SalesGenie - a word of caution

[Crabcake Johnny]

I've been poking around for residential lists and emailed a mortgage broker friend of mine. He gave me a strong warning about sales genie and pointed me to their TOS.

He signed up thinking he could get "unlimited leads" and simply download as many as he wanted - already understanding that he had to click each record which he didn't mind doing. He would simply wake up and click to download the records he needed for the day.

However, according to him that only lasted a few days, then he noticed incredibally slow download times. Apparantly you can only download 1,000 records at a time. What used to take seconds to download now was taking minutes......then hours.

Upon calling SalesGenie they pointed out this clause:

"Limited License: Upon payment for the Product (if applicable), infoUSA hereby grants Customer a nontransferable and nonexclusive license for one User to possess and use the Products in accordance with these Terms. This Website is intended for the sole purpose of locating individual sales leads. It is not intended for mass downloads. A reasonable amount of selected records may be downloaded as quickly as reasonably possible. Subsequent records may download at a considerably lower rate." (see full terms and conditions on the site.)

Of course, only SalesGenie will decide what a resonable amount of leads is. In his case he wanted about 500 leads a day. Apparantly SaleGenie deemed that "unresonable" and it was taking more than 2 hours for him to download records.

Upon complaining and asking for his money back they again pointed out that SaleGenie is only intended to locate and view records online - not download them. They also told him that the amount of download they deem reasonable is not a daily amount, but a cumulative amount. That means you might download 500 records a day at a fast rate until they deem it's "excessive" - then all subsequent downloads for "X" period of time will bascially take forever.

The bottom line is this; if you're only looking to view records for the purpose of telemarketing you should be fine. However, if you're looking for a downloaded list I'd shop around. SalesGenie does indeed allow mass downloads but it's 10 cents a record. 10 cents a record plus the monthly fee makes it no deal if all you're after is a list.

This is the first I'm hearing about this and if true my theory is they're finally getting more customers then they can handle and have to tighten up on the reigns. I'm also not saying not to use SalesGenie - just pointing out would could be a very important clause if the sole reason you're signing up is to download leads. Also, this is just 3rd party info from a friend of mine. I have no personal experience with them.

 

[J.R.]

I've been poking around for residential lists and emailed a mortgage broker friend of mine. He gave me a strong warning about sales genie and pointed me to their TOS.

He signed up thinking he could get "unlimited leads" and simply download as many as he wanted - already understanding that he had to click each record which he didn't mind doing. He would simply wake up and click to download the records he needed for the day.

However, according to him that only lasted a few days, then he noticed incredibally slow download times. Apparantly you can only download 1,000 records at a time. What used to take seconds to download now was taking minutes......then hours.

Upon calling SalesGenie they pointed out this clause:

"Limited License: Upon payment for the Product (if applicable), infoUSA hereby grants Customer a nontransferable and nonexclusive license for one User to possess and use the Products in accordance with these Terms. This Website is intended for the sole purpose of locating individual sales leads. It is not intended for mass downloads. A reasonable amount of selected records may be downloaded as quickly as reasonably possible. Subsequent records may download at a considerably lower rate." (see full terms and conditions on the site.)

Of course, only SalesGenie will decide what a resonable amount of leads is. In his case he wanted about 500 leads a day. Apparantly SaleGenie deemed that "unresonable" and it was taking more than 2 hours for him to download records.

Upon complaining and asking for his money back they again pointed out that SaleGenie is only intended to locate and view records online - not download them. They also told him that the amount of download they deem reasonable is not a daily amount, but a cumulative amount. That means you might download 500 records a day at a fast rate until they deem it's "excessive" - then all subsequent downloads for "X" period of time will bascially take forever.

The bottom line is this; if you're only looking to view records for the purpose of telemarketing you should be fine. However, if you're looking for a downloaded list I'd shop around. SalesGenie does indeed allow mass downloads but it's 10 cents a record. 10 cents a record plus the monthly fee makes it no deal if all you're after is a list.

This is the first I'm hearing about this and if true my theory is they're finally getting more customers then they can handle and have to tighten up on the reigns. I'm also not saying not to use SalesGenie - just pointing out would could be a very important clause if the sole reason you're signing up is to download leads. Also, this is just 3rd party info from a friend of mine. I have no personal experience with them.

If this is true, then they either changed their policy or I was lied to 1 1/2 months ago. I was told that no member can download more than 20,000 leads a day, which is understandable. However, if 500 leads per member is pushing it then it is off to another company.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

I would qualify that and want it in writing that I could download 20,000 leads a day at normal download rates. First of all, I don't think clicking on 20,000 individual names is practical. Secondly, they only allow you to click on 1,000 names at a time to download for free or you must purchase the bulk download at 10 cents a name.

This is a sale company and a rep will probably only tell you technically correct info. Yes...you can download 20,000 names in a day by clicking on them. What they might not be telling you is it might take days to download a list of that size.

 

[GreenSky]

Thought I'd update this thread.

Sales Genie will allow for bulk downloads of 12,000 names per YEAR. If you want more than that, you need to pay about 7cents each unless you are willing to click on each name.

This is to stop people from reselling but if you need about 3,000 per month, it's just as cheap to buy them from a reseller at about $100/1000 for telemarketing, or much less for just mailing.

Rick

 

[Guest]

Here is what my salesgenie rep (His name is Mick Guilfoyle 866-327-6391) told me about this issue when I asked:

It is unlimited access. As long as you are the only user of the account you will have nothing to worry about. If the activity looks as though multiple people are accessing the account, it will be monitored and possibly shut down. They typically won't even look @ an account unless you are downloading more than 5,000 records a day. In this case we would need multiple licenses, but as long as you are the only one using it, there will be no issues.

 

[J.R.]

As long as the company allows a person to download 5,000 leads a day w/out a decrease in download speed the cost is beneficial. Have you experienced any issues downloading more than 5,000 leads on a weekly basis?

 

[Guest]

I only do a few hundred a week. For my purposes right now it is good. Demographics are most important to me at the time.

I will be downloading closer to 1000 per week soon though and if that becomes a problem I will be calling Mick for sure

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

There's a difference between verbal statements and written ones. Again, here's their written statement:

"This Website is intended for the sole purpose of locating individual sales leads. It is not intended for mass downloads. A reasonable amount of selected records may be downloaded as quickly as reasonably possible. Subsequent records may download at a considerably lower rate."

The problem with that is "a reasonable amount" is ambiguous and at the sole discretion of Sales Genie. What is conveyed to you verbally might be true now but can change at will.

I would want it in writing, that I could download say 500 leads a day every day without increased download times. If they were not willing to back up a verbal promise with a written one I would not do business with them.

 

[Guest]

You are right John...I wished I had that in writing. Athough I do have it in email hopefully I dont have issues with these folks.

 

[djs]

I used Sales Genie for about a year. I frequently downloaded 1000 names in a day. Sometimes more in a separate run. Never had a problem with speed that I remember.

Now, I didn't make a habit out of it, so I can't say that there never would have been a problem if I downloaded 1000 a day for multiple days in a row. I do think for single user use, for telemarketing or general mailing/marketing purposes, it works well. If you want to do a lot of bulk mailing, it's not the way to go.

The advantage to sales genie, is it lets YOU build a list that is targeted to your demographics, try it out, tweak it, and try again. If you are doing this properly, you probably don't need thousands of names a day, every day (I know, I know, there are times)

Dan