At what point do you know you're being dicked around?

**Squirt** · 10-12-2004, 07:18 AM

A very popular website ( which will remain nameless in this thread ) has dicked me around for a few months now about doing banner trades. Now I really wanted this traffic and have been shooting emails back and forth for over 5 months now.

Today I just couldn't stand it any more and fired off an email to them basically stating "How do you expect to compete in this industry when you can't even put a banner up on a site with someone you say you want to do business with?"

Was I being rash? Or was I being stupid in being lead on for 5 months?

DigitalJay · 10-12-2004, 07:41 AM

That is pretty crappy and rude of them, because thats something simple that could be worked out in a few days, with less or the equal effort of writing emails. Any ideas on why they would do this? Was it procrastination, indecision, or were they just messing with you or what?

**Squirt** · 10-12-2004, 08:35 AM

Thanks for the response DJ.

A few different excuses... "I've told so and so to do it, they haven't done it." etc. They have appologized a couple times, but in the end, the banners not up. Crossed communiations between the person I'm dealing with and the site owners.

In the end, who really wants to do business with them eh? If they are so inconsiderate with such things as banners.. are they really worth doing business with anyway? I don't think so.

Dzinerbear · 10-12-2004, 10:02 AM

Oh this.

This drives me crazy about this business. You find a site that you know you could really sell, you e-mail them, and you get nothing or a bunch of excuses.

I went through this a while ago with a sponsor that I really wanted to promote because it was a niche within a niche, it wasn't very well represented on the web, and I knew I could make a buttload of money. It was pretty much the same thing you're going through except what was different was that I had connections with these people. We had friends in common and one of their partners lives in my city and his life partner even knows me to say "hi" on the street. You'd think, eh?

Not a chance. Finally, I e-mailed and basically said: What is up with you people? I outlined what I had done to try and get a hold of them, then I said, "If you're not interested in my (then) 5,000 visitors a day, I'll give them to another sponsor." Within an hour I had a n e-mail.

Squirt, I don't know your situation but I found that I got this sort of thing a lot when my sites were just starting up. (I don't think you acted rashly at all.) Suddenly when my sites got really big everyone wanted to suck, I mean, do business with me. But I'm still amazed that I regularly don't hear back from people still.

BTW, I haven't forgotten about our link trade, I've just been up to my eyeballs in getting rid of iBill banners. And we just had Thanksgiving in Canada, so I had family upon family.

Cheers
dzinerbear

**Lee** · 10-13-2004, 01:37 AM

Well im crap with email and icq generally so, unless its something that needs doing immediately i generally let that kind of thing sit and wait until im contacted again

Regards,

Lee

**Squirt** · 10-13-2004, 02:04 AM

Thanks Lee for your response. I'm a lot like that too, but after 5 mos of back and forth it gets a bit tedious.

Dzinerbear kewl about the link trade. I'm working on a kickin new niche site that will be released soon so no hurry there.

Ok so the banner is up now and guess what ... a few hundred dollars in sales on my 50 / 50 split reseller program.. and that's just today!

I'm glad it's done.. a load off my chest and now I can focus on other things. It's nice when things work out :high:

**dirtygeek** · 10-15-2004, 11:44 AM

I tend to forget link trades on my free sites. I get so cought up in making new hosted galleries, and going after new program members until I honestly forget.

However, once i'm reminded it goes right up. :angel:

**CuriousToyBoy** · 10-16-2004, 01:57 AM

Nice thread Tom !!

You know, as anyone who deals with me knows, EVERYTHING gets done eventually, but it's a matter of there only being one of me, only so many hours in every day and limited resources being applied to unlimited demands...

I have programs to run, emails to answer (700+ in my inbox as at this minute), boards to keep up with and a multitude of blinking MSN/Yahoo/AOL/ICQ windows attracting my attentions.

So think about customer service, processing, fraud preventuion, server admin, security, advice, asistance, questions and ALL that is take sto run a successful webmaster program....

And then ADD new projects on the blocks..

