Internet Marketing JusticeThere are many legalities in doing business online. It shocks me just how many people are unaware of the laws they break online. I have spent well over a decade learning laws relating to the Internet. There are laws dealing with credit card handling; laws to address copyright; industry-specific laws for things like medical records, legal records, and etcetera; and of course, laws to deal with SPAM.
I believe it is time to consider a list of important Internet marketing laws. They may seem elementary, but I think these are still laws worth addressing. So here is the short list, but of course there are many more. I just want to start you off with eleven Internet marketing laws, and you can add your own comments.
Internet Marketing Law One: Typographical
If you think it has not already been done, you probably just made a typographical error. Google it again. Somebody else already does that.
Internet Marketing Law Two: Urgency
If you think it can be done better, hurry! There are many people who agree with you, and they are already working on it.
Internet Marketing Law Three: Correctness
If you think you have done everything flawlessly and nobody can fault it, blog it, Facebook it, and tweet it. You were probably not as correct as you expected.
Internet Marketing Law Four: Persecution
People will persecute you, but if you do not receive an occasional death threat or flame-letter, it just means you are not reaching enough people. You probably suck at Internet marketing. Give up now, before you anger me. You will not like me when I am angry.
Internet Marketing Law Five: Client Errors
Client errors only happen to new or inexperienced Internet marketing people. Fire them and start over with new ones (but give them my number).
Internet Marketing Law Six: Delegation
If you think somebody else can do it better than you, delegate it. Pay somebody else so you can get back to working on the things that delight your customers. This will save you a lot of headache and lost opportunities.
Internet Marketing Law Seven: Perfection
You are not perfect. Somebody can always do it better than you. This is the Internet for Pete’s sake. See Internet Marketing Law Six. You know what to do.
Internet Marketing Law Eight: Expenditures
Internet fame and fortune will not be yours for the taking with just a couple hours per day when you pay only $299 for the magical out-of-the-box online business. That dude is lying! If he was extremely convincing, it is because he is still really wanting to recoup the $299 that he spent on his magical box. Don’t you think that if it was true, corporations like Google, Microsoft, McDonald’s, WalMart, and Pepsi would have already purchased all of those magical boxes? Well, they didn’t, and that means the one holding the box is a sucker with a few hundred less buck to waste on their next blue sky failure.
Internet Marketing Law Nine: Success
There is no magical pink pony ride to success. Just ask somebody who has done it. Live with it. Success will not be as easy as the job you left. If it was easy, nobody would call it success. They would call it … hmmm … oh yes, they would call it average.
Internet Marketing Law Ten: Public Exposure
If you get really great at Internet marketing, the traditional sense of “public” can be a frightening place. Those people talk, think, look, and act different than you remembered. All that time basking in monitor-glow has made sunshine a creepy notion, and you forgot that offline cash registers actually still make sounds (so old-fashioned).
Internet Marketing Law Eleven: Time
If you are going to make it with Internet marketing, you had better stop wasting time on silly junk like this and get back to work. Just don’t forget to pass it along to all your friends so they don’t get too far ahead of you.
Car dealers are infamous for their marketing short-sightedness, so they make a great social media example. New and used car sales organizations live or die in short bursts of business, and it creates huge anxiety for them – but this is not just about car dealers. This principle applies to many industries. I’m just using our auto-peddling worst nightmare as an example so we can all relate.
In the auto dealer scenario, as with many other retail industries, the inventory is often financed using a “floor plan”, and if the inventory is not selling, the bank will make it very uncomfortable for them. This creates a challenge that is not so unlike the urgency felt in any other businesses. The sales must keep coming, or somebody is going to need some creative answers.
It causes a lot of companies to focus more closely on an eight percent increase in new business and overlook the eighty percent increase they could achieve if they look ahead and give people reasons to buy from them.
Topeka, Kansas has fourteen pages of car dealers and related automotive ads in the telephone book Yellow Pages. I had to ask my wife if we have a telephone book, and I was delighted to find that we actually do. I do not know how many car dealers still advertise in the Topeka newspaper, because I do not subscribe. The last time I saw a newspaper, it was a lot thinner than it used to be. The auto industry was hit hard by the economy in the last few years, and car dealers sought a better way to reach their market, just like everybody else.
It is not surprising that there are at least half as many results for car dealers in Topeka, Kansas returned in a Google search than there are residents of Topeka. A car dealer without a website would be like a car dealer without cars for sale.
