Sometimes I think all our advertising does is attract sales people. Usually, Mondays are the worst. However, today’s batch of sellers was much more entertaining than most.
There was the usual obnoxious recording of a guy with a grating voice screaming, “Are your carpets dirty…” I’d like to tell them that we don’t have carpeting, so stop calling. Alas, it’s a screaming machine, not a listening one.
Then, I was hit up for an “exclusive” web page connected to a local TV station’s web site, The page is three to four clicks down, under an unappealing button that basically says, “look at advertising”. The salesman works for a company in Seattle that has a deal with our local TV station. Their spiel advocates how people want to use local businesses and we’d just fit in swell. Obviously, the local TV station doesn’t believe in “local” considering who they’ve got setting up their pages and doing their advertising. Placing an ad as a “sponsor” does not in any way make us a go-to source for advice on television programming. I’m also unclear on why I need to sponsor a private, for-profit company. “Sponsor” must be newspeak for “pay large advertising fees so someone in another state can get a bonus”.
Then there was the e-mail that said that a woman allegedly named Laura Ruiz in Modesto is searching for us, but we need to “upgrade our membership” so we can contact her. She presumably couldn’t find our web site…These guys hit us up all the time, usually with promises to connect us with clients all over Northern California with anything to do with landscape maintenance, demolition, installation or (very rarely) design.
The power company even got into the act, with an offer of 15% off our energy fees, then said, “oops. You’re not eligible. We’ll call when you are.” Strangely enough, this was the company that sells natural gas, not electricity. Our office uses computers. Not ovens. So, what gas would we be saving, exactly?