice… I like my privacy and don’t want my neighbors walking across my front lawn.

    Even though we are only 8 miles from a fairly large town, getting high speed Internet is quite a challenge. So, I was delighted when I was told by a helpful “chat girl” on a Comcast retailer site that I could get broadband at a reasonable rate, and the installation would only be $49 (despite the fact my driveway is a quarter mile long).

    Got all signed up and paid with a credit card, then up pops a screen to call Comcast to arrange installation. When I called the number, the woman who answered took down my information, and put me on hold. After a minute or so, she came back on and told me Comcast doesn’t offer service where I live!

    So, I said, what about this charge on my credit card? “Oh,” she said, “You have to call the Comcast retailer (affiliate) you signed up with. We don’t handle that.”

    She gave me another toll-free number which I promptly called. And of course, it had a menu to go through to get the department you want. I pressed the right number, and a recording says, “For Comcast, press 1.” I did, and got a recording to call Comcast directly. Thinking there must be another option, I dialed back, but sure enough, the same thing happened.

    Now I’m starting to get steamed. So I called Comcast directly and explained the problem. After another wait, I was finally connected with someone in billing, who actually got the other company on the line and connected me directly. Of course, the affiliate company tried to tell me I didn’t listen for all the options on the menu.

    All this wasted about 90 minutes of my valuable time, and I’m still on dial-up!

16. Comment by Cathy Sutter — May 17, 2009 @ 3:23 pm

    Yep…I always tell people that I can call India with my long distance service…for FREE! Most don’t get it. I’m sure all of you will.

    I’m putting a website together right now and going with Go Daddy. I like the idea that I can call them and I can understand what the heck they are saying! Their service (so far) is pretty darn good.

    One question Clayton: Did Wendy REALLY say F-F-FUDGECAKES?

17. Comment by Patricia — December 4, 2009 @ 9:27 pm

    Hi Clayton and Wendy,

    Guess what? “They” did that in medicine too…
    and didn’t pay the doctors for six months
    asked us to do things that were not in patients’ best interest
    and finally, this co. (which I quit working for in ‘99), was dismissed from the state for the way they treated patients.

18. Comment by Mikey — December 5, 2009 @ 3:33 pm

    This is a very interesting read fro those who battle the Internet follies daily. Myself, I’ve been on the net since ‘98 and only recently shut my business marketing by Internet down. I’ve used many hosts and everyone of them has a fault, you just have to work through. Most suck at customer service because they already have your money. And the foreigners are nice, but they have no common sense when it comes to answering a question.

    Although my main biz site is off the Internet air, I still promo my art with it, but that is a sideline and more for my ego.

    Fortunately for me, the clients I work with are on the richest list. It is a very tight knit club and they often prefer personal networking to find what they need.

    After 5 years of building my business, I no longer need the Internet to market what I do. In reality they never really found me through Internet searches. I had a freind who sold his company for many millions. He he needed me for something and I obliged. Word got around among his snooty friends and things took off from there.

    Now I know this may sound counter productive to what Clayton say’s about keeping on marketing, but my clients, who are very private, prefer that they hear about me from a freind, family or biz associate. They do not search the net for what I do because it is pretty much a proprietary service on my side.

    I’m thankful that I do not need to keep up with all the Internet trends and deal with idiot hosts. The idea of not needing to keep up with a website works for me. Although I still use email, that how some clients communicate with me, I do not miss marketing my service on the net.