Everybody knows that the Internet is where people buy things, right? The automotive industry caught on, and all of the sudden the job of Internet marketing shifted from the part-time receptionist to the “Internet Sales Manager”. That is often the fancy title for the guy who fiddles with a computer all day and tries to sell cars online. He emails his buddies and asks them to come and test drive a car, just so he looks busier. He is afraid for his job, and it is really important to show the boss that the Internet is a good investment.
After a few more doughnuts, he will put the latest finance rates on Facebook. After lunch, he will plan to tell Twitter users how he can save them a ton of money if they get there for the big tent sale this weekend. The successful car dealers are on Facebook. At least that is what they said at the last Car Dealer Internet Sales Manager’s Convention. Wait, maybe it was LinkedIn … I forget. In any case, getting the latest advertised specials out to the people is of the highest importance, right?
This Marketing Style is Not Limited to Car Dealers
This mentality is not only about car dealers, so make no mistake. I am just using them as a fun example. If you read carefully and think about this, you can probably relate it to many other industries.
What drives me absolutely crazy is that I watch far too many companies treat their business like my example of the Internet Sales Manager urgently trying to get the boss off his back. They do all that they know to make their advertising visible and be sure that everybody knows their name when they are looking for a car.
Companies frantically try to shorten their sales funnel while the importance of brand recognition and brand loyalty lose ground to immediate needs.
You could blame the Internet Sales Manager, but much of his focus is imposed by managers above him, the general manager, or dealership owner. Dealers are car guys, not marketing guys, and not Web Guys. Under the pressure of a competitive market, they completely lose sight of what motivates people to buy things.
Following the car dealer theme, many companies will look at the Internet the way they look at the big inflatable gorilla and colorful balloons dealerships put out on Saturdays to make passing traffic do a double-take (and if they are lucky, crash their car right out front). These are all fine and dandy, but they lack the sustainable value of social media.
These companies usually have about 90 friends on Facebook and perhaps 14 Twitter friends to tweet stuff to. They are so wrapped up with search engine optimization (SEO) that they never understood how SEO and social media are inextricably paired with the more challenging factors of understanding what their customers want, need, expect, deserve, and demand.
They neglect that social media makes SEO a whole lot easier and more effective. They do it the hard way and just know that with enough SEO, the Internet will deliver more hot leads and they will sell more cars – and it will, but it lacks forethought.
They try to learn from their peers who are making the same mistakes, and then wonder why it did not work – while overlooking what their customers are already trying to teach them.
Is Your “Car Dealership” Being Creative?
Thinking is often underrated and undervalued. Marketing takes a lot of effort, and the numbers matter. What you do with the numbers also matters. Instead of just looking forward to the next email blast or rewriting your h1 tags, it may be useful to think about a social media strategy.
Everybody is using tactics, but strategy takes real marketing talent, creativity, and looking beyond the next 30 days. It takes guts, and regardless what others tell you is an easy fix, guts are where success grows.
Consider your own examples in place of the car dealership. Have you thought about why people love their cars? Have you considered holding a poker run with your Facebook fans and friends? Have you thought how cool it would be to integrate Foursquare when you do a scavenger hunt with potential buyers? Have you ever thought of holding a ride-along with a race car driver at your local race track? Did you ever consider that you could build more incoming links if you were the first to craft a story about something important to your industry … important to the people who care about your industry? Did you ever think to monitor social media to see if somebody is talking about your dealership, your products, or your industry?
I started thinking about this after two different instances of friends in the automotive industry who told me of two different car dealerships in the Topeka area in need of a better marketing plan. I looked at their online efforts and found lack of strategy. It appeared that they approach their online efforts and offline efforts as two completely divergent markets, rather than integrating them. Although there were some pretty websites, they were hard to navigate and lacking a call to action. Worse yet, they display their companies about as interesting as a car salesman in a leisure suit rushing across the lot to shake my hand.
Maybe it is time for me to perform a social media and SEO case study on a Topeka, Kansas car dealer. I think it could be really interesting to share what would happen when one of them led the way. On the other hand, in Topeka, we have what I see as the worst stereotype of car dealers. I would probably do better to poke my eyes out with a Chevy bumper than try and explain something car dealers refuse to hear.
Save your dealership – stop acting like a car dealer!
To Car Dealers: Car dealers always express urgency to buy today, so let’s spin the table and see how urgent you are about increasing your car dealership’s profit using effective social media and SEO. Subscribe to my blog today and I’ll let you read it for $0 down and $0 per month.
