If you can't beat them, help them ...

[gm66]

I've been in SEO for only a year, but i have decades of IT experience.

I've been getting clients via word of mouth, because i previouisly wasn't doing it full time, but this month i set up a website and got things going.

One of the things i've done is rent a Skype landline number so that i can get customer calls on the PC or the mobile.

I've listed my business on about 20 good UK business directories, but boy did i NOT know what i was in for !

All i get now are marketing calls ! I'm in marketing, leave me alone !!

Then i started getting calls from 'energy registration list' companies, hunting for business, we've recently moved here so it's understandable.

But it's been annoying, getting 5-10 calls from them a day, so yesterday i got a bit angry with one of them, telling him to get off my line and it's none of his business who supplies my energy, when he said "Well if you tell me who you're with and when you switched, i take you off our list and you don't get called again".

So i'm beaten now, 5-10 times a day i answer the phone, listen to the introduction then say :

"OK i'll save you some time, we switched to Npower in November and the paperwork is finalised."

If you can't beat them, help them, then they go away ;+}

[Brad]

I hate getting marketing calls.  Do you have a do not call registry in the UK?

[gm66]

Yes we do but i am using a Skype number that forwards to the PC and the smartphone.

Unfortunately Skype (in their infinite wisdom) done away with specific number call-blocking back in 2009 i think.

Now i just look upon it as a break in the boredom from sitting their getting no calls while i code my first SEO tool ;+}

I'd rather get customer calls of course

[gm66]

By the way, i think Captain Kirk would either sleep with it or set his phaser on stun and drop it to give him a chance to assess whether or not he could sleep with it, or maybe sing it a song :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1Ar79f8aN8

[Rooftop]

I hate getting marketing calls.  Do you have a do not call registry in the UK?

Yes... you are going to love this.  It is run by the direct marketing association.  They then distribute it to their members.  So, the only way to get your number on it is to hand your number to the "do not call" list is to hand that number over to the people who do the calling.

No-one uses it to clean lists anyway.

[gm66]

I didn't know that that's effing crazy !

That's like that Monsanto guy now high up in the US Food and Drug Administration, or Lord Sainsbury being our Food Tzar !

Madness ..