Here in the UK there are some misguided small businesses who (unbelievably) only offer a premium rate number for people to call them on!

NUMBERS THAT BEGIN WITH EITHER 087* OR 084* are a VERY bad idea for your business - as they place a hurdle between your potential clients / customers and your products or services.
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Why are premium rate numbers such a bad idea?

Because, no one wants to pay a premium rate to call YOUR business to enquire about your services!  Why should they have to pay you, to be sold something - come on, get real!

I have variously heard it estimated that using any premium rate number for your main phone line or your sales / enquiries line, can lose you between 60% and 80% of ALL enquiries and sales.

Not only will people like myself refuse to use these rip-off numbers, many companies have these numbers barred from their phone system - so their employees can not actually dial these numbers, even if they wanted to spend money with you.

Also, if you call these numbers from a UK mobile phone, it can cost a fortune (hardly likely to encourage people to enquire about your services!  Everything your business does should make it as EASY and attractive as possible for people to call you.  The message you send out by using a premium rate number is 100% negative - it's a money-grabbing scam.
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Some people REALLY HATE premium rate numbers - Look!

There is so much resistance to businesses screwing people with these rip-off numbers that a wonderful website has come to the consumer's rescue; www.SayNoTo0870.com If you need to dial a company hiding behind one of these awful numbers, check out www.SayNoTo0870.com and see if there is a regular price alternative.

If you are serious about winning business - drop the use of premium rate numbers for your sales line or your main phone number.

In fact, if you use the ideas I am about to share with you, you will never have to chase; business, income, sales, clients or leads ever again!
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The power of attraction

Have you ever noticed what happens when a beautiful woman or a handsome man walks into a bar? That's right - people look at them. In fact, people will often walk over and offer them a drink or simply strike up a conversation with them. The reason we call these people ‘attractive' is because they (literally) ‘attract' the attention and interest of other people.

What does this have to do with you or your business, website or blog?

The most effective businesses ALL use the power of attraction in order to attract sales, clients, readers and customers! Just like the attractive person who walks into a room and gets everyone's attention, these businesses gain the attention and interest of potential clients by being attractive.

If you decide to use the power of attraction in your marketing, you can quickly skyrocket your results without having to make cold calls or ‘sell' anything to anyone. It's a wonderful, zero-stress way to grow your business!
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Power of attraction in action

For example, I use the power of attraction for 100% of my marketing! People find my website, blog and my newsletter ‘attractive', so they forward them to their contacts, colleagues and friends - helping me attract more people to the website, blog and newsletter. These new people then do the same etc, etc...

Without me spending a penny on ANY form of advertising, (pay-per-click, affiliates or anything else), there are now millions of people who know all about my ability to help them produce great sales results.

So, when my readers decide they want someone to look after their marketing, they give me a call.

Use what I am sharing with you and you too can achieve great results, without spending a penny (ever) on advertising!

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Clients should be attracted NOT pursued!

Most businesses get it the wrong way around. They choose to ‘pursue' new clients and customers; unaware of just how much they are damaging their chances of success AND their reputation! Even though people are not responding to their mailshots, email marketing or calls; they just keep on grinding away regardless!

This approach costs a fortune and the results are dire. That's because people universally HATE being; pursued, pestered, hassled or chased.

• This is why people are so rude when you cold call them!
• It's also why people hate being sent spam email!
• ... and why we all avoid over-eager salespeople!

Using the power of attraction in YOUR business!

An example of the power of attraction in a HIGHLY competitive industry

Without doubt, one of the most competitive industries on the planet is the recruitment business. A client of mine used to call people and was often the 4th or 5th recruitment company to call that same person that same day! He knew something needed to change, and quickly; because it was getting harder and harder to reach potential clients.

I suggested he set up a simple, low-cost website; aimed at candidates (people looking for work). The website was then packed with hints, tips and ideas that were designed to help people find the perfect job. He then wrote to the top 100 HR people in his target market - not asking for business, but asking if he could interview them for his new website!