UPDATE: I have a funny update to this blog post. Shortly after publishing this, I received a call from a Topeka area car dealer who was referred to my services. The man on the other end of the line wanted to hire me to actually work for and work at the dealership … selling cars. It seems that somebody bumped their head … really hard.
I told him what I do (marketing consulting), and he kind of had that “duh, I don’t understand” glazed over effect. Many people just don’t understand that they will not improve their dealership’s new and used car sales volume until they stop trying to sell cars the way their father, and his father sold cars.
The world has changed, and car dealers seem to think they can hold back the change. This is why so many of them are going out of business. They do not want good advice. They just want another person to explain how “right” they are. It is a sad loss for them.
Join My Online Contest ContestOnline contests have become extremely popular, and with good reason. People love getting things for free! So I decided to offer you the “Online Contest Contest”. Yes, you read it right … a contest contest. So what do I mean by that? Allow me to explain.
I am going to give you a chance to win cash and prizes and also gain free exposure to a lot of people. Since my blog is about Internet marketing, this is both an online contest and also an article to help people think about how to better market their business. This way, you can still gain a lot of value from it, even if you do not win the contest. Yes, you still win, even if you do not “win”. While I give you the rules I will provide tips to run your own contest. Each “Online Contest Tip” below will outline this particular contest.
I hope you will enjoy this. I look forward to rewarding some very excited winners.
Online Contest Tip: Defined Timeframe
A contest should have a defined timeframe so that participants know when to expect their winnings. This contest will run from April 5th to April 20th 2010 and winners will be announced by the last day of April.
Online Contest Tip: Easy to Participate
This is a contest for the best online contest ideas but you do not need to submit a contest idea to win! I am going to give you multiple easy ways to participate and win. You do not even have to fill out a registration form or sign up for anything!
Online Contest Tip: Make it Relevant
Since prizes are a huge piece of any contest, they should be relevant to the contest promoters’ business model. For example, if you have a fishing store, you may want to give away fishing poles, but you probably do not want to give away knitting needles. It should be relevant to your industry.
As an Internet marketing guy, I help people to make their business more successful online. So, when I decided to hold a contest, I determined that it should be relevant to people seeking more success in their business. This is why I am providing ways for you to achieve more exposure.
Online Contest Tip: The Prizes
The best contests will provide value for the contest promoter as well as the participants. Nobody loses, and somebody gets a great feeling of winning along with some cool free stuff, like money! Here are the prizes of this particular contest:
Cash Prize – The first place winner will receive ten percent of any new marketing contract that I accept during the contest period, referred as a result of the Online Contest Contest, plus ten percent residuals for the first 12 months from any contingency contract. Note that I do not sell $.95 knitting needles, and this could be big.
Win a Blog – The first and second place winners will each receive a custom WordPress blog setup including ten hours of customization and SEO services, or equivalent redesign services.
Business Exposure – Gain more exposure to your business! Each winner will receive spotlighted exposure in a blog post here at aWebGuy.com in a winner’s announcement, plus all participants will receive recognition in the comments and reactions on this blog post. This can add up.
If you run a contest, try not to exclude people. You should make it easy to join in and win. In this case, I am making it really simple to participate. Since my blog will add social media reactions in the comments, it will be really easy for you to show your participation and gain exposure, too.
Everything that appears in the “Comments and Reactions” for this blog post will have a chance to win. For example, my blog is set to include social media “reactions” from FriendFeed, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, Hacker News, Blogger, WordPress, YouTube, Vimeo, Picasa, Flickr, TypePad, Movable Type, BackType, UberVU, and other services. These are just the services that are set up to automatically appear in the comments and reactions. You can also add comments directly. Remember, everything that shows up has a chance to win!
Online Contest Tip: Make the Rules Easy to Understand
If it is easy to understand, it becomes easier to win. In this case, I am using a point system. Winners will be determined based on a simple points system, and can choose how to get more points. Some of these are really easy! Here is how to get points:
250+ Points (New Contract): I will award two hundred fifty points to the referrer for each new client who contracts my SEO and social media marketing services during the contest period from April 5th to April 20th 2010. That is 250 points per new contract, and it adds to the cash prize, so don’t be shy! They simply must express that they heard about it from you.
100+ Points (Contest Ideas): If you submit the Contest Idea that receives the most “likes” (note the “like” button beside each comment) you will receive one hundred points plus five points for each “like”. You surely have friends to help you, right?
