Web Critic

OK, the answer is NO!  Now, what’s your question?

Heard this before?

Just how much authority is placed in the hands of the company’s telephone receptionist or first point of contact in a company? Too much! How can they filter out unwanted calls from the interesting callers? It’s just not possible as they don’t have the wit or knowledge to get it right.

So many company staff continue to live in their protected world without change, if they can. They remain unaware of new ideas, new products and new opportunities. It is these gatekeepers who effectively prevent the company from discovering anything new. What a shame for those who say NO.

I called a company the other day who had a NO gatekeeper…so I called their competitor (who had a neutral gatekeeper) and offered them  the same opportunity. The first gatekeeper didn’t even listen. Their competitor recently enjoyed tens of thousands of pounds worth of free PR (on Radio 4) and now enjoys an increasing number of new customers.

Listen, learn and benefit…or of course you can listen to the expert at the pub who always knows the truth, the comfortable truth.

Can companies please put someone intelligent and open minded on the phone please before the NO word kills your company.

Try the YES word soon…it’s great for business! Go on, try it now…it doesn’t hurt.

Yours optimistically,

Till soon,

TWC

So you are now looking at this page and thinking that it’s my website called Web Critic.

In many ways you are right and no doubt you will like or dislike the look and feel of the site. The only error that you can make at this point is thinking that it is a website. It is NOT!

You are only looking at the image of the website. A website is the code and structure that is written behind what you see. Google and all the other search engines rate you on what they see in the code, not the image or anything that you see on your monitor. But if you click on View- Source from the menu bar at the top left of the screen you will see the code…now that’s a website!

Subjective opinions based on image will never be a reliable method to determine the likely success of a web project but there are plenty of people that do…and that’s why 9 out of 10 websites will never bring a commercial success.

Marketing personnel with no practical knowledge of the www really do need to listen to advice and find out about the very large power in a website. It’s not just about image, it’s about words mainly. Image is a given…it’s the  written offer that’s important to a product seeker.

I trebled my turnover in 4 years with just a website. Try and speak with someone who understands web success instead of appreciating pretty images of yourself and your company. Failure is truly ugly.

Call me if you are serious.

Till soon,

TWC

The heating oil industry strikes again; or rather the heating oil suppliers of Yorkshire. I got a call from a senior and well known personality at Radio 4 asking me to provide the names of reliable companies in Yorkshire to meet with and speak with about heating oil, the price and pensioners.

Simple enough you would think….basically heating oil has gone up nearly 40% in 12 months and the media want to know what suppliers are doing about easing the burden on pensioners. I called 2 companies, one near Wetherby and one near Harrogate. They are both large providers of heating oil to both town and country users. I told them that a well known journalist (household name almost) was coming to see them. I was offering them the chance to get their name on Radio 4 at the correct time of night when pensioners listen. How nice to be able to get your company name heard by all those lovely prospective customers! But you would have thought that I had asked them to strip naked on TV.

Excuses for doing absolutely nothing ranged from “We aren’t fully prepared for that kind of meeting” to “giving him a lift back to the railway station is asking a bit much isn’t it?” Anyway, one of them finally agreed to look after him.

My experience with these naive individuals was rather liking watching rabbits staring at car headlights. I understand the journalist had a good day, in spite of but not because of.  It was also very sunny on Wednesday! Is saving money and cost cutting ruling everything? Imagination, creativity and spotting an opportunity has been stifled over recent years.

Brilliant, I will survive!

Till soon,

TWC