September
2002 Newsletter
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Summer Cows &
Summer Ducks
Who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to
take on projects for multinational corporations?
Recent newsletters have focused on some of our large projects, but our smaller clients also get a lot of attention.
We were recently contacted by a successful family business to enhance their Filemaker databases. They first commented on the fact that we arrived at the appointment on time. For us, this is SOP.
We’re thankful that they also told us why we had been given the chance to work with them. The bottom line: The competition did not enthusiastically pursue their business.
Apparently, the other guys’ lackluster telephone demeanor was enough to indicate that they weren’t interested in even meeting with these prospects.
Say what? Virtually all successful business relationships begin with a phone call and then a meeting. You’re way ahead of the game if the prospect contacts you for help.
What’s the objective of every campaign, brochure, newsletter or PR effort? Make the phone ring!
As a result of following what we believe to be the most basic of business conventions, we have a new client.
Granted, not every prospect is a good “fit” for a given enterprise. But we’ll always be able to provide some guidance to anyone that gives us the privilege to offer it.
We’ve Been
Googled!
We made some modifications to our Web site
recently, including an update to the Case Histories page,
enhanced navigation tools and a Newsletter Subscription
form.
This process led us to registering the site with the major search engines. And that led us into the dark underworld of Internet advertising.
It can get pretty nasty. We hate pop-ups, pop-overs and pop-unders. Those Flash animations that take over your computer are really annoying. And the ruses employed by third parties to capture prospects’ data submitted to your site by offering “free” tools to do it are just scary.
So our Internet advertising utilizes “pull” rather than “push” technology. And that starts with advertising on search engines like Google and Yahoo.
The results of these efforts have had unintended consequences. We’re far more impressed with our rankings in the search engines than with our paid advertising.
Which leads to an obvious question is: Would we have gotten these optimum search engine listings without the advertising?
We don’t know. But now that we can actually find ourselves in the major search engines, we’re naive enough to believe we have an idea of how we got there.
Don’t worry, we’re not offering The Top Ten Secrets for Getting on Google, just $29.95+S&H! We’re in the database business, remember?
Our objective from the beginning was to be found when someone input “Filemaker Houston” into a Google or Yahoo search. Try it yourself. We come up first!
On our site, you’ll find the latest Case Histories, Ideal Projects and an archive of all past Newsletters.
Subscribers have nothing to fear when they hit the “Submit” button on our site. All they’ll get is this newsletter via US Mail.
As far as the alchemy involved in getting sites listed on search engines…give us a call. We’ll wax eloquent on the subject.
World History
(Filler from the book “Non Campus
Mentis: World History According to College
Students,” published by Workman Publishing of New
York).
“The Allies landed near Italy’s toe and gradually advanced up her leg, where they hoped to find Musalini.”
(Regarding the Black Plague): “Death rates exceeded 100% in some towns.”
“Renaissance merchants were beautiful and almost lifelike. They enriched themselves by planting wool and selling it for clothing. They increased these profets by paying interest to people who borrowed money from them. This produced even more grits for the mills of change.”
When you’re ready for change, give us a call. The grits are on us.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
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