Ethical Marketing™

Every Element of this Video was Purchased for $5 — #microbusinessmonday — Microbusiness Support

2012-04-08T08:11:27Z

How to handle a fast talking pitchman #MicrobusinessMonday

2012-04-05T11:54:00Z

Stop the pitch whenever you have a question.

Hangup if your question is not answered.

You will be absolutely amazed at how fast the call will be ended.

==============

This is exactly how to handle every call in 60 seconds or less.

==============

P….. Hi xxx … you filled in an online form of mine giving me your phone number, my company name is xxxxxxx

Me.. OK

P….. We did xxxxxx for you at no charge and we think we can help you build your business

Me.. OK

P….. Are you the decision maker in your business, or is there someone else who must approve purchases

Me.. Nope, It’s just me here. My company has a staff of one. I make all the buying decisions.

P….. We offer a 90 day campaign for your business which we think can really help you.
Are you using xxxx, xxxx, xxxx ?

Me.. Yes, No, Yes

P….. xxxxxx

Me.. How much does it cost?

P….. one million dollars.

Me.. <<Click>>

Of course, you could continue. But, do so because you liked the answer to the question.

Best Regards,

Charles (KnNell) Knell

http://microbusiness-support.com

Technorati Tags: ethical marketing, internet marketing, microbusiness, microbusiness monday, microbusinessmonday

New Features at Fiverr.com

2012-03-15T14:23:26Z

See my FIVE DOLLAR fiverr.com offers CLICK HERE

P.S. Fiverr has promoted me to a “Level 2″ Seller! Go Fiverr Go!

Q: What’s the reason why most one person businesses fail?
A: They can’t find and hire talent at a reasonable price.

That’s where fiverr fills the gap with guarenteed results.

Charles (KnNell) Knell

Ethical Marketing to Children, the U.S. Congress Wants Your Input

2011-12-27T18:20:26Z

Want to help change a law? The US government is asking for comments to Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) so that it can make revisions. COPPA requires operators of all online services or websites for children under 13 (or those who have knowledge that they are collecting personal info from children under 13) to obtain verifiable consent from parents before collecting, using or disclosing children’s personal information. The FTC wants to update the definition of “personal information” to include geolocation information as well as tracking cookies and similar persistent identifiers. A large number of popular online services today seek geolocation data from their users -Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare are some that come to mind — and tracking cookies are today a very common means of tracking users’ online behavior. The commission also proposes a different definition of “collection” of data, which would allow children to participate in interactive communities without parental consent as long as the operators of those communities “take reasonable measures to delete all or virtually all children’s personal information before it is made public.” The changes to COPPA are extensive. [We] find it refreshing that the government is asking for input on a law that will have a big impact on the internet. The government should extend their solicitation for changes to a law for every law on the books.

Originally published by the Web Leads Support Team at

Web Leads, Inc 5850 Canoga Ave. #308 Woodland Hills, CA 91367 888-740-1071 ext. 85 webleadsinc.com

More Information HERE

http://ftc.gov/opa/2011/09/coppa.shtm

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Technorati Tags: ethical marketing to children

Email Marketing for Ethical Marketers

2012-03-14T13:38:37Z

There’s a new link today in this blog’s “Resource List”.

It’s called “Ethical Guide to Email Marketing”. That’s only the name I give it, not its official name. However, after looking it over I realized that it’s more about the ethics of direct marketing using email than anything else.

The real benefit to you is that building your email lists with truly interested prospects, those who want your message, is the ethical way to do it. Have a look here. The added benefit is that your messages will get thru to your prospect.

… some marketers misuse mailing lists, often through a lack of knowledge about longstanding Internet customs and rules, or because they attempt to apply direct paper mail methodology to the electronic realm

If you are an email marketer, you should be intimate with the concepts explained there. I personally ran across this as I was sending out an email campaign for a client. I was examining my bounced messages. The website on which this material is located is currently used by AT&T networks to block spam email.

Disregard these guidelines and NONE of your email will arrive at prospects served by AT&T networks. This is a really good idea for keeping spam out of inboxes and at some point every ISP may be as spam sensitive at AT&T. I hope that they will be reading this. I hate spam.

Charles (KnNell) Knell
Ethical Marketing

The best kept secret in Internet Marketing, hidden in plain sight

2011-08-28T16:08:47Z

Ok, it’s not really a secret. Or, maybe it is. I suppose it’s a secret to you if you don’t know it, right?

