RealTown's RealTalk

Help! Advanced Access continues to sell our work as though they are creating the custom work. I don't know if the sales staff is promoting our designs or customer support unknowingly.

Several of the clients sites are www.michaelanddeenorris.com and www.ocgolfcoursehomes.com.

Although it's nice to talk with prospective clients about working with them, when they come to me from AA and someone there has told them that the designs are $900, this is blatant misrepresentation and the AA clients are being told that this work can be done. The worst was when I got a call from someone who was really unhappy to learn that it took many many hours to create www.ocgolfcoursehomes.com and was a $7,500 site, they were expecting to pay $900 for a full custom site.

So AA has resorted to now removing my link off of sites, including www.michaelanddeenorris.com and at the bottom of their site it says that AA has done the design.

I would love some suggestions on how to approach this.

Cherie Young
Online Marketing Strategies
www.CherieYoung.com

Cherie,

That sounds like a real mess! So, you're saying that AA is quoting a fee, then sending people to you to get the work done?? How odd.

If you don't want to sue, I'd at least write a certified letter to AA management explaining the situation and asking for (demanding?) a resolution.

You can get them under the Millenium Act if you find that they are stealing your designs and putting them up on other websites.

Other than that, you'll just have to explain to prospects that AA is not authorized to quote fees for your work. If they're looking for a $900 solution, they're not really prospects for you, anyway.

Good Luck!

Kathleen
www.BuildRealEstateResults.com

I'm not sure exactly how it is being quoted, but there have been a half dozen potential clients come to me all excited about getting one of our designs on AA platform from $900 to $1,800. So it winds up being really uncomfortable for the agent who was sold an AA site with the expectation that we would do the design.

We haven't provided AA designs for more than a year now, and this is pretty desperate and leaves the agents feeling disappointed. And to make matters worse, they have removed my link from one of the top designs, www.michaelanddeenorris.com which says at the bottom now that the design is from AA.

I don't know how to pursue this so that we get credit on these designs without going to the client and creating hostility. We have earned the right to put our name as the designer on any site we do, and have not has this problem before.

I'm open to suggestions. Thanks Kathleen, chat me if you ever want additional work that may not fit in our criteria.

Cherie Young
www.CherieYoung.com

If your doing the design work for Advanced Access you more than likely have some sort of contract with them. You should consult your contract with them for the provision to either cancel your contract or claim exclusive use/advertising rights and the section on compensation & estimates/quotes. This is a prime example of the need to have an attorney review all contracts prior to entering into an agreement. You should probably sit down with your attorney to review your options available to you. You should also be careful in what you disclose on a public facing site such as this if you are working with a contract, sometimes there are disclosure clauses also.

Hope that helps,

I do not have nor have I ever had a contract with Advanced Access. Several years ago I was one of the top virtual assistants, but moved away from working with their clients due to the enormous amount of problems these sites had.

It was a difficult decision as most of my business came from AA referrals. I simply could not work with AA clients knowing that it was going to be a nightmare for these clients to manage their sites, forms not working, emails going down, sites easily broken.

We now have our own web hosting platform just for custom designs, so for AA to continue to promote our work with them and quoting prices is pretty desperate.

When I noticed that the link to my site has been removed and it says they have done the web design, that was the final straw.

Cherie

Here's another one that they are promoting they did the design and removed my name!!!!

http://www.home-search-now.com/

Cherie Young

Isn't it interesting that these two clients show up as "Featured Clients" here with AA, like it is promoting the design as theirs?

http://www.advancedaccess.com/clientspotlight/featuredclients/

Anybody know a good intellectual property lawyer?

Cherie Young
Online Marketing Strategies
www.CherieYoung.com

Anna Bourland called me from Advanced Access immediately upon receiving my email. She was very kind and assured me that AA would not do this and they would help me put our links back up on these two sites.

The problem with potential clients expecting a site for $900, we were not sure how that is happening, but I will be documenting any further calls of this nature and trying to drill down to where they are coming from.

In an angry world, it so nice to resolve things quickly and without animosity. Anna has always been nice to work with over the last several years, and it was difficult for me to post that thread.

These forums are used to bash others, and I don't like to do that. I really needed help, and that is exactly what I got. Thank you everyone for responding and giving me ideas.

Cherie Young
Online Marketing Strategies
www.CherieYoung.com

Editor's Note
Anna has been helpful and courteous to many Realtalkers over the years.John