The most annoying spam isn't the Viagra ads and so on, because those are easy to get past. It's the more targeted stuff that looks as if it MIGHT be of interest to you. For example, bogus press releases are a big annoyance to me, because I at least briefly skim every press release that comes in. And so when something with the title NEW: LinkedIn for Tech Industry, Download C-level, Sales & Mark turned out not to be about LinkedIn at all, but rather to be a promotional piece by a dubiously ethical outfit called CardBrowser, I got a negative impression.
Like most people, I rarely hit Unsubscribe links, fearing that will just encourage the spammers. But occasionally I email companies directly and, perhaps after a couple of exchanges (heated or otherwise), they stop writing me. CardBrowser hadn't quite made it to that level for me, but then CardBrowser CEO Steve Morgan happened to reach out to me in a personal, salesy email.
At this point I searched my inbox, saw a double-digit amount of unsolicited mail from CardBrowser, and brought it to his attention. Instead of the standard "Oops, so sorry", he insisted that CardBrowser was lily-pure, and I must have signed up for the list and forgotten all about it.
So I clicked one of the unsubscribe links. It revealed that I was signed up with the username "Friend." I wrote back to Steve, pointing out that I had never signed up for a list as "Friend" in my life, and furthermore criticizing him for the email subject line quoted above. He wrote back terminating the conversation.
Now, the chances that I'd personally buy services from CardBrowser was in any case exceedingly low. Still, what Steve did is not good business practice. I offer it as a cautionary story because, even if you DO do your e-mail marketing responsibly, screw-ups happen. And when they do, you need to recall the golden rule that Steve forgot:
The customer or other person whose attention you've requested is always right.
Bottom line re CardBrowser: Since CardBrowser is in the business of helping people market, and since CardBrowser has such issues with ethical or acceptable marketing behavior, I recommend that folks bear all that in mind when considering doing business with CardBrowser.
Bottom line re communicating with customers and prospects: If they think it's spam, they're automatically right, so you automatically did something wrong. Act accordingly. If you push ethical boundaries in your marketing, that's all the more reason to be quick to fix any real or perceived problem with it.
Edit: My views on spam such as CardBrowser's are discussed at more length here.
Edit: Unsurprisingly, I'm not the only one with a negative opinion of CardBrowser. I presume the "Hadley" who said the following is long-time CEO Bruce Hadley of SoftwareCEO.com. If that's right -- well, Hadley is an agreeable guy knows a thing or three about marketing, and a negative comment from him about a potential advertiser of his should be taken quite seriously.
Btw, be careful with Cardbrowser; my personal experience with them was not good. And that's being kind.
Curt Monash is a leading analyst of and strategic advisor to the software industry. Praised by Lawrence J. Ellison for his "unmatched insight into technology and marketplace trends," Curt was the software/services industry's #1 ranked stock analyst while at PaineWebber, Inc., where he served as a First Vice President until 1987. He subsequently co-founded Evernet, Inc., a $40 million networking systems integrator. Since 1990, he has owned and operated Monash Research, an analysis and advisory firm covering software-intensive sectors of the technology industry. In that period he also has been co-founder, president, or chairman of several other technology startups.
Curt has served as a strategic advisor to many well-known firms, including Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, AOL, CA, and Netezza. Curt earned a Ph.D. in mathematics (Game Theory) from Harvard University. He has held faculty positions in mathematics, economics and public policy at Harvard, Yale, and Suffolk universities.
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CardBrowser
Curt -
My company uses CardBrowser and it actually is a really good tool. I understand your frustration, but the fact that Steve took the time to respond to your email complaint says a lot about him and the business. If it was truly a SPAM email then the chances of you getting a response were likely slim to none. I've worked with Steve Morgan and Cardbrowser for two years now - my company has provided a Testimonial for them and continue to be a Strong Reference for their product. Steve is an ethical and upstanding entrepreneur. He has always been there to help us with our growing company even when our questions were not related directly to his company's offering.
You, on the other hand, sound like a miserable person who took probably and hour to write a blog about a simple email. I honestly don't understand people like you - you got an Email, Curt - oooohhh big deal - did it ruin your life - did it ruin your day, I mean come on it was one email - get over yourself.
In fact, you are so caught up in your self-importance that you don't even hit the unsubscribe button - which if you had done in this case I'm sure would have immediately taken your email off of his list. Of course, you will never know because you never even pressed the button.
Steven
Truth vs. Lies in Curt Monash on CardBrowser
A few of our customers mentioned this distasteful piece to me and encouraged me to post a response... so here goes:
Curt wrote "But occasionally I email companies directly..." - he did in fact email us. His initial email was response to our marketing piece inquiring about the service (I still have his original email) and NOT to complain about spam.
Curt wrote "The customer or other person whose attention you've requested is always right." I don't agree with that. When Curt originally contacted me he was dwelling on his Network World experience and posturing for a special service from us - when he didn't get what he wanted then his attitude turrned negative. At first he was quite complementary about CardBrowser.
