Wish You Were Here

The recent Federal budget did not do a lot to support small Australian businesses, but it focussed heavily on Nation Building to protect Australian jobs. Treasury Swan said in his budget speech “We will support jobs today by building the infrastructure we need for tomorrow.”

However, hidden away in the budget is a measure that could destroy thousands of Australian jobs and impact heavily on Australian SME’s.

The Government’s announcement that it will widen the scope of the Do Not Call Register to allow all business and fax numbers to be registered. If this amendment to the legislation is passed it will mean you will not be allowed to pick up the phone and prospect any business who have placed their phone number on the register.

This change will impact heavily on all business that use the telephone or fax to prospect for new business. Before you call any other business that is not an existing customer, or has given you permission to call them, will have to go through a costly and time consuming process of washing you call list again the register to remove any registered businesses.

The phone is a vital tool for small business in Australia and the ability to communicate freely with prospective clients is the lifeblood of SME’s revenue. This measure could stifle the economic activity other budget measures were trying to encourage.

The implications for all businesses are potentially costly, if the legislation changes are implemented and you call other businesses to generate new customers, if you don’t check the register before calling you may be fined if a registered business complains about your call.

The Government has not heeded the lessons from the UK where a similar system has restricted normal business activities and has hurt SME’s; the very businesses the legislation was trying to protect.

My personal view of adding fax numbers to the register is different however. Incoming marketing faxes waste my toner, electricity and paper and invariably end up in the bin.

If you want your sales team to be able to pick up the phone and call other businesses to prospect for new customers unencumbered, I urge you to contact your local Government member and explain the impact that this legislation could have on your business.

The Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA) is one association fighting the change.

So I decided to enter the world of blogging! I wanted to share some thoughts and needed an outlet, plus in addition I wanted to test some theories on search engine optimisation and link building through social media.

The title refers to nothing more than the name of one of my favourite albums, one I still enjoy at least weekly.

For those interested, the URL and the blog took about an hour to set up. You can see its a .me domain – how vain, using wordpress and hosted by Webfirm.

I’m not sure about the theme at this time but let me know what you think. Drop by to say Hi from time to time.