How To Stop Unwanted Calls From Telemarketers

As a Marketing Consultant, I’m always thinking about how to get a good, quality, prospect lead. But I’m also a consumer that hates getting unsolicited phone calls. Oddly, I find it an invasion of my private space because answering a call instantly stops the momentum of whatever task I was working on. Caller ID certainly help me screen calls, but it doesn’t help me block unwanted calls.

I especially hate those annoying, pre-recorded messages. Occasionally I’m tempted to hang on the line waiting if I’m offered a number to press to get removed. I’ve discovered that most times there is no such option so now I just hang up immediately.

Fortunately the National Do Not Call Registry is a way to help reduce the annoying distractions of unwanted sales calls on your home or mobile phone.

How To Stop Unwanted Calls…

It’s managed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Basically you add your phone number to the national list. Reputable marketers agree to take that data, compare against their own telemarketing lists, and suppress the people who’ve requested not to receive sales calls.

It’s very easy to add your mobile or home phone number:

1. Go to https://www.donotcall.gov
2. Add up to 3 mobile or home phone numbers along with an active email address.
3. You will receive an email for each phone number you submitted.
   Subject line: “National Do Not Call Registry – OPEN AND CLICK on Link to Complete Your Registration”

You must open each email and click each confirmation link within 72 hours to complete this step otherwise your number(s) wont be added to the do not call list. If you don’t get the email, be sure to check your email spam/junk mail folder in case it was misfiled. If you have more than 3 phone numbers to add (your parents, your kids, etc.), simply start the process over again. It will accept the same email address again.

Fortunately, your registration will no longer expire after a period of time (like it used to). According to the website:

Telephone numbers placed on the National Do Not Call Registry will remain on it permanently due to the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007, which became law in February 2008.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that it stops all unwanted telemarketing sales calls, but you should experience a noticeable decline when reputable marketers updated their contact lists.

Finally, whenever you do receive an unsolicited sales call with a live human on the other end, simply be polite and say:

“Please remove me from your contact list. Thank you.”

While we’re on the issue of privacy, follow these steps to remove your Spokeo listing.

That’s it. Hope you find this helpful. If you have an additional tip, please share it in the comments below. Thanks.

-Roland

Get Organized With Evernote

I love Evernote. It’s part of my daily routine to file away nuggets of info I know that I’ll need to reference in the future. It’s available as a desktop software application, a mobile app, and simply via your web browser. The free version is very comprehensive and uses encryption. The paid version is reasonably priced and gets you more storage and a bit more functionality.

“Remember everything. Capture anything. Access anywhere.”

My typical uses:

• Using camera phone to snap a picture of white boards from meetings and email that to my account.
• Create rough outlines of blog posts, presentations, ideas.
• Store things I’ve learned, like bits of code I use frequently, or responses I send repeatedly in emails.
• Store automotive reference info: oil type, oil filter #, air filter #, wiper blade sizes, tire PSI, how to turn off idiot lights, etc.
• Keep useful charts/infographics I find online. Easy way to have the graphic, link to the source and some descriptive text.
• Journal of activities I need to keep track of.
• Collaboration – Share a note with someone.
• Store specs when comparison shopping big ticket items.

Hope you find this helpful. If you use Evernote or a worthy alternative, please share in the comments below.
Thanks.
-Roland

Protect Your Customer Data!

Many large companies and government organizations have made serious errors while handling and losing Personally Identifiable Information (PII) about their customers. Often times they were stupid mistakes that could have been prevented.

Examples:

• Financial: HSBC (370,000), Bank of New York Mellon (4.5 million), T.Rowe Price (35,000), GE Money (650,000), Citibank (“millions”)
• Healthcare: Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of NJ (300,000), BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee (1 million), Staten Island University Hospital (88,000), Fallon Community Health (29,000)
• Government: State of New Jersey, British Ministry of Defense (600,000)
• Education: Georgetown University (38,000)
• Other: Virgin Media (411,000)

Careless Behavior Exposes Your Business To Serious Liability!

Even if you are a small business, you cannot under estimate how important it is to protect the data you collect on behalf of your customers.

Personally Identifiable Information (PII) includes: name, address, email, phone, social security number, employer number, spouse/child info, etc.

