This post is inspired by Vickie McCartney's post, If States Will Soon Be Regulating Who Gets Mail, Where Will It Ever End?
Vickie emailed me to say my comment was long enough to be a post.
After I read her post about the proposed Do Not Mail list in states such as Hawaii, Vermont, Washington, Colorado, Texas, Missouri, Montana, Maryland, New York, Connecticut and Michigan, I was downright angry, mad as heck, whatever you want to call it. Vickie's hair was turning red and mine was on fire!
When I told Nestor about this madness and attacks on SO many people's right to free speach and right to market through direct mail; he asked me to please write a post about the impact that legislature like this will have on our economy and how many people will be effected by it.
You don't like getting junk mail and you want a law passed because you don't want to take one extra step of just throwing it out? Hmmm, let's make a list of who' s job will be affected by your decision.
Think long and hard about the cause and effect of a measure such as this.
First, there is the small, medium and large businesses who can not afford Television and Radio advertising or their product or service does not sell well through those mediums. They choose to use the most effective form of marketing ever discovered, direct mail. You see, it works. People make buying decisions on direct mail they receive. And you want to take that ability away from them.
Who do you know uses direct mail as a form of marketing? Your Pizza Restaurant in your neighborhood, your neighbor grocery store, your nail salon and hair salon through coop coupon booklets, your Realtor to tell you what homes have sold in your neighborhood, your local pet sitting business that a single mom just newly divorced opened up and this is the way she gets the word out about her new business, and the list goes on and on.
Of course your congressmen and senators will be happy to oblige you because you see, they are exempt from this do not mail list in every one of these states. Their free speech to lie to you about why you should vote for them is protected while those of us trying to make an honest living will no longer have this choice. Unless of course, we all become politicians. They never feel what we feel. They have no clue on being entrepreneurs. But they are very good at being blood sucking leeches on the money we work so hard to attain.
So now let's see what happens if such legislation passes. Imagine a big tree. This tree has long and wide roots. These roots spread underneath the ground far and condition the very soil they grow under. The tree is the direct mail model, the roots are all the businesses that are in business because of direct mail and who benefit from them.
You have the business who is using direct mail. They employ people in their business. The direct mail goes to the post office. The United States Post office is a very large employer, supplier and user of goods and services. So you have the employess of the post office that would be affected since direct mail accounts for the majority of the income that the USPS generates. They in turn must buy trucks. The trucks need to be made and then serviced. There are the companies that make the machines that make the postage meters and I can go on and on. Can you see how deep the roots can get?
Now the business that sends out the direct mail hires a printer to do this job. The printer hires people to do the printing. The printer buys supplies such as ink, paper and machinery to print the direct mail pieces. The printing business alone has some deep roots in this tree. The cycle continues and the roots spread far and wide touching many businesses that benefit from direct mail.
So maybe you don't have a job tied to any industry that benefits from direct mail but I can guarantee you that somewhere one of your family, friends or relatives will be affected by this type of restriction of free trade!
Oh, yes, there is another exemption. Non profit charities! What a farce that is. So when they mail us asking us for money we can tell them, sorry! We don't have any to give because our roots were cut out from under us!
Contact your area lobbyists for such groups as Direct Mail associations, United States post office, Printers, etc and tell them you support them in their efforts to stop this legislation. If you are a Realtor(R) contact your local boards, state boards and NAR. Where are they when we need them? They should be lobbying for us Realtors to be able to continue to use direct mail without a do not mail list.
Oh my! Our forefathers must be turning over in their graves by now. What is our country coming to when regulation of your own business impeded on your time and energy to make a living?
If you live in one of these states with pending legislation call your politicians and tell them how this is going to affect your livelihood. How it is going to be far reaching and if they do pass this to include themselves on the list. I guarantee you if the politicians can not send out their BS mailings they will not support the bills.
Contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset, CIPS, Realtors®, International Properties and Investments, Inc. Licensed Realtors® in Florida at 561-753-0135 to list your property for sale or to purchase a property in Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Loxahatchee, Lake Worth, Hypoluxo Island, Lantana, West Palm Beach and the rest of Palm Beach County Florida and Port St Lucie Florida. We are accepting referrals.
Copyright © 2008 By Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved.*You Don't Want Junk Mail? Shred It and Recycle It But Don't Trash Jobs Along With It!*
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