I first met Shana Witkin June 6 to first talk about marketing possibilities she could provide me with. I am a brand new start up company and I made it clear of my very limited budget and how I am capable of doing a lot on my own, but really wanted someone who could help me go in the right direction and utilize her contacts she said she had. She kept saying how I need someone to help me think outside of the box, and as a new business owner, I have blinders on with marketing, and she could help me promote since she has a lot of contacts in the industry. She said she could assist with the things I already could do myself.
Different story. What she completed:
1. Sent out the press release I created (she claimed it took an hour to send out to her contacts. A list of contacts were never provided and she said they would contact me, only 3 responses)
2. Edited a donation letter and press release claiming it took an hour even though the donation letter edit was a part of the conversation over the phone. The press release was maybe two written paragraphs and the donation 3.
3. Two 2 hour phone conversations, one included a minor edit for a postcard. The phone conversations were a regurgitation of what we talked about in our first meeting. Shana does not deliver.
4. Two letters written, but I confirmed I would create... Emails to prove that.
Shana did not make any effort to contact me from June 20th to July 24th. I emailed her on July 19th to see where she was with her productivity. She got back to me July 24th and I had asked for an itemized list. She sent me a list of what was being done, most of what it was I was already doing.
(I had already had most of this in motion BEFORE we met) She didn't have connections to events, or people.
She had quoted me a time of 1.5 hours to send out a business letter and a concierge letter to her contacts. That changed, then it became where it was too much time to cultivate a list she said she needed. She wrote the two letters without even confirming that's what I wanted. I have proof in emails telling her I can create those documents, and she wouldn't need to do that but what I really wanted was to utilize her contacts she said she had.
She is condescending and rude. She ended up refunding me $60 out of the $300 I paid her as a retainer, up front. This was after I questioned the increase of hours to cultivate the contacts she claimed she had.
Shana Witkin (owner) of Up Your Exposure's last email to her formal client (me):
"I think what it comes down to is that to establish Nosh SD's marketing you needed to talk to someone outside of it to understand what it takes. Now that you understand it, you realize you can do a lot of it on your own and to be perfectly honest it isn't brain surgery. The majority of my clients prefer to have me do that work because they simply don't have the time to take it on. You are in a different situation and while your work takes more time to establish contacts thanI had previously thought, since it is so new, the best thing to do on alimited budget is do it yourself."
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