A Consulting Call Shouldn't Be A Sales Pitch

Thanks to John aka ColderICE for his great radio show today. I had to listen to it when he said he was outing someone. And wouldn't you know, it was someone on my poop list, who I've pointed at before here in this blog.

This link will download an MP3 of the radio show, which was the 1 July 2009 "BS Walks" show John does on TalkShoe.com.

John gives a bad rating for Bonanzle late in the show, which I was very interested in. I disagree that Bonanzle is a good solution if you want an eCommerce presence. If you want one, get a buyitsellit.com or Vendio Store. Why bring traffic to a marketplace with competitors! Bring people to your own website.

But it was the middle of the show that tickled me.

John found out that Skip McGrath just started tweeting on Twitter, but is already trying to push an e-book about Twitter. You can evidently get his free e-book if you sign up and agree to have a 30-minute "consulting call." Ugh. Then it's not really free, is it. It takes your time and energy.

John's first point was basically why is a Twitter newbie trying to push/sell you an e-book about something that is new to him? I've been on Twitter since April 2008. I should write an e-book! John should write an e-book. Skip, this is not your specialty.

Not mentioned in John's show is something I noticed in Skip's tweets. He's looking for YOU to tweet him Twitter tips (for his book). So once again, he's barely writing his own book. I saw him do this for his last eBay book... he was in eBay discussion forums asking people for information.

John continued with a caller, Karen, who reported her experience signing up for Skip's e-book. She got the "consulting call." She said they asked questions about what she wanted to get out of this, how her credit was, and how her finances were. She said she didn't have credit cards, and lived on a fixed income. Karen reported that the "consulting call" contained no consulting or advice, even though she asked about product sourcing (supposedly Skip's specialty). The call lasted 8 minutes and 8 seconds, and the caller told her to buy Skip's system.

FAIL. Karen said on John's radio show that her impression of Skip was that everything he sends out is just full of affiliate links. She said that wasn't a consulting call, it was a sales pitch, and she thought the whole thing really felt like a "snake oil salesman." Her call wasn't with Skip, by the way. It was with one of his "coaches."

But this matches everything else I've seen from Skip, and why he's on my poop list. Time after time, I've seen him not have original information or advice. His informational products seem to be taken from other people's information or publicly available info. He is mining YOU and your tips for his books, but did you get paid for that? Did you get any credit?

I don't think his materials are right for anybody. I don't want newbies reading that stuff. I don't want veteran eBay sellers reading that stuff. I just think that this whole thing isn't much. And I'm still not happy with the time Skip admitted that he hadn't checked out a company he was promoting (to make affiliate money)... he had to admit that after his loyal followers paid that company and felt scammed.

Don't sell out your followers.

Twitter is about quality interactions with people who have something interesting to say. I'm not following Skip, but he's following me. :) Well, as of when I'm typing this, anyway.

Thanks to John and his caller, Karen, for coming out and publicly talking about this. It's easy to keep things quiet and not want to air this stuff. But people should know the truth. A free e-book is rarely truly free. A consulting call should not be a sales pitch. No "coach" representing a blogger/educator should be asking people about their credit and finances (and Karen should have refused to answer). I'm just not OK with any of this.

Posted at 08:37 PM in That's Bad Marketing | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)