Dun & Bradstreet

A Point of View

David H. Fauss, M.S.M.

On January 14, 2016

Category: Business Frustrations, Small Business Success

Dun & Bradstreet is a familiar name within the business world. I really don’t know much about D&B, but not long after being in business I was told I needed a D&B DUNS#. I think it must have been needed for some government related work we were doing. The process to register for it was not too involved, and I did it and once done, we received our own, personal DUNS# – a unique identifier for our business. It was not long after registering that I received my first call from a D&B representative who told me that someone had put information in my file and that it was imperative that I review it for accuracy and to correct any misinformation. I said, “Sure, I’ll do that; what do I need to do?” That is when the sales pitch started. “Well”, I was told, “to review the information you must pay for D&B Business Monitor services on an annual subscription. It all sounded so serious, so important, and I guess I was naive about this aspect of the business, so I signed up. I then reviewed the information, which was not negative, all innocuous, and not informative about anything. I then realized that it is more or less a scam to pay for such monitoring. I was able to call and cancel the monitoring, though enduring much arm twisting (if that can be done on the phone) to tell me I should keep it. Subsequently, on some periodic rotation, I get calls from them “wanting to help protect my business” when in fact, it is merely a disingenuous attempt to sell a service. I am left wondering why a D&B number is important. I still do not know. Companies can be identified by such things as tax ID numbers. If anyone knows why a D&B number is important, please let me know. Now, don’t get me started on the solicitations I’ve received from the Better Business Bureau…

Another View

Melissa Pigott, Ph.D.

On January 14, 2016

Category: Business Frustrations, Small Business Success

Dun & Bradstreet is not a familiar entity for many people, including me, who are not “business types” like my partner.  In fact, in order to be able to write my part of this post, I had to ask David to explain the purpose of Dun & Bradstreet to me.  My familiarity with certain large organizations is often derived from working on their behalf when they are parties in civil litigation; other than that, the world of business is not something that usually interests me.  David, in his role of managing the business aspects of Magnus, has far more interactions with a variety of people than me, including registering our company with organizations many people believe will help our business (including a recent registration with a women owned business group), as well as vendors and providers of professional services (such as our long time accountant and printer).  When someone from a company such as Dun & Bradstreet call my company and ask for me, chances are their call will never get transferred to my extension, not because I am being rude, but because the person who answers the phone knows I will have no idea of who they are or why they are calling.  Overall, I am unsure of the value of these registrations for my company and myself and, until I have to learn about them when they are involved in one of our cases, I prefer to have David do what he does best so that I may concentrate on doing what I know how to do.  The bottom line of this post is to know one’s strengths and weaknesses and for me, this includes having David be the expert on Dun & Bradstreet.  

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