100+ Points (Blog Points): If you blog about this contest with a link back to it, you will receive one hundred points for the blog post (or other website) plus one point for every 10 unique visitors linked directly to this page coming from your blog / website during the contest period as verified through a Clicky Web Analytics referrer report. I suggest adding a comment here on this blog to claim your article. I will also provide a “dofollow” link back to your post.
50+ Points (Comment Points): If your individual comment here on the contest page other than a Contest Idea receives the most “likes” (note the “like” button beside each comment) you will receive fifty points plus five points for each “like”.
50-550 Points (Digg Points): If you Digg this article and include a Digg comment, you will receive 50 points. If the article reaches the front page of Digg.com, each person who diggs the article will be awarded an additional 500 points.
25-45 Points Daily (Twitter Points): If you send a tweet, you will receive 25 points, and if it is retweeted, you will receive an additional 2 points for each verifiable retweet up to a total of ten (for a possible 45 points per day). Twitter points will be calculated based on tweets which appear at TweetMeme.com.
25+ Points Daily (FriendFeed, Reddit, Blogger, WordPress, YouTube, Vimeo, Picasa, Flickr, TypePad, Movable Type) Reactions aggregated and appearing on this blog post as reported by BackType and UberVU across these listed social media sites will be awarded 25 points each, with a limit of 25 points per network per day.
Online Contest Rules: The Fine Print
Every contest needs some rules, but the fine print should be easy to understand. In the case of this contest, I have tried to make it as easy as possible to understand, and to win. See the Contest Contest Official Rules.
Juan Martin Diez: 18th Century GuerrillaIf you struggle to produce the money needed for marketing, you had better learn some guerrilla marketing, and fast! You should always assume that somebody else in your market segment has deeper pockets and the longer you wait the harder it will be to reach the customers. When marketing a business with a small marketing budget or no marketing budget at all, you can still improve your chances of success using free or very low cost guerrilla marketing.
How to Grow a Business Without a Marketing Budget
I do not want to let you down, but the truth is that it absolutely cannot be done. You will have to budget something, and if it is not money, it will be time … probably a lot of time. Be ready for that, and budget your marketing time. Set aside a scheduled time to learn more, do more, and earn more. This is your business we are talking about and if you have a family to feed, like I do, it really starts to seem worth it to make it a success. Budget your time well, because although you may think you are too busy to budget time for marketing, the truth may be that you are just busy with the wrong things. If you are marketing your business well, time in other areas will almost surely free up for you. While you are budgeting time, be sure to budget enough to finish reading this article. I have some guerrilla marketing tips for you.
Useful Guerrilla Marketing Tips
I am going to give you some free and effective guerrilla marketing tips that you can start using today. I will also welcome your thoughts and additions, but if I try to add more than a short list, I will be writing this all day. This is only intended to help prime you for the task of marketing your business.
Guerrilla Marketing Tip Number One: Get Uncomfortable
If you are sitting back in your easy chair feeling comfortable about your marketing, you are not ready for this. If you are marketing without a budget, and you are comfortable about your marketing, you are really not ready for this.
One of the first things I would suggest for anybody trying to grow a business is to get uncomfortable. The more uncomfortable you are, the more likely you are to take serious measures to do something about it. If you relax and think things are just fine, you are just asking for that comfortability to all slip away. I have been in business for over 20 years and I have seen the good times and the bad times. I remember joking with my wife while living in my ivory tower and having a whole lot more time and money than I ever thought I could want or need and saying “I’m tired of living like this.” I actually joked but also kind of meant it, because while earning more per year than an average family does in ten years can be fun and all, a fall can also happen a lot faster. I have seen it … the hard way. Never get too comfortable, and always find reasons that you are “tired of living like this.”
Guerrilla Marketing Tip Number Two: Find Success and Follow It
Find success and follow it! Look for what successful people have done and learn from their experiences. I am not saying to imitate their every move, but rather to learn what they know and find ways that it can be applied to your marketing efforts. Many successful people will blog about their experiences and are happy to share what is in their head. Read blogs until your eyes hurt! Although it may seem like a waste of time at first, look at it this way; if you want to know how to do something better, doesn’t it make sense to use what others have learned instead of trying to learn it all the hard way?
