Jaret Sweet
October 26, 2017 03:54
I'm a small business owner committed to helping the community at large. When approached by Blues Gym back in February, I was willing to donate $100 to their cause. They wanted more to get me to their tiered level of exposure. I couldn't afford it at the time, so I decided to wait it out. The gentleman who called on my business to solicit the donation was very professional and friendly at the time. He understood that a new business wasn't able to donate much.
He mentioned that his wife sells credit card processing and asked me if I'd be interested in talking about that. Sure: I'm always willing to explore saving money. I asked for a quote on their rates. He wouldn't give me any numbers. He wanted to send his wife over to go over the company's financials first.
No, thanks. I smell a rat.
Dino then calls the shop. He starts yelling at me at the top of his lungs, calling me all kinds of names. I agreed with the names he was calling me, mostly because they're all true. In the case of helping the community, I'm all ears. When I don't trust an organization, I close right down.
Fast forward to today. The solicitor comes back in. He mentions that he lost his son to a drug overdose. I sympathized, yet I didn't want to give a donation to an organization that had broken my trust already, let alone one whose representatives call on the phone and act completely unprofessionally.
He then states, "Negative reviews online can be detrimental to a company's future, especially one who doesn't care about kids in the community."
I reiterated my distrust.
As a company, we are more than willing to help legitimate causes for the protection and advancement of society, whether it's for medical or social advancement. We make annual donations to Helen DeVos, as well as many other legitimate organizations we trust to use the money for its intended purpose.
On a personal level, my niece had been diagnosed with Leukemia at one year old. My efforts are focused to stop the horrible cancer epidemic in the world, not to donate to an organization who comes in to my place of business with a strongarm threat of detrimental online activity.
Negative online reviews mean a lot to the community. You're absolutely right.