Apparently all those doom-and-gloom predictions about the state of the telemarketing industry post-National No Call were based on faulty intelligence.
In the months before the national do-not-call list went into effect, Stuart Discount laid off more than 150 of his workers at his telemarketing company. Now, however, the company is back to full strength."We've done a good job of rehiring," said Discount, president of Tele-Response Center, which employs more than 500 people at its Philadelphia headquarters and two call centers in West Virginia.
The telemarketing industry appears to have similarly weathered the creation of the list, which more than 63 million Americans have signed up for. A year after it went into effect, fears of massive layoffs and failures among telemarketing companies haven't been borne out.
[...]
Discount said his company has adjusted to the do-not-call list by shifting toward fund-raising for nonprofit groups and business-to-business sales pitches. Tele-Response has found enough new work since its 2003 layoffs that it is back to its former staffing levels, he said.
The exploding of one myth regarding no-call laws hasn't prevented the creation of new ones, however:
Some companies have fared better than others, said Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., one of eight representatives who voted against the legislation in 2003.In first opposing the legislation, Terry said, he worried about the big players and massive job cuts, considering that Omaha is home to about 40 telemarketing businesses that employ some 39,000 people. In the months since the legislation, Terry said he has heard from people who worked in smaller businesses who have been laid off because of do-not-call.
Terry said he could not remember a company that has been directly hurt. But the legislation applies even to pizza shops and other neighborhood businesses that may simply want to announce their presence with the help of a few calls, he said.
"What you're doing is destroying the small-business section of the industry," he said.
"What you're doing is destroying the small-business section of the industry," he said.
If only they had timber revenues to fall back on!
Posted by: Michael on October 14, 2004 3:24 PMImagine that. Changing one's business model in response to changing market conditions.
I missed that lesson in economics where they explained how regulation arising from legislation is part of the market. [Actually, I agree with the general feeling of that sentence, but "market conditions" just stuck in my craw].
wouldn't it be more cost effective (and less likely to piss off potential customers) for a pizza parlor to print out menus and flyers to stick in people's mailboxes?
Probably. Illegal, too. Unless by "stick in people's mailboxes" you meant "go through the post office".
I agree with the general antipathy with the telemarketers, but why did all of the snark go against the telemarketing companies, and none on the legislators, who banned their business (but made sure it was still ok for politicians to call, push poll).
And I applaud that you call out the red herring of small business. I eagerly await your articles mocking farm subsidies that are protected with the same rhetoric.