Do not believe everything you read, but choose carefully and read a lot. Pay attention! Pick out a handful of blogs and spend some time to do more than just scan and click. Your competition is scanning and clicking through a lot of information. You want to learn and improve your business profitability, so what you should know is that even a little of the right information is better than a lot of average information. Get involved and find information pertinent to your industry. Find information from marketers who know marketing. Find things that challenge convention, because conventional is what everybody else is doing. Here are some blogs to help you get started, and of course I should mention that I have a blog archive with many nice trinkets to share.
Don’t just sit there! Learn opinions from other readers and add your comments. Note that while you are commenting that there is a place to enter your web address URL and it will create a link back to your website. If you are active in blogs, those links can add up to a lot. It is also a great way to become familiar with other frequent readers or people who had a common interest. Reach out to them and find out what works for them. Also be sure to read “10 Really Good Reasons to Blog” … seriously, add it to your time budget and read it!
Guerrilla Marketing Tip Number Three: Look Where Your Market is Looking
Look where your market is looking. I want to be really clear on this when I say that your customers are using the Internet. I was recently visiting with an old client of mine who is in the railroad construction business. They came to me about a website several years back, because they knew that they were supposed to have a website. They did not really know why, and their biggest focused use of it was to find job applicants. Even today, they still find it hard to comprehend that the people out there who make decisions about who will build their railroad bridge or railroad extension are using the Internet. Think of it this way, if you were running this company, even if they are not using the Internet to search for where to buy a railroad bridge, you should be there to increase their awareness of you. The company spends virtually zero money or effort in marketing, yet they want more business. This is what happens when you stop saying “I’m tired of living like this.” The moral of the story: Don’t get railroaded by thinking that your customers don’t use the Internet. Unless your potential customers live in caves without computers and no cellular signal, they are using the Internet every day. Just because you do not sell the product online or receive immediate gratification does not mean you can slide by without it. Selling more of what you offer does not always mean you are pitching them your next deal. There is a reason that Mc Donalds runs ads that say “You deserve a break today” and not just “$.99 Big Macs for a limited time at participating locations.” Branding is important, and the company the potential purchaser has heard of will have the upper hand.
Guerrilla Marketing Tip Number Four: Guerrilla Marketing is a Stepping Stone
You should be aware of some basic assumptions about companies that try to perform marketing without a budget. You need to know this before you can overcome it. If your marketing budget is small, we can make a couple of accurate assumptions. Whether these assumptions are right or wrong, it is very likely how your prospective customers and your competition will perceive your business, so be aware of this. Here is the first assumption about marketing without a budget: If you do not have a marketing budget, it is pretty likely that you are broke. Successful companies that can afford marketing do not flinch at the idea of investing in growing their market share to squeeze you out of the picture. This brings me to the second assumption about marketing without a budget: Wouldn’t you, if you were them?
You could just try the old line that you don’t spend money on marketing because you are trying to keep your cost low. Sorry, anybody who has ever been in business will see right through that one. Let’s face it, your cost is lower when your company is productive and making money. Marketing does not create a net loss … it creates profit, money, business, customers, growth, market share … you know, all of those things you want more of. Marketing lowers your cost by making your business successful.
Guerrilla marketing is a good way to get started, but businesses that do not reinvest in professional marketing services will often fall into a wasteful trap that they are not able to get out of. Once you have seen the benefits of good guerrilla marketing, use it for professional marketing. You probably answered affirmatively when I asked “Wouldn’t you, if you were them?” Stop imagining that you are above this one very basic law of successful business: It takes money to make money. Remember that without experienced marketing talent, it will be much harder to get your hands on money. It is like a chicken and egg question, only worse: What came first, the money or the money? The more you invest, whether time or money, the more you will receive in return. If you use guerrilla marketing as a stepping stone to grow beyond your current constraints, you will then understand why you did all that reading i assigned you.
I will have some more tips for you soon, so budget your time and keep coming back.
Brian Forsythe of Suture Express, a leading Johnson & Johnson Ethicon surgical suture supplier that promotes “cheap surgical suture supplies”, made a decision to rejuvenate the failing sutureexpress.com website. Naturally, he contacted a search engine optimization provider to suture the damage. In fitting with Suture Express’ core value of “cheap surgical supplies” he contacted a friend with whom he could make a great deal. What he did not realize is how much “cheap” can haunt a company, and especially as it involves selling surgical sutures and outright lying to the SEO provider and not paying him. Note: Stealing information from a search engine optimizer and website developer is not a good way to do more business. What amazes me is that some companies still fail to grasp the reach of the Internet or the power of truth against fraud.
