https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights Articles by Jeev Trika on comparison platforms, digital marketing and AI search, selling, negotiation and leadership. en Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/a-country-page-is-not-a-local-site https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/a-country-page-is-not-a-local-site Going global with a comparison platform is mostly copying: a template, a domain, a flag. Becoming local is a different job. What topseos's country sites showed about who a local page is really for, from 2009 to 2018. Comparison platforms Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/a-website-from-scratch-in-2026 https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/a-website-from-scratch-in-2026 If I were building a company website today, this is the list. Most of it is unglamorous: plain HTML, real evidence, addresses that never break, and analytics that measure enquiries rather than visits. Each point is how this site was actually built. Digital marketing and AI Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/activity-is-not-the-number https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/activity-is-not-the-number Calls, connections and lead counts are easy to report and easy to feel good about. A sales quota is a revenue number. What I asked of sales reports, forecasts and paid lead sources at DMA between 2019 and 2024, and what a missed number should trigger. Sales leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/before-anyone-is-looking https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/before-anyone-is-looking A comparison platform starts with no buyers and no providers, and each side wants proof of the other. How topseos got through that in 2008 and 2009, from the emails, including the numbers that were not flattering. Comparison platforms Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/before-anyone-talks-about-price https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/before-anyone-talks-about-price By the time I discuss a number, most of the negotiation should already be done. What I wanted to know first, from three completed deals: an office in 2012, an investment I looked at in 2019, and a property in Bangkok I spent over a year on before agreeing a price. Negotiation Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/built-websites-for-google-now-building-for-ai https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/built-websites-for-google-now-building-for-ai For twenty years I built sites to rank in Google's list of links. In 2025 the list started getting pushed down by AI answers, and an old site could not simply be retrofitted. What changed, from my emails at the time. Digital marketing and AI Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/four-strategies-to-achieve-omnichannel-success https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/four-strategies-to-achieve-omnichannel-success Trade-show booths, display impressions, PR, email and search. How I have decided which channels to put money into, in my own words at the time. Digital marketing and AI Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/calling-the-ones-who-left https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/calling-the-ones-who-left Former customers will sometimes tell you what current ones won't, if you actually call them. In autumn 2023 DMA did, one by one, and wrote down what they said. Digital marketing and AI Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/charging-the-companies-you-compare https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/charging-the-companies-you-compare Can a comparison platform charge the companies it compares and still be useful to the buyer? My platforms did charge them, including for specific positions at monthly prices. What that looked like from 2009 to 2025, how it was disclosed, and where the model starts to cost trust. Comparison platforms Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/closing-is-a-promise https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/closing-is-a-promise Two emails, two years apart, about the same problem: what a customer experiences after the sale is made, and who is responsible for it. Sales leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/diligence-that-ends-in-no https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/diligence-that-ends-in-no A building in 2010 and a software company in 2020: two acquisitions I looked at hard and did not make, and the paid search that produced nothing. Walking away is one of the outcomes diligence is for. Negotiation Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/what-makes-a-great-sales-rep https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/what-makes-a-great-sales-rep A salesperson scored 7.5 out of 10 on a practice pitch. My answer was a number: 9.5 before he demos for me. What the gap between them is made of. Sales leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/three-pillars-to-become-a-high-performing-salesperson https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/three-pillars-to-become-a-high-performing-salesperson Three words for what makes a salesperson good, and the emails where I held people to each of them. Sales leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/large-accounts-are-a-different-sale https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/large-accounts-are-a-different-sale A formal RFP from a large retailer and a list of clients paying $5,000 a month or more: two moments at DMA, in 2018 and 2024, when the right move was to change the process rather than work the usual one harder. Sales leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/leverage-is-a-fact https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/leverage-is-a-fact Real leverage is an alternative, information, time or the ability to walk. None of it needs raised voices. Small examples from my own negotiations, and one where my tone did the talking instead. Negotiation Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/category-design-matters https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/category-design-matters On a comparison platform the category is the product. How I named, split, scoped and cut categories across fifteen years, from my own specs at the time. Comparison platforms Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/strategies-i-apply-to-maximize-networking https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/strategies-i-apply-to-maximize-networking Meeting people is the easy part. The relationships that turned into something were the ones where someone closed the loop, on time. One of mine where I didn't. Sales leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/not-needed-for-everything https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/not-needed-for-everything The goal was never for me to disappear from my companies. It was for them not to need me for every routine decision. Five years of emails show how far that got, and where I still jump in hard. Leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/postponing-again https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/postponing-again When a month depends on a handful of recurring deals worth a few thousand dollars each, one postponement changes the month. A spring and summer of DMA's pipeline in 2024, from the daily reports and my replies. Sales leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/price-is-one-term https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/price-is-one-term I almost never want to negotiate on price alone. The terms around the number, such as whether to lease or buy, credits, payment schedules, delay penalties, the right to walk, often matter more. Completed deals from 2012 to 2022, and one presale where I asked too late. Negotiation Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/rented-land https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/rented-land Any audience you reach through somebody else's system can change underneath you. I learned it as a tenant of Google, and I have been the landlord to hundreds of companies who rented visibility from me. Digital marketing and AI Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/safety-to-learn https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/safety-to-learn From late 2021 to early 2023 DMA ran a culture programme with an outside facilitator, across our own team and our delivery partner's. A survey said people did not feel safe to learn. What we tried, what I approved, and why it ended. Leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/why-i-believe-selling-should-come-first-and-how-i-do-it https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/why-i-believe-selling-should-come-first-and-how-i-do-it