I typically fly to Israel 3-4 times per year and this time it coincides with Search Marketing Expo in Jerusalem on January 15th. I’ve been meaning to do a presentation on some of the SEO tests we’ve been doing with creating legitimated multiple websites for clients. I think when you work as SEO even though there are so much information available – you still work in vacuum. There is no exact science that will work every time and you forced to be creative in your approach.

I like sharing what we do and see what other SEO experts say. It is always cool to see other people doing the same thing, it validates what we are doing. Anyways I applied to present at this event and got approved. We still ironing out details on what I am going to present (there will be couple of other guys in the same time slot), but I think I will be able to do the presentation on just that – legitimate ways of using satellite websites.

I am very exited its been awhile since I presented and presented back home. If you are an SEO and in Israel, you should for sure check it out this event. The prices are very reasonable!

This summer I finally decided to take a plunge cancel some of our contracts to free up the time and jumped into our own project, committing both financially and time wise. Of course it seemed easier than it really was. My partner and I thought that the first month we will bring every dollar back. We are on a 3rd month and we didn’t even broke even yet, but the project finally moved into the right direction and now it is the matter of time when the risk will finally pay off.

This was not an easy time for us, we had to pay our employees steady salary while my partner and I would not get anything as all of the money we got was invested in marketing.  After we finally reached the level of income we wanted, we again said no to it – buckled up and lived off (still living) our credit lines.  This obviously takes emotional toll, but it is a great motivator and we learned so many lessons from it:

• As an entrepreneur you conquer the fear – you can’t let fear of loosing your toys, home or a car to paralyze you.  You need to sleep well at night to be energized. Instead of thinking about the money problem, you need to think about the solution – how to make your business work as fast as possible. At the end of the day you will!

• You need to be ready to start from scratch - entrepreneur are similar to gamblers. We earn our money hard and then we are ready to risk it all, for the next big thing. We can’t do it any other way, risk and reward is in our blood. If you want to be entrepreneur, you need to be ready to go back to square one at any day and any time. Your ideas might fail and you need to have enough believe in yourself to get up and do it ALL OVER AGAIN.
• Don’t cheat- when times get tough, a desire to cut corners (fake some marketing tests, scoop leads) is right there. It is so easy to cheat, however the only one who you are cheating is yourself! You need to be able to make your business work long term. If you need to rely on cheating, the business will eventually crumble. Stick to your guns (principles) and make your business work (or get into another business). That is the only way. Adherence to principles in tough times builds character and self respect.

UPDATE:

Received a phone call today from Steve Stronge who is for sure way better customer manager than I dealt with before at Weed Man. I am not sure if he is an owner as well. He explained that guarantee part, which is from what I gathered: if you see weeds call them and they will do as many applications as needed to get rid of them. Since I been away for the summer and my friend was staying at the house – I didn’t call. They also left recommendation for more watering on Aug 11th which I am not sure if my friend followed.

To be honest I appreciate the phone call even though it happened at 8am.  A bit late though as I did post my reviews and I can’t take them back now, except writing this update. I still out of $170 for zero visible results as well.

Morale:

• Bring the great customer service in the beginning not at the end
• If you guarantee something, make sure you explain the guarantee in full. Including what is expected from the customer.
• Make sure all of the people who deal with the customer say the exact the same thing. Don’t spend 10s of thousands of dollars on your marketing if your first line employee talks down to a customer. Waste of money, because customer will only care about that interaction with the company.
• If you as a customer have problems with a service call immediately don’t wait -my fault.

The rest is the original story of what happened.

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It is been forever since I’ve seen such a bad service, that brought me back to my Consumer S.O.S. posts. If you don’t have time to read the whole post the gist of it is:

Weedman Scarborough brings you 0 results, bad customer service and pushy sales people. I have audio recordings , documents and pictures in this post to prove it.