Guess what?  Not only did he manage to meet with stacks of powerful decision-makers; many of them went on to become clients! The interview was an attractive proposition, which attracted a great deal of interest. These powerful people actually CALLED HIM to arrange a time for their interview! It totally changed the way they saw him - as opposed to other recruitment providers who were hounding them for business!

A low cost website and the power of attraction was all he needed in order to achieve stunning sales results. Moreover, a blog can also help you achieve similar results - and they cost nothing!
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So, stop chasing new business

If people are not replying to your mailshots, marketing emails or returning your calls, they are telling you something!

They are telling you that your offer or marketing is NOT attractive to them!

Like my example of the recruitment company earlier, you must find a way to market your services so that you become IRRESISTIBLE! This is a low-cost, high-leverage way to not only win business, but win business for a GREAT price or fee too.

You see, when you use the power of attraction to generate sales, you spend 100% of your time speaking with people who are:
- Already interested in you and your services.
- Already aware of the value you offer.
- Ready to proceed.
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Conclusion

No matter what industry or profession you are in, the power of attraction can slash your marketing costs, take the stress away from selling and transform the way your future clients think of you and your business!

She quoted marketing books and programs to me, that sadly you can still buy from Amazon etc - but are totally ineffective in today's VERY different business environment.
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But Jim - Marketing is the same as it's always been, right?

No!  Marketing today is very different.  Today, we live in an age where you can write to a million people for free using email.  We can broadcast a video to millions of people via YouTube for free.

We can even advertise our services to millions of people each year via our website, for the same cost as a one-off, one page advertisement in a very average magazine or trade journal!  For example,  my work now reaches 3 million people some months and I spend nothing on advertising at all!

The things Sheila was doing wrong are actually quite common to many small businesses.  Take a look below and make sure YOU are not making the same marketing mistakes!
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Sheila sent mailings with a dozen pages of marketing information

Sheila had been sending out mailshots with a dozen or more sheets of paper inside, in the totally false belief that it would increase her response rate.  She not only received nothing from these mailshots, they cost her around £20,000 ($40,000 US) in the process.

In the eighties and early nineties, there were a few marketing 'experts' who said if you stuffed a dozen or so sheets of marketing material in with your mailshots, it would increase the number of sales you make or the number of enquiries you get.

Even back then, it was very expensive and not very effective - but today, it's far worse!  We now live in an age where people are extremely environmentally aware and are not too keen on people wasting all that paper!  We also live in an age where people have never been busier - too busy to plough through stacks of paper trying to sell them something! 
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Sheila had been cold-calling prospective clients

She had been using cold calling - something that WAS effective up until around 6 / 8 years ago.  Today, however, her target prospects (like most businesspeople) are shielded behind voice-mail.  As a result, you can now waste a whole day on the phone and get the same results you would have got in just an hour - only a few years ago!
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Sheila spent just £600 on her website

Although Sheila spent heavily on mailshots, she saw no reason to have a professionally designed and optimised website.  A website that's designed by a professional and then optimised, will attract regular leads and enquiries. That's because it will look professional AND be fully visible to people who are desperately seeking YOUR kind of services!

Most small businesses are genuinely unaware that they could have stacks of phone calls and emails all day long from interested prospective clients; if only they had a professional looking website that has been search engine optimised by an expert.

When a website is professionally optimised, it's like moving a shop from a small, dusty road with no passing trade and slapping BANG IN THE MIDDLE of Oxford Street!

Most marketing books and audio programs (including the very best known) from the 1990's and before, either don't mention websites or hardly mention them.  Even marketing books from THIS decade will not highlight Google as a major marketing tool, unless they were written in the past 5 years or so!
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A common problem for small businesses

Most small businesses rely heavily on marketing books, marketing audio programs and free online marketing tips in order to help them make more sales.  That's why I produce this blog, my marketing newsletter and of course my massively popular free marketing resource website www.jimconnolly.com (all the marketing material there is 100% free!)

If you want to avoid wasting stacks of money and missing countless sales opportunities, throw your old marketing guides and audio programs in the recycling bin! You need to know what works today.