A salesperson's job is to sell. How I have defined the role, and the few numbers I ask for to find out whether the selling is happening. Sales leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/seo-isnt-dead-the-results-page-changed https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/seo-isnt-dead-the-results-page-changed Search did not end. The thing a searcher sees first changed, from ten links to an answer, and fewer people click past it. What the numbers say, what Google says, and what that means for anyone who depends on being found. Digital marketing and AI Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/seo-aeo-geo-where-the-money-goes https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/seo-aeo-geo-where-the-money-goes Three acronyms, one budget. I would not pick one and ignore the others. Traditional search is still the foundation, answer engines are the next reader of the same material, and most of what is sold as an AI ranking hack is not worth paying for. Digital marketing and AI Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/my-top-on-demand-marketing-techniques https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/my-top-on-demand-marketing-techniques Marketing has a shelf life, so speed matters. But speed is only half of it: I want to see that the thing went out, and what came back. Digital marketing and AI Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/systems-and-people https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/systems-and-people I studied computer science with a minor in psychology at Purdue. It looked like an odd pairing in the 1990s. Most problems I have met in business since have been in one of those two places, and the hard ones are in both. Leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/ten-was-the-default-five-was-right https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/ten-was-the-default-five-was-right A comparison platform built for one market can be copied to another, but not every rule travels. Country sites in 2010 and a single-city platform in 2024, and the day I reversed a national default for a local one. Comparison platforms Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/the-90-days-i-asked-for https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/the-90-days-i-asked-for In 2019 I negotiated for a premium one-word .com. The price mattered less than one term: a free 90 days to find out whether the business was really there. Negotiation Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/my-insights-on-rational-and-emotional-skew-in-marketing https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/my-insights-on-rational-and-emotional-skew-in-marketing How I buy when the stakes are high, and what that taught me about selling: with someone I trust I decide in minutes, and with a stranger I ask for proof I can visit. Sales leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/the-clause-about-leaving https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/the-clause-about-leaving On a recurring contract, the monthly price is the number everyone argues about. The term and the way out usually matter more. Two negotiations from my emails, in 2015 and 2020. Negotiation Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/tuesday-mornings-at-830 https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/tuesday-mornings-at-830 In 2018 I negotiated hard for a sales training program for DMA's salespeople. The price was the easy part. Showing up every week was the hard one. Sales leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/how-i-leveraged-online-reviews-to-boost-my-business https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/how-i-leveraged-online-reviews-to-boost-my-business I have built and run comparison platforms since 2002. The useful question about a review is never whether it is positive. It is whether you can tell who wrote it, and on what basis. Comparison platforms Thu, 04 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/what-a-crawler-actually-receives https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/what-a-crawler-actually-receives AI crawlers are not one thing. Some train models, some build search indexes, some fetch a page because a user asked. Many do not run JavaScript. What that means for what they see of your website, from current documentation and from how this site was built. Digital marketing and AI Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/what-counts-as-normal https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/what-counts-as-normal Before I was eighteen I had lived in India, North Korea, Indonesia and Thailand, and then I moved to America. Each place taught a different version of what is normal, obvious and authoritative. In business, that is a reason to distrust defaults. Leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/what-i-mean-by-fair https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/what-i-mean-by-fair "Fair" is the most abused word in negotiation, usually meaning "what I want." When I have used it, in emails from 2012 to 2025, it has meant three specific things: what we agreed, what something is worth to us now, and risk that runs both ways. Negotiation Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/how-i-find-a-sustainable-competitive-advantage-in-marketing-strategies https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/how-i-find-a-sustainable-competitive-advantage-in-marketing-strategies Twenty years of comparison platforms taught me which advantages were really mine and which were on loan. The honest version, including the parts that did not hold. Comparison platforms Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/how-i-took-on-google-and-won https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/how-i-took-on-google-and-won In 2014 Google removed every one of our websites from its search results. We sued. We got further than anyone expected, and in 2017 we lost. Digital marketing and AI Fri, 04 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/using-vitamins-and-painkillers-sales-tool-for-effective-selling https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/using-vitamins-and-painkillers-sales-tool-for-effective-selling Buyers keep painkillers and cut vitamins. What that has looked like from both sides of the cancellation email. Sales leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/when-the-deal-gets-large https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/when-the-deal-gets-large Above a certain size a negotiation stops being two people agreeing a number. Financing, tax, lawyers, title and the other side's constraints all arrive at the table. Three completed negotiations, and one I walked away from without solving the problem the seller had told me about. Negotiation Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/preparing-to-make-a-sale-the-competitive-talking-points-i-use https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/preparing-to-make-a-sale-the-competitive-talking-points-i-use Three times a buyer put a competitor in front of me, what I said, and how it turned out. Not all of them went my way. Sales leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/when-the-work-happens-in-another-company https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/when-the-work-happens-in-another-company DMA delivered its work through a partner and team network of more than 200 people. What changes when the people doing the work report to someone else: handoffs, a single point of contact, commitments, reporting, and knowing when to stop. Leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/how-i-filter-my-target-market-to-sell-better https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/how-i-filter-my-target-market-to-sell-better Filtering a market is mostly saying no early: to budgets that cannot work, to buyers who want guarantees, and to lists that are not already spending. Sales leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/why-i-still-go-back-to-school https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/why-i-still-go-back-to-school Kellogg and ISB in 2020, Wharton in 2021, Stanford in 2023, Harvard from 2024. Why I kept enrolling while running the businesses, in what I wrote at the time. Leadership Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/why-most-comparison-sites-fail https://www.jeevtrika.com/insights/why-most-comparison-sites-fail Building a list of providers is the easy part. Comparison platforms fail on supply and demand, categories, local relevance, money, distribution and trust. Twenty-four years of building them, including the ones that went quiet. Comparison platforms Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Jeev Trika