Bait-and-Switch Video Production Sales Story
This week our marketing people were befuddled by the same ruse I had fallen for several years ago. An inbound call came in from DMG Productions. They talked about how the technical computing market is so interesting and how they wanted to feature AccelerEyes in one of the pieces they are (supposedly) preparing about our market for the Discovery Channel, the Fox Business Channel, CNBC, etc. They spoke as-if they were the ones vetting us to see if we were worthy of inclusion in their video.
They looked to schedule a second call with management to dig deeper in the “vetting process.” That’s when I found out about it and remembered the same ruse from years ago. When I had fallen for the ruse, I took the second call. They asked questions that prodded me into saying how much I really wanted to be included on the Discovery Channel and how it made so much sense for them to feature our company. Then, out of nowhere, they hit me with the need for a $29k payment to handle the production costs. In the same breath, they talked about how $29k is a steal because we wouldn’t pay international production fees (a classic sales trick to create an artificial relative price comparison to make the actual price feel like a good deal).
I’m not sure why anyone would ever want to purchase their service. Certainly not in our market were mass marketing to a general audience is throwing money down the drain.
The misleading bait-and-switch sales tactics of this video production companies tainted my perception from the start and made me never want to offer them my business. This week’s run-in with DMG Productions was even more interesting because another company in our market had purchased one of these segments. So DMG Productions had an added hook into our people that deepened the baiting process this time around. I do not understand why this company might have spent $29k (+ all their internal resources) on that video. What do they hope to gain? My only guess is that they are preparing for an IPO and need general news coverage to help their prospects.
Have you seen similar bait-and-switch sales tactics by video production companies or by other service providers?