Suture Express Cheap Johnson & Johnson Surgical Sutures? Yes Cheap Surgical Supplies!
Brian Forsythe claimed that Suture Express paid $150,000 to build sutureexpress.com and admitted that they made some pretty big marketing mistakes. Forsythe set out to make it right, but only made it worse when he contracted with a skilled SEO and did not pay the bill. The prior costly marketing mistakes made by Ed Kuklenski, Suture Express’ CEO at the time of the $150,000 disaster yielded only $50,000 gross revenue in the following year according to Forsythe. Forsythe stated that customers had refused to use their website and that it was too slow and ineffective in meeting the Suture Express customer needs and expectations.
It seems that cheap did not fit the bill in this instance, so the fax machine is still the primary method of taking orders. Forsythe claimed that the CEO, Ed Kuklenski had refused to present the proposed budget for site redevelopment, search engine optimization, and social media marketing services to the board for approval. Forsythe cited that since Ed Kuklenski had previously made too big a mistake on the website development that it would shame the CEO to request further money to rectify the mess. Instead, the company CFO, Brian Forsythe, decided to structure payments toward the proposed services in smaller amounts that would each come under the limit that must be approved by the board. Forsythe signed what was to have been the first of multiple contracts and claimed that payment had been sent. Brian Forsythe lied, the checks never came, and he stopped taking calls.
Is Suture Express a Fraud?
I am not an attorney, but what Brian Forsythe did on behalf of Suture Express as the CFO would probably stand out bad in any court of public opinion. Not only did Forsythe agree to a series of contracts to circumvent his board, he also signed a contract and said that the check was in the mail. Brian P. Forsythe
With a signed contract in hand and the Chief Financial Officer’s word that the check had been sent, it seemed safe to produce a report and a plan to achieve Suture Express’ Internet marketing goals. I provided the report, and Suture Express received the benefit of initial plans to improve their search engine ranking. Again, I am not an attorney, but I do recall hearing terms like “Theft by Deception” and “Fraud” somewhere. I am not sure what legal terms apply, but in any case, good business ethics do not seem to be this company’s strong point.
Beating the Surgical Suture Supply Competitors
Suture Express’ ill-considered plan to one-up the competing surgical supply companies had all the making of failure from the very beginning. Stealing from a top-level SEO just sealed the deal. This should be no surprise from a company that claimed to produce between six and seven hundred million per year in revenue (you believe that, right?), yet bragged in their marketing about using duct tape to fix an office toilet seat rather than buying a new one. That is how cheap they are, and they are proud of it. Ladies, can we hear from you on this topic? They are using duct tape to fix a toilet seat, but spent $150,000 on a website that does not work and irritates customers. Sorry ladies of Suture Express, the money for your toilet seat is at sutureexpress.com. Go there when you need to pee, like the rest of the surgical suture supply people around the world.
I am I kidding? No, they actually used the duct taped toilet seat in their marketing. Sure, people having surgery and hoping to live through it probably want that kind of “cheap”. That makes up for wasting $150,000 on a website, for certain.
Suture Express Cheap Sutures Acquired by “Diamond Castle Holdings LLC”
In what I can only imagine as a panic, Brian Forsythe and key operatives in the Suture Express marketing team decided that after costly failed attempts at selling surgical supplies online, they had to do something to advance their cheap surgical supply company. Instead of doing business with integrity, such as honoring a signed contract with the SEO, maybe the best thing to do was to sell the company again. I imagine it to sound something like this:
“Let’s sell Suture Express again! Selling a surgical suture supply company seems to work well. It has worked before, and to heck with Suture Express’ reputation, this is millions of dollars. We can buy a new SEO with that kind of money, and the new shareholders will never know better. Shareholders don’t get the Internet anyway.”
I can actually kind of expect this kind of logic from these people, because the company who purchased Suture Express in January 2010 is named Diamond Castle Holdings LLC. Really, a diamond castle is what people want to build when they buy cheap surgical supplies, right? Diamond Castle acquired Suture Express in a leveraged buyout from Code Hennessy & Simmons LLC. Does anybody want to guess the shareholders of Code Hennessy & Simmons LLC and Diamond Castle Holdings LLC? I’ll bet we can find some pretty classy cheap surgical suppliers in there somewhere. I can imagine the pride they all shout about at the shareholder meetings. Can you make up a good cheer to suit this?
