While I wonder whether the efficacy of email opt-in lists is being diluted by ever increasing ease of access, not just for third-party mediated broadcasts but actual purchase, the truth remains that you had better get while the getting is good.

But, as it often happens, the suddenly fortunate usually overestimate the value of their gains over maintaining harmony within their tribe. They consider responses to blind broadcasts as “hot” leads instead of the lukewarm to warm leads they really are- reserving them for their inner circle of top salespeople.

What usually happens then is that the salespeople soon discover the true nature of the gift, and begin to neglect it- focusing instead on nurturing existing customers and better qualified prospects. In the meantime, your disaffected hunters, your telemarketers, now face the prospect of calling a list devoid of the occasional gimmes that used to buoy their sagging spirits during dry spells.

While this may be the natural order of things, the process observed repeatedly in the hierarchical social structures of our chest-thumping, banana eating cousins, I say share one and share all.

Please, feed your telemarketers.