This morning, I happened to Stumble Upon a site with a blog post titled “11 Internet Marketing Skills That Must Be Second Nature.” This post is a quick read about the difference between the action of internet marketing and the talk of internet marketing. The link to the article is below so you can read the post for yourself.

http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2009/04/internet-marketing-skills-11-things.htm

Business owners and decision makers often find it difficult to separate the good from the bad when looking to hire new talent or potential vendors. After finishing the article, I came back to a point that I've made many times in the past: there is a big difference between being able to talk like you know your stuff and actually "knowing your stuff."  This begs the question, how can you tell the difference? Are there tricks to spotting the legitimate vendors in a worldwide web of also-rans?

When it comes to individuals and vendors who are looking to work with your company, the key to finding out the difference between the good and bad is a few minutes of research. Take the time to ask your potential vendor for references, links to projects they have worked on, and how they deal with timelines. A legitimate individual or vendor will welcome to opportunity to share this information with you. If your company is going to invest your time, energy, and money into working with a particular individual or vendor, you better be confident that you will get what you pay for.

For example, take a web design vendor who wants to design your company’s site. When you check the links/sites they reference, look at the bottom of the home page to see who designed the site, then check that name against the company name on the vendor’s resume. Far too often, unscrupulous vendors will direct potential clients to nice looking sites that they had nothing to do with creating.

So if you check a site, and see that was created by Wacky Productions, and the site looks like third grader did it in an hour, then you might want to look elsewhere for your “cutting edge website.” But if Wacky Productions did the site and it looks solid, see if the person you are thinking of hiring worked for, or works with Wacky Productions.

A small amount of time spent checking individual’s or vendor’s references can save you the headaches down the road associated with choosing the wrong people to help you market your company and design your website.