Story:

Phase 1 – scam sales pitch

In the beginning of the summer I got a knock on the door from Weed Man Scarborough sales person who told me that they have innovative solution that even without chemicals will get rid of 80% of my weeds in the first application. The program included 8 applications and costs around $250 (I should have know it is too cheap to be true)- so I signed. After 8 applications I only had more weeds. See the picture:

Phase 2 – Bad Customer Service

After they completed their “weed control” service and seeing no results except their invoices at my door – I called them and spoke with a “customer care.” They told me they will send a guy to check it out. That was already October 10th (after I spent the whole summer with weeds) when their “professional” came over. You can see his note: adjust the pricing structure -more extensive weed control needed.

So pretty much the whole summer they didn’t see it? Or What?

After the recommendation, they came by the end of October and applied more “extensive weed control” nothing happened. At this point my neighbors who were annoyed with me, just pulled out weeds by themselves.

So I called “customer service” again and was told that 80% is a guarantee and they are the only company that can promise it. All I need to do is send my picture for the manager to see. Here is audio recording of my conversation Weed Man Scarborough. Just listen to the last minute of it, as the rep clearly states it is a guarantee.

Weeds

Phase 3 even worse customer service

While doing all of that, I still was getting calls on Saturday from their Account Receivables and being harassed to pay. At the same time I was getting a call from their sales department asking me to sign for next year. Total disconnect between all of the departments - I guess words like CRM are unknown to Weed Man Scarborough. 

Finally I got a phone call from “customer relationship manager” who explained to me that I can’t expect to see “instant results” and she is sorry I was guaranteed something. Seriously, that is all you have to say? You are sorry your sales reps are walking around and lying to people? You need to do better than that! She give me $40 discount and waived late payment fees.

I paid, because I just don’t  have time to deal with it anymore, but I feel it is my responsibility to make sure that nobody I come into contact uses those scammers anymore.  I was a big naive, I should have just typed into Google Weedman reviews and saw that you literary can’t find one positive review about this company.

Being an owner of online marketing company naturally I added to those negative reviews today – what a stupid move their part.  Those guys need serious help with their marketing.

Let’s recap:

• Pushy sales people
• False advertising
• Lack of CRM
• 0 Results
• No positive reviews

Well, I forgot about my blog and having been posting on it in like forever.  I smile now remembering starting it 6 years ago. My first blog was on blogger and you couldn’t have categories as a widget there, but I read a tutorial on how to use Delicious tags to make it look like categories. Spent like a whole night trying to figure it out! At that point WordPress seemed like a distant planet to me.

Now I can install wordpress blog in a matter of minutes and it is possible to launch websites on wordpress that would be sufficient for 9o% of websites on the web. However, blogging lost its allure somewhere along the way – famous bloggers stopped blogging, twitter appeared, facebook became open to everyone. LinkedIn became like Twitter, Facebook became like Twitter, Google became like Facebook, Facebook became like Google.

Today I realized that between Twitter feeds, FB feeds, emails, ad copy, flyers, bills, invoices it is been forever since I read or wrote something solid. Something that takes time to write, but really helps me to get my mind off things.

Luckily for me, I don’t need this blog anymore for any kind of promotion. Business is going well and our own projects are well underway. Which gives me a lot of freedom of expression – when you don’t think about linkbait, meta tags or correct keyword balance – some nice text can flow.

So I Resurrected my blog, to sometime put my thoughts out – for once without trying to promote it. Lol. I also think I might be not the only one, some people will get tired of the fast food of information and will come back to quality over the quantity. Being wired 24/7 was very cool in 2005 to me, now being not wired seems cool and a smart thing to do…

I live in Canada which I like, but when it comes down to communications like internet, tv or cellphone we Canadians don’t have a lot of choice. Since I travel abroad a lot I went with Rogers as they use GSM standart, so after unlocking my personal phone I can talk abroad and not pay $5 per minute.

Anyways I digress, I signed for Maclean’s Magazine owned by Rogers which was supposed to be $1, but right after you subscribe they send you a letter that it is higher now, but my obvious frustration with Rogers’ bait and switch tactics is not the point of this post.

