I’m so ticked, my outrage has moved beyond the common sense feeling of embarrassment to wanting to ‘do’ something to put thought to keyboard. Once again, I fell for the tricks of a big company preying on a smaller one trying to get started. I don’t know if you’ve tried to start a company but the biggest pitfall is not being able to tell the difference between tenacity and stubbornness. From the very beginning, we’re taught that if you don’t at first, succeed – try harder or at least try again. Invest more time, money and effort into something that went nowhere.
In this case, I’m talking about letting myself face the fact that the ‘old way’ is actually gone. Marketing yourself to create a viable business model is essential – and in so doing, become profitable; you have to get out and hustle each and every day. Part of doing that involves ensuring your accessibility for your customer base to find you. This brings me to Yellowbook. Yellowbook is part of the old way of doing things. A printed listing that is out of date the moment they go with a ‘final’ copy. Despite my instincts and the fact that I informally asked people, friends and acquaintances if they used information from such things as the Yellowpages, Yellowbook or Superpages, I ignored the fact that they all said no. And in fact, were incredulous that I even had to ask…
I, most of us, grew up with the concept of those types of publications. The truth is, they’re dinosaurs too slow to even understand they’ve already died. They promise to ‘drive’ business to you so fast, you won’t be able to handle it. After more than 2 years of believing this business model, this paradigm, I’ve yet to receive 1 phone call, email, or visit to my website because of their efforts. It’s hokum, snakeoil, outright deception… For $40 per month, $480 per year, I bought a Yellowbook listing under their ‘Silver’ program. Newsflash, I find no evidence that the silver program even exists. Once the sales rep gets your name on a dotted line, they disappear, are never within reach of their phone and you can never get a hold of anyone on the ‘technical support team’. You can’t get a hold of their supervisors and they’re never local to you. Besides not being able to talk to someone, I also did not see my company actually listed anywhere in the ‘book’. So what did I get for $40 per month? A year long contract that lists me on a online 8th page, listing for wedding photographers - though I’ve never done a wedding in my life. So what have we learned Dorothy? You should keep your money away from the things that you know are dead or dying. Oh, and tenacity is the right answer…...
In this case, I’m talking about letting myself face the fact that the ‘old way’ is actually gone. Marketing yourself to create a viable business model is essential – and in so doing, become profitable; you have to get out and hustle each and every day. Part of doing that involves ensuring your accessibility for your customer base to find you. This brings me to Yellowbook. Yellowbook is part of the old way of doing things. A printed listing that is out of date the moment they go with a ‘final’ copy. Despite my instincts and the fact that I informally asked people, friends and acquaintances if they used information from such things as the Yellowpages, Yellowbook or Superpages, I ignored the fact that they all said no. And in fact, were incredulous that I even had to ask…
I, most of us, grew up with the concept of those types of publications. The truth is, they’re dinosaurs too slow to even understand they’ve already died. They promise to ‘drive’ business to you so fast, you won’t be able to handle it. After more than 2 years of believing this business model, this paradigm, I’ve yet to receive 1 phone call, email, or visit to my website because of their efforts. It’s hokum, snakeoil, outright deception… For $40 per month, $480 per year, I bought a Yellowbook listing under their ‘Silver’ program. Newsflash, I find no evidence that the silver program even exists. Once the sales rep gets your name on a dotted line, they disappear, are never within reach of their phone and you can never get a hold of anyone on the ‘technical support team’. You can’t get a hold of their supervisors and they’re never local to you. Besides not being able to talk to someone, I also did not see my company actually listed anywhere in the ‘book’. So what did I get for $40 per month? A year long contract that lists me on a online 8th page, listing for wedding photographers - though I’ve never done a wedding in my life. So what have we learned Dorothy? You should keep your money away from the things that you know are dead or dying. Oh, and tenacity is the right answer…...
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