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Small Office, Home Office Information |
| Small Business and the Ethics Dilemma I don't know what background you come from but right from my early days I was taught that there was always a right way and a wrong way to live my life. I don't remember my parents ever sitting me down and lecturing me about it but by example they certainly left me with a very strong set of values that have stayed with me all through my life. That's not to say that I haven't been tempted to do the wrong thing, to cut corners or even to cheat, lie and steal. Those are temptations that every one faces as they move through life but for some reason those temptations seem to intensify when you go into business for yourself. When you do that you give up the safety net of a regular pay packet and all that comes with that and you move into an area where you live on the income that you alone can generate. At times living like that can be absolutely terrifying. Until you become established your income streams are barely a trickle but your bills never stop coming. And that's when the temptation to do the wrong thing becomes strongest. Even more pressure can be added when you see or hear of your competitors doing all those things you are tempted to do and amassing wealth from their less than honest endeavours. If you work in online marketing you will see that sort of thing happening almost every day and it is so easy to become one of those people. To rip surfers off and take them away from your competition can be accomplished with something as simple as a cookie quietly placed on the computer of every person who visits your site. Or it can be done by tricking your peers into placing a malicious script on their websites while thinking that you are offering them something for free. Jen talked about someone who was doing that last month in her post Using a Thirt Party Javascript? Adsense Publishers Beware. With just a slight change to some otherwise innocent code that other Adsense publishers had been using for a long time the new owner of the business behind that script began placing their own Adsense ads on everyone's page who used that script. Undoubtedly that person made money from the hard work of others but eventually they got caught. I would like to say that everyone who cheats gets caught but then I wouldn't be telling the truth. However, if you have principles and ethics don't discard them in an effort to survive in small business. The cost to you in personal terms is not going to be worth the outcome. Sure your business might survive but when your integrity has gone what do you really have left. But how do you resist that temptation, especially when things get tough? Well Darren gives you a clue in a post he made when talking about blogging. In Strategic Blogging - Mission he talks about producing a mission statement for a blog. But I want to suggest that you can take that mission statement much further than just a blog. You can and should produce a mission statement for your business. It doesn't have to be full of flowery language, it just has to set our your goals and objectives for your business and it should be written from your heart. Frame that mission statement and hang it on the wall of your office where you can see it from your desk. And every time you face the temptation to do something that is less than ethical in an effort to survive measure what you want to do against that mission statement. Then decide whether you really want to take that path or not. 7 Aug 2005 |
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