Your Questions About Direct Marketing Association

Jere answers:

*UK information*

You must have produced the foods you are selling.

The market operator decide on what can and can not be sold at their market. Other stallholders do like like direct competition. Many operators have a set distance, only allowing people to attend from a 50 mile radius. Often there is a waiting list.

As soon as you decide to sell food, Environmental Health and Trading Standards officers need to be involved. Environmental Health deals with hygiene Trading Standards deals with weights, measures and labelling. You need to have knowledge of Food safety, health and safety, trades descriptions, weights and measures etc and stay within the law. The Environmental Health Officer may insist that you have a basic food hygiene certificate or an advanced food hygiene certificate if you are selling added value products. Your kitchen at home will be subjected to an Environmental Health Officer’s inspection and approval, before you can produce anything to sell.

Some foods have to be kept at certain temperatures and only for short periods of time. If you haven’t sold them in that time then, you must throw them away. .

All food businesses must have a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) manual.

You will have to make your stall comply with food hygiene regulations and pay for food appropriate clothing for handling foods (overalls, hats, gloves etc). You will also have to spend money on dressing the stall with display shelves, cloths, labels etc.

Depends on the location (ie town centre or auction house) the situation of the pitch (some pitches get much more passing trade than others, the best you won’t get a chance at). The size of the stall. Anything from £25 to £80 a week. Some charge extra for the ‘stall’ and you bring your own awning, others charge extra for electricity, even if you don’t need it, you still have to pay for it! Make sure you check with EACH market operator for every market you attend.

You will not be allowed to trade if you do not have a valid public liability insurance at least £5m for public liability, product liability (also employer’s liability if you employ staff). Many market traders associations include public liability insurance in their benefits, so it is often better to join the market trader’s association than it is to try to buy individual insurance policies and much cheaper too.

Http://www.nmtf.co.uk/index.php?id_cpg=6

Jere answers:

Yes. Why you should clean up your names and addresses: I’ve read enough horror stories of nasty collection agencies that match a common name like Jane Smith to the wrong Jane Smith and start trying to collect from her. The fewer misspellings on your report, the fewer chances.

Go back to anyone with whom you do business who reports to the Credit Reporting Agencies (CRAs), and try to correct your name to your legal name, and correct your address to your US Postal Service standard address. You can get your standard address from www.usps.gov Use “find a zip code”, and it will show your standard address. Note how there’s NO punctuation except for the dash in the middle of the 9 digit zip code. Then ask, in writing, that these businesses report the change to the CRAs.

After that, you’ll have to dispute the info with the CRAs.

You probably need to slow down the junk mail because companies are selling and reselling your names and addresses.

First contact the Direct Marketing Association and go to the Mail Preference Service. Costs $1.00 http://www.the-dma.org/
Second, every time you get a catalog you don’t need, call the toll free sales number and ask to be removed.
Third, read your Privacy Notices and take action to keep your name from being circulated.

Please vote: Did this help?

Jere answers:

Usually what they are actually sending you is a solicitation that appears like a bill.

They have received your name and address from another source and they are hoping you will subscribe to their publication at the special price they have noted in the offer. Making it look like a bill does cause some people to pay without actually reading the information.

To stop getting these type of mailers, you need to opt out. The Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) Mail Preference Service lets you opt out of receiving unsolicited commercial mail from many national companies for five years. When you register with this service (for a $1 fee), your name will be put on a “delete” file and made available to direct-mail marketers. However, your registration will not stop mailings from organizations that do not use the DMA’s Mail Preference Service. To register with DMA’s Mail Preference Service, go to www.dmachoice.org.

The FTC publishes a free brochure, Unsolicited Mail, Telemarketing and Email: Where to Go to “Just Say No,” that provides information on how you can cut down on the number of unsolicited mailings, calls and emails you receive by learning where to go to “just say no.”

Be watchful of any new accounts you open (including banks and grocery store shopping discount cards), contests you enter and certain product websites you visit. Many times they have a box that is already checked or a paragraph of fine print that says they will share your information with their affiliates and partners unless you tell them in writing to stop.

Good luck

Jere answers:

I’ve looked very carefully at your question: “Since I began my own pet care business at a young age, with exceptional success and have enjoyed it so thoroughly, I intend to continue it later in life. However, in order to achieve my long term goal of expanding my business and opening a fully functioning pet care facility, I need to make the money to do so. So, in the mean time, I wish to take courses and earn a degree online so I can get a steady full time job and have a reliable foundation for my future.”

If I’m understanding the question correctly, it doesn’t seem that you really want to (or need to) pursue an advanced degree. It seems that you want to earn more money and expand your business. If that’s the case, an advanced degree will not necessarily help you accomplish this. Furthermore, you could find yourself very frustrated after spending many years and much money in getting a degree, working a full-time job, and not enjoying it as much as having your own pet care business.

If you really have enjoyed your pet care business, I would suggest that you learn how to expand your business by studying principles of business and marketing. If you go to college to study marketing, you will get a lot of theory, but you won’t necessarily learn how to get new and keep old customers and how to expand a small business. There are exceptions, but your typical college or university business school does NOT teach the small business owner (in a practical way) how to grow a business.

Instead, I’d recommend networking with other small business owners who have done what you want to do. They don’t have to be in the same business as you. Simply duplicate the fundamentals of what they’ve done as it relates to business and marketing. Go to networking events, trade shows; join an association. Also, ask business owners what business/marketing books they read/recommend. Good luck…

Jere answers:

Internet-based consumer purchases will reach $37.1 billion this year, up 32.5% from $28 billion last year, the Direct Marketing Association projects. The DMA released its numbers today at the 18th Annual Catalog Conference taking place in Boston. Catalog sales will reach $120 billion, up 8.9% from $110.2 billion last year. The DMA projects overall retail sales to grow to $3.3 trillion in 2001, up 3.1% from $3.2 trillion in 2000. Internet sales in 2002 will reach $61.3 billion, then triple to 2006, when they will hit $181.4 billion. Internet sales will eclipse catalogs in that, when the DMA is expecting sales of $160.2 billion.