I am going to show you how to make your marketing more successful and more reliable, with something called your 'marketing mix'. I am also going to give you a list and explanation of some of the most popular types of marketing, used by small and medium sized businesses.  I strongly suggest you read part one of this before proceeding!

This is a BIG marketing guide, with lots of great ideas, so please share it on your favourite social network or social bookmarking site!

In part one of this guide I shared one of the most common errors small businesses make with their marketing. The error is that they rely on just one or two different marketing activities in order to generate their sales!
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This is a REALLY bad idea!

Firstly, if you rely on just one or two different forms of marketing, you are missing out on STACKS of new business and opportunities! No matter how good you are at getting the full leverage from a couple of marketing activities, you will be placing a very low ceiling on your business's potential, if you limit yourself in this way. The most successful small businesses all use at least four or five different kinds of marketing - often 8 or 10 or more!

Secondly, by relying on just one or two marketing activities, you leave yourself extremely vulnerable when one of them stops working! A business owner emailed me to say that she relied on an advertisement in a business publication for over 90% of her sales leads. One of her competitors started advertising in the same publication and her number of leads (and sales) dropped by 40% overnight - That hurts!

So, your marketing mix should combine at least four or five different marketing activities, which compound and create a regular supply of sales for you. Here are some of the marketing options you should consider adding to YOUR marketing mix. The links are all to free guides on my main site, www.jimconnolly.com

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Advertising

A targeted message delivered through a great ad, which is read, listened to or watched by your core target client group is REALLY powerful! For a free advertising guide, click here!
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Online networking or ‘social networks'

Online networking has great marketing potential. The key is to join a network that is best suited to your needs and to be selective with whom you network! Focus on the quality of people in your network and NOT just the quantity! If you develop a network of 30 well-connected, motivated, professional people and I develop a network of 3000 people who ‘just wanted to join my network' - your network will be massively more valuable then mine.

A couple of the more popular business networks are www.ecademy.com and www.linkedin.com. In either case, you are likely to see FAR BETTER results than through wasting your time at traditional ‘networking events' (Click here to see why traditionasl networking is a waste of your time!)

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Mailshots - direct mail - mailings

I have a step by step guide for you, on how to get great results from your mailshots. It's on my main site - Click here.
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Exhibitions

As an exhibitor at, (or visitor to), a well-attended exhibition aimed at your target client base - you can easily get to meet people face-to-face, who are almost impossible to reach using other forms of marketing. Depending on your industry or profession and the average lifetime value to your business of a client, you could find exhibiting at well-attended exhibitions an extremely valuable part of your marketing mix. I know companies who win most of their high quality work via exhibitions.
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Email marketing

It's a fact; email marketing is extremely cost effective and certainly one of the most powerful marketing tools available to small businesses. It works incredibly well - and costs little or nothing!

Here are a few things to consider before adding email marketing to your marketing mix. I recommend you build your own email database (mailing list) rather than buy one from a list broker. The best way to get started is to ask your existing clients and contacts if you can have their email address and if it's ok for you to email them occasionally with news or special offers.

You also need to get people joining your email list from your website! To do this, make it as easy as possible, (like the sign-up box on my website), and offer something of value as an incentive for them to join your mailing list (I offer a free ebook) Also, only ask for their email address - not their life history, and let them know that you will never, ever pass on their details to ANYONE!

ONLY send people valuable information (like this free guide) or a genuinely special offer. I also strongly recommend that you don't bombard people with email; just one message every week or 14 days is more than enough. I send my Newsletter out once every seven to 14 days, because people hate being bombarded with information; even great information! As a result, very few people ask to be removed from my subscriber list.

Finally, to grow your list, ask readers to forward your emails on. Obviously, making sure all the while, that you abide by the rules governing email marketing in your country.

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Telephone marketing - Tele sales

Telephone marketing works - but it's less effective than it used to be. Not that long ago, you could call someone's direct ‘phone line and know that if they were in, they would pick up the phone. Today, people from even the smallest of companies screen all their inbound calls with voice mail; to eliminate unwanted interruptions and sales calls! This means you now need to make massively more calls to reach a smaller number of people!