I’m talking about fiverr.com, the original source of services for $5, or a “fiverr”.

I’m certainly not the most experienced at using fiverr. But, I’ll get there.

The business model is incredibly simple. What are you willing to do for $5. Nothing you think? Thing again. I’ll bet that there are all kinds of things that you can do in a few minutes. Why? Because, that is just how skill sets are. I can do things in minutes that others require hours or even days to accomplish. But, before I started using fiverr, I never really even thought about it.

This is the question you should be asking yourself. What are those things that I can do in minutes?

IF YOU CAN LINE UP 6 ten minute jobs, then, do the arithmetic. That’s $30 per hour of revenue. Many, many people would be willing to work for that. Are you?

Here is a great example. I met “chrisdesign” simply buying his $5 gig for the expressed purpose of asking him questions about how he uses fiverr. The reason I picked him out of thousands of fiverr users, is because he is a fiverr rated “top seller”. On fiverr, a “top seller” is one of the folks doing the most business there.

Let’s say that you run an ecommerce store. You have a line of products and associated photos. One day you think, “I should replace that old picture on my home page with a slide show!”. But, HEY, you don’t know how! It would take you hours to work out how to make a slide show, and you just don’t have time to learn.

You just need the slide show. What do you think that costs on fiverr?

It’s $5 right here: http://bit.ly/Great-SlideShows-for-FIVE-Dollars

Have a look. This is a real business, by chrisdesign.

Charles

Top 7 Outsourcing Mistakes

2011-07-22T15:47:52Z

Last week I found a great opportunity to sell leads and also got an order for leads. Oddly, this is connected to outsourcing of software development. I have 32 years of experience in all phases and aspects of software development, and about 20 years experience on a single product.

Also last week, I watched an interesting and VERY informative Frank Kern & Ryan Deiss offer for 6 weeks of coaching. Both Frank and Ryan are outsourcing service providers of marketing training and marketing coaching.

I sent Frank a note letting him know that his website had been hacked. You might want to wait a while before you look at it. If you don’t know Frank, you probably should read THIS blog first and then look at his site, http://frankkern.com. I know Ryan Deiss well enough to trust him with my money, which in fact I have done. Frank and Ryan are both master marketers. That said, don’t buy things that you don’t need and can’t use right now. Don’t buy coaching products that you don’t have time to use fully right now. If these things don’t apply to you, Ryan currently has a $1 offer that’s pretty interesting. Although, if you aren’t careful, you just might pay more for it.

Read my free whitepaper, “Top 7 Outsourcing Mistakes“. Can you trust me? Read this blog and find out.

Charles

Technorati Tags: outsourcing

The Best Practice for using LinkedIn

2011-06-23T12:49:10Z

This morning it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I’ve been wondering for months about what the best practice is for using LinkedIn.

What is LinkedIn? It’s only one of the oldest social marketing websites.

LinkedIn was popular in the business world before Twitter went online and before Facebook became mainstream.

In case you haven’t hear about it, LinkedIn was growing during the time when the term “Social Marketing” was not yet popular.

LinkedIn is a “Social Marketing” web site which for many years didn’t market itself that way.

The single best feature offered by LinkedIn is “Profile Stats”.

Do you remember how they told you that “references on your resume are rarely checked”. Well…forget that because now it’s so easy that everyone is doing it.

And, you can find out more about a person by looking at the profiles of those who recommend them than by any other way. You can also look a level deeper and discover even more. Doing this is a bit similar to the way the Google ranking algorithm works as described in its patent.

A friend of mine from the “Internet Marketing” world, Carolyne (Caro) McCourtie, recently joined linkedIn. I know Caro from the “30 Day Challenge” Social Marketing Campaign promoted by Ed Dale. Caro has helped me in various ways at no charge. Remember, a friend is a person who will help you out and expect nothing in return.

I’m leading up to the single best way for using LinkedIn. It’s what I call your “personal conversion rate” in the LinkedIn marketing channel, that is, the number of times your profile is viewed divided by the number of searches for a person like you.

LinkedIn provides you with “Profile Stats”. Out of those people who searched for your profile keywords, how many people viewed your profile? This tells you how well your personal marketing message, your profile, is at attracting prospects, people who might want to hire you.