I wanted to discuss the latest editorial feature by Maclean’s “The Internet should be fair – not free – to everyone”. I think the whole article is so ridiculous that Maclean’s Editors can’t believe themselves that their “corporate” made them publish it. So let’s start with the ridiculous things in the article:

• The title, “Free Internet” so when we pay $60 bucks per month plus modem rental, plus taxes is called “Free” these days?
• “providing heavy users with a competitive marketplace and small internet firms with 15 per cent wholesale advantage” This sentence is so out of whack, that I don’t even know where to start. I would suggest the author of this sentence to take Grade 1 math. Let’s see 15% wholesale discount in order to stay competitive smaller firms need to offer discount over bigger companies, so for the argument’s sake let’s pretend that 5% discount will entice people to switch from big 3 to smaller company. That leaves us with 10%, now smaller companies believe or not need to make profit as well. So again let’s assume that for some crazy reason people decided to go into business and earn a profit of only 5%. So where does it leave us? A small internet company will have 5% for running their whole business (marketing, sales, accounting, equity etc.). I am sure this 5% keeps it really competitive and “Fair” as Maclean’s magazine would say

I am personally not against usage based billing, I agree that people who spend more should pay more – but this is not what is happening in reality. In reality even people who don’t use a lot still pay a flat fee that is one of the highest from all of the countries in the world (i am not even adding to this system access fee and cell phone rates) and people who use a lot are forced to be in quota plan and then overpay for each gigabyte so much that is easier just to buy two packages.

We live in an age of Netflix, television on Demand, millions watched Olympics online – so the average user already is not the one who uses 16 gigs a month, the average user is a busy Mom who watches her shows online. So Rogers if you want usage based billing – why don’t you make really fair:

• people who spend less will actually pay less
• people who spend more will have some reasonable packages, or price per gigabyte available for them?

Oh and stop insulting Canadians that you been torturing for years with your rates and system access fees, by “Oh that is not Fair” give me a break!

Google just issued a response to a guy who was claiming that with the negative reviews he receives enough links to rank high in SERPs.

Firstly, I think it is a dumb strategy to try and get more links my negative reviews as there is a big part of potential customers who make a buying decision precisely based on these reviews.

Secondly, I found Google’s response interesting. They’ve admitted the problem and a potential loophole as well as suggested to use nofollow attribute. Some my disagree but recently I been seeing more and more nofollow attribute not having any difference for ranking purposes.

The conclusion from all of this? The guy got high rankings when newspaper wrote about him, instead of doing something bad: do something extremely good, on the edge or controversial.

Have you ever been to a club, with a girlfriend in a car or just at a party and “Single Ladies” would suddenly go on? You know what happens next, this like a clue to all the girls in the room who start screaming along, putting their hands in the air and dancing like crazy. The weird thing is that half of these girls are not even single, some are even married.

My female friend tells me it is her anthem along with “If I were a boy,” “Irreplaceable” and bunch of other songs with catchy Choruses, but words that doesn’t make a lot of sense especially when they come from somebody who wears underwear in both her videos and concerts, and from somebody who wouldn’t miss an opportunity to shake her “bootylicious” body every opportunity she gets.

I think these song all suck for the same reasons: 1) There is generalization about all the men, you know women cheat too and stuff! 2)They all talk about the same thing – JUST GET OVER IT ALREADY  3)They come from a person that uses her body, her famous husband and Dad who pushed her to be famous to sell records.

Now let’s just go over lyrics and see what pisses me off so much:

Single Ladies

“Decided to take a Dip,” “I am up on him,” “Just cried my tears for three good years”

So they way I see it: she was dating with a guy for three years, cried through all of them and then to feel better she decided to go and have a sex with a random guy. Yeah this makes total sense! Maybe instead of crying three years you could have communicated what you needed instead waiting for a guy? Or maybe because you just went to a club and had a sex with a random guy who happened to notice you is the main reason – I DIDN’T WANT TO PUT A RING ON IT!

Irreplaceable

“I could have another you in a minute. As a matter of a fact he will be here in a minute, baby”

Again I have to ask what a hell were you doing with this guy, if you could have a tons like him in a minute? How did you choose him? Did you do a random draw? Or chose the one who lives closer to you? Then I figured that another guy is already coming over, so again I guess the best solution is to have a sex with a new guy – sounds perfectly healthy solution to me, and a song that should be anthem to all the women.