I used to tell the owners of small businesses to learn how to make telemarketing calls and then set some time aside and make those calls! Today, I suggest you outsource the whole process to a proven telephone marketing company. Doing it yourself is now a low-leverage marketing activity, because it requires so much time. Outsourced telephone marketing is still a high leverage activity, because you will usually only pay per lead or sale.
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Traditional networking

Traditional networking is a total waste of your time - avoid it!

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Your website

It's not enough to simply ‘have a website'! Your website needs to work for your business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; generating leads, making sales or collecting the email addresses of potential clients. If your website is simply an online brochure, it's costing you a fortune in lost sales, lost profits and lost opportunities!

When your website is supported by a newsletter and some Internet marketing, the results can be transformational. Still not convinced? Without spending a penny on advertising, my Internet marketing often reaches over 2 million people in a week! I will be writing separate guides all about forum marketing, article marketing, pay-per-click and blogging shortly.
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Developing referrals from Introducers (free audio program)

For a free audio program on how to win as many referrals as you can handle, click here now and download it for free from my main website. This is a direct link to the download - just right click on the link and download this superb 22 minute stand alone program! (I'm too good to you!)
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Joint ventures

Sometimes known as a J.V, a ‘Joint Venture' is where you and another business or person get together to (usually) cross-market your services. The key to JV success, is to find someone credible, who offers a non-conflicting product or service to the exact same profile of person or business as you do.

So, if you sell recruitment services to the hospitality industry and they sell employee benefits packages to the hospitality industry - BINGO! They can include one of your flyers or letters in one of their mailings and you can do the same for them; everybody wins. Avoid doing a JV with ANYONE you contacts you via email - unless you know them or can check them out. If in doubt - leave it!
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Endorsed relationships

An ‘Endorsed Relationship' is similar to a Joint Venture - BUT with one BIG and POWERFUL difference! The person you do the venture with actually gives you their professional or personal endorsement. This is marketing gold dust!

For example: Rather than just slipping one of YOUR marketing flyers in with one of THEIR client mailings (as they would in a Joint Venture), they actually write to their clients and give you their full endorsement. This is easily the single most powerful form of referral and one of the most powerful marketing tools on the planet. I have seen endorsed mailings return a 90% positive response rate!
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Conclusion

Obviously, the above list does not cover every marketing option open to you, but I hope it gives you a few ideas.

No matter how good your service is, your future success will be determined by how good you are at winning and retaining good quality clients. As Robert Kiyosaki says, lots of people can make a better hamburger than McDonalds; but very few can sell hamburgers more successfully. In today's super-competitive economy, your marketing is more important than ever before, so make sure you give it the time and investment it needs!

PS: If you found this useful, there are dozens of other free articles, guides and even a free audio program on my main website: www.jimconnolly.com

Canadians will be able to give telemarketers the slip as of Sept. 30th, 2008 when the national do-not-call-list officially begins operating.

Under the new rules, announced Wednesday by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, telemarketers will not be allowed to call anyone who registers either by phone with Bell Canada Inc., which is administering the list on behalf of the CRTC, or online.

Telemarketers will have a grace period of 31 days to contact people who have registered, but after that will be eligible for fines of $1,500 in the case of an individual or $15,000 for corporations should a registrant complain.

Bell will forward complaints to the CRTC, which decided to use a middle man in order to lighten its workload.

"We tried to delegate as much as possible," CRTC spokesman Denis Carmel said.

Registration will last three years, after which individuals will have to re-enter their information. Canadians can register landlines, cellphones and fax numbers.

However, many organizations will be exempted under the rules.

Charities, political parties, polling firms, newspapers and companies that have done business with an individual over the past 18 months can continue to make unsolicited phone calls. Canadians who do not wish to receive such calls can ask at the time of a call to be removed from the organization's list, or contact them ahead of time and request the same.

The CRTC's list has been criticized for allowing too many exceptions.

In March, an internet law professor at the University of Ottawa set up a website, iOptOut, that allows users to proactively prevent calls from organizations on the exception list. The site has a database that allows users to choose from the hundreds of excepted organizations and send them an automated e-mail removal request.

