Back in early NZ history, well, say 30 or 50 years back, the travelling sales rep [Commercial Travellers] were an essential  part of every company.
These intrepid men and women [travelling in ladies underwear!] covered the country, which was still much underdeveloped in so far as roads and accommodation was concerned, beating paths into the wild unknown to take their company's good word to the farthest regions and win converts.
I know, I was one of them.
Maybe many other countries business ventures developed along similar lines?

As well as the CT's going from store to store, we also had equally hardy blokes [mostly] going from door to door, knock knock or ding dong;
"It's the Bon Brush Man." or the Rawleighs Woman, or "Prudential Man." 
Some, such as those mentioned, were welcomed, almost as friends of the family.
I grew up thinking the Rawleighs lady was my aunt she was at our home so often!

Of course there were also the dreaded Britannica Encyclopedia people and a host of other pressure sales people who usually got a polite;
"Not today thanks" from behind a closed door.
This was spam, and we knew how to deal with it then, there was good spam and bad spam!
Things haven't changed so much, just instead of the doorbell we are attacked through our Email box.
But we seem to have forgotten how to deal with it now.

Of course, back then it was called “cold calling, sales canvassing or Prospecting,” we didn't know it was SPAM!
Generally, more often than not, CT's were welcomed, at least once, and I heard my fair share of NO's after my spiel was finished.
But by and large people were happy enough to see us because they never knew if I had an offer or deal that just might be better than the bloke they were currently dealing with. 
They also brought innovation, new, state of the [then] art cutting edge technology and the latest overseas fashion designs and ideas.
Without persistent CT's many of todays businesses may not have lived to see their 10th birthday.

So what has changed?
Well, now it comes electronically and en masses and much of it is stuff we don't want our kids to see, and if like me, your young secretary either. So how to deal with it?
Anti SPAM software is one solution, but do you really want to stick up a solid steel door that prevents penetration to all but aunty May's email and those privileged few in your address book?

Now, ok, I own a marketing company, and I do have an axe to grind in a way I s'pose. 
But, just as much as I need you to read my message, I think you need me to contact you because, well, maybe, just maybe I have something that will increase your business opportunities. [
I use ME her as a generic term for Marketers generally]
I am based in China, a good place currently for business opportunities and perhaps I can offer something to you that makes doing business here a little easer or know of an opportunities where you can directly prosper. 
Isn't it worth a few moments listening to me?
Sure, if it isn't for you, then you can write back a polite thanks but no thanks, after all, that is the good mannered thing to do. And as I said, I have heard a few thousand no's so i will just delete you from my mails list, if i don't, OK, then you have the right to add me to the “auto delete not read” list in your security software.
So that has to be a better way.

So far I have generalised about the problem as it is a world wide plague, but I want to focus a little closer to home, NZ.
It seems that every so often when I read the news there is a report of business confidence being low, or pessimistic and I read about worries of Asian [meaning Chinese I guess] imports into NZ and the loss of NZ businesses and jobs to foreigners [meaning Asian I guess.]
I have heard a bit of this from some of our other clients but it is NZ news I mostly read.
I would like to make a couple of personal observations.

A while back I was at one of those boring, [ for me] marketing evenings here in Beijing, where everyone speaks Chinese [weird huh!] and i spend several hours nodding and smiling till my jaw aches. 
I catch the odd word but...................
There was one small clique who spoke [some] English and so we spend a while chatting.
One of my questions to them was in dealing with SPAM.
They were generally puzzled, to them it wasn't spam, but an opportunity, if it wasn't any good or couldnt understand it they deleted it. 
Spam filters, well yes they did but only for selected known rubbish.
Any language teacher will tell you people who speak different languages think differently too.
So maybe we need to think a bit differently if we want to compte in the growing aggressive Asian market?

Second, there is a web site from NZ belonging to a rather well known trade organisation that supports international cooperation between its members and the world. It invites further information or member ship to the group by an email address. Now, i am not going to name and shame the organisation, but when I wrote to J Saunders at the Email address provided, imagine my surprise to receive an auto reply telling me my mail had been deleted not read and designated as SPAM.
Makes you wonder doesn't it?

So maybe we need to rethink this business of throwing the baby out with the bath water.
One of the options I like is often in mail from EU countries, called the GREY Mail System I think.
Essentially, the software screens the incoming mail and if it matches the SPAM count, returns the mail with an invitation to resent after a certain time delay.
This of course is impossible for a spammer so the message is never delivered to the recipients inbox, but in the case of genuine mail it is easy to resend, their system remembers it and delivery is made.
Early this year I met this first hand and now they are one of our clients.

As for me personally, well I hate SPAM as much as you do and I set all our machines to redirect SPAM, but not delete it. Instead it goes to a special box I have set up accessible only from my machine.
Every so often I perform the murky task of going thru and quickly checking, anything that looks interesting, I open it and see.
I have found a few genuine letters from time to time.
If it is the usual adult or rubbish mail, THEN I add it to the spam filter, but we all know spammers rarely use the same address twice, so largely that is useless other than making me feel good!

So, that is my little bit on SPAM.
If you would like to know more about our company and what we do, then we welcome you to take a short stroll though our electronic home, AKA our websites!
And if you know or are J Saunders of that organisation in NZ, give me a bell John, I am waiting for you!
http://WPBeijing.com/index.html
http://BTi-Wordperfect.biz