Almost all businesses get the usual spam SEO (Search Engine Optimization) phone calls and emails.

Recently, one of our web clients took a spammer’s SEO phone call. As a result of such calls, she emailed us. Her concerns prompted this article.

She expressed a lot of concern about having been told very negative things about her web traffic and website operation. It sounded like he was just trying to get her to spend money. Money she’d never see a return for on her investment.

High-pressure sales tactics are something management has instructed staff in all CharlesWorks years in business to avoid. CharlesWorks policy forbids selling clients anything they don’t need. The difficulty is that there are so many spammers and scammers out there sending the same messages, that people believe them. You can tell the same lie a thousand times and it’s still a lie. But some start to believe it’s true.

Among the thousands of websites we’ve handled, it happens that her particular business is very unique – especially during the COVID-19 epidemic. Her classes are limited regarding how many people she can have in them at any point in time. Bottom line is that she is the one who knows best what should be on her website. And she is the one who knows best what she has to offer and when she can offer it.

The nature of her business, it seemed to me, is based on a following she has developed over time. And she is limited as to how many people at a time she can physically handle. And – much as I hate to say this – COVID-19 is going to remain on many people’s minds – at least through this upcoming winter season. Things will change when a vaccine is widely available. However, common sense dictates it will be a while before everyone generally has access to it.

I suggested she shouldn’t spend more money than she absolutely has to during this time – to just keep her business operational. Those small business owners who can stay in business through this pandemic will be the ones who do really well once they reach the other side of this.

It’s troubling that someone had pressured her enough to do work on her site that she became stressed over it. Sales people who operate with such a hard sell attitude are clearly desperate for work. And desperate people are not working with their customer’s best interest in mind. My advise is to never talk to these people.

My suggestions for dealing with these really hard line sales calls – or ANY unwanted sales calls – are:

• Say “Remove me from your calling list”. Tell them to remove you from their calling list. Once you say those particular words, they are supposed to do so by law. I regularly tell spammers this. Some just hang up and some thank me and indicate they will do so. The best part is they generally don’t bother to call back.
• Block their number to avoid future calls. You should bock their number through whatever mechanism your telephone carrier has set up to do that. I do this on a pretty regular basis – especially with the robocalls. Robocalls are actually illegal in most cases. It only takes a few minutes to report them at the https://www.donotcall.gov/report.html site. And I bet you’ll feel better after you do!
• Visit the National Do Not Call Registry. Go to https://www.donotcall.gov where you can put your phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry. My phone numbers have been on this for many years.

While these suggestions don’t stop ALL the spam calls you’ll get, they do stop MANY.

Every small business owner can and should review their website. They should ensure that everything is up to date regarding their offerings and schedules. That only costs them a few minutes. Because CharlesWorks charges for changes by the minute, those kinds of changes only incur those minutes of charges.

We at CharlesWorks hope this is helpful to you!