Craigslist was a waste of my advertising time.

[Cronkite]

I have a B2B service business and thought I would try advertising in the Craigslist financial services area. I decided to pull my advertisement today.

In the three months I ran my ad I gained a grand total of two clients and neither of them were quality clients. For some reason BOTH of them have been time wasters and in contrast to clients from other sources the difference is like night and day. Now I admit it is my fault for agreeing to work with them as there were indications they might be trouble.

The primary reason I pulled my ad was the incredible amount of time I wasted talking to business owners that felt they could hire expertise at the same hourly rate they pay entry level employees. Essentially they think a person they hire to fix problems caused by their entry level workers. In my business you have to spend time to get the details in order to quote a realistic price.

Another peculiar trait I noticed from Craigslist people is they will ALWAYS ask my hourly rate and then the next words out of their mouth is "How long will it take" and this is even AFTER I quote a fixed fee. I had one guy who, after I quoted my usual fee (one that is in line with all rate survey's I have seen for the service) asked me how long it would take which I estimated six hours. His response was "I will pay you 70 dollars" (I had quoted 260). Most NORMAL people would have just declined to hire me- this dude had some nerve. (I wished him well and hung up)

Another instance was a guy setting up a temporary service- he wanted me to set him up and train his staff in using the program. We talked for a while about what was involved and then he comes out and says "I will hire you as one of my temps at 13 dollars an hour". ???

Anyways- Craigslist seems to be filled with bottom feeders and people looking for a deal. I felt I needed to rant a little bit and maybe warn people considering using Craigslist. Unless you can get to pricing right away (better yet IN YOUR AD) it might be that you find it a waste of time like I did.