In general I try to listen because it would be tragic to turn away a great opportunity to make a good saving or identify a new product but that’s so very rarely what I hear. The rule seems to be the poorer the offer the harder they try to sell it. I think the ones I hate most are the calls where they don’t even know the name of the company let alone the person they are calling. Is this a government sponsored work experience scheme or are people shelling out their own money to destroy the telephone marketing business altogether?

 I tell myself that this must work or why does it persist? At least I understand why email marketing bedevils my inbox it’s because it’s so cheap to do, virtually free in fact. The solution to this I once believed was to give email a cost and that would stop it but given the comparative cost of telephone sales and the fact that it continues so wastefully I don’t know even if that would work. My guess is it probably costs about 50 pence per contact minimum for cold calling. On that basis if sending an email was even 2% as successful as cold calling it would make emails equal value for money at 1 pence each and even that is probably 10 times the actual cost of email today. So what’s the answer?

 I suppose it’s like the pleasure of taxation just get used to it because it’s not going away.