As a small business owner, I occasionally get emails that are marked as spam. I stay on top of it, though I’ve sometimes wondered how often a “genuine” cold-calling email comes from a legitimate business. So, I decided to put it to the test.

The investigation of this supposed spam

I first visited the so-called company’s website. The thing that immediately jumped out at me was that they lacked any kind of analytics trackers. This means that, as a “marketing” company, they had little to no data on the effectiveness of their campaigns. Even if various privacy steps (many of which I use) make it more difficult to track user behavior, not everyone has the same approach to data as I do (I’ve often said I’m the marketer who goes out of his way to avoid being marketed to). Your website should have at a bare minimum one analytics script installed so that you know what is and isn’t working.

Next, I read some of their testimonials. To be clear, I find testimonials that a company manually adds to its website to be suspect most of the time. There are too many other options to embed third-party reviews into your website. But maybe, just maybe, this was a legitimate review.

Let’s see if I can track this person down. LinkedIn, a spot on the employee page of said company, anything.

Nada. Well, that’s odd, isn’t it? If they’re high enough up in a firm to give a review, it should mean they have some kind of presence (unless, again, they’re like me). Okay, I’ll try the other review…

The mystery deepens

But, before I did, I inspected the source code of the so-called testimonial’s image. Spoiler alert: they literally pulled an image from a Google-hosted image repository and embedded THAT photo into their website.

So what about the other review? Ah, here’s where it gets fun! So I found another website where this gentleman supposedly gave another review of another company. Let’s see what he says there…

Wait. That’s not his face! That’s not even the same gender! On Site A, “Peter” looked like your typical late Gen X photo of success. On Site B, “Peter” both de-aged about 30 years and became a woman.

And guess what: the name of the first reviewer was also on this page, equally swapping gender while *rapidly* aging. And to be clear, neither set of photos on either website was of the same man or woman.

So what’s my point?

First, growing a small business is hard. I’ve been blessed that God has brought business my way, but I would also like to expand. The service this company supposedly offered — lead generation — is something I could do on my own.

I just don’t have the time for it.

I’ve thought about taking the first step to grow by hiring a salesperson. The problem is, I can’t afford to pay a set wage just yet, and would need to operate on a commission/contract setup with them. That’s a lot to ask of another person — essentially, someone also running a small business acting as an extension of my own.

But man, if I had a system to generate leads that would make it more likely that I could almost guarantee them a set payout? Maybe even a transitional role, starting as a contractor and moving into a full-time role? That would be great!

See how easy it is to fall for scams? I suspected it was, as I get emails constantly asking if I need help with producing leads or payment processing or whatever else. Literally, I got one as I was typing this blog.

That’s why I continued to vet each part of their company, and soon their entire sales pitch fell apart like the spam it was.

Second, let’s talk about reviews

If you’re trying to build social proof, it does not come from inserting words into your site’s Dashboard on a random “Testimonial” page. I find this suspect, and while I’m a very suspicious consumer, it also means that if you can earn my trust then you can earn the trust of almost anyone.

The better option will always be to embed third-party reviews (Google, Facebook, TrustPilot, etc) of your company into your website. A few years ago, I built a website or two where I manually added reviews. I also knew these to be genuine, so I was less apprehensive.

Today, I wouldn’t even attempt this. There are simply better options out there to demonstrate your brand’s commitment to its customers.

Finally, a note on images

I’m just gonna leave this here: never, ever, *ever* use a Google image on your website. You cannot vouch for its authenticity nor do you know if you would have the license to publish it. I’m even averse to using Google images, memes, and the like on my clients’ social media profiles. This is a slippery slope and one that could lead to various types of civil penalties against your company.

Images you take are best. Third-party royalty-free images are okay. I pay for access to an image repository and make it a point to follow the licensing rules for those images. I believe this to be a good middle ground between the two options.

So what about growing my business?

That will come. God has a plan, and I don’t know what that looks like just yet. In His time, not mine.