Ling v Mike Brewer - Twitter
Discussion
talksthetorque said:
Ling Valentine said:
......something on Twitter about not having a website
Ling
http://www.mikebrewermotors.comLing
A fairly innocuous functional (possibly a bit dull) website.
And for balance
http://www.lingscars.com
Like a thousand rusty chisels vortexing out of the screen in to your eyes.
People are different and respond to different marketing shocker.
Roo said:
The no website comment was aimed at rate my car dealer, or whatever they're called.
You probably mean the people who Ling told to "f
k off", because they were trying to gather reviews of her service from her clients. You know, so people have an independent source of referral or otherwise (as Ling, for whatever reason, seemingly doesn't like the idea of people independently reviewing her business).People are hopefully sophisticated enough to form their own views.
In the interest of fairness I should also point out that since 2009 Ling has been a director of 6 companies, 5 of which are now dissolved. Nothing sinister in that at all, I might add. In the same way there's nothing sinister about the people she told to "f
k off" and Mike Brewers Motors.Ling Valentine said:
The veneer of minor TV C-List celebrity slips eh?
Speaking about Brewer, with his multiple successful presenting roles over at least a decade.LingsCars said:
Hi! I am Ling WAH! from Dragons' Den
Speaking about herself, with one 10 minute TV appearance nearly a decade ago.I know the irony will be lost on her but if Mike is C-list...
talksthetorque said:
Ling Valentine said:
......something on Twitter about not having a website
Ling
http://www.mikebrewermotors.comLing
A fairly innocuous functional (possibly a bit dull) website.
And for balance
http://www.lingscars.com
Like a thousand rusty chisels vortexing out of the screen in to your eyes.
People are different and respond to different marketing shocker.
Start from the beginning - and it will become clear.
allergictocheese said:
You probably mean the people who Ling told to "fk off", because they were trying to gather reviews of her service from her clients. You know, so people have an independent source of referral or otherwise (as Ling, for whatever reason, seemingly doesn't like the idea of people independently reviewing her business).
I'm VERY happy for customers to give reviews. I must be the most open car supplier on the web. I have over 1500 published letters - good and bad, every one with a reply, 99% with full names, addresses and postcodes.k off", because they were trying to gather reviews of her service from her clients. You know, so people have an independent source of referral or otherwise (as Ling, for whatever reason, seemingly doesn't like the idea of people independently reviewing her business).What I'm NOT happy about is an Italian IT company running a business called Rate My Car Dealer (I think), canvassing for dirt on Twitter, directed at my customers, at 10pm on a Sunday night. They were obviously thinking I was offline. In fact I was in Peru, it was late afternoon and I was well ONLINE
I wouldn't mind so much if Rate My Car Dealer hadn't purported to be "a youngster" starting a business, and if they had a website where the comments could be reviewed. They aren't and they don't.
Hence my robust reply to them.
- Ling
Why does it matter if someone is canvassing your customers to get reviews? You've just said you're very happy to show reviews on your site, good or bad. That being the case, I would have thought you'd be very happy for your customers to be approached independently for their opinions?
As for who owns the other company or where they come from, why on earth does that matter?
As for who owns the other company or where they come from, why on earth does that matter?
allergictocheese said:
Why does it matter if someone is canvassing your customers to get reviews? You've just said you're very happy to show reviews on your site, good or bad. That being the case, I would have thought you'd be very happy for your customers to be approached independently for their opinions?
As for who owns the other company or where they come from, why on earth does that matter?
It matters because they are lying about who they are - misrepresenting.As for who owns the other company or where they come from, why on earth does that matter?
It matters because there is no verification or link to a website to show who is doing the asking... it could have been any crook, phishing for info.
It matters because I don't want my customers bothered at 10pm on Sunday evening.
If they had been honest and had done this at a sensible hour (instead of trying to do it when they thought I was offline), with an open link to a review site, I would have been Ok with it.
- Ling
Edited by Ling Valentine on Sunday 8th February 14:14
allergictocheese said:
Why should you have to be 'ok with it' and to have your customers independently canvassed to rate their dealing with you, just so long as you're happy with all the conditions?
They have been customers of yours, but they are not your customers.
...I don't have "to be OK with it". Of course. They can do what they want, as long as it's legal.They have been customers of yours, but they are not your customers.
But, why should that stop me expressing my opinion to this company about their secretive, misrepresenting tactics?
I think more people should stand up and say what they think, if it's a valid opinion.
- Ling
Ling Valentine said:
...I don't have "to be OK with it". Of course. They can do what they want, as long as it's legal.
But, why should that stop me expressing my opinion to this company about their secretive, misrepresenting tactics?
I think more people should stand up and say what they think, if it's a valid opinion.
- Ling
Thats kind of what safespeed are doing. I guess they're an easy takedown for your self-promotion though?But, why should that stop me expressing my opinion to this company about their secretive, misrepresenting tactics?
I think more people should stand up and say what they think, if it's a valid opinion.
- Ling
I kind of chuckled and "sided" with you on this initially but you needed to quit while you were ahead.
After trawling through the thread and reading pretty much all comments, this seems to be what i can make of it..............
1. Mike replies to twitter comment, possibly reading it wrong or possibly reading it correct. Whichever way it was put, it doesn't seem to do him any favours when read.
2. Post makes it's way onto PH to be dissected by the "all knowing" PH massive.
3. Ling jumps onto thread pretty much lowering herself to Mikes level of initial outburst.
4. Lot of back and forth posts between Ling and PH massive, majority ripping Mike to pieces.
5. Mike might have made an appearance under a secret identity to post.
6. Mikes Co Director then seems to extend an olive branch and put his spin on things.
7. Ling then takes olive branch and starts chopping it up.
8. Ling continues with back and forth messages with PH massive.
9. Boredom has started to creep in for majority of PH massive.
This is purely only on what i have read on here. I do not know Mike or Ling personally, nor am i going to choose sides.
I didn't know Ling or her website until this thread popped up, i have chose not to visit the site as i have no desire to lease a car. I'm sure the site is "interesting" and will probably not be forgotten in a hurry once visited by the sound of things. Saying that, if i ever chose to lease a car, i'm pretty sure Lings name will pop into my head.
I do know who Mike Brewer is, mainly from watching Men&Motors, Gold, Dave etc over the years. I was at a car show once and Mike was present. He jumped up on stage after a few people noticed him and asked him to speak. He got up no problem, got the crowd going and also mingled afterwards. General feedback was he is a genuine guy with time to chat to us, the general public.
My own conclusion...
My sons nursery handle things more mature than this, i'm talking about the children dealing with things amongst themselves. This has pretty much read to me as blah blah blah, he said this, she said that, my companies better, i have more money, my dads bigger than yours.
I'm not for one second saying i'm right in anything i have typed, i'm merely passing my own opinion based on what i have read.
I don't do twitter either, facebook is irritating enough.
1. Mike replies to twitter comment, possibly reading it wrong or possibly reading it correct. Whichever way it was put, it doesn't seem to do him any favours when read.
2. Post makes it's way onto PH to be dissected by the "all knowing" PH massive.
3. Ling jumps onto thread pretty much lowering herself to Mikes level of initial outburst.
4. Lot of back and forth posts between Ling and PH massive, majority ripping Mike to pieces.
5. Mike might have made an appearance under a secret identity to post.
6. Mikes Co Director then seems to extend an olive branch and put his spin on things.
7. Ling then takes olive branch and starts chopping it up.
8. Ling continues with back and forth messages with PH massive.
9. Boredom has started to creep in for majority of PH massive.
This is purely only on what i have read on here. I do not know Mike or Ling personally, nor am i going to choose sides.
I didn't know Ling or her website until this thread popped up, i have chose not to visit the site as i have no desire to lease a car. I'm sure the site is "interesting" and will probably not be forgotten in a hurry once visited by the sound of things. Saying that, if i ever chose to lease a car, i'm pretty sure Lings name will pop into my head.
I do know who Mike Brewer is, mainly from watching Men&Motors, Gold, Dave etc over the years. I was at a car show once and Mike was present. He jumped up on stage after a few people noticed him and asked him to speak. He got up no problem, got the crowd going and also mingled afterwards. General feedback was he is a genuine guy with time to chat to us, the general public.
My own conclusion...
My sons nursery handle things more mature than this, i'm talking about the children dealing with things amongst themselves. This has pretty much read to me as blah blah blah, he said this, she said that, my companies better, i have more money, my dads bigger than yours.
I'm not for one second saying i'm right in anything i have typed, i'm merely passing my own opinion based on what i have read.
I don't do twitter either, facebook is irritating enough.
I understand the disdain of Rate My Dealer or any other website that offers "impartial" reviews.