Curt wrote "I'm not the only one with a negative opinion of CardBrowser. I presume the "Hadley" who said the following is long-time CEO Bruce Hadley of SoftwareCEO.com." Curt found an obscure comment on a blog, took it out of context, and published that quote. Turns out SoftwareCEO wrote a nice testimonial about the usefulness of CardBrowser and sent to us saying "I've used CardBrowswer to identify and contact potential sponsors for SoftwareCEO, and it works really well. The data is current and detailed, so it's easy to single out the right person to call." Furthermore on reviewing the CardBrowser service here's what SoftwareCEO wrote about us "Here's an interesting idea for a business: Collect business cards at high-tech tradeshows every year, enter them in to an online database, then charge an annual fee to access the records. This is exactly what they're doing at CardBrowser.com, and the volume is staggering. Plus, the fact that the information comes from a business card handed out at a recent tradeshow means the "freshness" and quality of the data is excellent -- unlike purchased mail lists and directories that can have bounce rates as high as 60%." And finally Software CEO wrote a feature story "How to Recruit 100+ Software Sales Stars Per Year" which prominently featured how a major software company praised and effectively used the CardBrowser service. All of this easily searchable on the web and available for Curt... but he clearly searched hard and long and stretched to try and support his inferiority complex.
On a final note - my original email to Curt was more of a follow up based on some research about an old systems integration firm Evernet - Curt lists himself as a co-founder where upon asking around he was apparently more of a 'founding member'.
Curt used a major publishing platform and well respected publication - Network World - to try and slander CardBrowser because he felt slighted when he wasn't treated like royalty when asking for preferential treatment.
Any substantial research on CardBrowser will yield many customer comments, many features in business and technology publications, and generally conclude that we are an ethical and morally conscious company who cares a great deal about our customers and the service we are providing. We welcome any inquiries about our company through our website http://www.cardbrowser.com
I stand by my post and the analysis in it
Needless to say, I don't agree with everything in Steve Morgan's comments. As for Steve Miller's -- it's multiple e-mails, to multiple unwilling recipients, that happen to be well-enough crafted that they actually get opened.
Honesty and Balance by Curt Monash on CardBrowser
Curt being you don't agree with 'everything' in my comments, then clearly you are (hesitantly) agreeing with me - and Mr. Miller above - on the obvious points.
Most importantly as a 'journalist' you should be honest and balanced about what you write. I only offered a snippet from what SoftwareCEO had to say about us above. There are more positive remarks from them as well. And it is easy to Google or otherwise find on the web. So you took one comment (out of context) and even went so far as to say "presumably" (reporters / journalists are supposed to confirm their sources) about the person quoted - to write a biased piece against us because you were upset.
Anyway - for anyone out there reading this and curious about CardBrowser please feel free to send me an email at
I'll tell you the truth - and I've saved each one of Curt's emails to me which confirm everything that I have written above.
To put a period at the end of this dialogue -- I will end with a balanced view on Curt. He appears to be a credible industry person and his judgement was clouded in this one piece. Upon asking around I learned a few 'interesting' things about Curt - but I can balance that and see the glass as half full when it comes to Curt. It's not my style to post 'dirt' on someone to make them look bad because I'm upset with their behavior.
Curt - a big man comes forward when they make a mistake. I'm not saying you aren't entitled to your feelings or to share your experiences. But Network World is a platform where you should be held to the highest journalistic standards of ethics, objectivity, and professionalism. Clearly you owe readers if not me an apology for intentionally 'leaving out' easy to find published info that is contrary to what you felt and wrote - in order to support your emotions... when you should have been reporting the facts.
wow, what a bait and switch...
wow, steve, that was cool... How you turned things around on Curt and made it sound like it was his fault for you spamming him. Remdind me not to buy anything from you. The reason I wound up at this post was by trying to figure out who the heck was spamming me. mostly because my first attempt at unsubscribing from your list was unsuccessful, hence it made me go looking for answers... Dude, live the code.
we use CardBrowser, a great service
I've read all these posts and can't see why people would complain. We received email from CardBrowser and didn't consider it 'spam'. We are a small software company and receiving the info about CardBrowser was opportune. Turns out we'd been having a hard time targeting potential OEMs (ISVs) and channel partners. CardBrowser turned out to a great find and they have been a great company to work with. When I read what Mr. Monash wrote I really felt like he is disgruntled. The facts are the facts. I just did my own searching on Google and found all positive stuff about CardBrowser. And I found quotes from Software CEO endorsing CardBrowser. It seems like Steve Morgan the founder of CardBrowser was accurately describing that Mr. Monash got upset which got the better of him when writing out against CardBrowser.
CardBrowser best company I've ever worked with
I am a CardBrowser customer for over 3.5 years. I referred a colleague to them recently and did a google search on CardBrowser and found this. It looks like both sides have reasons to feel the way they do. But I just want anyone who reads this to know that the people my firm worked with at CardBrowser were very professional and gave us extra getting started because they knew our industry. And then their support has always been great and we have had a great experience with their contact info. So if anyone is looking in to signing on with CardBrowser and read the original post from Network World - then I would suggest that you call references like me to learn more about CardBrowser. They are a great company. I wonder if that original post should have been on a personal blog instead of a computer industry publication? It doesn't read like much research was done and the writer was angry but I guess on the internet anything goes...
I started researching Card
I started researching Card Browser after receiving my own spam from them. It's painfully obvious that every single comment on here that is pro Card Browser is made by the same guy and that he is a sociopath stalking people because they are calling him out on his business practices. I've submitted him to ever RBL I can think of and suspect he'll be able to spam..or even surf the web, at a greatly decreased quantity in the future.