“There is hardly anything that can be done a little cheaper with a slightly lower quality.” Never have truer words being said.
I’ve thought similar things myself; back when I struck out on my own, starting my first business doing roof restorations. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do what happened to one of my clients – I couldn’t steal the customer list – seriously how can you steal a list of people who won’t need your services again for 10 years?
Another of our clients had one of their employees do exactly the same thing to them but the customer list contained repeat buyers – ready to buy today.
It’s really easy to go into business for yourself by stealing your competitor’s customer list, cutting your prices and calling them up and saying “I can do what they were doing for half price.”
It’s not ethical and not all that legal either but none the less it happens more often than we would care to admit.
It’s a pretty disappointing feeling to be honest. I’d feel gutted to know all that I had strived to build up had walked out the door with a rogue employee with delusions of entrepreneurship. The sad part is because they had NOT really invested in the only TRUE ASSET you can develop in business they were susceptiable to the loss, and suffered a sharp decline in sales.
Things are rolling along nicely then … ‘Whee’ plummeting the cliff you go. Kind of like a Wyle E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoon – you don’t realise you’ve run over the edge until you look down.
Now thankfully a loyal customer of theirs actually called this client up and told them he had been approached by their rogue employee – but that did take 6 months. 6 months of head scratching and wondering what the hell happened before light was shed on the problem.
There is a way to make this really difficult for your ambitious employees to do and it is the only TRUE ASSET you can develop in your business.
It is the keys to the kingdom, the easiest path I can see to long term financial success and freedom. It is even adds value when you finally decide that you have enough money and want to sell your business.
We’ll talk about it next time.