And then remember that I have a girlfriend and a 4 and 8 year old child, ALL wanting "Daddy's" attention.

Come to think I am amazed I get ANYTHING done.

:biker:

**Squirt** · 10-16-2004, 02:18 AM

CuriousToyBoy thanks for the response.

You and I haven't had chance to do business yet but when we do I get things done when I say 95% of the time and the other 5% is done by the second deadline. Sometimes things do happen and that's understandable.

Remember.. my example here is a 5 month process of hitting emails back and forth over and over again.. not just one way etc.

"as anyone who deals with me knows, EVERYTHING gets done eventually"

At the end of the day.. part of good business is doing what you say by the deadline you set. If a company, or individual, can't meet deadlines they themselves set, most of the time, then I don't want to do business with them. I have enough to do already without having to follow up on someone and quite frankly if they don't have their act together enough to meet outside commitments that's not a good sign.

DigitalJay · 10-16-2004, 03:33 AM

Originally posted by Squirt

At the end of the day.. part of good business is doing what you say by the deadline you set. If a company, or individual, can't meet deadlines they themselves set, most of the time, then I don't want to do business with them. I have enough to do already without having to follow up on someone and quite frankly if they don't have their act together enough to meet outside commitments that's not a good sign.

I've personally not done business with you but I feel like you are talking about ME

thats not good! I blame it on being on hellish dial-up and only having one phone line. Every five minutes I get disconnected or someone needs to use the phone to make some long ignorant pointless phone call. I can gush and gush about what I can do and how I'd like to help and yadayada but it always ends up being a pipe dream that gets clogged up in the bottleneck of dialup internet.

When it comes down to it, time IS money so a waste of time is a waste of both. If you really have either to blow, go out shopping and have a good time, fuck getting stressed over folk who "don't have their act together."

**CuriousToyBoy** · 10-16-2004, 03:46 AM

Originally posted by Squirt
CuriousToyBoy thanks for the response.

You and I haven't had chance to do business yet but when we do I get things done when I say 95% of the time and the other 5% is done by the second deadline. Sometimes things do happen and that's understandable.

Honestly the only reason you and I haven;t been able to do business yet is our communication with each other sucks.. we are forever taking each other the wrong way, and that's a 2 way thing, not one way or the other !!

Hopefully we can overcome that one day in the not too distant future.

You are coming to this with us I trust?
http://www.curiouscash.com/webmaster...004/index.html

:biker:

**Squirt** · 10-16-2004, 03:48 AM

Originally posted by DigitalJay
.. fuck getting stressed over folk who "don't have their act together."

Yeah the stressed part is over and only lasted the time it took to blast off my GWW post

I knew that we'd both make great money.. and getting the other person to follow through was difficult..and now that it's done.. we're making great money! So at the end of the day all it's good.

My post here was just to guage what you guys thought and what your limits were. I'm making the transition to working with others in the industry and trying to see if I'm being unreasonable in applying typical business practices to the adult internet. As it turns out I'm being reasonable and that's good to know.

**Squirt** · 10-16-2004, 04:08 AM

Originally posted by CuriousToyBoy
Honestly the only reason you and I haven;t been able to do business yet is our communication with each other sucks.. we are forever taking each other the wrong way, and that's a 2 way thing, not one way or the other !!

Hopefully we can overcome that one day in the not too distant future.

You are coming to this with us I trust?
http://www.curiouscash.com/webmaster...004/index.html

:biker:

Yeah actions speak louder then words. I can't commit to business without some kind of way to guage success, especially when it involves me taking the time to make 21 galleries of my content.

Yeah I might goto the sydney event. I haven't been to Sydney yet here in Oz.

**CuriousToyBoy** · 10-16-2004, 04:42 AM

Originally posted by Squirt
Yeah actions speak louder then words. I can't commit to business without some kind of way to guage success, especially when it involves me taking the time to make 21 galleries of my content.

Yeah I might goto the sydney event. I haven't been to Sydney yet here in Oz.

Look forward to seeing you in Sydney....

Bring your camera, you get the big kiss remember :-)

:biker: