My name is Raymond Santopietro, and I am the President of a boutique seo company based in Las Vegas named Focus Internet Services, a provider of advertising campaigns for both local Las Vegas businesses as well as national clients. Our services go beyond search engine optimization, and actually include all aspects of both online and traditional marketing. We have a very small but very high profile client list, working with some of the best companies in the country to build their customer awareness and improve their client base through advertising efforts.
My company came about because of an event for the Henderson Chamber Of Commerce, where I was a speaker. I was talking about how businesses can use the internet to advertise effectively, and instead of giving a speech I just took questions from angry business owners who had all been ripped off by an “internet company” promising the world and using the terms that seemed to make sense. The outcomes were always the same no matter what the service the company promised was, from PPC to social media to SEO, they paid the company and did not get any additional business. I formed my company to provide honest, quality advertising campaigns to businesses who needed exposure. We were local, and could not hide or make excuses if our work did not pay off because these business owners were my neighbors and friends. We decided to provide the best service we could, and we got results for our clients.
Our firm never wanted to solicit for business because it seemed like anyone who needed to solicit you wasn’t the best at what they did. We knew we wouldn’t make as much money by not soliciting, but it just didn’t seem like it fit with our model. Solicitation is the way seo companies get new clients, unless they get referrals from other clients. Today, we got a solicitation call from another seo company, trying to get us to use their service.
To clarify, we got the phone call because we act as an answering service for several of our clients who do not provide customer service channels themselves. We got the call today for a client named Ambiance Flooring, who is a local installation contractor. When we informed the salesman that we use a local service called Focus Internet Services, the salesman attempted to steal the business away by pulling a blog posting up and stating that “Focus Internet Services president is named Mathew Marlon, and he was currently in jail for real estate fraud. He was also the president of numerous seo companies in the past that practiced deceptive tactics, and were legally implicated as causing damage to clients. The salesman was very convincing, and even let me know that his company, LocalSplash, was one of only seven companies in the country that is a “Google Data Provider,” supposedly a partner chosen by Google and having access to inside information that other companies did not. They also claimed to have high ratings from companies that they did not pay to rate them. These are all fabrications and not true.
Mathew Marlon owns a company also based in Las Vegas called Internet-Focus, so I can easily see how there might be confusion between the company names. When I asked the salesman where in the article Focus Internet Services was named, he stated that “these companies often change their names and change presidents to hide who they really are.” The salesman even went on to describe Focus Internet Services as being “deceptive scumbags” who prey on companies who do not know who they really are.
When I told the salesman that I was actually Raymond Santopietro, the president of Focus Internet Services and the person who he was slandering, as well as letting him know that I was going to report his company to the Better Business Bureau as well as other fraud prevention organizations, the call mysteriously got disconnected.
To clarify, the company Focus Internet Services is owned by myself, and has nothing to do with any person who has ever been implicated in a scam of any kind. For LocalSplash to utilize this comparison in order to attempt to close a deal is commonplace, as well as the claim of “being an insider to Google information” or “having an insider at Google who lets us know how to get you higher rankings.” Many companies use business owner’s lack of understanding of the medium in order to confuse them into using their service over another, and if that doesn’t work they just lie and make things up. I am living proof that these are the tactics that are being employed, and my business is an example of why you should be aware.
Raymond Santopietro is the President and Chief Strategist for Focus Internet Services, who can be reached at www.focusinternetservices.com or 702-767-4637