Avoid These Stupid Mistakes

No matter how convenient it may be:

• Do not email spreadsheets and data files with consumer information to clients or vendors. Data should be encrypted with a password and uploaded to a secure, password-protected transfer site (FTP, DataExchange, etc.)
• Don’t email data to yourself, especially to your personal accounts (i.e. Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, Gmail, etc.).
• Do not take data files home. (As in the Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of NJ fiasco.)
• Do not leave customer data on a portable device that can easily be stolen.
• Do not email login credentials to your clients/vendors/co-workers. It’s safer to email the URL and leave a voice message with the username/password.

Be A Responsible Marketer!

Whenever possible:

• Challenge your clients when they want to collect more information than is necessary to fulfill a promotion. Example: Collecting a postal address or phone number is not necessary if the brand never intends to mail anything to the consumer or contact them by phone. ZIP Code alone is sufficient for geographic targeting.
• Educate your clients when they ask you to do such things you know to be bad business practices. We see so much turnover on the client side; and I’ve spoken with many junior managers that don’t understand the issues and tend to be careless due to ignorance and lack of proper training.
• Report your clients to their superior. You should never compromise best practices due to client pressure.
• Learn about your clients privacy practices so you can work with them as an effective marketing partner, not a vendor.

Our larger clients tend to have Privacy Officers and procedural policies. But the reality is their line managers are under extreme pressure to get things done and will cut corners at times.

Please don’t be cavalier about it. A simple mistake can put a client relationship at risk and cause unrepairable harm to a brand’s reputation.

Have an opinion? Please add your comment to this article. Thanks.
-Roland

10 Mobile Apps To Help You Organize Your Business

I find myself dependent on technology to keep me organized, focused and prioritized. Throughout the day I regularly capture and tweak info in a variety of ways. What’s awesome is the ability to get to my data from different devices or desktops – from virtually anywhere, at any time.

Staying Organized While Out And About

Here are a few of my favorite mobile apps. Perhaps you’ll benefit from them too!

1. Evernote – Upload and keep track of everything, syncronized between your device(s) and computer(s).
2. Things – Keep track and manage your tasks.
3. Remember The Milk – Keep track and manage your tasks.
4. reQall or Jott – capture your thoughts quickly by voice.
5. Dropbox – Share your files between device and computers.
6. 1Password – Safely store and syncronize your passwords between your mobile device and computers.
7. Xmarks – Syncronize your bookmarks across between your mobile device and your desktop browsers.
8. VehiCal – Track your mileage and expenses.
9. LogMeIn – Login to your desktop computer. iPad App cost $29.99 and also lets you move files back and forth between remote computers and your iPad.
10. SimpleMindMap – Organize your thoughts.

Hope you find this useful. If you have some alternative suggestions, please add to the comments below.
Thank you.
-Roland

Remove Your Spokeo Listing

Don’t you hate how companies sell your data without your permission? As a marketing professional, I have often dealt with confidential information. So I’m very sensitive to the issue. Many companies make enormous effort to safeguard data. Others are ignorant of the issues or plain careless. (Wow, could I tell some stories.) Government is notorious for selling your motor vehicles data and making other information public. You can thank them for all the crap phone phone calls and unrelated junk mail you get. It’s unfortunate that so much of your private information is available to literally anyone with a credit card.

“Not Your Grandma’s White Pages.”

Spokeo.com is one of a number of companies that make money off of your personal information. They reveal a significant amount of information about you and connections to family members.

This video explains the privacy concerns. Spokeo has successfully defended it’s position.

If you haven’t done so already, visit the Spokeo.com website and see what’s listed about you and your family members.

Good news is you can request removal. But it will take a little bit of effort. I recommend that you do it now.

How To Remove Yourself From Spokeo

Spokeo claims to have one of the easiest methods to unlist yourself. Here’s what I needed to do to delist records:

1. Visit Spokeo.com and search on a name.
2. Copy the URL for a listing.
3. Go to http://www.spokeo.com/privacy/, paste the URL, a working email address and enter a CAPTCHA code.
4. Check my email and click a unique URL to complete the delisting request.

Not that hard to do for 1-2 listings. But if you got more to do…

Got Lot’s Of Family To Delete? Get Ready For A Few Hassles.

1. Hassle #1: You can only use a valid email address to remove up to 2 listings.
2. Hassle #2: You can only submit up to 4 requests in a day.
   

   In order to prevent abuse, we must limit the frequency of privacy requests. Please try again tomorrow. Government officials please use your @.gov email address for priority processing.

