Appalled by “Do Not Call”
Ever wanted to travel back in time? Do you hanker for the nostalgia of the 70s, 60s or even those golden retro years of the 50s? Do you feel that Australia should be transported back to those “good old days”?
Well, 2010 may provide you with that opportunity, with the latest Bill to amend the current Do Not Call Register legislation, which means it will be extended to cover unsolicited calls to business.
So why does it take us back in time? Well, should this amendment pass Australia will be the ONLY country in the world where businesses will NOT be able to call other businesses to conduct business other than by post. That’s right. Businesses, and the economy, will be dragged back to the dark ages of communications, hamstrung from using all modern forms of communication with prospects and even potentially clients!
That means no emails, thanks to Australia’s toughest anti-spam legislation in the world, and it could now hamper even your sales’ team ability to call to ask permission to email prospects once this amendment has passed.
The disruption and cost to business, and the Australian economy, will be immense.
I have been startled to note the lack of concern and attention this amendment has received. If most CEOs, sales and marketing managers actually knew what impact this will have on how they prospect for new business they’d be as concerned as we are.
However, you can make a difference by adding your voice by contacting Access Economics, and contributing your thoughts to a report commissioned by the Australian Direct Marketing Association. ADMA needs as many organisations as possible to contribute to help highlight the cost to business of passing this Amendment to the Bill. This is urgent as the legislation is due to be reviewed before May 2010.
I don’t know about you, but we spend time speaking to prospects every day. It’s the lifeblood of doing business.
Wow, that is a real concern for business owners, especially small business.
Maybe more social networking will become important and even face to face networking may become more important, but as you know it is not as possible to reach the same number of prospects.
I like you will be watching the results of this.
Cheers
Leigh Kostiainen
That is very interesting. I’ve never heard of such a bill before. Definitely this will be of great concern to businesses as it will disrupt communications in a big way.
Except that the law as proposed and now passed places no restrictions on unsolicited business-to-business calls. It does, however, allow businesses to list a number used solely as an ingoing/outgoing fax number.