How to Avoid a Marketing Trap
Michael J. Fleming is the founder and president of Sales Tax and More, a full-service consulting and solutions firm with a passion for state tax. He is one of the country's leading authorities on sales tax issues such as consulting and research, registrations, returns, nexus, drop-shipping, eCommerce, and service providers.
Michael is a renowned writer and speaker, and he regularly presents on webinars. He is also the host of the Sales Tax and More Podcast, where he shares his wisdom and learnings with his audience in order to help them navigate the tricky world of taxes.
In this episode…
Mike Fleming and Ellie Moffat discuss the ways that you can avoid a marketing trap when exploring sales tax services and technology.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
What’s a marketing trap?
How does this apply to the sales tax world?
How do you avoid marketing traps?
Connect with Michael
Episode Transcript - Audio Version
[00:00:00] Welcome to Sales Tax and More, your go to resource for all things state tax related. Now, here is your host, Michael Fleming.
Mike Fleming: Hi, Mike Fleming here, founder of Sales Tax and More. And today's cohost for the Sales Tax and More Podcast, where we talk about everybody's favorite topic, which is of course, sales tax. And today we're going to talk about marketing tactics. We're going to flip the script a little bit. And rather than have Ellie interview me, I'm going to interview Ellie.
We want to, see how companies use and how they understand what they are actually selling but before we do. Let me introduce you to my co host Ellie Moffat, [00:01:00]
Ellie Moffat: Same Ellie Moffat that you're interviewing today. So before, before we get into it, Mike, I'll do my little introduction here. First, I'll say, you know, thank you for being here.
Please like, and subscribe. We love it when you do so. We enjoy making these podcasts for you. For Sales Tax and More, we are a full service consulting and solutions firm. So we have a really great team here of experienced tax professionals who are very dedicated to fulfilling your state tax and related needs.
So we do a lot of sales tax returns, sales tax registrations, consultations, research, and like our name states more. So if you have questions about our services or you'd like to work with us, please reach out. We'd love to hear from you. We'd love to work from you and, Mike, I guess. Let's let's do it. Ask me some questions
Mike Fleming: Okay. Well, I hope this goes smoother than the webinar that we just presented live in the middle of the webinar I got stung by a bee. I'm in my office here very very rarely do I [00:02:00] have bees in my office, but this one found me and and it stung me but good so, hopefully.
Ellie Moffat: Great comedic relief for everybody else. We all had a great time.
Not a not as great of a time for Mike.
Mike Fleming: Yeah stings a little. All right. So, let's, let's jump right in here. Well, Ellie, what's a marketing trap?
Ellie Moffat: Yeah. You know, a marketing, a marketing trap really is a strategy that a business will use to manipulate consumer behavior to their own behavior. So basically if someone's trying to take advantage of your vulnerabilities, in this case in a business, it's completely unfair.
You know, you yourself might be running a business. You yourself might be delivering a high quality product, solving people's problems, giving them things that they need. And it's frustrating that there's companies out there, businesses out there who are setting up traps like this and not delivering what they promise or delivering part of what [00:03:00] they promise and making you doubt yourself.
So, that's kind of what a marketing trap is in itself. And Mike, before we get into this next question, I want to, I want to summarize what this podcast is about and work backwards a little bit here. So, the overarching theme here is that if someone advertises that something is really easy and an industry where it's highly complex, if you, have some experience where you've tried to do it yourself and you find that it's really complicated, you need to be prepared to take a closer look and have a relative good understanding of what you might actually need.
Which is again, really unfortunate because if you found that it's complex, if you found that something is hard and you're looking for a solution, it's very, very tempting to go with someone who's making big promises to solve all of all of your promises and and make your life easier. So that's the overarching theme here and [00:04:00] yeah.
Mike Fleming: Understand so if there's someone out there selling bean sting remedies right now, I I could become a victim.
Ellie Moffat: Yeah, you are vulnerable to, to market and it's, and it's hard because some of those products might make a huge difference for you and some of them might be a little bit snake oil.
So, you know, how are you going to tell the difference?
Mike Fleming: Hopefully I don't see any snakes in here. Getting snake, getting bee bit is bad enough. I don't want to get snake bit in addition to bee bit. Be stung, excuse me. But sorry, I don't, I, I, I'm going off on a tangent here. Let's, let's get back to this.
Ellie Moffat: I focus on the bee sting. It's still hurting Mike, but just so everybody knows it's still, he rubbed a little bit of dirt in on it and kept going, recorded this podcast so it's still in Mike's mind very heavily at this point.
Mike Fleming: Yeah, rub some dirt on it. You'll, you'll feel it better. Walk it off. All right. So I think I've got the concept down.