The best practice:
Optimize your profile to improve your “personal conversion rate”.
The “Profile Stats” section information is private to each LinkedIn member.

This ONE MINUTE VIDEO shows you more about this.

Technorati Tags: Ethical Internet Marketing, internet marketing, linkedin

Internet Marketer Ryan Deiss of DrivingTraffic.com

2010-12-26T12:31:09Z

Ryan, I really think that you could be 100 times what you are now. All you need to do is embrace the concept of “ethical marketing“. OMG, Your Rank Mogul training is miles ahead, more accurate, more helpful, and a greater value than any other material I have seen in the last 2 years. But, consider this, on November 25, I actually MISTAKENLY thought that you were about to ripoff Make-a-Wish. Does ANYONE not see this as a huge mistake? Apparently, you (Ryan) did not realize that a $50,000 donation was not possible and THAT really rubbed me, an analytical person, the wrong way. I DO know why NOW, but I didn’t THEN. I seriously but MISTAKENLY thought that you were one of the bad guys. Ryan, the exact opposite is the case! WOW! $60,137 donated to Make-a-wish! That is a “trust builder” if I ever saw one and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if this video (click here) is worth 10 times what you donated, over this next year. You might want to add a youTube description. The two men standing on the left of the opening shot of the video are Glen West, President and CEO of “Make a Wish” Austin, and Scott Crews, Senior Development Officer of “Make a Wish” Austin. I spoke to Scott Crews a day or so ago, and I’m satisfied that those men in the video were the real deal and not actors. You did a really generous thing that day.

Ryan, I feel really sure that you have never read “Think and Grow Rich”, or if you did, the story of the formation of “United States Steel Corporation” didn’t sink in. What “bad guy” do you know that publicly hands over a check that size to a charity? There is simply no other Internet Marketing Marketer with your present position in the Internet Marketing space. I’m sure that the inventors of the Internet would be pleased to know about this Right Result.

Congratulations! $60,137 may be the most money raised for charity in a lead generation campaign.

My most sincere best regards, © 2010 Right Results Consulting LLC
Charles KnNell, for Ethical Marketing™

[[ To see the comments submitted by Ryan to the above post, please click here ]]

Technorati Tags: Ethical Internet Marketing, internet marketing, marketing

Ethical Marketing™, Because That Is Where the Money Is

2010-12-23T20:41:07Z

Hi Jacob,

I have not watched your video, but I believe I know what is in it. And, I also believe that you are correct about it, on a basic level. I’ve been thinking about how to do this for weeks now. It’s a great idea and I’d love to know how to do it. The single only reason that I haven’t offered you $97 for what your partner is willing to teach about it, is simply that I don’t know that I can trust you 100%. I have to know whether or not I can trust you because I will simply not execute a business transaction with a person that I don’t trust 100%. The only thing that you can offer me to close this deal is the honest answer to the question I already asked. The moment that I confirm your answer as the truth, I’ll be removing my credit card from my wallet. Jacob, this is all A LOT easier than you insist on making it. By only appealing to my emotional side, you will never succeed. I understand that this is how most people make business decisions, but it is behavior not in their best interest. The folks with the REAL money in this world, the 1%, make business decisions based on thought activity on their logical side. Hence, the “MC” strategy works on 99% of people, but they don’t have most of the money. When asked why he robbed banks, an infamous bank robber said, “Because that is where the money is.”

Charles KnNell for Ethical Marketing™
© 2010 Right Results Consulting LLC

Technorati Tags: Ethical Internet Marketing, ethical marketing, marketing

Wikipedia Wins the 2010 KnNell Prize for “Most Ethical Website of 2010″

2010-11-30T14:36:51Z

Hundreds of websites were evaluated by “Ethical Marketing” during the year 2010. Wikipedia® has consistantly demonstrated the most ethical policies and services of any website of the English speaking world. A sovereign democratic world government, apart from the existing confederacy, having responsibility for taxation and the associated granting of “public charity status”, would surely determine that Wikipedia qualifies as such. Who among us cannot afford to give them one dollar and spread the word?

