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A small business owner who wants to be
big comes across confidential
information. What now?
I am a small business owner. I worked for the previous owner for just under one year to learn the business, meet all the clients, and train to take over what was a very small, home-based marketing firm. But the business I now run is on its way to becoming a more established, medium sized firm. We have a professional logo, better invoices, more complete and branded reports to send out, and a few extra freelance workers at our disposal. All in all, things are going well.
Goody for me!
But as we try to grow our business, we begin to look around a little more at the competition, the other firms that offer any or all of the services that we do. We start to compare ourselves to them and see how we measure up.
Not the best idea. Reason #1: We are who we are, not who they are, so there are going to be differences. And the differences like, how established they are, their impressive clients lists, staff education levels and work experience etc. are not things that we can change about our own business. So how is this at all helpful?
Reason #2: We begin second guessing our own business decisions: logo style, familiar as opposed to formal approach with clients, etc.
Reason #3: I have been sent by a few clients a few proposals (with pricing) and reports (similar to the ones that we provide) from some of our competition. And I looked at them.
This brings me to the ethics portion of all of this rambling. I decided when taking on my own business that I would always take the high road, even if it cost me, because I know in the end that choosing right over anything else will always bless and support my business. But this time I didn't see any signs for a high road. Perhaps I wasn't looking.
I didn't even think about it. Because I am not 'formally educated' in my field, and have never worked for another firm, let alone one that actually sent out official quotes or branded reports, I was really interested to see how my little business measures up, and what others are doing.
In the months since taking over, I have been slowly branding all our communications and product to help create a more professional, firm-like impression, as opposed to the previous owner's home-based business approach. This totally worked for the previous owner, but as I plan to put my oar into a few deeper waters, I thought we should make some changes.
What I didn't stop to consider in looking at this material from 'competing' firms, was the ethical implications, if any, of viewing correspondence that was obviously intended for the client only. If the client offered to send it, who was I to say 'no'?
But is it ethical for me to take elements of these quotes and reports, and integrate them into my own? No original thoughts passed off as mine, but new ways to present 'the small print' on my quotes to new clients, or a clear indication that we were charging way too little for a few of our services. Or realizing that I could print certain reporting graphs right off the internet sites on which we advertise for clients, and include these in my reports to them, making our company look more efficient than we had, in my opinion, looked before.
I wasn't using this information to out-bid the competition on a job, or to steal away clients, but does that make my actions ethical?
Still really mulling this over, but safe to say for now, I won't be peeking into anyone else's information, and to be quite honest, partly because I always think they have done a better job than I. So not exactly reasons of high morality!!
My next 2 blogs will cover Reasons #1 & #2 from why it isn't the best idea to compare our businesses, or ourselves, to others. Stay tuned. To read more from this blogger, go to Discern Daily .
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