Video

• Play: Real Media »
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External Links

So after nearly 60 years of life has telemarketing kicked the bucket? With email marketing becoming an ever more popular method of marketing, many companies are asking themselves “which should I use?” The only way to clearly decide is to look at the pros and cons of both direct marketing methods.

Pros of Email Marketing;

Probably the biggest advantage of email marketing is the ability to clearly distribute information to a large number of prospects in one hit. Providing prospects with aesthetically pleasing text will give you a better opportunity of attracting their attention and interest.

The cost of email marketing is very low with the average cost of purchasing multiple use email data being approximately 35p per record and the cost of sending email shots from a dedicated email server coming in as little as 0.1p per email sent.

Email broadcast are instant arriving with the prospects within minutes or even seconds, and they give the prospects the opportunity to read the message at a time most convenient for them.

Email marketing has the ‘green’ factor as there it is paper free.

E-marketing is easy to track and analyse bounce rates, click-throughs, un-subscribes etc, allowing you to correlate marketing to sales.

Cons of Email Marketing;

Vast quantities of emails are sent to prospects every day for various different products and services. With most data suppliers selling the same/similar email lists, prospects are being inundated with emails and so anti-spam filters are becoming increasingly more implemented to deter unwanted emails.

Due to the simplicity and cheapness of email marketing, many companies are sending unsolicited bulk email (spam) and as a result new spam filtering software is being produced. Should your email be conceived as spam, these email filters will block your IP address for any customer using their spam filter, and hence legitimate emails will struggle to get through.

Emails can be easily ignored by prospects by simply hitting the delete button.

With bought in email addresses there is no guarantee that you have the correct person responsible for purchasing the product/service you are offering.

By sending an email you lose the ability to create rapport with the prospect. As people tend to buy from people they like, this lack of rapport could be the difference between the prospect spending with you and with your competitors who contacted them by phone.

Click here for Responsiva's Direct marketing services

Pros of Telemarketing

The results of Telemarketing are highly measurable. Conversion rates of call to appointment and appointments to sale can be analysed to measure a direct R.O.I. for the telemarketing campaign.

Telemarketing allows you to get through to the correct contact you desire and also collate additional valuable information such as current spend, current supplier and contract renewal date. Also should any of your data be incorrect telemarketing allows you to manual cleanse the data.

With a well constructed script you can put across the correct information in way that the prospect understands.

By using psychological telemarketing techniques, rapport with prospects will be developed increasing the likelihood of the prospect wanting to spend with you.

Telemarketing can be outsourced to a professional company, meaning that sales people can optimise their time by being out on the road selling instead of making the calls them self.

Geographical limitations are removed as selling can be done over the phone.

Unlike email marketing, telemarketing acquires an immediate answer from the prospect allowing you to polarise the prospects into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ pots and to stop marketing to the ‘bad’ pot.

Cons of Telemarketing

Due to a high volume of companies using telemarketing, prospect are becoming increasingly adverse to telemarketing. One example of this is the increased number of people signing up to the telephone preference service.

If you do not source an up to date and well targeted data list, the results of the telemarketing campaign will be poor making it a very expensive exercise to complete.

Outsourcing to a professional company gives you less control as you do not directly employ the telemarketers.

Telemarketing can be time consuming if running it in-house. Also without appropriate training and good quality scripts results will be low.

So what’s the solution?

Realistically, utilising both methods of marketing is the best solution. Creating a cycle of telemarketing - email broadcast – telemarketing will significantly increase results.

Telemarketing improves as you are able to send further information to prospects between conversations, strengthening brand awareness and catching prospects at a more suitable time.

Email marketing improves as you are only emailing data that you know to be correct and prospects that will be familiar to your company name thus being more likely to actually read your email. The telephone follow up call will re-enforce the message delivered in the email.

Click here for more information about Responsiva's telemarketing services

The woman who answered explained that he no longer lived at that address, but she did have a number where he could be reached.

I thanked her, rang that number, and was greeted with, "Good morning, Highland View Cemetery."