Technorati Tags: Ethical Internet Marketing, ethical marketing, internet marketing

My Bit for the Reduction of Webspam on Google, Charles_KnNell

2010-12-08T22:48:16Z

To: Google Webspam Team
From: Charles_KnNell of Webmaster Central

[The spam website at http://www.....] uses my photo in another person’s listing (Jenny E[.....]‘s Profile). I’m Charles Knell (real name) – Charles KnNell (brand name) – http://rrco.biz — Thanks for all of the amazing work and favors you have done for me in the past. The funny thing is, I know you would do them for anyone.

We’ve received your spam report for http://www.exp[........]/7. November 25, 2010. Thank you for submitting a spam report for this site: http://www.exp[........]/7

We take the quality of our results very seriously, and we thoroughly investigate every report of deceptive practices and take appropriate action when we uncover genuine abuse. In especially egregious cases, we will remove spammy websites from our index immediately, so they don’t show up in search results at all. At a minimum, we’ll use the data from each spam report to improve our site ranking and filtering algorithms, which, over time, should increase the quality of our results.

We appreciate your taking the time to help us improve our service for your fellow users around the world. By helping us eliminate spam, you’re saving millions of people time, effort and energy.

Here is your opportunity to join the ranks of the ethical. IMO, this will save each member of the public who would have landed on this spam website 10 seconds. That isn’t much right? Wrong! It’s 10 seconds times 1 million people (average hourly rate $4 per hour). I just saved the world 4 million seconds of wasted time. Or, 1000 hours or $4000. If one thousand people turn in a webspam report today, they will save the world 4 million dollars. After logging in to your Google® account, you can turn in a webspam report right here.

I’m Charles_KnNell for Ethical Marketing™

Technorati Tags: Ethical Internet Marketing, ethical marketing, internet marketing

The BBB Answers Allegations of Unethical Marketing from ABC News 20/20 – Ethical Marketing – Internet Marketing

2010-11-26T11:39:51Z

The Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc. has responded to the ABC News 20/20 report, which was critical of alleged unethical marketing practices in place at one local Better Business Bureau.

Immediately, [the] BBB will make available on its website a streamlined process for receiving complaints on BBB sales practices, and will implement procedures for investigating each complaint.

Read their press release "BBB Takes Action".

Each local BBB organization does their own marketing, sharing a national database.

Currently, there is a story circulating in cyberspace that the Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc is a public charity, and that the so called "annual fees" they solicit from businesses are really charitible donations. The reasoning is that these "donations" go to fund their programs; Click Here to see the BBB programs list. What "for profit" business do you know of that would create a list of programs like this?

I’m Charles KnNell™ for "Ethical Marketing"

Technorati Tags: bbb, bbb ethics, bbbethics, Council of Better Business Bureaus, ethical marketing, internet marketing

The BBB of Hawaii Responds to Ethics Questions

2010-11-30T11:59:20Z

The Honolulu office of the BBB has responded to the ABC News 20/20 report.

“From a standpoint of Hawaii’s BBB, none of that is going on here. I can honestly say that we have processes in place to make sure in fact that we do business ethically," said Dwight Kealoha, CEO of Hawaii’s Better Business Bureau office, which has a full-time staff of 16 people in its Bishop Street offices in downtown Honolulu.

My personal understanding of the BBB organizational structure is that each local office does their own marketing, but they may share a national database. So, in fairness, some local offices may have outsourced their marketing work to unethical marketers. The response to my complaint to the BBB on November 14 should be some indication of whether or not I am right.

One more thing, “Hamas” did NOT get an A rating by the BBB. That was “Hamas, Robert S”. This was an unethical trick to make the BBB look guilty, which took advantage of a technical flaw in the BBB website design. I saw the listing before it was wisely removed. But, do I need to point out that the tech guy in the ABC story could have been anyone ? Apparently, it isn’t obvious.

Charles_KnNell

Technorati Tags: bbb ethics

Allegations of Wrongdoing at the BBB by ABC News

2010-11-20T13:19:37Z

After watching the ABC News story, I submitted the following request (below) to the BBB on their website. In fairness, the reviews of the business are to be found on the BBB website. An ethical issue here is that a casual visitor is unlikely to see that the “F” rating is a result of not being a member of the BBB. The casual visitor is likely to attribute this highly negative rating to the business even though no negative reports exist in the BBB database.

