"Fool me once, shame on you - Fool me twice, shame on me!"

Though this is not the case, it comes to mind regardless when I see the type of marketing being done by scam artist.  You need to be on you toes constantly or you will end up paying for it sometime needlessly. 

I received a very offical looking invoice from Domain Renewal Group located in Deleware today.  It appear to be an invoice for renewal of one of my domains and if I wasn't paying attention, I might have approved this and payed it.  Many of you will.  Even though I have never done business with this company, they want me to think I have my domains registered  with them and if I pay... they might pay the regular cost of somewhere around $9 to my register or just pocket the $30 and skip.

Their address is a mail drop... not an offical business location.  This is similar to a scam that pre-internet scammers pull with employment ads.  Shortly after an ad is placed in the paper, a scammer will clip the ad, attach a offical looking invoice (worded to make sure they are not at fault if you don't read the invoice... or solitiation) and if you pay to their PO Box, they keep the money.  Sometime later, the real invoice appears and you have to pay twice for the same ad.

You need to stay on your toes and watch for these deceptive practice.  Good luck

CAUTION... INTERNET SCAMMING!

I'm pretty sensitive to "solicitations" that appear as a standard bill.  Today I recieved a very official looking solicitation invoice in the mail with the description: "ANNUAL WEBSITE SEARCH ENGINE LISTING" for April 1, 2008 thru April 1, 2009 (366 days... woo hoo!) for $35.00.

This appears to be a take off of the ol' - here is your tear sheet with an invoice going to someone elses PO Box.  If they time it right, you or your staff processes a check just like a normal bill.  A few weeks later the real bill comes from your newspaper to be paid.  YES, it happens and now it appears to be adapting to the internet.  CAUTION... read the words, look this over carefully.  Like I indicated, the very first thing I noticed was the annual billing with 366 days.  If it does not smell right... it is probably a scam!

What a racket!  Imposter bills and no way to correct it if you pay it.  It says right on the official looking document that it is not an invoice, but a solicitation for submitting your domain name to 14 estabilished search engines - which they will do (for what ever that means) when you send them a check for $35.

Experience helps us to identify these scams and avoid them... as they say, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."  Many businesses have a good process for paying their bills and often time we don't really think about the process.  An owner looks at every penny... a process pays the bills... which are not always aligned properly.  This is an excellent example of an area that we discuss during an assessment done by Strat Exe.  Having the experience of seeing a process work great, a company suffer cash flow issues and a respectable looking and often thougth of loyal employee help themself at the expense of the company, I am very sensitive to these types of issues and want to help you avoid the problem.

Recommendations on steps to ensure these types of issues are caught and understood before the process pays the bills on time: 

• For a small business, the owner should approve, or review, all expenditures before payment.
• For businesses with higher volume of invoices, or larger organizations, the use of a pre-approved PO system should flag these solicitations and bogus invoices before they are presented for approval.  NOTE the PRE-APPROVED comment; don't waste your time with after the fact PO's... the process is already broken!
• Having two people sign off on the billing before payment is a good move, but it can become a process that does not always do what it is to set to accomplish.

Don't get caught... you can not do anything about it and you will not receive a refund.  Remember, they have already performed the service before you even know about it.  Good luck - give me a call anytime to discuss an organizational assessment with your processes, systems, marketing or talent development. 

Above all else, watchout for an solicitation from ICLS.NET (Internet Corporation Listing Service, 303 Park Avenue S, #1073 (I'm sure this is a PO Box) in New York, NY.

Best Wishes,

Marty

You Gotta Love the Irish – For my O’Neill FamilyPaddy was driving down the street in a sweat because he had an important meeting and couldn't find a parking place.   Looking up to heaven he said, "Lord take pity on me.   If you find me a parking place I will go to Mass every Sunday for the rest of me life and give up me Irish Whiskey!" 

Miraculously, a parking place appeared.

Paddy looked up again and said, "Never mind, I found one."

Father Murphy walks into a pub in Donegal, and says to the first man he meets, "Do you want to go to heaven?" 

The man said, "I do, Father."

The priest said, "Then stand over there against the wall."

Then the priest asked the second man, "Do you want to go to heaven?"

"Certainly, Father," was the man's reply. 

"Then stand over there against the wall," said the priest.

Then Father Murphy walked up to O'Toole and said, "Do you want to go to heaven?"

O'Toole said, "No, I don't Father." 

The priest said, "I don't believe this.   You mean to tell me that when you die you don't want to go to heaven?"