Avant, je faisais comme beaucoup de monde: je voyais les démarcheuses téléphoniques arriver avec leurs grands pieds pour me fourguer des alicaments ou des produits miracles contre les acariens, et je disais très vite que ça ne m’intéressait pas, avant de raccrocher. A la limite de la grossièreté. Ensuite, j’ai monté les enchères et fait dans la provocation, racontant que je fumais, buvais, mangeais du foie gras, haïssais la culture physique et adorais la vie malsaine (ce qui est vrai). Ajoutant que je ne tuais jamais une araignée (ce qui est vrai aussi). Désarçonnées - ou excédées - les dames raccrochaient parfois d’elles-mêmes.

Plus tard, alors que le harcèlement devenait presque quotidien, j’ai lu le billet d'une blogueuse française racontant qu’elle avait fait ce job quand elle était chômeuse et complètement dans la mouise. Elle évoquait les salaires miteux, dont une partie est à la commission, le stress des écoutes de contrôle, les remontrances du chef quand on n’a pas bien servi le message pré-écrit, les injures des clients, les téléphones raccrochés brutalement. Elle demandait à ses lecteurs, en mémoire de sa galère, de parler poliment aux dames (car ce sont évidemment des femmes qui travaillent majoritairement dans ce secteur d’exploitation).

Changer les rôles, poser des questions

J’ai obéi, j’ai laissé les dames débiter leur tirade avant de leur dire que je ne répondais jamais à une sollicitation commerciale par téléphone. Polie. Mais c’est terriblement ennuyeux! C’est pourquoi, maintenant, j’écoute, mais je pose aussi des questions.

Par exemple, aujourd’hui, une dame charmante (et intelligente) appelant depuis le centre d’appel Sekoya à Neuchâtel m’a proposé une cure de six mois pour mes cartilages altérés par l’âge: un complément alimentaire sous forme de gélules à base de moule verte de Nouvelle-Zélande. Le tout pour 540 francs. Je pouvais aussi payer en six fois, mais alors je n’avais pas le gel de massage en cadeau. Les gélules sont commercialisées ─ et non produites, comme le disait la dame ─ par UB Interpharm à Carouge. Là, rien de bien intéressant: business as usual, vente de poudres de perlimpin à des prix conséquents, si ça ne fait pas de bien, au moins on peut supposer que ça ne fait pas de mal. (Mais j'irai y voir de plus près une fois ou l'autre.)

J’ai donc cherché qui est Sekoya. Au détour d’une inscription, j’ai relevé une modification toute récente dans les resopnsables propriétaires de l'entreprise, puisqu’elle date du 7 janvier 2008: «Omnicom SA, qui n'est plus associée, cède sa part de CHF 20'000 à Omnicom Group Holding AG, à Schwende, nouvelle associée sans signature.» Schwende, c’est à Appenzell. C’est comment, les conditions fiscales à Appenzell?

C'est de la «communication hors médias»

Le site d’observation des entreprises, Transnationales.org s’occupe d’Omnicom, le premier réseau de pub mondial. Daytona, une société d'Omnicom en France, le présente ainsi: «Fondée en 1986, Omnicom Group est une holding stratégique regroupant des sociétés leaders intervenant dans les domaines de la publicité, du marketing services, de la communication spécialisée, des médias interactifs et de l'achat d'espace. Le Groupe Omnicom est composé d'environ 650 sociétés, est présent dans une centaine de pays, emploie environ 57 600 personnes, et compte plus de 5000 clients. Omnicom est le numéro 1 mondial des médias avec un chiffre d'affaires en 2004 de 9.747 milliards de dollars et une progression de 13% de son activité versus 2003. Le Groupe segmente son offre en deux parties: la communication traditionnelle et la communication hors médias.» En clair, Omnicom fait dans la téléphonie mobile ─ avec succès ─  dans la pub, dans l’Internet, dans la fabrication de propagande et dans le marketing de produits de toute sorte.