Nov 14, 2010
To: Complaint Department, BBB
Name: Charles_KnNell
email: charles@ethical-marketing.rrco.biz

Inaccurate information reported on Business Report for Wolfgang Puck (Company ID 100048262). Discrepancies listed below: I find this report to be unethical and suggest that an ethical report would include the number of negative and positive reports. As is, in my personal opinion, it simply defames a lawful trademark. Alternatively and at your sole descretion, this listing could be removed.

With respect,
Charles_KnNell
http://ethical-marketing.rrco.biz

Technorati Tags: ethical marketing

Ethical Marketing in 2010 — in 59 seconds — Charles_KnNell

2010-11-11T11:46:54Z

Ethical Marketing. There’s an old story about a salesman who explained it this way. “When you sell in a new village, the people judge you by your suit. But, when you sell in your own village, people judge you by your reputation.” In 2010, marketers have a relatively new problem to deal with. There is only one “global village”, and that’s where your reputation will matter going forward. You can’t just move on to the next village with no reputation to worry about. If you think that you can market on the internet with no reputation, think again. The first thing I do before buying anything online is to learn if other people are writing bad things about it. You simply can’t hide negative information about your brand on the internet without a ton of money to spend on doing it. If someone is complaining about you, you can find it with a search engine. One view on ethical marketing is that we really can only judge it properly in retrospect. Treat your customers with kid gloves because if you motivate them to complain about your product or service, you will need to move on to the next village. And, there isn’t any.

Comments on this and all articles become visible when you click on the article title (next to the date).

To find out what people say about me on the internet, Google me: Charles_KnNell Then, try your own name.

Technorati Tags: ethical marketing, internet marketing

Judging Competition for High Rankings using a Guaranteed Cost Quote

2010-11-02T19:48:48Z

Q. What is the most effective method of judging the competition for top rankings?

A. You may judge the difficulty of achieving top rankings for highly competitive keywords by comparing guaranteed cost quotes for achieving those rankings. During my last 2 years of full time experience doing Internet Marketing, I have not seen any evidence to support the idea that a single commercial tool can accurately help you judge this for highly competitive keywords. One simple example of a guaranteed cost quote is as follows: If the agreed upon 20 day average ranking is not achieved, the client pays an “agreed upon in advance” prorated fee.

If you decide to pay for SEO services of any kind, be certain that your agreement is crystal clear. The bottom line is that ambiguous agreements are not enforceable. And, there is a really good reason for that. It is because one cannot show that both parties shared the same understanding of the content of the agreement.

Comments on this and all articles become visible when you click on the article title (next to the date).

Technorati Tags: internet marketing

The Importance of Keywords in Page Titles

2010-11-20T13:20:22Z

A few days ago I was trying to discover why the competition is beating my client off the first page of Google rankings. A trusted friend of mine recently remarked that she doesn’t use many SEO tools anymore because it just isn’t necessary. What she says is that search engines tell you volumes about ranking simply by looking at search results. To keep it simple, let’s just focus on page titles.

Somehow, I got into a debate with my client about whether or not it is important if your target keyword appears in page titles. She insisted that her research showed that this simply isn’t true. Rather than argue the point, I kept my true thoughts to myself and responded that I’d take the time to see for myself. This is a really good case which shows how inadequate words alone are for communicating information. Since, the need for inclusion of keywords in page titles is so incredibly obvious to me. Surely, it was the words I was using in my attempt to persuade which were at fault.

The very first thing to learn about this is that all marketing channels are not created equal. When you are looking at search results, it matters whether the marketing channel is highly competitive or not. In most cases, a channel is simply not competitive enough to show off the importance of a particular “on page” optimization factor. However, if you look at a marketing channel which has click value of more than one million dollars per quarter, that is another matter. With click cost in this range, a business targeting the first page of Google results can afford to purchase every “on page optimization” advantage.

Have a look at my client’s keyword and see how her competitors use it in their page titles. I won’t tell you the keyword; why not discover it yourself? Click Here

So, does your competition place important keywords in their page titles? Maybe they do and maybe they don’t. But, the real question is “should you?” and I say “yes”.

Best Regards,
Charles

Charles Knell is an independent internet marketing consultant.
Right Results Consulting LLC

Technorati Tags: internet marketing

Is the Micro Niche Frenzy an Unethical Scam?

