I’m Frustrated and Need Your Help

If I receive one more email from a magazine of how they will propel our business to new heights, I am going to scream.

They all start the same. “I am contacting you on behalf of my Magazine’s managing editor. We want to include your products in the “Best of” article. We are on a deadline, so you need to act quickly. Contact me in the next 24 hours so you are included in this feature article.” Now imagine receiving four or five of these every week.

I bit once or twice, and when I contacted them, I received an advertising package showing how many readers would see my product listed with nine other companies in this exclusive top 10 Best Of article. And yes, for a mere $5,000, I can join nine different companies and be listed in _________ Magazine as “The Best Moisturizer” for Summer or “The Best Cleanser in the free world. Not only is this irritating, but I feel it is untruthful and out of integrity.

Compounding this is that I see all these “The Best of,” Top 10,” and “Editors Choice Award” in my Apple News and the magazines I read. It makes me crazy to know that each of these is paid to advertise and has nothing to do with performance. Spoiler alert, there is no testing or ranking criteria. Yep, it is just the $5k to make the grade.  So next time you see an article about the best of, it probably costs each product thousands of dollars to get that placement.  Pass it around.

$5,000.00 is a lot of money. The inference is that if I don’t do it, my competitors will beat me out in the marketplace. Well, so be it if it is true, but it is not valid.

I started Keys after battling chemicals in prescription products after my Melanoma surgery. My Bob designed all of our products for me, and others wanted them. From that day forward, every sale has been a referral from friends and customers who we helped who believed in us. I can still see all the faces over the years and recognize many names. Our first customer was Nancy Johnson, a flight attendant with Delta Airlines. The travel messed up her skin, and Keys fixed it. Nancy is still a customer, and we have many like her that have told their story. All are different, but most sound alike. They are all about problems and a Keys solution.

65% of all sales every day, week, and month are new to Key customers. 42% is recommended to Keys by their doctor! Over 50% are recommendations from “Friends & Family.” Impressive, and sometimes I tear up just thinking about how far we have come and why we are here. Naturally, it is the recommendations and referrals by our customers that have built our business.

First and foremost, this is a “Big Thank You!” to all that buy our products and recommend them to their friends and family. From the bottom of my heart, I genuinely appreciate it.

I Need Your Help. There I said it.

The truth be told, I am terrible at asking for help. From when I was a little girl, I struggled with friends and in school asking for help. I guess I saw it as a weakness. Recently I was talking to a makeup artist friend who shares the same birthday week as I do. Both of us a July Cancerians, and she has the same problem, among others we share. Combining my frustration with objecting to paid fake advertising is a need to maintain our business in these unique and tough times. Her advice was to ask for help and as strange as it seems for me, that is what I am doing.

If you are a happy Keys customer and believe in our products, please tell the world what makes us different for you and why you buy my products. Anything you can do to help will result in new products and improvements that will help us all.

So lastly, Keys has done well in the wake of C-19. There have been bumps, but year over year, we are up quite a bit. We are stable and continue to grow since starting the business over 15 years ago. We have some ambitious new projects and products that need funding. Since all of our business comes from referrals, we can use your help. So, please tell a friend about Keys.

Thanks, Wendy