So here we are today.
We have a family member with end of life condition. We are waiting for the phone to ring. We are only answering critical calls from health care providers. In comes the scam marketing from Frontspin and Lucidchart and now SalesLoft!.
SPAM moving to SCAM marketing happens. LUCIDCHART calls to see if I want some whitepaper because I signed up for a long-forgotten webinar.
And the area code is 512 – the same as the health care provider. So, I answer it expecting a call with a doctor and a charming person from UTAH is wanting to know if I want more info on a stupid webinar.
I asked her if she were in Austin, with that area code. But, no, she’s in UTAH, getting ready for a ski day with her team at LUCIDCHART.
If there is any person on the planet who does not know prospects DO NOT WANT to talk to sales people, please stand up! Anyone out there who has not gotten the message?
No more SPAM! No more BDR calls for downloading a “white paper” which is just sales collateral. And most of all, do not SCAM me with a local area code when you are in UTAH but know I will likely answer if you SCAM me with a local area code.
Unfortunately, there seems to be another reaction — to more than double down on cold calling and interruption marketing — to actually enter the arena of FRAUD MARKETING.
Meet our new friends at FrontSpin, Lucidchart, SalesLoft and a host of other companies who offer the same pornography in selling sequences – called Local Presence Dialing!
OK, what the hell is local presence dialing?
You are the hapless person running your business and you do not take cold calls. Nobody does even though the Account Based Marketing industry tells you differently. So you are in your office, and you get that call from area code 261. Nobody you know is there and you do not think it is even an area code. So ignore the call. We all do that.
Then a call comes in from your area code: 512, 201, 202 whatever.
Well, your spouse was at the doctor today. Your kid is having school issues. Your dog is at the vet and the news may not be good. So, who knows, this may be that call.
You take it and you are now on the phone with some person from Lucidchart or other ABM (account based marketing) user who is using the FrontSpin app (and those from literally a hundred of others, so let’s not pick on them but there is only so much space here people).
That person is cold calling you and deliberately FAKING, or FRAUDULENTLY trying to get you to link your personal life via your personal area code call to their pitch for the crap they are selling.
They are NOT calling from your area code — they are faking (fraud) you out to think this may be that vet call or the call about your spouse.
Why are they doing this?
OK people, we have now crossed the line from interruption marketing which is the nonsense world of ABM into the world of FRAUD marketing where ABM gets you to answer because it may be your spouse’s doctor or your dog’s vet
I am a victim here. We are all victims here.
Every day I get calls from my area code which is not one of the majors. And I have to take those calls because I have 5 rescue dogs and lots of vet bills. I have contractors erecting new buildings on my property. I have a hundred issues where I need to not miss that local call from that local person who meets my need.
But now the ABM scavengers like FrontSpin, Lucidchart, SalesLoft and others are hijacking (or selling to those who might actually do so) the ability to fraudulently use (yes, FrontSpin marketing person, fraud is if you misrepresent to someone who you are, then use that for your benefit–if you had taken a commercial law course in your community college instead of MarCom you would know this) OK, back again, the ABM scavengers are now trying to TRICK customers.
Well, let’s go there. The concept of “local presence dialing” is a means of tricking a prospect so they answer a call they would not have answered otherwise.
And it may actually work for a while. It may get a call log filled in. It may get a few conversations going. For the ABM types, that is great because they now have the metrics to live one more quarter.
But we customers are pretty smart. We now use Spam blockers (ABM detectors) to stop most of this trash. So now you fool me and the rest of us because you use FrontSpin and other competitors and trick me into answering.
Works once, twice maybe three times. Then guess what? Screw the vet and screw the doctor, I will just take calls from those in my iPhone directory.
So now what?
Now we recognize why these crap companies in the revenue management space, the ABM space and now the fraud space are never going to make it. None of them has made a dime and none will. They are artifices of some misguided VC with nowhere else to go.
Let us, as an industry stand up to fraud marketing and let us chase the FrontSpins and their ilk out of our world and into the swamps where they belong.