2010-11-20T13:21:33Z

COPR 2010 Right Results Consulting LLC — A friend of mine recently posted about his personal attempts to make money online. It kills me to realize that he is being taken advantage of. The building of “Micro Niche” websites is the buzz among early adopters of internet marketing tools. The bottom line is this. If I had a drop dead simple strategy which could really bring in 6 figures I would implement it myself immediately. I wouldn’t write a book or a training course about it and degrade my chances of making it work.

Charles

What is the most cost effective means to Improve Search Engine Rankings?

Technorati Tags: ethical marketing, internet marketing

A Tale of Two Markets — in 59 seconds — @Charles_KnNell

2010-01-28T12:14:34Z

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was a world of ethical markets, and it was a world of unethical markets. Pardon the plagiarism. p023mnr

It is my perception that all markets fall into a continuum between the two poles of ethical marketing and unethical marketing. Certain markets are very ethical, for example, the market for “Christianity”. There are also unethical markets, for example, the market for “Search Engine Optimization”. As one might expect, the behavior and expectations of participants in these two diametrically opposed market types are very different. In an ethical market, prospects do not expect to be tricked. In an unethical market, they do expect trickery. In an ethical market, prospects do not expect that the first contact attempt with them will likely be a falsehood. In an unethical market, they accept first contact lies as part of the landscape of the market. Prospects in an unethical market believe that they are smarter than the marketers, and so they accept trickery and lies as part of doing business as usual. Of course, there is probably no perfect ethical market or unethical one, but every market is somewhere on the continuum between being ethical and being unethical.

with apologies to Charles Dickens,
@Charles_KnNell — Copyright 2009 Right Results Consulting LLC

Technorati Tags: ethical marketing

Avoid the Ripoff – Evaluating Internet Marketing SEO Tools

2009-11-06T14:51:42Z

In this series, I explain how I successfully avoid being ripped off on the Internet. This article explains how I evaluate SEO tools and includes practical ideas on developing your own business opportunity evaluation style, a critical skill in the new global economy. SEO tools are a broad set of very different software and training which have the common objective of getting more visitor traffic to a website.

Since October 22, 2007, I have evaluated hundreds of SEO Tools for my own consulting practice, and I’m sharing an interesting gem with you. This was one of my most interesting encounters with one of these tool makers.

The day started out as all days do, breakfast, coffee, and reading email. This day, an ad about generating more Twitter followers caught my attention. I surfed over to the sales page and it looked pretty good. Many people don’t think much of Twitter, mainly because they simply don’t see what’s in it for them. Trust me on this one, this will change. Non-believers can stop reading here. This article is for the one million people who understand that Twitter is a portal into the soul of humanity, revealing what people care about, what interests them, what they might buy. Learning how one can use Twitter more effectively is on the minds of many, many marketers. I made a decision to learn if using this particular tool was in my future.

Is the business trying to hide its ownership? The first thing that I always look at is the domain registration of the sales page. In order to give your web site a unique name (called a domain name), you must register it with a Domain Name Registrar. The legal person who owns the domain name is required to provide accurate information. If you determine that they didn’t provide accurate information you can actually report them to the registrar and they may lose their name as a result of this violation. Currently, there is little enforcement of this requirement, so you may find false or useless contact information. A legit business will never violate this requirement by providing false contact information. However, keep in mind that there is little enforcement of this rule. This is actually no problem for you because you can EASILY verify it yourself. You can make a phone call, right? Bad guys don’t want you to be able to find them. So, this is an indicator or a vote. If the business has provided false or even inaccurate contact information that is a “thumbs down” vote. There are more votes to be counted, however. If you contact the business and they take quick action to correct the errors, that would be a “thumbs up” vote. There is another consideration. Some registrars provide a service called “private” registration whereby the registrar actually is the legal owner of the domain name. This provides more privacy for the site owner, but if the domain owner is suspected of wrongdoing their contact information can lawfully be revealed by the registrar to any law enforcement agency. So, the privacy isn’t really much at all except that it is a barrier to ordinary people to learn the true ownership of the domain name. Therefore, if the domain name has “private” registration, I give that a “thumbs down” vote. In my opinion, real businesses with a good code of ethics are not likely to use “private” domain name registration.

