Is anytime between 5 and 6 PM on a Saturday too late to make a business call?

Just ask yourself whether or not you would appreciate receiving a business call during dinner on Saturday night. And that is the answer to your question.

It would depend upon which time zone they are in.

To call someone in California or Hawaii when it's 6:00 p.m. Eastern Standard time, is not as bad as calling within that zone.

Either way, unless it's an emergency, you would be better waiting until Monday morning. Weekend calls on business matters of non-emergency nature, can come across as poor manners.

It depends on the business. If the business has business hours during that time then it is fine. Otherwise you should make nonemergency calls during their normal business hours.

Most people have dinner between 5 and 6 PM?

Right. Therefore, just ask yourself whether or not you would appreciate receiving a business call during dinner on Saturday night. And that is the answer to your question.

Probably not. But if they're home (and not going out for the night), they're probably getting their dinner prepared.

This is pretty vague. Are you calling a business? If so? The only answer is ... another question. What are their business hours? Are they still open at this time? Yes? Then it's not too late to make a business call.

Are you calling a business? No? Are you a telemarketer? Yes? Then it's too late to call at anytime. Are you a telemarketer? No? You should have made arrangements with said person on what hours are fine with her or him to call her or him at home (whether or not he or she works out of his or her home).

I think Mr Goldman is probably talking about an academic offering a course he's interested in.

In those circumstance I'd wait until Monday morning.

Probably. But he has mentioned in the past as trying to become a telemarketer as a part-time job (as well as other work from home positions).

Regarding telemarketing, many years ago I had a summertime-ish job where we would call people about various buys.

There was the renewal of TV Guide and other magazines at a lower price than what would be offered when the publication sent renewal notices.

Then were the weird things - a set of specially designed commemorative coins by some "renowned" artist . (I'd never heard of him before then). We called people who had made similar purchases before.

There was some sort of exercise equipment. People had sent in one of those magazine insert postcards, which included their phone number.

And cold calls to entice people to go take a look at a new housing development. Supposedly quite nice, although, a fellow worker informed me, it was across the road from a garbage dump.

Gosh, such (NOT) fun times.

We called until 9:30 pm (that is, 9:30 pm in the client's location, which meant until just past midnight in the eastern time zone was fine to call people on the west coast)


Worked even less time doing surveys over the phone. These were all cold calls and covered all sorts of things. Bathroom remodeling, types of beer, etc. Here too, we would call until it was 9:30 pm in the time zone farthest to our west.

I think the best time to call is early in the morning on a weekday.