everydaynetworker.com

Check Your Speakers!

by Jennifer Gniadecki on July 30th, 2008

If you’re a networking type that gets speakers in for groups (and I know there are a few of you out there) you need to check your speakers.

I just received an invitation to a networking luncheon where the woman speaking is a known shady-lady. She owes a very powerful acquaintance of mine $300 – not a big deal financially – but just tacky in her eyes. She tried to talk to the lady about it several times but it never got resolved. So now my friend tells people about the issue when things come up.

This same lady has gotten out of her former biz and is now in cahoots with her hubby on a pagerank 0, no backlink masterpiece – a local business social networking site with video. They called us and wanted to barter. I made Randy, my husband and the SEO guy in our family, talk to the husband and co-owner and when he asked the owner of this local networking company what they had done for SEO he replied, “We’re going to do that once the site is up and running and live.”

What?

I’m no SEO expert but even I know that a lot of the SEO is in how the page is coded, set up, etc. You don’t just “do SEO” after the site is live. I mean there is additional SEO but…yeah…that’s just bad form.

So we didn’t work with them, mostly because we don’t do barter and haven’t in a couple years, but also because they didn’t know anyone I wanted to know. Who would they refer to me? Other shady people?

So when I see the co-owner wife is doing a talk on how video can explode your business and how you can get an Internet presence beyond or even instead of a website…that’s a problem. I also know at least 20 other people that are going to see that email and have a problem.

Then two friends tell two friends and the reputation of the people having her as a speaker is now in question.

So double-check your speakers are the real deal and have credentials to back it up. When I saw this woman’s bio and it said she was immersed in the marketing world for 15 years…well…by that definition of marketing I’ve been doing it for 17 years…ever since I got my first job and had to upsell. Because upselling is marketing, right?

Just…check your speakers. It’s a big deal.

Share This

Related Stories

• No related posts

POSTED IN: General Networking