TRUSTED CAUSES WAVES AT SASKTEL...
MYSASK411 TRIES TO IMITATE OUR IDEAS IN THEIR MARKETING!
There are many places businesses can choose to advertise ....however Trusted is the ONLY place that businesses have to go through the strict checking, qualification and RE checking procedure to be able to advertise with us at all.
Most advertising requires absolutely NO proof that you are a good company...or even that you are qualified to do what you do...companies can say mostly what ever they want to in their ads about themselves in Yellow Pages or on their web sites, lets be honest here, all the advertising companies want is MONEY, MONEY and MORE MONEY. So unethical companies and con men with deep pockets are not a problem for most of them when it comes to accepting their advertising $'s!
So, Trusted has come along and has set out to CHANGE the way people do business ..and offer something new to the people as an option, we truly appreciate the value of good reputations and in particular, we knew that DIRECTORY advertising NEEDED something better than what was on offer...especially on line!
Lets start with the fact that most of us stopped using the Yellow Pages ' Physical directory' to find anything but Pizzas and Chinese restaurants years ago...GOOGLE can provide contact numbers for the businesses we are looking for WAY easier and much quicker than trying to find the bulky book, trying to guess which heading the business might be in ( how many headings can you have for the same thing...REALLY??) and struggling through pages and pages of busy and ugly ads of businesses vying for your $'s and attention by screaming with Color, Pictures, Logos, big boring ads and unsubstantiated claims......even if you don't have anyone in mind and are really being random ( which is rare) GOOGLING is STILL WAY quicker ...but then it's the research that takes time & effort ....because you don't know if they are GOOD companies just because they pop up on page 1 & if you don't check them out you could be taking a BIG risk.... Especially if you are planning on spending a lot of money on a product or service!
The SaskTel Phone Book people are not dumb... They KNOW and accept ( not in public, but behind closed doors for sure) that the BOOK IS DEAD and will be gone within a few years...it is environmentally BAD for starters, no one under 50 uses it and it is HORRIBLE to use ..People now-a-days are used to answers at their fingertips...INSTANTLY...Just look at the advertising that SaskTel Phone book does...they mention the book only as an afterthought...The focus is definitely on mysask411.com their website (which annoyingly has changed names and looks a few times in the past 5 years alone) ....this is the provincial directory site for Saskatchewan, and every business is listed.....EVERY business GOOD or BAD...Sasktel don't differentiate or care....FACT!
It has come to Trusted's attention that since we launched www.trustedsaskatoon.com 'THE smart person’s' online directory of TRUSTED LOCAL buisnesses for people in Saskatoon in May, Mysask411 has been monitoring Trusted and taking notes....In July they came out with a social media campaign on Facebook and Twitter pretty much identical in strategy and ideas to the trustedsaskatoon.com Facebook/ Twitter strategy. Check out our Facebook page here to see what we do ...with prizes and giveaways for the fans of the site...when we present the winners with their prizes we take a picture with a' Thumbs up' & and post it on the page.....what this does is increase our brand awareness and explains the Trusted philosophy to Saskatoon and PROVE that we are not a scam FB page that just wants fans and doesn't really have prizes....also it is there so our fans know what Trusted and the ' Thumbs up' means and what a great service it is for all!
WE ask for nominations on the site because we ONLY go and speak to businesses that have been recommended and/ or NOMINATED …mysask411 however, ask for recommendations for businesses on their site JUST to try and drive people to the site so they can brag about bigger online usage numbers to their customers and potential new customers.....they need to do this to justify the massive increase in costs online to their customers that will be coming sooner rather than later.....where else are they going to be able to get the $millions revenue that they are going to lose when the physical book finally DIES ?
They incentivise people with prizes…they even use a GREEN GENERIC 'THUMBS UP' symbol on the site next to the recommendation box for a business.......WONDER WHERE THEY GOT THAT IDEA ????? And as for this recommendation box...if you are a business owner nothing is stopping you from recommending yourself anonymously...or perhaps you are smarter and can get your family or friends to recommend you ....SaskTel don't CHECK to see if they are TRUE recommendations....it's just another sales tool they are using to try and convince people to spend MORE money with them on their ONLINE directory.
Trusted is not by any means saying that there is not a place for mysask411...there is ..we only plan to cover Saskatoon and Regina in Saskatchewan, and we only cover 40 categories ..with a maximum of just 3 Trusted businesses in each catgeory plus a maximum 1 banner ad for any category on the site, we don't list residential phone numbers and we don't have a MULTI MULTI MILLION $ marketing budget like Sasktel, we are local women working hard to promote businesses that deserve the promotion to the people who want to have easy access to Trusted businesses ..because our clients big or small, pay the same...no-one gets a BIGGER ad on Trusted, so we are not pressured or held to ransom by big clients who 'own us' ! When we give a business the ' Thumbs up' it MEANS something!
Our representatives are called TRUSTED CONSULTANTS because they work for a company with a name that includes as part of it the word TRUSTED ...yes you can say it can be seen as a verb ...but really it is a adjective.. ..... mysask411 on their website now call their sales reps "TRUSTED Media advisors" ....really? How are they Trusted? They can definitely be trusted to sell you the biggest ad possible in the most related headings possible in their book and on their online directory for your budget ....and most of them can also be trusted to see you just once a year , and take no interest in your business at all until renewal time comes around, when they will walk in with a mock up of an ad double the size of what you had the year before.........and as for 'media advisors'.....they are not going to advise you to do ANYTHING else but spend your money with them.....they want ALL your advertising budget.
However , it must be said to Sasktel and mysask411 that Trusted is flattered that a little company like ours is being copied by such a big marketing machine like you!
Trusted just wants to point out that mysask411 should stick to who they really are .....TRUSTED PROMOTES THE BEST other directories just list the rest!
Oh..and we have a WAAAY better ' Thumbs up ' than mysask411! 
Stay Trusted my friends..Safe and Trusted of course