La dame du téléphone m'a dit que Sekoya lui versait un salaire fixe, qui pouvait être augmenté en fonction des résultats commerciaux qu'elle obtenait. Omnicom Group Holding, qui possède de très loin Sekoya, appartient à une dizaine de sociétés financières et autres d'un tonneau voisin, la plupart américaines, avec une britannique et une canadienne. Elle est connue pour s'être établie dans 13 paradis fiscaux et s'être rendue coupable de deux actes de délinquance financière (évasion financière, fraude fiscale, comptes secrets, etc.). Ses bénéfices cumulés depuis 1998 se montent à plus de 1 milliard de dollars. Son dirigeant gagne 274 fois le salaire minimum aux Etats-Unis d'Amérique, qui est actuellement de 6 dollars brut de l’heure.

Il n’y a pas de petit profit. Longue vie aux moules vertes de Nouvelle-Zélande!

Selang beberapa hari, saya bersama Amer (001) , Rosli (leader Kuala Kangsar) dan Azahar ke pantai timur selama 4 hari. Bermula dari Kuala Terengganu ke Kubang Krian dan selepas itu ke Kuantan menemui PakMay.

Dalam perjalanan itu saya banyak belajar mengenai ketekunan dan kesabaran. Saya juga amat terpegun dengan kehebatan Rosli, bagaikan seorang profesional tele-marketing, hanya menggunakan telefon bimbitnya, beliau berjaya menaja dengan ramai. Beliau telah mencipta RM1000 lebih. Syabas Rosli. Hebat sungguh! Ajar la saya rahsia ni... hingga kini masih lagi ilmu tu tak dikongsikan bersama... HehhehHE

Dalam perjalanan tersebut ada juga episod jenaka. Amer tak putus putus mengusik Azahar. Apa taknya, dari hari pertama perjalanan Azahar maintain  minum. Dalam kepala otak kami, jika dah namanya jantan dan minum extremeN lak dan tentu anunya tak tentu arah... 3 malam kami menginap di resort, tak sorang dari kami berani tido sekatil dengan Azahar. Kesian Azahar... HehHehHe... bayangkan lah dengan musim tengkujuh di pantai timur, hujan sepanjang jalan dan ditambahkan dengan kesejukan penghawa dingin kereta dan tentu lebih merental! HahHaha..

I felt it best to keep the name of the person I contacted anonymous. A short while ago, I received an email from Skype. it was not from my contact there, but, rather, from another Skype representative. As there is an ominous notice at the bottom of the message deeming the contents of the email to be "confidential" I am hesitant to release the name of the sender or the exact text of the message.

Suffice to say, I was not the least bit surprised that the message did not directly address my major concerns related to a possible telemarking plague. Rather, the text was nothing more than a "scripted" response advising me to adjust my privacy settings.

The email from the Skype rep did also contain a statement that the company may address the issue should it become more serious, but this was of little consolation to me personally.

The question still goes unanswered in my opinion. How widespread is this problem, and what are the chances of it escalating out of control?

Besides, what about those of us who don't want to change our privacy settings and limit our incoming calls to just those on our contact list?

I don't know about you but I'd still like to receive far more definitive and straight forward information from the powers that be at Skype.

To see my original article click HERE

Click HERE for the Digg.com Post!

 UPDATE: 8:15 PM GMT TUESDAY, JUNE 27

Skypes LACK of response to my requests for contact have spoken volumes.

Unfortunately, after numerous attempts to contact Skype both through direct phone calls to Ebay headquarters   in California, to messaging people who I know within Skype's organisation, I have been left with nothing but answering machines, non-returned messages, and non-returned emails. It seems that Skype does not want to justify their position or offer a counter argument in this situation.

Skype has shown they do not take bloggers seriously in any regard, even with news and direct petitioning for a response.

Investigation on this matter has been suspended. All comments and emails are still welcome. Thank you for all your support during this investigation.

One final note.

This comment was sent to me by someone with whom I am becoming friends and I told him I would post it in the final word.

Artie Wayne says:

 

Sebastian, for the past month you and Joe Klein have
encouraged me to join the wonderful world of Skype.
You guys even shamed me into upgrading my computer to
Windows MP and next weekend, I was planning to install
Skype. Now I'm having second thoughts!