I'm sure they will either charge businesses for removal or censorship of bad reviews or the fabrication of good reviews. Seems like the same scummy setup as price comparison websites. The only person truly benefiting is the owner of the comparison website.
I'm sure they will either charge businesses for removal or censorship of bad reviews or the fabrication of good reviews. Seems like the same scummy setup as price comparison websites. The only person truly benefiting is the owner of the comparison website.
allergictocheese said:
What was the increase in hits (over and above any normal trend) on your website following your spat this week?
That's a difficult question, as you are not comparing like with like. And you presume PistonHeads has a massive effect - it doesn't. Google is the daddy. There is always something going on - ie. Some web forum, some newspaper, some radio mention, some blog, Twitter excitement, some promotion like my new SEGA, some website (eg reddit). An awful lot depends on Google page position for various searches. I tend to rank highly. I never, ever, do paid advertising like AdWords, that's for idiots and no-hopers.I can say in January I had about 160,000 uniques.
Feb to date, I've had 45,054 uniques.
This breaks down to
Sun 1st 3658
Mon 2nd 5733
Tues 3rd 7520
Wed 4th 6099
Thurs 5th 5795 <<< Pistonheads thread started
Fri 6th 5606
Sat 7th 5492
Today to 5pm 5170
So you can see, Pistonheads is miniscule effect, if at all.
Every web visitor is worth 50p to me, in that my Gross Profit £ as a rule of thumb is half my unique visitors. So in February so far I've done £22,000 GP and had 45k web visits = worth 50p each as near as dammit. I call this my 50p rule. It is consistent, no idea why.
Note that no other web business will give you such open information.
Currently for example, I have 64 unique concurrent visitors browsing my website. This is fairly typical. The image below shows about 1/3 of them. You can see how prevalent PistonHeads visitors are:
This image really puts those people in their place who accuse me of promotion. The promotion effect is tiny. ...unless you can prove otherwise?
- Ling
Edited by Ling Valentine on Sunday 8th February 17:09
Edited by Ling Valentine on Sunday 8th February 17:11
Ling Valentine said:
allergictocheese said:
What was the increase in hits (over and above any normal trend) on your website following your spat this week?
That's a difficult question, as you are not comparing like with like. And you presume PistonHeads has a massive effect - it doesn't. Google is the daddy. There is always something going on - ie. Some web forum, some newspaper, some radio mention, some blog, Twitter excitement, some promotion like my new SEGA, some website (eg reddit). An awful lot depends on Google page position for various searches. I tend to rank highly. I never, ever, do paid advertising like AdWords, that's for idiots and no-hopers.I can say in January I had about 160,000 uniques.
Feb to date, I've had 45,054 uniques.
This breaks down to
Sun 1st 3658
Mon 2nd 5733
Tues 3rd 7520
Wed 4th 6099
Thurs 5th 5795 <<< Pistonheads thread started
Fri 6th 5606
Sat 7th 5492
Today to 5pm 5170
So you can see, Pistonheads is miniscule effect, if at all.
Every web visitor is worth 50p to me, in that my Gross Profit £ as a rule of thumb is half my unique visitors. So in February so far I've done £22,000 GP and had 45k web visits = worth 50p each as near as dammit. I call this my 50p rule. It is consistent, no idea why.
Note that no other web business will give you such open information.
Currently for example, I have 64 unique concurrent visitors browsing my website. This is fairly typical. The image below shows about 1/3 of them. You can see how prevalent PistonHeads visitors are:
This image really puts those people in their place who accuse me of promotion. The promotion effect is tiny. ...unless you can prove otherwise?
- Ling
Edited by Ling Valentine on Sunday 8th February 17:09
Edited by Ling Valentine on Sunday 8th February 17:11
No wonder you seek the publicity.
I bet if he is reading this Duncan B is glad you said to him "I'm oot" He had already sussed that your leasing business was not the profitable business you were claiming it to be back then, and still probably isn't today.
Monkeylegend said:
So basically leasing cars is a means to an end to get as many unique hits as possible on a crazy website which is probably your main source of income?
Are you an idiot, or just on drugs?I make all my company money by leasing cars. My website is my showroom (if you like). There is no money-tis-ation (is that a word?) on my website.
I thought I made myself clear - I'll try again as there are obviously idiots out there.
...when I divide my Gross Profit (from leasing cars) by my unique web visitors, the answer is 50p.
Comprende?
- Ling
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