How does [00:05:00] this apply in the sales tax world?
Ellie Moffat: You know, intentionally or not, there's some really bad information out there when it comes to sales tax. We, even in the marketing team at Sales Tax More, we are digging into the information that's out there. We're, we're trying to stay on top of what's happening in the sales tax world.
You know, we have some responsibility when it comes to making sure the charts that we have are up to date, the information on our website and the content we put out is highly educational and up to date. And there is just a lot of bad information out there. And I think the range of this bad information, the range of this bad information ranges from misinterpretation to straight up false.
Representation and, you know, for one, there's so much to know from state to state with all the variances that come with all things, sales tax. There's a reason that your most common answer to so many questions is it [00:06:00] depends. It's because there's just a lot to know. It's really hard to stay on top of, you know, that's why, that's what we do in whole is just sales tax because there's plenty of business here to be had just stealing people's sales tax.
For another, it's not always clear what a sales tax partner may be offering and what you are responsible when you're partnering with that, with that sales tax partner. We have an entire podcast episode. We have blog posts, we have infographics about this subject, specifically about choosing a reliable sales tax partner, about understanding what, what they are offering you.
And if you're listening here today, if you want to listen to that podcast, please go listen to it. Please look at that blog post. I'll, I'll make sure that they're linked in today's show's notes show notes so that they're easily accessible. But a good sales tax strategy. It starts with out and if you're if you're outsourcing starts with a reliable tax partner, [00:07:00] and of course.
I recommend Sales Tax and More. I don't know who you recommend, Mike, when it comes to a sales tax partner, but that information we have out there does give you some really helpful tips on how to navigate a sales tax partner who may or may not be us as well. So, that's definitely worth taking a look at.
Mike Fleming: Very good information. Thank you very much. And you're keeping this very professional, by the way. I know if you were interviewing me, I'd be naming names. So, good.
Ellie Moffat: I might cut this part out entirely too. Yeah, we'll see.
Mike Fleming: All right. So, how do you avoid marketing traps?
Ellie Moffat: Yeah. You know, I mentioned in the very beginning.
But it's worth mentioning again here. And my whole point was to bring it back here because it's so important. If you are having an experience and can recognize that something is difficult, whenever you need any product, especially something like sales tax, reach out to an expert absolutely. Reach out to a person who's developed [00:08:00] a business around that thing that you were having a hard time with.
But make sure you've looked into that thing, or in this case, look, make sure you've looked into the sales tax world enough that you know what responsibilities may be lying on your shoulders. So an example that we use an example, that's a great example of this is notice management. You know, we've seen a lot of marketing in the sales tax world that really puts it out there that if you work with them, all of your troubles are over.
It's a worry free and what we've seen just may or may not be true for the companies that are putting that out there. So notice management, notice management is a good example of that because notice management can mean so many different things across the board. And we cover this more in depth again, in those podcasts that I mentioned, but you know, many companies advertise that they're handling notice management for you when it still means that you have to get in there and handle those notices yourself. Other [00:09:00] companies are getting those notices, making sure they're taken care of, contacting you if need be.
And there's a huge actionable difference between how companies are handling notice management and it can have a really large impact on you.
So go in with the right questions. Yes, look at reviews, look at the information that someone is putting out there, but make sure you understand what questions you should be asking. Make sure you understand what responsibilities are going to fall on your shoulder when it comes to something like sales tax for your business.
There's a huge, there can be a huge impact on you financially. It's great that we live in an age where we can choose products and services that resonate with us, that we can go with marketing where we feel we, we connect.
But it is necessary that you look, you do some research that you look into things and you have a full understanding. So marketing in the end is trying to sell you something, make sure [00:10:00] that it's selling you a product that you understand and that you need. And Mike anything else you want to add in here?
Mike Fleming: No, I think you did a great job and I'm going to volunteer you if anyone has any marketing questions, whether they pertain to sales tax or you know, a lot of accountants out there, marketing, not always a strong, strong strength. If you have an interest, reach out to us and we'll see how we can help you out or how Ellie can help you out.
And I'm, I'm going to wrap up here, Ellie, since we flipped the script. You know, if you have sales tax needs, we offer many solutions and services, and, you can reach out to Ellie directly at eMoffat at sales tax and more. Our website is www. salestaxandmore. com all spelled out. And in addition to our services, we offer a series of free webinars that provide for free CPE credit.
So, we do hope that, you've gotten something out of today's webinar. We thank you for [00:11:00] joining us and we hope to see you at the, on the next episode of the Sales Tax and More Podcast. Thanks everyone. Bye bye.