Smarter Campaigns

I’ve run across a good number of business consultants and entrepreneurs in my life. Many are good, very few are exceptional. Call me picky, but as a writer and publisher myself, I have rather high expectations.
Ben and his team at Smarter Campaigns exceeded all expectations I had. If you are considering running for office or need any to put the best and brightest on your team, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better solution than Ben Eisenberg at Smarter Campaigns.

I have worked with Ben a lot. He is smart, articulate, thorough and creative. He is the kind of a person that has an excellent work ethic. If I give him direction, he gets the project done right and on time. He is a great writer and adds significant ideas to the entire project. His finished product is very impressive.

This is my opinion after business interactions with Smarter Campaigns and Ben Eisenberg, the owner and founder of Smarter Campaigns. I have reworded the original critique to inform the reader that this is my opinion and to enhance accuracy and provide more detail. This review and critique is a good faith recollection of events based on e-​mails chains and other pertinent data (ie business plan + phone conversations).
I used Smarter Campaigns because I needed a business plan written and I didn’t have the time to write it myself. He came recommended by a friend. My friend said that Ben could get it done fast w/​a minimum of time commitments on my part. The deal was $ 1,500 to start the work and $ 1,500 when the plan was finished. I wrote the draft material which I estimate was 70−90% complete. I am a amateur writer of short stories so I know a little about writing: I felt pleased with the draft material — it just needed some clean-​up. I sent it with check and he started work.
I knew something was up when I received the first rough draft (version 1): the quality was of such a low level that I was incredulous that anything so bad could be written by a firm versed in arts of their field. It was ugly, hard to read, full of grammatical errors, falsehoods, formatting issues and misstatements. I was calm. I know about first drafts and prototypes so I gave them the benefit of the doubt, critiqued it, and forwarded the feedback/​corrections I wanted to see incorporated (via e-​mail) though the friend, now intermediary, who had recommended Ben/​Smarter Campaigns. We followed up with phone conversations about the details.
In the following weeks I received two more revisions. Each revision contained only superficial changes and practically none of the feedback I had requested was incorporated. My estimate was that somebody had probably spent 10 – 15 minutes on each revision. Much of the original content which I said I wanted was still not incorporated. Each revision only made me more agitated as review consumed a great deal of time which was critical in light of the fact that I was starting a new job and didn’t have the time to spare. I expressed my frustration to my friend and intermediary thinking he could more effective in getting my requests and concerns across as he had personal relationship with Ben/​Smnarter Campaigns.
After the third revision and after consulting my friend I made the decision not to throw good money after bad and to not waste any more of my time. I asked my friend if he would request a partial refund from Ben/​Smarter Campaigns. At this point I just wanted to get past this negative experience. I didn’t expect a full refund as this would not be fair to Ben/​Smarter Campaigns but I generally trust people to do the right thing and expected we could find common ground. My friend would not ask on my behalf so I called Ben myself, calmly indicated my dissatisfaction and indicated that I couldn’t continue the time intensive process especially when my changes were not being acted upon. I indicated that I thought a partial refund was in order: I left the amount up to him saying «whatever you think is fair.»
At this point I need to say that I suppose he was not legally bound to return anything but from where I come from (small town America), if you do business with somebody and you’re not happy with the product or service, they can either make it right or make some effort at recompense. If they don’t do either then they usually don’t stay in business for long and they are generally considered dishonorable/​dishonest businesses; again this how I conduct business and I realize it is a small town America perspective and yes I realize this is Denver 2013. We had already tried the «make it right» route (3 revisions) and that didn’t get us anywhere so I expected some token recompense so we could both part ways with our dignity intact. Though I asked nicely that didn’t happen. No only did he say, «no» but he said no in a way that was disrespectful, rude and flippant.
I admit I trust people too easily. I should have checked Unilocal or Angie’s List and not taken my friends word that he was an upright guy — upright guys don’t treat customers like that in my book. I should have called Ben earlier in the process. But that is all hindsight; Now I am being threatened with a slander law suit (via my friend/​intermediary) because of a negative Unilocal critique and in my book that only reinforces the perception that this is the kind of company you want to stay away from.