Website design By BotEap.comAs a start-up consultant, I often find myself going the extra mile when it comes to getting things up and running. Why do you ask? It’s simple, startups only succeed when everyone gives 110% and sometimes even that is not enough.

Website design By BotEap.comAnyway, let me tell you about a pretty enlightening experience I had recently when I was helping a startup with their grassroots marketing campaign. First we sat the team down and explained how we were going to do some cold calling; telephone meetings, person to person. Really go out there and do it, leaving no stone unturned.

Website design By BotEap.comThe startup I’m helping with is a B2B company, so we started collecting lists of companies of certain types. We went to the local chambers of commerce and took their print directories, used the old phone books, and Googled every possible category within our target market. We went to online directory websites 300 Google pages deep, and since we were looking for easy-to-reach fruit, we even went to Google maps to find home-based businesses in our specific target business categories.

Website design By BotEap.comWhat we found was quite alarming, though not too surprising in retrospect.

Website design By BotEap.comWhen it came to the websites listed on Google that were more or less directory type websites, it became apparent that the information was next to useless, even those on the first few pages of a search. Most of the phone numbers were disconnected, out of service, or now belonged to someone else who had no idea what the heck we were talking about and never heard of the company we requested; I’m talking about almost 75%.

Website design By BotEap.comWhen we went to the actual addresses of businesses listed on Google Maps in various cities, we found apartment buildings with new tenants, found vacant houses for sale, and found some addresses that didn’t even exist. When we found someone, they often said they didn’t do that anymore, or that a tenant they had did, but moved away. Sometimes it was a former spouse, now divorced, who had moved away.

Website design By BotEap.comWhat were the printed directories of the local Chamber of Commerce like? Well, a bit better actually, but not at all reliable, at least a quarter of the companies were no more and remember this is a year from now as directories are usually printed annually at Chambers of Commerce. How was the phone book? Well, the phone books were about the same, just a little worse than the Chambers publications, and I guess that makes sense? What a waste of money for those companies that advertise?

Website design By BotEap.comMoral of the story?

Website design By BotEap.comYou can’t trust online data, you can’t trust print data, and you sure can’t trust online directory websites that are produced for the best SEO results, but are never monitored, removed, or updated. .

Website design By BotEap.comSo what is my advice? Don’t waste time hanging around, mailing out brochures, or paying a team of salespeople to knock on doors unless you know for a fact that your information is up-to-date and accurate. I advise buying lists; contact names, email addresses, phone numbers of competent data providers who constantly update their lists. My advice to Google is simple, ‘gather your Google sheet’ and stop promoting fake websites on the first few pages. For all of you startups out there doing business, think about this.