How well does the business handle complaints? The second thing that I do is call customer service and point out a problem. You can tell a great deal about a company by performing this behavior. Is there anyone to talk to? Is there anyone to “online chat” with? Is there an email address that doesn’t work? Is the response time slow? Do you think that customer service will be bad before the sale and good after the sale? You get the idea, right? I have been a customer service manager since 1999, and I can tell you from personal experience that a successful real business does everything it can to get new customers and keep existing customers. If you don’t get this feeling from your contact with customer service, it’s a “thumbs down” vote.

I contacted customer service for the Twitter tool that I was interested in. Previous to my call, I read the sales offer page and the “Terms of Service” document for the product. I noticed that on the sales page for the product there was a “guarentee” shown. But, in the “Terms of Service” the word “guarentee” did not appear. I interpreted this to mean that the sales page offered a “guarentee” but the “Terms of Service” did not offer a “guarentee”. So, my contact with customer service was for the purpose of resolving the apparent conflict between the sales offer and the “Terms of Service”. Now, read carefully, I told the customer service person that I would like their permission to record our conversation. The person told me that this was not lawful and I responded that if both parties agreed to the recording that it was lawful. Many companies do this with your permission when you call them. They do it for their own protection and for training purposes. The person I was talking to declined to have our conversation recorded, so I agreed to that. Recording or no recording, this will get the person’s attention and let them know that you want the real scoop. They will be careful about what they say. They don’t know you and you could be recording anyway (even though that would be unethical after you agreed not to). The customer service person asked me if I was an attorney. I’m not. So far, I have two “thumbs down” votes for the contact. Then, I pointed out that there was a conflict between their sales offer page and their “Terms of Service”. The customer service person insisted that the “Terms of Service” did describe the “guarentee”. In my opinion, this was clearly a false claim. At this point, another “thumbs down” vote clicked in. Then, the most amazing thing occurred, the person said, “You are not calling to BUY the software, you are calling to COMPLAIN* about the software!”. Wow, another “thumbs down” vote submitted. We never even discussed their software. I hung up the phone; my heart pounding with the excitement that I had a clear answer. In the democracy of my own mind, a good decision is the result of counting votes.

* Note: The actual word used here started with the second letter of the alphabet.

Charles KnNell is the publisher of “Ethical Marketing”.

Technorati Tags: ethical marketing, internet marketing

Avoid the Ripoff – How to judge if a seller is trustworthy.

2009-09-14T12:58:39Z

The eye-catching use of a “Money Back Guarentee” is a trend that I’ve seen in online advertizing of Internet Marketing products. However appealing, this guarentee may be only as good as the word of the seller. And, the word of the seller is just fine when the seller is a well known brand name. The Internet Marketing Tools product space is in a constant state of change, and it’s rare for buyers to recognize a trustworthy brand. Change, it seems, is the only constant in this product space.

There are several good ways to judge a seller’s money back guarentee. But, my opinion is that unless the guarentee is a “no questions asked” policy, it isn’t worth much in the case of an electronically delivered information product. In case you are not familiar with fine points of online buying, this means any product which has no trackable physical delivery. There are MANY fine vendors of these kinds of products, and they always give this level of guarentee quality. But, then there are the many others who are not vendors of quality and who also use P*ypal. P*ypal has a very practical approach to the problem of returns of non-tangible products, but, unfortunately it seems to favor the thieves, con men, and scam artists.

Suppose you buy an eBook thru P*ypal. You have a look at it, and you feel that the seller made false claims about it. For example, the seller told you that if you buy his product you can earn an average of $20 per day using it, and he proves that this is possible in his sales pitch. Therefore, you want to obtain a refund. Since the product was downloaded to your computer, when the seller processes your refund, you still have the book. So, after you jump thru hoops with P*ypal using their “dispute” process, you give up and escalate your dispute into a claim. Sorry, but all claims of this type, electronically delivered information products, eBook downloads, software downloads, music downloads, etc. are automatically decided in favor of the seller.

It’s true that P*ypal monitors the number of disputes that a seller’s customers have submitted, and the vendor can be banned for a high a number of disputes. However, this is of little comfort to you because you do not get your refund. As a buyer, you should read the terms of sale that the payment processor publishes. If you don’t understand something, most payment processors are very happy to clarify their written policies. P*ypal is certainly very responsible about this. But interestingly enough, I had to speak to their claims department in order to learn their current policy for non-tangible product claims resolutions. It didn’t seem to be present in their online written terms and conditions, but actually that is understandable. Putting that into writing just helps the thieves. Also, I want to explain why I’m not spelling out P*ypal. It is because it’s fine with me if the bad guys don’t read this article. I already know that very few search for ethical marketing.