Ethicon Surgical Supply Truth, with Suture Express
What I know today answers a lot of questions of how America’s health care system is in shambles. I waited well over a year from the time that Brian Forsythe at Suture Express told me directly that a check was in the mail before I decided to share the truth. I never wanted to battle with the huge health care industry or to hurt a one-time friend who suckered me into it. In over a year of waiting for that check to arrive and watching Suture Express being sold twice for millions of dollars each time, I had to shake my head and wonder what went wrong. There were many instances when I missed what I knew as my one-time friend, Brian, who had served as the CEO, CTO and CFO of Suture Express, and any other position he could regain in the next sale of his company. He gained millions of dollars by selling a company and effectively reselling it multiple times. Some people call this genius, but some people would call him a conman. I did not judge him, because I knew him as a friend who came to me when he needed to market a company that had made huge and costly mistakes.
I should explain that Brian Forsythe was one of the people I credit the highest with my learning to drive race cars. I met Brian when I was learning to master driving Corvettes. As you can imagine, I trusted Brian Forsythe. We have been just a few feet apart in our Corvettes at 150 miles per hour and taken high speed turns where mistakes count dearly. I don’t do this with people I do not like or respect. After all, I have a family to come home to.
Brian Forsythe Porsche Club and Corvette Race Car Driver
Brian is an amazing race car driver, and he instructed me in driving to the absolute limits a Corvette can withstand. He has been in a car with me at 150 miles per hour and has coached me when I placed 4th in a competition with top drivers from all around the world. He was the guy who once said “Mark, you made the quantum leap today, and you will never see that much improvement in your driving skill again.” He was also the guy who consoled me as I frantically worried that I had finished a time trial at less than my capability. He had been timing me and assured me beyond my tears that I had done a smashing job. Yes, race car drivers are close like brothers, so it actually does trouble me to say how badly this man conducts business. It means that I will never see my friend on a racetrack for fear that he will treat human life the way he does his business … like a true liar and cheat.
Yes, you read it correctly, and I will defend it in a court of law … Brian Forsythe of Suture Express is a liar. I cannot say how often he does it, but I can prove multiple instances of Brian lying to a friend, so you go ahead and make your judgments how you like. I always figured that if a man will lie to his friend, it is generally a reflection of how he will treat people in business as well.
My opinion is that Ed Kuklenski, Brian Forsythe, Kurt Rall, Steve Boyer, and the rest of the executive team and marketing staff at Suture Express probably could have done well to just own up to their contract instead of selling out the little guy who just wanted to help his racing buddy.
When people tell the truth, there should be no harm to the person reporting it. Fairness is subjective, but factual data should never hurt. The day that the truth becomes damaging to the truth-teller, is the day I will give up and stop doing business. If you do not like the truth, stop reading my blog right now, because you would probably not like me. If you are in the Ethicon surgical sutures supply industry, the truth may either upset you, or it may delight you. In the end, it is only the truth.
I wonder how Diamond Castle Holdings LLC’s shareholders will feel about their acquisition. I don’t wonder too much, because I think if anybody facing a life-saving surgery knew that their sutures were building a diamond castle, that their holdings would perhaps include holding their breath and waiting for some surgical supplies by a company with more integrity. Really … Diamond Castle Holdings? Are you kidding me? Is that part of the big healthcare reform thing we keep hearing about?
How many people here on my blog want to finance a Diamond Castle when they get sick and need a doctor to stitch them up?
A Surgical Supply Question for Johnson & Johnson
Do you generally do business like Brian Forsythe at Suture Express? I wonder if you can sell any sutures that can stitch up this surgical marketing mess Brian and his coworkers made. I really wonder how Johnson & Johnson looks at companies promoting their Ethicon line of surgical sutures in this way. Will I get any answers?
About Surgical Suture Suppliers
I doubt that surgical sutures suppliers are all so shady. I would be delighted to assist a suture supply company like Ethicon by Johnson & Johnson, Suture Direct, Novartis, Angiotech, MPS Medical Supply, DemeTech or others.
I would like to add that I do not often say unkind things about companies or friends. This is an instance where I believe that it is in the public’s interest and that Suture Express’ shareholders, prospective customers, and even competing surgical suture suppliers should know what happens when you treat people with dishonesty. Especially the ones who already proved they know their way around SEO. Just see my comment on the article “Ethicon Sutures: Endo Surgical Sutures” to see what I mean.
