It always bugs me when an Internet marketer puts down his competition in a sales letter just to make his product look better. You know, if you make the others look bad, then you think your idea looks good and that keeps folks from looking at the holes in your product. Same with Politics in the country!
It even bugs me more when it is my product they are trying to blow holes in. And what makes this worse, is that I haven’t even released my product yet, nor do I have a launch date for it!
I did approach whom I thought were trusted marketers and asked them to do a Joint Venture with us when I did launch. We didn’t hold back and told them exactly what we were doing cause I THOUGHT I COULD TRUST THEM!
What happened next I never expected.
I just NEVER expected to see our trust misused and our product concepts held up (incorrectly I might add) next to their competing product as if ours was something to sneeze at. Hello! I guess I should be flattered that they thought that if I launched it it would pull sales away from them.
But, I still couldn’t believe it.
The truth of the matter is, when it comes to SEO, there is a lot of ways of doing the same thing, and there are holes in ANYTHING that is going to manipulate the search engines. So when a guy says he is white hat and then asks you to pay him to get access to his network of sites to yes, manipulate the search engines, he ain’t so white hat. It is still about tricking the search engines. And, I will not say I am not tricking the search engines, cause I am!
And, I have been doing it a long time, and, I do it well!
I could rip their product apart, but don’t want to do that as I still have some respect for these guys (although I don’t know why now) but I guess I still believe in just keeping it real and talking about why MY products WORK.
So, what do you think?
Is this business as normal or should we expect better things from folks we have beers with in the bar?
As the economy is making it more and more difficult for companies to stay afloat, desperation sets in. We are seeing more competitor bashing in sales than we have in years! Desperation brings out the slimeballs for sure! Fortunately we are totally against that and always have been, no matter how tough times are.
Two words – that sucks.
Okay, a few more words… I’ve never been one to bash anyone else’s product, even when it really is very well deserved.
Case in point – a little over two years ago, I spent several thousand dollars for a piece of software marketed by two EXTREMELY well-known IM guys. Names withheld for one reason – I’m not about bashing anyone.
Let’s just say I was extremely disappointed with their offering, which did not at all deliver what they had promoted. In addition, the “secret stash” of contacts they promised the buyers turned out to be, well, almost completely useless unless you were already well-established in this field.
Did I moan and complain and try to get a refund? No. Did I bash these guys? Absolutely not. But I can promise you neither one of these folks will ever receive another penny from my pocket, regardless of how good (or bad) any product they ever offer will be.
Instead, I choose to gravitate toward the “Dori Friend”s and “Jeff Johnson”s of the IM world… stand-up folks who give great information and consistently over-deliver. You don’t know me or anything, but you’ve earned my respect – that’s for sure.
We live in a world where negative advertising seems to the norm. Just look at what happens in all the political campaigns. The negative ads continue to work or they wouldn’t be used. The best marketing any company can do is to have a great product that works, is cost effective, and is backed up with excellent customer service. I like to think that people are smarter than what most advertisers think and can see thru most of the negative bashing.
I really liked your article.Its so true that when you go out to trust someone and lend them your secrets you end up being stabbed at the back.So one has to be very careful while choosing people they are going to lay their trust on.
This should not be business as usual. Trust should mean something in any business, and this business is no different in that aspect. I personally will try not to buy any product or use any service that regularly goes out of their way to bash the competitors – there are plenty of other ways to go about getting business, and this, to me, is not a good idea. You have every right to be disappointed and frustrated, and this is not the type of company I would have any interest in doing business with in the future, if I were you.
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that people and companies that succeed by “tricking” something are good and ready to trick us too. I never wanted to be a cynic but “buyer beware” seems to be the order of the day for sure!
Really a difficult task now in elevating a product’s view. Sailing along with the competitor’s way of approach in doing their business will alone make us to stand. A tough sail and now we should expect better things from ourself itself, not the folks.
Even though this is not a very nice tactic, unfortunately, it is a completely common one. I personally, feel there are better ways, but for many, underhanded methods are the only ways they feel will work. How sad for them.
This reminds of the old line “I trust my mother, but I still cut the cards”. Trust, but verify. If you haven’t worked with them before, try a small project. Do some research – google their name or company or product – see what people are saying about them. If they’re trashing someone else, sooner or later it’s going to be your day in the barrel.
I’ve been screwed over by friends too, ones that I’ve known a LOOONNNGG time. But knowing (and more importantly, working with) someone for a long time does cut down on this
mike c
Your article is really good.It really disappoints when someone whom u trust betrays you.We have to be careful.succes wont be for a longer time for those kind of people.
Unfortunately, far too many companies engage in this type of marketing, hoping that their competition won’t notice. There are just, too many ways for someone to trash their competitor, even if they were once upon a time, friendly. The best course of action in this instance, would be to counter this tactic, but marketing your product in great detail, not leaving room for the competition to fill in the blanks. The information should be precise, informative, factual and outlining what it doesn’t do, should also be included in the mix. If the product were to be marketed this way, consumers would be more inclined to trust it, regardless of what the competition is claiming. To retaliate, would not be advisable, could backfire as well as be a waste of money.
I completely agree with your article, this happens in this world which is full of competition. You can never trust a fellow counterpart as he might just use your idea to make his own product a success.
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