Charles KnNell
Follow me on Twitter @Charles_KnNell

Technorati Tags: ethical marketing

The 30 Day Challenge – About Staying on Schedule

2012-04-05T11:48:07Z

August 11, 2009. Suppose that you just can’t devote enough time and energy to every
day’s training done by the end of every day. Don’t worry, that’s not
a problem. Proceed at your own pace! The ONLY issue is that your
FREE Market Samurai subscription is for 40 days. After that, you must
pay something every month. I’m not sure when the WPD FREE
subscription ends. If you are committed to learning as much as you
can about Internet Marketing, this isn’t a problem.
The important thing here is to complete the 30 days of training.

If it takes you a bit longer, that’s OK ! These are not my words,
their Ed’s.

When you need motivation, just watch the next of Ed’s TV Shows that
you haven’t seen. His shows are great for watching when you need to
get re-excited about this stuff.

The bottom line is that learning a new field is hard work, but it’s
worth it. Yesterday, someone asked me what I did. I told them that I
was an Internet Marketer and they asked me “Who needs to know about
Internet Marketing?”. I said, “Anyone who needs to market themselves
or a product, that’s all. They are the only ones.”

“You will know that the fad of ‘Internet Marketing’ has passed when we
are all are calling it ‘Marketing’”.

Charles
30DCMarketers

Technorati Tags: 30DC, 30DCMarketers, internet marketing, thirtydaychallenge

FREE Internet Marketing Tutorials – The 30 Day Challenge

2012-04-05T11:45:01Z

June 20, 2009. The 30 Day Challenge is a series of FREE Internet Marketing Training sessions, presented for begineers AND very advanced Internet Marketers. And, there is homework. Now, when I say that the challenge is FREE, that means not only is the training free, but the tools you need to complete the challenge will also be free (but only for the challenge). I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s true.

Once the challenge starts on August 1, there will be NO SALES PITCH by any of the presenters.

Even now, in the 30 Day Challenge forums, there is no sales pitching allowed. Now, that is hard for marketers to do! So, there are moderators to enforce it. There is pitching going on now to previous challengers from previous challengers.

The unique thing about this program is that you can do the entire program free. I frankly was very skeptical at first, but Ed Dale is a man of his word.

The 30 Day Challenge is THE yearly online social marketing event for all Internet Marketers. If you signup, when the challenge is over, you will receive many pitches for tools, training, and services, from Internet Marketers all over the world. So, pick the email address you give Ed very carefully. You may even want to setup a new email address just for the challenge. On August 31 and after, you will be receiving email pitches, and some of them are VERY hard to resist, because in my opinion,

30 Day Challengers are the MASTER Marketers of the Internet

The 30 Day Challenge is the creation of Ed Dale. Ed is a friend of Frank Kern who is famous in the Internet Marketing world for a 24 hour campaign which generated revenue of 23 million dollars. Now, that wasn’t Frank’s cut, he had to share it with affiliates. But, you get the idea. And, when you are done with the 30 Day Challenge, YOU WILL BE A BETTER MARKETER no matter what market you are in. That’s a promise.

Join us at the 30 Day Challenge,
Charles

Charles P Knell, follow me on twitter: @Charles_KnNell
A.K.A. Chuck Knell, Charles KnNell
http://www.improve-my-search-engine-rankings.com

Technorati Tags: 30 Day Challenge

FREE Internet Marketing Tutorials – 30DCMarketers

2012-04-05T11:46:17Z

June 11, 2009. I’m a full time Internet Marketer since Oct 22, 2007 when I formed my own company, Right Results Consulting LLC. Last year I watched every video and did every assignment of the “30 Day Challenge”. Ed Dale, Dan Raine, Guru Bob, and Caro are some of the most helpful people that I know. They say that a friend is a person that will help you out and expect nothing in return. These four individuals fit that description and I’m planning to listen to every word that they have to say this year. I followed every free suggestion they published last year and as the “30 Day Challenge” unfolds this year I’ll provide my own insight and experience to this team. See my post at 30DCMarketers Team for the 30 Day Challenge to join this year’s challenge.

Charles,
30DCMarketers Team

Technorati Tags: 30 Day Challenge