 

If Skype can't respond to an overwhelming negative
response from it's customers to the insidious practice
of allowing telemarketers to interupt not only
conversations, but train of thought...then that's a
company I don't want to be with.

 

Regards, Artie Wayne

 

UPDATE: 5:00 PM GMT Thursday, June 22

I am currently trying to engage a spokesman from Skype for an opinion on what has happened. I would also like to clarify the policy for the usage of their network for this kind of activity. Ebay has not responded to phone messages I have left for their "Media Relations" Dept.

Please continue to comment on this matter, and see the follow up article on DIGG.COM

If you have had a telemarketer call you on Skype, I would like to know about it.

-Also thank you to Cameron of G'Day World for having me on his show this morning!

END OF UPDATE - Stay tuned for more on this story.

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who has commented on this blog, digg.com, email, other blogs, and podcasts about this article since last night. I was and am really stoked when it appeared on G’day world this morning, thanks Cameron!

First of all let’s get my negative feedback to everything that has been said – off my chest, my keyboard, whatever…

Those of you who have suggested that the privacy settings that prevent someone who is not in your contact list from calling you need to consider a few things:

• This is a application for communication, sometimes people you don’t know.
• I am a podcaster and I like my listeners to be able to call me on Skype and leave voice feedback on my voicemail.
• Does your telephone have a “firewall” on who can call you? When someone calls you do you have a recorded message play that says “Hi, this line only accepts pre-approved calls? If you're not pre-approved you can't speak to the line-holder. Good-Bye.” No, you don’t! So why should you have to set something like that up on Skype? Doesn't Skype want to replace normal telephone communication in the long run? Doesn't that implie they will make it above and beyond normal everyday telephone service?

A few of you have felt it necessary to point out how this blog entry was pointless or “idiotic” or whatever:

Until you can offer an argument of why it is pointless more than “What do you expect” or “Skype is free, stop complaining” I think your response is not only wasting your own time, but just shows why you don’t understand the significance of this.

For those who have said this entry was unwarranted because it only documents one victim and one attack,, and because of this it is not a big enough problem..Do your homework! Check the internet, there are loads of documented attacks from SPAM on Skype!

Alright. I am finished ranting.

I was pleased to see a passionate and immediate response from the Skype and internet community on this matter. It shows that you care. This is a good thing for Skype as a company that cares about its user base to see, it gives them an incentive to stop Skype-spamming and telemarketing once and for all.

There has been an interesting lack of response from Skype on this matter. One has to wonder if there are board meetings going on at this very moment or if they don’t care. I would imagine that they do care because it seems that a good number of the Skype community are shocked and dismayed to see this happening and would like to see some action.

I would be pleased to receieve an official reply from Skype on this matter.

A couple of final thoughts to mull over...

Do you think Skype might be encouraging telemarketing and setting up advertising rates for telemarketers?

Do you think this is Spam and Skype will be dead against it, and we will hear from them shortly?

While having a conversation with my friend, Joe Klein, of the PodcastVoiceGuys he told me that he had another call coming in and asked me to hold for a moment. A couple minutes later he came back on the line and told me that the call was a recorded message that appeared to be a telemarketing pitch--in Spanish!

Joe said he couldn’t believe that he just received what he thought to be a telemarketing call on Skype. I jumped out of my skin, realising that this ghastly plague may already be affecting the vast Skype community!

Our worst fears may just have been realised, I thought. We’re are not even free of advertising on VOIP anymore.

Ironically for the last several minutes as Joe and I have tried to further discuss the situation both our Skype connections have been experiencing some of the worst glitches, latency and drop-offs that either of us have had in the last several weeks. And we had to resort to speaking on a regular telephone line!

Here's a serious thought to ponder...

Could an emerging Blitzkrieg of recorded mass telemarketing calls already be affecting the Skype system – gobbling up precious and needed bandwidth? Let us pray that this dreaded plethora of telemarketing activity does not translate into one massive ongoing denial of service attack on our beloved Skype network.

Click here for the DIGG ARTICLE

To read my follow up and response - Please click HERE