O'Toole said, "Oh, when I die , yes.   ; ; ; ; ; I thought you were getting a group together to go right now."

Paddy was in New York .

He was patiently waiting and watching the traffic cop on a busy street crossing.   The cop stopped the flow of traffic and shouted, "Okay, pedestrians."   Then he'd allow the traffic to pass.

He'd done this several times, and Paddy still stood on the sidewalk.

After the cop had shouted, "Pedestrians!" for the tenth time, Paddy went over to him and said, "Is it not about time ye let the Catholics across?"

Gallagher opened the morning newspaper and was dumbfounded to read in the obituary column that he had died.   He quickly phoned his best friend, Finney. 

"Did you see the paper?" asked Gallagher. "They say I died!!"

"Yes, I saw it!" replied Finney.   "Where are ye callin' from?"

An Irish priest is driving down to New York and gets stopped for speeding in Connecticut.   The state trooper smells alcohol on the priest's breath and then sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car. 

He says, "Sir, have you been drinking?"
"Just water," says the priest.

The trooper says, "Then why do I smell wine?"

The priest looks at the bottle and says, "Good Lord! He's done it again!"

Walking into the bar, Mike said to Charlie the bartender, "Pour me a stiff one - just had another fight with the little woman." 

"Oh yeah?" said Charlie, "And how did this one end?"

"When it was over," Mike replied, "She came to me on her hands and knees.

"Really," said Charles, "Now that's a switch!   What did she say?" 

She said, "Come out from under the bed, you little chicken."

Flynn staggered home very late after another evening with his drinking buddy, Paddy.   He took off his shoes to avoid waking his wife, Mary. 

He tiptoed as quietly as he could toward the stairs leading to their upstairs bedroom, but misjudged the bottom step.   As he caught himself by grabbing the banister, his body swung around and he landed heavily on his rump.   A whiskey bottle in each back pocket broke and made the landing especially painful. 

Managing not to yell, Flynn sprung up, pulled down his pants, and looked in the hall mirror to see that his butt cheeks were cut and bleeding.   He managed to quietly find a full box of Band-Aids and began putting a Band-Aid as best he could on each place he saw blood.He then hid the now almost empty Band-Aid box and shuffled and stumbled his way to bed. 

In the morning, Flynn woke up with searing pain in both his head and butt and Mary staring at him from across the room. 

She said, "You were drunk again last night weren't you?"

Flynn said, "Why you say such a mean thing?"

"Well," Mary said, "it could be the open front door, it could be the broken glass at the bottom of the stairs, it could be the drops of blood trailing through the house, it could be your bloodshot eyes, but mostly.....it's all those Band-Aids stuck on the hall mirror.

Considering the issues connected to the 3 “S” (scamming, spamming and shamming), it is very important for an eCommerce or web site to create a connection with the viewer/user. Trust is vital… the presence of credibility needs to somehow be displayed.

Without a personal relationship with the viewer it becomes more important for them to go beyond simply viewing… involvement and understanding/education enables your customer to connect with you. As an example is when you meet someone for the first time. Regardless of the setting, it takes time for you and the other person to get a feel for who you are even though you are face to face. Trying to convey this online, without a friendly introduction, except for a search engines, takes extra effort. Sharing (education) who you are, what you do, how you do it and your values are a few areas that are important to convey. Using pictures and testimonials are good ways to help with this.

How do you build online trust with your viewers?

Welcome. I would like to share my thoughts and research on the new marketing approach - Social & Relationship Marketing.

Today, more than ever, customer loyalty is becoming more about relationships then deals. As eCommerce on the internet is expanding rapidly and the barriers to entry have dropped in many industries, the issue of trust is at the forefront of consumers minds. Scamming, Spamming and Shamming is everywhere - we cannot avoid it. People are not who they say they are... do I need to bring up identity theft?

My blog will focus on how to utilize social marketing and build customer loyalty. Social, or Relationship, Marketing is all about building trust in a very interactive way. As a business owner, it is vital to pay attention to your customer base to make sure you are servicing their needs. What better way than to interact and ask your customers what they want, how they want it and when they want it. Both parties want the same thing... their needs addressed. This does not have to be "online" all the time. Retail stores are essential to the shopping experience, relationship building and addressing consumer needs more than ever and, in my opinion, essential to servicing consumers - you cannot buy everything online. Retailers must embrace the online community to retain their share of mind with their consumers.

QUESTION: How can local retailers in smaller communities compete online? I will be interested to see what your thoughts are. Post your ideas or comments on my thoughts and we will learn from each other.