Regarding the number of requests per day, it seems to be based on the IP address you connect to the Internet from. The work around is by using an IP anonymizer. They can be behave oddly. The first I tried wouldn’t let me submit the form. This one worked for me.

Do what you can to safeguard your info and share only what is necessary.

While we’re on the issue of privacy, follow these steps to Stop Unwanted Telemarketing Calls.

Hope you find this helpful. Please share any helpful tips for protecting your privacy in the comments below. Thanks.
-Roland

Why Hide Your Telephone Number?

I find it curious that a growing number of business start ups are not publishing their phone number. I experience this when I’m counseling new entrepreneurs, working on projects for new clients, and when I’m researching service providers.

The response I get tends to fall into one of these categories:

• I don’t want to get junk calls.
• I don’t want my boss/employer/co-worker/relative to discover my business.
• I don’t want to make my cell phone number public.
• I don’t like talking to people.

TIP: You can get a free local phone number from Google Voice. It’s free. It’s easy. You can forward the number to your cell phone. I have no idea how Google makes money by giving phone numbers away, but this service works very well. Try it if you’re afraid to put your cell phone number on your website.

Should You Trust A Business That Hides Their Phone Number?

Seriously, what kind of signal does that send you, the prospective buyer? If they make it hard to contact, what happens after you become a client and need customer support?

I strongly believe that hiding your phone number on your business website sets a negative perception and quite possibly is the reason you don’t get as many prospects contacting you through your website.

While I recommend displaying your phone number, I recommend to hide your email address. The last thing you need is more junk email. Instead, use a Contact Form to collect your prospect’s vital information and submit that to you. Plus, it forces the prospect to give you required info to quickly research them before first contact.

Permit Communication In The Way Your Prospect Prefers.

Ultimately, business conversation dynamics are changing and you need to adapt — or fall behind!

• Phone
• Email Contact Form
• Social Media (Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook)
• Texting
• Collaboration Tools

If your prospect wants to establish initial contact with you via social media, then do so. You can always migrate them to a more appropriate method later.

I hope you find this advice helpful.
-Roland

Should You Respond To Link Exchange Requests?

Have you ever received an email like this?

From: linkmanager@somecompanyyouneverheardof.com
Subject: Link Exchange Request from Some Company You Never Heard Of
To: Webmaster

Hi,
I visited your site http://www.yourbusinesswebsite.com and found some interesting information. We think our visitors will benefit from your site’s content and we are interested in exchanging links with you.

Please consider listing us here: http://www.yourbusinesswebsite.com/resources/online-resources/ using the following link info:

Anchor text: GED
URL: http://www.somecompanyyouneverheardof.com/
Description: Find an alternative to the GED test at Company Virtual Schools.

Please send me the exact URL where I can find my link and send me your text link info so I can add your link to our site. We will post your link in the proper category of the resources page listed here: http://www.somecompanyyouneverheardof.com/resources/index.asp

We are looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Regards,
Machelle
Some Company You Never Heard Of

As a marketing consultant, I’m frequently asked by clients, “how do I respond to this link exchange request email?” My advice is click the “Report Spam” button on your email application. You have no obligation to respond and really don’t need to waste your time pondering these reciprocal link requests.

It’s a common tactic sent blindly to addresses like info@, admin@, webmaster@, etc. I get a dozen of these requests a week. They are often automated and sent to thousands at a time. It’s rarely a personal message from a real person.

I know it seems hard to resist a “free” link. But the reality is that your website is not going to benefit from irrelevant reciprocal link requests because they don’t significantly help with rankings in the search engines.

What About Paying For Links?

Yikes, absolutely don’t do it! Even if you do the due diligence to determine the quality of the link sources and audit to ensure they’re implemented correctly, the risk is high that you will eventually get caught and penalized by the major search engines. Here’s an article that nicely explains why.

Are Any Link Requests Legitimate?

Quality, relevant, inbound links are one of many factors that help raise your visibility in the search engines. Therefore, the only type of link requests worth considering for your website should follow this criteria:

• If you actually know and trust them.
• You already have a relevant, working relationship.
• And most importantly … CfLT website visitors would benefit from the link.

I generally advise to create a blog post about a topic and within that article link to a specific related page on the other website. That way the content/context is relevant and more beneficial for the reader. The other party could do the same linking back to a page on your website.

Hope you find this helpful.
-Roland