If I were a boy

“I would turn off my phone Tell Everyone it is broken,” ” You are just boy and you don’t understand how it feels to love a girl”

Turn off your phone, really? This is a best thing you could come up with if you were a boy? How about going to the army and protecting women, or being a firefighter? “Turn off your phone” why I never knew it is allowed since I am a boy, mine is always on – I got screwed nobody told me I can turn it off. Oh wait I heard it somewhere, or yeah this is another of Beyonce’s songs with Lady Gaga “honey I cannot answer” - I figured two things Beyonce has a thing for telephones and that she finally realized that turning off the phone is not determined by gender.

Then those next lyrics, because I am a boy I don’t understand how to love a girl? How does it make sense, who understands it then? Another girl? Your mother? I think as a boy I would have a first had knowledge of what is like to love a girl, it is not that easy especially when I am dealing with a promiscuous type who alternates between wanting to marry me to not picking up my phone.

Bottom line:

I hate discrimination against women just like any other modern guy, but girls – Beyonce’s songs are not what you want to be represented by, if you want a real woman’s anthem find something that doesn’t talk about being stuck in a relationship without doing anything, random sex and of course turning off your cellphone – that is just silly.

Phew, I got it out of my system now! Comments? Haters? Lovers?

If you have a min I would really appreciate if you voted on which design conept for our Home Page you like the most http://bit.ly/dwEhdK there are only 5 concepts. Thank your beforehand

I watched Google’s presentation live today about Buzz. I think it is amazing product especially the mobile components and ability to integrate with other tools. Yet it inspired this post about me being scared of Internet. I should be grateful for internet not only it makes my life interesting, but it allows me to make a living without having to wear a suit everyday and while doing what I love. At the same time sometimes internet pisses me off and even scares me sometimes.

So why do I get frustrated and scared sometimes?

No matter where you are geographically it is hard to disappear

Sometimes I need time for myself and change of scenery. Back in a day a person could go to another province and start a new life. However, these days, with tools like Skype, SMS, Facebook, Email – I feel like I never left. Which means even if I am located overseas I still get to see for example pictures of my ex with some guy. Long lost relatives that I don’t want to talk can call me on Skype whenever they want, unless I block them. Old classmates can write and ask some money to borrow.

Everything you do online is recorded, so you are accountable

Anything you do online is recorded somewhere and you have to keep thinking what if? What if my ISP gets hacked and all my visited pages become public? What if I drink too much beer and post something bad on Twitter (my Mom follows me). When digital face recognition becomes a norm it will be easy to recognize me, as I tagged more than 300 photos of me on Facebook. What if all student party pictures get posted online and anyone who Google’s my name will be able to see them?

Stalker’s Paradise

I like playing FourSquare and use other applications that need my GPS location. I have a feeling that Google Buzz mobile will be more popular than anything else before. I am always pretty careful in terms of where I check–in and try not to reveal too much information.  I try not only not to reveal where I am all the times, but also not to reveal the patterns. However, a lot of people don’t think about it. I mean I have couple of people as my FourSquare friends that I never saw in my life.

If someone will add my blog, somehow will slip into my Facebook account and follows me on Twitter they will know a hell a lot about my life. Something like that back in a day could have never been possible. The only thing here that adds me some confidence are my aikido and muya thai classes.

Addiction/Dependence

I consider internet to be an addiction, when it is gone I am going crazy and have withdrawal symptoms. However, after couple of days I sober up and understand that the life without online exists. I am also so dependent on internet and its tools. I honestly don’t know how I would manage a team without basecamp or other project management system.  I can’t live without calendar sync with my Iphone and my tricked out GMail. I am so dependent on these tools that if I had to give them up, I think I would go out of business.

Said all of that I totally understand that I shouldn’t blame or be scared of Internet. At the end of the day everything is my own choice. I choose what to do online, how to conduct myself and what to share. It is up to me to use a different phone or leave one at home when I go out drinking. I can delete my Facebook profile if I wanted, maybe should just do it – oh well, no I can’t just not right now

So here are my thoughts. I think the most valuable part of this post is that we make the choice, so we need to be responsible.