When Companies Lie About What They’ve Done – Marketing Testimonials

Thought I’d take a quick moment to vent – is that ok with you?

The thing I wanted to vent about was testimonials on marketing agency sites and a common strategy that’s popping up amongst digital “agencies” that’s complete bullshit and should be illegal.

Ok, so here’s how it works.

Have you ever been on a nice looking “digital agency”, “SEO Agency”, “Website Development” company or really any company that creates digital assets and more so offers the service of looking after your marketing?

Now it’s been shown that the least trusted people in the world are marketing people, right under (or is it just above) used car salesmen. The reputation is well earned. I’m not going to sit here and talk about how I’m a saint and I’m above it all, I’ve bullshitted a little here and there – mostly when clients ask me if I can do something, and I have no idea how to – and I say I can. But what I’m going to tell you is much worse than anything I’ve done.

Basically, imagine you’re starting out in this ‘marketing’ or even ‘web development’ field. You don’t have any work that you’ve done in the past, you’re pretty crap really, you’ve never achieved any results – and you don’t want to work to build a client portfolio and put in the hard yards. What do you do?

Simple.

You go to 5 companies that have done good work in the past, maybe they’re overseas or in another state. And you say to them:

“Listen, can I house your work on my site and pass it off as my own? Then if any work comes in I’ll make sure you get a piece.”

And so these 5 people say to themselves, why not, it can’t hurt.

Now these 5 people don’t know that you’ve approached the other 4 offering the exact same offer but by the time they realize it’s too late.

In either case now you have a website that looks like you’re the who’s who of marketing because all these companies are in your portfolio.

Except the problem is they’re not.

You didn’t go out and chase, and make the deal happen with these clients.

You didn’t go through and walk the ropes with these clients from beginning to end.

You didn’t end with the client being satisfied and leaving a testimonial.

All you’ve done is used other people’s work.

And that’s why you don’t have any testimonials on your website.

So next time you see a company that says they’ve worked with Sony or whatever, ask the guy you talk to who exactly at Sony he worked with and sit back and enjoy the stammer and attempted topic change.

How dare you say facts that expose my mask!!??