Talking to a Salesperson v Professional Search Engine Technician – The differences and Dangers..

As many a business owner knows, there are quite a number of companies operating in the Internet Search Engine Marketing arena who use cold calling techniques to obtain business. Now I must admit to not being a fan of cold calling myself, we never use it and never will, but that is another matter and not the subject of the concern I have today.

Does the Salesperson really know about the way the Engines work?

No, my worry is that in some cases the salesperson making the call knows very little about the actual way that the Search Engines work and has done little research into the site she is saying that can be got to the front page of Google.

Page One on Google for 'car insurance' for £50 a month?

If you have not been the subject of a call from one of these sales people, you probably know of someone who has. Often they promise the world for virtually nothing, I have been on the end of a call that told me that they could get my site on the front page of Google, in the organic listings, for the princely sum of £250 down and £50 a month. “You could get me Google page 1 for ‘car insurance’ could you?”,  “Oh yes” came the reply. Now come on, page one on Google for ‘car insurance”, oh if it were that easy…

Any properly trained professional search technician would never make such statements, they would never lead their customers down the garden path like that, at least not if they were honest. I am not knocking these sales people though, far from it, they are very good at what they do (selling) and I expect that many could sell yellow snow to Eskimos on the basis of added flavour or artistic merit, and in a way that is what worries me for the sake of my profession as a Search Engine Professional.

Tarred with the same brush

The problem is that if a business has chosen to use the services of a company that uses cold calling and that does not have the ability to deliver, then they will be left with a nasty taste in the mouth and tar all of my industry with the same brush. Just look at what people think about used car salesmen, they are all distrusted and yet there are I am sure, many thousands who are very honest and true. It does however take few rotten apples to mar the whole barrel..

So what is the answer to this problem?

I am afraid that it lies with the potential customer, who when called, can ask some simple questions, which will soon reveal those that maybe should be avoided:-

1. Ask how long the caller has been optimising sites for. If he says he is just a salesman and that they have technicians who actually do the work, ask to talk to them about your site. If they won’t let you talk to them, then just walk away.
   
2. Once you have the technician, ask them, in general terms what they intend to do to the site and why it will work. Ask them to explain it simply and clearly, they should after all be able to do that
   
3. Ask them to explain one or two explicit changes they intend to make to the site. If they start saying that “we never tell anyone that in case they do it themselves”, again just walk away. After all, optimising a site is not like doing brain surgery on yourself and in reality, if you wanted to do it yourself you could (if you had the time), so what should be the trouble. After all, you could fix your own car given the right tools and training, but you still get a garage to do it and ask them what they are going to do when you take it in don’t you.

These three little questions will either get you to a point where you really do trust the company calling you, or will quickly get rid of the sales person, either way you win.

Graham Baylis
Internet Marketing and Promotion Specialists
www.I-O-M.com
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