Since the federal 'Do Not Call' law came into effect, many of you have written, called or e-mailed asking what effect this new law will have on prospecting by telephone.

In addition to the new Federal law, more than 27 states currently have active state 'Do Not Call' registries. Many states will transfer their numbers from their state lists to the National 'Do Not Call' Registry, but some will not. Is this confusing? Yes!

This is my attempt to help readers make some sense out of these laws. Please remember—I'm not an attorney, none of this constitutes legal advice and you should definitely check everything out for yourself!

First of all, if you are a businessperson making calls to a place of business (i.e., business-to-business prospecting) you will not be affected at all. The state and federal laws do not apply to you. If, however, you are making calls to people in their homes (consumers) it is a whole different story.

When calling consumers, certain types of calls in the federal law are exempted, for example, if you are soliciting for a charitable organization or a political campaign or making some type of survey. Essentially, however, if you are calling consumers to sell something (and yes, unfortunately this includes setting appointments to potentially sell something) you must check the numbers you are calling against the federal registry. The federal registry was made available in September 2003 and there is a compliance manual available as well. If your state has a registry that is not included in the federal one, you'll have to check there too. In addition, if you call someone and they ask you not to call again—don't call them! You can call current customers or past customers, and you can also call people who have given you permission to call.

For more information on the federal and state 'Do Not Call' laws visit the web site, http://www.ftc.gov/donotcall.

The 'Do Not Call' laws are a result of years of bad telemarketing by companies that rely only on volume of calls to reach their sales goals. It is a result of scams and dishonesty, and it is a reminder to all of us to always target your market, offer value and work from integrity!

These laws are unfortunate, because the people who are likely to be most affected are the small businesses and/or sole proprietors who are trying to connect with potential customers and offer real value. They will have the most problems with the rigmarole and expense of compliance. I suspect that many will try to refocus their markets on business-to-business.

Wendy Weiss Queen of Cold Calling